Guilty Creatures
Sex, God, and Murder in Tallahassee, Florida
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- 14,99 €
Beschreibung des Verlags
“Murder, a love triangle, and small-town secrets in Tallahassee, Florida...an unputdownable read.” —The New York Times
“A compelling psychological double portrait of what happens when two people are forever bound by a life-altering secret.” —Becky Cooper, bestselling author of We Keep the Dead Close
From the critically acclaimed author dubbed “one of today’s finest practitioners of nonfiction” (The New York Times Book Review), a breathless true crime tale of sex, religion, and murder in the deep South.
Mike and Denise Williams had a tight knit, seemingly unbreakable bond with childhood friends, Brian and Kathy Winchester. The two couples were devout, hardworking Baptists who lived perfect, quintessentially Southern lives. Their friendship seemed ironclad. That is, until December 16, 2000, when Denise’s husband Mike disappeared while duck hunting on Lake Seminole.
After no body was found, everyone assumed that Mike had drowned in a tragic accident, his body eaten by alligators. But things took an unexpected turn when, within five years of Mike’s disappearance, Brian Winchester divorced his wife and married Denise. Their surprising romance set tongues talking. People began wondering how long they had been a couple, and whether they had anything to do with Mike’s death. It took another twelve years for the truth to come out—and when it did, it was unimaginable.
Now, the full, shocking story is revealed by Mikita Brottman, acclaimed true crime writer of the “enthralling” (San Francisco Book Review) An Unexplained Death. Through tenacious research and clear-eyed prose, she probes the psychology of a couple who killed and explores how it feels to live for eighteen years with murder on the soul.
A fascinating page-turner of modern noir, Guilty Creatures is destined to become an instant true crime classic.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Psychologist Brottman (Couple Found Slain) meticulously catalogs the illicit passions roiling beneath a husband's murder in this enthralling true crime narrative. The Winchesters (Brian and Kathy) and Williamses (Mike and Denise) were tight-knit friends who met at North Florida Christian High School and remained close through college, marriage, and parenthood. In 2000, Mike went missing while duck-hunting in an alligator-infested lake. Rumors flew when Denise collected $1 million in life insurance, but without a body, little could be proven. A few years later, Brian divorced Kathy and married Denise, raising eyebrows among the couple's social circles. When Brian's sex addiction and drug use spiraled out of control, Denise filed for divorce in 2015, and Brian snapped, kidnapping her at gunpoint. After he was arrested, authorities cut him a plea deal, and he eventually testified that he and Denise, who had long been lovers, killed Mike and collected his insurance money. Though the case itself doesn't harbor many surprises, Brottman excels at evoking Denise and Brian's Southern Christian milieu, and she paces the proceedings with aplomb. Readers won't be able to look away.
