Murder
In the early 1980s, Dennis' birth mother, Jerry Sherwood, looked for Dennis, only to find out he died in 1965. After seeing newspaper reports about the death, she was convinced that he had been beaten to death and demanded the case be re-opened. In 1987, Jurgens was convicted of third degree murder of Dennis. She was sentenced to a maximum of 25 years in prison and was paroled in 1995. The case is described in detail in Barry Siegel's true-crime novel, A Death in White Bear Lake. There was a television movie broadcast in 1992 on NBC entitled A Child Lost Forever that told the story from the perspective of Jerry Sherwood (played by Beverly D'Angelo). In 2005, playwright Brian Vinero wrote a theatre piece, The Jurgens File, which was developed at New York City's 78th Street Theatre Lab; it told the story from the perspective of the community.
In 2000, she was initially suspected of poisoning her husband, Harold. However, he was in failing health and his autopsy results did not indicate poisoning. There was also talk years earlier of her having started the fire at her in-laws' home which killed her mother-in-law, with whom she never got along.
Read more about this topic: Lois Jurgens
Famous quotes containing the word murder:
“One murder makes a villain, millions a hero. Numbers sanctify, my good fellow.”
—Charlie Chaplin (1889–1977)
““If Steam has done nothing else, it has at least added a whole new Species to English Literature ... the booklets—the little thrilling romances, where the Murder comes at page fifteen, and the Wedding at page forty—surely they are due to Steam?”
“And when we travel by electricity—if I may venture to develop your theory—we shall have leaflets instead of booklets, and the Murder and the Wedding will come on the same page.””
—Lewis Carroll [Charles Lutwidge Dodgson] (1832–1898)
“Arrive in the afternoon, the late light slanting
In diluted gold bars across the boulevard brag
Of proud, seamed faces with mercy and murder hinting
here, there, interrupting, all deep and debonair,
The pink paint on the innocence of fear;
Walk in a gingerly manner up the hall.”
—Gwendolyn Brooks (b. 1917)