The Valley of the Shadow of Death

A new book tells how an unspeakable tragedy pushed one man to the brink
but didn't break him

Alex Gerould and Jeff Snipes sitting

Criminal Justice Studies faculty members Alex Gerould and Jeff Snipes (above) collaborated with former NFL player Kermit Alexander (below) to chronicle the devastation he faced following the murder of four family members. Photo by Paul Asper.

Two women and two children are murdered in their South Central Los Angeles home. The crime is brutal, shocking and seemingly random. There are no leads. A family is shattered. A son, searching for answers, is driven to depression and desperation.

The tragic details spill onto the page as in a murder-mystery novel, but the story is heartbreakingly true. A new book by Assistant Professor of Criminal Justice Studies Alex Gerould, Associate Professor of Criminal Justice Studies Jeff Snipes and former NFL player Kermit Alexander, “The Valley of the Shadow of Death,” explores the details surrounding the tragic murders and provides an illuminating look at the African-American experience over the last 70-plus years.

“It deals with Southern life in the 1940s and ’50s, with Jim Crow and with the Great Migration out west. It deals with L.A. and its promises. It deals with the disappointments, the street gangs, the criminal justice system,” Gerould says. “It’s really an encapsulation of both the intimate and the grand.”

“It deals with Southern life in the 1940s and ’50s, with Jim Crow and with the Great Migration out west. It deals with L.A. and its promises. It deals with the disappointments, the street gangs, the criminal justice system,” Gerould says. “It’s really an encapsulation of both the intimate and the grand.”

Cover of The Valley of the Shadow of Death

The intimate is the life of Alexander, whose mother, sister and two young nephews were killed on Aug. 31, 1984. “The Valley of the Shadow of Death” details Alexander’s childhood in Louisiana, his family’s move to California, his NFL career, his descent into the L.A. underworld following the murders in a desperate search for answers and, ultimately, his redemption years later.

The grand is how Alexander’s story fits into the broader context of life as an African-American since the early 20th century. Like so many others, Alexander’s father moved his family from the South to Los Angeles in the hope of escaping Jim Crow discrimination and finding new opportunities. But they found, as so many others had, the relief was only temporary.

“Kermit has expressed this to me so much, that the fear and the injustice that they left in the South was relived in a new incarnation in South Central L.A. with the rise of street gangs,” Gerould says. “Many of the people who fled the white supremacists and the terror in the South were now terrorized by their own race in their own neighborhoods.”

The result of four years of exhaustive research and interviews, the book had its genesis during a visit by Gerould and Snipes’ criminal justice studies class to San Quentin State Prison. During the visit, Gerould overheard a guard say that the most dangerous man on death row was Tiequon Cox — a central figure in the Alexander murders. That sparked his interest in writing a book about the case, and he asked Snipes to work with him on the project. They soon discovered some 20,000 pages of court documents that offered not only details of the trials but also revelations about what life was like in gang-ridden Los Angeles during the 1980s.


“There is history and sociology and personal feelings, and [Gerould and Snipes] were able to capture the spirit of my family and what we went through.” — Kermit Alexander


Photo of Kermit Alexander

Photo by Jim Seida, NBC News.

“One of the things that surprised me the most was just how much information we were able to come up with on such an old case,” Snipes says. “Another was the ability to interview most of the people who were actively involved in this case and how willing they were to talk about it.”

Gerould and Snipes reached out to Alexander, who had been making his own attempt to chronicle the tragedy. The writing process was too painful for Alexander to tackle alone, however, and he agreed to meet with Gerould and Snipes. They bonded instantly, Alexander says, and by joining forces they were able to create a portrait not just of the crime but the social circumstances behind it.

“I was able to explain through the book where I came from, how I got here, what we were faced with as a family and what I had to deal with as a person,” Alexander says. “It’s almost like a sociological treatise. There is history and sociology and personal feelings, and [Gerould and Snipes] were able to capture the spirit of my family and what we went through.”

Initial plans for the book to be written in third person were cast aside when all parties eventually agreed the story would be more powerful if told from Alexander’s perspective. Hours-long interviews with Alexander and his relatives provided the intimate details Gerould and Snipes needed to tell the personal side of the case: the shock and devastation of the first few hours and days following the killings, the divisions that occurred as the case dragged on with no answers and, ultimately, healing.

In addition to speaking with the Alexander family, Gerould and Snipes wanted to better understand the African-American experience and the realities of life in South Central L.A. They visited death row at San Quentin and Alexander’s hometown in Louisiana. They drove the route the killers took. They spoke with gang cops and active gang members to learn how countless young men, often from broken homes, are driven to a life of violence in exchange for the “protection” gangs offer.

“You see how violent and brutal the effect of gang violence is on the victims, and at the same time you see how the gang in a very unfortunate way makes sense to the kids who join it,” Gerould says. “I understood in a way I hadn’t before why all the stuff you read in the theory books actually takes place.”

During the writing process, Gerould’s and Snipes’ families became close with the Alexanders. According to Kermit Alexander’s wife, Tami, those relationships brought an invaluable extra dimension to the book.

“When you share so much of your intimate life with people, it creates an incredible bond,” she says. “Without [Gerould and Snipes], I don’t think the story could have been as richly told from a different perspective.”

Read an excerpt from “The Valley of the Shadow of Death”.

 

By JONATHAN MORALES