Bart Whitaker had a problem, he had lied to his parents. They thought he was graduating from college, his father had bought him a place to live while he went to classes, his mother bought him a Rolex as a graduation gift. They were celebrating with a dinner at a fancy restaurant, so what was the big lie? Bart wasn’t graduating from college, he had spent his days playing playing video games and hanging out with his friends. He decided that instead of owning up to his parents about what he had done or not done, he would kill them. He enlisted his friends to help with promises of a huge payout when he got the insurance money. He had a perfect plan …..

If Bart had read as many true crime books as I have he would know there is no such thing. As the detectives investigated, things didn’t add up, Bart’s lies began to catch up with him and he fled to Mexico.

This case was unique in that the victims were testifying to not have the death penalty. But the only surviving victim was Bart’s father and fathers can be kind of stupid at times.

“Now you’ve said that you only have one son left, and that’s the reason you want this jury to spare the defendant. You realize you only have one son left because he’s killed everyone else?”

This was a very interesting book, up to a point. The reporting of the crime and the biographical information was good. There were some areas that were lacking, the investigation and trial were sketchy, but the penalty phase was horrible. The author decided he want to make sure the readers knew why Bart got the dealth penalty, and he did this by giving word for word reporting of the testimony in the penalty phase of the trial. For me this ruined an otherwise informative and engaging book.

Corey Mitchell is not a horrible writer, in fact there are a couple of his books that I absolutely love, I just find him to be inconsistent. I keep reading his books because he does have a way with words.

The evil-genius mastermind Bart Whitaker had elected to take the stand in an attempt to humanize himself before the jury of his peers, who had already found him guilty of first-degree murder.”

While I didn’t love this book, I feel it does have some redeeming qualities. Someone who like to read the testimony, so they can decide for themselves, instead of reading a summary would like this book. It just didn’t appeal to me. ( )

This was a good read but I did miss some parts of the story, like the police investigation. I wanted also to know more about the 2 other guys, how they felt. Which lawyers they had, what those lawyers managed to do for them. What happened when Bart was confronted by the cops when he was finally caught. What did he say, did he deny it? What did his dad say?
So I ended up with lots of questions. I did like the afterword by Corey.. Good book. 3.5 stars ( )

Another great true crime. Full Review ( )