Dead of Night: The True Story of Oregon's Most Shocking Killer

by Don Lasseter

Recounts the murderous career of Jimmy Rode, alias Cesar Barone, who launched his serial campaign of rape and murder that terrified Oregon with the help of Ted Bundy, whom he met in a Florida prison. Original.

Genres: True Crime, Serial Killer, Nonfiction, Crime

347 pages, Kindle Edition

First published October 1, 1997

About the author

Don Lasseter has written five true crime books for Pinnacle plus 16 magazine articles that were reprinted in Pinnacle's anthology books about murders. In addition to being a crime writer, Mr. Lasseter is a WWII historian who frequently lectures on the subject in schools, at service clubs, and for veteran's groups. He accompanies his talks with slide packages titled "WWII, Then and Now", consisting of photos he took while actually retracing most major battles in Western Europe and in the South Pacific. Taking black and white combat photos with him, Mr. Lasseter laboriously searched for the exact spots on which the photographers stood and shot the same scenes as they look today. He accumulated over 1500 such pictures associated with various battles including the Normandy invasion, Battle of the Bulge, crossing the Rhine, taking Berlin, and other major engagements.

A native Californian, Mr. Lasseter resides in Orange County. He has served as guest lecturer in criminology classes at California State University, Fullerton. Hollywood history is Mr. Lasseter's third major interest. His personal library includes an extensive collection of movie books, and he takes pride in being able to name hundreds of old character actors whose faces are often seen in classic films. One day, Lasseter says, he will write books, both fiction and non-fiction, about the golden era of film production and the people involved.

Reviews

[Valerity (Val) · Rating 5 out of 5]

A twisted killer was on the prowl

An older book with a new cover.. Should have been clear it is a re_issue. The saving grace is that it's good enough to read again after many years.

[Shelagh Rice · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book was just ok. It is a true account of a serial killer. However the author only seemed to have the information that anyone would have had if they read the newspapers at the time, very little research. As it is a quite a lengthy read you can imagine it is very very repetitive. I wouldn't recommend to anyone. I only finished it because I hate not finishing any book.

[Ronnie Cramer · Rating 3 out of 5]

The story of a serial killer who successfully eluded capture for many years despite not being particularly clever. The book chronicles many false leads and dead ends, and thus gives the reader a real sense of how frustrating the investigation truly was.

[♥ Marlene♥]

Thi was another one of my first 1 true crime books I read back when I began reading English just because I wanted to read true crime and there were hardly any Dutch translated ones.

I remember I liked the book and I thought it was shocking how the female in this book behaved.

Going to re read.

[Bill reilly · Rating 2 out of 5]

Adolph Jimmy Rode was housed in a Starke, Florida prison at the same time as Ted Bundy in 1986, three years before his execution. Jimmy's M. O. was quite different from Ted's as he sexually assaulted and murdered elderly women.
Rode was a troublesome child and encountered the law as a teen and after a few stays in jail, changed his name to Cesare Barone and hoodwinked his way into the army. He was sent to Panama with the troops who captured Manuel Noriega in a bloody battle. His criminal history was discovered and Jimmy was sent packing. He returned home to his wife and young son.
The marriage ended and the young man had several girlfriends as he continued his murderous nocturnal activities. His step-mother later revealed that he had raped her. She was too embarrassed and frightened to report the assault.
The book is extremely repetitious and the description "with the help of Ted Bundy, " is very misleading as no evidence of such a relationship is provided. Rode was one sick puppy who told fellow inmates that he was attracted to old women with "big t****. " The only parallels to Bundy were the geographical aspects of victims in Oregon and Florida.
I do not recommend Dead of Night.

[Sandy Batesel · Rating 2 out of 5]

The story was riveting. Mr. Barone was a very sick individual. The writing, however, left a bit to be desired. There were MANY typos in the book and lots of name switching. Really bogs down a reader!

[Fishface · Rating 4 out of 5]

The story of an ugly, ugly, ugly series of crimes, well and compassionately told with great respect for the victims. This guy was so messed up that even other felons ran to the authorities, in horror and disgust, to unburden themselves about him. A real page turner.

[♥ Marlene♥ · Rating 4 out of 5]

“I liked it but don't remember. Will read again.”

[Violet · Rating 2 out of 5]

This Could of Been 4 Stars

I’m not going to write a review on this book, so much as on the book itself. This is I think the 4th or 5th book by this author that I’ve read in succession, I’ll admit I found his style of writing a little different at first, but have come to enjoy it, along with how he tells the story of each violent crime from before, during, after and of course the trial & verdict.

What I have NOT come to like is the ongoing terrible editing, words spelled wrong, wrong words put in such as Dash instead of Cash for example, whole pieces of text seemingly not looked at properly and it’s obvious it really needed fixing. Names of people being incorrect.

I have no idea if the name of one of the detectives in this book is Scott Ryan or Scott Ryon - I’d be thinking it’s Ryan but over and over throughout the book it’s written as Ryon while the XRay feature shows it as Ryan ! But in one section his name is put as RYON 14 times !

I’ve come to realize that this is just an absolute disregard for the people involved in these crimes (one book he used the victims name in the killers resume !) and also for his readers. It would be extremely simple to fix these as far as kindles go, but nothing changes, which to me says he & his publishers do a crappy job of editing the books, and don’t particularly care.

If this will drive you nuts, I suggest you never pick up a book of his, as you will want to read them all once you start, they are good, but you’ll probably be as infuriated every time you encounter all these errors as I am

[Red Denver · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a book about a sick individual who committed numerous atrocities against mostly elderly women. The first part of the book was pretty good, where the author was covering the background of the sociopathic pervert who committed the crimes and the crimes themselves. I didn't think the author did a good job of detailing the killer's background -- it seemed pretty sparse. And I found the author's writing style to be a bit choppy. The last part of the book covered the trial. I found it rather tedious; and I had a hard time getting through it. I usually like the trial portion of true crime books, but, for some reason, I wasn't riveted by the trial, as I usually am. Not sure if that is because the trial itself just wasn't all that great, or whether the author just didn't capture the excitement in his writing.

[Lorie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very well written

as always, with this author. I'm always pleasantly surprised and rewarded when choosing a book by Lasseter. It's not just the subject matter but the lessons learned as one delves into the minds of the criminals and those entrusted to bring those killers to justice.

[Graham Laing · Rating 4 out of 5]

The more you read into this story, the worse it gets, I'm not in favour of the death penalty, but some people seem to force our hand.

[Toni · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very good reporting of a serial killer

[Kelly · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a well written true crime story. Sadly, it is the story of a very evil sociopath named Jimmy Rode, who later changed his name to Cesar Barone. He was attracted to older (meaning 70s and 80s) women with large breasts. How anyone can attack a helpless, vulnerable elderly person (or a child) is beyond my comprehension. I consider them the worst of the worst; lowest of the low. It took a good team of detectives to bring Mr. Barone down, but thankfully they finally did. I like the way Mr. Lasseter told the story - straightforward, from beginning to end. My heart goes out to his victims, and especially to the broken, crushed families left behind all because of Barone's evil choices.

[Rebecca · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating story, but. . .

. . So many grammatical and spelling errors. This seems more true of e-books than printed. I've read other books by Mr. Lasseter and all have been well written. This was not a murderer I'd heard of before, so was particularly interesting.

[Micky Lee · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mr bar one was a sick and dangerous man a good book page turner

[Beth Taylor · Rating 5 out of 5]

Detailed and fascinating

I couldn't put the kindle down once I started reading this book. Enough detail to keep it interesting from beginning to end. A fascinating subject.

[Frank Corriveau · Rating 4 out of 5]

Quite interesting to read the details of a sick sociopath. The investigative teams were remarkable in the search and timelines.