Grab the Lapels

Submerged by Hillel Levin

When I read the synopsis of Submerged and learned the author was coming to my favorite bookstore, I knew I had to buy a copy (even though it is hard cover, ugh) and go to the event. Unfortunately, I was scheduled to work that Saturday after needing a weekday off for a medical appointment, so I missed the event. But what was so intriguing about Submerged, you ask?

Well, you possibly recall my review of In the Garden of Spite by Camilla Bruce, which was a fictional account of one of the most notorious female serial killers in the United States. Though she started in Europe and travelled to Chicago, the killer ended in La Porte, Indiana. Submerged is a true crime novel about the death of Rayna Rison, a teen from La Porte, Indiana, who was denied justice, based on author Hillel Levin’s research. While everything about Rayna’s brother-in-law, from his motive to the lies he and his wife twisted up for police, to eye witness testimony that puts his car where the body was found, points towards him as the murderer, the justice process does not follow through. Instead, Rayna’s middle school boyfriend, Jason, is arrested twenty years later, which we learn in chapter one.

Levin includes his theories, not stating them as such, but pointing out what maybe have been likely, such as why was there wet newspaper on the floor of Rayna’s abandoned car? Answer: her body was submerged in a pond, so someone with either wet pants or waders was in her car. In general, Levin minds his own business, instead using evidence from the court case, police reports, and the La Porte historical society. Levin also interviewed Jason, the middle school boyfriend, extensively via phone calls to the Westville Correctional Facility (which is where I used to be a professor).

Not only do readers get witness testimonies as written down in 1993 and court statements as recorded twenty years later, but Levin walks readers through the way the court system works in the U.S., such as how prosecuting attorney is a elected position. If the current prosecuting attorney wants to look good before an election, he/she may make choices to boost their ratings, choices that can see unjust in retrospect. For example, when Cynthia Hedge tried to push through a case against Rayna’s brother-in-law, she knew that if he were found guilty at trial, it would be a gold star moment for her career. At that point, Rayna’s murder had been a cold case for a few years. But when Hedge lost her race to Bill Herrbach, he dismissed the entire case, effectively quashing the positive association between the case and his rival.

Reading about the politics involved in the court system will make your blood boil, especially since Levin’s research is so convincing. By the time we get to the conclusion of the trial against Rayna’s middle school boyfriend — a trial that happens twenty-one years after Rayna’s murder — I was basically anger-reading. What happens to the brother-in-law, the one who likely killed Rayna, who was eleven years younger than he, surprised me. I couldn’t put down Submerged, and I learned about police procedures, court politics, trials and submissible evidence, and the effect of two decades going by on witnesses.

Books of Fall 🍂🎃🍵

  • Feeding Ghosts by Tessa Hulls
  • Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier
  • Just Desserts by G.A. McKevett
  • Slewfoot by Brom
  • She Throws Herself Forward to Stop the Fall by Dave Newman
  • Submerged by Hillel Levin
  • The Unmothers by Leslie J. Anderson
  • The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories by Angela Carter
  • Notes on an Execution by Danya Kukafka
  • The West Passage by Jared Pechaček
  • Quest for the Unknown: Bizarre Phenomena by Reader’s Digest
  • Icebreaker by Hannah Grace
  • A Life in Letters by Zora Neale Hurston
  • Ask Elizabeth: Real Answers to Everything You Secretly Wanted to Ask about Love, Friends, Your Body — and Life in General by Elizabeth Berkley
  • Homing by Sherrie Flick
  • No Good Deed by Allison Brennan (#10)
  • Bitter Thirst by S.M. Reine (Preternatural Affairs #8)
  • Deaf Eyes on Interpreting, edited by Thomas H. Holcomb and David H. Smith
  • Compassion, Michigan by Raymond Luczak
  • Fat! So? by Marilyn Wann
  • Syd Arthur by Ellen Frankel

19 comments

  1. The US system of elected judges, elected sherrifs, elected prosecutors just seems weird to the rest of the world (and a reminder that a lot of US democracy was pretty experimental at a time nearly all the rest of the was more or less absolute monarchies).

    I wonder what the chances are that your current ‘problems’ will lead to a new constitution.

    Anyway, I agree with you, injustice makes my blood boil.

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    • I knew that the county government and judicial system could be wonky because my mom used to work for both, AND a prison, but really looking at an author who put all the facts in order emphasized the issues in due process.

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  2. The US system of elected judges, elected sherrifs, elected prosecutors just seems weird to the rest of the world (and a reminder that a lot of US democracy was pretty experimental at a time nearly all the rest of the was more or less absolute monarchies).

    I wonder what the chances are that your current ‘problems’ will lead to a new constitution.

    Anyway, I agree with you, injustice makes my blood boil.

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  3. I was going to say I agree with anonymous – and wondered if anonymous were Bill because it sounded like him! To us, electing positions like this is just asking for bias and corruption. Justice can never be perfect – humans are involved – but some things do feel like no-brainers.

    I loved this post … I think good true crime makes great reading or watching.

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      • No, I don’t … it’s usually only if it’s by authors I know. The first I read was Truman Capote’s In cold blood. I mostly like it when it has a broader sociological analysis. I like works here by Helen Garner and Chloe Hooper for example. Your book sounds great, for example, for its analysis of your Justice system.

        I guess because it is true crime I accept in advance that it may not end with order restored the way genre crime fiction usually does. But it’s really sad if that’s how it ends up!!

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  4. Much about the legal system makes many people’s blood boil, it so often seems unfair for so many reasons, but I like to hope that it’s a work in progress. It does seem quite bizarre though that this trial happened so long after her murder, I couldn’t imagine having to answer any questions about something that happened 20 years ago!

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    • Right? I mean, I graduated from high school 23 years ago, and I can’t imagine trying to remember something that I did on a Friday night. Granted, it should be a memorable Friday night because someone in the community was murdered, but still, those are 23-year-old dusty memories.

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  5. Wow, this does seem like one ripe for “anger-reading.” I don’t read true crime generally because I feel like it will potentially make my blood pressure spike. But I did listen to one that was interesting that you might like – The Carpool Detectives, about a group of moms who dig into a cold case in California.

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  7. I was also going to comment on the weirdness of elected positions in the legal system but I see your comments are full of that already! I agree with Anne that it seems hard to imagine examining a case like this 20+ years later.

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      • I’m pretty sure that was me. They’re washing up on shore here in BC so it’s probably more on the news here than where Anne is. This might sound weird but I think it’s not “glamorous” enough to warrant a whole book. There isn’t a maniac going around severing people’s feet, it’s just something that happens when bodies decay.

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