Customer Reviews

Death Scenes: A Homicide Detective's Scrapbook

5 star:		(23)
4 star:		(12)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

Although the pictures in this book are gruesome and disturbing it's not meant to be laughed at or lusted over by gorehounds. This is not gore for your pleasure.

"Death Scenes" is a presentation of a scrapbook kept by LAPD Homicide Detective Jack Huddleston while he was with the LAPD from 1921 until the early 1950's.

In the forward to the scrapbook he explains "The purpose of this collection of homicide pictures is to show the work of the peace officer and his problems." Then later "...crime does not pay."

This book is not made for all people. Here a brief description of some of the pictures I found most unsettling:

Pg. 58 -59 children who played with dynamite.
Pg. 102 two week old boy with head cut off by mother.
Pg. 73 fifteen year-old boy suicide with gun
Pg. 132 severely mutilated woman
Pg. 137 husband looking at 74 year-old wife who was raped and murdered.

I will never think of the idealistic "good old days" without thinking about the reality of this book.

This book is definately for people who are looking to explore the pictures and scenes of death and crime. The book is comprised completely of pictures from a detectives scrap book--be warned now that there is very little writing in this book. The pictures in the book are fascinating. When you look at the pictures you can almost feel how still and vacant the rooms must have felt at the time the photos were taken. Not all the photos in the book are death scenes, there are many pages of criminal head shots that include an explanation of the person crime under them. This part of the book is really interesting because it lets you get an idea of what the times were like back when the photos were taken. Many of the "crimes" they committed are not so by todays standard. This book is an interesting pictorial reflection on both death and the time period.

Some of the photos in the book are graphic and some photos contain images of sexuality. However, don't think that this book is overly filled with gore. All the pictures are in black and white so the images are not as vivid as the would have been had the moments been recorded on colored film. I think this book is interesting and I would recommend it to anyone who was interested in crime and death scene photos.

This book is wonderful...but not for the faint of heart. There are explicit crime scene photos...all B&W (which probably helps to lessen the graphicness of the pictures).

Many crimes are portrayed: suicide, murder, auto accidents, etc. And there are even pictures and text of things/people that we no longer see as against the law. Such things include lesbians and hermaphrodites. My how times have changed!

An interesting note is that one may notice how different the justice system was just 40 to 60 years ago. Within the text written by the detective, he lists some dates for events such as the arrest or execution of certain individuals. I realized that in the execution cases, the criminal was killed within a year or so from being convicted! Today the minimum jail time before execution is 13 years!

I also wanted to comment on what another reviewer stated about this book...this being the inclusion of images of dead children (and the fact that she wouldn't buy it due to this). These pictures are included, in my opinion, because that is reality! It is not only adults that are killed, or that have violent crimes commited against them. It is naive to think as such. And it is a fact that we all must face. Yes, it is shocking. But it is necessary. Young people die too. We hear about it every day on the news, so why it still remains so shocking is a mystery to me.

All in all, I recommend this book highly to people who are interested in death, crime and related subjects. It's real, straight forward and death IS a part of life.

I rate this book highly because it is honest. It does not pretend to be anything other than what it is: a scapbook containing dozens of photographs of murdered remains, or bodies after suicide, of decapitations and decompositions, of naked bodies diseased or tattooed; it is a gallery of gruesomely altered human physiques. The pictures and their captions have a direct and stirring effect on the gut of the reader, and only later do they permit the reader's reason to come into play. The book's title is true to its contents; its cover is also honest (a sample of what is inside) and the brief introduction by Katherine Dunn is perceptive and functional. That introduction does what an introduction is supposed to do: prepare the reader for what is ahead while furnishing a sensible commentary on the nature of the work. In all this is a neat book, worth having.

I cannot understand the negative comments by some readers concerning "Death Scenes." Surely they were not ambushed into gazing at these (horrible) pictures. They should have known by the title, by the cover, and even by the publisher (Feral House) that this was not a book of, say, children's poems. Much can be learned from "Death Scenes:" it contains great beauty and even some rhapsodic traits which can be perceived once the initial horror has been bypassed. This book should be looked at by those interested in the facts or in the literature of true crime. It is sure to bring pause to those contemplating suicide. "Death Scenes" certainly contains aspects of reality which some will prefer to avoid but which others will incorporate into their view of the world.

To appreciate this book you have to read the preface. There are not many details written about the crimes because the dectective who collected these photos didn't write much about them. Granted, there are a few that have more details than others... but for some of them, you honestly don't want to know what happened. The pictures are in black and white and "grainy" because they were taken in the 30's (I believe) but they have been restored. I think some people just want too much from this book, when everything they need is right there within the pages. It is tastefully done and like I said, if you read the preface you have a better perspective and respect for this book. This isn't a book for the weak stomach or overly sensitive. You just have to take a deep breath and slowly examine the photos. In seeing death, you appreciate life.

Jack Huddleston was a homicide detective for the Los Angeles Police Department from the 20's to the 50's. He collected his photos in a scrapbook now published by Feral House, and it makes for grim reading.

His career started with Prohibition (and the wonderful crimes that it caused) and continued with investigations of all kinds: murders, suicides, car accidents, and even babies killed by poor desperate mothers. In LA there were no good old days.

These pictures are not for the squeamish. They do, however, reflect the values of the society in LA at the time. Immigrants from all over were rushing to seek their fortunes (and misfortunes) in a society that worships success and scorns failure. The criminal gangs and the suicides were two sides of the same coin.

This is probably the most captivating gore book ever published. Jack Huddleston was an LAPD officer from 1921 to the early 1950's who kept a scrapbook of hundreds of black and white photos showing all variety of horrible: accidents, suicides, murders, illness, execution, and other oddities that must have captivated his fevered imagination. Many of the images are disturbingly graphic - and all the more disturbing when accompanied by Huddleston's plain, "just the facts, ma'am" captions. Addresses are included with many of the images - which makes me wonder how shocking it would be to be looking through the book and see that your kitchen was the site of a grisly baby beheading in 1943. Yes, these are the sort of things that I ponder while falling asleep at night...

I am not a sicko, and in response to one users review, "prepared to dance with the devil". I study the human mind and bought this book for a paper I wrote. In looking at these pictures, I could feel what it must have been like for the officers to come onto the scene of the crime. I could stomach most of the pictures (but had a hard time with the child photos). I got a small glimpse of how sick the human mind can be. No sane person would commit these acts. Not for the fragile human.

I admit I bought this book out of a sense of curiosity more than anything else. What I got was the printed equivalent of a nasty car accident - you know it's going to give you nightmares but you just have to slow down and look anyway. I gave this book three stars beause I can't honestly say I "enjoyed" it, but I was very unsettled by it. Warning - there are several pictures here of murdered infants and children; wish I had known this in advance, as I am pregnant and I can't get those painful images out of my mind.

If you want the unglossed truth about what violent death looks like, this is the book to buy. It doesn't need to be in color to be graphic - the b&w is detailed enough. Good documentation, but with too much emphasis on the shock value.

This book is a compilation of one man's collection of crime scene photos from Los Angeles throughout the 40's and 50's. The images are very graphic and let us see images we never would get to see unless we were members of the protective services. The black and white images somewhat create the illusion that what we see isn't quite real, although we know better. There is just enough information to understand the scenes. In my opinion, this is the best crim scene photo book available on the market.