Publication Date: July 28, 2026
UPDATED AND EXPANDED
On a hot July night in 1995, Janet Downing was stabbed 98 times inside her Somerville, Massachusetts, home. Within hours, police identified 15-year-old Eddie O’Brien, the best friend of one of her sons, as the suspect.
Eddie had no criminal history, no clear motive, and no apparent opportunity. Yet his case emerged during a national panic over juvenile “superpredators,” when Massachusetts officials were pushing to prosecute more children as adults. His highly publicized trial helped change the state’s juvenile laws.
Attorney Margo Nash, appointed as Eddie’s guardian ad litem, attended every court session and later gained access to the case files, forensic reports, and trial transcripts. Her conclusion was disturbing: Eddie could not have committed the murder.
In this expanded second edition of The Politics of Murder, Nash goes deeper into newly unearthed evidence of prosecutorial misconduct, withheld exculpatory material, and manipulated forensic findings.
Was Eddie O’Brien used to advance a political agenda?
What will it take to overturn his wrongful conviction?
A teenage boy, incarcerated for the brutal slaying of his best friend’s mother, has spent more than half of his life behind bars.
On the surface, it might seem like an open-and-shut case. However, author Margo Nash, who served as a guardian ad litem for Eddie O’Brien, delivers a compelling alternative depicting a tragic miscarriage of justice.
The Politics of Murder 2nd Edition follows up on the original book published in 2016. The updated and expanded book provides a comprehensive look at what appears to be an effort for political favor with a teen boy’s freedom as the sacrifice.
That claim may sound far-fetched until diving into Nash’s thorough exploration of the people involved in the case and, even more importantly, those who had valuable information that went unheeded.
Through case documents and personal interviews, the author delves into the framework that led to Eddie being tried as an adult and the subsequent, unsuccessful efforts to modify his sentence.
The Politics of Murder 2nd Edition illustrates how a Massachusetts murder case that captured national attention ultimately fails to deliver true justice.
Margo Nash has been practicing law for 43 years. As a trial lawyer, she litigated both civil and criminal cases in Massachusetts. The Politics of Murder, Second Edition, is her second book and reflects her continuing commitment to helping the innocent who are convicted by failures in the legal system. In this expanded edition, Nash updates how and why the laws have changed since Eddie O’Brien was incarcerated in 1995, newly discovered forensic evidence, and all that has transpired over the past 10 years since the publication of the original The Politics of Murder in the fight to prove his innocence.
