Sworn to Silence

The Truth Behind Robert Garrow and the Missing Bodies' Case

By: Jim Tracy

Narrated by: Chris Sorensen

Why would two small-time American public defenders search, locate, and photograph the lifeless bodies of young women their client raped, murdered, and hid, and then leave the bodies where they found them and not tell authorities? And how did they have the audacity to meet with one of the fathers of a missing girl and tell him they knew nothing about her fate or whereabouts?

When the nation eventually learned of the lawyers' actions, they were horrified and outraged that two officers of the law could act in a way that seemed beyond any concept of humanity.

In Sworn to Silence, award-winning reporter Jim Tracy tells the lawyers' story within the framework of a true crime narrative. He uncovers a criminal who police and the public never learned was an American serial killer. Tracy does so while taking the listener back briefly to American life in the early 1970s.

©2021 Jim Tracy (P)2021 Tantor

Good book, bad narrator.

Book was thorough, and great.

Narration was an upbeat, monotone. Seemed to be read as one long run on sentence- hard to tell the difference between two people talking. Had to slow to .85 to understand the conversations. Read with little care for victims or families.

Wow.

I grew up with this story but was too young to understand what was going on. What a sick man he was

Great account, annoying narration

This is a thorough and at times gripping account of the crimes of a truly evil man, and the interesting and disturbing path he took through the legal system.

The narrator is very hard to listen to, though—kind of like an old-timey newsreel announcer but with none of the excitement. Half the time he ends non-question sentences with what sounds like a questioning inflection. Other punctuation, including quotations, are in my opinion not enunciated correctly. Sounds bored/condescending much of the time. Just ... not great reading.

Local town mispronounced

As a local of the area this book is written about, it is most annoying to hear the narrator mispronounce towns like Chestertown as “Chesterton”, Glens Falls as “Glen Falls”, Raquette Lake as “Rock-et Lake”. He later says Chestertown correctly… but Glens Falls is wrong throughout, it is GlenS Falls, yes there is an S!
The narrator also reads like an announcer or news anchor rather than a story teller. Which gets pretty difficult to listen to after 20 minutes.

Over all the book is well written and interesting. I read about Robert Garrow in the past and find this a great addition to the stories I’ve already heard.

With a different narrator this would have been a fabulous listen. But you might just want to consider reading this one instead.

All the detail

Thorough treatment. Fascinating and horrific.
Garrow was a special kind of evil. Worth the listen.