Customer Reviews

Because You Loved Me (Pinnacle True Crime)

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Because You Loved Me is a case study of different sorts of love, platonic, parental, romantic, and obsessive. It's easy to predict which type will go wrong. The High Queen of the drama queens, Nicole, falls in a twisted sort of love with macho manipulator Billy, and in a metter of days, she is blind to all the good things in her life. Her mom, her friends, her education, her home - Nicole no longer sees value in any of this, and when Billy enters the picture, purely by chance, her daily existence changes from normal to, in her estimation, a living hell. And suddenly, she cannot fathom how she can possibly live without this guy whom she barely knows. Together, Nicole and Billy make fateful choices that will ensure that they will have to live without each other, forever and ever. What is surprising is that they were so blind to the fact that their actions would have irreversible, devastating consequences.

M. William Phelps is a skilled researcher who knows how to delve for facts and nuances, and page by page, he uncovers the details, delineating the story of this young couple's disastrous obsession from its inception to its miserable conclusion. He approaches this murder from three angles, that of the victim and her fiance, that of the besotted, daughter and her maladjusted suitor, and that of the legal system. This is no mystery story; rather, it is a dissection of the anatomy of a crime committed by two terribly misguided, hysterical teens. It is nothing less than chilling, another example about what can happen when children are improperly parented. Highly recommended.

The author did a lot of research and glad to have seen the interviews this Chris. I was a coworker of Jeanne and her murder/death was very shocking to all of us at Oxford who knew her. She loved her children very much and spoke of them constantly. Her desk was not disturbed for almost two months. Cards, flowers and photos of her appeared in her work space nearly every day. Even if bill sullivan gets another trial I sincerely hope that the verdict is the same and he stays permanently in jail. I don't think he'll every change.

THis was really a sad story, as the character involved by description from all was a nice woman. The daugther and her boyfriend should be given the death penalty.

The book was well written, when reading true crime, it is always good to get an author who touches the human sentiment,

Well written, and I will recommend this book to anyone who is a true crime reader....

Got to confess after reading this book, i actually stopped reading true crime for awhile as it was really a touching story.

I'm going to disagree with a previous reviewer who said that this recent publication from M. William Phelps was a disappointment because the crime was laid out and solved in the first chapter.

I think Phelps did an excellent job of giving a clear picture of the murder victim (Jeanne Dominico) and how her death came to be because of her teenage daughter's (Nicole Kasinkas) obsessions with a sociopathic teen boy (William "Billy" Sullivan) she had met online.

There is no wasted pages in this 400+ page true crime. Phelps' writing is the same as his other books, it was simply the crime was easy to solve. The largest portion of this book is an exhibit into the struggle between a mother and her teenager daughter when a mentally unstable boy gets his hooks into the psyche of a young girl. Readers are presented with a very clear, detailed view of the events that led to the murder of a young, single mother.

As a mother of a teenager, I found this book to be extremely insightful. This could be anyone's child. Jeanne Dominico is a prime of example of no matter how hard we try to raise our children to know right from wrong, they are still of their own mind and sometimes their choices have a permanent effect; not just on the child, but on many others involved. Jeanne WAS a good mother, doing her very best by her daughter, but it just wasn't good enough. And the title of this book could not be more appropriate, as Nicole played a hand in her mother's death "Because [She] Loved [Her]."

This is an excellent read. I highly recommend it for anyone who enjoy's today's true crime. Unsolved cases are good readers, too; but there's just something about being able to finish a book and know that the perpetrator is behind bars that gives me a little more comfort as a I sleep at night.

This story was fairly straightforward. Two immature teens in love kill the mother of the girl. The crime was solved immediately after the duo confessed. The trial was quick and without complication. But the author filled over 400 pages with repetitive padding about the many virtues of the victim and the agony of her surviving fiance. This story could have been told in far less space. There was too much description of emotional baggage and too little forensics. I understand that this was a labor of love for the author, but the poor reader had to wade through so much to glean so little.

I have to say when I got done reading this I felt like I knew them .
And as a read I have to admit i have never had a book make me cry and angry at the same time other then the one where i lived the crime due to it being in my home town. The writer made sure this book was about the victom and I dont think he gave any glory to her murders and thats they way it should be

I'M TRYING TO PHATHOM HOW TWO TEENAGERS CAN BE SO LOVE SICK THAT THEY KILL. IT SEEMS REALLY HARD FOR ME TO UNDERSTAND HOW NICOLE COULD SIT IN THE CAR READING A MAGAZINE WHILE HER MOTHER WAS BEING BRUTALLY MURDERED. UNBELIEVABLE!!!

This book is a good example of why my reading tastes have shifted over the last few years to include very little true crime, or at least very little true crime that's been recently written. The story focuses on the murder of a divorced single mom by her outwardly nice, but inwardly troubled, teenage daughter and the daughter's "first love", a mentally ill and controlling 18-year-old. The entire first third of the book describes a play-by-play of the victim's last day, which involves her going to work, then returning home, her fiance finding her body, various neighbors and workmates finding out about the tragedy and finally the teen killers spilling the beans to police. The second third focuses on the daughter's relationship with her boyfriend, which is presented as a fairly typical (for these days) case of two disturbed kids hooking up on the Internet and very quickly falling deeply in love. Again it is totally unclear what made this relationship different from the legions of lonely teens with depression or anxiety or whatever, who regularly meet each other online and have intense affairs before simply moving on to the next phase of their lives. The final third of the book deals with the trial.

While I have no doubt that the victim was a nice person and well-liked by many, there is an awful lot of repetitive padding about how nice people thought she was or how her fiance feels utterly lost without her, that doesn't contribute anything towards moving the story forward. Furthermore, there are a lot of hints and angles suggested, such as the fact that the victim had a strained relationship with an ex-husband who she was nevertheless with for a very long time (and whose last name the kids choose to keep - also the younger son chooses to return to his dad after his mom is killed), and the fact that she had a troubled relationship with her younger son, that are mentioned, but barely explored. I would have liked to hear more about these factors, and see how the dynamics might have contributed to the mindset of the homicidal daughter, but aside from the obvious (e.g. the absence of her father caused the girl to become strongly attached to the first boy who paid attention to her) they aren't discussed much.

If you compare this book with other true crime books about teen relationships culminating in parental murder, such as the infinitely superior "Bad Blood" by Richard M. Levine or the pretty good "All I Want to Do is Kill" by Dale Hudson, this book is unfortunately lacking in background, and a bit of a snooze.

Phelps really explores the characters involved in this human tragedy. Jeanne, the victim, was a struggling single mother working three jobs to support her two children. Her two teenage children could barely be brought to help with household chores. Jeanne was a loving person who reached out and tried to help others, even though her lot in life seemed terribly difficult.

The most chilling part of the story is that it was her daughter and her daughter's teenage boyfriend who planned the violent, sickening murder. The author explains the thought processes of the teenagers involved and they will make your flesh crawl.

One thing not covered was what I wondered about most, though. What was the moral background of the teenage daughter, and did she ever have any religion classes? There is a hint that she was into the occult, but that is not enough. The book was so good that I still want to know more!

While the crime was solved the same night it happened, M. William Phelps gives us insight into the lives all the involved, letting the reader see how a typical confused teenage girl became a co-conspirator in her mother's murder.

Knowing who committed the crime from the onset didn't hurt this book in any way - and anyone should be able to appreciate how Phelps presents the stories behind everyone involved.