Customer Reviews

Deadly Urges (Pinnacle True Crime)

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This man was one of the most cold-blooded killers in history. Interesting book, well researched and well written.

...along comes Phillip Jablonski, as presented to us in DEADLY URGES by author Barry Bortnick, and you're more disgusted. Jablonski's volume of work, a paltry 5 women killed, does not reach the heights of, for example, the hardest working serial killer in the business, John Wayne Gacy, but for sheer nauseating depravity Jablonski matches up well with any of them you'd care to name.
Jablonski was predictably the victim of an unspeakably brutal childhood - an ineffective mother and a drunken and sadistic father who, to offer an an example, killed a small pig the Jablonski children considered a pet and forced them to eat it. Jablonski the elder also enjoyed strangling his wife until she passed out before having sex with her, and the children were aware of their father's unusual manner of expressing his affection toward their mother.
Young Phillip unsurprisingly became a sexual sadist using his father's teachings as his jumping off point. His first foray into the joys of sex was a failed attempt to rape his younger teenaged sister.
While Jablonski routinely incorporated his father's technique of strangulation to the point of unconsciousness, he livened up his fore - and post - play by, for example, gouging out the eyes of his deceased victims. And in one of his most uniquely tender methods of expressing his affection, Phil would perform what he called the "the swirly", an innovative delight in which, prior to intercourse, he would hold the head of his wife in the toilet and flush it while he was strangling her. Jablonski was married to or had long term relationships with at least three women and it totally amazes me that they stayed with him while being regularly and brutally abused.
Despite his defense attorneys' attempts to portray him as unaware of what he had done while he was doing it, Jablonski carefully planned his attacks, which were committed in the throes of bizarre sexual rage, and afterward made tape recordings describing the events for his later listening pleasure. He also wore his "death belt" on the back of which he carved the names of his victims as well as of women whom he planned to murder. Jablonski's final murder occurred in a small roadside store in Utah. This killing deviated from the pattern of the others in that he walked into the store, saw an large breasted older woman (Jablonski had a thing for "motherly types"), and for no other reason than he felt like it, shot and killed her.

Bortnick has done a fine job in DEADLY URGES. The writing is crisp, professional, and intelligent. The backstory is well done, the research is good, and there is no repetition or filler. DEADLY URGES is not absolute must-read true crime, serial killers unfortunately being a dime-a-dozen by now, but it is certainly recommended to true crime fans.
Just be prepared to be disgusted, even if you think you've already been disgusted as much as you could be disgusted.

This Animal is one of the. . .if not the most piece of scumbag garbage I ever read about, and I have been reading crime books & magazines for forty years.
Jerry Kane
VSI