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The Double Life of Herman Rockefeller
In January 2010, a law-abiding, church-going father of two from Melbourne's leafy eastern suburbs steps off a plane and goes disappears. An intense police investigation uncovers the shocking truth: Herman Rockefeller met with a pair of swingers - an alcoholic single mum and her rubbish-collector boyfriend - and the visit cot him his life.
- GenresTrue CrimeNonfiction
250 pages, Paperback
First published January 25, 2012
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
February 2, 2012
I would never normally read this genre. In this instance my lady received an advance copy and after idly thumbing through the first few pages I noticed reference to a number of places of significance to me and thus I read on.
As part of an arrangement we call Shit Kringle with friends at the end of last year I gifted a night for two at Fawkner Formule One. The date? Valentine's Day. Fawkner Formule One is situated at quite possibly THE most depressing intersection in all of Greater Melbourne, where the Western Ring Road and the Hume Highway intersect. It's neighbours include a Dan Murphy's, a McDonalds and The Fawkner Bingo Centre - bigger than most aircraft hangers.
It turns out the killers in the case of Herman Rockefeller had their first threesome with a prostitute at this very hotel.
We meet Herman Rockefeller, a swinger of sorts (depending on which expert's definition you care to employ), a man worth $400 million and with a secret past.
The first hundred pages maintain a sense of suspense, both as facts about Rockefeller's life and it's components are revealed; and about the lives of those who would eventually be convicted of his manslaughter. After this though all but the afterword is of more interest to those keen on the legal machinations of the case.
My main issue with this book is the author's obvious biases as expressed in her portrayal of the major players. While noone who knows the case disputes the abhorrence of the crime nor the lack of sophistication or intelligence of those who were eventually found guilty, Bonney is too light on Rockefeller. True, his devious sex life was not what was on trial but the author never seeks to criticise his fatal decision to persist with sexual approaches towards a de facto partnered woman despite her and her partner's protestations.
Rockefeller's actions of course do not justify his killing but the absence of any real examination of his actions within this book is conspicuous. Bonney is all too keen to deride the killers' simple ways. Perhaps a good example of where she is coming from is the following paragraph from page 174;
'Above Robert's [Herman's brother] head are the green branches of an ancient plane tree, one of the deciduous varieties that give this suburb and it's neighbours their description among Melbournians as 'the leafy suburbs'. It is meant in a slightly envious way, as if having trees were a sign of affluence doled out by the fates, and not the result of planting seeds in the dirt.'
The suburb Bonney speaks of is East Malvern, in Melbourne's well-to-do east and about a world away from the outer northern working-class and welfare-dependent Hadfield of the killers. The passage leaves little mystery as to what type of locale the author, a former Barrister, resides.
Bonney also never seeks to note how the victims family's ongoing suffering due to the murder of Herman may be inextricably linked to their sudden and disbelieving realisations about his hidden sex life.
This is however a worthwhile read despite the fact that it on occaision comes across as condescending towards those from backgrounds of entrenched poverty, endemic neglect, abuse, poor education and welfare-dependence and that it leaves a lot about the case and the life choices of it’s actors unexplored.
As part of an arrangement we call Shit Kringle with friends at the end of last year I gifted a night for two at Fawkner Formule One. The date? Valentine's Day. Fawkner Formule One is situated at quite possibly THE most depressing intersection in all of Greater Melbourne, where the Western Ring Road and the Hume Highway intersect. It's neighbours include a Dan Murphy's, a McDonalds and The Fawkner Bingo Centre - bigger than most aircraft hangers.
It turns out the killers in the case of Herman Rockefeller had their first threesome with a prostitute at this very hotel.
We meet Herman Rockefeller, a swinger of sorts (depending on which expert's definition you care to employ), a man worth $400 million and with a secret past.
The first hundred pages maintain a sense of suspense, both as facts about Rockefeller's life and it's components are revealed; and about the lives of those who would eventually be convicted of his manslaughter. After this though all but the afterword is of more interest to those keen on the legal machinations of the case.
My main issue with this book is the author's obvious biases as expressed in her portrayal of the major players. While noone who knows the case disputes the abhorrence of the crime nor the lack of sophistication or intelligence of those who were eventually found guilty, Bonney is too light on Rockefeller. True, his devious sex life was not what was on trial but the author never seeks to criticise his fatal decision to persist with sexual approaches towards a de facto partnered woman despite her and her partner's protestations.
Rockefeller's actions of course do not justify his killing but the absence of any real examination of his actions within this book is conspicuous. Bonney is all too keen to deride the killers' simple ways. Perhaps a good example of where she is coming from is the following paragraph from page 174;
'Above Robert's [Herman's brother] head are the green branches of an ancient plane tree, one of the deciduous varieties that give this suburb and it's neighbours their description among Melbournians as 'the leafy suburbs'. It is meant in a slightly envious way, as if having trees were a sign of affluence doled out by the fates, and not the result of planting seeds in the dirt.'
The suburb Bonney speaks of is East Malvern, in Melbourne's well-to-do east and about a world away from the outer northern working-class and welfare-dependent Hadfield of the killers. The passage leaves little mystery as to what type of locale the author, a former Barrister, resides.
Bonney also never seeks to note how the victims family's ongoing suffering due to the murder of Herman may be inextricably linked to their sudden and disbelieving realisations about his hidden sex life.
This is however a worthwhile read despite the fact that it on occaision comes across as condescending towards those from backgrounds of entrenched poverty, endemic neglect, abuse, poor education and welfare-dependence and that it leaves a lot about the case and the life choices of it’s actors unexplored.
April 3, 2012
I noticed this book in the library and thought it would be a deviation from fiction, but still fit in the AWW2012 challenge. I don't read a lot of true crime, but I do enjoy analysis of cases that I've heard about (if it's not too gruesome).
Awful subject matter aside this book is very readable. It is very well written in simple, concise language and although it flashes forward and back a little, the narrative is easy to follow.
I'll admit I was quite fascinated by the case itself. I remember hearing about it in the media and wondering at the time what made a seemingly upstanding, model citizen/husband/father get involved in something so murky and sordid. And on that point that is what I thought was missing from the book - why he did it. Because while it chronicles Herman Rockefeller's movements and actions, (that he was deeply involved in the "swinging" movement and had been for some time and managed to hide his shady behaviour due to his work commitments), it doesn't give you any real insight/background into what might have made him set on that path. In fairness, this is based on police reports etc so the writer obviously didn't have that information - but that element is what makes a true crime book truly captivating. It gives more of a background snapshot of the woman accused of murdering him and her motives, but the title suggests it is more about Herman than her.
The real message I got from this book was that one wrong move, one bad decision can unravel a whole carefully constructed web of lies and secrecy. Herman made a bad choice to visit his killers on the way home from the airport and essentially he messed with the wrong people (who by the sounds of it probably didn't really intend to kill him).
Overall a fascinating story that illustrates just what lies beneath the veneer of respectability and suburban life.
Awful subject matter aside this book is very readable. It is very well written in simple, concise language and although it flashes forward and back a little, the narrative is easy to follow.
I'll admit I was quite fascinated by the case itself. I remember hearing about it in the media and wondering at the time what made a seemingly upstanding, model citizen/husband/father get involved in something so murky and sordid. And on that point that is what I thought was missing from the book - why he did it. Because while it chronicles Herman Rockefeller's movements and actions, (that he was deeply involved in the "swinging" movement and had been for some time and managed to hide his shady behaviour due to his work commitments), it doesn't give you any real insight/background into what might have made him set on that path. In fairness, this is based on police reports etc so the writer obviously didn't have that information - but that element is what makes a true crime book truly captivating. It gives more of a background snapshot of the woman accused of murdering him and her motives, but the title suggests it is more about Herman than her.
The real message I got from this book was that one wrong move, one bad decision can unravel a whole carefully constructed web of lies and secrecy. Herman made a bad choice to visit his killers on the way home from the airport and essentially he messed with the wrong people (who by the sounds of it probably didn't really intend to kill him).
Overall a fascinating story that illustrates just what lies beneath the veneer of respectability and suburban life.
February 24, 2012
Whilst nobody deserves to die for sexual activities between consenting adults that could be regarded as unsavoury, THE DOUBLE LIFE OF HERMAN ROCKEFELLER says a lot about the causes of this man's death, and all of the participants in the whole sorry, mucky mess.
Herman Rockefeller was killed in January 2010, after a rendezvous at the home of Bernadette Denny, where he had gone, a second time, for sex. He died, it seems, because he lied about his circumstances and therefore his motives, and because the two people found guilty of his manslaughter - Denny and her boyfriend Mario Schembri - were angry at his duplicity.
Mr Rockefeller had a history of trawling for sex with strangers that went back at least a decade. He frequently advertised in a range of speciality magazines, using a number of different names, and where he was targeting swingers, with photographs of him engaged in sex with an unknown woman, believed to be a prostitute. Denny and Schembri encountered Rockefeller through these advertisements, making their own attempts to join the swinger scene. The frustration that lead to Rockefeller's death arose from his failure to produce a female partner, instead using Denny for his own sexual gratification only. The police also discovered that this supposedly upright, loving family-man, church goer and pillar of his local community had also kept a mistress, the woman who eventually helped police look in the right direction - along with a hidden stash of mobile telephones, multiple post office boxes, and the many many advertisements he had placed in sex magazines, as well as a particular technical feature of his abandoned car.
THE DOUBLE LIFE OF HERMAN ROCKEFELLER does a particularly good job at sensitively and carefully outlining the effects that this murder, and the particularly gruesome way that this remains were disposed of, had on his family and community. It looks carefully at the backgrounds of Denny and Schembri, and it also looks at what is known about Rockefeller. At the end, the book extrapolates on a theory of why a man, worth somewhere in the vicinity of $14.6 million at his death, took such an extreme path to achieve sexual gratification when it would seem that there were plenty of other options open to him.
The sobering aspect of the book for this reader is that it was possible to feel great sympathy for Rockefeller's family, it was even possible to feel some sympathy for Denny and Schembri. Rockefeller, on the other hand, was less approachable, more shadowy, complicit in his own demise. This is possibly because his behaviour was so extreme, and frankly, predatory, but it was also obviously because he has no opportunity to explain the sordid and inexplicable.
THE DOUBLE LIFE OF HERMAN ROCKEFELLER is a discomforting book, about a disconcerting case, but it doesn't feel exploitative or sensational. It's very measured in tone, tells as much as it can about all the main participants and does something that really good true crime writing should. It allows the reader to understand what happened, and where known, why. What everyone involved was thinking... well that's considerably less clear.
Herman Rockefeller was killed in January 2010, after a rendezvous at the home of Bernadette Denny, where he had gone, a second time, for sex. He died, it seems, because he lied about his circumstances and therefore his motives, and because the two people found guilty of his manslaughter - Denny and her boyfriend Mario Schembri - were angry at his duplicity.
Mr Rockefeller had a history of trawling for sex with strangers that went back at least a decade. He frequently advertised in a range of speciality magazines, using a number of different names, and where he was targeting swingers, with photographs of him engaged in sex with an unknown woman, believed to be a prostitute. Denny and Schembri encountered Rockefeller through these advertisements, making their own attempts to join the swinger scene. The frustration that lead to Rockefeller's death arose from his failure to produce a female partner, instead using Denny for his own sexual gratification only. The police also discovered that this supposedly upright, loving family-man, church goer and pillar of his local community had also kept a mistress, the woman who eventually helped police look in the right direction - along with a hidden stash of mobile telephones, multiple post office boxes, and the many many advertisements he had placed in sex magazines, as well as a particular technical feature of his abandoned car.
THE DOUBLE LIFE OF HERMAN ROCKEFELLER does a particularly good job at sensitively and carefully outlining the effects that this murder, and the particularly gruesome way that this remains were disposed of, had on his family and community. It looks carefully at the backgrounds of Denny and Schembri, and it also looks at what is known about Rockefeller. At the end, the book extrapolates on a theory of why a man, worth somewhere in the vicinity of $14.6 million at his death, took such an extreme path to achieve sexual gratification when it would seem that there were plenty of other options open to him.
The sobering aspect of the book for this reader is that it was possible to feel great sympathy for Rockefeller's family, it was even possible to feel some sympathy for Denny and Schembri. Rockefeller, on the other hand, was less approachable, more shadowy, complicit in his own demise. This is possibly because his behaviour was so extreme, and frankly, predatory, but it was also obviously because he has no opportunity to explain the sordid and inexplicable.
THE DOUBLE LIFE OF HERMAN ROCKEFELLER is a discomforting book, about a disconcerting case, but it doesn't feel exploitative or sensational. It's very measured in tone, tells as much as it can about all the main participants and does something that really good true crime writing should. It allows the reader to understand what happened, and where known, why. What everyone involved was thinking... well that's considerably less clear.
February 12, 2021
I have to admit I'd never heard of this case. This book gives a detailed and intense account of it and the people involved in it. A very good true crime read.
March 25, 2021
This story is truly unbelievable! The book is engaging and very easy to read. It opened my eyes to a world that is unknown to me, it's mind boggling actually. Rockefeller fate is hard to fathom, but imagine his family what they had to endure, finding out about his secret seedy life. It's been now 11 years after the murder, so am guessing his killers have now been released, wonder what their life is like now? I find it interesting how character refernces where used for the murderes, trying to say they are good people, but they disposed of the body in the most horrid way, which I can only think would be in the movies. The whole thing is just amazing! Worth a read!
April 8, 2024
Loved the way this was written. Factual but in a storytelling way. Did take me about 80-100 pages to get hooked is the only downfall.
February 27, 2012
I was curious about this book, I lived in Melbourne at the time the crime happened, I was at the arriving at the airport at the time the victim was leaving the airport (spooky) a friend of mine lives on the street that Herman the victim and his family lived it, lastly because it all just seemed so seedy.... The opening line of the book; "Herman Rockefeller sits in the church at the end of his street, wishing he was anywhere but there" we know straight from the get go that Herman is a conflicted soul and given the title of the book "the double life" we know that Herman is swinging in more ways than one!
The book covers the three people who were there the night Herman was killed, the author does her best to convey who Herman was and why he was there, it tells the story of Bernadette Denny the daughter if immigrants who has lost a husband, who is an alcoholic and is doing what she can to get her daughters back in the family home and Mario Schembi, her boyfriend, father of 7, mechanic and a man who in the past who has been to prison from a previous assault 20 years previous. What do they all have in common, they all like to "spice up" there sex lives with a little extra curricular activity.
The book focuses mainly on Bernadette and Mario, talking about there lives and what happened after the death of Herman Rockefeller.It covers the investigation, the police and forensic investigation and the interrogation of both Mario and Bernadette. What the book can't tell us is what really happened, with both Mario and Bernadette being vague from what the book says on what actually happened and how they killed him. Given that both plead guilty there was no trial so we will never know what actually went down on January 21st.
What I was hoping was more detail on the double life of Herman, we know about the multiple mobile phones, the advertisements in sex magazines, the mistress but that is where the detail of the double life ends and that was what I was most interested in reading about. How did this apparent god fearing, good standing, successful multi-millionaire lead this life for decades and his family and friends didn't know about it? Instead the book is focused on Mario and Bernadette, looking at there lack of education, money and standing. It does dig a little into that they felt taken advantage of by Herman, but I guess I wanted more.
I think that Hillary Bonney has done a good job though, given that it would have been nearly impossible to get any one from Rockefeller's circle to comment and his family only ever made a couple of comments on the crime.
This was a single sitting read for me, I read it on Saturday night and it was a bit of a guilty pleasure like sneaking downstairs in the middle of the night to get a piece of chocolate!
The book I would like to read though, or even a TV show on Dr Melissa Baker the 35 year old pathologist, she seemed interesting.
I give this book 3 stars and I'm glad I delved back into True Crime!
The book covers the three people who were there the night Herman was killed, the author does her best to convey who Herman was and why he was there, it tells the story of Bernadette Denny the daughter if immigrants who has lost a husband, who is an alcoholic and is doing what she can to get her daughters back in the family home and Mario Schembi, her boyfriend, father of 7, mechanic and a man who in the past who has been to prison from a previous assault 20 years previous. What do they all have in common, they all like to "spice up" there sex lives with a little extra curricular activity.
The book focuses mainly on Bernadette and Mario, talking about there lives and what happened after the death of Herman Rockefeller.It covers the investigation, the police and forensic investigation and the interrogation of both Mario and Bernadette. What the book can't tell us is what really happened, with both Mario and Bernadette being vague from what the book says on what actually happened and how they killed him. Given that both plead guilty there was no trial so we will never know what actually went down on January 21st.
What I was hoping was more detail on the double life of Herman, we know about the multiple mobile phones, the advertisements in sex magazines, the mistress but that is where the detail of the double life ends and that was what I was most interested in reading about. How did this apparent god fearing, good standing, successful multi-millionaire lead this life for decades and his family and friends didn't know about it? Instead the book is focused on Mario and Bernadette, looking at there lack of education, money and standing. It does dig a little into that they felt taken advantage of by Herman, but I guess I wanted more.
I think that Hillary Bonney has done a good job though, given that it would have been nearly impossible to get any one from Rockefeller's circle to comment and his family only ever made a couple of comments on the crime.
This was a single sitting read for me, I read it on Saturday night and it was a bit of a guilty pleasure like sneaking downstairs in the middle of the night to get a piece of chocolate!
The book I would like to read though, or even a TV show on Dr Melissa Baker the 35 year old pathologist, she seemed interesting.
I give this book 3 stars and I'm glad I delved back into True Crime!
January 1, 2013
Horrible subject matter aside, this was quite an interesting book. I was intrigued by it mainly because I just didn't understand what had driven a man who seemed to have two such distinct sides to his personality. In that sense I was left a little disappointed - because while this book details the crime and the aftermath, it doesn't really explain Herman himself and the darkness within him.
I did get the sense that Herman was a man who obviously battled his dark side, but made no real attempt to defeat it. Rather he used his business interests (involving a lot of travel)to regularly submerge himself in the murky world of swinging. He had gotten away with it for years with no suspicion from his wife or family - but then one night it all fell apart in the worst possible way when he tangled with the wrong people.
What I did get from this book was the sense that the people who did murder Herman probably didn't set out to do so. From sad and depressing backgrounds themselves, they made a series of bad decisions that ultimately ended in a death. That is absolutely no excuse of course, nor is the sickening way they attempted to cover up the crime, but with hindsight Herman himself would probably have seen that he ignored several sinister red flags in his quest for a quick thrill.
Well written and easy to read, I had no problems finishing this book - but was left feeling very sad for all involved in this horrific crime.
I did get the sense that Herman was a man who obviously battled his dark side, but made no real attempt to defeat it. Rather he used his business interests (involving a lot of travel)to regularly submerge himself in the murky world of swinging. He had gotten away with it for years with no suspicion from his wife or family - but then one night it all fell apart in the worst possible way when he tangled with the wrong people.
What I did get from this book was the sense that the people who did murder Herman probably didn't set out to do so. From sad and depressing backgrounds themselves, they made a series of bad decisions that ultimately ended in a death. That is absolutely no excuse of course, nor is the sickening way they attempted to cover up the crime, but with hindsight Herman himself would probably have seen that he ignored several sinister red flags in his quest for a quick thrill.
Well written and easy to read, I had no problems finishing this book - but was left feeling very sad for all involved in this horrific crime.
March 10, 2012
I don't usually read non fiction and this was interesting but I was a bit frustrated by the grammar errors that weren't picked up in editing and I didn't really learn anything about the case that I didn't already know.
May 26, 2012
interesting story, badly written.
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews