Finding Sharon

Investigative journalist Matt Birkbeck continues the true story he began in A Beautiful Child, which followed a gifted young woman known publicly as Sharon Marshall. Her real name was never Sharon, and she had been trapped by the man she called her father. Readers' interest in her case led to a ten-year search with two main goals: uncovering who she really was, and finding out what happened to her young son Michael, who vanished from his first-grade classroom and was never found.

The public attention also persuaded the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children to reopen the case with the FBI. Using Birkbeck's earlier book as a guide, two FBI agents arranged interviews on death row with the man who had abused Sharon, hoping to learn what he knew. The book blends memoir with narrative journalism and aims to close the case, ending on a hopeful note.

Both books have been adapted into the Netflix documentary Girl in the Picture.