Alligator Candy by David Kushner

 

October 28, 1973 was the last time David Kushner saw his brother Jonathan.  Jonathan was eleven and David was four.  Jonathan was going to ride his bike to the nearby 7-11 and David asked him to bring back his favorite candy, a Pez like device shaped like an alligator.  Jonathan made it to the store and made his purchases but he never made it home.  Two men who decided to hunt for a child and torture whoever they found to death captured Jonathan as he headed back home.  They hit him on the head and knocked him out, choked and gagged him and threw him in the trunk of their car.  To their dismay, they discovered that he was already dead when they stopped to torture him.  They mutilated his body and buried him in a shallow grave.

One week later, Jonathan's body was discovered.  David and his oldest brother Andy would never have the joy of Jonathan's company again.  His parents, a professor and a Lamaze instructor, would know the worst pain a parent can, that of losing a child.  The men were caught fairly quickly as one confessed to his wife and she turned him in to the police.  Johnny Paul Witt was seen as the ringleader and was sentenced to death, a sentence that was carried out fairly quickly.  Gary Tillman was sentenced to life in prison as he had a history of schizophrenia and it was felt if not offered a deal he could end up in a mental hospital and released later.  

Kushner writes about how his brother's death changed his family forever and the city of Tampa as well.  This was the time when the disappearance and death of children was being highlighted.  Etan Patz was snatched from the streets of New York the first time his parents allowed him to walk to school.  Adam Walsh was taken from a Sears store while his mother browsed a few aisles away.  The Atlanta Child Murders happened soon after.  Suddenly the national consciousness changed from letting children range freely to more oversight and in some cases helicopter parents.

David didn't know the details of his brother's death until he was grown.  A loophole in the law allowed Tillman to be considered for parole and he and Andy learned everything about the case to go speak against letting Tillman out.  He talks about how his family was changed forever that day, how those affected learn to get past the raw grief as time goes on and how hard it is now as a parent himself to walk the line between letting his children grow up with joy and wanting to protect them from everything.

David Kushner is a journalist and author.  He has written several well received nonfiction books and his articles have been featured in many magazines.  He is a writing professor at Princeton University.  His writing ability allows him to articulate the horror and pain that this event brought to his family and how life changed forever that day in 1973.  This book is recommended for nonfiction and true crime readers.