J. Reuben Appelman (author of The Kill Jar) spent months researching and writing a book about the murders of four University of Idaho students and the hunt for their killer.
— Read on www.newsweek.com/idaho-murder-victims-lives-detailed-new-book-1830320
Thank you.
Appleman’s not credible. His claim to fame in the kill jar is about him almost being abducted by the OCCK. He even duped Cineflix Producers into believing his fairytale.
Apple bomb, please tell the world how you know the pedophile that may or may not have tried to abduct you is in fact the OCCK and not one of thousands of pedophiles..
I wasn’t going to touch this comment because I am so sick of people like you. The premise of your comment, Anonymous (of course you are anonymous) is incorrect. Jason Appelman (that’s how you spell his name) never claimed his near abduction attempt was made by THE OCCK, but that it could well have been. Since I allowed your comment to post, let me walk my serious readers through my participation in this journey because I experienced it first hand, as it was happening.
As I explained in Children of the Snow, I contacted Jason, not the other way around. I was listening to NPR while waiting to pick up my youngest child from junior high so it was a long, long time ago. I was listening to a show with a Canadian host who discussed all things literary. My ears perked up because I heard the words “child killer” and Boise, Idaho, where I had previously lived for 21 years.
The host was interviewing Jason about grant money he had been awarded to work on a memoir triggered by the memory of this near abduction. I remember this like it was yesterday–the BACKDROP of the book was going to be the child killer case from Oakland County because this attempt took place during the same era and same county.
Later that evening I researched the grant award online and found an article in The Boise Weekly. I contacted the person who wrote the article and asked her if she could pass on my name and number to Appelman. He contacted me soon after. I contacted him first and when he called me he told me the genesis of his proposed book.
He had worked on a project about child trafficking which profoundly affected him because he had two young kids. Part of this triggered the recollection about the near-miss abduction. He did some research online and was further triggered by the fact that the OCCK crimes were happening at the same time. I remember he told me he was 9 years old, but that he looked older.
Just as the 50 or so people who have contacted me and members of my family over the last 15 years to describe near abduction attempts or sexual assaults when they were kids during that time period, cannot know for sure that THE child killer is the person they had contact with, Jason never claimed that his 9-year-old self registered this was or could have been THE child killer, or that his adult self could prove this “fact.”
He was willing to write about his recollections and this clusterfuck of a case and investigation at a point where it was not without risk. On the eve of publication, a person I believe was or had been an AUSA, advised him to “get a gun and learn how to use it.” He passed the suggestion on to me.
This sounds pretty personal, especially since you add that Cineflix “bought” his “fairytale.” You sound upset and perhaps bitter.
People have complained to me about errors in Portraits in the Snow, The Kill Jar, Children of the Snow, and The Snow Killings. Portraits in the Snow: The author clearly states conclusions are solely that of the author, who had connections to the Cass Corridor in Detroit during the OCCK era. The Kill Jar; Part memoir, based on what information was then available and presented through the author’s lens. Children of the Snow: Comprehensive documentary, influenced of course by studio high-ups who want to bring in N. Fox Island and pedophile rings around the country (wider audience that way). The Snow Killings: Comprehensively addresses the investigation conducted by Cory Williams and reporting by the author.
These works blew the case open in the only way it could be because Oakland County and the MSP had muzzled discussion of it. They are each valuable in their own way. And god knows we’ve learned the dark contours of this investigation are far worse than detailed or alluded to in these works.
Someone complained to me that how come I never give Appelman a hard time? Why would I? He never lied to me, kept me posted on the book, never held anything back, wasn’t simultaneously working on the case on behalf of law enforcement. And, how do you know I never gave him a hard time?
Another person I once considered a friend asked me “Did he hit on you?” No. No, he didn’t, not once, not ever. This said more about the person asking the question and it was well-past her third strike with me.
If you want to get in my face, email me at OCCKtruth@protonmail.com. If you don’t like a book or an author, don’t read the work. I respect all of the work done by the authors referred to above. As I said, your premise is off-base and the more I thought about this comment, the angrier I got. Like I said, I’m sick of people like you. Start your own blog.