Not too much to say about this besides it's disturbing to get into the head of convicted serial killer Jerome Brudos. I think that the Mindhunter series included him in season 1. Shudder.

"Lust Killer" follows Brudos who murdered several women and had the state of Oregon in a panic in the late 60s. Rule wrote this as Andy Stack, but it still reads as Rule to me. She starts with the murder of one victim, and then works backwards into Brudos' life and hatred of his mother. And surprisingly we find out that he gets married and even has children while still kidnapping women, raping them, and murdering them. 

Rule then goes into the lives of the detectives on the hunt for him, we get into more details of the victims, and then of course how Brudos is captured. 

What surprised me and what I didn't know is that a neighbor of Brudos wife lied on her (she did lie) and said she was helping him abduct women. The poor woman had to go on trial and defend herself. I liked how Rule gives this woman (living under a different name at the time of the book's publication in 1981) a voice in this book. She was young and naive and wanted to get away from her dominant father, and then married an equally dominant man who she didn't understand, but did scare her. 

There are some photos included of Brudos, the detectives, and victims. 

Listened to this one on audiobook. It's hard not to like Anne Rule and this is the first of her multi-case collections I've listened to. I think she did an excellent job of choosing the cases as for the most part they all revolved a similar theme. There were a few that felt like they didn't fit her purpose quite as well but they were still good cases in their own way. 

Hindsight created weird feeling for me with the last story, a cold case that's still unsolved today. I couldn't help but think that Anne didn't live to see it solved which she expresses certainty that it will be. With the surge in cold cases being solved these days, I certainly hope her premonition was right.

So this collection didn't do a lot for me. Probably because "A Bus to Nowhere" left a lot of answers that would never be answered fully and it was not a great story to start off with. Most of the stories had no common theme among them besides murders. Usually Rule tries to stick to a theme in her stories and I guess she went with rage. But I didn't read rage in some of these stories. 

A Bus to Nowhere (3 stars)- Rule looks at the bus crash that took place in Washington state in 1998. The man behind it who ended up shooting the driver and causing dozens of injuries and damage appeared to be mentally ill. Rule at times seems to deride him though and makes it seem as if his parents should have done more. I didn't get rage here at hill, it read to me that the man was mentally ill and lost his grip with reality based on the stories that went about him later on (with him harassing bus drivers). 

The Killer Who Planted His Own Clues (3 stars)-Once again I didn't get rage here at all. A young man stalked and murdered a school teacher (Sharon Mason). The police figured out who killed her pretty quickly and he was locked up. You definitely feel sorry for Mason and her elderly parents.  

Born to Kill? (5 stars)-This is probably the first story that I thought had any semblance to the theme of rage. The murderer in this story, Michael Andrew Olds seemed destined to hurt other people. A child of rape, he was an angry baby who grew up to be a sullen teen who murdered a woman when he was robbing a story. When Olds is released after serving his sentence (he was 18 when he went away, 31 when he was released) he started robbing and murdering again after a short period of being married. Olds goes cross country kidnapping and murdering before being apprehended in Pennsylvania. 

As Close as a Brother (3 stars)-Sad story of two young girls who were murdered. Bernie Pierce appeared to be a friend, but when he drank it appeared he turned into someone else. 

Profile of a Spree Killer (5 stars)-Rule goes into the life and crimes of Christopher Wilder who went on a spree killing in the late 1970s. What a sad story about a man who abducted and murdered young women over a period of weeks. Some of the families never did find out what happened to their daughters and their bodies were never found. I have never heard of this guy before reading this story though so found myself curious about him to later go on and Google him. 

The Lost Lady (1 star)-Looking into the disappearance of Marcia Moore. I don't know why Rule includes so-called psychic's premonitions in her books. She includes two in here about what happened to Marcia Moore, but they were not correct so I was just baffled about why they were included. Rule doesn't seem to be blaming the husband at times, but at other times she does.  

To an Athlete Dying Young (3 stars)- Story of Jane Costantino who was murdered by a man who had fantasies about forcing a woman to be his sexual slave. 

Ruby, Don't Take Your Love to Town (4 stars)-A woman who does her best to move on from her husband after she finally has enough is murdered in front of her young daughter. Most of the stories Rule tells are about battered women who even though they do everything right, are still murdered by those who swore to love, honor, and cherish them. 

That Was No Lady (3 stars)-Sad story about a young man who is killed by a woman (yeah I said woman). I didn't like Rule's tone in this one. She made it seem as if the woman known as Jackie Emerson (born a male) was just acting as if she was a woman and didn't identify as such. This became important when it was going to be determined to what jail Jackie would be sent to (men or women's prison). 

The Killer Who Talked Too Much (4 stars)-A woman named Marcia Perkins is found dead. What I found sad about this whole story is that the man who did it goes on to murder someone else while the police are still investigating Marcia's case. I am still confused about why he wasn't picked up since all evidence pointed to him. I was sad to see the jury came back and found the man not guilty of Marcia's murder, but of the second woman's (Jeanie Easley). 

It's weird growing up as a child in the 80s.

I heard all of these stories about these serial killers that seem to have popped up overnight in the 1980s it seemed. You had Ted Bundy, Jeffrey Dahmer, and you even had the I-5 killer, Randall Woodfield.

Reading this true crime book by Ann Rule about the I-5 killer was eye-opening.

Unlike with her previous books I think that Rule was a lot stronger in this one because she really did focus on the perpetrator a lot more and the crimes that he committed. The crimes were very horrific and at times very hard to read, but I think that she did a great job of getting into his mind and the contempt he felt towards women. Unlike in previous Rule books even though we get the bare-bones sketch of the prosecutors and the police they don't overwhelm the story. Instead the victims and the ordeals that they suffered shines through in this one, which makes me appreciate it a lot more. Because in the end when these killers are caught and their infamy is shouted from the rooftops we often do forget about the victims and the families that they left behind.

I don't know what makes a serial killer.  Reading this book you seem to think that the killer Randall Woodfield had everything going for him. I mean at one point he was even asked to come and try out for the Green Bay Packers. But something inside of him, something made him want to be loved by women but also hated them and caused him to lash out at them at any opportunity that he got until he just turned deadly for more than a year up and down the I-5 Highway.

What's really weird though is how this killer ended up linking up with another case that Rule end up writing about, Diane Downs.

One thing that I do wish though is that there had been a follow-up to some of these true crime stories. When you read different details later on you find out things that have happened I found out that Woodfield was tied to a couple of more murders that Rule and other suspected him in in this book. So that does make me feel a bit better to see that some of those crimes were tied up and he was definitively linked and charged.

Definitely recommend to those true-crime lovers out there. Be prepared for a grisly read at times though. 

Reading about a man that hated women so much that for years he traveled up and down the I-5 Highway selecting his victims was a bit disturbing. I really did like how Anne Rule put the whole book together. But unlike her other books this book ending was pretty abrupt. Usually Re would go back and update her books throughout the years so you can find out what happened to the killer.  But I guess Wikipedia will be enough to figure out what happened to the man who was eventually convicted of these crimes.