Till Death Do Us Part: Love, Marriage, and the Mind of the Killer Spouse

by Robi Ludwig and Matt Birkbeck

Book Overview

The first book chronicling the psychological profiles of spouses who kill--from Scott Peterson to Rabbi Fred Neulander--told by a renowned psychotherapist who specializes in spousal behavior and the... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 074327508X
• ISBN13: 9780743275088
• Release Date: March 2006
• Publisher: Atria Books
• Length: 234 Pages
• Weight: 0.97 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 6.4" x 9.5"

Customer Reviews

Rethinking the marriage vows

Plan on finishing this book once you start reading it. Not only are you given a factual account of the crime, you are also presented with the psychological analysis for the motivation. Each chapter chronicles a different psychosis, providing the reader with a clinical view of the criminal's state of mind. Incredibly insightful and compelling.

Outstanding work!

Robi Ludwig has written a fantastic book for her audience and others who may want to get a high level and engaging view of stories that captivate international audiences. A fast read, this book reviews more than a dozen cases of spousal murder that have happened in recent history and discusses the psychological underpinnings that lead to this sort of marital termination. Ludwig reviews murder cases with more depth than a typical newspaper expose' or magazine article but does not become suffocatingly clinical. Building on her early history of work with every day americans as a social worker and her post PHD relationship counseling practice in Manhattan, Dr. Ludwig interviewed and got first hand knowledge of many of the people discussed in her book. Only by seeing the extremes of what mental or sociopathic illness can do to relationships can we diagnose the inflection points and unhealthy relationship practices that lead to familial and societal breakdown. Like some of the reviewers here, I also have several degrees from Ivy League institutions and am the son of a psychiatric nurse. I found her academic treatment of the topic for introductory purposes, EXCELLENT!

I Found it Fascinating

I found this book to be totally fascinating. From the first sentence in the Prologue: 'Each day six people are murdered in the U.S. by a spouse or intimate partner.' Today a headline in the local paper talked about two soldiers killed in Iraq. Why is there nothing in the paper about three times as many people being killed as what's going on in Iraq? In the overall murder rates in the country there are far more men killers than there are women. Yet in spousal murder, Dr. Ludwig says, 41% of the murders are by women murdering men. That's almost half. Wow! In her analysis of numerous people who have killed their spouses she breaks them down by various personality traits. The bad part of that is that we all have some of these traits. You can't help but look at some of the traits and wonder about your own spouse. (I'm, of course perfect, but her....) After reading what Dr. Ludwig has to say I'm a bit surprised that there are only six a day.

Smart and thought provoking

All you can ask of a book is that it keeps your interest and when you're finished it lingers with you. Till Death Do Us Part does both, and then some. Dr. Ludwig gives us the Reader's Digest versions of the tragic and violent cases she uses to explain her ten motivations, which are well thought out and presented in an understandable way. They are fascinating and needless to say I now look at my spouse in a whole different light. Ludwig adds credibility by co-authoring with Matt Birkbeck, an investigative journalist who wrote very good books on millionaire killer Robert Durst and Sharon Marshall. Both were well researched. The Sharon Marshall book, called A Beautiful Child, I still cry over. Ludwig/Birkbeck present an equally credible book that can be used as a foundation to analyze your own relationship. Highly recommended

Empowered Mom

I don't know Nancy Grace but I HAVE read Matt Birbeck's other book A BEAUTIFUL CHILD. I'm sure the threesome of Birbeck/Grace/Ludwig covered all the bases because they had me glued after the first few pages. After reading this book...Oh MY GOD...I wonder if ANYONE REALLY knows their partner as well as they think! Another concession I made after reading this book is that all of us have a darkness inside of us that can, in the right circumstances, be brought out. Kudos to all three! Well written! I will look to read their other books in the future!