Rites of Burial by Tom Jackman & Troy Cole

Rites of Burial by Tom Jackman & Troy Cole

HE TOOK SNAPSHOTS OF HIS VICTIMS AS HE WATCHED THEM DIE!

On March 29, 1988, Chris Bryson accepted a late-night ride from a man named "Bob" in the desolate area of downtown Kansas City, Missouri. A twenty-two-year-old former male hustler, Bryson thought he knew what to expect and played along, even agreeing to go into the man's house "to party." He was wrong. Beaten unconscious, then tied to a metal bed like an anima, he was subjected to four days of excruciating sexual torture by Robert "Bob" Berdella until he managed to escape and inform police.

So began one of the most bizarre investigations on record. When local police searched Berdella's home, they found human skulls, an envelope of teeth, and hundreds of pictures of young men being raped and tortured. The, acting on a hunch, they dug up his yard to find a partially decomposed human head. Berdella later confessed to kidnapping six young men over a four-year period, forcing them to endure sadistic torture and rape, then killing them, cutting up their bodies and putting the remains in garbage bags to be collected by local garbage men. Pleading guilty after police discovered evidence too hideous to imagine, Robert Berdella was sentenced to life imprisonment without parole.

Written by Tom Jackman, the local investigative journalist who covered the story, and Troy Cole, the chief investigating officer, RITES OF BURIAL tells the gruesome true story of Robert Berdella, a serial killer whose inhuman crimes of murder and dismemberment might have served to inspire Jeffrey Dahmer's Milwaukee slaughter.