Murder Behind the Badge by Stacy Dittrich

True Stories of Cops Who Kill

Format: Hardbound
Pub. Date: 2010
Type: Non-Fiction, True Crime ~ Library Book
Pages: 320
Read: 7/15/2014
Rating: Liked it ♥♡

As a child I was always told if I was in trouble or lost to find a policeman. The police are there to help you I was told. In most cases that is true, but sometimes the emotional strain of dealing with the worst society has can wear down an officer until he or she slips into criminal behavior, some even going so far as to commit murder.

This book contains 18 stories of cops who killed. Not in the line of duty shootings, murders. The motives are varied. Some of the names were familiar to me and might be to you: Drew Peterson, Charles Oswalt, Lawrencia “Bambi” Bembenek, Richard DiGuglielmo, Craig Peyer and Gerard Schaefer. Some I know from my true crime reading, some from watching TruTV and one because it happened near to where I live.

Dittrich provides a foreword with her thoughts about 3 cases she is unsure of, this doesn’t affect her writing style or delivering the facts in an unbiased manner. She also stresses that the majority of law enforcement uphold the law, of course it only takes running into one bad one to ruin your day, just saying.

The accounts are short, no in-depth history of the participants lives, just enough to tell the crime and what happened after. I googled the names to see if there was any updated information available. Realizing some people may not want to see that, I have put any updates in a separate post that follows this one, and it is password protected. The password is in the tags.

So if you like your true crime short and sweet (so to say, not that murder is sweet) you will enjoy this book, the writing is concise, the stories are fascinating.

Dittrich profiles, among others:

• New Orleans cop Antoinette Frank, who brutally murdered three innocent people, including a fellow officer.
• Canton, Ohio police officer Bobby Cutts Jr., who murdered his former girlfriend when she was nine-months pregnant.
• California highway patrolman Craig Peyer, who pulled over San Diego State college student Cara Knott over a frivolous traffic violation, then murdered her.
• Columbia, Missouri officer Steven Rios, who slit the throat of his gay lover, after he threatened to tell everyone of their relationship.