Murder in the Bayou by Ethan Brown

Series: Standalone
Trade Paperback | 272 pages
Nonfiction / True Crime

[Scribner] A New York Times Bestseller & the Basis for the Hit Showtime Docuseries A Southern Living Book of the Year “Part murder case, part corruption exposé, and part Louisiana noir” (New York magazine), Murder in the Bayou chronicles the twists and turns of a high-stakes investigation into the murders of eight women in a troubled Louisiana parish. Between 2005 and 2009, the bodies of eight women were discovered around the murky canals and crawfish ponds of Jennings, Louisiana, a bayou town of 10,000 in the heart of the Jefferson Davis parish. The women came to be known as the Jeff Davis 8, and local law enforcement officials were quick to pursue a serial killer theory, opening a floodgate of media coverage and stirring a wave of panic across Jennings’ class-divided neighborhoods. The Jeff Davis 8 had been among society’s most vulnerable—impoverished, abused, and mired with mental illness. They engaged in sex work as a means of survival. And their underworld activity frightened people who had their own reasons for keeping the truth buried.