Pete Earley - The Serial Killer Whisperer. How One Mans Tragedy Helped Unlock the Deadliest Secrets of the Worlds Most...

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From New York Times bestselling author Pete Earleythe strange but true story of how a young mans devastating brain injury gave him the unique ability to connect with the worlds most terrifying criminals.

F ifteen-year-old Tony Ciaglia had everything a teenager wantsgood grades, good athletic skills, and good friends until he suffered a horrific head injury at summer camp. Pronounced clinically dead three times by helicopter paramedics before he reached a hospital, Ciaglia lapsed into a coma. When he emerged his right side was paralyzed and he had to relearn how to walk, talk, and even how to eat. His brain damage also required him to take countless pills to control his emotions.

Abandoned and shunned by his friends, he began writing to serial killers on a whim and discovered that the same traumatic brain injury that made him an outcast to his peers now enabled him to connect emotionally with notorious murderers. Soon many of Americas most dangerous psychopaths were revealing to him heinous details about their crimes-even those theyd never been convicted of. The killers opened up to him, trusted him, and called him a best friend.

But there was a price. As Tony found himself being drawn deeper and deeper into their violent worlds of murder, rape, and torture, he was pushed to the brink of despair and, at times, forced to question his own sanityuntil he found a way to use his gift. Asked by investigators from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children to aid in solving a murder, Tony began launching his own personal searches for forgotten victims, with clues often provided to him voluntarily by the killers themselves.

The Serial Killer Whisperer takes readers into the minds of murderers as never before-straight from a killers thoughts to paper. It is also an inspiring tale of an American family whose idyllic life is shattered by a terrible accident, and how healing and closure came to a tormented man in the most unlikely way by connecting with monsters.

Praise for Pete Earley

Before we had schools of journalism, there was a straightforward task called reporting that took you where you had not been and told you what you had not known.... [Earley] gives the reader reporting at its very finest.

Los Angeles Times

[Earley] offers a glimpse into the criminal mind.

The New York Times

Earley is a fair-minded reporter who apparently decided that his own feelings were irrelevant to the story. There is a purity to this kind of journalism, one that bestows an honor on the fact-seeking reader.

The Washington Post

[A] fascinating white-knuckle tour of hell, brilliantly reported.

Kirkus Reviews, on THE HOT HOUSE

An unusually penetrating portrait of the banality of evil, of a psychology that usually defies intimate understanding.

The New York Times, on FAMILY OF SPIES

PETE EARLEY
is the author of three New York Times bestsellers. He has won an Edgar Award for Best Fact Crime and was a Pulitzer Prize finalist in 2007. He lives in Fairfax, Virginia.

www.peteearley.com

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COPYRIGHT 2012 SIMON & SCHUSTER

ALSO BY PETE EARLEY

Family of Spies

Prophet of Death

The Hot House

Circumstantial Evidence

Confessions of a Spy

Super Casino

WITSEC: Inside the Federal Witness Protection Program

The Big Secret

Lethal Secrets

The Apocalypse Stone

Crazy

Comrade J

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Copyright 2012 by Pete Earley, Inc.

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsover. For information address Touchstone Subsidiary Rights Department, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020.

First Touchstone hardcover edition January 2012

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Designed by Akasha Archer

Earley, Pete.

The serial killer whisperer : how one mans tragedy helped unlock the deadliest secrets of the worlds most terrifying killers / Pete Earley.

p. cm.

Summary: From New York Times bestselling author Pete Earley comes the true story of a young man who suffers a traumatic brain injury that renders him incapable of judging or feeling repulsion, and subsequently becomes the most trusted confidant of numerous imprisoned serial killersProvided by publisher.

A Touchstone Book.

1. Serial murderersCorrespondence. 2. Serial murderersPsychology. 3. Serial murders. 4. Ciaglia, AnthonyCorrespondence. I. Ciaglia, Anthony. II. Title.

HV6515.E17 2012

364.15232092dc23

2011025871

ISBN 978-1-4391-9902-2
ISBN 978-1-4391-9904-6 (eBook)

To my daughter
Traci Michele Luzi

Letters are among the most significant memorial a person can leave behind them.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

I start every book with the idea that I want to explain how this seven or eight pounds of protoplasm went from his mommys arms to become a serial rapist or serial killer. I think a crime book that doesnt do this is pure pornography.

author Jack Olsen, quoted in the New York Times, 1993

A happy family celebrates the first Holy Communion of Tony Ciaglia, age seven, in 1984 in Dallas, Texas. Clockwise from top: Chris, Al, younger brother Joey, and Tony. (Photo courtesy of Anthony Ciaglia)

Tonys seventh-grade football picture in 1989 in Plano, Texas. Tony was a successful athlete before his traumatic brain injury. (Photo courtesy of Anthony Ciaglia)

Tony and friends heading to Taos, New Mexico, for a snow-skiing trip. Left to right: Buddy OConnell, Coby Russell, Todd Spurr, and Tony. Little did Tony realize that six months later, a WaveRunner would change his life forever and he would lose all his friends. (Photo courtesy of Anthony Ciaglia)