Hello beautiful people! Welcome to a new review! For this review I get into another Gregg Olsen true crime thriller Abandoned Prayers: An Incredible True Story of Murder, Obsession, and Amish Secrets. I read Gregg Olsen’s other Amish-based true crime novel A Killing in Amish Country and really enjoyed it so I was excited to get into Abandoned Prayers. I have to say I think Abandoned Prayers is just as good if not a little better than A Killing in Amish Country but both are very much pick-up-worthy reads.
People in Abandoned Prayers:
- Eli Stutzman: A former Amish man who flipped back and forth between the community unsettled on his own desires, when his wife dies along with their unborn child takes his son and leaves the Amish community for good, starts taking part in risky behaviour like drug use and partying and aggressively starts to live out his true sexuality as a gay man, sometime later his son’s unclaimed body is found on the side of the road and he is left to explain
- Ida: Eli’s wife who died in a barn fire after Eli claimed that at 7 months pregnant she was trying to pull milking canisters out of the barn
- Danny: Eli and Ida’s first and only child, after the loss of his mother at a young age, suffers from his father’s extreme instability and dangerous behaviours, thankfully his father would often abandon him at friends’ homes for some time so he could live out his desires, was loved by many people of Chester Nebraska when his body was found on the side of the road and was left nameless for far longer than he ever should have been, despite not having a name the people took care of him more than his father ever did
My Review
This was a hard one. I mean any true crime novel is tough but given that the victims were a nine-year-old, and a mother and her unborn child it’s just extra tough. The blatant disrespect that Eli Stutzman had for Danny, Ida, and his unborn child is revolting and very reminiscent of the Chris Watts case. Pathetic men want a new life and desire to have no responsibility over the ones they already started. Instead of being deadbeats, they murder the people who love them, all because their desires mean more to them than people do. Abandoned Prayers: An Incredible True Story of Murder, Obsession, and Amish Secrets by Gregg Olsen has definitely solidified at this point that I enjoy Gregg’s books and find them to be painful but insightful at the same time. I respect how he presents the facts and doesn’t dip far into biases or dangerous viewpoints. A story like the Stutzman one calls for some sensitivity in multiple ways. Given Eli’s change in sexuality after the death of his wife it’s important for the narrative not to be presented that Eli was a murderer because he was gay. Eli was a murderer because he was a selfish psychopath who would stop at nothing to get what he wanted. He would lie and cheat thousands of people if it meant that people would see him the way he wanted to be seen. His sexuality played a role in the murders of course but it wouldn’t have made a difference if it was men or women, and we know this because we have cases like Chris Watts. Same exact scenario except he did it so he could sleep with women. It’s also very clear that Eli took part in his preferred sexual activities even before his wife died, so her being alive didn’t change his sleeping with men, it’s just he was more out when she died.
When Danny Stutzman was found dead on the side of the road in a pair of blue nighties in Chester Nebraska detectives hoped they would be able to bring the boy home to his family quickly. I mean it’s a little boy, surely someone has to be missing him. When they could not quickly link the boy to his family, and due to decomposition it created a lot of unknown of all of the boy’s natural features. Police searched far and wide for his family. When no one would claim the boy sometime later he would be buried with the name Little Boy Blue, abandoned by his family but not by the people of Chester. Different sketches and renditions would be created of the little boy’s face, and when it eventually hit the national sphere the name Eli Stutzman finally landed in the police’s hands. Soon learning that Eli has a history far more horrific than they could assume the police start to build a case about the man who left his little boy on the side of the road, cold and alone. This was not the first time Eli had betrayed his family and coming from an unusual upbringing it’s soon seen that his bad behaviours have been long-winded and tolerated by few. Furthermore, it also becomes clear that Eli may have something to do with the suspicious death of some of his past partners. Again, it’s clear that Eli does not care for anyone but himself, but the question is how far will he go to pretend like he’s a good person when he’s really far from it.
I don’t want to retell too much of the case because I feel like Danny deserves to have his story told and the injustices of his father displayed to the world. There’s just far too many terrible things about Eli for me to get into this. An aspect that did frustrate me however was to find out that Eli got out on parole in 2003, after some googling however in some good old fashion divine justice he was found dead in his apartment in 2007, so he wasn’t out for super long before kicking it.
I gave Abandoned Prayers an 8/10 rating overall because once I got into it I didn’t want to put it down. I enjoyed the way the book was laid out giving us the perspective from the townspeople and police experience, and then giving a perspective on Eli’s life. I think it just gave Danny more respect to give a lot of focus on how this town that he wasn’t even from came together to make sure he was buried, his resting spot was taken care of and that his name would eventually be found. They never stopped making sure that the people who really did care for him would know where to find him. It just helped remind you how truly horrible this situation is and that Eli let his son sit unnamed for many months in a morgue. I can’t really blame the other adults who knew Danny for not being more proactive because Eli was so transient they never really knew where he and his dad were. He stayed with so many different adults and while these people cared for him, once he was gone they knew it would be rare to see him again. It was just the way things worked for this family and ultimately it’s what allowed Eli to get away with it for so long. When he was kicked out of the Amish community he made sure that Danny had minimal contact with his family and so like everyone else, no one ever really knew where this boy was or who he was with.
It’s a very heartbreaking story and while I think the Amish lifestyle often caused Eli to act out because he felt so restrained, I don’t think the community is to blame for what he did. It was apparent that Eli was often allowed to do bad things, repent and come back to the community but this never had anything to do with his sexuality it all had to do with his partying, drug usage, and commonness to lie. His sexuality really only became a larger factor once he left the community following his wife’s death. I think that Eli just wanted to live his life with no responsibilities and didn’t realize how much his son would cramp his style. It’s quite sad as well because there were so many people who would have taken Danny from him so killing him never really had to be an option. I guess it’s just the knowing that people could judge him for abandoning his son that probably bothered him the most.
I would definitely recommend checking out Abandoned Prayers: An Incredible True Story of Murder, Obsession, and Amish Secrets by Gregg Olsen if you’re looking for an interesting true crime book. I had definitely never heard of the case before getting into this book and I will say it’s now one I’ll never forget. Despite the abuse and terrible treatment he went through I am glad Danny had some good moments in his life with good people. It’s sad to learn about everything that Eli did to his son before his death and how he tried to train him to be his behavioural companion. It definitely makes you wonder if he had differing motives for keeping his son alive and killing his wife and unborn child.
Have you checked out Abandoned Prayers: An Incredible True Story of Murder, Obsession, and Amish Secrets by Gregg Olsen before? What did you think?
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