Killers Amidst Killers
Hunting Serial Killers Operating Under the Cloak of America's Opioid Epidemic
Format:Paperback
Publisher:Post Hill Press
Published:1st Feb '24
Should be back in stock very soon
Bestselling author, co-host of the hit podcast The Murder Squad, and true-crime investigative journalist Billy Jensen goes to Columbus, Ohio, where he examines the unsolved cases of eighteen dead and missing women, whom he suspects were the victims of serial killers on the loose and operating under cover of the opioid epidemic in America's heartland.
In Chase Darkness with Me, readers and listeners learned Billy Jensen's journalist origin story, his struggles, his call to adventure, and his first successes in solving murders.
In Killers Amidst Killers, readers will ride shotgun with Jensen as he takes on serial killers who are walking among us and planning their next moves in real time. The facts are not in old police reports and faded photos. They unfold before our eyes on the page.
Our story begins in 2017, when two young women, best friends Danielle and Lindsey go missing in Columbus, Ohio, within weeks of each other, and their bodies are found soon thereafter.
As Jensen investigates Danielle and Lindsey's cases, he comes across other missing and murdered women, and before long, he uncovers eighteen of them. All unsolved. And no one was talking about it.
These are not women who were raised in the street. They got hooked on pills. The pills were taken away. They get hooked on heroin. And when the money is gone, they have to sell themselves. It happens very quick.
Through his investigations and the help of experts, Jensen identifies serial killers in Cleveland and Columbus. Why there? Because it's easy. Sharks go where the swimmers are. Serial killers go where the easy prey are: Ground zero of the opioid epidemic. The heart of America.
That is what happened to Danielle and Lindsey. But serial killers murdering sex workers in the 21st century will get 45 seconds on the local news, and page 3 in the local paper, and then can disappear in the wind.
Jensen hunts these predators to bring peace to the victims' suffering families while putting a spotlight on a system that is leaving hundreds of thousands of bodies in its wake.
“Jensen (Chase Darkness with Me: How One True-Crime Writer Started Solving Murders) asks a lot of questions but gets few answers in this thought-provoking and disturbing examination of how serial killers could have operated unsuspected in areas of Ohio ravaged by the opioid epidemic during the 2010s. Factors include poor record keeping, unshared information (so that the m.o. of a murder in one county might remain unknown to investigators in a neighboring county), and lack of public concern about the lives of the victims, who were typically impoverished, abused, and addicted sex workers. Jensen gives the victims a vital presence through the voices of the loved ones they left behind. In particular, he focuses on the heartbreaking stories of two Columbus sex workers, best friends Danielle Greene and Lindsey Maccabee, whose bodies were found within a month of each other in 2017. As he seeks to identify the women’s killer or killers, he lays bare the devastation wrought by a system that delivers unequal justice for people deemed marginal by American society. Jensen also discusses the sad cases of 30 other women who either went missing or were murdered. Not just true crime buffs will want to check out this impassioned cri de coeur.” -- Publishers Weekly
“Billy Jensen is one of the best investigative journalists in the US. This is a chilling and very moving investigation that everyone should read.” -- Johann Hari, author of Stolen Focus: Why You Can’t Pay Attention—and How to Think Deeply Again and Chasing the Scream: The First and Last Days of the War on Drugs
ISBN: 9798888453544
Dimensions: 229mm x 152mm x 18mm
Weight: 302g
256 pages