Update: Ice Cube Press true life murder mystery book Brother’s Blood: A Heartland Cain and Abel has been optioned by USA network’s Sirens star Michael Mosley.
The book that is featured on Discovery Investigation’s television channel watch on YouTube
Book available direct or through amazon.com, kindle, or nook
A real-life crime drama recounted by Scott Cawelti with cover art by well-known artist Gary Kelley. Commentary included from Jack Hovelson, retired Des Moines Register reporter; Tom Ruxlow, former Director of the Division of Criminal Investigation; David Dutton, former prosecuting attorney for Black Hawk County, Iowa, and a victim statement from George and Margaret Colthurst. This book has now been featured on several national radio shows with Burl Barer, Howard Lapiedes, Dan Zupansky and will be getting more attention soon.
Read the pre-publication praises for the book here.
Hear Scott talk on True Murder radio with Dan Zupansky
Scott interviewed on Outlaw Radio with Burl Barer and Howard Lapiedes out of Los Angeles play list on the right side for Brother’s Blood
The Des Moines Register feature on Brother’s Blood
Youtube Video from Live From Prairie Lights
Cedar Falls/Waterloo Courier
True Crime Book Review, October 10, 2011
Iowan magazine review: Stranger than Nonfiction
Check out our Youtube Station to see more: Tall Corn Book Talk, or Live From Prairie Lights
Brother’s Blood a “Whydunit”
How could he do that? Murder a brother, his sister-in-law, and his young niece and nephew as they slept in their beds? Jerry Mark was a Peace Corps volunteer, lawyer, 4-H leader, vice-president of his Cedar Falls High School senior class, and certainly a most likely-to-succeed young man when he graduated in 1960.
Sixteen years later he was convicted of four cold-blooded execution-style murders of his own family. How could he? That’s what Brother’s Blood explores. Author Scott Cawelti knew Jerry Mark in high school, interviewed him in prison, observed his arrest, trial, and conviction with shock and horror. Brother’s Blood reveals a mind consumed with anger, revenge, jealousy, and greed.
This book is not a “whodunit” but a “whydunit.” This account engages readers with the actual facts: the killer’s cross-country motorcycle ride, the landmark investigation in which the murderer was fingered in ten days, the trial where circumstantial evidence was used to make a powerful case against him, and his appeals which continued for three decades.
Mark remains in Iowa’s maximum security prison, still insisting on his innocence. Brother’s Blood reveals what he did and why in convincing and unforgettable detail.
Scott Cawelti was born and raised in Cedar Falls, Iowa. He attended the University of Northern Iowa (UNI), graduating with a vocal music education degree in 1965 and a Master’s Degree in English in 1968, and a PhD in Modern Letters from the University of Iowa in 1978. Dr. Cawelti taught at UNI from 1968-2008 and continues to teach a variety of courses as an adjunct since his retirement. He has published two writing textbooks and edited The Complete Poetry of James Hearst, (University of Iowa, 2001).