In 1980, a small suburb of Dallas (like, barely even a suburb) was rocked by a murder — a young married woman, by all accounts a loving mother and wife, very involved in the local church — was hacked to death by an ax. The community was horrified, of course, but everyone believed it was an outsider, a transient. Until it turned out another loving mother and wife committed the crime.
This murder took place in Wylie, Texas — a short drive from Plano, where I grew up and still live. It happened the summer before my parents moved here from Chicago, and I’ve heard my mom bring it multiple times — we’ve both always had a thing for true crime, and knowing it was local made it that much more interesting. I definitely recognized a lot of landmarks and references to the area, which was kind of neat, although this took place almost 40 years ago and the area has changed A LOT.
The story of the murder is NUTS, y’all. The authors of Evidence of Love interviewed quite a lot of people, but most of the information came from the murderer herself. At first she claimed to have no memory of the actual event, but eventually the blank spots get filled in — an affair, jealousy, a couple of sort of useless husbands. Lots of church gossip and backstabbing surrounds the case. Killing someone with an ax definitely seems like a crime of passion, and this book is full of passion — the sick twisted kind.