Justice in the Back Room

by Selwyn Raab

Through an examination of one of the goriest murder cases in America's history, the brutal killing of Janice Wyle and Emily Hoffert in New York City in August of 1963, Selwyn Raab explores the explosive issue of forced confessions.

Genres: True Crime

261 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1967

About the author

Selwyn Raab was an American journalist, author and investigative reporter for The New York Times. He wrote extensively about the American Mafia and criminal justice issues.

Reviews

[Fishface · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a good, entertaining read -- a true story that reads like a novel. I was struck by how differently Raab saw this case from Shapiro -- he seems highly skeptical of Whitmore at every turn and not very critical of the police at all. Best enjoyed in the light of other interpretations of the same raw data.

[Lawrence · Rating 5 out of 5]

There are few stories in the annals of true crime like that of the career girl murder case of 1963.
On one level, it was a classical whodunit tale that had Manhattan detectives stumped for many months while public pressure to solve the killings built to a boiling point. The savage sex-murders of two girls on Manhattan's Upper East Side in 1963 instilled genuine fear into thousands of young women and shocked even the most hardened investigators. On another level, it exposed an ugly and secret side of police work, which forced the Supreme Court of the United States to address the constitutional issues at stake. The case served as the blueprint for a popular television show of the 1970s called Kojak, starring Telly Savalas. But the series, which ran for many years, never put the factual story on TV. Maybe it was too controversial or too bizarre or maybe the truth was just too much for some people. There are still many questions left unanswered in the murders of Janice Wylie and Emily Hoffert. But it was one man's incredible odyssey through the Kafka-like maze of New York City's courts that undermined the sacred concept of American justice and shattered the credibility of the nation's largest police force.

[Colleen · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is an excellent book by Selwyn Raab documenting the Career Girls Murders in the 1960s when two women were brutally murdered in their apartment. Rather than looking for the perpetrator, the NYPD simply found the nearest black man and pinned it on him. George Whitmore had just wanted to help police catch another rapist, but when he came into the precinct the officers saw a good opportunity to "solve" the highly publicized Career Girl Murders. After receiving a little "backroom justice" in the form of police fists, George confessed to the murders.

Raab, whose tireless pursuit of the case's facts was partially responsible for getting George off, writes in great detail of the murder and the following media firestorm. One interesting detail of the book is that Raab did not believe that the culprit who was eventually identified as the killer committed the crime either. Since Raab published his book, he has finally confessed, however.

[Kimberly Wells · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating book. The author takes a look at the problems of confessions made in the "back room" of police stations. He uses the pressure on the police to solve the notorious 1963 "Career Girl" murders in NYC, to show that closing a case does not mean that justice was done. At one point there was a young man who had confessed after 21 hours alone in the station without a lawyer while informants and wire taps were pointing to someone completely different. This book was written in 1967, just around the time that Miranda rights were being required and the police and prosecutors were reeling from what the impact of this would mean. It asks a lot of questions about the rights of the accused that would not seem out of place today.