Finding Susan

by Molly Hurley Moran

A woman’s heartrending search for her sister

Advancing with the suspense and deft reportage of the true-crime genre and fueled by the poignancy of a literary memoir, Finding Susan is Molly Hurley Moran’s pointed exploration of the disappearance of her sister and her family’s descent into the surreal world of psychics and detectives they once dismissed as the stuff of Lifetime movies. 

Susan Hurley Harrison disappeared from upscale Ruxton, Maryland on August 5, 1994. Her body was discovered in the woods of northern Maryland two years later and her death was ruled a homicide. Although Susan’s case drew substantial media attention—including a spot on Unsolved Mysteries—no one, to date, has ever been charged with her murder. In piecing together a mosaic of Susan’s final years, Moran grew to believe her sister was a victim of domestic violence.

An academic by trade, Moran employs a scholar’s precision and razor-sharp feminist analysis in this valiant effort to come to terms with Susan’s life and death and to understand her sister in a way she did not when she was alive. “Finding” Susan refers to both the search for Susan's body and the search for the formative forces of her life.

Mirroring elements of high-profile cases from Laci Peterson to Nicole Brown Simpson, Finding Susan is one woman’s chronicle of loss and remembrance that arrestingly details the helplessness experienced by families of missing persons and calls critical attention to our alarming blindness to domestic abuse. Including appendixes of domestic violence resources, Finding Susan serves as a guide for concerned family members and friends of at-risk women to help identify the warning signs of domestic abuse. Thirty-six illustrations are a powerful complement to the volume.

Genres: True Crime

280 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2003

Reviews

[Eugenia]

This thought-provoking, reflective memoir by my acquaintance Molly Moran recounts the mysterious disappearance of her sister Susan, and the domestic secrets unearthed with the eventual discovery of Susan's body. There are in fact three mysteries at the heart of this thoughtful book: what happened to Susan, why Susan stayed in a marriage that (the author makes a convincing case) was violently abusive -- and why, by extension, other independent, intelligent, beautiful women stay with abusive partners - and finally the mysterious questions surrounding how well we can know other persons -- what philosophers call the "problem of other minds." For Susan's family, Susan herself almost came into view only upon her disappearance.
Molly Moran writes crisply and beautifully. Despite the difficult subject matter, this book will compel you to finish it in one sitting.

[Kellie]

Bleh. I was expecting the author, who is the woman's sister, to start at the present day or when she disappeared, then go back to their chilhood and work forward. Instead, she jumps around so much it's hard to know where she is chronologically at any given point in the book. Not good.

[Susan]

This story is so crazy its as if im reading my own life tory but the peoples names are shifted around in it. About every name that is used in this true story is someones name in my own life. Things that had been done to this person by her abuser is so much like things ive been through its as if im reading what had happened to me in my life and whats with the word "teal"? Thats my childrens last name? Thats frigging crazy!! If i didnt think so id say im dead and reading what happened to me and that i am really dead. But the o e who used to beat me lock me in the bedroom all night long and let his friends watch him have sex with me after he just kicked the crap out of me his name was michael and i too would go running back to him saying i will fix this and then it would just start all over again and of course no one would believe me cuz i kept running back to him as if nothing happened he never touched me and when he did say "i didnt mean to hit you that hard" the only time he admitted to hitting me i believed he would never do it again until the night he beat me up so bad i looked like a boxer who was beat in the face couldnt see out of my left eye swollen shut and had to have my jaw wired shut i started to think that it was never going to get better he wasnt going to change and his father wasnt coming to my funeral as he said that to me can you respond back to me please at ibcravinumor@gmail.com my name is susan Lutz i must speak to you please im not a nut job i swear