
The Unforgiven
The Untold Story of One Woman's Search for Love and Justice
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
$0.99/mo for the first 3 months

Buy for $17.19
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
Narrated by:
-
Keith Sellon-Wright
About this listen
It's a case reminiscent of the explosive story of Susan Smith, convicted in the drownings of her two young sons in South Carolina. But in The Unforgiven, three young children are in the back seat of a car driven by Amanda Hamm's boyfriend as it slips into an Illinois lake. Amanda and her boyfriend survive. Her three children do not.
The question of whether it was a horrible accident or a murderous plot divided family and friends and traumatized the entire community. The brief but intense police investigation included seven interviews Hamm voluntarily gave police without the benefit of counsel. The outcome remains controversial to this day and comes full circle with state child welfare workers' concern about children born to Hamm since the fateful day at Clinton Lake.
The Unforgiven coauthor and journalist Edith Brady-Lunny covered the case from start-to-finish, beginning the night of the drownings. Her coauthor Steve Vogel lives nearby. His Reasonable Doubt, considered a true crime classic, was a New York Times bestseller. Together, they have extensive first-hand knowledge of the case and access to nearly every record related to the court proceedings.
©2019 Edith Brady-Lunny and Steve Vogel (P)2019 TantorListeners also enjoyed...
-
Dear Jacob
- By: Patty Wetterling, Joy Baker - contributor
- Narrated by: Rebecca Stern
- Length: 13 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On October 22, 1989, in the small town of St. Joseph, Minnesota, eleven-year-old Jacob Wetterling was kidnapped at gunpoint. Twenty-seven years later, Danny Heinrich led authorities to the boy’s remains. What lies between is the riveting story of the search for Jacob, told by his mother, Patty. With down-to-earth candor, she details the investigation as it unfolds, discusses her family’s struggles, and shows how she maintained her energy and optimism.
-
-
Beautifully written.
- By Christine on 11-04-23
By: Patty Wetterling, and others
-
Starvation Heights
- Dangerous Women: True Crime Stories
- By: Gregg Olsen
- Narrated by: Stacey Glemboski
- Length: 15 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1911 two British heiresses, Claire and Dora Williamson, read a brochure about a revolutionary fasting treatment that promised a lifetime of good health. The sanatorium in the village of Olalla, west of Seattle, was surrounded by a beautiful forest, sparkling waters and fresh air. The sisters agreed it sounded perfect and exactly the restorative holiday they needed. But within a month of arriving, under the supervision of Doctor Linda Burfield Hazzard, Claire and Dora began to realise the frightening truth – they were not patients but prisoners at the isolated sanitorium.
-
-
Excellent true crime story!
- By Colleen T. Mizeres on 01-26-23
By: Gregg Olsen
-
If You Would Have Told Me
- A Memoir
- By: John Stamos
- Narrated by: John Stamos
- Length: 8 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
If you would have told a young John Stamos flipping burgers at his dad’s fast-food joint that one day he’d be a household name and that, at the height of his success, he’d be living alone, divorced, with no kids, high on a cocktail of forgetting, he might’ve asked, “You want fries with that?”
-
-
Don't expect Uncle Jesse's autobiography...
- By Song4Ten on 10-24-23
By: John Stamos
-
Denied a Mummy
- By: Maggie Hartley
- Narrated by: Penelope McDonald
- Length: 6 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The heartbreaking story of three little children searching for someone to love them. Maggie Hartley faces one of the toughest challenges of her career when three abused and neglected siblings she’s been caring for are placed for adoption with a family she believes are unsuitable. The couple are looking for a perfect ready-made family, and Maggie knows that they’re not going to find it with these traumatised children.
-
-
Listen to the caregiver
- By Theresa on 01-11-20
By: Maggie Hartley
-
Little, Crazy Children
- By: James Renner
- Narrated by: James Renner
- Length: 9 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In September of 1990, in the Cleveland suburb of Shaker Heights, sixteen-year-old Lisa Pruett was on her way to a midnight tryst with her boyfriend when she was viciously stabbed to death only thirty feet from the boy's home. The murder cast a palpable gloom over the upscale community and sparked accusations, theories, and rumors among Lisa's friends and peers. With a fresh perspective and painstaking research, James Renner reconstructs the events leading up to and following that heartbreaking night. What emerges is a portrait of a community seething with dark undercurrents.
-
-
Couldn’t put it down
- By Kathi Cooper on 01-04-25
By: James Renner
-
Cruel Deception
- The True Story of Multiple Murder and Two Devastated Families (St. Martin's True Crime Library)
- By: Gregg Olsen
- Narrated by: Kevin Pierce
- Length: 9 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In and out of hospitals since birth, angelic nine-month-old Morgan Reid finally succumbed to what appeared to be sudden infant death syndrome. Morgan's Texas-born mother, Tanya, a nurse and devoted wife, pulled up stakes with her grieving husband, Jim, and moved on. It was the best way to put the past behind them. Until their son, Michael, a boy who by all accounts was terrified of his mother, began showing signs of the same affliction that stole the life of his baby sister....
-
-
Deadly Mystery
- By Judy on 06-07-22
By: Gregg Olsen
-
Dear Jacob
- By: Patty Wetterling, Joy Baker - contributor
- Narrated by: Rebecca Stern
- Length: 13 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On October 22, 1989, in the small town of St. Joseph, Minnesota, eleven-year-old Jacob Wetterling was kidnapped at gunpoint. Twenty-seven years later, Danny Heinrich led authorities to the boy’s remains. What lies between is the riveting story of the search for Jacob, told by his mother, Patty. With down-to-earth candor, she details the investigation as it unfolds, discusses her family’s struggles, and shows how she maintained her energy and optimism.
-
-
Beautifully written.
- By Christine on 11-04-23
By: Patty Wetterling, and others
-
Starvation Heights
- Dangerous Women: True Crime Stories
- By: Gregg Olsen
- Narrated by: Stacey Glemboski
- Length: 15 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1911 two British heiresses, Claire and Dora Williamson, read a brochure about a revolutionary fasting treatment that promised a lifetime of good health. The sanatorium in the village of Olalla, west of Seattle, was surrounded by a beautiful forest, sparkling waters and fresh air. The sisters agreed it sounded perfect and exactly the restorative holiday they needed. But within a month of arriving, under the supervision of Doctor Linda Burfield Hazzard, Claire and Dora began to realise the frightening truth – they were not patients but prisoners at the isolated sanitorium.
-
-
Excellent true crime story!
- By Colleen T. Mizeres on 01-26-23
By: Gregg Olsen
-
If You Would Have Told Me
- A Memoir
- By: John Stamos
- Narrated by: John Stamos
- Length: 8 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
If you would have told a young John Stamos flipping burgers at his dad’s fast-food joint that one day he’d be a household name and that, at the height of his success, he’d be living alone, divorced, with no kids, high on a cocktail of forgetting, he might’ve asked, “You want fries with that?”
-
-
Don't expect Uncle Jesse's autobiography...
- By Song4Ten on 10-24-23
By: John Stamos
-
Denied a Mummy
- By: Maggie Hartley
- Narrated by: Penelope McDonald
- Length: 6 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The heartbreaking story of three little children searching for someone to love them. Maggie Hartley faces one of the toughest challenges of her career when three abused and neglected siblings she’s been caring for are placed for adoption with a family she believes are unsuitable. The couple are looking for a perfect ready-made family, and Maggie knows that they’re not going to find it with these traumatised children.
-
-
Listen to the caregiver
- By Theresa on 01-11-20
By: Maggie Hartley
-
Little, Crazy Children
- By: James Renner
- Narrated by: James Renner
- Length: 9 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In September of 1990, in the Cleveland suburb of Shaker Heights, sixteen-year-old Lisa Pruett was on her way to a midnight tryst with her boyfriend when she was viciously stabbed to death only thirty feet from the boy's home. The murder cast a palpable gloom over the upscale community and sparked accusations, theories, and rumors among Lisa's friends and peers. With a fresh perspective and painstaking research, James Renner reconstructs the events leading up to and following that heartbreaking night. What emerges is a portrait of a community seething with dark undercurrents.
-
-
Couldn’t put it down
- By Kathi Cooper on 01-04-25
By: James Renner
-
Cruel Deception
- The True Story of Multiple Murder and Two Devastated Families (St. Martin's True Crime Library)
- By: Gregg Olsen
- Narrated by: Kevin Pierce
- Length: 9 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In and out of hospitals since birth, angelic nine-month-old Morgan Reid finally succumbed to what appeared to be sudden infant death syndrome. Morgan's Texas-born mother, Tanya, a nurse and devoted wife, pulled up stakes with her grieving husband, Jim, and moved on. It was the best way to put the past behind them. Until their son, Michael, a boy who by all accounts was terrified of his mother, began showing signs of the same affliction that stole the life of his baby sister....
-
-
Deadly Mystery
- By Judy on 06-07-22
By: Gregg Olsen
-
American Black Widow
- Dangerous Women: True Crime Stories
- By: Gregg Olsen
- Narrated by: Karen Peakes
- Length: 10 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Colorado, 1976. When Reverend Mike Fuller and his beautiful wife, Sharon, arrive in the sleepy town of Rocky Ford, local residents think something’s off about the new couple. The God-fearing minister is gruff and cold, while charismatic Sharon has her husband wrapped around her finger.
-
-
🤢
- By Brittany on 07-28-23
By: Gregg Olsen
-
Bone Deep
- Untangling the Betsy Faria Case
- By: Charles Bosworth, Joel Schwartz
- Narrated by: Gary Bennett
- Length: 11 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Two days after Christmas, 2011, Russel Faria returned to his Troy, Missouri, home to find his wife, Betsy, dead, a knife still lodged in her neck. She had been stabbed 55 times in a brutal murder that would set off a chain of events leading to one man's wrongful conviction and imprisonment, another man's death, the revelation of a diabolical scheme, and an astounding miscarriage of justice left unresolved for another 10 years.
-
-
One of the Best
- By V. Orner on 03-01-22
By: Charles Bosworth, and others
-
Goodbye, My Little Ones: The True Story of a Murderous Mother and Five Innocent Victims
- By: Charles Hickey, Todd Lighty, John O'Brien
- Narrated by: Kelley Huston
- Length: 11 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Waneta Hoyt’s first baby died. Then her second. Then her third. Nobody, including her husband, suspected Waneta Hoyt - or stopped her from having more babies. Then her fourth baby died. Then her fifth. And the famed medical expert declared they had died of sudden infant death syndrome and use them to support his theory that SIDS ran in families. One man, however, did not except the diagnosis. District Attorney Bill Fitzpatrick set out to expose the truth about a crime hard to imagine. To do so meant convicting a woman who had won the hearts of all.
-
-
Absorbing story with fantastic narration
- By LN on 06-03-19
By: Charles Hickey, and others
-
Just Mercy
- A Story of Justice and Redemption
- By: Bryan Stevenson
- Narrated by: Bryan Stevenson
- Length: 11 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Bryan Stevenson was a young lawyer when he founded the Equal Justice Initiative, a legal practice dedicated to defending those most desperate and in need: the poor, the wrongly condemned, and women and children trapped in the farthest reaches of our criminal justice system. One of his first cases was that of Walter McMillian, a young man who was sentenced to die for a notorious murder he insisted he didn’t commit. The case drew Bryan into a tangle of conspiracy, political machination, and legal brinksmanship—and transformed his understanding of mercy and justice forever.
-
-
Made me question justice, peers and myself.
- By Kristy VL on 04-17-15
By: Bryan Stevenson
-
A Clockwork Murder
- The Night a Twisted Fantasy Became a Demented Reality
- By: Steve Jackson
- Narrated by: Kevin Pierce
- Length: 8 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In April 1997, pretty, 22-year-old Jacine Gielinski stopped her car at a red light in Colorado Springs, Colorado. She had no idea that the two young men looking at her from the car next to hers would in that moment decide she would be their target for unspeakable horrors.
-
-
well written, excellent narration
- By Roberta on 07-08-17
By: Steve Jackson
-
Slenderman
- Online Obsession, Mental Illness, and the Violent Crime of Two Midwestern Girls
- By: Kathleen Hale
- Narrated by: Therese Plummer
- Length: 9 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On May 31, 2014, in the Milwaukee suburb of Waukesha, Wisconsin, two 12-year-old girls attempted to stab their classmate to death. Morgan Geyser and Anissa Weier’s violence was extreme, but what seemed even more frightening was that they committed their crime under the influence of a figure born by the internet: the so-called “Slenderman”. Yet the even more urgent aspect of the story, that the children involved suffered from undiagnosed mental illnesses, often went overlooked in coverage of the case.
-
-
Excellent narration
- By Pink Amy on 08-21-22
By: Kathleen Hale
-
Extreme Punishment
- The Chilling True Story of Acclaimed Law Professor Dan Markel’s Murder
- By: Steven B. Epstein
- Narrated by: Eddie Frierson
- Length: 23 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On the morning of July 18, 2014, 41-year-old Florida State law professor Dan Markel dropped his boys off at preschool, hit the gym, and headed home to his quiet, tree-canopied neighborhood. Within seconds of pulling into his garage, two .38-caliber bullets fired from point-blank range were lodged in his brain. His brutal slaying defied explanation.
-
-
Good book. Guys voice awful
- By Anonymous User on 12-17-23
-
Evil at Lake Seminole
- The Shocking True Story Surrounding the Disappearance of Mike Williams
- By: Steven B. Epstein
- Narrated by: Steven B. Epstein
- Length: 13 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The crisp, predawn hours of December 16, 2000, began much as they had many Saturdays for avid duck hunter Mike Williams — on Lake Seminole, where he’d go to relax after a stressful work week. The Florida State grad was juggling fatherhood with a thriving real estate appraisal career. And that very evening? He and his high school sweetheart, Denise, planned to celebrate their sixth wedding anniversary. But Mike Williams never returned home.
-
-
horrible narrator...
- By Tonya Marrale on 06-14-20
-
With the Devil's Help
- A True Story of Poverty, Mental Illness, and Murder
- By: Neal Wooten
- Narrated by: Traber Burns
- Length: 9 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the tradition of The Glass Castle, Educated, and Heartland, Neal Wooten traces five decades of his dirt-poor, Alabama mountain family as the years and secrets coalesce.
-
-
From knock to knock, it will keep you wondering!
- By Scotty Baker on 02-25-23
By: Neal Wooten
-
Monster
- By: Steve Jackson
- Narrated by: Kevin Pierce
- Length: 19 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On a snowy winter evening in 1982, 21-year-old Mary Brown accepted a ride from a handsome stranger in the resort town of Breckenridge, Colorado. The trip ended with her brutally beaten and raped. Mary survived, but her predator's violence had only just begun. After 10 years in prison, Tom Luther was released a far more vicious criminal. Soon, from the Rockies to West Virginia, like Ted Bundy, Luther enticed a chain of women into his murderous trap.
-
-
Riveting....harrowingly so.
- By Klh23 on 07-24-20
By: Steve Jackson
-
Breaking Blue
- Real Life Stories of Cops Falsely Accused
- By: Sean "Sticks" Larkin
- Narrated by: Sean "Sticks" Larkin
- Length: 7 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Body cams and dashcams have fundamentally transformed law enforcement in recent years. These innovations can help prove someone committed a crime, or didn't. Real-life footage has cleared people initially accused of wrongdoing, and in certain instances even implicated officers. But that same type of footage can also be used to clear police falsely accused of misdeeds. From allegations of harassment or bias to false arrests or even criminal conduct, these videos can prove officers did not cross a line as, sometimes, they are alleged to have done.
-
-
You don’t know until you’ve ride along
- By Mildred B. Gowen on 06-20-21
-
The Courage of Compassion
- A Journey from Judgment to Connection
- By: Robin Steinberg, Camilo Ramirez - contributor
- Narrated by: Robin Steinberg
- Length: 5 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
We all think we are compassionate just like we all think we are honest. But true compassion is not innate. Compassion for others, especially those that we don’t know or understand, must be learned. Our lack of compassion is perhaps most extreme in the exercise of criminal justice, where a person’s entire life, worth, and character are judged through the myopic lens of a single act. But no one, says Robin Steinberg, should be reduced to their worst moment. From the founder and CEO of The Bail Project, The Courage of Compassion unveils how we can reimagine justice through compassion.
-
-
Understanding the misunderstood
- By Melissa on 07-18-23
By: Robin Steinberg, and others
What listeners say about The Unforgiven
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- MR. Stacey King.
- 07-09-24
Heart Breaking!
The story itself was good. it was heartbreaking, I don't understand how a mother could even let this happen. However ,the narrator in the story made it very difficult to get through the book. I almost turned it off two or three times. if you can get past the very monotone almost AI sounding voice it's not a bad listen
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Mary Boone
- 05-24-19
Was Justice Served?
I love true crime and this book did not disappoint. In fact, those who saw me listening while I walked through my town certainly heard me GASP on more than one occasion.
Innocent victims, shock that divided a small town, intrigue, the search for justice (and its possible miscarriage), racial tensions -- it's all here. The Unforgiven tells the story of Amanda Hamm and her three young children. One night Hamm's boyfriend, Maurice LaGrone Jr., drove the group to a lake near home. As the five got ready to depart, instead of putting the car in reverse, LaGrone drove the car into the lake, where the children drowned. Was it a horrible accident or premeditated murder???
Authors Edith Brady-Lunny and Steve Vogel are former journalists who sifted through countless interviews and trial transcripts to put together a vivid, but factual telling of Hamm's story. The narrative is captivating and the heartbreak is real.
Give this a listen!
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
8 people found this helpful
-
Overall
- Suzie
- 06-22-19
,tense
I enjoyed this book so much! the detail was Very good. the narrator did a marvelous job
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
4 people found this helpful