The Last Victim: A True-Life Journey into the Mind of the Serial Killer [Hardcover]

Jason Moss (Author), Jeffrey Kottler (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0446523402 | ISBN-13: 978-0446523400 | Publication Date: April 1, 1999 | Edition: 1st

The twisted, but fascinating, mind of a serial killer is revealed with terrifying consequences in this astonishing and shocking exploration. with 20 b&w photos.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Jason Moss was a very strange boy: an overachiever, always looking for some challenge, some new way to excel. In his studies, in sports, and, for some reason that he can never explain comprehensibly, seducing serial killers into telling him their secrets. His first "project" was John Wayne Gacy. Moss sent carefully crafted letters to Gacy in which he portrayed himself as a young, naive, insecure gay man who could be easily manipulated. Gacy was suspicious and put Moss through harrowing emotional tests before surrendering his trust, but Moss came out ahead. Gacy fell head over heels for Moss, replying with graphic and disturbing letters instructing him to commit depraved acts for Gacy's vicarious thrills. Moss led him on, convincing Gacy that he was doing these things, but somehow this victory wasn't sufficient. So he extended his efforts to include other jailed killers. Although he experienced some success, amassing a disturbing collection of documents--including detailed sexual prose from Jeffrey Dahmer, disjointed ramblings from Charles Manson, and awkward, violent illustrations from "Night Stalker" Richard Ramirez--his closest relationship was always with Gacy, whom he eventually visited in prison, where even the unflappable Moss learned fear.

The Last Victim challenges the reader to understand not only the twisted psychology of serial killers who kill for pleasure but why and how a young, seemingly bright and healthy young man such as Jason Moss could create such elaborate schemes to ingratiate himself with them. Moss puts his own safety and well-being on the line time and time again, simply to gain these men's trust, to coerce from them some understanding of what makes them do the things they do. And the book gives readers the opportunity to gain this insight without providing serial killers their home addresses--not a bad deal, overall. --Lisa Higgins

From Publishers Weekly

The subtitle is a slight bit of misdirection: Moss offers us a journey into his own mind, into the mind of someone obsessed with the minds of serial killers. As a UNLV freshman, he corresponded with John Wayne Gacy, then on Death Row. He also accepted collect calls from Gacy, who attempted to talk him into committing incest with his younger brother. Enthralled by his proximity to sociopathology, Moss expanded his list of "psycho pen pals" to include Charles Manson, Richard Ramirez (aka the Night Stalker) and Jeffrey Dahmer. His impulse was to get inside the criminal mind. To do so, he sometimes found it necessary to tailor the truth about himself to fit what he felt the killers wanted to hear: he claimed to be the "grand priest of a cult" in his letters to Ramirez. Despite suffering nightmares triggered by his grisly correspondents, Moss, after contacting the FBI agent who handled Gacy, flew to Illinois to spend his spring break "alone in a locked, unmonitored room with a psychopath who'd raped, tortured, and strangled many boys just like me." Moss succeeds in contrasting his family life and his prisoner contacts, but the insight he offers into the internal logic of the serial killing mind is limited. Moreover, some readers will wonder about his own motivations, especially when he holds forth about the market value of Dahmer's autograph and otherwise participates in the strange, ghoulish culture of serial killer celebrity. Psychotherapist Kottler, one of Moss's UNLV instructors, contributes both a prologue and an afterword. Eight pages of drawings and photos. Major ad/promo.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 304 pages
• Publisher: Grand Central Publishing; 1st edition (April 1, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0446523402
• ISBN-13: 978-0446523400
• Product Dimensions: 6.4 x 1 x 9.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (244 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #35,602 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #57 in Books > Biographies & Memoirs > Regional U.S. > West
  • #100 in Books > Biographies & Memoirs > Specific Groups > Criminals

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

27 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Not the last word on the subject ..., May 11, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: The Last Victim: A True-Life Journey into the Mind of the Serial Killer (Mass Market Paperback)

The idea--of assuming a false identity to entice serial killers into intimate, self-revealing correspondence--is great. Unfortunately, the execution (no pun intended) of this idea fell a bit short for me. While the writing is engaging and humorous, I found myself wishing that the book were more inclusive in its breadth and depth. For example, I think a book about this letter-writing project would be ten times more intriguing if it reproduced all the letters written on both sides, complete and unabridged, rather than just including the occasional excerpt here and there. This level of disclosure seems reasonable at least in the case of killers who have since died (e.g., Gacy). To show the full correspondence would allow readers to draw their own conclusions about the killer's mind as well as about the dynamic evolving between the correspondents.

Second, I think the book would be greatly improved by focusing on just one serial killer, Gacy, since that is apparently the only relationship that was ever really developed, and the author's correspondence with the other the other killers is so brief and incomplete as to be a distraction rather than an enhancement to the main interest.

I also would have enjoyed a deeper, subtler, and more complex (hence more haunting) analysis by the author as to how his contact with the killers (Gacy in particular) came to work itself on his own psyche--and how it brought the author into contact with his own dark side. The author conveys his own presence in mostly light, glib, and humorous tones, repeatedly implying that he himself is "normal" and thus capable of empathizing with the killers only up to a point. Surely an author with this particular fascination, and with Moss' obvious intelligence and imagination for getting a feel for unusual personalities, must have a fair amount of psychological meanness in his own shadow in order to recognize it in others. For example, it was clear to me throughout--though never seriously considered by the author--that the author shared with his killer pals the following personality characteristics: a gift for and a delight in deception, manipulation, and mental game-playing; the propensity to regard others (his correspondents) as objects to be toyed with for his own amusement; a love of control, of maintaining a one-up, omniscient/omnipotent, and predatory position vis-a-vis the other; and the arrogance of thinking he can pull off the "perfect crime."

I give the book 4 stars because it's a great concept and the writing is capable and entertaining as far as it goes. But I can't give it 5 stars because an altogether deeper and more serious account of the project would have taken it so much farther!

Maybe when the author is older he can rethink the material and come up with a more substantial version of this experience which is very unusual and worth telling.

19 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars The Last Victim Revisited, July 16, 2006

By 

V. T. Reynolds "ravenous reader" (Las Vegas, NV USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Last Victim: A True-Life Journey into the Mind of the Serial Killer (Mass Market Paperback)

I read this book when it was originally published. I knew the author and his family quite well so my mind was probably more receptive to it being a "great" book. Alas, upon re-reading it, I realize that it is not a "great" book at all but a fairly mediocre one. It is obviously written by a "first time" author and has an almost child-like narrative form. To give credit where it is due, however, it is nonetheless, disturbing and the guy had guts. I am sad to report that the author took his own life in early June of this year. That is the reason that I decided to read this book again to see if I could find any insight into why he would do this tragic thing...I think I did.

47 of 58 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars The Last Victim? How about the Biggest Ego?, June 7, 2000

By 

"meliss6776" - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Last Victim: A True-Life Journey into the Mind of the Serial Killer (Mass Market Paperback)

I was not sure whether this book was intended to be an insight into the mind of a killer, or a self-congratulations to the author on his supreme intelligence. While the subject matter of the book itself was very intersting, I was so overcome with dislike for the author that it ruined the entire book. This book is riddled with stories and comments regarding the defendant's intelligence and how "even as a teenager adults were always underestimating him" complete with a story on how he got one over on a stupid adult. Further, he repeatedly criticizes his parents, the same parents who seem to be funding his college education, all the while explaining how intelligent he is and what a wonderful, if over-protective brother he has always been. He is in fact so overprotective that he provides not one, but many serial killers their home address. Including Richard Ramirez, who maintains contact with many satanic cults, including those in the Las Vegas area, where Jason Moss and his lucky family reside. He even goes so far as to communicate with John Gacy while impersonating his brother. Wow, we should all be so fortunate as to have a relative who brings serial killers into our lives. It is bad enough that he is so ignorant as to believe that he can risk involving himself with these persons, but to involve your family and, in particular a younger sibling is disgraceful. Finally, I find it extemely offensive that he refers to himself as the Last Victim, in particular John Wayne Gacy's Last Victim. He is his own victim and until his ego recedes some, he will probably remain so.