When ten-year-old Jessica Ridgeway goes missing on a snowy day in Westminster, Colorado, police are shocked to discover she has been raped, tortured, murdered and dismembered. With an expectation that they are hunting an adult male who fits the usual sex-offender profile, the force are bewildered when a seventeen-year-old teen confesses to the killing.
This is book 6 in Kathryn McMaster’s True Crime Press Series, ‘Kids who Kill’. Like the others in the series, the story is based on court and police reports, witness statements, news articles and interviews. The tale is a brutal one, detailing the horrendous acts committed by the killer and his attempts to excuse the horror of what he has done. I read the book in one sitting and was moved to tears by the impact statements made by the police chief and members of the victim’s family.
Told with a real sense of compassion for those involved, Ms McMaster’s account is a difficult one to read and some readers may find it, as I did, extremely upsetting.
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I can imagine that this book is very upsetting, Colin. ONe wonders what goes wrong with kids to turn them into killers like this.
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Yes, it’s hard to know why some folk turn out bad and others don’t.
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