Shattered Justice also takes a look at how obscured an investigation can get once the police are focused on blaming Stephanie’s older brother, Michael, and his friends for her death instead of looking at all the details. The police did not want to pay attention to other clues that involved a schizophrenic man who was looking for someone called Tracy.

John Philpin does a great job in showing how the police were so focused on Michael and his friends that they missed crucial evidence. One would think that in this day and age, the police would not try to coerce confessions out of teenagers.

What makes Shattered Justice different from some other true crime books is that it does not focus on a court case near the end of the book. Instead, Shattered Justice shows readers what happened leading up to the arrest of the true murderer.