MOSAIC PIECES

In this nonfiction work, Skillings investigates the case of a man who was convicted of murdering a child but has always maintained his innocence.

In October of 1973, in South Williamsport, Pennsylvania, 12-year-old Jennifer Hill’s corpse was found in a cornfield. On the day of her death, Jennifer left the house of her best friend, Ruthie Hubbard, but never made it home. Ruthie’s older brother, Kim Hubbard, then 20 years old, and his father, Joe, were both accused of the murder, though Kim quickly became the prime suspect. The murder case and the trial that followed seemed, according to the author, to be a farce. The rapidly shaped prosecutorial narrative pushed by the county District Attorney held that Jennifer was the victim of a perverted ne’er-do-well; while this is far from an atypical motive, Skillings asserts that the evidence simply does not point to Kim Hubbard being the perpetrator. The author discusses the many oddities regarding the handling of the case, including the augmentation of the prosecution’s key witness’s testimony via hypnotism, the fact that the crime scene photo of Jennifer strangely contained an embalming instrument, and discrepancies in the expected rate of decomposition. Skillings takes great pains to explore the ways in which the case emotionally impacted Kim and his entire immediate family: “All of this buried his whole family like an avalanche, squeezing the life out of them under its unyielding weight.” The author, a journalist for a local publication in the years following Jennifer Hill’s murder, looked into the case back in the 1970s. His journalistic prowess is evident—Skillings sticks to the facts and adds some revealing cultural context (particularly noteworthy is his observation that there was an “absence of skepticism toward law enforcement and our courts of law” at the time); as a result, his account doesn’t feel exploitative, unlike many true-crime properties. One note: The case could have been presented in a clearer chronology to aid reader comprehension.

An engaging and thoroughly detailed true-crime narrative.