The Third Rainbow Girl: The Long Life of a Double Murder in Appalachia Book by Emma Copley Eisenberg

 On the surface, this is yet another true crime book with a splash of color thrown in. But like Appalachia, and particularly West Virginia, nothing is ever what it seems. Four main themes form within Eisenberg’s book as she tells the story of the 1980 “The Rainbow Murders” committed in Pocahontas County, West Virginia. Outside, Inside, Freedom and Hurt. Characters struggle to immerse from the outside, break free from confines (seen or otherwise), and swoop in and out place and story. Still all involved are equally hurt and hurt those around them.

In 1980, the Rainbow Family of Oregon set out to hold its yearly gathering in western West Virginia’s Pocahontas County on the border of Virginia. The event attracted free spirits like Nancy Santomero and Vicki Durian. Hitchhiking from Arizona, the two never made it to the gathering, being murdered a few miles from the gathering in a grizzly fashion. Outsiders not all that interested in immersing themselves in West Virginia, but still hurt in the deepest sense.

Layered into their story and forming a juxtaposition is Eisenburg’s own tale. Coming to Pocahontas County as an AmeriCorps VISTA just in time for the worst winter on record, she struggles to simultaneously immerse herself and free those wishing to shed the crippling poverty for their own well being. Despite her best efforts, she is the penultimate outsider, struggling to be inside and like everyone in this story she is wounded.

Forming a third collective character are men who as a group are equal part kind, and capable of deep cruelty. They too are insiders yarning to break free, outsiders trying to fit in and able to hurt those around them to the core.

The Third Rainbow Girl by Emma Copley Eisenburg welcomingly breaks from the typical true crime story with the addition of the heart breaking dichotomy of people struggling to be free from forces beyond their control, yet being wounded physically, mentally, and emotionally in the process. This reviewer was drawn in by the surface narrative, but stayed for the intensity and passion for a human story that Eisenberg so clearly wanted to project on her work.