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Title details for Catch the Sparrow by Rachel Rear - Available

Catch the Sparrow

A Search for a Sister and the Truth of Her Murder

by Rachel Rear
Julia Locascio
Audiobook
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The gripping story of a young woman's murder, unsolved for over two decades, brilliantly investigated and reconstructed by her stepsister. Growing up, Rachel Rear knew the story of Stephanie Kupchynsky's disappearance. The beautiful violinist and teacher had fled an abusive relationship on Martha's Vineyard and made a new start for herself near Rochester, NY. She was at the height of her life—in a relationship with a man she hoped to marry and close to her students and her family. And then, one morning, she was gone. Around Rochester—a region which has spawned such serial killers as Arthur Shawcross and the "Double Initial" killer—Stephanie's disappearance was just a familiar sort of news item. But Rachel had more reason than most to be haunted by this particular story of a missing woman: Rachel's mother had married Stephanie's father after the crime, and Rachel grew up in the shadow of her stepsister's legacy. In Catch the Sparrow, Rachel Rear writes a compulsively readable and unerringly poignant reconstruction of the case's dark and serpentine path across more than two decades. Obsessively cataloging the crime and its costs, drawing intimately closer to the details than any journalist could, she reveals how a dysfunctional justice system laid the groundwork for Stephanie's murder and stymied the investigation for more than twenty years, and what those hard years meant for the lives of Stephanie's family and loved ones. Startling, unputdownable, and deeply moving, Catch the Sparrow is a retelling of a crime like no other.

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    February 1, 2022

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Listen audiobook

      • ISBN: 9781635577266
      • File size: 249572 KB
      • Duration: 08:39:56

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • Publisher's Weekly

      Starred review from December 6, 2021
      Rear debuts with an engrossing account of her search for the truth about her stepsister’s murder, which leads to painful discoveries and frustrating answers. Stephanie Kupchynsky, a music teacher, disappeared in 1991 at age 27. In 1998, when Rear was 20, her mother married Kupchynsky’s father, shortly before his daughter’s decomposing remains were found in a creek close to Kupchynsky’s last home in an apartment complex in Greece, N.Y. Rear, who never knew her stepsister but was haunted by the tragedy, began her own inquiry, meeting with both people who had dated Kupchynsky and those in law enforcement who searched for her and her killer. Meanwhile, in 1994, Edward Laraby, a sexual predator who had been a maintenance worker in Kupchynsky’s apartment building, was arrested in a rape case and convicted that same year. In 2011, Laraby confessed in prison to killing Kupchynsky, laughing as he did so, but he died in 2014 before he could be tried for that crime. Rear’s personal connection to the case, and resonances between her own experiences of being victimized by men, as well as her stepsister’s experiences of being victimized, give this account a hefty emotional impact. This combination of true crime inquiry and revelatory memoir will linger in readers’ minds long after they finish it. Agent: Dan Conaway, Writers House.

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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