America’s First Husband and Wife Serial Killing Team
Review by Kim Cantrell
From the book’s cover: …here is the shocking true story of the Gerald Gallego serial murders, a three-year spree of sexual abuse and killing carried out by a psychopath and the woman who helped him lure his young female victims to their horrible deaths….
Gerald Gallego’ was a sexual deviant with urges that led to the murder of nine women and one young man.
The brutal crimes of Gallego committed along with his sixth wife, Charlene, are horrendous and earned him the title of California’s most gruesome serial killer.
But that was in 1988, the year All His Father’s Sins was published; and, unfortunately there have been much worse serial killer’s to roam the coastal state since that time.
Written by Sacramento County Sheriff’s Department Lieutenant Ray Biondi, along with Walt Hecox, gives an insiders view into the working of this set of depraved serial killers.
While I found the book to very well written with a style that engrosses the reader from beginning to end, I can’t help but to show some bias in this review as it seems Lieutenant Biondi was somewhat sympathetic to Charlene Williams Gallego – with which completely, 100% disagree.
Although I hope my interpretation is incorrect, I strongly suspect that Lieutenant Biondi believed Charlene was an abused woman who was drawn into a relationship that she was unsure how leave.
I, on the other hand, believe that she made a mockery of every woman who truly has suffered abuse. In Charlene’s version of events, there are, in my opinion, just too many indicators that she was a willing participant.
Lastly, I was disappointed that there was not more details provided into the background of Gerald. At the completion of this book I was left to conduct research of my own it his father’s own execution for murder and the intricate details of his crime-riddled childhood.
Despite such, All His Father’s Sins is an interesting, retro-read about a crime solved in the early 1980s – a time long before DNA and ViCAP aided law enforcement in identifying a killer.
Updates on Gerald and Charlene Gallego: Gerald died of rectal cancer in 2002 at the Nevada prison center’s medical center. Charlene was released in July 1997. Her whereabouts are unknown.
Other books about this case: The Sex Slave Murders: The Horrifying True Story of America’s First Husband-and-Wife Serial Killers by R. Barri Flowers; A Venom in the Blood by Eric Van Hoffman
More Resources:
- CCAPD Pen Pal Request of Gerald Armond Gallego
- Time line of life events: Gerald Armond Gallego [PDF]
- Serial Killer Central photo gallery of the Gallegos
