THE EDGE OF DOUBT

Accusations of child sexual abuse upend a small town and begin a 30-year search for the truth in Miraldi’s nonfiction account.

In Lorain, Ohio, in the early ’90s, Nancy Smith, a single mother and preschool bus driver, and Joseph Allen, a handyman with a criminal record, were investigated under the suspicion of sexually abusing children. The story begins with Marge Bronson (a pseudonym), a single mother, alleging that her daughter, Nina (also a pseudonym), had been sexually abused by Smith and Allen. The book recounts the initial investigation and trial (in which four children testified), largely told through the testimonies of the children and their parents. Miraldi provides context that supports his view of how poorly the case was executed, from the ways witnesses were vetted to the interviewing of the kindergarten-age victims. The author asserts, “Lorain police had broken almost all of the fundamental rules for questioning young children about potential sexual abuse,” to the point that there was “no way these interrogations could have produced reliable and valid information.” It took nearly 30 years to fully unveil the flaws in the investigation and clear Smith and Allen. Miraldi’s industrious reporting and clean prose pull from public records and direct interviews with many of those involved to lay out the case and its repercussions; unlike the prosecution, he does not use coercive language or make baseless claims. The result is an indictment of the system in which two innocent people were victims of collective paranoia and potentially insidious motives for financial gain—Bronson had hired a lawyer, likely to sue Smith’s employer for financial damages. This account reminds the reader that, in an era of mass disinformation and fake news, it behooves us to examine every angle, consult every piece of evidence, and do our best to discredit agendas that service personal gain.

A disturbing examination of judicial negligence and bias.