I Never Saw It Coming — Book 4
A Note to the Reader
This is the fourth book in the I Never Saw It Coming series. It stands alone — you do not need to have read the first three.
Book One examined the neighbor and the community figure. Book Two examined the credentialed professional. Book Three examined the woman who used the assumption of female innocence as cover. This book examines the family.
The home is the setting. The people who lived there are the subject. The argument is the same in all four books: the harm was hidden by the trust that was extended to the person who committed it, and the trust was extended because the person seemed to be exactly what they presented themselves as.
Introduction: The Safest Place
There is a statistic that does not appear in crime prevention campaigns.
The statistic is this: the person most likely to kill you is not a stranger. It is someone who knows your name.
According to the FBI's Uniform Crime Reports, more than half of all homicide victims in the United States are killed by someone they know. The home — the place we are taught from childhood is the safe place, the refuge — is, statistically, the most dangerous place most people will ever be.
Chapter One: The Codes That Never Came
Josh Powell and the Door That Didn't Open
Graham, Washington. February 5, 2012.
Elizabeth Griffin-Hall arrived at Josh Powell's house at approximately 1 p.m. She had driven Charlie and Braden to the visit herself. The boys ran ahead of her, as small children run ahead, with the specific eagerness of children going to see a parent they have been separated from.
Josh Powell opened the door. He let the boys in.
He closed the door in Elizabeth Griffin-Hall's face.
The fourth and final book in the I Never Saw It Coming series turns to the most intimate setting of all: the family. Twenty-two cases of family annihilation, parricide, and filicide spanning more than a century and five countries — including several that remain unsolved.
J. D. Roberts examines what happens when the person who caused harm wasn't a stranger, a professional, or a woman using assumptions as cover — but a husband, son, daughter, father, or mother, sitting at the same dinner table every night.
Who this book is for
Readers who've followed the series through Books 1–3, and true crime readers interested in family annihilation cases and the specific trust exploited within a household.
