Synopses & Reviews
Into the heart of a killer The Mad Over the past twenty years, renowned forensic psychologist Barbara Kirwin has confronted a terrifying lineup of murderers, rapists, paranoids, and psychopaths--including notorious serial killer Joel Rifkin--to distinguish the truly mad from the bad trying to cop an insanity plea.
The Bad Here, in chilling detail, she recalls her most grisly cases and offers riveting psychological portraits of other infamous killers, including "Son of Sam" David Berkowitz, Colin Ferguson, Ted Bundy, Jeffrey Dahmer, the Menendez brothers, Susan Smith, and John W. Hinckley, Jr.
The Innocent Moving from prison holding cells to sensational courtroom trails, Kirwin tells the truth about the insanity defense and its abuse by criminal lawyers conjuring up outrageous defenses--from adopted child syndrome to postpartum psychosis to sleepwalking. As she pries open the criminal mind, Kirwin takes us on a riveting journey into the heart of darkness, where madness and evil thrive.
Synopsis
Over the last 20 years, Dr. Barbara Kirwin has confronted hundreds of killers, working to weed out the truly mad from the bad who try to cop an insanity plea. Now, in chilling detail, she profiles her most grisly cases -- Chandran Nathan, who fiddled the medical student fiance of his goddaughter with 41 shots from an MAK-90; college student Stephanie Wernick, who suffocated her newborn baby and tossed the infant's body into a dormitory trash can; Richard Winkler, who disemboweled his minister as he prayed on Thanksgiving morning -- and takes the reader on a compelling journey into the heart of human darkness to determine whether these killers were truly insane.
About the Author
Barbara R. Kirwin, Ph.D., has been a clinical psychologist and forensic expert for over twenty-five years, has consulted on more than a hundred homicide cases, and has been a commentor on Court TV. She lives on Long Island in New York.