Sex Kill

Inside the twisted mind of the sex killer, lust and murder are inextricably linked. He needs to control, terrorize and degrade his victims. Too often, violation becomes torture and murder- and sometimes, the unholy desecration of the deceased. Here, from the detective and police magazines of the 1950s, is a casebook of the most infamous sex fiends ever to stain the true crime annals of the first half of the 20th century. Nightmare figures, many of whom continue to haunt our popular culture and motion pictures: Ed Gein, sex butcher and necrophile who inspired Alfred Hitchcock's PSYCHO; Leopold and Loeb, collegiate thrill killers captured in the classic film COMPULSION; and the Lipstick Killer, whose scrawled plea, "Stop me before I kill more" was the basis for Fritz Lang's WHILE THE CITY SLEEPS. Less well-known but equally malignant are such monster men as Earle Nelson, the Gorilla Killer; John Green, the "walking dead man" turned strangler-rapist; and the Ax-Man who stalked Chicago.