MISSING BEAUTY: A True Story of Murder and Obsession

by Teresa Carpenter ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 1, 1988

The ""Missing Beauty"" of the title was Robin Benedict, a ""commercial artist"" who disappeared in 1983 in Boston and turned out to have been a prostitute, bludgeoned to death by one of her johns--Dr. William Douglas, a prominent Tufts Univ. research scientist who had become obsessed with her. Pulitzer Prize-winning crime reporter Carpenter's richly detailed account of the case is more complete and less psychologically speculative than Linda Wolfe's briefer version in the title piece of her collection of articles, The Professor and the Prostitute (1986). Carpenter has amassed a wealth of information about both killer and victim, their families and associates, and the investigation that led to Douglas' arrest and subsequent confession; he's now serving time. But, unfortunately, with Benedict dead and unable to speak and Douglas (and his family) now not talking, all the painstaking research cannot provide a clear picture of what actually went on between the two. Nonetheless, the facts are consistently engrossing: Benedict's life in a happy, supportive, racially mixed family; Douglas embezzling money to support his hooker-habit, charging condoms to the lab's petty cash (calling them ""biological fluid collection units""), and explaining away his fraudulent use of funds as a side-effect of a crash diet. Though it's not the Fatal Attraction you might expect, this true crime story never lags; a fascinating tour through a criminal investigation and the many different social worlds of Boston and environs.

Pub Date: July 1, 1988

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Norton

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1988

Categories: NONFICTION