sUBMERGED
HOW A COLD CASE CLEARED A KILLER AND CONDEMNED AN INNOCENT MAN, HIDING A FAMILY’S DARKEST SECRET
BY HILLEL LEVIN
In March 1993, 16-year-old RAYNA RISON was abducted outside the La Porte, Indiana, veterinary hospital where she worked after school. A month later, her body was found submerged under tree limbs in a rural pond. Police detectives focused on her brother-in-law, RAY McCARTY, as the prime suspect. Although he was indicted by a grand jury for Rayna’s murder in 1998, prosecutors dropped the charges a year later. Then, in 2013, the police arrested JASON TIBBS, Rayna’s middle-school boyfriend. He was convicted in 2014 and sentenced to 40 years in prison.
After a two-year investigation, author HILLEL LEVIN completes the case against McCarty, following up the clues and leads overlooked by police detectives. He then uncovers the politics and misconduct that enabled the county prosecutor to convict Tibbs.
Click for MORE on the Rayna Rison Cold Case.
“A powerfully written narrative that sparks both fascination with the mishandling of the case, and outrage that the wrong man still sits in jail. Shocking and absorbing from start to finish.”
— Connie Fletcher, author of What Cops Know
“Complex but passionate… Levin movingly relates the unfortunate sequence of missteps that plagued the 1993 case of the murder of small-town Indiana teenager grievously beset with errors due to police misconduct…”
— Booklist Advance Review
“This book is fascinating. I stayed up all night to read it…. a True Crime story. One that needs to be told.”
— Debra Gaynor, NetGalley Early Review
“an eminently readable and compelling account of a murder investigation that spanned more than twenty years...”
— Robert Sanger, California Criminal Attorneys for Justice, FORUM Magazine
“a must-read for all true crime enthusiasts.”
— Beth Von Voight, NetGalley Early Review
About
Hillel Levin
Hillel Levin's reporting has appeared in The Nation, Playboy, New York magazine, Monthly Detroit magazine, Metropolitan Detroit magazine, and Chicago magazine. He was executive editor of Metropolitan Detroit and editor of Chicago. In 1984, he wrote Grand Delusions: The Cosmic Career of John De Lorean (Viking). In 2004, he wrote When Corruption Was King (Carroll & Graf) with Robert Cooley about Cooley's central role in the FBI investigation of mob influence on Chicago's courts and political system. “Area Two,” his Playboy article on Chicago police misconduct, co-written with John Conroy, won a 2011 Headline Club Peter Lisagor Award. His 2010 book In With the Devil (St. Martin’s Press), which he wrote with James Keene, was about Keene's undercover mission to crack a serial killer in a federal prison and was the basis for the Apple TV+ series Black Bird.
contact the author.
Please use this form to contact Hillel about media inquiries, book clubs, speaking engagements, affiliate programs, and updates about the case.