Innocence Lost | Carlton Stowers | It shocks when it's someone you once knew.

Innocence Lost | Carlton Stowers | One of the best

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Innocence Lost

	Innocence Lost Carlton Stowers St. Martin's Paperbacks, 2004 - 336 pages average customer review:based on 11 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Undercover officer George Raffield's job was to pose as a student in the small town of Midlothian, Texas and infiltrate the high school drug ring. When Raffield's cover became suspect, word spread through a small circle of friends that the young officer would pay with his life. No one stopped it. On a rainy fall evening in 1987, Raffield was lured to an isolated field. Three bullets were fired-one unloaded into his skull. The baby-faced killer, Greg Knighten, stole eighteen dollars from Raffield's wallet, divided it among his two young accomplices, and calmly said, "it's done."

With chilling detail, Carlton Stowers illuminates a dark corner of America's heartland and the children who hide there. What he found was an alienated subculture of drug abuse, the occult, and an unfathomable teenage rage that exploded at point blank range on a shocking night of lost innocence...

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It shocks when it's someone you once knew.

Carlton Stowers is surely the finest true crime writer from Texas, and this book in particular was shocking to me because I went to high school with Thomas Knighten, the father of the boy who murdered the young undercover officer. I was hoping for answers--why did this happen? From what I understand, young Greg did not grow up in a dysfunctional home at all, and received only loving care and a stable home life from his devoted parents. He was an adopted child, and it's possible that the sociopathic personality is biogenetic. We'll never know. A high school friend who keeps in touch with the family tells us that Mr. and Mrs. Knighten have gone on with their lives and have a powerful faith in God that has sustained them. Mr. Stowers' book underlines the fact that there are no guarantees in life in his sensitive account of a senseless tragedy and the chronicle of young Greg's wasted life.

By Reese Ella Howard, Wharton County, Texas

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One of the best

This is a story about a very young police officer recruited to work undercover in a high school where the drug problem was growing. He befriended some druggies and began making his cases. After only a few short months, a 20-something suspected he was a cop and yelled at the high schooler who had been bringing him around. The high schooler was the adopted son of a police officer. He made a plan, lured the undercover cop to a remote area, and shot him in the head with his father's police gun. The story is from the perspective of the kids, the police officers, and the attorneys, and provides an outstanding look at ALL aspects of this case and how one group caused problems for another as the case was investigated and prosecuted. I could not put this book down. It was very well written, and Carlton Stowers has become one of my favorite authors. I cannot get enough of his work. If you like true crime, Stowers's work ranks right up there with Jerry Bledsoe, who I only wish would put out another true crime book. There is no Stowers book that will disappoint you. He is one of the best.

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chilling, but i'm closer than i want to be.

this was the most chilling story i've ever read, but that's probobly because i have grown up in midlothian. i wasn't born yet, but it hit me just as hard because i'm not used to murder happening in this small town that i live in. you wouldn't know it by the surface, but midlothian is the drug capital of ellis county. it just scares me that there is so much i know, but that is just a small fraction of what i don't know. unlike some people may believe, midlothian has more drug problems than just pot, underaged drinking, and middle schoolers smoking cigaretes. midlothian is not just a hick town anymore, we are growing in our size and will soon be very large and more well known. you had to be either stupid or mentaly blind to think that the police were out of line in picking a drug dealer to befriend and betray to help stop the drug traficing at midlothian highschool. it was the only way to do it.

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Hits close to Home for this author!

I bought this book because I am an avid true crime reader and Carlton Stowers is one of the best true crime writers out there. I didn't know how close he was geographically to the crime. He lives in a neighboring town where the crime occurred. A young undercover detective, George "Tiger" Raffield, goes undercover to infiltrate a drug bust but ends up shot dead in the rural neighborhood near the author's hometown. George was 21 years old, ambitious, attractive, with everything going for him, and engaged to his high school sweetheart. Unfortunately, their engagement ended with his murder. The boys behind the crimes were just high schoolers but one of them had a deadly past that nearly ended with a terrible beating of a boy in Williams, Arizona. The family did not get their son the help he needed not only in school but with his psychological problems. He began playing around with Satanism, killing stray cats, performing satanic rituals, etc. The family was in complete denial even though one teacher was smart enough to do some digging. The family refused their son to get help because of pride or whatever reasons. Maybe they didn't want to think themselves as failures as parents or that their son was different from other children. I have to say that this book is one of the author's better books because he can relate to it since it hits so close to home. There is a lot more going on than just a shooting of an undercover officer. There are the three young men whose lives were ruined by such a deadly mistake and their innocence was indeed lost as the title suggests.

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Desperation of a Small Town's Youth Leads to a Cops Murder

Carlton Stowers powerfully delivers the story of three small town Texas boys who murdered an uncover police officer in an effort to avoid drug charges that were bound to see the arrest of them and several of their friends.

Most interestingly about this book is the background provided on the boys involved. While one was raised in an apparent "do as you wish" household where he practiced Satanism, the other boy, Greg Knighten, (the actual shooter) was raised in a devout Christian household; but, being that Greg was adopted shortly after birth, this is a story that lends argument to heredity vs. enviroment.

A second aspect of this book that was very interesting was the fact that all thsoe involved had been acquantances for some time, as is such in a small town. Unlike many of the true crime books read, where the cops don't personally know the victims or their families, and seldom the perpetrator, such was not the case in Innocence Lost. It is mentioned a couple of times how this crime had created a "reunion-type atmosphere.

This is an excellent read. Competely indepth in background and events of the present. Highly recommended!

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reviews: page 1, 2, 3

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