Bestial
Authors: Harold Schechter
$7.99 U.S.
$11.99 CAN.
Don’t miss these “top-drawer true-crime” (Booklist)
shockers by
HAROLD SCHECHTER
DEVIANT
DERANGED
DEPRAVED
BESTIAL
FIEND
FATAL
and
THE A TO Z ENCYCLOPEDIA
OF SERIAL KILLERS
by Harold Schechter and David Everitt
Be sure to read Harold Schechter’s acclaimed historical crime
fiction featuring Edgar Allan Poe
THE HUM BUG
and
NEVERMORE
All available from Pocket Books
“America’s foremost pop historian of serial
murder” (
The Boston Book Review
),
Harold Schechter reveals a real-life monster of
the 1920s—and brilliantly documents the
historical impact of his ghastly crimes
BESTIAL
The Savage Trail of a True American Monster
“[An] essential addition…. Deserves to be read and pored over by the hard crime enthusiast as well as devotees of social history.”
—
The Boston Book Review
“[A] deftly written, unflinching account…. A fascinating police procedural…. Schechter’s macabre stories unfold like finely-tuned crime novels…. Well-documented nightmares for anyone who dares to look.”
—
Journal Star
(Peoria, IL)
Look for Harold Schechter’s essential account of H. H. Holmes, whose grotesque crimes shattered turn-of-the-century Chicago
DEPRAVED
The Shocking True Story of America’s
First Serial Killer
“Shocking….
Depraved
demonstrates that sadistic psychopaths are not a modern-day phenomenon…. Gruesome, awesome, compelling reporting.”
—Ann Rule, bestselling author of
Heart Full of Lies
“Destined to be a true crime classic…. As chilling as
The Silence of the Lambs
and as blood curdling as the best Stephen King novel.”
—
Flint
(MI)
Journal
“A meticulously researched, brilliantly detailed, and above all riveting account of Dr. H. H. Holmes, a nineteenth-century serial killer who embodied the ferociously dark side of America’s seemingly timeless preoccupations with ambition, money, and power. Schechter has done his usual sterling job in resurrecting this amazing tale.”
—Caleb Carr, bestselling author of
The Alienist
“An astonishing piece of popular history…. I unhesitatingly recommend [
Depraved
]… to round out your understanding of the true depth, meaning, and perversity of [this] uniquely American brand of mayhem.”
—
The Boston Book Review
“Schechter’s writing keeps you turning the pages….”
—
Syracuse Herald-American
And don’t miss Harold Schechter’s other
true-crime masterpieces
FIEND
The Shocking True Story of America’s
Youngest Serial Killer
“A memorably gothic tale…. True-crime lovers will not want to miss it.”
—
Publishers Weekly
DERANGED
The Shocking True Story of America’s
Most Fiendish Killer
“Reads like fiction but it’s chillingly real….”
—
The Philadelphia Inquirer
DEVIANT
The Shocking True Story of Ed Gein,
the Original “Psycho”
“[A] grisly, wonderful book…. Scrupulously researched.”
—
Film Quarterly
THE A TO Z ENCYCLOPEDIA OF
SERIAL KILLERS
By Harold Schechter and David Everitt
“The scholarship is both genuine and fascinating.”
—
The Boston Book Review
“A grisly tome…. Schechter knows his subject matter.”
—
Denver Rocky Mountain News
“The ultimate reference on this fascinating phenomenon.”
—
PI Magazine
Praise for Harold Schechter’s historical
crime fiction featuring Edgar Allan Poe
THE HUM BUG
“A riveting excursion…. Poe and his times come across with wonderful credibility and vitality.”
—
Booklist
NEVERMORE
“[Schechter] … keeps the finger of suspicion wandering until the very end.”
—
The New York Times Book Review
“A literary confection…. A first-rate mystery.”
—
Booklist
Pocket Books by Harold Schechter
NONFICTION
The A to Z Encyclopedia of Serial Killers
(with David Everitt)
Deranged
Depraved
Deviant
Fiend
Bestial
Fatal
FICTION
Nevermore
The Hum Bug
Outcry
T
HE
S
AVAGE
T
RAIL OF A
T
RUE
A
MERICAN
M
ONSTER
HAROLD SCHECHTER
POCKET
STAR
BOOKS
New York London Toronto Sydney
The sale of this book without its cover is unauthorized. If you purchased this book without a cover, you should be aware that it was reported to the publisher as “unsold and destroyed.” Neither the author nor the publisher has received payment for the sale of this “stripped book.”
A Pocket Star Book published by
POCKET BOOKS, a division of Simon & Schuster, Inc.
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Copyright ©1998 by Harold Schechter
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce
this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.
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of the Americas, New York, NY 10020
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ISBN: 0-7434-8335-9
ISBN: 978-0-7434-8335-3
eISBN: 978-1-4391-1730-9
This Pocket Books printing March 2004
10 9 8 7 6 5
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The ape, vilest of beasts, how like to us.
Cicero,
De Natura Deorum
BEStiAL
This book is lovingly dedicated
(at long last) to my niece,
Ilene Schlanger
PROLOGUE
†
W
e tend to think of serial murder as a symptom of our own alarmingly violent age—and there’s some truth to this perception.
To be sure, homicidal maniacs have existed in all times and places. Historians of crime can cite a host of premodern monsters—human predators whose atrocities easily match (and often surpass) those of Jeffrey Dahmer, John Wayne Gacy, and Richard “The Night Stalker” Rodriguez. The anonymous madman known as Jack the Ripper, for example, may be the most celebrated sex-murderer of the nineteenth century, but he was certainly not the only one. His Gallic counterpart, Joseph Vacher, dubbed “The French Ripper,” butchered a dozen victims before his arrest in 1897; while in our own country, the “Archfiend,” Dr. H. H. Hohnes, committed an indeterminate number of homicides during the same period. (He confessed to twenty-seven.) In the post-World War I era, the German sociopath Fritz Haarmann, the notorious “Vampire of Hanover,” perpetrated some of the most unspeakable crimes of the century, including the mutilation-murder of at least fifty young boys.