Provides statements and quotes from a number of convicted serial killers in an effort to understand the homicidal mind.

After twenty-five years of investigating, analyzing, and interviewing serial killers, their family members, neighbors, and even surviving victims, Jack Levin has become one of the world''s most respected experts on the motivations and modus operandi of dangerous criminals. In this gripping book, he taps his wealth of experience with the criminal mind to offer lessons for law enforcement and the general public about how serial killers think, as well as the conditions under which hideous murders typically occur. These lessons, he hopes, will lead to more effective ways to thwart such crimes in the future. Levin''s face-to-face meetings and correspondence with such notorious murderers as the Hillside strangler (Kenneth Bianchi) and Orville Lynn Majors (the male nurse who was convicted of killing numerous patients in his charge) reveal that these types of killers are not motivated by money, revenge, or rage. In fact, the only motivation seems to be a sadistic craving for power and a need to feel in control. Levin also, for the first time, lets down his guard and reveals what it feels like to be seated so close to such cold-blooded killers.Many killers, as Levin points out, are meticulous planners. Levin has found that even in situations that appear spontaneous, for instance a workplace shooting by a disgruntled employee, the deed is carefully thought out and prepared for in advance. Another factor that consistently emerges in conversations with killers who have committed the most heinous of acts is the total absence of remorse or any notion of moral responsibility. Murder appears to be easy for these criminals and they kill with a feeling of complete impunity. Levin also notes the skillfully deceptive facades that such murderers are able to affect. They are extremely adept liars (he admits to having been fooled!), who enjoy playing mind games, even though outwardly they seem above suspicion. This is one reason they are so dangerous and difficult for investigators to track down and prosecute. This chilling glimpse into the minds of some of the worst criminals makes a valuable contribution to criminology and is a must-read for both true-crime buffs and law enforcement professionals.

This is Capote’s In Cold Blood for serial killer enthusiasts: meticulously researched, superbly written, and incredibly vivid. Don’t miss it.” —Gabino Iglesias, author of Coyote Songs America’s First Female Serial Killer novelizes the true story of first-generation Irish-American nurse Jane Toppan, born as Honora Kelley. Although all the facts are intact, books about her life and her crimes are all facts and no story. Jane Toppan was absolutely a monster, but she did not start out that way. When Jane was a young child, her father abandoned her and her sister to the Boston Female Asylum. From there, Jane was indentured to a wealthy family who changed her name, never adopted her, wrote her out of the will, and essentially taught her how to hate herself. Jilted at the altar, Jane became a nurse and took control of her life—and the lives of her victims. “A thoughtful and inspired take on one of the greatest poisoners in history. America’s First Female Serial Killer: Jane Toppan and the Making of a Monster seethes with rage, compulsion, and a righteous condemnation of the servitude of the underclass. A chilling and sobering read.” —Robert Levy, author of The Glittering World “McBrayer offers us a complex—and terrifying—portrait of a killer who seemed almost doomed from birth.” —Kate Winkler Dawson, author of American Sherlock: Murder, Forensics, and the Birth of American CSI “Brings the horrifying true story of Jane Toppan to lurid, novelistic life, and forces the reader face-to-face with the thoughtlessness and cruelty that helped turn a gifted, damaged child into one of America’s most legendary killers.” —Shaun Hamill, author of A Cosmology of Monsters

Hear from Detectives, Ex-Husbands, Victims and Lady Killers Themselves to Understand Why They Snapped "Don't be fooled by me. Don't be fooled by the face that I wear for I wear a thousand masks; masks that I'm afraid to take off and none of them are me. Pretending is an art that is second nature to me but do not be fooled. For God's sake don't be fooled." --Judy Buenoano, shortly before her death row execution "I fell to the ground but the attack continued. I was just waiting for it to stop. There was loads and loads of blood. As I lay there, I thought, this is where I am going to die." --John Rogers to a trial jury, describing an attack by Joanna Dennehy "I'm a good person inside, but when I get drunk, I just don't know...I've got nothing to lose...What am I supposed to do?...It was all their fault and that's the God's honest truth." --Aileen "Lee" Carol Wuornos, inspiration for the 2003 film Monster "She said, 'You'd never believe about some of the things we are doing at the nursing home.' I knew things were out of control." --Ken Wood, estranged husband of "Lethal Lover" Cathy May Wood "[They] left my mother in such a distorted, dismembered and ashened state that she was identifiable only by her dental record. My life has been ripped apart at the seams..." --Steve White, son of Virginia Susan Caudill's murder victim

Marie Besnard, the "Queen of Poisoners". Nanny Hazel Doss, killer of four husbands, three children, two sisters, and her mother--all to turn a profit. These are just two of the dozens of deadly and determined women who have been overlooked in the popular annals of serial crime--until now. More difficult to apprehend and motivated by more complex issues, female serial killers may be even more lethal and cunning than their male counterparts.

14 horrific stories from the dark side of web. Chapter by chapter, this book presents an evil internet world where crimes are not impersonal identity thievery but rather viciously physically assaults on real people.

In this fascinating book, Peter Vronsky exposes and investigates the phenomenon of women who kill—and the political, economic, social and sexual implications buried with each victim. How many of us are even remotely prepared to imagine our mothers, daughters, sisters or grandmothers as fiendish killers? For centuries we have been conditioned to think of serial murderers and psychopathic predators as men—with women registering low on our paranoia radar. Perhaps that’s why so many trusting husbands, lovers, family friends, and children have fallen prey to “the female monster.” From history’s earliest recorded cases of homicidal females to Irma Grese, the Nazi Beast of Belsen, from Britain’s notorious child-slayer Myra Hindley to ‘Honeymoon Killer’ Martha Beck to the sensational cult of Aileen Wournos—the first female serial killer-as-celebrity—to cult killers, homicidal missionaries, and our pop-culture fascination with the sexy femme fatale, Vronsky not only challenges our ordinary standards of good and evil but also defies our basic accepted perceptions of gender role and identity. INCLUDES PHOTOGRAPHS