May 13 2008
“Erased” by Marilee Strong
I work at the local library, so I get to see all of the new books that have come out that look intriguing. I was checking a patron out a couple of weeks ago, and I saw a book in the stack called Erased: Missing Women, Murdered Wives. Being a closet fan of 48 Hours Mystery, I thought, “Wow, that looks interesting!” I say that refrain often at work, and have had to work very hard to keep my house from overflowing with “interesting” books from the library. My only defense is that at least the books are free, right? If I worked at Barnes & Noble, I think I’d have to pay them to show up to work! 
So as I checked the patron out, I copied and pasted the barcode information into my account to put it on hold, and then when the patron returned the book, I was next in line and able to take it home. Now that I’ve read the majority of the book (I probably won’t finish it) I have to say: This is not a book for the faint hearted. She freely discusses how the murderers have dismembered and chopped up their victims (who are always either wives or girlfriends) and then calmly went on with their lives. Gruesome and horrifying doesn’t even begin to describe the stories in this book.
For those with weak stomachs, skip this next paragraph. For those who are interested in knowing what kind of material is covered in the book, this might give you a good idea. One of the stories she talks about was a husband who was sick of being married (apparently), so he killed his wife, and wrapped her up in plastic. He bought a huge freezer the day of the killing, and placed her inside. After she was thoroughly frozen, he took her body out into the woods, and, using a chainsaw he had borrowed from a friendly neighbor, went about chopping her up into manageable sizes. He then fed her through a wood chipper that he had rented from a rental store. He took what came out, disposed of it in the river, and then cleaned the chainsaw and wood chipper and calmly returned those items, the owners oblivious to what had happened. Through some real luck, the police figured out what happened, and found bits of her in the chainsaw and wood chipper. All in all, they recovered a mere 3/4’s of an ounce of her body. The rest was gone forever. But it was enough to convict him.
None of the crimes in the book are a crime of passion. All of them are well thought out, and all of the murderers believed they would never be caught. The author goes into detail as to the similarities and differences between psychopaths, narcissists, and Machiavellians - their social thought patterns and other interesting information, and even for no other reason, the first couple of chapters are very interesting to read, to get a better understanding of how these men think. But then she starts to delve into the particulars of each case, and what the man did, and how they caught him, and what happened at trial, and it ends up getting very gory.
Of course, it’s a book about psychopathic murderers killing their loved ones, so I’m not sure what else I thought it should be, except gory and gruesome! For fans of Ann Rule and other true crime authors, this would be a great book to pick up and read.
If you’re up for a depressing but rather interesting and very in-depth look at psychopathic murderers, this newest book by Marilee Strong will be right up your alley. I give it 4.25 out of 5, and would recommend it to others, as long as they know what they’re getting into. 
Havs
Who really just needs to stay out of the true crime section of the library…
