Wednesday, April 11, 2012

DNF: "Metamorphosis of a Criminal" by Ed Edwards

DNF: Metamorphosis of a Criminal by Ed Edwards, 1972, LC 72-78412 (no ISBN).

Fucking scumbag. Edwards is most recently known as being a small time serial killer. He was finally caught in 2009 by Jefferson County detectives who were following leads from the 1980 murders Edwards was eventually convicted of. (Edwards had a fondness for murdering young male-female couples.) Edwards subsequently confessed to three other killings, including the murder of his own foster son.

This 1972 biography got some press after Edwards's arrest. I wonder how the press heard of the book. Did the cops tell them? Did Edwards tell them? Did they dig it up on their own? Edwards's name is so common.

Anyway. I gave up after a few pages. I was reading his self-serving load of bullshit and could no longer take it. Edwards claimed a string of crimes across the country while he was a fugitive and on the FBI's most wanted list. He probably raped or killed some more people too. He was suspected of a 1960 double murder in Portland. Fucking dirtbag. After parole he became a motivational speaker and did this book. Then he killed a young couple in Ohio in 1977.

Edwards was convicted of the 1980 double murders in Wisconsin in 2010. In March, 2011 he was convicted of double murder in Ohio plus the murder of his foster son. He died of natural causes in April, 2011.

Addendum, January 22, 2016.
This post is getting a lot of traffic. I presume that is because a guy has been in the new trying to link Edwards to the Avery case recently publicized in Making a Murderer. Keep in mind that Edwards was quite old and in very poor health when he was arrested for the Jefferson County murders.

Edwards was 76-years-old during 2010's pre-trial phase. Edwards was on oxygen, in a wheelchair, and had video arraignments because he was jailed at a prison hospital in Waupun (an hour North of Jefferson, WI). (According to Wikipedia Avery is also at one of the prisons in Waupun.) I don't know about Edwards in 2005 but doubt he was in shape to kidnap and murder a woman and then plant blood and bodily remains on someone's property.

One of the Waupun prisons is across the street from the public library. One of the prison's officers was a history buff (Civil War, I think) and the Library Director used to be able to walk across the street, yell up to the guard tower, and ask the officer for help on reference questions.

Addendum, January 18, 2018
Looks like Edwards is in the news again after a profile in PEOPLE magazine and a television episode of PEOPLE MAGAZINE INVESTIGATES.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I knew Edward Wayne Edwards under an alias, Ralph Ulysses Brickenshaw. Another one of his aliases had a President's name for the middle name: James Garfield Langley. I was told by a shrink a few years ago that I was not crazy. It kind of made me mad. After all my family and I had been through?! I was told that I was mentally ill when I called for help on an Army base in 1989. He was taunting me on the phone with his future plans. They wouldn't bug my phone to save anyone's life! In 1982 I went to the FBI for help and they told me he was an honorable man. I had to sleep with a kitchen knife duct-taped to my hand with it under the pillow. He had already burnt me with a curling iron and choked me and threatened to break my baby's neck. (Charlotte, NC). In 1973 he killed a teen-age boy with an ax in the woods behind our house and cut his head off and put it on my chest. Then he put his corpse in a car. In 1976 or '77 he beat me and nearly drowned me at the Bullhole which is in a park in Coolemee, NC now. Wayne Williams is innocent and so is Christopher Coleman. He was going after people with "Christ" in their names. He is the Zodiac Killer and I have seen him in his tacky Zodiac costume. Edgar Patino is innocent. Burton Abbott was too but he died in the death chamber because of that devil. He killed Hoffa. He was jealous of John Ramsey. I gave a description of Danny Rollings who killed in Gainesville, FL to try to stop him from killing. He was Edwards's buddy. What had I done wrong? I was born on Inauguration Day and he was caught by the FBI on my first birthday. Some Union members in NC had a big meeting in San Francisco at the height of the Zodiac murders. Perhaps he thought it would be a good cover to be in the union since he was going to kill Hoffa, whom he had been in prison with.

Nobody said...

That's a crazy story. You are lucky to be alive. I new him when he got old. My wife and I would go over to his house and hang out. I remember once he said to me "you don't even know who the fuck I am". And then smiled a little. Never realized the few years we hung out that we could have been the next victims

Nobody said...

We hung out for many years at the end. Never thought we could have been his last victims

Nobody said...

That's a crazy story. You are lucky to be alive. I new him when he got old. My wife and I would go over to his house and hang out. I remember once he said to me "you don't even know who the fuck I am". And then smiled a little. Never realized the few years we hung out that we could have been the next victims