Content Warning: This section contains references to violence, sexual assault, drug abuse, racism, and suicide. Additionally, the source material features three instances of an offensive racial slur, quoted by two of its subjects as having been used against them in verbal assaults.

Kuklin begins with the dateline, “Decatur, Alabama, August 12, 1993” (1)—the time and place of the slaying of 16-year-old Kevin Gardner. Gardner’s friend and classmate, another 16-year-old named Roy Burgess Jr., soon emerged as the prime suspect. Kuklin quotes Roy, whom she interviewed extensively for the book, on his sentencing for Gardner’s murder. When the judge read him the death sentence, Roy and his family screamed in shock; the jury had voted 10-2 for the relatively lenient sentence of life without parole, but the judge overruled their decision. Immediately, two “redneck” policemen seized Roy, who was sobbing uncontrollably, and dragged him to a waiting squad car.

Roy comments on the reductive injustice of the courts and public seeing him as a “monster,” noting that in the years prior to his arrest, he had shown an impressive work ethic and potential. He began working at 15 as a cook at a Popeye’s restaurant, and he quickly improved his skills until he was cooking at a steakhouse.