All in a Moment: Innocence Lost, A Mother's Murder, and the Power of Forgiveness

Mallina Wilson grew up on the move: communes, VW vans, hitchhiked highways, and a childhood in which instability was often the only constant. Her mother, Amina, was magnetic, mystical, loving, and unreliable in equal measure.

Then, when Mallina was fifteen, her mother walked out the door and vanished.

For two years, the family searched hospitals, alleys, and dumpsters, distributing missing-person flyers and desperately hoping to find her. Eventually, Amina's remains were discovered. Investigators later told the family that she was the first victim on a list connected to the man who would become known as the Green River Killer, Gary Ridgway, though he was never charged with her murder.

All In A Moment is the story of what came before that loss and everything that followed: a rootless, sometimes funny and often harrowing childhood; years spent searching for answers; marriage and motherhood; and nearly two decades waiting for an arrest Mallina believed might finally bring closure.

But when Ridgway was arrested, Mallina discovered that justice and closure were not the same thing.

At its heart, All In A Moment is not a true-crime book. It is a memoir about what happens after the headlines fade: grief without answers, forgiveness without an apology, breaking generational patterns, and learning to build the safety and stability no one built for you.