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Family Blood: The True Story of Yom Kippur Murders : One Family's Greed, Love, and Rage
Gerald Woodman, an Englishman and an Orthodox Jew, came to American penniless and hungry for the good life. By 1980 he had gained and lost two fortunes, had built his plastics company into a cash cow that supported his large extended family in great luxury. Killed in 1985 along with his wife Vera, the police asked Vera's sister if the Woodmans had any enemies, she replied , 'Yes, their sons.' Family Blood follows the investigation of these murders and reveals a story of the American Dream gone wrong. Gerald, behind his facade of charm, piety and filial warmth, was a ruthless, amoral businessman, a philandering husband, a ferociously abusive father, and a compulsive gambler. His sons, Neil and Stewart, inherited his charm and business principles. This is the story of the hidden dynamics of an outwardly successful American family that came to a shocking and violent end. It is also the story of a clan of whose menfolk guarded a dark secret from their wives - and everyone else - for three generations. Further it is the chronicle of two dogged police detectives who exposed the Woodman's sordid secrets to the light of justice.
320 pages, Hardcover
First published September 1, 1993
60 people are currently reading
228 people want to read
About the author
Marvin J. Wolf
26 books17 followersThe son of a junkman and a mad housewife (really--she spent half her adult life in mental hospitals), Wolf served 13 years on active duty with the US Army, including a 15-month combat tour in Vietnam. He has worked as a dishwasher, an encyclopedia salesman, a camera store clerk and as a photojournalist with worldwide credits. In 1983, when he regained sole custody of his only child, he put aside his successful career in photojournalism to become an author. A Los Angeles Times bestselling author, Wolf has three times been recognized by the American Society of Journalists and Authors for his professionalism. In 2001, Wolf took a nine-year detour through the movie and television business, an education in writing fiction. One of his screenplays, "Ladies Night," was produced and aired on the USA Network. He returned to writing books and launched a career in fiction in 2010. He lives with his adult daughter in Asheville, NC.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 35 reviews
March 1, 2015
Every single person in this book even the victims are a giant collection of irredeemable assholes. That alone made this kind of a fun read.
January 25, 2017
A very interesting story and a good read. My only pet peeve was that in the book the victim was vilified and by whom? Yes as always, by the killers. The victims can't defend themselves. it happens too often that authors accept the words of killers telling them how mean and bad the victims were.
It is not that I want every victim to be presented as the good guy,girl but when an author only bases these things on the words of killers, I certainly do have a problem with it plus I feel that even if you are abused that is still not an excuse to take a human's life.
Now this author in the end of the book, did state that some things the killers said were lies so I hope he did research if their father really was such a bad guy. I think he did that.
All in all a very good book. What horrible people. Men and women and I wonder that if they had enough money they would have gotten away even with killing. Glad I read it.
Did not know it was written so long ago.
It is not that I want every victim to be presented as the good guy,girl but when an author only bases these things on the words of killers, I certainly do have a problem with it plus I feel that even if you are abused that is still not an excuse to take a human's life.
Now this author in the end of the book, did state that some things the killers said were lies so I hope he did research if their father really was such a bad guy. I think he did that.
All in all a very good book. What horrible people. Men and women and I wonder that if they had enough money they would have gotten away even with killing. Glad I read it.
Did not know it was written so long ago.
June 27, 2014
This was a lightning fast and interesting read about a family torn apart by money, greed, corruption, lies, jealousy, and unbridled anger. I thought it was a well-researched and well-written (save for some noticeable typos in the Kindle edition) true-crime book that did not get bogged down in irrelevant details. The author paints the main characters (including one of the murder victims) in a largely unflattering light and does an excellent job explaining the on-again, off-again relationship between a scumbag father and the sons he molded into equally disgusting scumbags. One of the murder victims, Vera Woodman, was a mostly sympathetic character, and I found myself alternating between thinking she should have left her husband and feeling sorry for the predicament she was in. If nothing else, this book is a lesson on how to NOT conduct family affairs and a reminder that with wealth comes a responsibility to use it wisely and not as a tool for lording power over other people. This is a solid book for readers of true crime, and it is somewhat unique among true-crime books in that you will find yourself absolutely loathing one of the victims. (This has not been my experience with other true crime books.)
April 8, 2015
"Enjoyed" isn't exactly the right word to say about a book that is concerned with a very unpleasant murder.
It was interesting to read about people whose background and experiences were so different to my own and I kept on reading to see if the people who were clearly responsible for the murder would be identified and convicted. They were, which was satisfying.
I disliked most of the people in the book - even the ones who weren't the murderers were unattractive as personalities, even when their personalities were allowed to show, which wasn't all that often.
I also thought it was a pity the IRS never got to go through that company's books properly. I dislike tax evaders on principle.
Downsides: some of the people had multiple names which the writer seemed to use randomly. He would have been better to note that some people used more than one name, and then stick to one himself from then on. It would have saved me a lot of confusion.
It was interesting to read about people whose background and experiences were so different to my own and I kept on reading to see if the people who were clearly responsible for the murder would be identified and convicted. They were, which was satisfying.
I disliked most of the people in the book - even the ones who weren't the murderers were unattractive as personalities, even when their personalities were allowed to show, which wasn't all that often.
I also thought it was a pity the IRS never got to go through that company's books properly. I dislike tax evaders on principle.
Downsides: some of the people had multiple names which the writer seemed to use randomly. He would have been better to note that some people used more than one name, and then stick to one himself from then on. It would have saved me a lot of confusion.
June 5, 2014
Family Blood: The True Story of the Yom Kippur Murders: One Family's Greed, Love, and Rage
What a page turner,I was literally on the edge of my seat.
Mixed emotions when reading how the father dealt with his sons and a mother that wanted nothing more then to have the family back again.
No matter how bad or how rich your parents it definitely does not give one the right to murder!!
Great read and pictures quality on my kindle was brilliant,the author did a wonderful job in taking you into world ...where greed and hate changes everything.Well written crime story... remains tragic for all those involved
What a page turner,I was literally on the edge of my seat.
Mixed emotions when reading how the father dealt with his sons and a mother that wanted nothing more then to have the family back again.
No matter how bad or how rich your parents it definitely does not give one the right to murder!!
Great read and pictures quality on my kindle was brilliant,the author did a wonderful job in taking you into world ...where greed and hate changes everything.Well written crime story... remains tragic for all those involved
July 30, 2015
Yom Kippur Murders.
A good read about a crime one would expect to see on a two-hour Dateline. I was so enthralled with this story I went and looked it up, all true, every bit of it. Tragically dysfunctional family ... horrible murder. The author did an excellent job of tying all the pieces together and telling first about the crime itself, then the background of the victims and finally the trail of evidence that eventually lead to the arrests and convictions. This was one of the first random bookbub freebies I ever picked up ... I felt like I struck gold.
A good read about a crime one would expect to see on a two-hour Dateline. I was so enthralled with this story I went and looked it up, all true, every bit of it. Tragically dysfunctional family ... horrible murder. The author did an excellent job of tying all the pieces together and telling first about the crime itself, then the background of the victims and finally the trail of evidence that eventually lead to the arrests and convictions. This was one of the first random bookbub freebies I ever picked up ... I felt like I struck gold.
March 8, 2015
Good read, but . . .
I read the first version of this book many years ago and the story is still compelling. Even though Gerry Woodman was thoroughly despicable in every facet of his life, still no one deserves this kind of ending. As far as sons Stewart and Neil are concerned taught at their father's knee forecast a bad outcome. I have read a number of e-books and all (more than print) have many grammatical and spelling errors. I don't know if e-books are prepared differently, but there were many more than usual of errors in grammar, punctuation, and word use in this one.
I read the first version of this book many years ago and the story is still compelling. Even though Gerry Woodman was thoroughly despicable in every facet of his life, still no one deserves this kind of ending. As far as sons Stewart and Neil are concerned taught at their father's knee forecast a bad outcome. I have read a number of e-books and all (more than print) have many grammatical and spelling errors. I don't know if e-books are prepared differently, but there were many more than usual of errors in grammar, punctuation, and word use in this one.
June 23, 2015
Blood
Dysfunctional rich family at their worst. I see why they killed them. Gerry was nothing but a nasty bully. I may have killed him, myself. Vera seemed sweet enough but she had no backbone far as Gerry was concerned-killed for insurance money. A decent read but I don't really appreciate stories about over-privileged people treating us normal folks badly!
Dysfunctional rich family at their worst. I see why they killed them. Gerry was nothing but a nasty bully. I may have killed him, myself. Vera seemed sweet enough but she had no backbone far as Gerry was concerned-killed for insurance money. A decent read but I don't really appreciate stories about over-privileged people treating us normal folks badly!
September 26, 2013
I enjoy true crime stories, but this book could have been 100 (or more ) pages shorter. so much of the book was boring filler. I found myself skipping ahead trying to get to the important parts of the story.
October 11, 2013
Bookbub's "deal" induced me to put this book on my Kindle. Wolf is no Capote but it was never the less an interesting, often jaw-dropping read. It would have been better with some aggressive editing. There were many details included that did not advance the story, only prolonged it!
Read
November 13, 2015Pretty good research and told in a way that brings the reader in. Some problems with the kindle version, but I'm going with 4 stars anyway. I absolutely hated everyone in that horrible family, by the end I didn't really care what happened to any of them.
November 12, 2013
I too fell for the BookBub deal. It's an old crime but true crime never gets old. It's true this guy is no Ann Rule, but then who is?
May 21, 2014
There wasn't much about the actual murder. There is a lot of background story and describtion of characters. I think that distracts from the story a lot.
October 18, 2015
Kind of dull for a true crime story. Detailed, but not well written
May 12, 2016
This is a true-crime book that is fascinating for its portrait of a massively dysfunctional family. The father is a businessman who continually berates and belittles his sons for what he asserts are their boneheaded practices or just ways of being.
The sons loathe the father, Gerry Woodman, who is a primary cog in a corrupt plastics-extrusion business that harks back to his father: Both men skimmed hundreds of thousands of dollars yearly from their business and cooked the books to hugely reduce taxes on the company. The sons, who come into the business, are not much better than their father, living lavish lifestyles on undeclared income, gambling away huge sums of money, and womanizing.
Ultimately, the sons cannot contain their enmity for their father and order some thugs to make a hit on both parents during the evening of Yom Kippur, when they know they will be gathered with the entire extended family. This has an added irony of dispatching their mother, who is guileless, kind, loving, and overlooks her husband's many peccadilloes. She is insured for half a million dollars.
The development of the case is tortuous and complex, and includes portraits of the individual gunmen and psychological analyses of the two murderous brothers and their wives. Detectives have to investigate the case in many directions until they finally piece the entire plot together.
The book reads like high-quality fiction and is hard to put down. It's not bloody or gory, but an intriguing examination of excellent shoe-leather detective work. After the brothers are put in prison, members of this dysfunctional extended family harass the author at events where he is speaking about the case, shouting accusations at him for demonizing the two brothers, whose innocence they still stoutly assert, facts be damned.
It is a great and absorbing book, and atypical of the true-crime genre.
The sons loathe the father, Gerry Woodman, who is a primary cog in a corrupt plastics-extrusion business that harks back to his father: Both men skimmed hundreds of thousands of dollars yearly from their business and cooked the books to hugely reduce taxes on the company. The sons, who come into the business, are not much better than their father, living lavish lifestyles on undeclared income, gambling away huge sums of money, and womanizing.
Ultimately, the sons cannot contain their enmity for their father and order some thugs to make a hit on both parents during the evening of Yom Kippur, when they know they will be gathered with the entire extended family. This has an added irony of dispatching their mother, who is guileless, kind, loving, and overlooks her husband's many peccadilloes. She is insured for half a million dollars.
The development of the case is tortuous and complex, and includes portraits of the individual gunmen and psychological analyses of the two murderous brothers and their wives. Detectives have to investigate the case in many directions until they finally piece the entire plot together.
The book reads like high-quality fiction and is hard to put down. It's not bloody or gory, but an intriguing examination of excellent shoe-leather detective work. After the brothers are put in prison, members of this dysfunctional extended family harass the author at events where he is speaking about the case, shouting accusations at him for demonizing the two brothers, whose innocence they still stoutly assert, facts be damned.
It is a great and absorbing book, and atypical of the true-crime genre.
September 13, 2013
Although Wolf does not write with the polish or immediacy of Ann Rule (and he could have used a more assured editor), the story here is interesting. This family embodies the term "dysfunctional" in a hundred ways. I feel sorry for the succeeding generations if they don't get a handle on the myriad problems their family psyche contains.
September 19, 2015
This was a remarkable story of murder and greed. How can two sons kill their parents? The group of people in this family were wealthy and greedy at the same time--wanting even more. They made their money in plastics and spent it on gambling, clothes, you name it. It is amazing how they went after each other.
July 30, 2019
The murders take place in the first part of the book and while they were horrible they weren't gruesome. Then the author spends the rest of the book telling us how disfunctional the entire family was, almost to the point where you think mom & dad deserved to be eliminated.
It's a fairly good read but it probably could have been shorter.
It's a fairly good read but it probably could have been shorter.
Read
March 18, 2015What did I think, glad I am not rich and greedy. This was an interesting book did not seem to drag too much. A little less flashback on the two brothers and more on the investigation would have been nice.
April 17, 2016
An intriguing account of parricide. The book also chronicles a lot of business skulduggery. Descriptions of this activity (unscrupulous but non-lethal) might not appeal to the usual true crime fan, but I found these sometimes arcane details quite interesting.
October 20, 2017
Well written!
Such a sad commentary of a family that allowed evil to overwhelm their lives. This is quite a tribute to law enforcement as they came together to solve this and other crimes. I couldn't put it down!
Such a sad commentary of a family that allowed evil to overwhelm their lives. This is quite a tribute to law enforcement as they came together to solve this and other crimes. I couldn't put it down!
September 25, 2010
Very good book about 2 brothers who had their parents killed for money.
February 12, 2013
The story blew me away when I wrote it. To have it come back in print all these years later is an unexpected treat. To see it become popular is beyond description. Re-reading it was a joy.
February 23, 2013
Fascinating! Purely fascinating. Highly recommended for readers of True Crime.
February 24, 2013
Found this in hotel room and couldn't resist. There is nobody to like in the whole book.
March 23, 2013
Good book that shows what greed can do to a family.
September 19, 2013
This was a truly disturbing true story of a family that was so destructive it resulted in sons murdering their parents. This is not a book to leave the reader with any good feelings.
December 23, 2013
What a family! There was so much dysfunction it was difficult to keep scores.
August 16, 2014
Good
read and we'll written. It kept my attention. Would read others by this author, if he has others to read.
read and we'll written. It kept my attention. Would read others by this author, if he has others to read.
September 6, 2014
I've got this thing for true crime. The financial dealings in this story were a little hard to follow, but the family dynamics in this case were WILD! Interesting.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 35 reviews