The Co-ed Call Girl Murder

I saw this on Court TV then bought the book - I do that a lot- it's a good book and I like to read deeper into the stories I see on TV. It's a shame - unfortunately, my husband is a cop, and says this is just one of a thousand of stories like this - wrong place, wrong time.

THE CO-ED CALL GIRL MURDER is a true crime retelling of the life and death of Tina Biggar, college student by day and call girl by night, who was murdered by a delusional john. The authors, Fannie Weinstein and Melinda Wilson, try mightily to cast Tina as the prototypical midwestern All-American Girl, and a previous reviewer and friend of Tina's laments her death in moving tones. Still, it becomes clear that Tina Biggar was in part a very troubled young woman with serious issues relating to her self-esteem, self-worth, and body image (at 5' 7'' she weighed 150 lbs.). Offsetting this, she was personable, pretty, intelligent and diligent. Had she mastered her demons she would have excelled at life. She certainly had the potential. Weinstein and Wilson all but gloss over her unexpected teenage pregnancy and early relationship with an abusive boyfriend, but it is easy to imagine that Tina suffered a great deal of emotional travail from these experiences, especially coming as she did from a staunchly Catholic "military brat" family. All of this is said in respect to Tina, who certainly did not deserve to be murdered. It is easy to see that some of Weinstein's and Wilson's insights ring all too true. At the time of her death, Tina was living a sordid double life, keeping her identity as a call girl from her family and her live-in boyfriend. Weinstein and Wilson cast the boyfriend as somewhat of a goodhearted boob, repeatedly making silly comments, being arrested (and rearrested) for alcohol offenses, occasionally straying during the several emotionally stressful periods in their relationship, and being generally clueless when it came to Tina's wants and needs. It's clear that Tina could be immature, vindictive and unforgiving when provoked. She repaid her boyfriend's infidelities with her own (ultimately becoming a call girl), and was emotionally distant and neglectful---even psychologically abusive. Perhaps she was, in truth, punishing herself for some self-perceived flaw. All-American Girls do not generally choose prostitution as a job; nor do they cling to men who are clearly losers at life's game. Yet, Tina remained overlong with her first abusive boyfriend, maintained a personal friendship with her killer outside of her call girl role, and kept up a relationship with her long-suffering boyfriend even as she berated and belittled him. She carried on as an escort for far longer than she should have. She innocently gave the benefit of every doubt to a man with a mysterious past who eventually killed her. Tina Biggar did not make "a terrible mistake"---she made a lengthy series of them, which in the aggregate led to her death. Tina deserves our compassion, never our scorn. THE CO-ED CALL GIRL MURDER is a sad story of a promising life cut short under horrible circumstances.

This book was written with an easy to follow timeline. The characters come to life and seem real; the reader can feel sympathy for each of them, even those one doesn't expect to. Little is said about the actual murder itself because, of the only two people that were there, the victim is dead and the killer keeps changing his story. So the reader is left not knowing how Tina really died, but it doesn't seem so important by the end of the book. What matters is that she is gone from this world; I feel it would've taken away from the story to sensationalize on the gory aspects. All in all, this book is definitely worth reading.

Tina Biggar was a fighter. Right up until the moment she died. This book gave me sympathy for her, even though escorts are often condemned. But she didn't deserve to die. This account is compassionate, well-written, riveting, and I highly recommend it.

The writer effectively used foreshadowing to keep me in suspense chapter after chapter. Hard to feel much sympathy for the victim who led a dangerous secret life, and continued to use people. Word of advice: don't look at the pictures until you reach them reading.