Hell in the Heartland

Murder, Meth, and the Case of Two Missing Girls

By: Jax Miller

Narrated by: Amy Landon

"There is, in the best of us, a search for the truth, to serve the living and dead alike.... Jax Miller is one of those people and Hell in the Heartland is one of those books." (Robert Graysmith, New York Times best-selling author of Zodiac)

As seen in:

• Marie Claire's "Best True Crime Books of 2020"
• HuffPost
• OK! Magazine
• CrimeReads
• LitHub's "Best New Summer Books"

S-Town meets I'll Be Gone in the Dark in this stranger-than-fiction cold case from rural Oklahoma that has stumped authorities for two decades, concerning the disappearance of two teenage girls and the much larger mystery of murder, possible police cover-up, and an unimaginable truth....

On December 30, 1999, in rural Oklahoma, 16-year-old Ashley Freeman and her best friend, Lauria Bible, were having a sleepover. The next morning, the Freeman family trailer was in flames and both girls were missing.

While rumors of drug debts, revenge, and police corruption abounded in the years that followed, the case remained unsolved, and the girls were never found.

In 2015, crime writer Jax Miller - who had been haunted by the case - decided to travel to Oklahoma to find out what really happened on that winter night in 1999 and why the story was still simmering more than 15 years later. What she found was more than she could have ever bargained for: Evidence of jaw-dropping levels of police negligence, entire communities ravaged by methamphetamine addiction, and a series of interconnected murders with an ominously familiar pattern.

These forgotten towns were wild, lawless, and home to some very dark secrets.

©2020 Jax Miller (P)2020 Penguin Audio

Critic reviews

"Jax Miller's Hell in the Heartland is the kind of 300 page book that would take a 300 page blurb to do it justice. There is, in the best of us, a search for the truth, to serve the living and dead alike, an obsessiveness that means never giving up, to balance the scale and give the dead their due. In the modern tradition of I'll be Gone in the Dark, Jax Miller is one of those people and Hell in the Heartland is one of those books." (Robert Graysmith, New York Times best-selling author of Zodiac)

"The title of Jax Miller's book is, believe me, no exaggeration. This writer marched straight into a piece of Oklahoma that can fairly be called Hell and didn't come out until she'd covered every track leading to and from an ice cold crime and relentlessly covered a whole lot of nasty possibilities. Murder and Meth are only the beginning. If this is the Heartland I'm taking a detour." (Beverly Lowry, author of Who Killed These Girls?)

"A top-notch true crime work shot through with desperation, paranoia, and regret. Reading this book feels like running headlong into danger, and Miller's writing is haunted and haunting. It's a patchwork of broken dreams, of secrets and lies, of trouble under the surface. Mesmerizing, raw, evocative, unforgettable." (William Boyle, author of A Friend Is a Gift You Give Yourself)

Excellent listen

This story was told in a way you will get to know all the people involved. Even if you are familiar with this tragedy, you will hear new information. Very scary the situations these people have had to put themselves into trying to learn the truth. Law enforcement bungled this case.

Nice to listen to in the background...

Love the narrator, but the telling of the story felt disconnected to me, and I wasn't a fan of the way the author would detail so much unnecessary information like personifying locations, etc. The actual story of the crimes committed, the missing girls, the interviews with living relatives, etc, is captivating... I just don't think the author did the story justice when every few paragraphs it seemed like their focus was on themselves and their own wounded past. This audio book is a good background listen, where you can be doing other things and only half paying attention and still get all the information you need about the cases.

Well told,, personal, and respectful story telling

Jax Miller demonstrates such care in her telling of this horrifying nightmare that these 2 girls endured in their short lives which ended in ways no one should ever endure. With a resurgence of this story going back 3 decades, one can only hope that justice and some closure may one day be obtained on behalf of the victims and families.

Poetry

Great story but i felt like I was listening to a poetry reading and not a true crime book.

Midwest part of country

Being that I live so close to where this all occurred it was fascinating to hear details that we never saw in the news or read about in the paper. Truly a great book.

Not my favorite

I don’t know why, but it was really hard to get into this one. There were like 1,000 names and stories told, but the one that mattered isn’t followed closely until the end. The author too didn’t seem to have a real background in journalism, and her credibility just wasn’t very high in my book.

This was great!

This is one of the best true crime books I have had the pleasure of reading.

Beautifully written .

Sad, terrifying story written in beautiful and evocative prose. I loved every single word

A little overwritten.

While exceptionally well researched, the author's injection of herself (and her anxiety) into the story distracts a little bit from the actual case. The prose is borderline annoying at times - I don't think the author has ever met a metaphor or adjective she didn't like, and she tends to overly romanticize many characters and locations. And do we really need to know what bands are on her t-shirt at any given moment?

That said, the amount of legwork and detail in this book is absolutely admirable, and the story is very well fleshed out. A lot of work went into this book, and it shows. Fans of the True Crime genre will find a lot to like about this title.

Hard to stay engaged

After watching the HLN special by the same name, I was really looking forward to this book. Unfortunately, it just wasn't as good. Maybe if Jax had done the narration, her on tv passion/ demeanor would have shown through.

I had a hard time staying engaged and re-listened to several chapters.