When His Sick Nature Called, He Answered
Review by Kim Cantrell
From the book cover: On a summer afternoon in 1993, an eleven-year-old girl sets out through her familiar neighborhood to collect payments on her paper route. In one home she meets a harmless-looking stranger. Driven by unstoppable desire, James Wood will make this her last route….
James Edward Wood was an evil man.
Since his early childhood, he preyed upon others; using them to get what he wanted.
As an adult, he would escalate from conning people into murdering them.
But when you’re a manipulative coward, your victims will be girls, whether teenagers or prepubescent girls.
Eye of the Beast details the last killing spree of James “Jimmy” Wood that began with his third wife turning him into police for molesting her daughter to child killer conviction that landed him in the Idaho Department of Corrections.
Written by Terry Adams, a copyrighters and contributor to The Birmingham News; Mary Brooks-Mueller, Ph.D. a forensics examiner; and Scott Shaw, the lead detective in the case against James Wood, was a fast-paced read outline the crimes of a viciously brutal man.
Unfortunately, this trio of authors didn’t include much background information on James Wood. Readers are left knowing only that Wood’s parents were deceased and he had been adopted by his maternal aunt and uncle. And there is no elaboration on the abuse Wood claim to suffer at the hands of his stepfather before his mother’s death.
Although the subject matter is one that, at times, is difficult to stomach, Eye of the Beast is recommended for your true crime reading list.
Update on James Wood: Sentenced to death in 1994, James Woods died awaiting execution of natural causes on February 1, 2004.
