The first victim is murdered in a Marriott Airport hotel room on the outskirts of Evansville, Indiana. Her eyes and the left hand are removed from the scene and her tongue has been cut out and stuffed in the tub drain where she is found floating in blood. Jack Murphy realizes that this is not just another vicious murder when the body of a second victim is discovered only hours later on the floor of her kitchen in the south-side projects. The missing hand from the first victim is propped by the victims bloody head, the middle finger prominently displayed to those finding the body. A day later a third victim is found, this time gutted and strung up from the bottom of a bridge, left to bend and sway with the current of the Pigeon Creek. With all of these murders, one newspaper reporter seems to have a direct line to the killer, and a secret he wants to keep hidden.