I: The Creation of a Serial Killer

Rating:
Summary: Stunning!
Review: I have amassed quite a collection of true crime books in my life. Aside from Helter Skelter, this may be my favorite true crime book. Aided by a very forthcoming killer, Jack Olsen displays a wealth of knowledge on his subject. While I found the brevity of chapter to be discouraging, the contend creates an exceptional product. While some authors in this genre continually repeat themselves, Olsen tells a seamless story with a continual supply of fresh information.

Keith Hunter Jesperson is the "Happy Face Killer". He earns this name through his washroom stall vandalism and letter writing signature. Jesperson's killing spree involves eight women. In the case of his first murder, others went to jail for his crime. His final death toll could have been larger if he had not killed his "fiance". The story is unique because the killer is a truck driver. This facet of the story gives unique insight into the life of a truck driver. The murders are spread through a large area with victims that a largely prostitutes. Jesperson places much of the blame for his murders on his father. The childhood stories depict his father as a manipulative, abusive alcoholic. Even from the stories in the present, his father seems this way. If the stories he describes are true, his father does hold some responsibility for his son's crimes.

True crime fans must add this book to their collection. The stories are detailed and give insight into the acts of a serial killer which have never been seen before.

Rating:
Summary: "Ain't I Great?"
Review: The late Jack Olsen was a master of the true-crime genre. He chose wonderfully bizarre cases and criminals to document, and "I" is no exception, though it isn't his best.

Most of the book is told first-person from "Happy Face Killer" Keith Hunter Jesperson's own point of view. This is both a good thing and a bad thing. It's good, in that it gives the reader direct access to the psychopath's own vision of himself and the world around him. It's bad, in that it doesn't do a great deal to sort out the truth behind the psychopath's lies. Olsen counts on his readers to do that for themselves, which to a certain extent isn't a bad idea, but a bit more commentary from Olsen would have been welcome.

"I" is an especially apt title, since not only is Jesperson unbelievably narcissistic - letters of his writing, the reader will quickly notice (though Olsen never once calls attention to the fact), refer to their writer in the personal pronoun an incredible number of times - but so, to a large degree, is his father. The biggest unanswered question in Keith Jesperson's story is the question of his upbringing. Jesperson's father denied most of Keith's claims of childhood abuse, but he is so plainly hung-up on other people's perceptions of him that the reader constantly has to question how many of killer Keith's claims are true, or simply made-up like the majority of his other stories. Again, a bit more input from Olsen would have been welcome. The constant contrast between father and son often becomes comical, despite itself, in the desire on the part of both to be viewed in their best possible light. No doubt Olsen recognized this, and wanted it to speak for itself - which it does.

Jesperson's case is reminiscent of Arthur Shawcross's, a serial killer of women and children who was an X-double-Y chromosomal mutation - and, interestingly, a brief correspondent of Jesperson's in prison. Olsen barely ponders the question of nature-vs.-nurture in "I," though he does bring up the contrasting stories about Keith Jesperson's upbringing and the fact that he had an uncle who committed gory suicide in an institution. Olsen isn't interested in debates - he just wants to present the facts, and let the reader ask (or answer) his own questions.

It's possible Olsen intended to flesh-out this book a bit more before his death, and simply didn't have time. The result is still well worth reading for true-crime afficionadoes, or those with an interest in criminal psychology.

Rating:
Summary: A Brutal Look at the Dark Soul of a Serial Killer
Review: The True Crime writing genre lost one of its greats when Jack Olsen died recently. Along with Ann Rule both wrote honest, well written books without resorting to the sensationalism that most of the other TC writers do. Olsen's "Salt of the Earth" remains one of the best books written from the victim's family point of view and is one of my all time favorite books. His newest "I" is on par with another choice book "The Misbegotten Son" but maybe with more searing honesty. Olsen lets Keith Hunter Jesperson narrate the whole book from a first person's point of view. It is a chilling, brutal, scary tale. It's almost too vivid as he describes torturing animals (Animal lovers beware. I'm one and it's upsetting) and mercilessly killing his female victims without care or thought. I read these books for the psychology of the perpetrator. How does one get this way? This book does give background on the killer and lets you draw your own conclusions without editorializing.