Overwhelming number of facts and a hop-scotching narrative mar what could be a compelling case for wrongful conviction and a...
A thicket of dubious alliances, jealousies, missing evidence and inconsistent testimony lead to a dubious conviction for murder–and reasonable doubt.
The shadowy Appalachian Mountains surrounding the small town of Parsons set the somber tone for this account of a bloody, shotgun double-murder of a father and his rebellious teenage son on Aug. 23, 1982. Stoddart painstakingly re-examines the evidence and transcripts related to the murder 26 years ago of her stepmother Edith Roberts’s teenaged son Timmy and husband Glenn in rural West Virginia. Townsfolk live in double-wide trailers and carve out their hardscrabble existence with blue-collar jobs, forming tenuous alliances that mimic community. The author makes a valiant attempt to present a plausible alternative to robbery and murder and poses the question of guilt or innocence. Stoddart’s inexorable journey uncovers a web of official incompetence, lies and deceit. She has concluded that convicted murderer Russell “Rusty” Clark Phillips didn’t do it. Building the case that the wrong man is serving a life sentence, she pores over inexhaustible volumes of trial transcripts, annotated lists of evidence, medical reports and police records. A dizzying kaleidoscope of alternative scenarios and rhetorical questions–neatly backed up with hand-picked academic opinions–are posed to guide the reader to the same conclusion. Rusty was young Timmy’s friend; an impoverished drifter with a checkered past and few resources or legal avenues to explore in defense of the charges brought against him. Stoddart elucidates an alternative suggestion of patricide followed by Timmy’s suicide that is unfortunately–despite the slate of information and opinions presented–less convincing than the more probable robbery and double-murder. The facts surrounding this case were expertly and exhaustively researched; however, they are so numerous and unadulterated that they leave the story line a challenge to follow.
Overwhelming number of facts and a hop-scotching narrative mar what could be a compelling case for wrongful conviction and a flawed justice system.Pub Date: Dec. 4, 2007
ISBN: 978-0-595-68825-8
Page Count: 354
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 23, 2010
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Smoothly written bio of a lone-wolf executioner for the mob. In his first nonfiction book, mystery author Bruno (Bad Moon, 1992, etc.) puts his writing talents to white-knuckle use with a tight focus on a killer with no human feelings except toward his wife and three sons. Kuklinski—who'd used derringers, shotguns, baseball bats, tire irons, knives, ice picks, and his bare hands to kill—had been dubbed ``The Ice Man'' by the New Jersey Police after it was discovered that the body of one of his victims had been stashed for two years in an ice-cream truck owned by a friend of the killer's known as ``Mr. Softee.'' A genius at assassination when he wasn't serving kids popsicles, Mr. Softee had schooled the Ice Man in the use of cyanide, a car- bomb invention called the ``seat of death,'' and other exotic methods of murder. Cyanide proved to be Kuklinski's first love: It was quiet and discreet—you could walk by your victim, spray his face with the poison while pretending to sneeze, and he'd be dying even as he crumpled to the sidewalk. Bruno details how Dominick Polifrone, a cop who grew up with the wiseguys in Hackensack, goes undercover and gets in with the cagey Kuklinski. The hit man wants cyanide and a rich Jewish kid to sell coke to, and Polifrone wants to record Kuklinski proposing murders. As cop and killer play cat and mouse, and the bartering goes bad, the danger of Polifrone being shot at any moment is torqued tighter and tighter by Bruno. Finally, Kuklinski is caught and tried: It's determined that he's committed approximately one hundred murders, including that of Roy DeMeo, a killer so dangerous that he intimidated even John Gotti. A fast-paced, suspenseful re-creation of how a vicious killer was run to ground.
Pub Date: Sept. 7, 1993
ISBN: 0-385-30778-0
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1993
A bizarre first-person account of a young man’s nearly disastrous obsession with serial killers. As a freshman at the University of Nevada in Las Vegas, Moss, who dreamed of a career in law enforcement, conceived the idea of writing to serial killers on death row, hoping to gain their trust and discover what made them tick. His most extensive contact was with John Wayne Gacy, who had raped and murdered 33 teenage boys. He also corresponded with Charles Manson, Jeffrey Dahmer, Richard Ramirez (a.k.a. the Night Stalker), and other killers whom he admired for their nerve. To gain Gacy’s attention—death-row inmates of Gacy’s notoriety are besieged by would-be correspondents—Moss posed as a sexually confused and highly impressionable boy, matching himself to the profile of Gacy’s victims. When this ploy worked, Moss felt that he had psyched out the killer and assumed that he would be able to manipulate and control him. Soon, however, Moss found himself identifying with, even sympathizing with Gacy, who began telephoning him regularly. When Gacy invited him for an expense-paid visit, Moss discovered that the guards behaved more like servants and left him alone and unobserved in the same room with the convicted murderer. Though aging and handcuffed, Gacy was able to break Moss down and turn him into the confused and compliant young man he had been pretending to be, demonstrating for him not only how a predator operates but how a potential victim feels. Fortunately, Moss, who could easily have become Gacy’s last victim, escaped with only his ego bruised. A prologue and afterword by psychologist Kottler comment on both Moss’s behavior and society’s propensity for glorifying violence and turning serial killers into celebrities. An engrossing and gut-wrenching read. (20 b&w photos)
Pub Date: April 8, 1999
ISBN: 0-446-52340-2
Page Count: 288
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 1999
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