Why Do We Kill?: The Pathology of Murder in Baltimore

by Stephen Janis, Kelvin Sewell

Former Baltimore City homicide detective Kelvin Sewell has seen it all. Gang members burned alive; a baby unceremoniously stuffed into the ground by its own mother; a sex offender who killed a child in a delusional jealous rage. The constant grind of bearing witness to violent death has given Sewell an unprecedented perspective into the minds of killers. He sat in the Baltimore Police Department’s interview room with 14-year-old Devon Richardson as the teen tried to explain why he shot a woman he didn’t know in the back of the head. He watched the father of 17-year-old Nicole Edmonds cry over the corpse of his dead daughter, murdered for a cellphone. But now for the first time Sewell has decided to share the insights and the pain, the dehumanizing effects of crime and waves of psychic despair and social dysfunction in his groundbreaking book, Why Do We Kill? I think people deserve to know the truth,” said Sewell, a 20-year veteran of Baltimore City’s police department. “They need to get a sense of why people kill in Baltimore. I want people to see what we see as detectives,” he explained. “I think there are misconceptions about crime in Baltimore, and I hope this book will clear them up.”The book recounts some of the most notorious homicide cases in Baltimore in the past decade, all told from the perspective of the cop who worked them. Joining forces with Sewell is award-winning investigative reporter Stephen Janis, who covered City Hall for the now-defunct Baltimore Examiner

Genres: True Crime, Nonfiction

200 pages, Paperback

First published June 23, 2011

About the author

Stephen Janis is an award-winning investigative reporter and the founder of Investigative Voice, an online investigative journalism web site.

As a staff writer for the Baltimore Examiner (and one of only a handful who worked at the paper for its entire existence) he won a Maryland- Delaware-DC Press Association award in 2008 for investigative reporting on the high rate of unsolved murders in Baltimore. In 2009 he won a MDDC Press Association award for best series for his articles on the murders of prostitutes.

He has written two books.

This Dream Called Death, a novel which explores the cultural after shocks of mass incarceration by positing a world where people are imprisoned for the content of their dreams, and Orange, the Diary of an Urban Surrealist, which follows the descent of drug dealer pushing a substance that gives white people soul.

Reviews

[Jill Yesko · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fascinating sociological perspective on crime. I appreciated Janis' deft handling of the painful question, "why do we kill and why we can't stop murder (which is the title of his other book." At times this book was so painful that I had to put it down. Living in Baltimore where homicides are a dime a dozen does not excuse the reader from his/her civic duty to intelligently examine the ramifications of crime. Let me be clear, this is not a titillating crime thriller. Read it and weep; then get off your butt and try to make your community a safer, saner place.

[Elizabeth]

As seen at the Baltimore Book Festival.

(I would have bought a copy, but Cyclops Books ran out. (Does a poor aptitude for business correlate with the decision to have a facebook page but not a web site?))

[Maksym · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting perspectives are shared. Worth the quick read.

[Mrs Nurse · Rating 5 out of 5]

I remember just about all the cases except for a few...mental health is real..stop being ashamed to say or admit that mental health plays a role in everything...and if so..say you depressed..say you don't know what to do..and if you out here with resources to help and not doing nothing..you have a mental health problem as well..smh

[Nicole · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow, I need more of this. This guy dies his research.

[Michael Bennett · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very decent read. If current events in Baltimore interests you, this is an inciting and insightful book. Its essentially an individual's account of several high-profile murder cases in Baltimore City and a man's career in the Baltimore City Police Department. Kelvin Sewell sounds like a decent, hard-working, no-nonsense cop...or at least that's how he portrays himself in this book. His dealings in his career in Baltimore City are interesting, personal, and comes from a perspective rarely heard by the general public. Sewell's accounts of his career in the BPD are doing more then hinting at the many faults in the bureaucracy and politics of Baltimore City, it shows the frustration of how hard it is to do good in a city that has seemingly lost its own humanity on all levels and faltering to overcome fundamental problems and pitfalls of urban decay.

The book in my opinion is too short, or better yet two halves of two separate books. His accounts of high-profile murder cases were the most intriguing and would have liked to hear about more cases. His personal account of his police career felt too short and rushed. The book's impact on trying to shed light on the problems of BPD is lessened with just a short, informal personal retelling. I think there are the obvious facts, sources, and credibility known to people with interests in Baltimore city and its many problems with dealing with crime, but for others, Sewell and Janis leave much to be verified to set a convincing case to why crime in Baltimore is what it is.