Listen free for 30 days

Listen with offer

Preview

Absolute Madness
A True Story of a Serial Killer, Race, and a City Divided
By: Catherine Pelonero
Narrated by: Laural Merlington
Length: 17 hrs and 22 mins
5.0 out of 5 stars (2 ratings)

Failed to add items

Sorry, we are unable to add the item because your shopping cart is already at capacity.

Add to basket failed.

Please try again later

Add to wishlist failed.

Please try again later

Remove from wishlist failed.

Please try again later

Adding to library failed

Please try again

Follow podcast failed

Unfollow podcast failed

£0.00 for first 30 days

Try for £0.00

Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.

Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.

Access exclusive sales and deals.

£7.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Absolute Madness

By: Catherine Pelonero

Narrated by: Laural Merlington

Try for £0.00

£7.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Buy Now for £21.99

No valid payment method on file.

Add payment method

Switch payment method

We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method

Switch payment method

Pay using card ending in

Switch payment method

By completing your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and authorise Audible to charge your designated card or any other card on file. Please see our Privacy Notice, Cookies Notice and Interest-based Ads Notice.

Summary

Absolute Madness tells the disturbing true story of Joseph Christopher, a white serial killer who targeted black males and struck fear into the residents of Buffalo and New York City in the 1980s. Dubbed both the .22-Caliber Killer and the Midtown Slasher, Christopher allegedly claimed eighteen victims during a savage four-month spree across the state.

The investigation, aided by famed FBI profiler John Douglas, drew national attention and biting criticism from Jesse Jackson and other civil rights leaders. The killer, when at last he was unmasked, seemed an unlikely candidate to have held New York in a grip of terror.

His capture was neither the end of the story nor the end of the racial strife, which flared anew during circuitous prosecutions and judicial rulings that prompted cries of a double standard in the justice system. Both a wrenching true crime story and an incisive portrait of dangerously discordant race relations in America, Absolute Madness also chronicles a lonely, vulnerable man's tragic descent into madness and the failure of the American mental health system that refused his pleas for help.