Life for Death: A True Story of Crime and Punishment

by Michael Mewshaw

Harold and Shirley Dresbach seemed to be a perfect couple. They had two of everything--two boats, two Chryslers, two handsome teen-age boys. Wealthy and influential, they were active in politics and often entertained prominent visitors in their waterfront home on the Chesapeake Bay.

So on a quiet January morning when their bodies, riddled with bullets, were found, people in the affluent suburb of Washington, D.C., were stunned. They were still more stunned and horrified when the Dresbach's fifteen-year-old son, Wayne, was charged with the killings. Michael Mewshaw, a childhood friend of Wayne's, was the first to learn of the tragic events that morning, and from the start he suspected some essential truth had been left hidden.

Life for Death is the account of his frustration and sometimes frightening investigation into the crime and punishment of his friend. It is a harrowing tale of explosive family passions--and of coldly dispassionate criminal justice. Played out behind a façade of propriety, it is a drama composed entirely of unspeakable acts--black-market adoption, alcoholism, child and wife abuse, sexual experimentation, sadism, incest, and finally murder.

Genres: True Crime, Nonfiction, Crime

281 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1980

About the author

Michael Mewshaw is an American author of 11 novels and 8 books of nonfiction, and works frequently as a travel writer, investigative reporter, book reviewer, and tennis reporter. His novel Year of the Gun was made into a film of the same name by John Frankenheimer in 1991. He is married with two sons.

Alan Cheuse, National Public Radio's longtime "voice of books," has called him "the best novelist in America that nobody knows."

Reviews

[Fishface · Rating 5 out of 5]

An outstanding, 5-star read about an utterly depraved household and how the kids escaped alive. To read this book is to have one chasm after another open up under your feet. Every time you think it can't get any worse, it does. It's not what you could call an uplifting story, but I came away impressed by what a person can get through and still stay sane.

[♥ Marlene♥]

In the future I must be more careful which true crime oldies I buy a copy of (real physical books) because this is another book where someone is according to them, being abused and then decides to not take it anymore and take revenge and kill his or her parents and then family or friends write a book about how innocent the killer was and how bad the parents (who are not able to defend themselves thanks to the person they are now claiming was so treated badly)
I do not know but it always feels a bit unfair to me and I prefer my true crime books to have justice in them so I also do not read books where someone who was imprisoned but they find out is innocent. Not my kind of book. I like life t be fair and I know it is not but a lot of true crime books at least have the killer being punished in the end and that killer really deserves it.

I wish this wasn't written by a friend of the one in prison because I prefer my stories neutral and books written by friends or family of a convicted killer or by angry mothers or fathers of victims are not really capable of being neutral really.
Guess i have to read the descriptions a bit more careful ext time before I order them.

[Mary JL · Rating 3 out of 5]

I do not often read a lot of true crime books, but this was a gripping exception.

Not as weel known as some more recent cases, this is the story of the Dresbach family. In January, 1961 15 year old Wayne Dresbach shot his parents, Harold and Shirley.

He confessed to this---no doubt he did it. But when asked why he membled something about being "yelled at" and he added he'd been in tourbled for "running away".

In 1961, the average teen was much less sophisticated than today. And people usually did not discuss sexual matters--or child abuse. Young Wayne was too inarticulate to describe the abuse--physical and pyschological--that he and his younger brother Lee were subjected to.

He did not receive a lawyer for two months. By that time, the legal wheels were grinding, and his court appointed attorney was lucky to keep him from the death penalty.

After a very SHORT trial, the jury deliberated for 12 minutes---12 minutes!--and found the fifteen year old guilty of first-degree murder. I mean, I spend more than 12 minutes reading a restuarant menu!

Certainly, Wayne deserved punishment--but imho the circumstances certainly make the charge of 'first-degree' murder highly debatable.

Not the best writing, choppy in spots and the court transcripts are very dry. Nonetheless, I was pulled into the story and found it well worth reading.

Recommended for readers of legal/true crime books.

[Heather · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was recommended to me because I lived in the neighborhood of Franklin Manor, where the murders took place, from 2000-2009. I am very familiar with the location and my daughter is about the same age as Wayne Dresbach and goes to the same school. I can't help wondering about the home lives of some of the kids she goes to school with. The system most definitely failed these boys! What a sad case. I know this isn't going to be the most popular opinion, but it sounds to me like Wayne did his brother and the community a favor.

[Frank · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read in the 80s

[Felicity · Rating 2 out of 5]

I confess I admired Michael Mewshaw's literary adaptation of this true-life crime: a boy's murder of his parents in 1960s Maryland. But maybe my preference for the literary adaptation relates to the fact that the reality was simply horrible. Subject to years of psychological, emotional, and physical abuse (all too thoroughly documented by Mewshaw), fifteen year-old William Dresbach just picked up a rifle one morning and shot both of his parents multiple times. Denied access for several weeks to anyone who wasn't family--and that was no one, because he had shot them dead--William then confessed to the crime multiple times...policemen, psychologists, judges. By the time he eventually received a court-appointed lawyer, there was little anyone could do other than ensure he didn't receive the death penalty.

Written in 1980, the narrative is actually fairly choppy: large parts of the court transcript are quoted verbatim where the author might have better summarized or paraphrased. The psychological references are also seriously outdated, or so it seems. And reading this now, we know that the system has changed so much (or at least we hope it has) that the same kind of sustained abuse would be unable to continue for so long. Or maybe it hasn't?

[Kim · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was my first time reading a true crime story. It goes into such deep detail about the life of Wayne Dresbach. His home life growing up with Pat and Shirley Dresbach as parents, and Lee Dresbach as a brother is explained through the eyes of Wayne, also 3rd party. Pat and Shirley were murdered by Wayne and the controversies outlined in court create a questionable confession on Wayne's part. Full of drama, Life for death made me feel many emotions, love, remorse, pain, and stress.

[Dottie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I think the boys deserved better then they got, both boys!! How could anyone bring charges aginst the boy. With a controling father and the HUSH HUSH of it all.

[False · Rating 3 out of 5]

Based on a Maryland murder case from years ago. He knows the cast, he knows the turf. Very well written.

[Laurie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Set in the 1960s but still relevant to today

[Gary Turner · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book. The telling was great. What a crazy world we live in.