Eye of the Beast: The True Story of Serial Killer James Wood FROM THE PUBLISHER
For a serial killer, his style is unique. No elaborate rituals. No predetermined victims. Just an instant, uncontrollable urge to kill.
On a summer afternoon in 1993, an eleven-year-old girl sets out through her familiar neighborhood to collect payments on her paper route. In one home she meets a harmless-looking stranger. Driven by an unstoppable desire, James Wood will make this route her last.
The grisly murder of Jeralee Underwood was the final crime in James Wood's lifetime career of armed robbery, kidnapping, rape, and murder. Not until the Underwood case, which brought terror to a close-knit Idaho community, did crime experts begin to piece together a detailed profile of Wood's depraved personality and successfully hunt him down. Unlike other serial killers, Wood acted purely on impulse, to strike out with the instincts of a bloodthirsty predator. Based on four years of meticulous research by the detective who captured Wood, and other forensic experts on the case, this is the true story of how a sociopath is bred - and what it takes to trap him at his own deadly game.
FROM THE CRITICS
Publishers Weekly
Convicted and sentenced to death in 1993 for the kidnapping and murder of an 11-year-old Idaho girl, James Wood has been credited with at least 85 rapes, 185 robberies and dozens of murders. In this compelling if incomplete report, Birmingham News writer Adams, forensic psychologist Brooks-Mueller and former Pocatello PD investigator Shaw, who spearheaded the investigation, tell Wood's horrific story in straightforward language, evidently understanding that sensationalism would lessen the impact. They describe the efforts of police and behavioral scientists to create a profile of the suspect's personality and behavior patterns before discovering his identity. Woods's need to be "in control" is illuminated, as are his desire to steal "innocence" and success from others, anger toward women and complete lack of remorse. The basic facts of his early life are givenhis father's incarceration in Leavenworth Penitentiary, his mother's death in a fire, his vague claims of abuse at the hands of his stepfatherbut little insight is offered into how such a rapacious psychopathic predator is produced. Still, the writers successfully blend into their earnest chronicle the tales of a community's massive response to the disappearance of a child, of a careful investigation and arrest and of a long, disturbing interview with a man utterly without conscience, driven strictly by vengeance and rage. Photos. (Mar.)
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