This sounds like a great story, however I wasn’t able to download it so I can’t give any constructive feedback.

In May of 1971, two seventeen-year-old girls went missing in South Dakota. With no clues as to their whereabouts and no real reason for them to run away, their families were convinced that foul play was involved. Police at the time didn’t take it seriously and did little to further the investigation. Then, 30 years later, seemingly new evidence comes to light. Investigators jump into the case with no hesitation, going to great lengths looking for inadmissible proof that this new suspect murdered these girls.

This was a fascinating nonfiction read that went into depth about the investigations revolving around the missing South Dakota girls. The amount of research and effort the author put into this work is evident; documents and court proceedings were included, as well as interviews that the author conducted with people related to this case. I enjoyed that the author humanized the victims and brought them to life throughout this work. What I found most fascinating about this case was how little police in the ‘70s did to solve it (including not even interviewing one of the last people to see the girls) and then the extremes police in the 2000s went to trying to ensure this case got closed.

While the case and the ins-and-outs were interesting, I think this work could have been setup better to be more engaging. The timeline jumped around often for no apparent reason and without being clearly demarcated, making it difficult to stay situated in the work. The author included many minutiae of things that weren’t particularly relevant to the case though it did highlight the amount of research he’d done, and this unfortunately slowed down the work as a whole. There was also a great deal of repetition that slowed down the narrative, which should have been trimmed.

While this wasn’t a riveting true crime read, it was an interesting look at how the justice system is quite fallible and how some folks are more interested in proving their beliefs than finding the truth. My thanks to NetGalley and Tantor Audio for allowing me to read this work. All thoughts and opinions expressed in this review are my own.

3.75 stars

I think the narrator was fantastic for non-fiction. But the book wasn't as good as the narrator. Firstly I'm not sure if this is a true crime or history. The ending to the big "crime" was underwhelming. I think the look into the police not being willing to change their opinions was very interesting. Lots of confirmation bias there. I also like that the families seemed to be somewhat involved in the book.

Overall I think the book was simply too long for the conclusion to the "crime". And it really lost me in the last two hours of the book.

Thank you to NetGalley and Tantor audio for the early listen.
I picked this book since I don't live too far from Vermillion so of course it intrigued me. I also remembered that once I started listening that the news had recently reported on this.
It's just sad that back then girls didn't really matter and if they disappeared they were labeled runaways. Makes one wonder what if it had been two boys?
The narrator/author did a good job narrating and retelling of the disappearance of these to young ladies.

My thoughts about this book are pretty mixed. I was super excited to read a book about a cold case that I had never heard of before. Two teenage girls go out looking for a keg party and never home. There were so many red herrings and so much misinformation given to the police, but it also seems like the police didn’t take the case seriously at the time and lost a lot of precious time. There was just a lot of information in this book and it got very repetitive and boring. I did appreciate that the audiobook was narrated by the author.

This was an interesting story about how law enforcement first off ignored these missing women and went on to blaming a man and his family for years for their murder. Only for them to be found decades later and it not being murder, yet this family has been through hell for years being accused of murder and do you think that they got an apology? Do some of the cops even believe the truth now? Or are they holding on because they can’t admit they were so wrong?

This was an interesting case and I feel so bad for all the families involved not only the girls’ family but the Lichen(sp audio) family too, they all went through so much.

The author narrates this book well.

Fans of true crime podcats will like this one!
4 stars

I received this book from the publisher Tantor Audio and NetGalley for a fair and honest review

In 1971, two teenage girls disappear on their way to a party, never to be seen again. Law enforcement bungled the investigation backthen, and years later, when the case was reopened, investigators mess the case up again.

While the ending felt a little anticlimactic, I felt appropriately frustrated with the lack of professionalism on the part of the investigators. It was well written - narrated by the journalist - and I felt like I was listening to an extra thorough true crime podcast.

The narrator was the writer, and while he was not the greatest actor of some of the dialogue, I liked him narrating, because he knows the material the best.

I got this book because it happened where my mom grew up. She was close to these girls in age and remembered the case quite well when I mentioned it. What I found interesting was just how little was done for these two people. The book was about this really interesting case. More than that, though, it was about how the justice system is good at ignoring what it does not deem important. This why we need to fight to stay human.

"In May 1971, Pam Jackson and Sherri Miller were two seventeen-year-olds driving to an end-of-the-school-year party in a rundown Studebaker Lark when they seemingly disappeared off the face of the earth. Police back then didn’t do enough to try and find them. The result of hundreds of interviews, Vanished in Vermillion is a cold case story that flips the script on a typical investigation narrative, revealing the biggest law enforcement embarrassment in South Dakota history."

This true story is interesting, no doubt. But, the book was much longer than it should have been and overfly focused on unnecessary details making it quite repetitive. This book is more about the failures of the justice system than anything else so beware if you are looking for a riveting true crime about a crazed murderer or rapist - you may be disappointed. Super important story to document, Lou Ragusa clearly did a lot of hard journalism work.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for allowing me to be an early reader in exchange for my review.

Wow, what an interesting case... very well researched and explained by Lou Raguse! I felt that some parts were drug out, but for the most part I was completely engaged. I especially liked the discussion of the aspects of psychology within this case, and I feel like this could work well with the junior/senior psych elective I teach. This is a case I had never heard of before, and I hope many people pick up a copy of this book to learn more about it!

What a wild story!

“Vanished in Vermillion” tells the incredible true story of two teens that went missing in the 70s & law enforcement’s initial disregard for the case, followed by their desperation to close it.

Lou Raguse does an exceptional job investigating all components of this case, starting with the timeline of events of the young women the night they went missing, followed by all avenues detectives searched to find (or force) an answer.

I had never heard of this cold case so I went in blind, and I think that made it even better. This case makes you think a lot about our justice system, so if you’re a true crime fan, I highly recommend this. While listening, you feel just as desperate for a resolution as the detectives were throughout the ~40 years they spent looking for answers.

Lastly, I really appreciated that Raguse narrated his own work. His research was extensive and I liked hearing him recap it. The chapters aren’t too long so if you’re a podcast fan, you can easily break throughout the book to treat it like shorter podcast episodes vs a longer work of nonfiction.

Thank you to NetGalley & Tantor Audio for the ALC in exchange for an honest review!

Vanished In Vermillion: The Real Story of South Dakota’s Most Infamous Cold Case
Lou Raguse
Any family that has a child missing wants and needs closure. In 1971, two seventeen-year-old girls drove off in an old Studebaker Lark; they were headed to a keg party by the old gravel pit. They never made it to the party, and they never returned home. Pam Jackson and Sherri were not party girls. They had never attended a keg party before. However, the local sheriff found it easier to label the girls as wild runaways. In his opinion the girls would come home eventually. But the girls didn’t come home. Many in the community would rather believe the girls had run away than that they were victims of a crime.
The girls had stopped to visit Sherri’s grandmother in the hospital. They had not taken any money with them. Pam had not taken her medication with her. There was no reason to believe the girls had run away. The girls got lost on the way to the party; they saw three local guys and asked for directions. The boys told them to follow them but at some point they forgot about the girls. The boys assumed they had gotten lost or headed home.
Author Lou Raguse spent long hours doing research on the cold case. As we look at this case, we realize the law enforcement did very little investigating. The original sheriff was convicted of raping a seven-year-old girl. Years later, Cold Case Investigators began to scrutinize the case but their investigation focused on a criminal suspected of killing the girls. An informant claimed to have evidence but was lying. A woman was responsible for leads that she remembered through hypnosis. The Investigators attempted to convict a local man already serving time in prison. There were people in the town that never accepted the answer to what happened to the girls. Pam’s father never stopped searching for the girls. They were located on the day he was buried.
This case was poorly handled by the local police and later by several different agencies. Witnesses were not interviewed. Peter Lykken was in jail for attacking several women. The girls went missing not far from the Lykkens’ farm. Forty years later the case was solved.

While the story was captivating I don't think that the author should have narrated it himself. It was bit like having a statement of facts read to you. Made it harder to keep my attention.

May of 1971 - Memorial Day Weekend- and two families are about to find out that there is something worse than death - not knowing. What follows is a reporters quest to uncover what happened to two missing high schoolers from Vermillion, South Dakota. Did the girls run away? Did the local deviant kill them and hide the evidence? This true story wrecked a close knit community for over 40 years. Lou Raguse dives in to see if he can give some resolution to all the families. Thanks to NetGalley for the early read.

🎧Vanished in Vermillion, Lou Raguse. Audiobook ARC from NetGalley with . Non-fiction/True Crime. Publication date March 7, 2023. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

I accidentally requested this book as an audiobook, rather than an eBook. When doing so, I didn’t realize how many hours the audiobook was. Due to my busy schedule in the week I had to listen, I wasn’t able to finish it before the archive date. My rating is reflective of the portion I was able to listen to.

My request for this book was after coming across it on a list of upcoming releases on a different site. I was really immediately intrigued, as I hadn’t heard of the case and I live very close to Vermillion. I was appalled and saddened by the way this case was handled by law enforcement. The investigation done by the author was very thorough. He did a great job of setting the stage of Vermillion, South Dakota in the 1970s and of the upbringing and circumstances leading to the deaths of these young ladies. The interviews done with the loved ones Pam and Sherri left behind brought so much more to this story. Although the topic true crime is never entertaining, I was very invested in this story.

Since I wasn’t able to listen to the full book, I will be purchasing it to finish! I will, however, be purchasing the hardcover or ebook of this book, as I think I would enjoy reading it more than I did the audio version. In my opinion, inflections in the narrators voice seemed out of place at times.

Thank you to the author, Lou Raguse, Tantor Audio, and NetGalley for an opportunity to read this ARC for an honest review.

Thank you to NetGalley and Tantor Audio for an audiobook ARC of Vanished in Vermillion in return for my honest review.

True crime lovers - this is a real deep dive into a 40 year old mystery.

It’s 1971. Seventeen year old Pam Jackson and Sherri Miller are on their way to school party when the girls and their old Studebaker Lark seemingly vanish without a trace.

A small town police force that didn’t do enough… the classic runaway excuse.

A tragic cold case with a team of dogged volunteer investigators.

False recovered witness memories.

A perjuring prison snitch.

A wrongfully accused man who went through over 10 years of suspicion. But don’t feel too sorry for him, he was already busy serving a 227 year prison sentence for rape and kidnapping.

This is the heartbreaking true story of the disappearance of two friends with big dreams. HOW could two teens and their car just disappear?

I loved the first half of the book, it seemed too strange to be real. As the case becomes cold, the author immersed himself into the lives of the people who were affected by the disappearance of Pam and Sherri.

The story morphs into a deep look at the cold case investigation and the depraved characters that may be involved. We see what happens when law enforcement has a “preconceived plan, and any evidence that contradicted it was ignored.”

The author narrated the audiobook, and at times I felt like his voice sounded a little too preppy for the subject matter. But the research in this book was outstanding. Ragouse really immersed himself into the lives of the people involved. At times I felt like the immense amount of information about the cold case investigation dragged on a bit, so it’s not a fast-paced read.

Overall this was an interesting case with an unexpected ending.


Read this if you like…
🚓 True crime
👥 Missing person mysteries
🧊 Cold cases
🕵️‍♀️ Playing detective
🤦‍♀️ Investigation blunders
🎁 Endings wrapped up in a bow

Having no background knowledge about this story, I felt that the beginning of the book didn’t give me enough to really hook me up. It was way too much background without giving the reader/listener some context. Good investigation and well written.

Vanished in Vermillion is the true story of two South Dakota high school girls that vanished on their way to a party. Author Lou Raguse spent many years and countless interviews uncovering what happened to the girls, the subsequent investigation and cold case reopening, the many confusing and confused individuals involved, and the ultimate resolution to the mystery. There isn't much to the initial story of the girls and how they went missing, but there is so much more to the overall story. Raguse lays out a wonderful and interesting story and doesn't leave any stone unturned.

Thank you to Tantor Audio and NetGalley for an ARC audiobook in exchange for an honest review.

Such an interesting and devastating story. So many twists and turns. Just when you think you have an idea of where to move forward, something comes up. So sad how many errors were made by law enforcement.

Thank you Netgalley for this audio edition of Vanished In Vermillion by Lou Raguse.

True Crime junkies assemble! This is definitely a book for anyone who loved Serial, Making a Murder, or devours true crime podcasts like candy. Vanished in Vermillion is a well written book about two young women who, on their way to an outdoor HS party, vanished, car and all. This is a story that spans decades. It has dysfunctional families, poor policing, suspicious neighbors, false accusations, and absolute heartbreak. It's a tragic story, but definitely one worth being told. I was thoroughly invested in this well researched story and marvelled at just how much things can go wrong...and right.