Charmer: A Ladies Man and His Victims

This is the story of George, an African American who grew up in a Caucasian suburb of Seattle, where his unaffectionate mother and racial isolation led him to develop an effervescent personality in order to get along. He became a small-time burglar and an accomplished liar--a wisecracking "smoothy" who pretended to be an undercover detective. George made lots of friends, especially within a subculture of giggly young white women who partied endlessly in upscale Seattle clubs during 1989-90. And he murdered three of them, bizarrely mutilating and "staging" their bodies. The drinks, dancing, and deejays--the group pad where George lived with an adoring coterie of feckless college kids--Olsen gives us the quirky details that make the murderer's well-hidden rage and misogyny all the more shocking. As the New York Times wrote, "Like fine cinema verité, [Charmer] mesmerizes us with the sense of watching real life, unaugmented, move before our eyes."

• Where Monsters Hide: Sex, Murder, and Madness in the Midwest
• Most Wanted Killer
• Under the Trestle: The 1980 Disappearance of Gina Renee Hall & Virginia’s First “No Body” Murder Trial.
• Betrayal In Blood
• Murder on Birchleaf Drive: The True Story of the Michelle Young Murder Case
• Never Forgive, Never Forget: A Shocking True Crime Story
• To Hatred Turned: Everything Is Bigger in Texas, Including the Crimes
• She Deserved Better: A Shocking True Crime Story of a Craigslist Killer
• Alice & Gerald: A Homicidal Love Story
• Cold Kill: The True Story of a Murderous Love