"There's no way you can hurt her. This is a woman with nothing left to lose."
With these words from a distinguished North Carolina criminal lawyer, Joe McGinniss entered the bizarre and tangled life of Bonnie Von Stein-the former Bonnie Lou Bates of Welcome, NC-whose new wealthy husband was brutally murdered as he lay in bed beside her, during an attack in which she herself was stabbed, beaten, and apparently left for dead.
Cruel Doubt is a riveting account of small-town murder; a terrifying tale of a seemingly ordinary family whose lives and illusions about each other were shattered one hot summer night in 1988.
McGinnis was drawn personally into the center of this mysterious story. At Bonnie Von Stein's request, he set out on a search for the truth, only to discover a reality that threatened to eclipse even the worst of her fears.
With a mother's unquestioning love, Bonnie staunchly defended her 20 year old son as suspicion mounted that this North Carolina State college student had arranged the murder in order to inherit his stepfather's wealth. But both investigators and Bonnie herself soon found themselves plunged into an eerie netherworld as new and mystifying leads suggested that the crime could have been a real-life enactment of a strange and sinister Dungeons and Dragons adventure.
Cruel Doubt is the story of Bonnie: stoical victim of an earlier failed marriage, so stubbornly determined to make this one succeed that she may have been blinded to the growing gulf separating her husband from her children, and unable to explore or express her own feelings until it was too late.
Most tenaciously, she clung to her faith in her children: Chris, lost in a maze of drug use, academic and social failure, and an inability to distinguish reality from the bizarre rituals of the fantasy game, Dungeons and Dragons; and Angela, 19, detached and emotionless, whose account of sleeping undisturbed through the attack provoked skepticism from investigators even before they learned that the game's "Dungeon Master" may have coveted both her and the fortune she would inherit if her parents were dead.
With these words from a distinguished North Carolina criminal lawyer, Joe McGinniss entered the bizarre and tangled life of Bonnie Von Stein-the former Bonnie Lou Bates of Welcome, NC-whose new wealthy husband was brutally murdered as he lay in bed beside her, during an attack in which she herself was stabbed, beaten, and apparently left for dead.
Cruel Doubt is a riveting account of small-town murder; a terrifying tale of a seemingly ordinary family whose lives and illusions about each other were shattered one hot summer night in 1988.
McGinnis was drawn personally into the center of this mysterious story. At Bonnie Von Stein's request, he set out on a search for the truth, only to discover a reality that threatened to eclipse even the worst of her fears.
With a mother's unquestioning love, Bonnie staunchly defended her 20 year old son as suspicion mounted that this North Carolina State college student had arranged the murder in order to inherit his stepfather's wealth. But both investigators and Bonnie herself soon found themselves plunged into an eerie netherworld as new and mystifying leads suggested that the crime could have been a real-life enactment of a strange and sinister Dungeons and Dragons adventure.
Cruel Doubt is the story of Bonnie: stoical victim of an earlier failed marriage, so stubbornly determined to make this one succeed that she may have been blinded to the growing gulf separating her husband from her children, and unable to explore or express her own feelings until it was too late.
Most tenaciously, she clung to her faith in her children: Chris, lost in a maze of drug use, academic and social failure, and an inability to distinguish reality from the bizarre rituals of the fantasy game, Dungeons and Dragons; and Angela, 19, detached and emotionless, whose account of sleeping undisturbed through the attack provoked skepticism from investigators even before they learned that the game's "Dungeon Master" may have coveted both her and the fortune she would inherit if her parents were dead.
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