Shadows of Evil: Long-haul Trucker Wayne Adam Ford and His Grisly Trail of Rape, Dismemberment, and Murder (True Crime (St. Martin's Paperbacks)) [Mass Market Paperback]

Carlton Smith (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 7, 2005 | Series: True Crime (St. Martin's Paperbacks)

Claiming he'd been sent by God to confess, truck driver Wayne Adam Ford walked into the Humbolt County Sheriff's Office and admitted to them that he was a serial killer. After police found a gruesome piece of evidence in Ford's pocket, he told them that he had to be stopped before he killed again, before he murderer his ex-wife, and made his beloved three-year-old son an orphan. Authorities arrested the long-haul trucker and listened in horror to his startling confession...

Ford was a long-distance trucker who had traveled fourteen western states. Prowling the highways in his big rig tractor-trailer, he picked up young, vulnerable women and then raped, killed, and dismembered them. He scattered some of their bodies in waterways along the road. He parts of others for over a year in the freezer of his trailer home. Learn the shocking truth in this chilling account of madness, depravity, and murder...

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

A CHILLING CONFESSION
Claiming he'd been sent by God to confess, truck driver Wayne Adam Ford walked into the Humbolt County Sheriff's Office and admitted to them that he was a serial killer. After police found a gruesome piece of evidence in Ford's pocket, he told them that he had to be stopped before he killed again, before he murderer his ex-wife, and made his beloved three-year-old son an orphan. Authorities arrested the long-haul trucker and listened in horror to his startling confession...

A PSYCHO KILLER ON THE ROAD
Ford was a long-distance trucker who had traveled fourteen western states. Prowling the highways in his big rig tractor-trailer, he picked up young, vulnerable women and then raped, killed, and dismembered them. He scattered some of their bodies in waterways along the road. He parts of others for over a year in the freezer of his trailer home. Learn the shocking truth in this chilling account of madness, depravity, and murder...

About the Author

CARLTON SMITH was an award-winning journalist for The Los Angeles Times and The Seattle Times in the 1970s and 1980s. A finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in investigative reporting in 1988, he now works full-time as a true crime author. He lives in San Francisco.

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Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: St. Martin's Paperbacks (February 7, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312978871
• ISBN-13: 978-0312978877
• Product Dimensions: 6.6 x 4 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 2.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #321,335 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Terribly boring, August 31, 2002

By A Customer

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This review is from: Shadows of Evil: Long-haul Trucker Wayne Adam Ford and His Grisly Trail of Rape, Dismemberment, and Murder (True Crime (St. Martin's Paperbacks)) (Mass Market Paperback)

I am a lawyer who works in the criminal area, and I have read dozens and dozens of true-crime books, several by Carlton Smith. But this one takes the cake as the worst I've ever read. The first part of the book (it literally took me several days to get through the first 50 pages) does nothing but try to justify why the book was written way before sufficient facts were known to make a complete and interesting book. Smith spends a lot of time talking about the law of jurisdiction, when and why documents can or should be kept under seal, etc. Then when he finally gets around to the characters of the story, he constantly indicates that he's not sure he's telling it like it was. For example, "Sometime in perhaps the mid-1970's, when Wayne was 14 or so, he was caught breaking into a store in Napa and referred to juvenile court. Because records of juvenile offenses are routinely destroyed in the state of California after ten years, there is no way to know for certain exactly what happened. It appears, however, that..." This is pretty typical writing in this book. The criminal records are sealed. The juvenile records are sealed. The divorce records are sealed. Some cases just require that, I know. But those cases are probably just not ripe for a book. It appears to me that Carlton Smith wanted to have the first book out on Wayne Adam Ford, whether it was a good one or not -- God forbid Ann Rule should get the story first! Well, this time I think I'll wait for hers. You should too.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars True Crime at its Worst & sloppy journalism, June 26, 2003

By 

Mary "Red Hybrid" (Colorado) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Shadows of Evil: Long-haul Trucker Wayne Adam Ford and His Grisly Trail of Rape, Dismemberment, and Murder (True Crime (St. Martin's Paperbacks)) (Mass Market Paperback)

The author spends a lot of his time trying to take the blame away from Woods by saying everything he's done is behaviour that could be caused from a head injury. He neglects to mention that the same behaviors could also be caused from a psychosis. He didn't have enough interviews or information about Woods to write an accurate account on the murders by Woods either. This is because the case hadn't gone to trial when the book was written and there was a gag order in place to ensure a fair trial. The author chose to write the book anyway, jeopardizing the trial. That is poor journalism. He should've waited until after the trial was over to write the book. This is a truly disappointing book. The whole book is spent blaming everyone involved in the investigation and trying to explain why Woods in NOT guilty (even though he confessed). I got the feeling the author was angry at the authorities for not bending over backwards to help him write this book and therefore used the book to try and make them look bad.

14 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars don't waste your money, August 13, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Shadows of Evil: Long-haul Trucker Wayne Adam Ford and His Grisly Trail of Rape, Dismemberment, and Murder (True Crime (St. Martin's Paperbacks)) (Mass Market Paperback)

Absolutely awful. The author begins with a treatise justifying true crime writing in such a defensive posture that the reader wonders just what happened to this guy, whose previous books, while not top notch, were adequate for the genre.

He then relates in extra-excruciating detail his attempts to gain access to records he should know are not available to the public. Then he denigrates all of the uncooperative officials who were just doing their job by following the letter of the law.

There follows an incredibly incomplete description of the principals. The only person to get a break is the defendant. If I had seen the words "brain damage" supposedly caused by a period of unconsciousness caused by a routine auto accident one more time, I would have screamed out loud, and at length.

Awful.