Fourteen: The Murder of David Stukel

A small Midwestern town, a quiet farming area, made up of multi-cultural, working middle class families in the late 60's. When one weekday afternoon as people headed to the comfort and protection of their own homes, an unspeakable horror occurred, at the back steps of what was considered then, a safe place. Bill has done an excellent job bringing all the facts and players into clear view. I could not put it down once I started reading it. These events changed not only the lives of those closest to it, but everyone in that community. Thanks Bill for attentively putting together all the facts, faces, places, and stories and doing it with grace and thoughtfulness. Even for someone opposed to violence, this book is a must read. The tale that it tells puts a light on evils that might lurk in your own backyard.

Perhaps it's because I began my teaching career at Joliet East High School. Then again, perhaps it's because I taught mostly freshmen. For whatever reason, I can hardly bare to look at the face of David Stukel on this book's cover. Freshman boys were an interesting lot. Some were men-in-the-making with peach fuzz above their lip, and heads that turned at any girl that might pass by. Others were still little boys, small in stature and a bit uncomfortable with the transition from eighth grade. After school, theirs was still a life of bicycles and play. The descriptive narrative used to describe David Stukel painted a picture of one such "little boy." Further details brought to life this freckle-faced young boy whose ears had yet to grow into his face. The telling of the murder brought 1968 into my living room. Without missing a detail, Bill O'Connell breathed life into the murder and its aftermath. I could see and feel David's fear. I could feel his confusion when asked to comply with demands foreign to him. I could feel his insides cringe as foul, "bad" curse words met his ears. He was a fighter without training or gloves in an arena without bounds.I could feel his defenselessness in the foreign world of bullies, vile language and the desire to harm. I could feel his horror. Through the expertise of a gifted writer, Bill O'Connell brought David into my home. His expert writing forced me to look into David's eyes. His writing enabled me to hear David silently mouth, "Help." For anyone who has children, this book is an eye-opener to the world of bullies. For anyone who values justice, this book portrays the disappointment of a broken legal system. For anyone who wonders about the impact of family life on the future of a child, this book reveals the ugly truth. Fourteen by Bill O'Connell is a page-turner, a heart breaker and a must-read.

Anyone who is even remotely disturbed by the increasing violence among America's children and young adults must read Chicago Tribune editor Bill O'Connell's "14: The Murder of David Stukel." Haunted for almost 40 years by the unresolved questions surrounding the incomprehensible, brutal murder and sexual assault of O'Connell's Little League teammate David Stukel, this first-time author meticulously and thoughtfully explores the minds and hearts of everyone involved in the case - from the friends and families of both the victim and his assailants to the criminal justice players to the convicted murderers themselves. Meticulously researched from legal records, newspaper articles and personal interviews, this book is a heart-breaking account of one of the most chilling but least publicized crimes in Illinois history: the 1968 abduction, sexual assault and murder of 14-year-old David Stukel by 14-year-old Billy Rose Sprinkle and James Perruquet. Though written in the precise, detailed style of an insightful and thorough investigative reporter, the book is clearly a journey travelled through the author's heart as he struggles to make sense of a senseless act of brutality that changed the lives of all who came to know these three youngsters. Through his skillful storytelling, O'Connell captivates the reader with his eye and ear for re-creating the sounds, sights and smells of a time of innocence - when all young men had visions of athletic trophies dancing in their heads. O'Connell recounts how on his fifth and final day as a freshman at the relatively new Joliet East High School, happy-go-lucky David "speeds across shiny floors past the young school's room-to-spare trophy cases" on his way to cross county practice. One senses O'Connell's sad awareness that those mostly empty trophy cases would forever be devoid of any tribute to the young Stukel's budding athletic prowess. Telling his story in the present tense, O'Connell brings the past alive, painstakingly painting the vivid contrast between the lives and upbringing of the always affable, well-behaved, good-natured, freckle-faced Stukel who was so cherished by friends and family and the contrasting lives of repeated abuse and neglect experienced by Billy Rose Sprinkle and James Perruquet. Though originally driven to pursue the answers to "the haunting questions surrounding the incomprehensible slaying of a five-foot, 95-pound boy," O'Connell's passionate and personal search for meaning evolves into unexpected feelings of compassion and empathy for the murders, who are eventually revealed as victims of their own unchosen circumstances. The reader is compelled to re-examine the forces behind the vicious circle and consequence of intergenerational childhood abuse, neglect, lack of affection and the tendency to write off "delinquents" and "troublemakers." Without providing any evangelistic manifesto for public reform, O'Connell's mesmerizing story succeeds in awakening our instinctive understan

Covering a span of forty years, Bill O'Connell's :Fourteen: the Murder of David Stukel" delivers true crime reporting that is both incisive and unflinching. David is "the good son," the "all-American boy," a kid you'd want as a brother or best friend - the last person you would expect to fall victim to a grizzly killing by two bullies his own age, toughs who didn't even know him, who had been raised within biking distance of David, but also a world apart. O'Connell reveals both worlds, the solid middle-American, nurturing, life-affirming home of the Stukels and its converse, the criminally crass, clannish, pernicious environment of the killers and their families. From a chilling re-creation of the murder itself, O'Connell plays the story forward to the present day, contrasting the Stukel family's journey from despair to acceptance through strength and unity with the killers' steady degradation and their virtual contamination of those people who have the misfortune to be drawn to them, as by some kind of "nostalgie de la boue." The setting of "Fourteen" is Illinois, mainly Joliet, particularly the more working class, sometimes shabby, even squalid East Side, but it is an American story that could have taken place in any American town with a "wrong side of the tracks." O'Connell was a Little League teammate of David and had a slight familiarity with the family in his youth. He must have lived with the idea of the book as well as worked on it for several years. He traveled to prisons, attended parole board hearings, and interviewed everyone even remotely associated with the victim and the killers. Although it's clear that O'Connell cares a great deal for the Stukel family, he has done an admirable job of keeping his own emotions from taking over the book. What we read is clear, concise but thorough reporting. O'Connell leaves it up to us readers to form our own conclusions. I found the book stimulating. It raises a variety of questions about human nature and needs, the legal and penal system, educational institutions, and class in our society. One is tempted to judge the killers and then to judge one's own responses to them. The book makes one think about the role of accident in our lives - (what if . . .? what if . . .?), age-old speculations that can be made about any incident that often arise in times of tragedy. Where is the fault? Is society to blame? Nature or nurture? Failure to nurture? O'Connell does not pound us over the head with these questions - it is we who surface them in response to his uncompromising descriptions. I found myself recalling that last, understated line of Bruce Springsteen's "Nebraska": "Well sir I guess there's just a meanness in this world." I finished "Fourteen" a few weeks ago, but I'm still living with it. The story and characters insist on breaking into my thoughts, unbidden and at times unwelcome. I often judge a movie as a good one if I find myself thinking about it or refere

Bill O'Connell has lived with this story for nearly forty years. He knew David back then and he never forgot him. What happened to David was mind numbing to say the least. This is a riviting account of a heinous crime, it describes the senseless loss of a precious life and the collateral damage left from forty years ago when two totally diverse universes collided in randomness with horrific results. O'Connell delivers as thorough a summary of his investigative research into what happened in 1968, as one might need to know. You will be given the who, what, when and where but one may never come to understand the "WHY"! The reader will also be taken inside the life of David and his family (then and now), with glimpses of the legal system, Prison Parole board and the world of the perpetrators. I think the author did more than a commendable job in trying to keep the memory of David Stukel alive. Given the subject matter, he did so fairly and without sensationalism. Young David Stukel will "NEVER" be forgotten by his family and friends, the author or this reader.