Talking with Psychopaths and Savages: Guilty but Insane

THE UK'S NO.1 MILLION COPY BESTSELLING TRUE CRIME AUTHOR - A PETRIFYING GLIMPSE INTO THE MOST EVIL MINDS OF OUR TIME...<BR><BR>'No one else does true crime quite like it,' Crime Monthly Magazine<BR><BR>'Terrifying and chilling... True crime at its best.' Daily Express<BR><BR>Case studies and conversations with the psychiatrists of:<BR>OSCAR PISTORIUS<BR>HAROLD SHIPMAN <BR>MEL MAGUIRE<BR>And many more...<BR><BR>In Talking With Psychopaths - A journey into the evil mind, bestselling author and criminologist Christopher Berry-Dee takes readers on a heart-racing journey deep inside the dark minds of some of the most pitiless and dangerous people alive.<BR><BR>With unprecedented access to the world's most evil killers, Christopher spent years interviewing imprisoned criminals - including notorious serial killers - he discovered that the lack of remorse these people showed was in many ways even more terrifying than the crimes they had committed. In the course of these conversations, the author had the chance to interview his subjects' psychiatrists and, in doing so, uncovered a terrible truth: a monster can be hidden behind a friendly face.<BR><BR>Some of these experts, he found, proved to have more in common with their patients than he would ever have expected. This book examines horrific crimes committed by some of the most remorseless and merciless people ever to have lived. If it reveals a mindset wholly alien to most people, it also, shockingly, demonstrates that some of the people who treat these psychopaths have their own demons.<BR><BR>This chilling study of darkest of criminal minds will inevitably shift the reader's view of psychopaths, and in doing so, reveals that horror can be much closer to us than we think...

The plea of insanity in criminal cases can be traced back at least to the Babylonian Code of Hammurabi, which dates from 1755-1759 BC. It is a complicated defence, and its origins in modern law lie with the 'M'Naghten Rules' of 1843, formulated by British judges as a jury instruction in cases where a plea of insanity had been entered. Daniel M'Naghten shot and killed one Edward Drummond, believing him to be the British Prime Minister, Sir Robert Peel, and was acquitted on the grounds of insanity, and the M'Naghten Rules still exert considerable influence over defences today.<BR><BR>Clearly a plea of insanity in murder cases is of critical importance when the death penalty is still applied, and even today it may still be the difference between a life sentence in a high-security prison, or an indeterminate one in a secure psychiatric hospital. Meanwhile, 27 of the USA's 50 states have retained or readopted the death penalty, and at least 54 other countries, including China, Russia, India, Iran and Saudi Arabia, also retain it. <BR>Naturally, a criminal who was liable to swing for murder could, and sometimes did, make every attempt to appear insane, and this book examines some of these cases, as well as trials in which the accused was indeed judged to be insane. The failure rate is high; of seven American serial killers who deployed the defence in their trials, only two were successful, ending their days in secure psychiatric facilities; two were executed, and the other three either died or were killed while serving full-life sentences, or are still in gaol.

Leading crime expert Christopher Berry-Dee gained the trust of some of the most infamous convicted killers, having corresponded with them and even entered their prison lairs to discuss their horrific crimes in detail. In this book, he presents six unforgettable prisoners and allows them to tell their stories, as well as giving the details and background of their terrifying cases - making this a must-read for aficionados of the genre and anyone fascinated by the extremes of human behaviour.<BR><BR> Beyond the headlines, once the drama of the courtroom has subsided and the prison gates have been locked behind these killers for good, Talking With Serial Killers: Dead Men Talking allows the reader to get up close and personal with torturers, sexual psychopaths and mass murderers, to read the stories that are rarely heard and get the last word from some of the world's most pitiless killers.

'I wrapped duct tape around her mouth and her nose and watched her suffocate to death . . . then I went back to work' - former Colonel David Russell Williams of the Royal Canadian Air Force, 2010<BR><BR>Sunday Times-bestselling author Christopher Berry-Dee is back with a companion volume that delves even deeper into the savage world of psychopaths and their hideous crimes. This time, however, he combines sections on killers whom he has known, interviewed or corresponded with, with studies of psychopathic serial killers from the past, including Peter Kürten, the 'Düsseldorf Monster', John Christie, responsible for the killings at 10 Rillington Place; and Neville Heath, a ladykiller in every sense of the word.<BR><BR>The result is a chilling narrative that sets the forensic examination of killers and their crimes within the context of murder in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, an examination of the evil mind set against the insoluble problem of identifying psychopaths who kill. <BR><BR>This is not a book for the squeamish, but it is undeniably fascinating in its portrayal of just what one human being will do to others - while all too often moving among us unnoticed and unhindered. If their crimes seem as incomprehensible as they are horrific, it is undeniably true that the world's most savage killers may be much closer than we think . . .