Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book. Book Preview:

#1 When Eleanor Louise Cowell, who would become a serial killer, was pregnant in 1946, she went to the Elizabeth Lund Home for Unwed Mothers in Vermont. She had a baby with a man who said he was a veteran of World War II and a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania. But when she tried to find him, he disappeared.

#2 The family was secretive about the story of Ted's conception. His grandparents told some people that they had adopted a baby, but Teddy's great-aunt Virginia Bristol was skeptical.

#3 The stories related by Louise's sisters and relatives have a gothic quality. They say that Samuel was a tyrant, and that he had a stash of pornography that the young Teddy must have seen. He was also cruel to animals.

#4 The author's father was a serial killer, and his mother never told him about it. He learned about it from a psychologist who was studying death row inmates in Florida. He concluded that Ted lacked any core experience of care and nurturance or early emotional sustenance.