Death Trap

“This tale skillfully balances a victim’s story against that of an arrogant killer as it reveals a deviant mind intent on topping the world’s most dangerous criminals. Phelps has an unrelenting sense for detail that affirms his place, book by book, as one of our most engaging crime journalists.”

—Dr. Katherine Ramsland, author of
The Human Predator

 

“Drawing on interviews with law officers and relatives,
Murder in the Heartland
will interest anyone who has followed the Stin-nett case. The author has done significant research and—demonstrating how modern forensics and the Internet played critical, even unexpected roles in the investigation—his facile writing pulls the reader along.”

—
St. Louis Post-Dispatch

 

“Phelps uses a unique combination of investigative skills and narrative insight to give readers an exclusive, insider’s look into the events surrounding this incredible, high-profile American tragedy. . . . He has written a compassionate, riveting true crime masterpiece.”

—Anne Bremner, op-ed columnist and legal analyst on Court TV, MSNBC, Nancy Grace, FOX News Channel,
The
O’Reilly
Factor,
CNN,
Good
Morning America, and
The Early Show

“When unimaginable horror strikes, it is certain to cause monstrous sufferings, regardless of its locale. In
Murder in the Heartland,
M. William Phelps expertly reminds us that when the darkest form of evil invades the quiet and safe outposts of rural America, the tragedy is greatly magnified. Get ready for some sleepless nights.”

—Carlton Stowers, Edgar Award–winning author of
Careless Whispers, Scream at the Sky,
and
To the Last Breath

“This is the most disturbing and moving look at murder in rural America since Capote’s
In Cold Blood.
”

—Gregg Olsen,
New York Times
bestselling author of
Abandoned Prayers, Mockingbird,
and
If Loving You Is Wrong

 

“A crisp, no-nonsense account . . . masterful.”

—
Bucks County Courier Times

 

“An unflinching investigation . . . Phelps explores this tragedy with courage, insight, and compassion.”

—
Lima News
(Lima, OH)

 

“Phelps has written a compelling and gripping book . . . Readers will thoroughly enjoy this.”

—Vincent Bugliosi

 

“An exceptional book by an exceptional true crime writer. In
Sleep in Heavenly Peace,
M. William Phelps exposes long-hidden secrets and reveals disquieting truths. Page by page, Phelps skillfully probes the disturbed mind of a mother guilty of the ultimate betrayal.”

—Kathryn Casey, author of
She Wanted
It All and
A Warrant to Kill

“An insightful and fast-paced examination of the inner workings of a good cop and his bad informant culminating in an unforgettable truth-is-stranger-than-fiction climax.”

—Michael M. Baden, M.D., author of Unnatural Death

 

“M. William Phelps is the rising star of the nonfiction crime genre, and his true tales of murderers and mayhem are scary-as-hell thrill rides into the dark heart of the inhuman condition.”

—Douglas Clegg, author of
The Lady of Serpents

 

“An intense roller-coaster of a crime story. Phelps’ book
Lethal Guardian
is at once complex, with a plethora of twists and turns worthy of any great detective mystery, and yet so well-laid out, so crisply written with such detail to character and place that it reads more like a novel than your standard non-fiction crime book.”

—
New York Times
bestselling author Steve Jackson

 

“
Perfect Poison
is a horrific tale of nurse Kristen Gilbert’s insatiable desire to kill the most helpless of victims—her own patients. A stunner from beginning to end, Phelps renders the story expertly, with flawless research and an explosive narrative. Phelps unravels the devastating case against nurse Kristen Gilbert and shockingly reveals that unimaginable evil sometimes comes in pretty packages.”

—Gregg Olsen,
New York Times
bestselling author of
Abandoned Prayers, Mockingbird,
and
If Loving You Is Wrong

 

“M. William Phelps’s
Perfect Poison
is true crime at its best—compelling, gripping, an edge-of-the-seat thriller. All the way through, Phelps packs wallops of delight with his skillful ability to narrate a suspenseful story and his encyclopedic knowledge of police procedures.
Perfect Poison
is the perfect antidote for a dreary night!”

—Harvey Rachlin, author of
The Making of a Detective
and
The Making of a Cop

PERFECT POISON

 

LETHAL GUARDIAN

 

EVERY MOVE YOU MAKE

 

SLEEP IN HEAVENLY PEACE

 

MURDER IN THE HEARTLAND

 

BECAUSE YOU LOVED ME

 

IF LOOKS COULD KILL

 

I’LL BE WATCHING YOU

 

DEADLY SECRETS

 

CRUEL DEATH

 

FAILURES OF THE PRESIDENTS

 

NATHAN HALE:
THE LIFE AND DEATH OF
AMERICA’S FIRST SPY

 

THE DEVIL’S ROOMING HOUSE:
THE TRUE STORY OF AMERICA’S DEADLIEST
FEMALE SERIAL KILLER

DEATH TRAP

M. WILLIAM PHELPS

PINNACLE BOOKS

 

Kensington Publishing Corp.

All copyrighted material within is Attributor Protected.

Table of Contents

AUTHOR’S NOTE

For this project I reviewed thousands of pages of trial testimony, police reports, court records/filings, motions, trial evidence, divorce decrees, letters, cards, e-mails and various other documents, in addition to conducting over seventy-five hours of interviews. To protect some of my sources, I have changed several names. They are clearly marked in the text. I also changed the names of Jessica McCord’s children, although I never spoke to them. Jeff and Jessica McCord, in addition to all the key players involved in this true-crime saga, had his or her chance to speak with me. Some chose not to. I commend all those who told their stories and added that additional layer of truth I seek when writing these books.

 

—M. William Phelps
October 2009

PROLOGUE

Friday evening, February 15, 2002. There was a slight breeze blowing in from the north, under partly cloudy skies. It was sixty-one degrees.

Warm. Mild. Pleasant.

Not bad for the South in the middle of winter.

Pam Walker worked for a division of BlueCross BlueShield in Birmingham, Alabama. Like clockwork, Pam returned home from a tiring day at 5:45
P.M
. Her dog had been cooped up in the house all day. So Pam had a habit of pulling into the reserved parking space in front of her condo and immediately taking the pooch out for a walk.

The condo complex on Warringwood Drive in Hoover was in a quiet section of town, not yet affected by the overly congested, economically stimulated boom taking place in this popular suburb of Birmingham. The condo complex consisted of about twenty units connected in a line, like row houses.

As usual, Pam took the dog out back. There was a ditch there that dropped down into an area with a wall of trees lining the back of the condo units. It was the best place for the dog to take care of business.

Enjoying the warm winter air, Pam forced the pooch along the tree line to the opposite end of the condo complex, away from her unit. Across from where Pam stood, that thickly settled wooded area behind the condo units blocked what was a housing development—directly west—on the opposite side of the tree line. On a clear day, you could almost see through the trees, past a little ravine, into the corresponding neighborhood: a nice, cozy suburban denizen of middle-class homes. Sort of a white-picket-fence community.

Husbands. Wives. Children. Grandmothers and grandfathers.

Pam stood at the border of the wooded area. Her pooch went about its business. By now, it was, Pam remembered later, about fifteen minutes into her walk—or somewhere close to six o’clock.

Just then, as the dog finished, a loud noise startled Pam Walker. The sound was something out of the ordinary: two cracks in a successive pattern.

“Directly across from where I was standing,” Pam later said in court.

Firecrackers?
Pam thought.

But the Fourth of July was months away.

Kids. Playing around. Maybe a car backfired.

Who knew?

There was a ravine in front of Pam. The sounds had definitely come from just beyond the wooded area, where all those seemingly perfect lives inside model-train-set houses were located on the opposite side of the trees.

After thinking about it, Pam hustled her pooch back inside and forgot about the strange noises—that is, until weeks later, when the cops came knocking, asking people in the neighborhood if they had heard anything close to “gunshots” back near the middle of February.