Donald Delano Wright (1935–2007)

On Christmas Eve, 1959, Don White, a 22-year-old mentally disturbed black man, brutally murdered two people - a white great-grandmother and a black longshoreman. At his trial, his lawyers introduced evidence of an intolerable childhood spent with an unbalanced foster mother and in various institutions, attempting to prove diminished responsibility for his acts. Don White was convicted of one count of First Degree Murder and one count of Second Degree Murder on May 27, 1960, and sentenced to death in Walla Walla Washington. By 1968, his conviction was commuted to life in prison.

Donald Delano Wright first learned of Don White's case as a court reporter for the Seattle Times. Through a series of newspaper articles that eventually resulted in To Die is Not Enough: A True Account of Murder and Retribution, the author became friends with Don White and would visit him consistently in the penitentiary. Donald Delano Wright passed away in November of 2007 at the age of 72.

I enjoyed this book although I thought it was rather dry in parts. It was also very sad and depressing to think about how Don White was so badly mistreated in his childhood. I give this book an A!… (mere)