Life for Death: A True Story of Crime and Punishment Hardcover – January 1, 1980 by Michael Mewshaw 
 
Harold and Shirley Dresbach seemed to be a perfect couple. They had two of everything--two boats, two Chryslers, two handsome teen-age boys. Wealthy and influential, they were active in politics and often entertained prominent visitors in their waterfront home on the Chesapeake Bay.

So on a quiet January morning when their bodies, riddled with bullets, were found, people in the affluent suburb of Washington, D.C., were stunned. They were still more stunned and horrified when the Dresbach's fifteen-year-old son, Wayne, was charged with the killings. Michael Mewshaw, a childhood friend of Wayne's, was the first to learn of the tragic events that morning, and from the start he suspected some essential truth had been left hidden.

Life for Death is the account of his frustration and sometimes frightening investigation into the crime and punishment of his friend. It is a harrowing tale of explosive family passions--and of coldly dispassionate criminal justice. Played out behind a façade of propriety, it is a drama composed entirely of unspeakable acts--black-market adoption, alcoholism, child and wife abuse, sexual experimentation, sadism, incest, and finally murder.
 
 
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