Here is the shocking true story of Gerald Eugene Stano--one of America's most prolific serial killers. Written by retired investigative journalist Anna Flowers, and based upon ten years of exhaustive research, Blind Fury is the first true crime account of the gruesome career and twisted psyche of this killer. Includes chilling excerpts from Stano's confession. 12 pages of never-before-published photos.
One of Stano's victims was my best friend from when I was 2 years old until he killed her while she was on her Senior Trip to Daytona Beach. Her name was Ramona Neal. I don't know how accurate this book is about Stano, but the information about Mona's life is completely made up and at times the things that the author says about her just made me want to scream! Things like Mona was in her bedroom, sitting in her bean bag chair talking on the phone...Mona was raised in a 2 bedroom home with 8 siblings. They had just converted a small porch into a bedroom as a graduation type gift for her that year. There was no bean bag chair and like many families back then, only one phone in the house and it was in the dining area. There were other inaccuracies until it was really hard to know what was the truth and what was complete fiction. It just really made me sad all over again. I miss Mona every day, still...
This just didn't hold my attention. I didn't even finish it. It does cover the basics of the case and offers some crime-scene photos of the victims as the police found them, in situ.
An interesting case, but the book is written in a novelistic style with loads of re-created dialogue (and thoughts!). The author mentions in passing the fact that the subject shot and killed his wife's horse (details? motivation? reactions? consequences?), then loads the rest of the book with surmised/imagined and completely superfluous details. Much of the book is devoted to events that took place in the courtroom.
As far as true-crime books go, this one started off pretty well. The trick, however to this genre of book is to keep the reader equally engrossed in the courtroom/legal technicality stage of the book. Sorry to say, I lost interest while trying to keep up with the courtroom details, however detailed they were.
It's pretty much well known that this book is a farce. Details were fed to Stano to tie up unclosed murders and this book was written by someone related to the investigation and conviction.