The Mammoth Book of More Bizarre Crimes (Mammoth Books) by Robin Odell

The Mammoth Book of More Bizarre Crimes (Mammoth Books) Reviews

• 
  Carly

  As a long-term reader of "true-crime" I don't consider a lot of the cases that are mentioned in this book to be "bizarre" not unless the method or reason for murder was absurd which for some of the crimes it was. It is disappointing that only one chapter of this book is about bizarre murders, I expected the whole book to be about bizarre murders, murders committed by deranged people, a group of people, a solitary person for unknown reasons, their motive is unknown, their mondset is disturbed, abnormal, delusional, or most terrifying of all they are completely sane and in control of their thoughts, behaviour or actions. The title of tje book is misleading, but it did include a lit of crimez, murders that iknow about, due to my interest in true crime, I do not idolise serial killkers, they are sick perverts, and sadists. I am interrested in criminal psychology, forensics, crime scene investigation, profiling of geographical location, behavioural analysis and psychological profiling of the mindset/state of mind of a murderer, serial killer, serial rapist or anyone that commits sadistic, ritualistic murder continously be ause they are addictrd to overpowering other people, and taking wjat they want from them and it's done in such a way that they would never stop. It fulfils a sadistic nedd they have because they are a psychopath. I like studyong psychology, sociology, mental illness, occult related beliefs, people are moulded by w hat they experience in their luves, it can have a good or negative affect on a person psychologically. The nature versus nurture dabate, i think it is a mixture of both that moulds a petson into being either a good and caring person or a sadistic sadist, narcissistic psychopath that uses person for their own gain, they like playing mind games to avoid boredom.
  The night stalker (the mexican satanist, serial killer is a good example)
  I think some of the most disturbing cases mentioned in the book would have to be cases that involved cruelty to animals (it is a fetish called zoophilia, it means some people want to have sex with animals unfortunately. There is also another fetish that involves people that want to have sex with dead animals, a animal they have killed, it is truely disgusting and it makes me feel sick, that people like that exist in the world. Some people in the the world really are a sick pervert and to them nothing is off limits to them)
  Some truely bizarre or disturbing cases that could have been mentioned are the following; The beasts of satan (Italian satanic/occult related murders) Katherine Knight (She was a butcher in a abattoir, she butchered her husband and cooked him, she is described as the female version of hannibal lector.
  Issei Sagawa (He is a Japanese man that murdered a woman and consumed her flesh, he never went to prison or was ever convivted for cannibalism, he was never arrested for murder, cannibalism)
  The Hinterkaifeck family murders (This has never been solved, and remains mysterious and creepy, since a whole family were lured by a stranger into their barn and murdered)
  The servant girl annihilator, the villisca axe murder house, one of the most disturbing cases was the Dnepropetrovsk maniacs (a group of Russian people that attacked homeless people, and random people. They viciously attacked people with a hammer and other items and filmed it while they murdered innocent and defenceless people, just because they could)
  Luka magnotta (tortured cats while he filmed it and posted it online, he also murdered a man, stabbed him with a ice pick, decapitated him, violated his corpse, while performing necrophilic acts he recorded everything he did and also posted this online for attention. He planned to make other "movies" as he called them so more people would have been murdered, if it wasn't for online activists for animals rights, online slueths that wanted to solve it, he wouldn't have been caught.
  As a animal lover i am grateful to them and what they did to stop this narcissistic, attention seeking maniac)
  The documentary "don't fuck wih cats" explains what happened but it's not for the squeamish.
  Crimes, murders that involves children and and any crime that involves cannibalism, necrophilia, dissection and disarticulation (decapitating the head is usually for the purpose of falasio if the murderer is a necrophile/and to prevent identification. Disarticulation means head is decapitated from the corpse and the removal of all other limbs as well) pedophilia, incest and any very violent crimes that are committed for no apparent reason or motive is terrifying and will always remain unexplained. Pnly the murderer(s) will know why they have done such horrific and disturbing things to one or more human beings, some people bevome addicted to murder a nd they think they are invincible, above the law and that no one will ever catch them. A lot of serial killers seem to admire Jack the ripper, Ted Bundy and other serial killers such as the Zodiac or the Texakana phantom (A.K.A the moonlight murders) because their identity is unknown and they were not caught, but now due to advances in DNA and microscopic DNA or trace DNA testing techniques some unsolved crimes from 40 years ago are being solved today and the murderer is convicted for their crimes. The golden state killer (the original night stalkkett or A.K.A the East area rapist was caught due to his DNA being found and tested which is connected to burglaries, rapes, murders over a long period of time and he was a former police officer so he knew how to avoid being caught, arrested and convicted for his crimes for a long timne. Sam Little is also a good example, he was able to avoud being caught for 40-50 years, he murdered close to 100 women andhe w as able to avoid being caught by using a different surname that he had. There will be a book published about him this year. I look forward to reading it. Some of the cases I read about pissed me off due to the red flags that were clearly obvious behavioural warning signs that would eventually and unfortunately lead to multiple molestations, rapes, murders. Another aspect of the crimes was/is contamination of evidence at the crime scenes, DNA evidence not even being tested to exonerate or find the perpetrator(s) of a crime or series of crimes, false confessions (this usually occurs due to hours of intense interrogation, they feel pressured to confess, so they confess under duress) wrongful convictions based on flimsy, circumstantial or non existent evidence and false eye witness testimony of the whereabouts, or the convicted person when it was false. With all the modern technology that exists why aren't more crimes being solved, more people being exonerated of guilt and pardoned for wrongful convictions or the correct person(s) convicted of the crime(s)? I will never understand why based on previous medical examinations, why a second opinion or reassessment of the victim is not looked at more thoroughly to conclusively solve and correctly diagnose the cause of death beyond any reasonable doubt? The case about the woman that was raped and beaten to death, it was clear just from reading the entry in the book that the victim was raped and beaten, from the bruises described. I'm not medically trained, but I can figure that out !myself just from reading the details.
  The greatest miscarriage of justice is not solving a crime, but it is even more of a insult for a medically trained professional to Not even recognize clear signs of rape, a physical beating and murder. To not correctly determine how a person has died, or how they were murdered, so it is incorrectly documented and the person responsible gets away with rape and murder. It disgusts me how the authorities act, they either don't care, "victim shame" the victims of crime and murders committed by serial killers or the victims are not even treated like they are a human being.
  Just because a man or woman is a exotic dancer, stripper, or prostitute it doesn't mean that they should be treated like they aren't "worthy" of being of being considered a missing person, or a family member, friend being able to report them missing, dead or their whereabouts unknown for a certain amount of time. A lot of cases that involve serial killers and prostitutes, are unsolved, cold cases unfortunately. I don't understand the mentality of the police sometimes they treat anyone involved in prostitution, like it is their so-called "lifestyle" but not everyone lives like that, it's also not something they choose to do by choice, they may be in debt, a junkie or they do it to make ends meet due to poverty . The more I read about serial killers that rape, murder prostitutes, the more sympathy I have for them, they are a victim of their circumstances unfortunately.
  I haven't read the previous book about the same subject matter, but I will read the previous book and review it when I receive the book and read it.
• 
  Naomi

  Entertaining read, but beware: about 1/4 of the content is already mentioned in the previous edition (albeit with different wording). Pretty shady IMHO.
• 
  Silencia

  Well...the facts are there, though I still don't know what constituted "bizarre" to the authors. Most of these, while sordid and sad and awful, didn't seem that out of the ordinary run of criminology to me.
  
  I got through 500-some pages of this thing and I still don't know how such horrible stories could be made so unbelievably boring. Add in the weirdly obsessive focus on "homosexual relationships" (friends it is 2018 please just say gay! or even better just say relationship because if you say two men got into a relationship, we can pretty well figure out that it's gay!) wherever they might appear, and the fact that no story got more than two pages, and it was just...weird and uncomfortable and dry.
  
  Reading true crime should not feel like reading a textbook from the 1950s.
  
  Two stars.
• 
  Stephen Dedman

  A disappointing collection of seemingly random summaries of murder cases, few of them particularly bizarre and all of them condensed to one or two pages like chapters in a James Patterson novel. Wikipedia is a better source on the subject.
• 
  James

  I found this at a second hand bookstore and was hoping for more than what it was. Shallow one page overviews of mostly standard real life crimes. Some were interesting enough to research more online. More than half were average crimes and a bit of a slog to get through
• 
  Rosemary Krystofolski

  Great book with details about hundreds of murder cases
  
  Interesting book that has chapters that equal several pages about hundreds of different murder cases. It's a well written and interesting book that will appeal to anyone interested in true crime cases.
• 
  Zoe Radley

  A fascinating and intriguing insight into some of the most bizarre and disturbing crimes that have happened over the centuries. Each one stranger than fiction. Would recommend for people interested in True crime.
• 
  SUSAN TURNER

  Excellent
  
  Really enjoyed reading this. Varied and interesting. The majority I have never heard of. Very easy reading and I will read others in series
• 
  Justine

  This book was really good however the crimes were not really bizarre