In 1994, Ricardo Caputo, object of an international FBI manhunt, turned himself in, confessing to the brutal murders of four women. For more than two decades, he had moved with ease from one U.S. city to the next and across the Mexican border, altering his identity, and killing with impunity. Now the deadly Don Juan, whom one detective called "a beautiful snake," has been found. But for Linda Wolfe, the search had just begun...Acclaimed for her incisive true-crime journalism, Linda Wolfe has explored some of the darkest aspects of human nature. But never before had she felt as visceral and disturbing a reaction as she did to Ricardo Caputo. Some ten years earlier, the author's friend, New York writer and activist Jacqui Bernard, was murdered, and Wolfe had become convinced that Caputo was the killer. His arrest, in 1994, propelled her on a deeply affecting, personal odyssey. The result is a profoundly intimate and eloquent account of Linda Wolfe's confrontation with Caputo—and of the tragedy and terror he left in his wake.Seeking closure in the death of her friend, Wolfe met with the families of both Caputo and his victims; she spoke with police investigators, psychiatrists who had treated Caputo, and lawyers on both sides of the case; and she pored over private letters, diaries, and photo albums. She also conducted three prison interviews with Caputo. What emerges is not only a frightening and unforgettable portrait of a serial killer, but a powerful and poignant evocation of the lives he touched, twisted, and destroyed.Distrusting Caputo's expressions of remorse, seeking the true reason for his surrender, Wolfe strives to make sense of the seductive sociopath whose violence was rooted in his troubled chilhood in Argentina, and who spread his venomous charm from suburban Long Island to San Francisco's Pacific Heights. She pieces together profiles of the attractive, successful, sophisticated women he preyed upon. And she addresses some of the troubling legal issues facing a justice system that too often turns criminals into celebrities, shifts blame to the victims, and allows defendants to abuse the insanity defense.Love Me To Death is more than a triumph of investigative journalism. It is a candid, compelling story of innocence and evil, crime and punishment—and Linda Wolfe's own determined quest to unmask and face the enemy. Noted true-crime writer Wolfe (e.g., Wasted, LJ 8/89) gets close to home when she investigates the 1983 murder of a friend, poet Jacqui Bernard. Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc. Crime reporter Wolfe knew and admired writer Jacqui Bernard, who was brutally murdered in her New York apartment in 1983. Wolfe became intrigued with Bernard's unsolved murder and began researching the case. The name that surfaced as the alleged murderer was that of Bernard's former lover, Ricardo Caputo. In what is both a personal memoir and an examination of a serial murderer, Wolfe highlights her experiences as she followed the trail of Argentine native Caputo, who inexplicably surrendered in 1994 and admitted to killing four women (most likely, he murdered twice as many) while in, he claimed, the "thrall of multiple personality disorder." As Wolfe became immersed in the case, she interviewed several detectives, attorneys, and victims' survivors as well as Caputo family members in the U.S. and Argentina. That seemingly intelligent, talented women were seduced and deceived by the cunning, manipulative Caputo may be the most provocative aspect of Wolfe's memoir for true-crime junkies. Sue-Ellen Beauregard Wolfe, who has written about men's hostile and violent acts against women in Double Life (1994) and Wasted (1989), now investigates the death of an acquaintance of hers. Jacqui Bernard was a kind-hearted older woman who met a young man one night in 1983 at a Manhattan bar. She befriended him, loaning him cash and her car, until she became suspicious of his motives. Soon, Jacqui was found strangled in her apartment. Police investigators connected her death to Richard Caputo, a good-looking Latino who had a gift for seducing wealthy women and had already confessed to killing one girlfriend in 1971. Caputo--who by his wife's accounts was gentle--seems to have responded to rejection with violence and was extremely jealous. He also seemed to fear female sexuality: Both of the women he had long-term relationships with were virgins when he met them, while the lovers he killed were more sexually active. After confessing to the 1971 murder, Caputo was committed to a hospital for the criminally insane and there he seduced his psychologist, Judith Becker. Caputo told Becker his crime was the result of early abuse and Becker believed him, eventually taking him home with her. When Becker tried to end the relationship, he killed her too and stole her wallet and car keys. He fled and killed several other young women, and in 1983 met up with Bernard. In 1994 he finally turned himself in for the Becker murder.