Rating: 
Summary: He ate my Mom's brownies in College!
Review: ...I think in places the authors attempt to imply that there were warning signs where there were none. For example, I think it was a little silly to talk about his having a difficult time at a lecture because of a girl in his class or his following girls on campus as though this was a sign of things to come. If this were a factor, most of the male students at Ga. Tech in the late 70's would be locked up now. Although these were Dan's own words, the flavor throughout the book is that somehow the people in his life should have been able to see this coming. I never would have. I do not understand it to this day. I was shocked and disturbed by many of the details presented in the book. The thing that gives me the most pause is how someone can share a part of your life, but what is in their head be so unknown. We all just thought he was a great guy. For those who dismiss Dan as simply an evil person, I'm afraid it's not quite that easy. The Dan I knew was idealistic and always wanted to do the "right" thing. Dan did not live up to his own ideals; could not live up to his own ideals. It gets five stars because it is the only book written about anyone that I actually know. It is a book I wish never had to be written. So tragic for so many lives.
Rating: 
Summary: In a word--Ridiculous.
Review: Given a choice, I wouldn't have given this book one measly star, but I was forced to. I've just finished the book (how, I don't know) and I'm glad it's over because if I had to read one more chapter beginning with wonderful Gerry Starrett sitting in her immaculate living room, holding hands with her perfect family, reflecting on the perfect previous years and 'her Danny', I was going to puke. I found this book to be more about the trials of Gerry Starrett than her son. I never read anything about the victims and their families. And I read very little about Danny's family (except for his strange mother) and nothing about his wife after all this except the two or three paragraphs when she asked for a divorce. Personally, it sounded to me as if Gerry was just a tad obsessed with her son and even after he confessed, she didn't believe 'her Danny' did anything. The guy was a freak and if his mother and he were as close as she claims they were, you think she would have seen some abnormalities in him. Granted, I can understand her desire to help her son but she attacked everybody around him and I got just plain sick of hearing about all the injustices that he was made to endure. He did, after all, rape a bunch of teenagers and kill one of them Gerry. If the purpose of this book--and it seemed to be that Gerry was the only participant in the writing of this book--was to conjure up sympathy for 'her Danny', it failed miserably. The only sympathy I felt for him was the embarrassment of having such a weird mother. (Example: her screaming at the prosecutor for mentioning the murder victim's name when 'her Danny' fell on the floor crying) She was just over the edge. She seemed extremely shallow, more worried about appearances than anything else. I actually thought her husband handled things much better than she did and I kept wondering when he was going to unload his half-crazed wife. As it turned out, she filed for divorce. As I said, I did manage to finish this book, but if you haven't read it, I wouldn't bother with it. It's nothing but a bunch of babble. It's actually a story about an anguished mother of a murderer than anything else.
Rating: 
Summary: one of the saddest books i have ever read
Review: I have read almost every true crime book available but never have I felt the sadness I felt when i read this book.Every mother who has a son should read this book.Like Gerry Starrett if my son did what Danny did I would find it impossible to believe. I found the book very interesting in that it focused mainly on Danny, his family and their feelings. Of course one would find it almost impossible to imagine the depth of horror and grief felt by the victims and their families but the author has given the book a unique feel by focusing on the "bad guys" feelings. Perhaps the most meaningful and saddest part of the whole very sorry story of Danny Starrett was when his parents Richard and Gerry went to the movies and mistakenly went to a blow em up shoot em dead action film.Richards words filled me with a fear that as a mother will always be with me. He said to his wife that the bad guys always gets blown away in movies but nobody ever stops to think about the parents behind the bad guy,how they loved him and thought they did everything right.Richard said maybe the parents didnt understand why their son became a bad guy but think of the agony they will go through when they find out the good guy killed their son, the son they love, their pride and joy, their son who will always be the bad guy,when they always believed like almost every parent, hey, my son's the good guy. That must be an almost unbearable cross to bear. Their son,forever the bad guy.
Rating:
Summary: Engrossing
Review: I picked up this book while wandering through a bricks & mortar bookstore on sojourn with a hospitalized relative. I read lots of "true crime" but never before have I encountered such a one-sided unabashed apologia for the evil-doer (Danny Starrett.) The authors (the cover says they have previously won a Pulitzer prize - surely THAT book was less biased?) insinuated themselves into Danny's family - but the trade-off in their "deal with the Devil's" family is obvious. More balanced writers such as Ann Rule can take input from friends and family and give insight into the criminal mind and development, but in this case the unfortunate result is 400 pages of "poor Danny and his Momma" with short shrift for the victims, their families or loved ones.
Rating:
Summary: The voices of the criminals family needs to be heard
Review: I read the book because I know Danny and his parents personally due to the fact that Danny is doing time with my husband and I found the book to be somewhat true to life. I gave the book 5 stars because the other side of the story needs to be told and I believe that it was in this book. Victims of crime have plenty of outlets and people to hear their voice but so often the other victims, the families of the criminals are ignored or subjected to scorn and are tried, convicted and sentenced for a crime they did not commit simply because they choose to stand beside their loved one.
Rating:
Summary: Good book but...
Review: I will had gave this book 5 stars but the end of it is odd and too mysterious. What really happen to Jeannie, did Danny Starrett killed her or she kill herself??? He was suppose to be hypnotise to know what really happen with Jeannie but we don't hear of it in the book. That so true what the father of Danny said, "We don't want to know that the killer and abuser have a family who care for him, we don't want to know his pain, we want to shut our eyes from that and beleive he just evil it more simple.", but life it not like that. The mind is odd and can make you do strange thing but still why Danny Starrett could not control himself, he said another part of him "HE" did it not "HIM", well that kind of a personality disorder, we all had mood swings, and lot of criminals can said they have a HE/SHE who did their crime. I am sure he really beleived himself when he said he have another one who live inside of him but still that very unbeleivebale. When you saw the pictures of the young Danny Starrett you can't imagine he become a criminal, he look so sweet and angelic and seem such a nice kid when his mother discribed him, it hard to not feel what she feel. This book was a very powerful book, very disturbing also because that put you in the shoes of the criminal and his family and you sure wish to not have a member of your family who become that way. This book is one of the best true crime book I had read but like I said the end is weird and Danny seem to be pretty mess up and disturbed when he start to talk about controlling time to get Jeannie back, I guess too much time thinking in prison really mess up your mind, well it sure not a place to get peace of mind!
Rating:
Summary: Good book but...
Review: I will had gave this book 5 stars but the end of it is odd and too mysterious. What really happen to Jeannie, did Danny Starrett killed her or she kill herself??? He was suppose to be hypnotise to know what really happen with Jeannie but we don't hear of it in the book. That so true what the father of Danny said, "We don't want to know that the killer and abuser have a family who care for him, we don't want to know his pain, we want to shut our eyes from that and beleive he just evil it more simple.", but life it not like that. The mind is odd and can make you do strange thing but still why Danny Starrett could not control himself, he said another part of him "HE" did it not "HIM", well that kind of a personality disorder, we all had mood swings, and lot of criminals can said they have a HE/SHE who did their crime. I am sure he really beleived himself when he said he have another one who live inside of him but still that very unbeleivebale. When you saw the pictures of the young Danny Starrett you can't imagine he become a criminal, he look so sweet and angelic and seem such a nice kid when his mother discribed him, it hard to not feel what she feel. This book was a very powerful book, very disturbing also because that put you in the shoes of the criminal and his family and you sure wish to not have a member of your family who become that way. This book is one of the best true crime book I had read but like I said the end is weird and Danny seem to be pretty mess up and disturbed when he start to talk about controlling time to get Jeannie back, I guess too much time thinking in prison really mess up your mind, well it sure not a place to get peace of mind!
Rating:
Summary: What about the victims?.....what about the innocent!
Review: This book could have been so good, but it was such a disappointment! The point-of-view was very one-sided. I am interested in people showing sympathy for the forgotten innocent victims of crime--the criminal's family; however, all this author did was focus on how Gerry Starett wants the reader to feel sorry for her son, Danny. The reader is supposed to feel sorry that Danny, a cold-blooded murderer and rapist of children, is locked in a cold, dirty cell eating disgusting jail food? Give me a break! I wanted to feel empathy for Danny Starett's parents, siblings, wife, and child. Unfortunately, Gerry Starett's constant rantings and the author's failure to handle the subject matter better made it almost impossible for me to do so.
Rating: 
Summary: Well written, but one-sided
Review: This is a well written book that is strikingly one-sided. Before discussing the book, here is some brief background on the topic. Richard Daniel Starrett -- Danny to his friends -- was arrested in early 1989 and accused of a series of kidnappings and sexual assaults. While in jail, he also admitted murdering one of his victims, a 15-year-old girl named Chrissy Blake. The evidence against Starrett was overwhelming: he was caught when a seventeen year-old victim escaped after being kidnapped and imprisoned in Starrett's home. Starrett fled the scene in his car and remained free for more than a week, but in his home police found (among other things) a video camera mounted on a tripod that had captured his most recent sexual assault on tape. He was eventually arrested in Texas and returned to Georgia. Starrett pled "guilty but mentally ill", which at the time was a relatively new kind of plea allowed in South Carolina, and he was sentenced to multiple life sentences in jail. Authors Steven Naifeh and Gregory White Smith draw on Starrett's own diary, which he began in prison, and the words of his parents and siblings to construct a picture of a man who seemed an unlikely rapist and murderer. A successful man who worked as an engineer in a nuclear power plant, Starrett had no criminal record and appeared to have loving relationships with his wife, daughter, and family. His family couldn't have been more shocked at his arrest. So while it initially appears very revealing to see Starrett discuss his crimes and himself in his own words, the reader quickly begins to feel that his efforts are very self-serving. Also, if the authors made attempts to corroborate his stories, they present no evidence of it in the book. This book attempts to put forth two points of view: one, that poor Danny Starrett was mentally ill and no one, not even he, realized it before it was too late; and two, that the other living victims of sexual crimes are the members of the accused's own family. Starting with the second point first, I feel that this book quickly sacrifices any sympathy we might have for Gerry Starrett, Danny's mother, by playing up that claim to the exclusion of all others. We're supposed to feel empathy for Gerry Starret as she learns that her jailed son no longer has unlimited access to reading material; that he isn't eating and looks shrunken, "like a cadaver"; that he's been threatened in jail; that prison is too loud, and so forth. Yes, it sounds horrible -- but I think I'm not alone in saying that I feel a lot more sympathy for the girls who were assaulted by Starrett. Worse still, however, is the book's insinuation that life is unfair because people focus their attentions and sympathies on the victims of Starrett's crimes instead of Starrett himself. While she was held captive by Starrett, Chrissy Blake was reported missing by her worried parents. Naturally, the story appeared in the newspaper -- yet the authors refer to it as "a local story of doubtful newsworthiness" and refer to the headlines as being "breathless", as if to say that this is all so much hype. When Blake escaped and was returned home to the arms of her parents, the authors sarcastically call it "a heartwarming spectacle." The larger context is that Gerry Starrett had to read all of these headlines as her son was simultaneously being demonized by the press. But while it was surely painful for her, it is difficult to ignore the almost sneering tone that the authors used to refer to all the attention being given to the victims. Regarding Danny Starrett's mental illness, here is yet another criminal who showed no evidence of a Multiple Personality Disorder until he'd been arrested for his crimes. In fact, in all of his prison diary writings of 1989 that appear in this book, Starrett says nothing about a second personality that caused him to commit these crimes. He refers only to his obsessive compulsions that caused him to follow women and sometimes attack them. He seems to put at least some of the blame on pornography. It isn't until approximately a year after his arrest, in February of 1990, that Starrett suddenly begins referring to HIM, a malevolent personality who took control of his life and forced him to buy detective magazines, forced him to stalk women, and forced him to sexually assault them. Not being a mental-health professional, I should be the first one to admit that it's certainly possible that Starrett is mentally ill. After all, state psychiatrists did label him as such before he was allowed to enter a plea of "guilty but mentally ill." Nevertheless, it seems to me that Starrett's MPD is simply a massive denial mechanism. I think the authors erred in being so sympathetic to Starrett's claims. That said, I do feel that there is a place for this kind of book because, as some have noted, victims of violent crime now have many more resources than they used to; yet the families of criminals are often ostracized by society and left to fend for themselves. The different point of view proferred here is thus welcome. Unfortunately, this book comes off as a platform for Richard Daniel Starrett to excuse away his crimes -- a way to say that he couldn't control himself. And that point of view is NOT welcome. This is a man who deliberately chose victims from far-reaching areas because he knew it would help him avoid detection. He used aliases. He hoarded thousands of books and magazines on rape, violence, and sexual bondage and torture. He converted a closet to a small prison cell, boarded up windows, and put deadbolts on interior doors. He obtained guns, a police badge, even handcuffs to help him intimidate and restrain his victims. It's hard to believe his excuse that he can't control himself when there is all this evidence of premeditation and planning. I think we'd all like to feel sympathy for his poor family, who were obviously blindsided by all of this. But we'd feel more sympathetic if their son didn't make excuses for his behavior.
Rating:
Summary: Sad, strange, powerful book!
Review: This was a very sad book, you got the view of the family of the criminal in this book, how they feel about the crime of their son. It's very sad and odd, why Danny Starrett had become like that when he had a loving family??? When his mother talked about how he was when he was a kid and we see his baby and kid picutures you think how a little boy who look so nice and sweet can become like that? It's was very well wrote and a very powerful book.
|
