Twilight of Innocence: The Disappearance of Beverly Potts
by James Jessen Badal
On This Page
Description
One of the nations first highly publicized missing child casesTen-year-old Beverly Potts was last seen at 9:00 p.m. the evening of August 24, 1951, at Halloran Park on Clevelands West Side. She and her neighbor and friend Patricia Swing had gone to see the Showagona troupe of singers, dancers, magicians, and other performers that traveled around Clevelands neighborhood parks during the summer, giving free performances. Patricia had to be home before dark, but Beverlys parents told her she show more could stay until the show was over. When she was still not home by 9:30, her father, Robert, went out looking for her. He returned home at 10:30 without his daughter and called the Cleveland police. Beverly Potts had disappeared without a trace or any evidence of her fate.James Jessen Badal reexamines the events leading up to Beverly Pottss disappearance and the subsequent police investigation and over-the-top, sensational publicity in the Cleveland press. His interviews with detectives assigned to this still-open case and his examination of police records provide a chronology of the false leads and hoaxes that culminated in this disturbing case of dead end after dead end. Badal draws comparisons between investigative techniques of the time and more modern ones and examines the social and historical context in his analysis of the more than half-century of public fascination with this case.Those who remember the kidnapping and still wonder what happened to Beverly Potts will look for clues in this book. True crime aficionados everywhere will find Twilight of Innocence to be an important study in the tragedy of unsolved disappearances. show lessTags
Recommendations
Member Recommendations
Member Reviews
A good history of the 1951 disappearance of Beverly Potts, published after the fiftieth anniversary of the day she vanished. This book goes into painstaking, at times almost tedious, detail about Beverly's disappearance and all the raised hopes and false leads afterwards. It has several good photographs of Beverly as well. It also presents clear personality portraits of the people involved: Beverly, her family, her best friend, and the investigators in her case. The book does a good wrap-up at the end in spite of the enduring mystery, telling what happened to all the characters in the decades after 1951, and then giving the author's own theory on the cause of Beverly's disappearance. I finished reading this book with a profound sense of show more frustration, given Badal's theory that Beverly was killed by someone she knew, probably someone on her own street, and that she may well still be on that street. A good, solid account and well worth buying. It's fairly short and could be read in a day or two. show less
Ratings
Members
- Recently Added By
Lists
True Crime
216 works; 16 members
Author Information
6 Works 142 Members
James Jessen Badal is assistant professor of English and journalism at Cuyahoga County Community College in Cleveland. He was elected to the board of trustees of the Cleveland Police Historical Society in 2001. He is the author of In the Wake of the Butcher: Cleveland's Torso Murders (The Kent State University Press, 2001) and Twilight of show more Innocence: The Disappearance of Beverly Potts (The Kent State University Press, 2005). show less
Classifications
- Genres
- Nonfiction, General Nonfiction, Politics and Government
- DDC/MDS
- 364.15 — Society, government, & culture Social problems and social services Crime Criminal offenses Offenses against the person
- LCC
- HV6762 .U5 .B33 — Social sciences Social pathology. Social and public welfare. Criminology Social pathology. Social and public welfare. Criminology Crimes and offenses
- BISAC
Statistics
- Members
- 21
- Popularity
- 1,234,336
- Reviews
- 1
- Rating
- (4.33)
- Languages
- English
- Media
- Paper, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 3
- ASINs
- 1
