Poisoned Blood

Rating:
Summary: One of My Favorites
Review: I have re-read this book so many times it fell apart. Great writing, can't put it down type book. If you are interested in sociopaths, this is one of the best studies of one - although Audrey Marie Hilley refused any psychiatric evaluation - she did show many of the characteristics: lying, greed, using people for her own ends, as well as doing things that just didn't make any sense at all. Probably a borderline personality disorder as well, as she liked to cheat on her husband, set fires for insurance money, job hop, tell tall tales for attention, kite checks, etc. Killing her husband, and trying to kill her own daughter, perhaps her mother, mother-in-law, son and daughter-in-law, there was something in her that wanted to control everyone around her, and benefit from it as well. I hope that Carol and Mike are doing well - Carol was one tough cookie. Just an amazingingly well-told story.

Rating:
Summary: One of My Favorites
Review: I have re-read this book so many times it fell apart. Great writing, can't put it down type book. If you are interested in sociopaths, this is one of the best studies of one - although Audrey Marie Hilley refused any psychiatric evaluation - she did show many of the characteristics: lying, greed, using people for her own ends, as well as doing things that just didn't make any sense at all. Probably a borderline personality disorder as well, as she liked to cheat on her husband, set fires for insurance money, job hop, tell tall tales for attention, kite checks, etc. Killing her husband, and trying to kill her own daughter, perhaps her mother, mother-in-law, son and daughter-in-law, there was something in her that wanted to control everyone around her, and benefit from it as well. I hope that Carol and Mike are doing well - Carol was one tough cookie. Just an amazingingly well-told story.

Rating:
Summary: Venomous! Lethal!
Review: This is the spellbinding true story of the life and crimes of Audrey Marie Hilley, a "typical" suburban Alabama housewife and mother whose life was an intertwined rope of secrets, lies, deceptions, and ultimately murder.

When her daughter Carol was stricken with an ailment that her doctors were unable to diagnose or even treat effectively, Marie Hilley seemed the epitome of a loving and concerned mother.

But nothing was further from the truth.

For she had been calculatingly, cold bloodedly, and systematically poisoning Carol with arsenic for almost a year. In a life filled with actions that are incomprehensible to the conscience driven person, this act of attempted murder was the most nefarious, heinous, inhumane, and demonic that any person, any woman, or any mother could have ever conceived or committed.

When the shocking truth of Carol's illness finally emerged, her relatives and law enforcement officials realised with dawning horror that this incident was likely not an isolated one. Four years earlier, Marie's husband Frank had died after a short illness. Doctors ruled that he died from natural causes.

Little did they know.

He too had been poisoned with arsenic.

This was not the end of the strange odyssey of Marie Hilley. Arrested for passing fraudulent cheques and attempted murder, she skipped bail for three years, remarried, forged a new identity for herself as Robbi Homan, and fled to New Hampshire. There, as "Robbi", she faked terminal illness, staged her own death in Texas in what can be termed as a symbolic act of self destruction, and returned to New Hampshire masquerading as Robbi's twin sister, Teri Martin! Due to the suspicions of "Robbi's" former friends and colleagues, this act led to her eventual capture.

In 1 of the best true crime books ever penned, author Ginsburg weaves a shocking and sordid expose of a creature, that fortunately, is the rarest kind - a pure, 100% sociopath, a woman for whom the truth was an elusive commodity. Like us, he seems puzzled as to the WHYS of Audrey Marie Hilley, and though this brilliant book is a painstakingly researched biography of her life and crimes, for the reader it evokes more questions than answers.

Rating:
Summary: Venomous! Lethal!
Review: This is the spellbinding true story of the life and crimes of Audrey Marie Hilley, a "typical" suburban Alabama housewife and mother whose life was an intertwined rope of secrets, lies, deceptions, and ultimately murder.

When her daughter Carol was stricken with an ailment that her doctors were unable to diagnose or even treat effectively, Marie Hilley seemed the epitome of a loving and concerned mother.

But nothing was further from the truth.

For she had been calculatingly, cold bloodedly, and systematically poisoning Carol with arsenic for almost a year. In a life filled with actions that are incomprehensible to the conscience driven person, this act of attempted murder was the most nefarious, heinous, inhumane, and demonic that any person, any woman, or any mother could have ever conceived or committed.

When the shocking truth of Carol's illness finally emerged, her relatives and law enforcement officials realised with dawning horror that this incident was likely not an isolated one. Four years earlier, Marie's husband Frank had died after a short illness. Doctors ruled that he died from natural causes.

Little did they know.

He too had been poisoned with arsenic.

This was not the end of the strange odyssey of Marie Hilley. Arrested for passing fraudulent cheques and attempted murder, she skipped bail for three years, remarried, forged a new identity for herself as Robbi Homan, and fled to New Hampshire. There, as "Robbi", she faked terminal illness, staged her own death in Texas in what can be termed as a symbolic act of self destruction, and returned to New Hampshire masquerading as Robbi's twin sister, Teri Martin! Due to the suspicions of "Robbi's" former friends and colleagues, this act led to her eventual capture.

In 1 of the best true crime books ever penned, author Ginsburg weaves a shocking and sordid expose of a creature, that fortunately, is the rarest kind - a pure, 100% sociopath, a woman for whom the truth was an elusive commodity. Like us, he seems puzzled as to the WHYS of Audrey Marie Hilley, and though this brilliant book is a painstakingly researched biography of her life and crimes, for the reader it evokes more questions than answers.