Family Blood: The Murder That Shattered an All-American Home

by Lyn Riddle

Recounts the shocking true story of twenty-one-year-old Jimmy Robertson, who, after becoming immersed in a depraved world of drugs and crime, brutally murdered his parents, who were pillars of the community, in a horrifying crime that rocked a small town in North Carolina. Reissue.

Genres: True Crime, Nonfiction

288 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published November 1, 2003

Reviews

[J.H. Moncrieff · Rating 2 out of 5]

Is there an unwritten rule that true crime authors need to drag the story out as long as possible, either with irrelevant details, endless trial recaps and transcriptions, or repetition? This one had all three.

It's about a fairly simple case: an ungrateful adult son murders his parents. He's the prime suspect right away and is arrested hours later, along with a female friend who stood by and did nothing during the murders. Why the son killed is still not clear: mental illness? A drug-and-alcohol-induced rage? Past abuse, which hasn't been proven? Or plain ol' greed?

I was troubled by how much was made of the co-defendant's (the girl friend who did nothing to stop the murders) weight. It was mentioned numerous times, as if her only worth was the numbers on the scale. Almost every time she was mentioned in the book, so was her weight. We also heard plenty about how much weight one of the victims had gained. Not sure how that was relevant.

[♥ Marlene♥ · Rating 4 out of 5]

Could not find the book I was reading so opted for another true crime I bought. In the beginning it already tells me who was killed and by whom.Now I am afraid this is going to be another book where a parent killer is saying the parents were abusive and that is why he or she killed them while the victims can't defend themselves.
Hop it is not the case.

Update November 25 2017

Finished last night. This was a decent true crime. As I feared the parents were after their violent death not just slaughtered but then raped by the lawyers of their killer. To my amazement I was thinking that and then the next paragraph the prosecutor said just that. Thankfully there was justice in the end and not as what happens more that everybody feels for the poor parent killer.

Reading another true crime friend's review I see I was not the alone disgusted by the killers girlfriend. How can you sit by while your boyfriend is slaughtering his parents and you hear them scream and you do nothing. She is probably walking free now. They made it because poor her, she was so fat and under his control but come on. I am not even sure she did not do nothing as I also think the brother had a lot to do with this case. 3.6 *

[Eva-Marie Nevarez · Rating 3 out of 5]

This wasn't as great as I expected and I'm trying to figure out why. I *think* I've read something by Riddle before (I could be wrong and only own a book or books of hers that I haven't read yet) but whether I have or not it's not hard to make a true crime book a "good" one for me.
Any murder is highly interesting to me, especially familial murders, and since every true crime author I've ever read always picks the most intense cases to write about it's usually a win-win situation for me.
I don't know if this didn't hit me like I was expecting because of the actual book or if it was because I maybe needed a true crime break. I had read two in a row right before this one and that's more than I've done with this genre in a long, long time. I was also a little ticked because the same day I started this some others came in the mail that I would have rather have started. In the end it helped because this led me to grab some of the true crime I consider somewhat urgent to read out of my storage unit so this doesn't happen again.
All in all, the writing is decent, the story is certainly interesting, and it's your average t.c. It was shocking to see how utterly fast this family dissolved.....
Side-note - I should also mentioned that it made me sick to my stomach to see in the beginning of the book that Riddle "thanked" Meredith Moon, the woman who sat downstairs while two people were being murdered and did nothing. Apparently this was because she was fat and needed to be wanted by the murderer. Uh yeah, no deal. There was absolutely nothing, not one word, that seemed to go from Moon directly to the author. Maybe I missed something but I was looking and it seemed to me that all the info Moon divulged was to the police and investigators, not to Riddle. So why the thanks? Thanks for being so stupid and not trying to stop what was happening so I could have the chance to write this book? She deserves no thanks. She deserves the absolute worst that life can hand her. Then there's a smiling picture of her in prison about one hundred pounds lighter. I'm not sure I could smile for a camera if I was still "hearing the screams in my head ever day". Especially not for a picture everyone was going to see. I hope she gets out, gains back all that weight and then some, and leads a miserable, miserable life. At least she'll have a LIFE - which two people lost because of one mans actions her inactions.
The picture I liked best? The one of the p.o.s. that murdered his parents hearing the guilty verdict. He was so cocky throughout the trial and when the verdict was being read it stuck his fingers deeply in his ears and grimaced so hard the veins on his forehead popped out. He has the you know what to claim family friends were wrong for not coming to him - because he "lost his parents". wtf?
It's cases like this that make me believe the death penalty is needed.

[Michelle · Rating 4 out of 5]

True Crime books are one of my favorite genres. It just amazes me how some people can be so evil. Why?? He lives in the parents basement, flunks out of college, can't hold a job, snorts Ritilin.... And do his parents kick him out?? NO. Instead, they spend a fortune on a psychiatrist. He tells all his friends for months that he wants to kill his parents, and is anything done??? NO. And then, what finally happens??? He brutally kills his parents. Gee, what a shock. This was a fast read. It doesn't just end leaving you hanging with the court proceedings. It goes on to tell you the sentences they got.

[Fishface · Rating 2 out of 5]

This one was only so-so. The case should have been fascinating but the writing just didn't click with me at all, and ultimately the case failed to hold my attention. I know what you're saying: Parents massacred? Kids under suspicion? Girlfriend complicit? What's not to be fascinated by? The main gap in this story is that it's all court transcripts, with very little in the way of interviews with the people involved. Even talking to friends and neighbors would have made a big difference -- it's implied that the community was deeply shocked and affected but we didn't hear much about that. The little we did get in this area did make the book worth finishing. This family dynamic is a lot like the one I saw in Son, with similarly disastrous results. But I'd recommend Son!

[Kelly · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was alright. Not very interesting.

[Alison Gulley · Rating 2 out of 5]

This started out interesting but turned out to be one of those books where a lot of the trial--in this case the penalty phase--is recounted word for word. It's clear that the son was mentally ill but we don't hear many details about the family until the very end. It turns out they were all suffering from mental illness and in addition very dysfunctional. The subtitle calls this an "all-American home," but the family doesn't fit the description at all. I wish the author would have spent more time trying to figure out how, why, and when everything started going wrong.

[Mel · Rating 4 out of 5]

N/s. True story.
Story set in my home town. I remember chip (vaguely) but don’t know the brother at all. Interesting read

[Ronnie Cramer · Rating 3 out of 5]

A young miscreant murders his parents, then he and his girlfriend are promptly apprehended. Almost two thirds of the book is devoted to their subsequent trials.

[Poit · Rating 3 out of 5]

A very well written and informative book, only let down by its ending (ending dragged, was quite boring compared to the first 3/4).

[J · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book was a disappointment to me since even though the author did include the actual story that was suppose to be told it also sounded like she had her own agendas - 1. medicinal drug abuse hadn't been done until this time so that is why the crime was done and 2. The author really has something for Susan Smith or had wished she had done a book about that particular murderess.

Also I found that this book was quite bland in the writing and since it wasn't really a mystery crime the author was able to include the sentencing for both candidates to make a good-sized book otherwise it would have been too much of a short read.

I did find some other things that made me wonder such as like one of the reviewers said about the picture of Meredith who was showing off and smiling in her prison picture (there is no matching one of Jimmy). And the other thing that caught my attention was the way the author tried to divide the people - good kids with some bad issues get called by their given names but once they changed and had done the crimes they should only be called by their surnames in response.

This is definitely one crime book that won't catch your attention much if you are a mystery-lover or one that would like to get into a good crime as it the whole thing was clean, almost without challenge to answer and just putting the puzzle pieces together. Instead it is more or less a good book of possible cause-and-effect.

[Charlene · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book wasn't bad. The case was certainly interesting, and the writing was pretty well done, far better than my last True Crime foray. Still, it didn't leave me sitting on the edge of my seat, unable to put the book down, hence three stars.

[Neil · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not bad, two kids who were destined for jail or death.

[Shelley · Rating 2 out of 5]

Interesting true-crime case study but very poorly written.

[Samantha Osborne · Rating 4 out of 5]

kinda hard to follow but a good read

[Katrin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pretty good talked about an entitled spoiled brat kid that thought he was owed the family money. Some parts were a little tedious like the court testimonies .