Customer Reviews

Flesh Collectors: Their Ghoulish Appetites Drove Them to Crimes that Only Began With Murder

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If you want to know what's going on in the dark corners of America's nightmare, just check out the latest Fred Rosen true crime. Rosen, who wrote 'Lobster Boy' among others, is one of the best unsung true crime writers doing it today.

I couldn't believe the depravity of the two killers, Rodgers and Lawrence, or the way, Rosen held me spellbound as he cut back and forth between the killers and soon to be victims.

In the end, I really was moved to tears by Rosen's descriptive compassion for the victims, and the way Rodgers and Lawrence seemed fated for death.

Fred Rosen writes an interesting book about the true case of Jeremiah Rodgers and Jonathan Lawrence who are involved in the gruesome murders of young adults, Justin Livingston, and Jennifer Robinson. It's not how they killed them but what they did afterwards. Fortunately, Rosen does explain their backgrounds which helps understand their lack of empathy and sympathy for their chosen victims. The crimes occurred in the Florida Panhandle near Pensacola. I didn't know that they called this part of Florida as the Lower Alabama since it's below the Alabama borders and that residents have been descendents of confederates and can go back generations in their family history. The criminals had disturbing backgrounds and the author paints most of it well while he also explains the geographic background. But I felt that the author could further explain the depraved minds of these two criminals and why society didn't stop them when they could. Like their victims, the criminals were treated and discarded like garbage by the system. Still there's no excuse for their horrific crimes together. The author tries to explain the criminals background which helps the reader understand how they could be so depraved enough to come up with such crimes in the first place.
In the end, it's about Justin and Jennifer and the two young men who took their lives away from their families.

This book is junk. It doesn't take an Einstein to realize that if there is a spelling error on the second page ("hurrican"), there is a problem as far as the writing and/or editing of the book is concerned. Author Rosen frequently goes off on tangents about other similar killers which don't add much and there are 15 pages of excerpts from his other books at the end to pad out the book's length. Typical with Pinnacle true crime books, there are several nauseating pictures. At one point, there is a character introduced -- Wesley, brother of one of the two mentally-disturbed white trash the book is about -- and I have no idea about his history in the family! Terrible.

My name is Ryan. Leighton Smitherman, one of the victims in the book,is my uncle. Please read this book, I WILL BE CHECKING BACK TO THIS PAGE TO SEE WHAT YOU THINK.

First off, let me say that this book was a total flop in every way, shape, and form. I'll admit that I was intrigued when I read that one of the killers was a racist devil worshiper (I'm morbid. Sorry.) However, Fred Rosen has no idea what he's writing about. Jonathan Lawrence, one of the murderers, owned a copy of the "Satanic Bible," and because of this, Rosen claims that the boy worshiped the devil. Nothing could be further from the truth. La Vey's Satanic Bible has nothing to do with worshiping an external deity and Rosen failed to do his homework when it came to getting the facts straight. True, Lawrence was a detached sociopath who murdered three individuals without any sense of remorse, but blaming Satanism was clearly a cop out on everyone's part. Satanism (at least the La Veyan tradition) explicitly forbids the taking of human life, something which the killers did many times. Jeremiah Rogers, the other half of the Rogers-Lawrence duo, was a physically unattractive neanderthal who Rosen repeatedly refers to as "good-looking." You've seen the cover -- he's not even slightly attractive. Sloppy, poor, and terribly uncreative are the best words I can use to describe Rosen's writing style. The book was a major disappointment on many levels and I would highly recommend that it be passed over completely.