Helpful Score: 2
Well written true crime story. Given the complicating circumstances of the murder and its aftermath, this story is related suspensefully without losing the necessary details. It's a very sad story of a woman, Ellen Boehm, who kills 2 of her children for the insurance money. Ellen is a diehard wrestling fan who runs around with her friend Deanne to various tournaments. Unlike Deanne, Ellen imagines the wrestlers attracted to her which is one of the beginning signs in the book how hard Ellen finds it to tell the difference between fantasy and reality. Her husband leaves her and Ellen is forced to sell her house and work 2 jobs just to make ends meet. The problem created then is that Ellen continued to go to the wrestling tournaments which greatly dented her budget. Unfortunately, Ellen's solution to the problem is to murder 2 of her 3 children. If the police hadn't come into the picture, there is no doubt that Ellen would have killed her oldest child, Stacy. Sad that a woman's greed should lead to murdering her children. Sadder still is the fact that these 2 adorable boys never got to live. Ellen provides a good case study of a sociopath, with no conscience nor remorse.
Helpful Score: 1
Ellen Boehm appeared to be a typ0ical single mother, full of love for her children. She worked hard and enjoyed close family ties. Yet within two years' time, tw-year-old David and four-year-old Steven Boehm mysterioulsy died, leaving doctors baffled about the exact cause of death. In addition, her eight-year-old daughter suffered a near-fatal mishap.
Although Ellen told everyone her sons died of illness, Detective Sergant Joseph Burgoon of the St. Louis homicide division wasn't buying it. Relentlessly pursuing the truth. he slowly unraveled a labyrinth of deceptions and lies to reveal Ellen as a col-blooded killer who couldn't wait to collect on the insurance policies she had secretly taken out on her children. Now this mesmerizing true-crime story reconstructs the chilling events surrounding the unspeakable acts of a mother whose double life hid the dark heart of a murderer... and a brillieant cop's determination to bring her to justice.
Although Ellen told everyone her sons died of illness, Detective Sergant Joseph Burgoon of the St. Louis homicide division wasn't buying it. Relentlessly pursuing the truth. he slowly unraveled a labyrinth of deceptions and lies to reveal Ellen as a col-blooded killer who couldn't wait to collect on the insurance policies she had secretly taken out on her children. Now this mesmerizing true-crime story reconstructs the chilling events surrounding the unspeakable acts of a mother whose double life hid the dark heart of a murderer... and a brillieant cop's determination to bring her to justice.
