Killer Excuses: Outlandish Tales from the Courts

The courts have made up their minds, now it’s your turn.

Most people have used ridiculous excuses to avoid punishment, but when it comes to classic excuses one group of people leaves all others for dead – killers.

Killer Excuses is a courtroom-drama collection of some of the most extraordinary defences tried in Australian manslaughter and murder trials – excuses like:

‘I was trying to exorcise a demon.’
‘I’m a chauvinist and she neglected her wifely duties.’
‘I thought he was a deer.’
‘Her nagging made me snap.’
‘We were just having sex…in the sea.’

The cases in this book are ‘whydunits’. While ‘whodunits’ focus on catching criminals, ‘whydunits’ challenge juries and judges to understand why people kill, and to decide what our society is prepared to forgive.