The Misbegotten Son - Taschenbuch

An account of the crimes of Arthur Shawcross describes how the paroled child killer shot, stabbed, suffocated, and strangled sixteen Rochester, New York, prostitutes and examines how the legal system failed his victims. 40,000 first printing. $40,000 ad/promo.Tour., Accounts of more famous serial killers like Ted Bundy or Jeffrey Dahmer may have ghoulish entertainment value, but I agree with writer Darcy O'Brien that this meticulously factual study of child sex-murderer Arthur Shawcross "comes closer to capturing the psychology of a serial killer than anything else I've ever read." The strength of this book (semi-finalist for a 1994 Edgar Award) comes first from the quality of the materials--including first-person interviews with the killer's wives, girlfriends, co-workers, police officers, therapists, and even a prostitute who "played dead" for Shawcross--and second, from Olsen's ability to weave the information into a highly readable story that reveals, above all, the ineffectiveness of our system of rehabilitation and parole. Not only should it have been obvious to everyone, long before he killed anyone, that Shawcross was a ticking bomb of sexual sadism, but he should never have been released from prison to kill again.