On November 8, 1985, 18-year-old Tom Odle brutally murdered his
parents and three siblings in the small southern Illinois town of
Mount Vernon, sending shockwaves throughout the nation. The murder
of the Odle family remains one of the most horrific family mass
murders in U.S. history. Odle was sentenced to death and, after
seventeen years on death row, expected a lethal injection to end
his life. However, Illinois governor George Ryan's moratorium on
the death penalty in 2000, and later commutation of all death
sentences in 2003, changed Odle's sentence to natural life.The
commutation of his death sentence was an epiphany for Odle. Prior
to the commutation of his death sentence, Odle lived in denial,
repressing any feelings about his family and his horrible crime.
Following the commutation and the removal of the weight of eventual
execution associated with his death sentence, he was confronted
with an unfamiliar reality. A future. As a result, he realized that
he needed to understand why he murdered his family. He reached out
to Dr. Robert Hanlon, a neuropsychologist who had examined him in
the past. Dr. Hanlon engaged Odle in a therapeutic process of
introspection and self-reflection, which became the basis of their
collaboration on this book.Hanlon tells a gripping story of Odle's
life as an abused child, the life experiences that formed his
personality, and his tragic homicidal escalation to mass murder,
seamlessly weaving into the narrative Odle's unadorned reflections
of his childhood, finding a new family on death row, and his belief
in the powers of redemption.As our nation attempts to understand
the continual mass murders occurring in the U.S., Survived by One
sheds some light on the psychological aspects of why and how such
acts of extreme carnage may occur. However, "Survived by One"
offers a never-been-told perspective from the mass murderer
himself, as he searches for the answers concurrently being asked by
the nation and the world.
General
Imprint: |
Southern Illinois University Press
|
Country of origin: |
United States |
Release date: |
August 2013 |
First published: |
August 2013 |
Authors: |
Robert E. Hanlon
• Thomas Odle
|
Dimensions: |
236 x 159 x 21mm (L x W x T) |
Format: |
Hardcover - Cloth over boards
|
Pages: |
216 |
Edition: |
New |
ISBN-13: |
978-0-8093-3262-5 |
Categories: |
Books >
Fiction >
True stories >
Crime
Promotions
|
LSN: |
0-8093-3262-0 |
Barcode: |
9780809332625 |
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