The Last Victim - A True-Life Journey into the Mind of the Serial Killer (Hardcover)

Also Available as an eBook

A youthful adventure. A bizarre confession. A dangerous obsession. The Last Victim, a true story, is all three of these and something more: a unique view of our culture through the eyes of a teenager who had a strange, brilliant idea that spun dangerously out of control...

The Last Victim

Eighteen-year-old honors student Jason Moss was used to playing roles. As a child, he fainted at the sight of blood and gore, eventually learning to cover his fears by constructing carefully chosen masks. As a boy, he perfected the chameleon's art of fitting in with different crowds but never having one of his own. Then, partly to satisfy a college assignment, he turned to a new crowd: a handful of men who'd blazed their way into the American consciousness and now languished in America's prisons. Men named Dahmer, Manson, Ramirez, and Gacy.

Using his parents' home as a base of operations, Jason studied "his" famous killers before sending each a meticulously crafted letter intended to lure them into a dialogue. His successful strategy: posing as each "target's" ideal friend-or perfect victim. To his surprise, Jason received lengthy, impassioned responses. And so began a series of haunting relationships, including one that would culminate in a terrifying face-to-face confrontation.

While Moss traded confidences with killers ranging from Charles Manson to Jeffrey Dahmer (a portion of their correspondence is reproduced here), none was more fascinating than the "killer clown," John Wayne Gacy. Indeed, Gacy became obsessed with his new pen pal, sharing his sexual preoccupations and philosophy of choosing prey. While Jason scrambled to maintain a half-dozen separate personas so that each killer would believe he'd connected with his soulmate, the stakes were raised when Gacy's letters turned to weekly phone calls and, eventually, an invitation into his prison cell.

It was a showdown that Jason recounts in nightmarish detail. With Gacy the clear master of his prison domain and holding all the cards, the eighteen-year-old was forced to look into the abyss-to consider the possibility that he just might become Gacy's last victim.

Against this tale of seduction and obsession is a portrait of an overachieving, middle-class childhood that takes a dangerous detour. As Jason slips further and further into the underworld of Death Row convicts, his everyday world spins around him, becoming more and more surreal. Impossible to put down and brutally honest, The Last Victim stunningly mirrors our society's fascination with the most violent and depraved among us.