The Brown's Chicken Massacre: 5

by Maurice Possley

On the night of January 8, 1993, seven helpless employees of a Brown's Chicken & Pasta restaurant in Illinois were herded into coolers and systematically assassinated with a .38-caliber revolver. After carefully erasing all the evidence, two assailants fled with $1,800 in cash. The savagery of the crime stunned and haunted the quiet town of Palatine. Embroiled in notoriety and controversy, multiple lawsuits, false suspects, and dead-end leads, the...

• Format: Mass Market Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0425190854
• ISBN13: 9780425190852
• Release Date: August 2003
• Publisher: Berkley Books
• Length: 257 Pages
• Weight: 0.33 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 6.4" x 6.8"

Customer Reviews

top rate true crime

The nonfiction writing style is engaging and informative. This is not an ordinary crime and the intriguing story unfolds at a pace which captures the reader's attention. The author does an excellent job of illuminating the personalities of the criminals, victims and key players. Don't be fooled by the odd name of the book. Brown's Chicken was small chain of fast food restaurants.

Shocking, scathing, disturbing & powerful !!!

Having gone to high school in the town where this took place, it was truly surreal reading Maurice Possley's book. His detailed and absorbing account of this tragedy however, would make anyone feel close to the subject.... Palatine, IL is as just as it's described here --- a sleepy, affluent suburb of Chicago where the mass murder of seven people would seem as out of place as Swedish models found living on Mars. What was less surprising to me though was the gross arrogance and total incompetence of the Palatine police department described here at length. Having gotten my share of speeding tickets, I had lots of first-hand experience with some of the officers associated with Palatine's P.D. No hard feelings because I was in the wrong, but I began to see how they were just generating money for the department through "speeding revenue". The sad part is, if they'd spent less time stopping guys like me for doing 10 miles an hour over the limit, they may have solved this case much quicker than the 9 years it actually took them! The really important thing though is obviously that these two killers were eventually called to justice to account for their horrific crimes. Although it was someone "dropping the dime" on the killers rather than good old fashioned police work, the families of the victims now have some closure to this terrible event. What's really disturbing, is that the two perps were only in their late teens, did this purely for the thrill, and managed to evade capture for so long! This is definitely a true crime book that fans of this genre will be raving about for years to come.

An emotional read

This book is great at capturing the grief that was felt in Illinois when 7 people were murdered in cold blood at Brown's Chicken and Pasta. The author is very talented in describing feelings of the families of the victims. It is well written and well documented. I hope that the people who are going to trial over the massacre are punished severely, it certainly took long enough to bring them to justice.

Brilliant writing

This book completely defies the stereotype about true crime books. Possley does an exceptional job of chronologically putting together the entire investigation right down to every suspect, dead lead, and tip phoned in to the investigation squad. Every detail related to the ten year investigation is mentioned without any two page sleep sessions that talk about nothing but irrelevant topics; like the color of socks the head detective was wearing. Even though we all know how this case turns out in the end, you will still have a hard time putting this book down. That is the sign of a gifted writer.

Fulfilling the desire to kill...the only motive

Six words, "Five in the cooler at Brown's" would forever change the tranquil town of Palatine, Illinois.Herded into Brown's freezer, 21 bullets were found in the bodies. Seven innocent victims. Each of the seven, systematically assassinated. Each, shot in the back.The value of a life in Palatine, Illinois January 8, 1993? $1,800, less than $260, per person.How was this henious crime solved? Ten years, 300,000 pages of police reports, interviews and laboratory reports? Good police work? The decision to save chicken parts by one Illinois State Police Crime Laboratory worker?Or, was it a combination of the above, plus DNA evidence? In its infant stages ten years ago, this science was and could not be used as evidence.It is no wonder Maurice Possley has been considered for the Pulitzer Prize. Those insistent on "True Crime" will have a difficult time putting down The Brown's Chicken Massacre.