Avon True Crime: Murder in Paradise : A Christmas in Hawaii Turns to Tragedy (Paperback)

On Christmas Eve, 1991, Dara Ireland was kidnapped by three strangers, savagely raped and beaten, and left to die. When local police seemed unable to catch her killers, Dana's father John Ireland--from his Virginia home thousands of miles away--launched his own investigation. Original.

The shocking true story of the murder of 23-year-old Dana Ireland and the nine-year investigation that became Hawaii's most publicised murder case.

By all accounts, 23-year-old Dana Ireland would have been successful at whatever she chose to do with her life. But she didn't get that chance. On Christmas Eve, 1991, this blonde-haired, blue-eyed young woman set off on her bicycle. As she was riding back to the holiday meal, three local youths decided to celebrate Christmas in a different way. They followed her in their car, then rammed her bike, kidnapped, raped, and beat her, and left her for dead on an isolated spot overlooking the ocean. In a community where many residents left their doors unlocked, people were shocked and terrified by this random, brutal act of violence. Worse still was that if the authorities hadn't taken so long to get to the victim, she might have lived. As months and years went by, frustration turned to outrage when police failed to arrest anyone for Dana's murder. But from his home in Springfield, Virginia, John Ireland started his own dogged investigation and crusade for justice. And nine years after his daughter's murder, after one of the most complicated cases the state had ever seen, three men were convicted. Here is a dramatic true story.