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Erased: Missing Women, Murdered Wives
Based on five years of investigative reporting and research into forensic psychology and criminology, Erased presents an original profile of a widespread and previously unrecognized type of not a “hot-blooded,” spur-of-the-moment crime of passion, as domestic homicide is commonly viewed, but a cold-blooded, carefully planned and methodically executed form of “erasure.” These crimes are often committed by men with no criminal record or history of violence whatsoever, men leading functional and often successful lives until the moment they kill the women, and sometimes children, they claimed to love. A surprising number go on to kill a second or even third wife or girlfriend, often in exactly the same way. In more than fifty chilling case studies, Marilee Strong examines the strange and complex psychology that drives these killers—from the murder a century ago that inspired the novel An American Tragedy to Scott Peterson, Mark Hacking, Jeffrey MacDonald, Ira Einhorn, Charles Stuart, Robert Durst, Michael White, Barton Corbin, and many others. Erased also looks at how these men manipulate the legal system and exploit loopholes in missing persons procedures and death investigation, exposing how easy it can be to get away with murder.
365 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 2008
13 people are currently reading
1875 people want to read
About the author
Marilee Strong
6 books27 followersMarilee Strong is an award-winning journalist who specializes in reporting on crime and psychological and social issues. She is the author of two previous books: "A Bright Red Scream," on the aftereffects of childhood abuse and trauma, and "Erased," which presented an original criminal and psychological profile of a particular kind of intimate-partner homicide. She has also written widely on topics such as child abduction, women in prison, gang violence, hate groups, and psychological treatment for sex offenders. She is a graduate of Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism, where she awarded a Pulitzer Fellowship, the school's highest honor. She is the recipient of more than a dozen writing and reporting honors, including a National Headliner Award and the Society of Professional Journalists Excellence Award. She has been a guest on NBC's "Dateline," Fox News' "On the Record with Greta Van Susteren," the BBC, and numerous other TV and radio shows around the US, and has been appeared in several film and television documentaries on the subjects of her work.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 85 reviews
May 22, 2009
For anyone who read Ablow's book about Scott Peterson and thought, "No, that's not quite right...," Marilee Strong has the answer. I was telling a friend about the book, and she said, "It's like a perfect storm of psychiatric conditions." That about sums it up.
Marilee Strong talks about many cases of men killing their wives, girlfriends and significant others, beginning with Chester Gillette, who murdered his pregnant girlfriend in 1906. She cites cases throughout the twentieth century, and on into this one. Ewing Scott. Richard Crafts. Rae Carruth. Perry March. Michael Peterson. Jeffrey MacDonald. The list goes on and on.
She says that the perfect storm consists of psychopathy, narcissism, and Machiavellianism. She refers to these traits as "the dark triad." Psychopaths, we know about. Daumer. Bundy. Duncan. These "cold killing machines" who have no empathy. The thing about Peterson that didn't fit this label was the fact that he had never been in trouble before. Psychopaths tend to get in trouble with the law early in life, and stay that way. Not all of them, of course, but most. The narcissist, on the other hand, is not usually a killer. He likes to reinvent himself, and he needs a constant supply of adoration and positive reinforcement, but his usual pattern is to just disappear when the supply dries up. However, when Machiavellianism is added to the mix. The Machiavellian is a master manipulator. To quote from the book:
"One can connect all three of these characteristics in someone like Scott Peterson," said Paulhus. "If indeed he is a major narcissist he feels like he is special, like laws don't apply to him. He's entitled to do things that other people are not supposed to do. That leads into Machiavellianism. That sense of superiority means he can manipulate others because they are not as clever as he is. Then you work your way down into psychopathy: remorselessness, impulsiveness."
She also explains the discrepancy between two different studies of deaths of pregnant women. A study in Maryland found that murder was the leading cause of death for pregnant women. A national study found murder to be the second highest cause of death, right behind car accidents. Pregnancy is not always found during autopsies, unless far enough along to be noticeable. As well, in cases where a body is never found, the statistics cannot be included, because there is no death certificate or autopsy report. Never mind the fact that we don't know, and will never know haw many of these narcissistic, Machiavellian psychopaths succeed in convincing police that their spouse died in an accident, when it was actually murder.
Ms Strong also points out the ways that these killers manipulate the legal system to their advantage.
All in all, this book is very readable, even for me, who has no experience with psychology or profiling. If you are interested in and worried about this phenomenon, this book is a must.
Trust me, Scott Peterson and Mark hacking are just the tip of the iceberg.
July 16, 2011
Very good read and very disturbing. A couple of cases came to mind that developed after this book was published are Josh Powell & Drew Peterson. I don't think much has changed in law enforcement and the way we view "circumsantial evidence". Interestingly enough with the Casey Anthony trial (who happens to fit the "eraser" profile even though she is female and the victim was her child) we just saw first hand how the law is twisted and misunderstood in a way that makes it possible to get away with murder. I would have given this book all 5 stars but she had too much Scott Peterson in it for me and as I have already read many books on the subject there was nothing new to me.
January 4, 2015
Oh, where to start. Looking at all the glowing reviews of this book, I feel like I must have been reading an entirely different book. The only negative reviews seem to say that they couldn't make it through the book. That is part of the reason I have chosen to thoroughly review the book and describe the issues I had. I might have reviewed it too thoroughly, as this review turned out really long, but I think that is a testament to how annoyed I was by this book, despite the fact that the writing itself wasn't completely awful, which is how it managed to get two stars out of me. Technically, I guess you could consider my review to have spoilers, but really it doesn't: you already know the book is about 'eraser killers' and that women disappear and die in the cases in the book. Any mention I do make of the text or a case doesn't really go into detail or spoil anything, aside from the fact that this book isn't really what it pretends to be.
I want to start by saying that I was really excited to read this book. Regardless of the rating, or my review, I do actually believe in the premise of her theory, that there is a sub-set of domestic murderers whose prime motivation is not the more obvious motives usually ascribed to these crimes, but what the author dubbed the "eraser killer"; whose primary motive is to eliminate someone who they no longer have a need for, or whom they merely view as presenting an impediment in their life, and therefore must be removed. That is why I was so interested in exploring the psychology behind it, and why I found this book so utterly disappointing.
To start with, this is not a book about the psychology of "eraser killers", as it's purported to be. It is, in fact, a book about the Scott Peterson murder case, with a handful of other, somewhat similar cases flimsily grouped together/compared to it. Beyond an initial introduction of the psychology behind these killers, relying almost solely on the idea of "the Dark Triad", which is actually based on the psychological research of others, this does not go in depth into the psychology of these killers. Rather, most of the book is focused on the Scott Peterson case. The author tries to explain away in the introduction, by saying that the reason she does so is because the case is such a glowing example of an "eraser" killing. I do not buy that reasoning whatsoever; I do have a theory, but I'll save that for the end of this incredibly long review.
Sure, other cases are mentioned in the book. Some that I had never heard of prior. Although when you reach a certain point in the book, the author doesn't even bother with trying to veil the fact that this is a book on Scott Peterson, as the chapters tend to include more and more of the Peterson case, until eventually they become solely about it. Every other case that is mentioned in the book is only shallowly explored, and are all invariably compared in some way to the Peterson case, whether in similarilty or contrast, rather than being presented as a set of cases that all fit in with the psychology of the 'eraser killer'.
When I say the book goes in depth into the Peterson case, I really mean it, it goes into very specific details of Scott and Laci Peterson's life, to the extreme. While the details of how they met and their relationship could be pertinent, the author goes further back into the lives of their parents and grandparents, again in great detail. I was not expecting a genealogy of the people involved in the Peterson case; I was expecting the book to, at some point, to actually discuss the general psychology of these killers. While it could be argued that those details might play a role in Scott Peterson's *specific* psychology, they have nothing to do with "eraser killer" phenomenon as a whole. I think it's a stretch to have included it in this book.
I have to say, I'm surprised to find that the writer is an investigative reporter, nevermind one who apparently specializes in psychology and crime. She clearly has a talent for the writing part; the text, if nothing else, was incredibly 'readable', which was one of the only reasons I was able to get through the book. The investigative and psychological aspects of this book fell flat for me. I think it would have done the author well had she actually consulted extensively with, or perhaps even written the book with, an actual criminal psychologist, as the author really has no experience or basis with which to write a book of this nature on her own as the authority of such a subject.
The fact is that most of the psychological exploration happens in the book early on, when she explains the idea of 'the Dark Triad' of psychological characteristics, as researched and put forth by various other professionals, and then basically attaches it to 'eraser killers'. That's pretty much it. Once in a while, during the discussion of a case, she will refer back to the Triad, or make a statement along the lines of "in classic eraser killing fashion...", but otherwise, the psychology of these killers is not really explored in depth beyond that.
The fact that some of the cases she included in the book don't actually seem to fit in with the brief overview of the psychology of the eraser killer that she has presented is obviously problematic. The facts of some the cases she provides completely contradict her own assertions about the motivation behind these killers. She mentions on more than one occasion that there is an abundance of these cases; yet she presents only a handful of them in the book, and all of them more as more of a mere overview or summary of the case than a detailed exploration (aside of course from the Scott Peterson case). So the fact that she included so few of them, and that within those few presented, some do not even conform to the characteristics that she herself prescribed as the hallmark of a such a crime, doesn't make much sense, if these cases as she describes them really are that prevalent.
Aside from the content itself not being what I expected, the author has a serious problem with conjecture and speculation, which really has no place in a book which is supposed to present the facts of cases as proof of her theory of the psychology behind these killers. My favourite part is that after she openly admits that they are her personal beliefs, she then will go on to unabashedly write as though they are actual, verified facts.
Example: "I believe that Mark Hacking used Scott Peterson's basic template...", then on the next page: "Hacking apparently overlooked the glaring fact that by the time he tried to stage Lori's disappearance, his "mentor" had been arrested..." (Note that, once again, Scott Peterson somehow manages to sneak his way onto the page and the focus, despite the fact that she is discussing a different case.)
Another example; when writing about a night as a teenager when Laci and her friends got drunk but made a pact to still go to school the next day, and Laci was the only one actually showed up, her friend mentions that it was because she was in all the smart classes, and so dedicated to school. Then, in an oddly presumptuous manner, the author, who was not there that night and did not personally know Laci, subtlely contradicts the friend with her assertion that, "In Laci's mind, it was simpler than that. They had made a pact. A deal was a deal. When she set her mind to something, she was determined to see it through." Really? This is not a fiction novel. You cannot attribute intentions and thoughts to a person that you never even knew, and present them as factual, or as though you somehow knew what she was really thinking at the time.
She seems most obsessed with her belief, as mentioned multiple times in the book, that because three young women, including Kristin Smart, went missing in the area where Scott lived during the time he was in college, he therefore must have paid close attention to the police investigations into those cases and learned from them, squirreling away information that he would later use when planning the murder of his pregnant wife. This, of course, starts as her personal belief but morphs into fact, as she makes such statements as "Watching the drama of the Kristin Smart case unfold was like a graduate-level course in criminology for Scott Peterson. He saw how critical timing is to police response...He heard or read over and over again how mistakes police made in the first month after Kristin disappeared doomed their ability to bring charges." At no point has Scott Peterson ever said that he knew about or paid any attention to these cases as they unfolded, nevermind learned anything from them. Yet, she suddenly has him hearing and reading over and over again about mistakes in the police investigation into Kristin's disappearance, in what appears to be a statement of fact.
She then goes as far as to contend that because the man who was eventually charged in two of those three disappearances was a stranger/opportunist killer, he probably "factored directly" into Peterson's cover story that a stranger abducted his wife. Absolutely ludicrous that, with all of the well known serial killer/stranger abduction cases, she would contend that he was solely inspired by that particular offender in order to come up with that cover story.
The idea that he was specifically interested in or learned anything from these cases is a ridiculously over-reaching speculation in my opinion, and not really relevant or important regardless of whether it were true, and not speculation. Yet she seems intent on asserting that notion, even to the point of discussing their disappearances in as much depth as the other cases, despite none of them being an 'eraser' killing, and therefore, their details not being relevant to anything other than her assertion that Scott Peterson must have paid attention to the cases. She even included a photo of Kristin Smart in the book with her assertion as the caption, which is even more ridiculous considering it was one of the few photos in the book, while some cases that were actually discussed, however briefly, as eraser killings, had no photographs relating to their case included.
I will agree that this next criticism is a little bit petty, because in the grand scheme of the book, it isn't consequential, nor would I have ever mentioned it were there not other issues with the book. Now, I know a lot of people, including Alanis Morrissette, are confused about what irony is. This problem seems to have befallen the author, as she comments that "one of the sad ironies" of the Peterson case was that pro-golfer Phil Mickelson won the PGA tournament while Scott, who had entertained the idea of becoming a pro-golfer when he was younger, and had played on the same school team as Mickelson at one point, was in a courtroom picking out the jury that would condemn him to death. I'm not exactly sure what she finds ironic about that, unless she has been caught in the web of Alanis' version of irony, as the fact that someone only barely linked to him was acheiving success in a career that Scott had once considered pursing while he himself was on trial for murder, really isn't ironic at all.
The fact that she doesn't seem to understand irony was quite amusing to me , considering her book itself is kind of ironic. What makes it so, in my opinion, is the fact that one of the key characteristics of eraser killers that she describes and brings up multiple times throughout the text is narcissism, and her book is itself in some ways a thinly-veiled excercise in narcissism.
She is constantly injecting herself into the text, quite needlessly, and I found it very distracting. She does it not just just by adding her speculations to the text by saying things like "I believe..." on a regular basis, but also things like, "a week before the trial she told me...", when it's not important or relevant to the story or the book in general that it was said specifically to her. Were this a straight true crime book, inserting herself so often into the text would not be as strange, but considering the (intended) content of the book and the fact that it's meant to be somewhat academic in nature, I find her need to include herself in the text very odd.
A prime example of this is when she is talking about Scott's graduation, and describes a photo of him, where he appears to be very angry in her opinion (even though he is wearing sunglasses), and then goes on to say, "I saw that same look of suppressed fury on Scott's face only one other time--on the third day of the trial...I happened to be sitting directly in his line of sight that day..."; it would seem the entire anecdote was basically set up so she could insert herself and her thoughts into the text.
My theory as to why this book ended up such a, well, cluster$#%^, and did not effectively address the topic it was purported to be about, is because I feel as though from the start that the author intended to write a book about the Scott Peterson case. Perhaps she realized she was not the only one with that idea, nor would she be able to compete with the books by various other writers as most of them were closer to the case than she (the jurors, Laci's mom, Amber Frey) but was reluctant to abandon all the research, effort, and work she had already done. So, she came up with an angle where she could still use all of the Scott Peterson stuff, and just add a few chapters and other cases in, and she could still tell the world her opinion of the Scott Peterson case. If that is not what happened, well then I have no idea how in the world she set out to make a book on the psychology of 'eraser killers', and ended up with this. *shrugs*
I want to start by saying that I was really excited to read this book. Regardless of the rating, or my review, I do actually believe in the premise of her theory, that there is a sub-set of domestic murderers whose prime motivation is not the more obvious motives usually ascribed to these crimes, but what the author dubbed the "eraser killer"; whose primary motive is to eliminate someone who they no longer have a need for, or whom they merely view as presenting an impediment in their life, and therefore must be removed. That is why I was so interested in exploring the psychology behind it, and why I found this book so utterly disappointing.
To start with, this is not a book about the psychology of "eraser killers", as it's purported to be. It is, in fact, a book about the Scott Peterson murder case, with a handful of other, somewhat similar cases flimsily grouped together/compared to it. Beyond an initial introduction of the psychology behind these killers, relying almost solely on the idea of "the Dark Triad", which is actually based on the psychological research of others, this does not go in depth into the psychology of these killers. Rather, most of the book is focused on the Scott Peterson case. The author tries to explain away in the introduction, by saying that the reason she does so is because the case is such a glowing example of an "eraser" killing. I do not buy that reasoning whatsoever; I do have a theory, but I'll save that for the end of this incredibly long review.
Sure, other cases are mentioned in the book. Some that I had never heard of prior. Although when you reach a certain point in the book, the author doesn't even bother with trying to veil the fact that this is a book on Scott Peterson, as the chapters tend to include more and more of the Peterson case, until eventually they become solely about it. Every other case that is mentioned in the book is only shallowly explored, and are all invariably compared in some way to the Peterson case, whether in similarilty or contrast, rather than being presented as a set of cases that all fit in with the psychology of the 'eraser killer'.
When I say the book goes in depth into the Peterson case, I really mean it, it goes into very specific details of Scott and Laci Peterson's life, to the extreme. While the details of how they met and their relationship could be pertinent, the author goes further back into the lives of their parents and grandparents, again in great detail. I was not expecting a genealogy of the people involved in the Peterson case; I was expecting the book to, at some point, to actually discuss the general psychology of these killers. While it could be argued that those details might play a role in Scott Peterson's *specific* psychology, they have nothing to do with "eraser killer" phenomenon as a whole. I think it's a stretch to have included it in this book.
I have to say, I'm surprised to find that the writer is an investigative reporter, nevermind one who apparently specializes in psychology and crime. She clearly has a talent for the writing part; the text, if nothing else, was incredibly 'readable', which was one of the only reasons I was able to get through the book. The investigative and psychological aspects of this book fell flat for me. I think it would have done the author well had she actually consulted extensively with, or perhaps even written the book with, an actual criminal psychologist, as the author really has no experience or basis with which to write a book of this nature on her own as the authority of such a subject.
The fact is that most of the psychological exploration happens in the book early on, when she explains the idea of 'the Dark Triad' of psychological characteristics, as researched and put forth by various other professionals, and then basically attaches it to 'eraser killers'. That's pretty much it. Once in a while, during the discussion of a case, she will refer back to the Triad, or make a statement along the lines of "in classic eraser killing fashion...", but otherwise, the psychology of these killers is not really explored in depth beyond that.
The fact that some of the cases she included in the book don't actually seem to fit in with the brief overview of the psychology of the eraser killer that she has presented is obviously problematic. The facts of some the cases she provides completely contradict her own assertions about the motivation behind these killers. She mentions on more than one occasion that there is an abundance of these cases; yet she presents only a handful of them in the book, and all of them more as more of a mere overview or summary of the case than a detailed exploration (aside of course from the Scott Peterson case). So the fact that she included so few of them, and that within those few presented, some do not even conform to the characteristics that she herself prescribed as the hallmark of a such a crime, doesn't make much sense, if these cases as she describes them really are that prevalent.
Aside from the content itself not being what I expected, the author has a serious problem with conjecture and speculation, which really has no place in a book which is supposed to present the facts of cases as proof of her theory of the psychology behind these killers. My favourite part is that after she openly admits that they are her personal beliefs, she then will go on to unabashedly write as though they are actual, verified facts.
Example: "I believe that Mark Hacking used Scott Peterson's basic template...", then on the next page: "Hacking apparently overlooked the glaring fact that by the time he tried to stage Lori's disappearance, his "mentor" had been arrested..." (Note that, once again, Scott Peterson somehow manages to sneak his way onto the page and the focus, despite the fact that she is discussing a different case.)
Another example; when writing about a night as a teenager when Laci and her friends got drunk but made a pact to still go to school the next day, and Laci was the only one actually showed up, her friend mentions that it was because she was in all the smart classes, and so dedicated to school. Then, in an oddly presumptuous manner, the author, who was not there that night and did not personally know Laci, subtlely contradicts the friend with her assertion that, "In Laci's mind, it was simpler than that. They had made a pact. A deal was a deal. When she set her mind to something, she was determined to see it through." Really? This is not a fiction novel. You cannot attribute intentions and thoughts to a person that you never even knew, and present them as factual, or as though you somehow knew what she was really thinking at the time.
She seems most obsessed with her belief, as mentioned multiple times in the book, that because three young women, including Kristin Smart, went missing in the area where Scott lived during the time he was in college, he therefore must have paid close attention to the police investigations into those cases and learned from them, squirreling away information that he would later use when planning the murder of his pregnant wife. This, of course, starts as her personal belief but morphs into fact, as she makes such statements as "Watching the drama of the Kristin Smart case unfold was like a graduate-level course in criminology for Scott Peterson. He saw how critical timing is to police response...He heard or read over and over again how mistakes police made in the first month after Kristin disappeared doomed their ability to bring charges." At no point has Scott Peterson ever said that he knew about or paid any attention to these cases as they unfolded, nevermind learned anything from them. Yet, she suddenly has him hearing and reading over and over again about mistakes in the police investigation into Kristin's disappearance, in what appears to be a statement of fact.
She then goes as far as to contend that because the man who was eventually charged in two of those three disappearances was a stranger/opportunist killer, he probably "factored directly" into Peterson's cover story that a stranger abducted his wife. Absolutely ludicrous that, with all of the well known serial killer/stranger abduction cases, she would contend that he was solely inspired by that particular offender in order to come up with that cover story.
The idea that he was specifically interested in or learned anything from these cases is a ridiculously over-reaching speculation in my opinion, and not really relevant or important regardless of whether it were true, and not speculation. Yet she seems intent on asserting that notion, even to the point of discussing their disappearances in as much depth as the other cases, despite none of them being an 'eraser' killing, and therefore, their details not being relevant to anything other than her assertion that Scott Peterson must have paid attention to the cases. She even included a photo of Kristin Smart in the book with her assertion as the caption, which is even more ridiculous considering it was one of the few photos in the book, while some cases that were actually discussed, however briefly, as eraser killings, had no photographs relating to their case included.
I will agree that this next criticism is a little bit petty, because in the grand scheme of the book, it isn't consequential, nor would I have ever mentioned it were there not other issues with the book. Now, I know a lot of people, including Alanis Morrissette, are confused about what irony is. This problem seems to have befallen the author, as she comments that "one of the sad ironies" of the Peterson case was that pro-golfer Phil Mickelson won the PGA tournament while Scott, who had entertained the idea of becoming a pro-golfer when he was younger, and had played on the same school team as Mickelson at one point, was in a courtroom picking out the jury that would condemn him to death. I'm not exactly sure what she finds ironic about that, unless she has been caught in the web of Alanis' version of irony, as the fact that someone only barely linked to him was acheiving success in a career that Scott had once considered pursing while he himself was on trial for murder, really isn't ironic at all.
The fact that she doesn't seem to understand irony was quite amusing to me , considering her book itself is kind of ironic. What makes it so, in my opinion, is the fact that one of the key characteristics of eraser killers that she describes and brings up multiple times throughout the text is narcissism, and her book is itself in some ways a thinly-veiled excercise in narcissism.
She is constantly injecting herself into the text, quite needlessly, and I found it very distracting. She does it not just just by adding her speculations to the text by saying things like "I believe..." on a regular basis, but also things like, "a week before the trial she told me...", when it's not important or relevant to the story or the book in general that it was said specifically to her. Were this a straight true crime book, inserting herself so often into the text would not be as strange, but considering the (intended) content of the book and the fact that it's meant to be somewhat academic in nature, I find her need to include herself in the text very odd.
A prime example of this is when she is talking about Scott's graduation, and describes a photo of him, where he appears to be very angry in her opinion (even though he is wearing sunglasses), and then goes on to say, "I saw that same look of suppressed fury on Scott's face only one other time--on the third day of the trial...I happened to be sitting directly in his line of sight that day..."; it would seem the entire anecdote was basically set up so she could insert herself and her thoughts into the text.
My theory as to why this book ended up such a, well, cluster$#%^, and did not effectively address the topic it was purported to be about, is because I feel as though from the start that the author intended to write a book about the Scott Peterson case. Perhaps she realized she was not the only one with that idea, nor would she be able to compete with the books by various other writers as most of them were closer to the case than she (the jurors, Laci's mom, Amber Frey) but was reluctant to abandon all the research, effort, and work she had already done. So, she came up with an angle where she could still use all of the Scott Peterson stuff, and just add a few chapters and other cases in, and she could still tell the world her opinion of the Scott Peterson case. If that is not what happened, well then I have no idea how in the world she set out to make a book on the psychology of 'eraser killers', and ended up with this. *shrugs*
November 13, 2012
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 stars 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...
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 stars 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...
May 9, 2020
This book is about what Strong (and her co-author Mark Powelson) calls "eraser killers," taking Scott Peterson as her type case: men who not merely murder their wives and girlfriends, but who go to elaborate lengths either to make the body disappear (erase the woman) or to make the murder look like something else: a suicide, an accident, a natural death (erase the crime). Strong has assembled an almost overwhelming cornucopia of such cases, which is part of her point, as the subtitle, Missing Women, Murdered Wives,shows. She says that we have no way of knowing how many eraser killers GOT AWAY WITH IT, never prosecuted because their deception was successful or (as with the disappearance of Kristin Smart) the police don't have enough evidence.
Strong argues that eraser killers are a particular subset of psychopaths, high-functioning psychopaths who DON'T have a history of criminal behavior, but who also have high degrees of narcissism and Machiavellianism. (I'm a little unsure about using "Machiavellianism" as a psychiatric term, but she's following the lead of a paper published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, and, okay, it does mean exactly what she's using it to mean.) They're men who are pathological liars (one such man had deceived his wife that, WHILE THEY WERE MARRIED, he had (a) finished college, (b) applied to medical school, and (c) been accepted, and he killed her three days before they were supposed to relocate so he could attend) with a strong dose of Peter Pan. They very frequently kill their pregnant partners because they don't want the responsibility of fatherhood. They're Teflon-coated. And they are experts at mimicking emotions like love. Everyone thought Scott Peterson was the perfect husband... until Laci Peterson disappeared.
This is a fascinating, horrifying book (the studies that found homicide was the #1 or #2 cause of death for pregnant women), and Strong uses her dreadfully abundant material well.
Strong argues that eraser killers are a particular subset of psychopaths, high-functioning psychopaths who DON'T have a history of criminal behavior, but who also have high degrees of narcissism and Machiavellianism. (I'm a little unsure about using "Machiavellianism" as a psychiatric term, but she's following the lead of a paper published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, and, okay, it does mean exactly what she's using it to mean.) They're men who are pathological liars (one such man had deceived his wife that, WHILE THEY WERE MARRIED, he had (a) finished college, (b) applied to medical school, and (c) been accepted, and he killed her three days before they were supposed to relocate so he could attend) with a strong dose of Peter Pan. They very frequently kill their pregnant partners because they don't want the responsibility of fatherhood. They're Teflon-coated. And they are experts at mimicking emotions like love. Everyone thought Scott Peterson was the perfect husband... until Laci Peterson disappeared.
This is a fascinating, horrifying book (the studies that found homicide was the #1 or #2 cause of death for pregnant women), and Strong uses her dreadfully abundant material well.
July 23, 2016
I found this book to be absolutely riveting, and I find it incredible it has taken this long for someone to notice a pattern to these types of murders/vanishings. Strong only takes her research back to 1906 when Charles Gillette drowned his pregnant girlfriend, but I bet if one looked a little closer one would find that these types of murders go back even further. The main anchor of this book is the Scott/Lori Peterson case. I remember at the time that the media seemed baffled by Scott's casual behavior. Strong discusses the cases that Scott must have observed that motivated him to, for example, commit the crime on Christmas Eve. One factor Strong tried to inculcate, was that these are not crimes of passion, they are cold and deliberate, and planned well in advance. From Holly Maddux, whose body Ira Einhorn kept secreted away in a trunk to Helle Craft whose body was "woodchipped" into oblivion, this book will hold your attention.
May 19, 2011
Marilee hit the nail right on the head when she wrote this book. It really gave me some insight to why these men kill their girlfriends/wives (even when they are pregnant). She had alot to say about her assumptioh on scott peterson and I really did thing she got it right BUT Im sick of hearing about the man, I have heard enough of him to last two life times. Most of these men are selfish bastards who only care about themselves and have sociopathic issues. I really do believe he feared becoming a father, it was truely something he did not want. But wouldnt divorce be easier? why kill? because in this day and age you will be caught. With forsenics and technology its only a matter of time. Alot of these men in her book were powerful succesful men who simply killed because they wanted to and thought they would never get caught.I highly recommend this book of you like true crime stories.
September 2, 2013
Very difficult to follow the characters in this book when Scott Peterson is mentioned on almost every page. Gosh, darn. If there were so many distinct examples of "erased" women here, plus the theory to explain this term, why did the author feel the need to include Peterson everywhere? on almost every page?
True, she mentioned in the introduction that comparing the Scott Peterson case was quintessential (big word) to the "eraser" classification, but I became disgusted and lost interest.
True, she mentioned in the introduction that comparing the Scott Peterson case was quintessential (big word) to the "eraser" classification, but I became disgusted and lost interest.
August 5, 2016
This book should titled "What You Didn't Know about the Laci Peterson Case". It barely glances at the "50 cases of erased women" mentioned in the introduction. I was disappointed on the whole
November 25, 2021
The author introduces us to what she calls 'eraser killers' and it's chilling.
The definition of these particular version of intimate partner murderers are as follows:
- these are not crimes of passion, they kill under perfect control and total calm, leaving behind crime scenes that are described as 'organized' or staged. They are planned well in advance.
- the killer is a 'master of deceit and manipulation' and performs the killing in secrecy and without witnesses.
- motivations come from what psychologists are calling the "Dark Triad" of narcissism (overdeveloped sense of entitlement, success, brilliance and needs to be admired while hiding any insecurity); psychopathy (liars, manipulators with no honest emotion, empty and able to hide the fact from those he strives to get close to); and Machiavellian (the end justifies the means to achieve any advantage over others)
- the woman has become inconvenient by either no longer matching his needs or being in the way of something he wants.
- generally intelligent, charming when focusing on a target and believes that he is smarter and more deserving than police, friends, lovers and basically all others that he surrounds himself with.
- the killer shows no signs of mourning or true emotional loss while also displaying behavior that is considered inappropriate and if assisting in searching for the missing women, he is actually trying to direct the investigation into non-existent previous threats and possible suspects.
- once the goal (murder) has been achieved, he will do one of two strategies - destroy the body utterly or discard it in a location(s) where it is unlikely to be ever found OR create a false scenario that 'erases' all connections between him and the crime.
The author focuses on the Scott and Laci Peterson case but brings in nearly fifty other cases where the husband or boyfriend has killed and erased his victim. Instances where the killer tripped up and the police were able to arrest and charge them for the murder. But if the killer does not cooperate, the bodies may never be found. There are cases where the killer is known but there is no evidence - not even circumstantial - that enable police to arrest the killer with the intention of getting the charges to stick in a courtroom.
Strong also comes up with some ideas on how to fix what she calls 'a broken system'
* reform the death investigation system - there needs to be a uniform set of guidelines for investigation at the scene and/or at the autopsy. There are currently 50 state systems and over three thousand county/city systems. Also many county coroners are elected officials with scarce to no medical or forensic training nor are they required to be certified. Our cadaver dogs must be certified. Our coroners are not and they determine which death gets investigated further and whether an autopsy is to be performed.
* close the 'missing persons' loophole - either a missing adult has a history of medical and mental problems along with history of temporarily gone missing or they have none of these conditions. It is those that have previously displayed none of those factors that are likely to have been 'erased' and waiting for several hours and days before any police investigation can be started (if it ever does) has allowed the killer to clean up the crime scene, get rid of the body (for example, dumping in numerous dumpsters that will bury any evidence beneath feet of trash across acres of a landfill) and to further obscure possible evidence.
* start the investigation at ground zero - the victim's home. Legal safeguards prevent police from entering private property unless the homeowner permits it - or a warrant is served. It can take days, weeks, even months before police investigators can collect enough evidence for a probable cause warrant and by then, evidence could be gone although the author uses the murder of Holly Maddux who was killed, stuffed in a trunk and locked in a closet for months before police were able to get into the apartment of her killer. Even after downstairs neighbors and visitors to the apartment complained about the stench.
The scary part is that there are likely more of these murders happening than police can recognize. And the killers are getting smarter and learning from the mistakes of others.
2021-238
The definition of these particular version of intimate partner murderers are as follows:
- these are not crimes of passion, they kill under perfect control and total calm, leaving behind crime scenes that are described as 'organized' or staged. They are planned well in advance.
- the killer is a 'master of deceit and manipulation' and performs the killing in secrecy and without witnesses.
- motivations come from what psychologists are calling the "Dark Triad" of narcissism (overdeveloped sense of entitlement, success, brilliance and needs to be admired while hiding any insecurity); psychopathy (liars, manipulators with no honest emotion, empty and able to hide the fact from those he strives to get close to); and Machiavellian (the end justifies the means to achieve any advantage over others)
- the woman has become inconvenient by either no longer matching his needs or being in the way of something he wants.
- generally intelligent, charming when focusing on a target and believes that he is smarter and more deserving than police, friends, lovers and basically all others that he surrounds himself with.
- the killer shows no signs of mourning or true emotional loss while also displaying behavior that is considered inappropriate and if assisting in searching for the missing women, he is actually trying to direct the investigation into non-existent previous threats and possible suspects.
- once the goal (murder) has been achieved, he will do one of two strategies - destroy the body utterly or discard it in a location(s) where it is unlikely to be ever found OR create a false scenario that 'erases' all connections between him and the crime.
The author focuses on the Scott and Laci Peterson case but brings in nearly fifty other cases where the husband or boyfriend has killed and erased his victim. Instances where the killer tripped up and the police were able to arrest and charge them for the murder. But if the killer does not cooperate, the bodies may never be found. There are cases where the killer is known but there is no evidence - not even circumstantial - that enable police to arrest the killer with the intention of getting the charges to stick in a courtroom.
Strong also comes up with some ideas on how to fix what she calls 'a broken system'
* reform the death investigation system - there needs to be a uniform set of guidelines for investigation at the scene and/or at the autopsy. There are currently 50 state systems and over three thousand county/city systems. Also many county coroners are elected officials with scarce to no medical or forensic training nor are they required to be certified. Our cadaver dogs must be certified. Our coroners are not and they determine which death gets investigated further and whether an autopsy is to be performed.
* close the 'missing persons' loophole - either a missing adult has a history of medical and mental problems along with history of temporarily gone missing or they have none of these conditions. It is those that have previously displayed none of those factors that are likely to have been 'erased' and waiting for several hours and days before any police investigation can be started (if it ever does) has allowed the killer to clean up the crime scene, get rid of the body (for example, dumping in numerous dumpsters that will bury any evidence beneath feet of trash across acres of a landfill) and to further obscure possible evidence.
* start the investigation at ground zero - the victim's home. Legal safeguards prevent police from entering private property unless the homeowner permits it - or a warrant is served. It can take days, weeks, even months before police investigators can collect enough evidence for a probable cause warrant and by then, evidence could be gone although the author uses the murder of Holly Maddux who was killed, stuffed in a trunk and locked in a closet for months before police were able to get into the apartment of her killer. Even after downstairs neighbors and visitors to the apartment complained about the stench.
The scary part is that there are likely more of these murders happening than police can recognize. And the killers are getting smarter and learning from the mistakes of others.
2021-238
January 19, 2019
I liked that this book examined a number of murders in which husbands who were not necessarily abusive murdered their wives in cold blood.
I thought her efforts to create a new category of predator that she refers to as erasure murders was more of a marketing technique to make the book somehow standout among its peers.
I'd always wanted to read an accounting of the Laci/Scott Peterson case so I appreciated the amount of time that went into exploring the murder. Surprisingly (or maybe not surprisingly considering my penchant for true crime, I was familiar with many of the examples she provided.
Overall a good read, primarily for the details it provides on the Peterson case.
I thought her efforts to create a new category of predator that she refers to as erasure murders was more of a marketing technique to make the book somehow standout among its peers.
I'd always wanted to read an accounting of the Laci/Scott Peterson case so I appreciated the amount of time that went into exploring the murder. Surprisingly (or maybe not surprisingly considering my penchant for true crime, I was familiar with many of the examples she provided.
Overall a good read, primarily for the details it provides on the Peterson case.
January 25, 2021
This was an interesting true crime book about various cases (with the main reference being to Scott Peterson), and the concept of “eraser killers.” Some of the cases I heard of and some were know. I was appalled at the legal barriers described in the book that favor the killers.
January 23, 2016
A good, but very disturbing read. The author argues that certain partner murders are psychologically distinct from typical domestic-violence homicides, and calls for changes in the law-enforcement and medical systems to help make it easier to deal with these crimes in a timely, just manner. Well worth a look.
May 29, 2018
Truth be told, Smart doesn't offer any compelling evidence for this book's needing to exist. Her thesis is that "eraser killers" are a distinct subtype from "typical" domestic violence killers, but based on the rundown of facts in the book, there's not a ton of support for that idea - she talks about eraser killers plotting out their crimes ahead of time, as opposed to DV killers who kill "in a rage" or "in the heat of the moment" (Lundy Bancroft would like a word) and that eraser killers typically do not commit acts of domestic violence beforehand, except for the multiple cases she cites where they do, so . . . what's the argument again?
It almost seems like she realized halfway through that she didn't have the material for a full book, because the final third is basically a summation of the Scott Peterson case. (The first two thirds are a series of case studies, absent any serious analysis.) It's not a badly-written section, but when Strong is really just pointing out the obvious (Scott Peterson is a narcissist! Who knew?) the whole thing feels like an exercise in pointlessness.
It almost seems like she realized halfway through that she didn't have the material for a full book, because the final third is basically a summation of the Scott Peterson case. (The first two thirds are a series of case studies, absent any serious analysis.) It's not a badly-written section, but when Strong is really just pointing out the obvious (Scott Peterson is a narcissist! Who knew?) the whole thing feels like an exercise in pointlessness.
May 27, 2024
Not a bad book and it’s a smooth read. The audio version sounded robotic, which was off putting. This was a book about Scott Peterson’s guilt, but sold as a book about the subject of eraser killers. I’ve read other books about the Peterson case, and this one doesn’t have a unique view of the case which is why I think it wasn’t marketed as such. While a few other cases were mentioned and some with an appropriate level of detail, they paled in comparison to the extreme detail of Scott and Lacey’s life, family history, relationships, court proceedings etc.
If I’m rating this book as a book about eraser killers, I give it 3 stars bc it strayed so far from the subject and got lost in Scott Peterson’s life.
If I’m rating this as a Scott Peterson book, I give it 3 stars for not offering anything new and bc the author injected her thoughts and interpretations as facts.
If I’m rating this book as a book about eraser killers, I give it 3 stars bc it strayed so far from the subject and got lost in Scott Peterson’s life.
If I’m rating this as a Scott Peterson book, I give it 3 stars for not offering anything new and bc the author injected her thoughts and interpretations as facts.
June 2, 2019
Kinda missed the mark. This book seemed to me when I spotted it to be a real find, as this is the sort of crime that most fascinates me...the murder that seemingly comes out of nowhere. The killer who has no history of violence or aberrant behavior. But what this book is really about is Scott Peterson, as the author covered his trial. She throws in some psychological theories about these types of killers, and some examples of other cases, but it's always back to Scott. I just read Laci Peterson's mother's book recently, so I was not looking to read more detail about that case at this time, if I had been, I would probably have found it more interesting. Otherwise, a lot of conjecture and opinion and nothing much I haven't heard already.
September 15, 2022
I think this was a very interesting but disturbing book. It does a good job at revealing some of the red flags for a eraser killer or someone who kills their intimate partners or children. It also does a good job of explaining what some of the changes needed are and the statisitics. At times youre going to wonder how could these women be so stupid but you will be left wondering would i notice the red flags and act upon my suspicions?This book will keep you up at night. it is compelling and well written . I think that a lot of attention is paid to the laci petterson case and not enough is paid to other crimes in this book which are equally important and disturbing . I would like to point out many killers fit this mold but are not mentioned in this book .
June 29, 2018
This book does an excellent job profiling the type of man who makes his wife “disappear” into thin air and erases her existence. She specifically analyzes the idea of the “dark triad,” A combination of three personality flaws that are the hallmark of this kind of killer. This book drags at times as she goes into a lot of criminal theory, but reading the many individual cases of murder that she sprinkled throughout the book is very interesting. This book especially focuses on the case where Laci Peterson and her unborn baby Connor were murdered by her husband, and establishes him as a classic case of an “eraser killer.” This book is tragic, but very well researched and insightful.
May 11, 2022
Marilee Strong: "Despite what Scott Peterson's defense attorneys wanted us to believe, we need not live in fear of mysterious men in vans or homeless people or satanic cults. Young women, and especially pregnant women, are most in danger from the men they love."
If I saved a quote from Ms. Strong, I must have read one of her books. The quote seems to fit: Erased: Missing Women, Murdered Wives. This is especially true after reading reviews that say she refereed to Scott Peterson much too often throughout the book.
Again, after reading reviews, it seems I found it just okay.
If I saved a quote from Ms. Strong, I must have read one of her books. The quote seems to fit: Erased: Missing Women, Murdered Wives. This is especially true after reading reviews that say she refereed to Scott Peterson much too often throughout the book.
Again, after reading reviews, it seems I found it just okay.
August 4, 2022
This was a valuable book in highlighting how little our society values the lives of women and deprioritizes domestic violence cases. I give it three stars because it puts a little too much faith in the justice system and the police department, and fails to mention just how many cops are embroiled in domestic violence and missing persons cases themselves. There is inherent violence in the system that I don’t think can be separated from the analysis of “eraser killings.” Many people get away with it for so long due to being in law enforcement, such as the Golden State Killer.
August 3, 2023
Men who erase women. They were wives, girlfriends, strangers etc…..true accounts of murder that is often not spur of the moment. Any excuses these men have is good enough for them.
Somewhat interesting.
What I didn’t like. This is mostly about the Laci Petersen murder and her ridiculous husband Scott. I don’t care about him. He’s a loser and a lot of the other stories go back to him. How he inspired other moronic morons to kill. Also how his case is similar.
Overall nothing like I expected so not for me.
Somewhat interesting.
What I didn’t like. This is mostly about the Laci Petersen murder and her ridiculous husband Scott. I don’t care about him. He’s a loser and a lot of the other stories go back to him. How he inspired other moronic morons to kill. Also how his case is similar.
Overall nothing like I expected so not for me.
September 12, 2024
My sister might like this better than me (she is obsessed with the true crime genre), but it gave me a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. Why are women targeted? This book introduced to me what "eraser killings" were. I had originally thought that the worst killings that were out there were the ones that I had watched the movie about as an undergrad (as I recall the movie I'm thinking of was in Arabic), but I am revising that opinion to all planned shortenings of life.
There are sinister, depraved minds out there.
There are sinister, depraved minds out there.
October 7, 2017
I'd give this a 3.5. The premise of the book is the kind of murderer who kills his wife or partner because she has become inconvenient. The primary example is Michael Peterson whose case she covers in detail. Others are covered in less detail. She makes the point that many of these cases are never solved because the victims' absence is not considered unusual early enough in the investigation to be able to search the perpetrators' homes.
June 5, 2017
Disturbing. Over all, a very good book. Although I find the Peterson case interesting, it was given the majority of the book and I wish that the other case studies had been discussed more. Some good information and an important topic.
December 30, 2019
this book was published over 10 years ago (2008) and is still relevant and interesting.
i do wish that the laci petersen case hadn’t been the main case study for the book, but the author did cover the details and intricacies that i didn’t know about it previously.
i do wish that the laci petersen case hadn’t been the main case study for the book, but the author did cover the details and intricacies that i didn’t know about it previously.
October 15, 2022
This book should’ve been called “Scott Peterson is a murderer: and other cases where a man has murdered his wife or girlfriend”.
I really don’t like when authors attribute thoughts and feelings to people whom they do not know and have never had personal interaction with.
Review to come.
I really don’t like when authors attribute thoughts and feelings to people whom they do not know and have never had personal interaction with.
Review to come.
September 12, 2017
I thought this book was going to be about multiple cases, but it was mostly about Scott and Laci Peterson.
June 1, 2019
I listened to this book in my car and I loved the content. The narrator was awful - was like having Siri read to me - but I persevered because of the content.
June 19, 2019
About the psychology of men that kill their partners. Well researched and makes no excuses for their actions.
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