"I, The Creation of A Serial Killer."

"I start every book with the idea that I want to explain how this 7 or 8 pounds of protoplasm went from his mommy's arms to become a serial rapist or killer. A book that doesn't do this is pure pornography." Jack Olsen.

Jack Olsen was an amazing writer. He passed on in 2002 leaving behind an impressive body of work. At the time of his death he had published thirty-three books in several genres. He is probably best known for the study of the minds of serial killers and rapists. His books are often required reading in criminology classes in universities everywhere. The award winning novels Doc, The Rape of The Town of Lovelle and Son A Pyschopath and His Victims are two of the best studies of the mind of a rapist ever written. For more on the works of Jack Olsen and Jack himself you can go to his home page,

http://jackolsen.com/

I used to hang around the Authors' Forum on CompuServe. As part of the Authors' Forum there was The True Crime section where writers like Jack Olsen and Ann Rule would post and exchange messages with readers and other authors. One day I posted a message about a case that took place in Portland. I received a private message from Jack basically stating that this case it to good not to write about and could I give him more information about it. That was the birth of his last novel, "I, The Creation of A Serial Killer." We ended up talking on the phone a few times about the decline of the genre of True Crime and other literary things. He was not only an amazing writer, he was the nicest man. He would send me autographed books. Many of the books were out of print. I am the proud owner of autographed copies of Give The Boy A Gun, the eco Thriller Night of The Grizzlies, and The Climb Up To Hell. You can order all of them through Powells.com. Night of The Grizzlies was an amazing study of Bears and their interaction with humans. Don't read it before you go on a camping trip.

The case that began my connection to Jack was about the man known as The Happy Face Killer, Keith Jesperson. They estimate that Jesperson has killed between eight and one hundred and seventy-six women depending on how many unsolved crimes they contribute to him.

I can tell the basics of the story of the Happy Face Killer without giving away anything in the book. The book is more a study of Jesperson's mind, how addictive killing can be, and how easy it can become. I'm not going to use names because as sure as shooting I will spell them wrong. A body of a young woman was found in The Columbia Gorge. The Columbia Gorge is a scenic site about fifty miles East of Portland off of I-84. After the discovery of the body many stories appeared about the murder in The Oregonian. At the time of the murder, there was a waitress that was involved in abusive relationship that was working at the Burns Brother truck stop right off of I-5 in Wilsonville, about twenty miles South of Portland. She was having trouble figuring out how to get out of the abusive relationship. She began reading the stories about the murder of the young girl whose body was found in the Columbia Gorge. She devised a plan. She would use the information she gained reading those stories to implicate her boyfriend in the murder. She would say that she helped him hide the body. He would go to jail and she would be free. She contacted the police, there was a trial, and what she didn't plan for is both her and her boyfriend to be found guilty. Both went to jail. After the trial a columnist for The Oregonian began receiving handwritten letters that stated "They have the wrong people, I killed T. Bennett." His letters would be signed with a happy face. The letters continued for several years. Also at the same time notations began to appear in mens' rest rooms in rest stops in California, in Wyoming, in Flordia and in numerous other states. The notation was "I killed T. Bennett" and were not only signed with a happy face but with some information about the crime that only the killer could know.

There you have the basics of the story. If you want to get in to the mind of a serial killer, "I, The Creation of a Serial Killer" is your book. Be prepared to be frightened. The killings aren't graphic but the words are. Be prepared to think about this book for a long time. Then never accept a ride from a truck driver.