The Killer Across the Table by John Douglas and Mark Olshaker

Hello beautiful people! Welcome to a new review! For this review, I get into one of my favourites, another book following the chronicles of John Douglas, one of the men who created the behavioural analysis unit with the FBI. The Killer Across the Table follows four different cases that John and his co-workers investigated, and the things and horrors he noticed in each case. It’s a great book filled with cases you have probably never heard of before (because I sure didn’t) and, in classic John style, is filled with empathy, understanding, and care for the victims. So let’s get into it!

My Review

I gave The Killer Across the Table an 8/10 rating. I enjoyed that this book contains multiple different cases because it gives names and faces to a lot of people who suffered, but also shows you just how many cases there are out there that have not been sensationalized and blown up in the media. I mean, when you really think of it, only so many cases, victims, and ultimately their killers get swept under the big names’ spotlight. This is probably the 4th or 5th John Douglas book I have checked out, and I really enjoy his style and the way he handles the cases and the victims. Even though John’s big thing is interviewing the killers to understand their minds more, he really does a good job of telling the story of the victim and what happened to them, and who they were before. Not all authors have these strengths and I think it’s probably why I have enjoyed his books for so long.

I won’t be going into each story too deeply because I would really recommend checking this book out yourself to learn about the victims and who they were, and how the awful people who took their lives came to be the way they were/are.

The first case focuses on the disappearance and murder of seven-year-old Joan Angela D’Alessandro. A lively, kind and sweet little girl, Joan’s murder changed the lives of those who loved her forever. Slipping away from her mother’s eye for only a moment to go sell some cookies for her Brownie troop, this would be the last time young Joan would be seen alive. Bring in the horrifying Joseph McGowan, a high school chemistry teacher who would never be suspected to be the monster he always was. When Joan would come to his door to sell him some cookies, no one would suspect this man, who is around young girls every day, to sexually assault, kill, and dispose of the body of a small girl. This one horrified me to the core. The pain brought on the D’Alessandro family due to the selfish and disgusting acts of Joseph McGowen just hit you so hard. I think what just shook me about this one, too, was the disturbingly brash acts of this man. He nabs and murders a little girl off his own front porch. How did he possibly ever think he could have gotten away with this? Of course the ass tried to fight for an insanity plea, but even if he was mentally unwell and dissociated as his defenders described there is no excusing what he has done. Furthermore, he was not remorseful! Gah, this one just really pissed me off. As horrifying as this case is, I really recommend reading it because even though she was so young, Joan’s death was not in vain, and her family worked so incredibly hard to make sure her legacy would be something beautiful and could save other children like her.

The next case focuses on the disappearance and murder of eight-year-old Rima Danette Traxler, twelve-year-old Kara Patricia Rudd, and twelve-year-old Yolanda Jean Patterson. Joseph Kondro would be charged with the murders of the girls. I think for me the most disturbing factor, like the previous case, was Joseph Kondro’s boldness when it came to ending the lives of these three beautiful children. Joseph Kondro was family friends with all of the girls’ parents. He would watch the children from a distance, plotting his destruction. I am really not sure I will ever understand the risks that people take to end the lives of others. I have yet to understand how it was worth it for these people. Was killing Rima, Kara, and Yolanda really worth spending his life in prison? I mean, I fully get that it’s a selfish act and he cared about no one else but himself, but like even in selfish actions, how can a momentary pleasure to them, like ending someone’s life, be worth being locked up forever? It broke my heart how much these families trusted him with their children and thought he was a good person, but he destroyed and changed their lives forever. It’s a sick case of manipulation, and how someone can be completely opposite from how they show themselves to the world.

The third case focuses on the crimes of Donald Harvey, a man who would be known as an angel of death. Noted in the book, John shares that angels of death are actually more prevalent and deadlier than our average big-name serial killers. People in helping professions can cover their tracks much better than a street killer because they have their profession to hide their doings. In helping professions of pretty much all kinds, death is a regular thing. Clients and patients die all the time, I don’t say that to dismiss their deaths or the trauma this causes to people in the profession, but it explains why people with this method of destruction can get away with it for so long and in reality kill more then the average serial killer we hear more about. His first victim was eight-year-old Logan Evans, whom he smothered with a pillow. This would show Harvey the level of power he could have and how easy it was to get away with it. Logan was a stroke victim and his death could be explained away with his illness he entered in with. He would go on to murder James Tyree, Elizabeth Wyatt, Eugene McQueen, Ben Gilbert, Harvey Williams, Maude Nichols, Viola Wyan, Silas Bunter, John Combs, Maggie Rawlings, Margret Harrison, Milton Sasser, Helen Metzger, Howard Vetter, Nathaniel Watson, Leon Nelson, John Powell, and a suspected 30-100 more people. It would be some of his last killings that would lead to his capture, but overall, he was suspected of being up to something long before he killed those last people. Not that I think this is a viable reason for being an angel of death but what particularly pissed me off about Harvey was that not all of these people were deathly ill. Some were, but not all. Sometimes he just did it for the sport. To a degree, I can understand the psychopathy of people who feel they are saving others by leading to their death, but I genuinely think Harvey did this because he found it fun, and he could. The way he was caught and prosecuted was really interesting, so this is definitely a case worth reading into. The lives and families he affected are too immense to even describe.

The final case focuses on the murders of Scott Ponder, Brian Lucas, Chris Sherbert, and Beverly Guy. They were all murdered in their workplace, a local small-town bike shop. The scene was shocking for the community and brought on questions of who would have murdered these four people, who were beloved in their community. No motive could be found that led to further issues in catching the killer. Todd Kohlhepp would be found guilty of their murders along with some other horrid crimes. This case is fairly complicated with a lot of connecting parts to it, so it’s a bit hard to explain, but it was definitely an interesting one.

Overall, all the cases focused on in this book are incredibly heartbreaking but also interesting in terms of how these people so blatantly and without any consideration ended the lives of these people. It didn’t matter if the victims were young or old; all were at risk of being a victim of someone who saw their own needs and desires as more important than the lives of others. The way that these disgusting men try to justify and toss away their crimes as if they didn’t affect the lives of hundreds and thousands is mind-boggling. Whether it’s an insanity plea or to blame their past for their current actions, there was no level that these people wouldn’t go to hide from who they really are. I find it so incredibly interesting that two different people can grow up in similar abusive, traumatic environments, and one can turn out to be a psychopathic killer and the other a normal person. I think that’s why I enjoy John’s books so much. He never excuses the actions of the killers but rather understands that there has to be something different, whether it’s the makeup of the person or a factor of their environment that makes them this way. It never excuses the actions but rather explains them so that when we look at similar crimes in the future, we can understand the types of people who would go to these lengths to end the lives of others.

If you’ve checked out any other John Douglas books before and enjoyed them, I would definitely recommend picking up The Killer Across the Table.

Thank you for checking out this review! I hope you enjoyed! If you would like to be one of the first to know when I release a new review be sure to sign up for the email list at the bottom of the page!