Butcher

Darren Mack had it all. A beautiful home in Reno. A lovely wife. Three children. And a million-dollar business. Then his wife Charla filed for divorce, winning a large settlement in a heated courtroom battle. According to friends, Mack was "angry." They had no idea how far his fury would take him...

Over the next year, the rage only intensified. Finally, Darren Mack snapped, stabbing and killing his ex-wife in his condo. Hours later, he stalked and shot their divorce judge in broad daylight. Before the blood had even cooled and law enforcement could react, he fled to Mexico, eluding police hot on his trail.

The case made headlines nationwide, propelled by lurid details of Mack's wild "swinger" lifestyle, the shocking discovery of explosives in his apartment, and the chillingly prophetic remark made by his wife: "Someday he's going to kill me. . ." Catching him was the hardest part. . .

Mary Jean Pearle and John Battaglia's marriage seemed picture perfect from the outside. With their two young daughters, Faith and Liberty, they made their home in a wealthy Dallas suburb. John was handsome, charming, and successful--but behind his mask of normality lay a vicious, violent abuser who'd brutally beaten his first wife--and who made Mary Jean the new target of his irrational rages. After nine hellish years, she divorced Battaglia.

On Christmas Day, 1999, during a court-ordered family visit, he attacked her in front of their daughters. For the next two years, he threatened, harassed and stalked her. Mary Jean feared for her life, but not for the lives of the children, with whom Battaglia was never anything less than caring, loving, and gentle.

But in spring, 2001, when Faith and Liberty were visiting their father, Mary Jean received a message to call her daughters. Helpless, horrified, she heard her older daughter's pleading cries. Then came the sound of gunshots--followed by silence. What evil impulses had driven a seemingly devoted father the ultimate act of violence and betrayal. . .and how would justice be served?

A mother and daughter--brutalized, murdered, and left to rot in the summer heat. A young college student--killed with a .38 handgun at a remote highway rest stop. These were just a few of the victims of Timothy Krajcir, a sexual predator with an unquenchable appetite for violence. . .

He would travel to towns where nobody knew him, break into a woman's home, and wait for her. It started when he was still in his teens, when a rape conviction landed Krajcir in jail. After that, he spent much of his adult life behind bars for various sex crimes. By the time he was in his early 30s, he was a free man. Free to stalk, rape, and kill.

But in 2007, new DNA testing finally linked Krajcir to another college girl's murder. Ultimately, Krajcir confessed to killing nine women--five in Missouri and four in Illinois and Pennsylvania. But his three-decade reign of terror has never been forgotten--and the full range of his predatory crimes never revealed--until now.

When the urge took hold, serial killer Larry Bright brought women back to his home. After raping and murdering his victims, he brutally disposed of their bodies. Sometimes he built a white-hot fire and burned them in his backyard. Other times he dumped them along nearby roads and fields.

For years, Bright had trolled the roads and back streets of Illinois for the most helpless, desperate women he could find. Then one woman escaped, and suddenly police were looking for bodies everywhere--trying to find out how many women Bright had really killed and what he had done with their remains.

Step by step, an all-out investigation would shock hardened detectives. From interviews with women who survived their encounters with him to the forensic search for bone fragments and pieces of burned, buried flesh, the case against Larry Bright finally closed like a vise--on the man who turned his victims into ashes.

In September 2001, Carmen Rodriguez, a beautiful 32-year-old Hartford mother of four, went missing. At first police were stymied. . .until a killer's crucial mistake led investigators down a long, dark road of cold, calculated murder. . .

"Phelps is a first-rate investigator." --Dr. Michael M. Baden

In 1987, single mother Mary Ellen Renard was strangled, repeatedly stabbed, and left for dead in her New Jersey apartment. Her vicious assailant had already killed once. . .and would kill again. But unlike the fiend's other victims, Mary Ellen lived to tell the tale...

"Phelps gives readers an exclusive, insider's look." --Anne Bremner

Clean-cut, popular and on the fast track at a multinational computer firm, Rutgers grad Edwin "Ned" Snelgrove shocked friends and colleagues with a plea bargain for Renard's brutal attack--and the heinous 1983 murder of college girlfriend Karen Osmun. Vowing never to be caught again, Ned spent his time in prison obsessively studying the violent career of his idol Ted Bundy. . .then was released ten years early for good behavior. . .

"Phelps proves that truth is more shocking than fiction." --Allison Brennan

Unflinching and brilliantly researched, this is an exclusive tour into the twisted mind of an all-American killer. . .and a state attorney's tireless efforts to lock him away forever.