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OJ Modjeska
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Killing Cousins: The true story of the worst case of serial sex homicide in American history (Murder by Increments Book 2) Kindle Edition

by OJ Modjeska (Author) Format: Kindle Edition
4.1 4.1 out of 5 stars 461 ratings
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After an investigation spanning nearly two years, Los Angeles investigators come up empty in the case of a terrifying serial sex killer.

But then, a seemingly unrelated arrest is made across state lines. In book two of Murder by Increments, we journey deeper into the life and mind of the suspect at the center of the case: one of the most confounding and mysterious serial killers in American history.

Killing Cousins documents the shocking story of an abusive childhood that created a monster, and the suspect’s possible involvement in a separate string of killings of teenagers in Rochester, New York.

Did this man truly have multiple personalities, or was he a cunning sociopath enacting a daring hoax against the criminal justice system? By the end, you make up your own mind.

Praise:

★★★★★ - "The author did an excellent job of putting it all together. Would recommend this for anyone who loves a great thriller."

★★★★★ - "Anyone interested in murder, gender and the justice system will get so much admittedly horrifying insight from these two books. Both are outstanding."

★★★★★ - "OJ Modjeska writes the stories of the victims as artfully as any good character drama novelist; each one comes alive on the page. These are not just names, and the book is far from being just a list of heinous crimes. True crime at its best."

★★★★★ - "Modjeska's got all the elements; intellectual knowledge, style, raw telepathy and gut instinct. 5 stars."

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  1. Book 2 of 2
    Murder by Increments
  2. Print length
    253 pages
  3. Language
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  5. Publication date
    August 25, 2018
  6. File size
    2169 KB
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Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B07GTWM5NB
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Next Chapter; 5th edition (August 25, 2018)
  • Publication date ‏ : ‎ August 25, 2018
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • File size ‏ : ‎ 2169 KB
  • Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
  • Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
  • Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 253 pages
  • Page numbers source ISBN ‏ : ‎ B09HG2RWGH
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.1 4.1 out of 5 stars 461 ratings

About the author

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OJ Modjeska

OJ Modjeska

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OJ Modjeska is a criminologist, historian and author. She graduated from the University of Sydney with a PhD in Modern American History in 2004, and received her Graduate Diploma in Criminology from Sydney Law School in 2015. In 2015 she was awarded the JH McClemens Memorial Prize by Sydney Law School for her scholarship in criminology. Before pursuing a writing career she worked for many years as a legal writer and editor. She writes books of narrative non-fiction true crime and disaster analysis. Her books are suspenseful narratives which draw on her insights and expertise into history, criminal behaviour and psychology. British crime author Pat McDonald writes: "fascinating reading and exceptional writing".

OJ's debut book, "Gone: Catastrophe in Paradise", is an aviation disaster ebook bestseller. "A City Owned" and "Killing Cousins" make up the two-part true crime series "Murder by Increments", now available on Amazon.

Customer reviews

4.1 out of 5 stars
4.1 out of 5
461 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

sbthomps@yahoo.com
5.0 out of 5 stars A Truly Gripping Page-Turner!
Reviewed in the United States on January 19, 2021
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I strongly recommend this book to all true crime enthusiasts! As this is the 2nd volume, and conclusion of the story, I of course recommend that everyone FIRST read volume 1, "A City Owned." Since I lived in California when these crimes took place, I was excited to be able to finally know the whole story inside and out, and what ultimately happened to all the people involved. As I said in my review of volume 1, the author really does give this story the justice it deserves!
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Art Hawkins
4.0 out of 5 stars Good follow up book
Reviewed in the United States on September 3, 2019
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Must read both books to get a full understanding of how absurd this case was handled and how close these two came to getting away with their crimes. In the end by only the narrowest of margins, justice was served.
2 people found this helpful
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Becky Lasher
3.0 out of 5 stars Good details
Reviewed in the United States on May 2, 2020
I have read some true facts about both of these men, but this book went into more details that I really enjoyed.
One person found this helpful
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Roberta Duplantis
5.0 out of 5 stars In-depth study of two psychopaths
Reviewed in the United States on February 11, 2021
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The two books about the Hillside Stranglers was quite the read. After I read Book I of the series, I was wondering if I even needed to read Book II. I did ... and so do you.
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Kindle Customer
4.0 out of 5 stars Killing cousins
Reviewed in the United States on February 19, 2020
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I did enjoy the book. It was well researched, and well written. I look forward to more books from this author.
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Kindle Customer
5.0 out of 5 stars The abuse of the system
Reviewed in the United States on February 3, 2020
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This will continue to happen as long as proprietors the abuse of children and continue to ignore the rights of women it was very interesting history the rapists had too bad they were not caught before they turned to murder
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Monty
5.0 out of 5 stars Extremely thought provoking
Reviewed in the United States on August 28, 2019
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Read both books but this one was very in-depth and thought provoking. I think the most interesting case I have ever read. Nothing resembling the newspaper articles at the time. I am very glad I read it and that justice was served.
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Kindle Customer
5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent
Reviewed in the United States on November 18, 2018
Verified Purchase
I have followed this since it happened. I lived in Riverside, CA and Bellingham, WA. The Author did an excellent job of putting it all together. Would recommend this for anyone who loves a great thriller.
5 people found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

Terry Tyler
5.0 out of 5 stars True crime at its best
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on September 25, 2018
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A City Owned was submitted to Rosie's Review Team list, but after I'd read it I had to read the second book, too; thus, I am reviewing them as one.

This two part series, Murder by Increments, is about the crimes of the Hillside Stranglers, Kennth Bianchi and Angelo Buono, who made LA a frightening place to be in the late 1970s. The first book, A City Owned, starts with a picture of what LA was like back then. Such a clever way to start; to understand the lives of the victims and why Bianchi and Buono went undiscovered for so long, we have first to be aware of the culture of the time. LA was a seedy place indeed, peopled by many who'd arrived seeking the Hollywood dream, only to be sucked into the underworld of prostitution, porn, drugs and crime. The cops were overworked and jaded, with few resources; these were the days before the internet, before reliable criminal profiling, and before DNA databases. Reading how carelessly they bungled the investigations, over and over again, made me think that crime solving had moved on very little in the hundred years since the London police tried in vain to identify Jack the Ripper.

O J Modjeska writes about the victims with great respect for each girl's short life, drawing a heartbreaking picture each time. These are not just names, and the book is far from being just a list of heinous crimes. Only towards the end of the book do Bianchi and Buono themselves appear, and by then I had to know the whole story; I went back to Amazon and bought Killing Cousins as soon as I'd finished A City Owned.

I found Killing Cousins the most absorbing of the two books, as I am more interested in the psychological background of killers than the solving of crimes. The drawn out trial was at times farcical, not only because of Bianchi's attempts to convince psychiatrists that he suffered from Multiple Personality Disorder, but because of the self-interest and prejudice of many involved.

'There were the cops who thought the lives of prostitutes were worthless, the officials who wanted to look good in front of the media, the shrinks seeking professional recognition, the prosecutors who assumed middle-aged women were crazy, and the politicians seeking office. There was stupidity, there was self-aggrandizement, there was sexism and the tyranny of the herd.'

This two-book series is everything that true crime should be, without being in any way sensationalised. O J Modjeska has not only written a riveting account of the victims, perpetrators and law enforcement bodies, but also shown how very different attitudes in general were, only forty years ago; if just a few incidents had not taken place, a few people not spoken up, if a few jurors been swayed by the individuals who defended these two monsters, the outcome might have been very different.
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Ann de Mot
5.0 out of 5 stars Gripping, scary, crazy: serial killers and the system
Reviewed in Australia on October 13, 2018
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In the fascinating second part of Murder by Increments Australian author OJ Modjeska takes us deeper into the life and times of the 1970s US serial killers known as the Hillside Stranglers. The narrative cleverly reveals how they came to be what they were, how they got away with it for so long, and what happened when they came up against the workings of the US justice system. We meet little Kenny and his unbelievable mother, the many professionals who did nothing about the shocking treatment of the poor little bedwetting boy, his strangely alluring sadist cousin who ran orgies out of his suburban loungeroom, the psychiatrist who believed in “alter” personality Steve, the police who were almost helpless against the workings of the court system, and the women who loved these gruesome men and had children with them. You have to conclude they were all mad.

There are so many issues here: why was Ken’s mother allowed to keep custody of him? What is the rightful power of parents over their helpless children? Is nurture really responsible for the production of violent psychopaths? And how is it that a runaway sixteen year old girl from a “good” family can end up a sex-slave servicing hundreds of clients in an established neighbourhood? Well, part of the answer is obvious once you realize that at least two of them were men in high positions, one a City Councillor and another the Police Chief of Huntington Park. The depths of the barely disguised social depravity at that time and place are hard to fathom.

Then there is a question which is almost unthinkable. Why did so many girls and women LOVE these men? One sixteen year old girl was so crazy about Angelo that she pedalled round to his place on her bicycle after school to watch porn movies and eat popcorn while clients were being serviced by the two sex-slaves in the adjacent room. She told police she loved Angelo and hoped to marry him.

Kelli Boyd, a classy blonde secretary at a place Ken worked, began a relationship with him and became pregnant almost at once. Even knowing what a shit he was, she went ahead with the birth and moved in with him, becoming a mother while Ken continued to go on killing sprees with cousin Angelo. She stayed loyal to him for a very long time even after she knew he was one of the Hillside Stranglers.

Then there is the ambitious psychiatrist who wanted to prove Ken was a “multiple” because it would be good for his career, even though it meant he might be acquitted of the charges, and Katherine Maden, Angelo’s defence attorney, who argued that violent sexual sadism was merely one aspect of a common lifestyle choice found widely in LA at the time, unfortunately in this case going a bit too far.

And how do you account for the thousands of women who sent love letters to the two men while they were in prison, both convicted of these horrendous vicious crimes? Both remarried, their new wives coming to visit them while knowing that they would never get out. Ken became something of a celebrity writer, authoring horror novels in the vein of Lovecraft.

Written in the gripping style Modjeska is so praised for, this second book brings forward many new and unexpected angles on American society in the seventies. It allows the “facts”, such as they were known, to speak for themselves and moves along like an edge-of-the-seat thriller. Anyone interested in gender relations and the justice system will get so much admittedly horrifying insight from these two books. Both are outstanding.
3 people found this helpful
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Jonathan E
4.0 out of 5 stars From a different angle
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on October 27, 2019
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I had read a few different books about Bianchi/Buono before,but this one goes into more detail about the mindset of the killers themselves , especially Bianchi.
Amazing to think that they almost got away with their vicious crimes because of loopholes in the legal system. I am not generally a supporter of capital punishment but this is one case that I feel it should have been applied
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Dr. J. Reade
5.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating and well written
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on May 5, 2019
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Both this book and the one that precedes it are very well researched and written. The author captures the times these crimes were taking place in, the lives of the many people involved, and the intricate nature of the investigations. This is done is a way that neither sensationalises or underplays the crimes - there is a healthy focus on the victims throughout. Will be reading other works by this author - very much like the ‘voice’ they use.
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