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highly recommended |
Disappeared Wives 
Erased is an intense and insightful book that explores the disturbing trend of men who decide to "erase" the women in their lives whom they consider no longer of any use.
Marilee Strong is an excellent writer, who dissects historical and current cases involving men who decided that disappearing inconvenient wives or girlfriends is an easier decision than divorce or separation. Most notably these women are eliminated due to an unwelcome pregancy that the man believes will negatively disrupt his life (lifestyle).
Ms. Strong uses Scott Peterson as a template of an eraser killer~and also discusses the Mark Hacking case in detail. She enables the reader to understand the motivations behind these killings and the mindset of the killer. Most of these men are narcissitic sociopaths, therefore it is easy for them to kill without guilt, because they don't know the true concept of love, compassion, or empathy. The reason they don't just split or get a divorce, is that they don't want to look bad (the narcissistic part of their personality cannot bear to have others look down upon them, and since it would look bad to leave a pregant wife, it is easier to "erase" the wife, and maybe in the process gain attention and sympathy from family/friends/community). In the killer's mind, once the wife is erased, he can move on and do what HE wants to do, not be saddled with a wife and kid.
I recommend this book, as it delves much deeper into the psyche of the "eraser" killer than any of the true crime books I have read. Again, Ms. Strong is an eloquent writer who presents many facsinating cases, some I have never heard about~and the mind and motive of these horrendous husbands.
Men who want women erased from their lives
Strong believes she has found a new category of killers. That is not to suggest that eraser killers, like serial killers, another category lately described, didn't exist previously. Just that she can now find a pattern and has labeled it.
Eraser killers are men who want women gone from their lives. Erased, vanished, no longer a bother. Frequently, these wives or girlfriends are pregnant. "Recent studies from several states...have found homicide to be the number one cause of death among pregnant women and that women continue to be at increased risk for being murdered for usp to a year after giving birth...A 2005 study...found homicide to be the second leading cause of ...dead...behind in pregnant and postpartum women, being motor vehicle accidents" (p 28).
Essentially, as in the famous case of Scott Peterson, these men created forced abortions.
The cases are fascinating. And certainly the utter callousness of the men astonishes. Edward Kakas was "obsessed over his appearance, waring $1,000 suits" (p 154) and pleased with his pretty wife until she insisted, without his agreement, on getting pregnant and having the baby. He started to refer to her as "'the fat wop'". (p 155). He could have divorced her. But that would have meant money for her and the child. So, instead, he killed her.
Interesting but scary.
A profoundly enlightening work, bringing compassion to the darkest of subjects
"Erased combines the scholarly wisdom of The Mask of Sanity and the true-life horror of In Cold Blood. Marilee Strong has discovered--and understands--the most insidious and perhaps most evil form of spousal killing" is the judgment of the high profile forensic psychologist J. Reid Meloy from UC San Diego. That's part of what gives this book its power--combining both powerful case stories worthy of Truman Capote's In Cold Blood, with insights and observations that put the vivid stories of homicide and deviousness in perspective. (The Mask of Sanity is a classic in the field, but out of print. The modern version is Without Conscience: The Disturbing World of the Psychopaths Among Us.
Instead of just news stories which never seem to stop about missing women, murdered women, and the men who are "persons of interest" if not actually charged--Hans Reiser, Drew Peterson, Scott Peterson, Michael White, Rae Carruth, Robert Durst and dozens more--Marilee Strong gives us the hope that something can be known about men who murder their wives and do it with planning and utter coldness. Finally, the crime has been given a name, "eraser killing."
But it is really the author's compassion for the victims of these crimes that makes this book a landmark. Erased is not a book that pretends to be "objective" about the crime of killing women and Strong's passion and concern is what makes it a wonderful read for some (and, sadly, makes it a little uncomfortable for those few who are uneasy about extending compassion.)
There are many, many more victims of these killings than any statistic or long list of dead and missing women might indicate, as bad as that is. What Strong understands is that families, friends, whole communities are frozen and unable to experience grieving as a process because they are blocked from having the simple, terrible facts: Is my daughter/friend/relative/mom dead, or alive? Where is she? What exactly happened to her? Why did you do this?
Grieving and healing cannot happen, cannot begin when so many people are so cruelly tortured by being kept endlessly on edge, endlessly in "search" mode, jumping at every phone call, hoping against hope that the woman who is "missing" will finally move out of that purgatory.
This book itself provides hope, through the author's own compassion and understanding, and through a public statement that, yes, there is a problem, a dilemma that has an impact on us as a community. We have a responsibility especially when there are children involved--whether they are little children to whom the missing woman was a teacher (Laci Peterson), or to whom she was mother (many, many, many).
As someone who once stood in the quiet yard of the Peterson house in Modesto when Laci Rocha Peterson was "only" a missing, pregnant woman, I saw, and shed tears with the hundreds of people who came on their own, quietly, solemnly placing flowers, cards drawn by little children, crosses, candles, and poems. People had driven in old cars and farm trucks and they represented every corner of that diverse farming community. If we do care as a community, then there is hope in confronting a crime so dark that it has escaped being identified.
Marilee Strong has put a name on crime that has caused so many to shed tears, and feel the pain and loss of others. Now we know, at least, that the destructive, self-absorbed personalities who perpetrate these crimes can be understood and so can their astonishingly audacious methods.
If we understand that much, we can not only share compassion as a community, we can begin to figure out how best to counter and block these eraser killers.
An excellent contribution to the genre
I am really surprised by the review below that criticizes the prose in this book. I thought it of high quality and unobtrusive. Adjectives have not been eliminated from the language, and they were not inappropriately overused in this book. Curious.
Does the true crime genre really need a fifteenth book about the Scott and Laci Peterson case? One could reasonably conclude that the question answers itself. Then I read Erased.
Unlike the fourteen titles that preceded it -- including books by the jurors, the journalists, Laci's mother, Scott's sister and lover -- the latest title to delve into the most widely publicized U.S. case since OJ's acquittal stands alone. Erased: Missing Women, Murdered Wives [Amazon; B&N] by Marilee Strong (with Mark Powelson) is very well informed by history and psychology. The lead author has delved to the nth degree into the criminal history of the United States, and the result is a unique study of a certain type of uxorcide. I couldn't skim or skip a page of this book, which marries, if you will, two of my favorite subgenres: spousal murder stories and criminal psychology.
In developing a profile of what she terms "eraser" killers, the author recounts many cases that have remarkable parallels to the Peterson case, highlighting dozens already familiar to some of us: Chester Gillette, Carlyle Harris, Reverend Richeson, Robert Blake, Mark Hacking, Bartin Corbin, Michael Peterson, Father Hans Schmidt, and numerous other more obscure murders. In developing her profile, she comes to some strong conclusions while offering a depth of research to support them. For example, she points to the fact that Scott Peterson reported his wife missing on Christmas Eve. I had assumed that he was a psychopath who gave himself a Christmas present. Author Strong points out a more mundane possibility: that a disappearance on a holiday would not result in a vigorous investigation by experienced detectives. Just as Theodore Dreiser "profiled" Chester Gillette and his brothers in crime in fictional terms, this author does so in the language of clinical psychology.
I approached this book skeptically, frowning at the flap copy, groaning at the press release ("missing women cases ... have come to dominate the national print and broadcast media since the highly publicized disappearance of Laci Peterson," it says, when it should say such cases have always dominated the media). I've also grown more skeptical of the work of profilers and agree with the general prohibition against admitting their testimony in court, while at the same time I think they are useful to the general public. And crime encyclopedias usually disappoint this reader with numerous errors. Not this time. Erased is cogent and compelling.
I Could Have Been One Of the Missing or Murdered Wives
This book really hit home for me and I stayed awake all night to the point of exhaustion to finish it. I came very close, twice, to being a missing or murdered wife. My ex-husband finally served some jail time after kidnapping and attempting to murder me but when we were married the police acted as though my being beaten by him was a "domestic disturbance" and they refused to file a report.
I finally understand why my ex-husband acted the way he did and how he was able to screw everyone who ever cared for him without remorse.
This book should be required reading for every cop around the world and for every prosecuter who wants a better understanding of the "charming sociopath".
reviews: page 1, 2
missing women, erased, missing, murdered, wives, women
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