Two young women, murdered their homes, forty years apart. Their deaths have the it-can't-happen-here horror that tears into the heart of a community, in this case, the small Southern town of Piedmont, North Carolina. The two families aggrieved by the first murder suffer again with the second-and find that four decades are not enough for healing. When the old scars are torn off by the second murder, the pain of each is magnified. Until Proven is a mystery, a family saga, and an examination of how a community changes-or doesn't.

Dec. 24, 1963, 8:45 a.m. Stanley Forte pulled up in front of friend Frank Rinaldi's house and honked the car horn. Frank came out and got in. "Together again, baby," Frank said and they set off, driving the twelve miles or so from Chapel Hill to Durham, North Carolina, to go Christmas shopping.They bought gifts for their wives, toys for Stan's two sons and Frank bought a teddy bear for the baby his wife, Lucille, was carrying.When they returned to Frank's duplex apartment, 105 North Street, Chapel Hill, at about 1:30 p.m., they found that Lucille had been struck on the head, gagged, strangled...