A Love To Die For by Patricia Springer

On January 12, 1995, in Knoxville, Tennessee, 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer went for a walk with her friend, 18-year-old Christa Pike. Suddenly, Christa turned on Colleen, accusing her of flirting with her boyfriend. Then, the words turned to shocking blows. An enraged Christa used a box knife to cut her rival's throat and a mini meat cleaver to inflict more havoc. Half-naked, Colleen crawled through her own blood begging for her life. In the middle of the hour-long assault, a satanic symbol was carved in the dying girl's chest. And when Christa was finally done, she took a piece of Colleen's skull as a macabre souvenir. What were the dark forces that drove angelic faced Christa to commit such a savage murder and become the youngest woman ever to be put on Death Row? In this shocking expose of a case that stunned the nation, Patricia Springer takes us through a horrifying crime scene and into the heart and mind of a murderess who killed for love-and would die for it, too. (editorial review)

This book has the most gruesome photographs I have ever seen included in a true crime book.The photographs include how the victim was found half naked,her slashed throat(2x),the carvings on her stomach,her butchered back.her skull which really gives you an idea of how much she was tortured.Really really gruesome photos!!I really have no idea how the family feels about this but I would have fought to not have pictures of my family exposed to the world like that.This book was published in 2000 and I think that the trend in true crime books is now to have a lot more respect for the victims and their story.I believe true crime writers are now really targetting normal readers who read these books for the stories and maybe explanations of how the crimes occured and ways to avoid them,the psychology behind the crimes rather than readers who are trying to satify some strange sadistic interest in voyeurism.

Patricia Springer is actually a very good writer.This story included excellent information and the actual crime is told in great detail with the conversations that took place between the teenagers before,during and after the crime.Being teenagers I believe that they remembered vividly how this all transpired and this information was in the court transcripts.To explain what I mean here is a piece of the conversation.Colleen Slemmer's body had gone limp after the beating and Tadaryl Shipp and Christa Pike were trying to drag her body through the mud one more time and Christa decides to stop trying to do this saying "She's all gooey.I don't want to touch her anymore".Even details after the crime where Christa Pike informs her friend Kim that she was using the piece of skull taken from the crime scene to eat breakfast.This was a really disturbing book and not for the faint hearted.

Needless to say the details of the crime in this true crime book are fairly extensive and detailed.I wanted to read this book as it is essentially about the youngest woman on death row Christa Pike.I also wanted to find out how teenagers get to a point where they kill a friend.How they manage to convince others to join them.How they feel afterwards.What I should have known (and found out in this book) is that killers of this kind have no conscience.These teenagers especially Christa Pike was lost in a world of her own with no rules,compassion or respect for human life,even ultimately her own life.


Here is the link if you want to access some more reviews on this book'
A Love To Die For

I read this book in April 2007 and has 8 pages of photographs(gruesome).

Here are some more book details:
Mass Market Paperback: 256 pages
Publisher: Pinnacle (March 1, 2000)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 078601086X
ISBN-13: 978-0786010868

My Question:
Do you think that sentences imposed on teenagers(or people under 18) should be less severe than those imposed on adults who commit the same crimes?

Murder So Cold by Patricia Springer:true crime book review

On Wednesday, September 28, 1994, in Portage, Michigan, seven-year-old Candace Smith's world crumbled when her father, Russ, told her that mommy had run away with another man. But he wouldn't say why the bathroom upstairs was a wreck, with blood in the sink. Or what was in the barrel loaded into the back of his pickup as he drove Candace to her grandparents' house miles out of state. Married for eight years, the Smiths seemed the perfect couple. Neighbours couldn't believe that doting mom Khris would ever have abandoned her daughter. After her disappearance, Russ Smith completely remodelled the upstairs bathroom. He also dramatically changed his lifestyle, sporting flashy clothes and dating strippers. Worse, his relationship with Candace was discovered to be dark and disturbing, culminating with the courts taking custody of the child.Through it all, Khris Smith remained among the missing, and the case ground to a halt. Four years passed before the Smith file was reopened, by an elite squad of "cold case" investigators. Painstaking interviews of those closest to the Smiths brought a crucial statement to light, and Russ Smith, now engaged and living happily in Florida, was picked up by the detectives. On an eight hour drive back to Michigan, he told a story- a story of narcissism, rage, and murder so cold...

I saw this original story on Crime & Investigation channel and wanted to know more and so I ordered the book online.I was right in that there was so much more information in the book which obviously they could not all fit onto a half an hour show.I am amazed at how this man got away with murder for so long.In fact he was only caught by a cold case squad a few years later.The original investigators seemed to be incompetent in that they dismissed the case as a woman who had run away from home despite relatives and friends assurances that she would never have left her child.It seems that if you murder someone and hide the body well enough (and this man travelled miles with the body in his trunk)the chances are very good that you might get away with murder.This murderer was blatant in his actions even remodelling his bathroom.The amazing thing is you could think that maybe this was so long ago that the investigators were perhaps not so well trained that they did not know how to conduct an investigation but this case was only in 1994.

The entire time I read this book I had a constant feeling of disbelief that this man was not getting caught so I can well imagine the reactions of the people close to the victim.They had to live the nightmare and incompetence in the investigation of this case.I was also constantly worrying about the child still with this unstable father.

The book reads well but was a bit of a disappointment as I had watched the tv program before so I knew about the main twists and turns.Paricia Springer does however fill up the spaces in between with pertinent information and a few surprises here and there.I would recommend this book if you are passionate about true crime books and especially if you have never seen the tv program before.



I read this book in June 2007.It has 302 pages and an amazing 16 pages of pictures which was really nice as these books usually only have about 8 pages.The pictures are really good and include the actual bathroom where the crime took place and also a picture of the victim,her murderous husband and child in happier times.Seeing that picture just made me realise how appearances can be so deceiving.