Snyder visits Paul Monson in Montana to learn about how his son-in-law Rocky murdered his daughter Michelle and two grandchildren.

Snyder meets Suzanne Dubus, who is developing a program to predict domestic violence homicides, launching Snyder's decade of investigation.

Fourteen-year-old Michelle becomes pregnant by Rocky Mosure, a 24-year-old parolee, after the two begin a relationship.

Michelle graduates high school on time despite having two young children, walking her kids to daycare each day.

Rocky becomes enraged when Michelle suggests taking a job to help with finances, and Michelle never raises the idea again.

Michelle marries Rocky so she can use his tax records to qualify for college financial aid.

Rocky breaks down the door of Sally Sjaastad's home during a violent episode and forcibly takes his daughter Kristy.

Michelle submits an affidavit to the district attorney's office detailing Rocky's abuse and requesting a restraining order against him.

Michelle cuts off contact with both families after Rocky moves back home, fearing his retaliation against her.

Jacquelyn Campbell develops the Danger Assessment, a tool identifying warning signs that predict when domestic abuse will turn homicidal.

Rocky buys a gun from a newspaper advertisement on the same day he agrees to leave the family home.

Rocky shoots Michelle four times in the basement, kills their two fleeing children, and then sets fire to the house.

Paul Monson, Sally Sjaastad, and Alyssa arrive at Michelle's silent, dark house and discover the bodies of Michelle and her children.

Kelly Dunne and Suzanne Dubus launch the first Domestic Violence High Risk team in the United States.

Kelly Dunne breaks down when Snyder asks what she would tell Dorothy Giunta-Cotter and whispers that she is sorry.

The book opens with journalist Rachel Louise Snyder visiting Paul Monson, whose daughter Michelle and grandchildren were murdered by Michelle's husband Rocky. Snyder's meeting with advocate Suzanne Dubus launches a decade of investigation into why victims stay and what drives abusers to kill. Pool 1 traces the main arc of Michelle and Rocky's relationship, from teenage pregnancy through escalating abuse to the night Rocky murders his family. The pool also captures the key institutional developments that anchor the book's argument, including Jacquelyn Campbell's Danger Assessment and the founding of the first High Risk team. Together these events illustrate the book's central thesis: that institutional silence and cultural pressure trap women in lethal situations. The pool ends with the book's emotional close, as advocate Kelly Dunne expresses the grief of those who work in domestic violence prevention and still lose the people they are trying to save.

The headline events of Michelle Mosure's story and the book's core investigative arc.

Snyder reveals that domestic violence killed 10,600 Americans between 2000 and 2006, compared to 3,200 soldiers killed in war during the same period.

Rocky's father Gordon moves Rocky and his siblings from Ohio to Montana without any warning, and the children fall behind in school.

Rocky introduces Michelle's teenage sister Melanie to methamphetamine and uses her as a drug mule because of her clean record.

Michelle tells Rocky she is enrolled in an extra class so she can slip away to study at the library in peace.

Michelle reveals to her mother that Rocky brought home a live rattlesnake and threatened to use it to kill her.

Gael Strack discovers that all 300 strangulation cases in her study were prosecuted as misdemeanors rather than attempted murder.

Snyder watches Rocky's home videos and notices the moment Michelle coyly calls the footage she is filming 'my evidence.'

Sunny Schwartz brings the ManAlive curriculum into San Bruno prison, creating the Resolve to Stop Violence program for inmates.

The RSVP program achieves an 80 percent drop in recidivism, with most returning inmates charged only with nonviolent offenses.

Donte Lewis is rearrested on drug and weapons charges after a police chase and receives six additional years in federal prison.

Patrick O'Hanlon suffocates his sleeping daughter and bludgeons his wife to death despite later claiming he felt no hatred toward them.

Snyder witnesses Montana police arrest a female domestic violence victim during a ride-along despite her teenage son corroborating her account of abuse.

Dorothy Giunta-Cotter is shot and killed by her estranged husband as a police officer bursts through her front door.

Peg Hacskaylo founds the Cornerstone Housing Program in Washington DC to provide two-year transitional housing for domestic violence survivors.

Snyder learns that her friend's brother shot and killed his estranged wife and then himself following their decision to divorce.

Pool 2 opens with Snyder's disturbing statistics, establishing the vast scale of domestic violence before exploring the backstory of Rocky Mosure's troubled upbringing and the escalating abuse Michelle endured behind closed doors. The pool spotlights Rocky's hidden manipulation of Michelle's family and the moments of danger that went unaddressed, including his threat to kill her with a rattlesnake. Key institutional failures and breakthroughs are examined through Gael Strack's strangulation research and the founding and measurable results of the RSVP prison rehabilitation program. The human cost of failed intervention is dramatized through Donte Lewis's reincarceration, Patrick O'Hanlon's familicide, and the murder of Dorothy Giunta-Cotter. The pool ends with the book's Afterword, in which domestic violence strikes Snyder's own personal circle when her friend's brother commits a murder-suicide.

Significant turning points in the supporting stories and institutional battles against domestic violence.

A counselor advises Sally Sjaastad to wait out Michelle's relationship with Rocky, predicting that he will tire of her youth and leave.

Gordon Mosure rushes to Michelle after she calls saying Rocky has threatened to kill her family, then convinces himself it was a one-off.

Rocky drives his car into oncoming traffic to chase down and scream at Michelle, who is riding with her sister Alyssa.

Michelle goes to a clinic to be tested for sexually transmitted diseases after suspecting Rocky of having an affair.

Sally Sjaastad discovers that when Michelle recanted her affidavit, an administrative error caused Sally's own police complaint to be dismissed too.

Jacquelyn Campbell discovers that danger spikes sharply and remains elevated for a full year after a domestic abuse victim attempts to leave.

Neil Websdale applies aviation and medical error-review processes to domestic homicide, founding the Fatality Review Team model.

Michelle Mosure's case becomes the first reviewed by Montana's newly established Fatality Review Team after her death.

Hamish Sinclair founds ManAlive, a 52-week batterer intervention program requiring men to take full responsibility for their violence.

Jimmy Espinoza reveals that being molested by an older man at around age eight set him on a path of rage and violence.

David Adams founds Emerge after discovering that clinical narcissism rather than general anger is at the root of most abusive behavior.

The Supreme Court's Crawford ruling prevents prosecutors from using statements made by victims who later recant, devastating evidence-based prosecution efforts.

Martina Latessa's teenage niece Bresha kills her sleeping, abusive father and is held in a juvenile detention facility for a year.

Grace recants her statement against Byron and returns to him, and Byron ultimately receives only probation for his abuse.

Snyder's stepmother reveals in her final weeks that she grew up in an abusive home and survived an abusive first marriage.

Pool 3 traces the chain of missed opportunities and pivotal decisions that allowed violence to escalate in Michelle Mosure's life, from the counselor who told Sally to wait out the relationship to Gordon's refusal to believe the danger was real. It highlights the research breakthroughs—Campbell's timeline of danger, Websdale's fatality review model—that transformed how society understands and responds to domestic abuse. The pool then turns to the rehabilitation programs built on those discoveries, including ManAlive and Emerge, and the personal histories that drove the men who founded them. The Supreme Court's Crawford ruling emerges as a major institutional setback, while the stories of Bresha and Grace reveal how justice often falls short even when intervention is attempted. Pool 3 ends with Snyder's most personal revelation: that her own stepmother spent a lifetime in silence about the abuse she had survived.

The key decisions, discoveries, and missed opportunities that define the book's central argument.