The listing, Family Affairs by Andy Hoffman (True Crime) has ended.
Paperback, smoke-free home. Book isn't in greatest condition, but all pages are intact. Cover is rough. Interesting story!
In Overland Park, Kansas on April 17, 1980, seventeen-year-old James Crumm and his sixteen-year-old friend Paul Sorentino picked up Jimmy's thirteen-year-old stepbrother, Christian Hobson and drove him out to the creek. The older teenagers, smoking dope and drinking, forced Chris to dig a shallow grave on the creek bank, told him to climb in and lie down, then proceeded to shoot the boy three times. Christian's body was found a month later by two boys digging for worms.
When Jimmy and Paul were arrested, they finally confessed to the crime, but also implicated the one person that police never suspected would want Chris dead - Jimmy's mother and Chris' stepmother - Sueanne Hobson. Promising her son and his friend a new car, as well as motorcycle repairs, Sueanne contracted the hit on Chris because she just plain disliked her stepson, seeing him as a rival for his father's - her new husband's - affections. Chris Hobson was also a special education student who had adjustment problems at school, and acted out at home.
It was one of the most notorious murders in Kansas history, as well as one of the most closely followed murder trials - when it was tried two years later.