| Title | : | A Rip in Heaven |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | 0451210530 |
| ISBN-10 | : | 9780451210531 |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 302 |
| Publication | : | First published June 6, 2004 |
| Awards | : | Gateway Readers Award (2007) |
A RIP IN HEAVEN is Jeanine Cummins' story of a night in April, 1991, when her two cousins Julie and Robin Kerry, and her brother, Tom, were assaulted on the Old Chain of Rocks Bridge, which spans the Mississippi River just outside of St. Louis.
When, after a harrowing ordeal, Tom managed to escape the attackers and flag down help, he thought the nightmare would soon be over. He couldn't have been more wrong. Tom, his sister Jeanine, and their entire family were just at the beginning of a horrific odyssey through the aftermath of a violent crime, a world of shocking betrayal, endless heartbreak, and utter disillusionment. It was a trial by fire from which no family member would emerge unscathed.
A Rip in Heaven Reviews
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“They came into the clearing suddenly and the moon opened up above them, lighting the cracked and broken concrete that stretched like the decaying bones of giants between them and the abandoned Old Chain of Rocks Bridge. Tom [Cummins] stopped dead in his tracks, causing Robin [Kerry] to stumble into his back. He willed himself to move forward but he felt stuck, mesmerized by the menacing old bridge that loomed up before him. The massive steel structure was wild with leaves, and the undergrowth near the base was dense and uninviting. A few enormous hanging vines dangled from the top of the bridge’s skeleton, and they shifted and swayed eerily in the darkness…”
- Jeanine Cummins, A Rip in Heaven: A Memoir of Murder and Its Aftermath
True crime is a somewhat seedy literary genre. At the bookstore, it is usually tucked away in a far corner, in the same way an old video store hid the adult fare behind strings of beads. It is hard to explain away a fascination with true crime, because it’s typically a deep wallow in the worst kind of depravity trafficked in by humans. The titles tell the tale: A Need to Kill; Sleep My Darlings; The Gainesville Ripper.
Not exactly subtle. Not exactly Crime and Punishment.
At its best, true crime teaches us something about humanity, and not simply its capacity for evil. At its best, it is about the detective who won’t quit; the family of the victim who won’t forget; the innocent man who won’t stop trying to prove his innocence.
At its worst, however, it can be boiled down to this: If it slays, it pays.
I am a somewhat-abashed fan of true crime. I read it a lot – more than “a lot” if I’m being honest – but am forever questioning the allure. Part of it, I think, is that it allows people living a safe, stab-free existence to peek at the dark side of the soul. It’s the same compelling need that allows local newscasts to exist.
A Rip in Heaven is true crime, but it approaches the genre from a unique angle. Its focus is on a man named Tom Cummins, who was not only the victim of this particular crime, but also spent time as the chief suspect. The twist is that the author, Jeanine Cummins (who has recently found herself in the center of a different kind of storm), is Tom’s sister. Thus, the potentiality is there for a rare kind of intimacy in the narrative, with Cummins given the opportunity to both look in from without, and out from within.
The crime at the center of A Rip in Heaven is rather infamous.
On April 4, 1991, Tom and his cousins Julie and Robin Kerry went for a late-night walk on the Old Chain of Rocks Bridge outside St. Louis, Missouri. On that bridge they met Marlin Gray, Antonio Richardson, Reginald Clemons, and Daniel Winfrey. The two groups had a conversation and parted ways. A short time later, Gray’s party decided to rob Tom, Julie, and Robin.
The robbery escalated immediately to a gang rape and – finally – murder, as Tom, Julie, and Kerry were pushed from the bridge into the swirling river below. Somehow, Tom survived. He pulled himself out of the river, made it to the side of the road, and flagged down help.
The police arrived. They took Tom’s statement. They took him downtown for questioning. The questioning got tougher, and tougher, and tougher. Before the new day was through, Tom Cummins was in jail for murder. Accused of killing the two girls because of his incestuous, obsessive love for his cousin Julie. He failed a polygraph, which sometimes happens when you haven’t slept or ate for 30 plus hours and you spend the night fighting for your life in the black waters of the treacherous Mississippi. But when the police get their man, they get their man.
And boy, do the police hate admitting they got the wrong man.
(I will add, here, that I am friends with a guy whose father worked the Kerry-Cummins case as a detective. Being somewhat nosy, and a former defense attorney, and an imbiber of intoxicating beverages, I have talked to him about this particular incident, and this book. Without getting into details, I will say that there are some disputes from law enforcement over their general portrayal).
In this way, A Rip in Heaven is not simply a nightmare of rape and murder, it is the nightmare of the labyrinthine, stacked-deck system of American justice, where single-mindedness and myopia can crack open a case – or steamroll an innocent bystander.
These factors could have made an incredibly compelling book.
To be fair, A Rip in Heaven is not bad. However, one of its great strengths – the participation of its author – ultimately devolves into a nagging weakness that left me unsatisfied. There is an underlying confusion to the proceedings, with A Rip in Heaven being sold as a memoir but – for long stretches – presenting itself as straight-up reportage.
On the plus side, Cummins’s closeness to the story gives us access we otherwise wouldn’t have had. She can tell from firsthand experience how she and her family reacted to the deaths of the cousins and the arrest of her brother. She obviously had entrée to the most important witness in the case: Tom Cummins, the only surviving victim. It is also clear that she kept up with the case over the years, watching the trials, talking to the attorneys, and closely monitoring the toll a criminal case can take on a victim’s family.
Cummins is also a skilled writer, with the ability to draw you in and sweep you along. For example, in the immediate aftermath of the murders, and following Tom’s arrest, Cummins does a wonderful job in conveying the tenseness of an interrogation, with its subtle deceits and coercions.Tom’s rapport with [Detectives] Ghrist and Stittum remained friendly and professional throughout the interview. He continued to call them “sir.” An old-fashioned habit, no doubt, but one that had been successfully and irreversibly instilled in him by his father.
Criminal Interrogations and Confessions… is this country’s leading manual on conducting police interrogations. It was the textbook most often quoted in Chief Justice Warren’s famous Supreme Court opinion on the Miranda case. And according to that manual, detectives are warned that: “Any suspect who is overly polite, even to the point of repeatedly calling the interrogator ‘sir,’ may be attempting to flatter the interrogator to gain his confidence.”
But even if Tom was aware of this fact, it probably wouldn’t have done much to change his behavior because, as far as he was concerned, he was not a suspect…
This is gripping material, seamlessly capturing both the big picture (police interrogation tactics generally) and small picture (police interrogation tactics, as applied).
Ultimately, though, Cummins’s spandex-tight proximity – and the manner in which she narrates – works against her project’s virtues.
The problem begins with Cummins’s decision to tell a personal, partly-autobiographical tale in the third-person. That is, she lays out the story with a sheen of detached objectivity, which gives a certain level of authority to the information she provides. At no point – other than in the brief prologue and brief afterword – does she remind the reader that she is close to this story, indeed, that she is a part of it. Her conceit is taken so far that she refers to herself (rather obnoxiously, I thought) by her childhood nickname of Tink.
(I don’t know why this bugged me, but it did; there’s an inappropriately-whimsical whiff of Harper Lee-ish-ness to the name that stood out in these otherwise dour, true-life proceedings).
Cummins’s choice to disappear from her own story for long stretches becomes a liability as things progress. Specifically, this occurs around the time that Tom is cleared as a suspect. Following this turn, there are a series of pleas and trials that result in convictions of the four men on the bridge.
Compared with the story of Tom’s interrogation, these trials are dealt with relatively briefly. Certainly, there is no great attention to detail, no appreciation of the various nuances of the separate cases. This is rather surprising, since the resultant criminal trials are perhaps the most complex and interesting facet of the whole case.
Without getting into the details, of which there are many, it will suffice to say that the convictions of the four defendants are controversial. Nevertheless, Cummins has almost nothing to say about this aspect. Most glaringly, she almost entirely glosses over claims of police abuse made by two of the defendants. Despite the fact that these claims were central to later appeals, Cummins glibly passes over this subject by referring to a St. Louis Post Dispatch headline that read: “Attorney, Mother Say Suspects Were Beaten: Two Young Men Accused Police of Brutality.”
The way this bombshell is presented, the reader has no choice but to accept that this headline was a fabrication – or at best an exaggeration – a pitiful attempt at smoke-and-mirrors cooked up by two murderers, the murderers’ families, and their gutless, morally bankrupt attorneys.
Perhaps, if Cummins hadn’t been so close to the story, she would’ve realized these claims were likely true.
Why? Oh, I don’t know. Maybe because it happened to her brother!
Tom Cummins was a young white firefighter from a stable middle class family. He accused the cops of physical and mental abuse. Now, if the cops treated Tom like that, how the hell do you think they treated two black men from the wrong side of the tracks, accused of raping two girls and pushing them off a bridge? This isn’t a political statement, or an anti-law enforcement statement; it is a statement of common sense, as well as a logical deduction drawn from the known facts.
This elision is sloppy at best, disingenuous at worst. The mistake is compounded by Cummins’s resolute, superficially neutral presentation. At other points in the book, she withholds evidence of the crime itself, and neglects to inform the reader why the police actually suspected Tom in the first place. However, since she’s adopted this approach, the reader does not suspect a thing.
(Aside, for those obsessed: Tom made a statement to the police about his female cousin that, while not inculpatory, was close to maxing out on the creepy scale. This missing fact, as well as others, can be found in an epic legal opinion written by a special master to the Missouri Supreme Court.
https://s3.amazonaws.com/s3.documentc...).
One of the best parts of A Rip in Heaven is Cummins’s concluding chapter. Here, she discards the reportorial ruse and addresses us as a person whose brother lived through a horrible event, and whose cousins died in it. Her insights in this short section are worth far more than the affected indifference and glaring incompleteness that dominates the rest of her book.
Cummins’s advantage in writing this book is that she lived the subject matter. For whatever reason, she decided to suppress that. Consequently, Cummins got caught halfway between subjective participant and objective reporter. A Rip in Heaven suffers from the resulting confusing, lacking both journalistic honesty on the one hand, and empathetic feeling on the other. -
Update: I just learned that this book is written by the SAME AUTHOR who wrote “American Dirt”. ( and some of you remember all the fallout drama from THAT book)
Geeee —- my heart breaks even more for Jeanine Cummins.
What is she going to write next??
Maybe a FLUFF BOOK? Ha!
Audiobook….read by the author: Jeanine Cummins
….10 hours and 18 minutes
I had never heard of this story….until I started listening to the audiobook.
A friend (thank you Fran), recommended it to me. All she said was that it was sad.
A few basic facts:
….from Wikipedia:
The rapes and murder of Julie and Robin Kerry occurred on April 5, 1991, on the Chain of Rocks Bridge over the Mississippi river in St. Louis, Missouri.
The two sisters were raped and then murdered by a group of four males, who also attempted to murder the sisters’ cousin, Thomas Cummins.
The author, Jeanine Cummins is Thomas Cummins younger sister. She wrote this book in true-crime-biographical-documentary styling.
It’s a brutal horrifying gut-wrenching ‘all-around’ heartbreaking tragic story.
After Julie and Robin Cummins were attacked raped, and Thomas robbed, they were all tossed over the bridge to die.
The nightmare graphics in the water with Robin, Julie, and Tom trying to survive from drowning was unbearable read. The details of fear, and hopelessness —fighting for life—was as painful as anything I’ve ever read.
Tom was the only one who survived-and not easily.
Kerry and Julie both died in the water. Kerry’s body was never found.
Then…..
….the ongoing investigation nightmare where Thomas endured awful -just awful - false accusations that ‘he’ murdered his cousins was another ongoing nightmare- It was maddening learning about the ways the St. Louis police department handled this case—the abusive police coercion was sickening…yucky, annoying, and disgusting.
To be completely innocent and accused guilty has got to be one of the worse experiences in the world.
Everything about this story is heartbreaking—
very very sad!
I’m giving this book 5 stars for the pure heart wrenching horrors this family has lived through. And learning all I did.
However….
It didn’t quite make sense to me that Jeanne Cummings chose to write this story in third person giving herself a character nickname *Tink*.
Apparently, in Jeanine’s real life, her close friends call her Tink.
But I found the writing a little odd. It would’ve made more sense to me if Jeannie included herself as ‘herself’ where it fit rather than write about herself in third person with a nickname, Tink.
By distancing herself from the story… (and readers too)…it felt awkward.
However…
….the heart of this story - the facts - and heartbreaks —stands out above and beyond the writing tactics anyway. -
OMG. Harrowing, terrifying, gut wrenching memoir about violence and death in Cummins' family. I read it in one day.
You never think violence is going to happen to your loved ones until it does. The aftermath on what occurred after a life-altering tragic night continues to horrify throughout the story.
Kudos to Jeanine Cummins for straight forward writing that is well researched with a pace that moves faster than a locomotive.
Strongly recommend! -
It's tough to give a 5 star review to a true crime book and by that I mean that it seems somehow "indecent" since the book is about a terrible murder. What makes this book different from a lot of true crime accounts is that it's also a memoir. What occurs in the book happened within the author's family and the author was actually there when the murders occurred. So it's a story of a terrible crime and its aftermath, but it's also a tale of what happens when people trust the police too much and, in their desire to help, end up being trapped by detectives' preconceived notions. As that, it's a cautionary tale. And it serves to prove an important about one's dealings with the police. Even if you want to help, lawyer up. Remember that in the US, it is not a crime for the police to lie to you about what they know and what "evidence" they have. They want to solve the crime, not improve your life. That's one of the crucial messages of this book. Jeanine Cummins is a fine writer indeed.
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Considering that this book is about the brutal gang rape and murder of the author's two cousins, it is an extremely balanced and thoughtful account, much like Ann Rule's work. Julie and Robin Kerry were thrown off a bridge in Missouri in 1991; Robin's body was never found. Their cousin, Jeanine Cummins's brother Tom, was with them and was also shoved off the bridge, but survived and later testified against the killers. There are detailed word portraits of each of the main characters in the story—the book was much more about Robin, Kerry and Tom than it was about the killers, and pictures of the killers were not even included in the photo centerfold. Tom was initially suspected of killing his cousins and was actually charged with their murders, but was quickly released. Cummins is able to convincingly explain how a combination of trauma, sleep deprivation and inappropriate police interrogation tactics caused Tom to fail a lie detector test and make an incriminating statement (I would hardly call it a confession). It is unfortunate that to this day, some people believe he was responsible for the girls' deaths.
I really have to give Cummins credit for not trying to demonize the murderers. They are/were violent and dangerous men; the sheer brutality of their crimes showed this and needed no further embellishment. The only complaint I have about this book is that it sort of ended in the thick of things, with one of the killers being granted yet another stay of execution, without any explanation as to what eventually happened. This is a very good memoir, well-written and researched and as objective as we have any right to expect it to be.
I have
Robin Kerry listed on my missing persons website, the
Charley Project. She is known to be dead, of course, but my site has quite a few "murder-without-a-body" cases. -
I did not realize when reading this (the edition I read had a different cover) that the author (who is a family member of the victims) wrote the popular American Dirt until I read other people’s reviews. Jeanine tells the story of what happened to her family in the aftermath of a horrific crime. I cannot imagine being innocent and having the police accuse you of murder. Jeanine’s brother is a strong man.
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I'm not sure how to explain my dislike for this book. I didn't think the writing was very good, the presentation/flow wasn't great, and there was just something that irritated me about it. I apologize to the author; I understand this was a very traumatic event in her and her family's life and I can't begin to understand what they went through and the feelings they all must have. I think it just came across to me wrong - as a string of defensive victimizations. I didn't feel like I learned about Robin and Julie (as the afterword said was a large part of the book's purpose). I also didn't leave with much insight into the case and the police work that was actually done to pursue and find the perpetrators. It may have been as simple as the author writing about her self in the third person that gave me the negative feelings, I'm not sure.
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One hesitates to say that one ‘likes’ a book such as this, and yet I do feel called to give it a rating. It is well-written especially for a first book and considering the emotions the author must have had to keep in check throughout. Rip in Heaven is a very compelling story which I read in two days.
However, it is also a very tragic story and not just in the sense of the original crime but in the subsequent prosecution of ‘justice’, or should I say travesty of it? As it says on the
author's website, ‘the intimate memoir of a shocking crime and its aftermath ... one family's immediate and unforgettable story of what victims can suffer long after they should be safe.’
I am from St. Louis. I remember driving over the old
Chain of Rocks Bridge as a young girl, a very narrow bridge with a distinctive bend in the middle. Later I studied Administration of Justice at the University of Missouri, St. Louis. Many just read crime novels as a cheap thrill; I don't and didn't. I read it from a personal standpoint, because it was an unthinkable tragedy which happened to a very ordinary family—much like mine—from my home town and it is so affectingly told by the sister of the young man involved and cousin of the two female victims. Also my own sister recommended the book. The story haunts me still as do the victims of the crime—the two who died (Julie and Robin) and all those who didn't, especially Tom and his family, who live with this event still.
The author, Jeanine Cummins is a Goodreads author who has recently written another book, although I've not yet read it. -
I had a really hard time putting this book down. This is the story of Jeanine's brother and two female cousins - - all in their late teens/early twenties who have a horrible crime perpetrated against them. Unfortunately, one of the three is subsequently blamed for the crime, and this book relates the story of this injustice and the family's reaction to it.
It really is a gripping, if horrific, story on so many levels - - the crime, the senselessness and viscousness of the attack, the completely unfair accusations against one of the victims, and finally the resolution of the case. I had a very hard time putting the book down. -
"A Rip in Heaven" was a heartfelt memoir that brought tears to my eyes. I read it so quickly because it was hard to put down. I cried at the horrific acts that the authors cousin and brother were subjected to. I was also horrified at the way both the police and the media handled the whole horrible situation. The author's brother was treated as a suspect instead of the victim that he was and then the media constantly reported inaccurate or downright false information. Plus, as the years passed by the deaths of the two beautiful girls were forgotten and instead the horrible murderers were brought into the spotlight and sometimes even pitied. It really scares me to read how quickly the media forgot the deaths and focused instead on the killers and what was happening to them. This was a very disturbing read that moved me and startled me.
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An interesting and very sad true story, written by acclaimed author Jeanine Cummins, about the tragic chain of events which rocked her family when she was a young girl.
Shocking and at times infuriating, this is the well articulated telling of a story that is both harrowing and frightening.
A must-read for lovers of true crime.
3.5 stars ⭐️ -
A Rip In Heaven seems to be Cummins attempt at finding closure following a tragic incident involving her brother and two of their cousins. The story line prompts heart-pounding and fury over the brutality and injustice. However, the author seems to write herself into the plot when her role has no support on the incident recounted. Things move quickly until she finds it necessary to pull back and share her own irrelevant experience in a third-person narrative.
Perhaps my opinion is blunt considering the non-fictional premise of this book but, from a literary standpoint, the inclusion of her own self-proclaimed importance is unnecessary and annoying. -
This book is about a family that suffers a terrible lost. Tom Cummins was a normal rebelious teen. When he and his cousins sneak out of the house to look at Julies (cousin) poem, out at the Old Chain of Rock Bridge. when approched by four guys things get tough for Tom, Julie, and Robin (other cousin). Terrible things happen to Tom's cousins, and after all of the bad things that have happend to them thus fare, Robin and Julie are pushed of the bridge, Tom jumps in to save them. It only gets worse when the police suspect Tom of doing the terrible things that happend to his cousins.
Audiience: 15 on up, both girls and boys
Purpose: exsposidory
Manner of Expression:
Genre of Medium: novel
Genre of Setting: non-fiction
Genre of Plot: tragedy,with a justfyed ending (bad guys get caught)
Genre of Style: history
There is nothing i can change about this book because all of it happened. You can not change the past. If I could change the past I would have wanted Robin and Julie to live, so there legacy could live on. Sadly I can not do that and we are faced with a sad story about two women who were harmed and murdered, an a sad family tryin to cope with the loss of there loved ones. All in all it was a great book, I like how the author switched from one persons point of view to the next. It really helped me to understand what was going on, because of the collective thoughts from everyone, you got to look at all angles of what was happening and what was going on.
Journal Entries
A Rip in Heaven: A Memoir of Murder and its Aftermath.
By: Jeanine Cummins
Entry 1:
The terrible death of Julie and Robin Kerry happened in St. Louis, Missouri, in 1991. Julie and Robin Kerry grew up with the freedom to express themselves. Both girls were into poetry, and changing the world. Both girls were active in the organization Amnesty International, along with other organizations to help people and the earth. The Kerry sisters spent countless hours raising money to help there family, or for other causes. There childhood was like mine in many ways. Both families grew up in encouraging environments, allowed to express themselves through what they do, like drawing or writing poetry. The childhood differs because, while they grew up trying to make ends meat. I was blessed with a family that had to work hard, to make money, but not as hard, not wondering if I would be able to have a warm dinner the next night or not. While our lives were similar in many ways, it is the differences that stand out the most.
Entry 2:
April 4, 1991
I can not believe what just happened. Julie and Robin were just thrown off the Old Chain of Rock Bridge. I did not know what to do. I jumped in after them; it was that or get shot by one of the guys who just rapped my cousins. At least this way I might have a chance at saving Julie or Robin. What is wrong with those guys? They seemed so nice. Who would do that? My cousins are probably at the bottom of the river now. The image of what just happened keeps running through my mind.
The guys took turns watching over me, while they went on the underside of the bridge, and did who knows what to Julie and Robin. Now forced to go lay next to Julie and Robin under the bridge were they were dragged. I can here them debating weather to kill us or let us g; sounds like the killing option is winning. Were going to die, I can feel it. Then one of the guys comes back down and tells us to stand near the center of the bridge. Julie gets up, while Robin just lays there, like the life was sucked right out of her. The guy yells again for Robin to get up. This time she does.
We stand apart from each other. One of the men drags Robin up next to the edge and be for I know it he pushes her off. When the sound of a splash comes up, the guy pushes Julie over. My turn. “You can stay here and get shot. Or you can jump.” The one who pushed my cousins said. Without thinking I jumped off the bridge. It was farter down than I thought. As I hit the water I begin to swim. My shoes are filling with water and are pulling me under. Somehow I make it back up to the top. I cant see Julie or Robin. What am I going to do……………?
Tom Cummins
Entry 3:
“I know Julie and Robins death is a great loss. What made the story so unique was the fact that detectives blamed the cousin Tom for rapping and murdering his cousins for so long that the bad guys almost got away. No one disserves to die the painful death that Julie and Robin did. These girls were going to change the world, but now what? Even through there death Julie and Robin still make a difference. With their death people really started to see how the Kerry sisters were trying to make the world a better place. The death of Julie and Robin helped start so many organizations on helping out families who have gone through tragic events like rape and murder of Julie and Robin. People are beginning to open their eyes to how what we can do can change the world. Even though Julie and Robin Kerry are no longer with us does not mean their message should die. The Kerry sisters believed in making a change and that’s what we should do.”
Entry 4:
Why is Tom Cummins A Hero?
Tom is not your average hero. Tom saw his cousins pushed to there death, and even though fully aware he might lose his life Tom Cummins still jumped over 80 feet to try and save his cousins. Even though Tom was unable to save the lives of his cousins Tom is still a hero. Faced with being accused of raping, and killing his cousins; Tom stuck to the truth that he did not harm them in any way. Tom is a victim but yet people treat him like he was the one who did the crime. You should look up to Tom because he tried so hard to save his cousins, and he worked so hard to find the real men responsible for killing his cousins. Even when it seemed no one was on his side. When detectives were calling him a ‘sick bastard’ Tom continued to help them whenever they ask him for a few questions. Tom never gave up, while finding the real guys who did the crime. Tom was treated like a dog; a cop literally whistled for Tom to come over and patted his knee saying “come here boy”, Tom just ignored them and stuck with what he had been saying all along, that he was innocent. We should idolize Tom because he worked so hard to find the men responsible for killing his cousins, even when he was being treated like garbage. -
This Summary/Review was copied from other sources and is used only as a reminder of what the book was about for my personal interest. Any Personal Notations are for my recollection only.
**
A Rip in Heaven is true crime, but it approaches the genre from a unique angle. Its focus is on a man named Tom Cummins, who was not only the victim of this particular crime, but also spent time as the chief suspect. The twist is that the author, Jeanine Cummins (who has recently found herself in the center of a different kind of storm), is Tom’s sister. Thus, the potentiality is there for a rare kind of intimacy in the narrative, with Cummins given the opportunity to both look in from without, and out from within.
The crime at the center of A Rip in Heaven is rather infamous.
On April 4, 1991, Tom and his cousins Julie and Robin Kerry went for a late-night walk on the Old Chain of Rocks Bridge outside St. Louis, Missouri. On that bridge they met Marlin Gray, Antonio Richardson, Reginald Clemons, and Daniel Winfrey. The two groups had a conversation and parted ways. A short time later, Gray’s party decided to rob Tom, Julie, and Robin.
The robbery escalated immediately to a gang rape and – finally – murder, as Tom, Julie, and Kerry were pushed from the bridge into the swirling river below. Somehow, Tom survived. He pulled himself out of the river, made it to the side of the road, and flagged down help.
The police arrived. They took Tom’s statement. They took him downtown for questioning. The questioning got tougher, and tougher, and tougher. Before the new day was through, Tom Cummins was in jail for murder. Accused of killing the two girls because of his incestuous, obsessive love for his cousin Julie. He failed a polygraph, which sometimes happens when you haven’t slept or ate for 30 plus hours and you spend the night fighting for your life in the black waters of the treacherous Mississippi. But when the police get their man, they get their man.
And boy, do the police hate admitting they got the wrong man.
In this way, A Rip in Heaven is not simply a nightmare of rape and murder, it is the nightmare of the labyrinthine, stacked-deck system of American justice, where single-mindedness and myopia can crack open a case – or steamroll an innocent bystander.
**
Considering that this book is about the brutal gang rape and murder of the author's two cousins, it is an extremely balanced and thoughtful account, much like Ann Rule's work. Julie and Robin Kerry were thrown off a bridge in Missouri in 1991; Robin's body was never found. Their cousin, Jeanine Cummins's brother Tom, was with them and was also shoved off the bridge, but survived and later testified against the killers. There are detailed word portraits of each of the main characters in the story—the book was much more about Robin, Kerry and Tom than it was about the killers, and pictures of the killers were not even included in the photo centerfold. Tom was initially suspected of killing his cousins and was actually charged with their murders, but was quickly released. Cummins is able to convincingly explain how a combination of trauma, sleep deprivation and inappropriate police interrogation tactics caused Tom to fail a lie detector test and make an incriminating statement (I would hardly call it a confession). It is unfortunate that to this day, some people believe he was responsible for the girls' deaths.
**
** -
I added this book to my reading list because Jeanine Cummins’ book “American Dirt” was one of the best books I read in 2020. This book is a non-fiction account of a crime that struck her family in 1991. It made me feel so many different emotions, and is so well written. I was gripped by it and couldn’t put it down. She is an amazing storyteller!
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This is a non-fiction account of a terrible crime that the author lived through via her family. It's a riveting story, albeit heartbreaking. I hope writing it exorcised much of the pain she was enduring.
I listened to the audio book, read by the author. -
Jeanine Cummins tells of the tragic true story that took place in my hometown about her brother and her two female cousins who were victims of crime and murder. One of the family members survives the tragedy, but continued to go through attacks by the local authorities and the media by making false accusations. When the real perpetrators were found, convicted of the crimes they committed, and then given the death penalty, the media made the perpetrators out to be the victims.
My heart ached for ALL those involved in the healing process of this crime.
One of those murdered was an accomplished writer and had painted her poem on the same bridge in which her life was taken:
DO THE RIGHT THING
United We Stand
Divided We Fall
It's not a Black-White Thing
We as a New Generation
Have got To Take a Stand
Unite as One
We've got II
STOP
Killing One Another
You don't have to be Black or White
To Feel Prejudice
To Fall in Love
Experience Pain
Create Life
To Kill
To Die
You just have to be Human
Do The Right Thing -
I sort of liked this book while I was reading it, but like other readers, was annoyed by the author's choice to use the third person. I empathize with the author but after I read the book, I researched the case a little and found some holes in the story and facts that she omitted. I know she is a family member but I expected a little more objectivity. I found her canonization of the victims to be a little annoying too. there are websites out there devoted to this case that I found interesting and made me wonder about the crime itself. I work in conjunction with law enforcement so that may have colored my experience in reading the book.
I am NOT a conspiracy theorist at all but I do think that there is another explanation for the crime. -
Jeanine Cummins and her brother and sister had always believed themselves to be invincible; tough street-wise teenagers who were entirely capable of taking care of themselves. The truth was that these supposedly 'street-smart' city kids could not have been living a more sheltered childhood. Truly, life in the big city could never have prepared Tom, Jeanine, and Kathy Cummins for anything. Indeed, nothing could have ever prepared the Cummins family for the type of brutality that they were about to encounter; or for the tragedy that would ultimately destroy life as they knew it.
When their parents packed nineteen-year-old Tom, sixteen-year-old Jeanine and fifteen-year-old Kathy into the family van for the trip to Missouri, the teenagers were absolutely delighted. They would be spending spring break with their cousins, and they couldn't possibly have been more excited at the prospect of seeing their family again - most especially the Kerry sisters; Julie and Robin. As a matter of fact, the Cummins siblings were extremely close to twenty-year-old Julie and nineteen-year-old Robin, and thoroughly enjoyed spending time with them. Although nobody could possibly have anticipated the horror that they would experience on the night of April 4th, 1991.
A Rip in Heaven is Jeanine Cummins' story of that night, the horrifying night when her cousins Julie and Robin Kerry and her brother Tom were brutally assaulted. What started out as a simple walk to the Chain of Rocks Bridge - which spans the Mississippi River just outside of St. Louis - to read a poem written by Julie, turned into a harrowing ordeal for the three innocent young people. When Tom finally managed to escape their attackers and flag down help, he believed that the nightmare would soon be over.
However, he could not have been more wrong in his assumption. Tom, his sister Jeanine, and their entire family were only at the beginning of a horrifying odyssey through the aftermath of a violent crime; about to enter a world of shocking betrayal, endless heartbreak, and utter disillusionment. Ultimately, this was a trial by fire from which no family member would emerge unscathed.
I must say that I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book. It was a heartbreakingly sad and shattering account of a brutal crime, but I was utterly shocked by the treatment of the victims by the very people who were charged with their protection. I found that the perseverance of the Cummins family was truly admirable and I applaud their dedication to Julie's and Robin's memories. I would certainly give this book an A+! -
En la portada se ve un puente. Allí lo llaman Old Chain of Rocks Bridge. Cruza el río Mississippi desde Missouri a Illinois. La noche del 5 de Abril de 1991, Julie y Kerry Robin quisieron enseñarle a su primo Tom el poema que Julie había pintado en el viejo puente. Una vez allí, se cruzaron con cuatro casi adultos que venían del otro lado. La primera vez que se cruzaron charlaron amistosamente. La segunda vez, no. Horas después, Julie y Kerry habían desaparecido en las aguas del río y Tom se enfrentaba a un interrogatorio de la policía por sospechoso de asesinato.
La autora, Jeanine Cummins, es hermana de Tom y prima de Julie y Kerry. Su historia, pese a ser objetiva, está narrada desde el punto de vista de la víctima, su familia. Cuando leo historias reales casi siempre busco en Google para poner caras. Los culpables de esta historia aparecen como víctimas en el buscador porque fueron condenados a pena de muerte y éste es el argumento principal de Cummins contra la condena máxima: las víctimas son sus primas y su hermano, no los asesinos. Al final, en el epílogo, Jeanine asegura que escribió su historia para recordar a las chicas y para defender a su hermano. Lo consigue.
Ha sido el libro de mis vacaciones. Estaba inquieta, y por las noches, pendiente de la luz azul del teléfono, las chicas me centraron. Mis libros son lo único... -
This was Jeanine Cummins’ first book written about an event that affected her and her family profoundly.
In 1991, 16-year old Jeanine and her family were visiting their grandparents in St Louis. Her older brother Tom and their cousins Robin and Julie snuck out to go for walk one evening on the Chain of Rocks Bridge. There, they were brutally assaulted before all 3 of them were forced off the bridge into the swirling waters of the Mississippi below. Only Tom survived and Robin’s body was never recovered.
The book describes subsequent events which do not reflect well on the police or the media and clearly traumatised everyone affected. It is a shocking read yet Jeanine Cummins manages to write with clarity and balance despite the anger that she must feel about all aspects of the crime.
What is particularly clear is that over the years, Robin and Julie’s suffering and death seem to have been almost forgotten by the media, as has the fact the Tom was also a victim. Instead, the focus and sympathy has centred on the four young men who committed the assault.
Jeanine Cummins is such a good writer. This is the second book of hers that I have read, and it won’t be the last. I’m looking forward to reading American Dirt next. -
This was tough going just because it was so incredibly sad, even for a true-crime story. Impeccably written. Unlike so many such stories written by people close to the disaster, it covered a great deal of territory (even Ricki Lake's two cents) and did so in a satisfying, enlightening way. I got this used and the book had already been read to tatters by the time it came into my hands. I can see why. Highly recommended.
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I got this book without reading the synopsis, I just really enjoyed another book by her, was stunned to find out it was a true crime account. I do not like true crime, avoid books like this, but this happened to her family and I was instantly drawn in. Heartsick, anxious, enraged, infuriated, I felt it all, a very personal account of cold blooded murders and the horror it put her family in.
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I don't think True Crime is a genre for me.
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I elected to read this book because I'd recently finished American Dirt and really liked that one.
So, I'm glad I read American Dirt first or I probably wouldn't have given it a glance. I found A Rip in Heaven to be preachy. Clearly, given the author's relationship to the story and the fact that it is written about a tragedy that befell her family, I expected the one-sidedness of the opinions. What annoyed me most was the third person perspective. Add to that the fact that Jeanine Cummins wasn't on the bridge that night. Why is her account supposed to be gospel truth? Her cousins, Julie and Robin, are portrayed as saints. Did no one ever think that graffiti written on bridges was a problem?
I did find the alleged mistreatment of Tom by police to be disturbing and found myself wanting to know how that was ever addressed (other than a side comment about "an undisclosed settlement" that Tom received). If there is an issue to be researched, it should be on the proper way to run an inquiry of a crime.
An additional point that bugged me was the mention of Tom's fractured hip. Why did he never receive medical attention upon his rescue? An his mother is a registered nurse??? Did she not think it important for him to receive medical attention? No, let's just all drive back to Gaithersburg from St. Louis....
While the end of the book flirts with the death penalty, some consideration should be given to how much having life sentence criminals remain on Death Row year after year costs state budgets. -
Going into this, as a person who often reads and listens to books and true crime podcasts, I didn’t know what to expect. The first few chapters I found myself wondering and speculating as to what the horrible tragedy would be, and I was not prepared for the well written journey the author presented. She seamlessly inserts the reader into the roller coaster of the mundane every day activities any one of us experience with our own families to the unbelievable and surreal acts of violence, injustice, and roller coaster ride in the aftermath. Ultimately, there’s no possibility of a “happy ending” for all the victims and families, yet there’s some sense of life moving on as it should and with hope.
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This book is a true crime memoir written by the author of “American Dirt”. It’s heartbreaking and frustrating and it drew me in. I couldn’t stop listening. Very well written and thought provoking at times. Might be in my top ten for the year.
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For true crime lovers, this is a must read! Very well done. Jeanine Cummins is so readable, and she kept the story riveting. Most true crime books get a little dull during the courtroom scenes, and these were kept to a minimum. It's a tough read though because it is so incredibly sad.
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The author best describes this one herself as “voice for my brother and love letter to my cousins.” An earlier book from the author of this year’s controversial “American Dirt,” Jeanine Cummins tells the story of a horrendous crime which took the lives of her two favorite cousins, and caused deep psychological trauma for her brother due to malignant policing methods. As a family member, she has a unique insider’s perspective from the victims’ point of view of this crime which made headlines nationwide at the time (1991), due to three of four of its perpetrators receiving the death penalty.
Side note: it’s interesting that she has been so criticized for being too much of an outsider for writing “Dirt”, a story of Chicano family’s’ desperate border crossing, while here in “Rip”, she is the ultimate insider as a close member of the victims’ family, yet chose to tell the story in the third person; even referring to herself with a different nickname.
That’s my only qualm, though. This was a completely engrossing and tragic tale that many people may be unfamiliar with, because it has broken the family’s heart to have public’s sympathies lie more with the criminals than the victims. Because of this, they have never consented to a television or movie project. -
gonna be honest here - this was a "memoir" where the writing was outshown, by far, by the incredibly tragic story it conveys. the writing felt very forced, not so natural and easy, as so many of the other memoirs i've read lately.
also, i don't think this should even be considered a memoir. it is told from a third person omniscient perspective, and i don't think cummins had any right to assume what was going on in the minds of anyone but herself. i'm sure she has checked with her family members to be sure their parts in the book were accurately portrayed, but otherwise, i would have rather seen it from a first person perspective.
not the best writer, but a sensational story that kept me turning the pages. i can't believe this happened in my own city, and i truly cannot believe the police's treatment of some of the suspects after the crime. wow.
