Shoelaces as Trophies of Murder in The Girl from Devil's Lake

What Are the Shoelaces?

In J. A. Jance's thriller The Girl from Devil's Lake, shoelaces appear as the primary trophies collected by serial killer Stephen Roper. Literally ordinary laces from shoes — white, grubby, often tangled — they are removed from his victims and stored in an old cigar box. The novel emphasizes their physical ordinariness: most are “a grubby shade of gray” after years of storage, while one exceptional lace is bleached white, belonging to victim Xavier Delgado. Roper’s cigar box holds fifteen shoelaces at the end of the story — six blue (for boys) and nine (for girls) — along with dozens of other tokens.

Where the Shoelaces Recur

The shoelaces surface at several critical points across the plot:

Chapter 27 (Roper’s backstory): The reader learns that Roper, from the late 1970s onward, takes shoelaces as trophies from his abduction victims — children, hitchhikers, and prostitutes. He marks a New Mexico map with X’s for each unsolved murder.
Chapter 44 (Evidence processing): Crime scene investigator Casey Ledford finds the cigar box in Roper’s suitcase, alongside $150,000 in cash. She uses tweezers to untangle the shoelaces.
Chapter 46 (Identification): Sheriff Joanna Brady and Casey begin attaching names to each lace. The bleached lace is Xavier Delgado’s; others are linked to Lisa Daniels (“Hydro Girl”) and Calvin Dobbs (“Kite Boy”) via missing shoelaces from their crime scenes.
Chapter 48 (Team meeting): Joanna reveals the final count: six blue laces, nine others. The evidence bag also contains a yellow plastic ribbon (from Calvin’s kite) later matched to a splinter of shoelace.
Chapter 49 and 51 (Confessions): Roper admits to killing Hydro Girl and Kite Boy when Joanna simply mentions the locations — he remembers each victim by their trophy.

How the Meaning of Shoelaces Shifts

At first, the shoelaces are purely personal souvenirs for Roper — silent reminders of each murder, enabling him to re-live his crimes. He never expects anyone to connect them to the victims. As he tells Joanna, he used the trophies to “remember” each kill, treating the laces like badges of achievement.

For Joanna and the investigation, the meaning reverses. The shoelaces become evidence — tangible links to decades-old cold cases. Each lace carries the potential to name a previously anonymous victim. By matching missing shoelaces from old crime scene reports, Joanna builds a nationwide case against Roper. The laces transform from symbols of a killer’s control into instruments of justice.

At a deeper level, the shoelaces represent invisibility and visibility. For Roper, they kept his victims invisible — nameless corpses dumped in rivers. For the families, the shoelaces finally make the victims seen. As Joanna tells Luke Running Deer, “A girl from Devil’s Lake helped bring down a monster.” The shoelace that once silenced a life now gives it a voice.

Character Connections

Sheriff Joanna Brady: Joanna uses the shoelaces methodically. She reads Roper’s trophies as a code, asking each detective to cross-reference missing items from unsolved homicides. Her empathy for victims’ families drives her to solve every lace.
Stephen Roper: Roper’s collection reveals his pathology. He chooses shoelaces because they are small, concealable, and intimate — they once touched his victims’ bodies. The act of cutting them off is a final, possessive gesture.
Victims: Each shoelace personifies a life cut short. The novel names several: Xavier Delgado (bleached lace), Lisa Daniels (missing one white shoelace at SeaFair), Calvin Dobbs (yellow kite tail also double as shoelace-like trophy), and Amanda Hudson (switchblade rather than lace, but still a trophy from the same box).
Detective Deb Howell: Deb feels guilt for Marliss Shackleford’s death, but the shoelaces give her purpose — she helps identify victims.
Marliss Shackleford: Although not a lace victim, Marliss’s death is tied to Roper’s panic when she confronts him. The shoelaces stand for the chain of killings that ultimately include her.

Theme Connections

Serial Killing and Cold Cases: The shoelaces embody the serial killer’s long career. Roper’s collection spans decades, and each lace is a cold case waiting to be solved.
Justice and Legal Procedure: The shoelaces are processed as forensic evidence — bagged, tagged, swabbed for DNA. Joanna’s team follows strict procedure to ensure admissibility.
Family and Motherhood: For families like the Delgados, the shoelaces finally bring closure. Joanna’s own motherly instincts push her to notify next-of-kin personally.
Intergenerational Trauma and Abuse: Roper began killing as a child after abuse by his step-grandmother. The shoelaces symbolize how trauma cycles outward into violence.
Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women (MMIV): Several shoelaces belong to Indigenous victims — Amanda Hudson (Lakota), Inez Johnson (of the San Carlos Apache), and others. The novel highlights how these cases were ignored for decades.

Study Questions

1. Why does Stephen Roper choose shoelaces as his primary trophy, and what does that choice reveal about his psychology?

Answer: Roper selects shoelaces because they are small, easy to remove, and easily overlooked by investigators. The act of unlacing a victim’s shoe is intimate and ritualistic — it gives him a final, possessive moment. The laces also function as memory aids: each lace triggers a specific memory of the murder, allowing Roper to relive the kill. Unlike flashier trophies (jewelry, belt buckles), shoelaces are mundane, which helps him keep his crimes hidden. The collection demonstrates his need for order and control, and his desire to hold onto the power he felt during each murder.

2. How do the shoelaces shift from being a symbol of the killer’s power to a tool of justice for Sheriff Joanna Brady?

Answer: For most of the novel, the shoelaces exist only in Roper’s private world — hidden in a cigar box, meaningless to anyone else. Once seized and analyzed, they become the linchpin of the investigation. Joanna treats each lace as a piece of a puzzle, cross-referencing missing items from cold case files nationwide. For example, the bleached lace matches Xavier Delgado’s murder; the ordinary white lace matches Lisa Daniels’ missing shoelace from 1983. The transformation is complete when Joanna uses the laces to extract confessions from Roper — he admits to murders simply because she names the location, and he remembers the lace. The power that once belonged to Roper now belongs to the law.

3. What role do the shoelaces play in connecting the theme of MMIV to the larger story?

Answer: Several of the shoelace victims are Indigenous women and girls, including Amanda Hudson (whose murder opens the cold case) and Inez Johnson. The shoelaces represent the systemic neglect of these cases — Roper notes that in the 1960s-70s, “the only good Indian is a dead one” attitude meant law enforcement rarely investigated missing Indigenous people. By recovering the shoelaces and matching them to victims, Joanna’s team corrects that historical failure. The title character — “the girl from Devil’s Lake” — is Amanda Hudson, whose trophy (a switchblade, not a lace) starts the chain of identifications. The shoelace evidence ultimately proves that these victims matter.

4. In Chapter 44, Casey Ledford untangles a knot of shoelaces. How does this image function symbolically?

Answer: The tangle of shoelaces visually represents the decades of unsolved crimes that Roper has left behind. Each lace is knotted with others, just as each case is entangled with the next — sharing a common killer, but disconnected in time and geography. Casey’s methodical untangling mirrors Joanna’s investigative process: separating one thread of evidence at a time, until each victim can be named. The image also suggests the emotional complexity of the case — grief, guilt, and relief are all bound together. By the end of the scene, the laces are bagged individually, symbolizing the restoration of individual identities to the victims.