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A Murder Over a Girl is a book of tragedy, trauma, and, in part, the impact on others of an adolescent's struggle toward personal identity. As a 14-year old boy, Brandon McInerney shot and killed 15-year-old classmate Larry King in a room full of fellow students in Oxnard, California:
… on February 12, 2008, fourteen-year-old Brandon shot fifteen-year-old Lawrence “Larry” Fobes King twice in the back of the head, during their first period English class at E.O. Green Jr. High … (p. 4)
The murder trial of Brandon McInerney took place in the context of his having already confessed to the killing. The facts were never in doubt.
A Murder Over a Girl is an account of one emotionally and physically abused child killing another emotionally neglected, traumatized, and abused child. Ken Corbett, a psychologist who is a Clinical Assistant Professor at the New York University Postdoctoral Program in Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis, and who has written on gender identity and boyhood, traveled to California to witness the trial of Brandon McInerney. Corbett sought to understand Brandon's motive and the extent to which his actions were a reaction to the victim's questioning of his own gender identity. In the weeks leading up to the murder, Larry had begun referring to himself as “Leticia” on occasion. He had experimented with wearing makeup and women's accessories to school. Brandon, on the other hand, had a somewhat hyper-masculinized gender identity that seemed to have developed as a form of armor, one that included themes of white power and neo-Nazism. Brandon's attorney portrayed his client as a normal boy who was provoked by Larry/Leticia. These provocations were characterized as sexual harassment. A story circulated that Larry/Leticia had asked Brandon to be his Valentine, a rumor that lay at the heart of the harassment allegation. Remarkably, the