In Her Own Backyard: A Perfect Husband, a Perfect Marriage, a Perfect Murder

This book tells of the events from the time a wife is found dead in her backyard, the husband carrying on as a greatly distressed widower. We follow the events as they unfolded in the eyes of the police and the ultimate prosecutor, the author of this fascinating book. One gets the reactions of the author at each stage of the investigation and at the legal procedures which follow, including a blow-by-blow account of the trial. Any lawyer or judge will be fascinated by the account, as will any lay person who wants to know what a trial is really like so far as the proxecutor is concerned. I found this a really good book, and as I usually do when I read a true crime book I read the opinion from the Supreme Court: State v. Mead, 27 P.3rd 1115 (Utah 2001); and it was like a condensation of the account of the trial we read about in great detail in the book. And one always finds of interest the differences and the samenesses in procedure between what we know in our own state and the way it is done in Utah, and considering which way is better. It balances out, even if one thinks the way it is done in the state with which we are familiar is sometimes preferable.

I have been waiting 11 years to hear what really happened the night og August 15, 1984. I have heard many rumors from co-workers but of course had my own thoughts. I knew Pam well and flew with her often. This book gives her life dignity and respect. I always had that gut feeling she was WAY too good for David. She was one of the kindest and sweetest people I ever was lucky enough to meet. She also told me how much her family from Colorado meant to her. I was unable to attend the funeral and have always felt like I needed to know more. Of course I had me own suspicions from DAY ONE!! I couldn't put the book down...I was very impressed with the writer/prosecutor. Thank you Mr. Lemcke for not only writing a great book but helping a dear friend rest in peace.

A vivid look into what it takes to build a case against the cold blooded but seemingly perfect husband. Loved the humanity when dealing with the other players in the drama. Great writing style and insight to how everything in the judicial process falls together.

DEATH IN A FISH POND begins late one night in a pleasant neighborhood in Salt Lake City, with a call to the emergency police line, neighbors calling when they heard David Mead screaming, incoherent, in his back yard, pointing to the drowned body of his wife, Pam, whom he had just pulled out of the newly installed fish pond, where, he claimed, their big dog had knocked her into the water and she was weak from a recent operation and she just drowned while he had a solid alibi. Police arrived at the scene. but found David Mead--a white man who made a living cleaning out airplanes between flights--too incoherent to talk to, so they let him go. A serious miscalculation but one which the author, Howard Lemcke, a Utah prosceuotr who presumably doesn't want to criticize the men and women of the police force too harshly, lets them off lightly for. But I think it was misguided indeed. No wonder it took the DA's office four years to bring Mead to trial for the murder of his beautiful, sensitive, intelligent wife Pam--a black woman in a largely white city and state. She came from a middle class family of upwardly mobile black Americans, but she fell for the lies of a sociopath. He, David Mead, had a thing for young black women, and behind Pam's back he was dating another young girl whose head he was filling with wild fantasies about how wonderful their life would be if only he could get rid of the former Pam Stokes. This young petite woman, Winnetka Walls, wasn't my favorite character of all time, and neither is another prominent and shady witness in the story, Jack, the "ex-con, cocaine addict, and multiply convicted felon" who went to the police telling him that David committed the murder and now wanted his suspicious in-laws "off my ass." It's a gritty story with a whole trial thrown in, told by the man on the inside, Utah's finest prosecutor Howard Lemcke. For those who couldn't tear themselves away from the Scott Peterson trial, this is like Scott and Laci, except with the "race card" added. An American tragedy.