The Fairbanks Four Murder, injustice, and the birth of a movement

In the early morning hours of October 11, 1997, on a deserted street in Fairbanks, Alaska (population 30,000), 15-year-old John Gilbert Hartman was found, beaten into a coma and sexually assaulted. The boy subsequently died from his injuries. Police soon rounded up and arrested four suspects, also teenagers, three of whom belonged to a local Native Alaskan tribe. The four were charged and tried, but the incident and its aftermath embroiled the small community in controversy and political and social conflict reaching far beyond the crime itself. O'Donoghue, who was working as a journalist in Fairbanks at the time, has written an evocative, novelistic recounting of the crime, its aftermath, and its impact on this small Alaskan community. With a seasoned journalist's expertise, he not only recounts the facts of the case, but also paints portraits of the lives and personalities of the people impacted. He guides the reader unerringly through a complex tale where, like the best true-crime stories, the crime itself is only the beginning.