Review of Ann Rule’s A Fever In The Heart

Plot: The main idea of this book was writing a true-life story and analyzing how two famous serial killers, James Ruzicka and Carl Harp, had very similar lives. They were mirror images of each other. “A Fever In The Heart” by Ann Rule, started off with their important facts and events from their childhood to their adulthood. These two serial killers were so similar that they were bond to be together.

They met in a jail cell and soon became allies. Some similarities they had were that they both had mothers that weren’t really considered an adult figure and they both didn’t have a love of a father. Other examples were that they were only a year a part; both started having sexual interests at a very young age (6 or 7). These common situations both brought them to killing women. Both had the capacity to be charming and can have a harmless appearance. They both shared an alias known as “Troy Asin. James Ruzicka would catch women from the ages of 15 to their 20s by putting a sharp object around their neck and telling them that his brother had been shot by random people and that he needed help. He would then bring them to an abandoned place and then proceed to rape and kill them. Carl Harp was on a hill where you can see the view of interstate 405 freeway and started shooting random drivers. He also raped two hitchhikers threatening them that if they would not cooperate he would shoot them with his riffle. After that he let the girls go and in a couple of days later he was arrested and convicted for life in jail.

Main Characters: James Ruzicka and Carl Harp – convicted serial killers and rapists of the 1970s Table: Evidence| Test Preformed| Results| Fishing knife| Blood Testing | Same weapon used to kill the victim| White draperies| None| Proven Ruzicka had stolen it from his ex wife| Towels| None| One of the items Ruzicka had stolen from his ex wife| Riffle| None| Same gun Carl used to kill drivers on the free way| Evaluation: 1. The role of forensics science in this case was to collect enough evidence as possible to convict to serial killers that had used the same alias and to know who did what. 2.

I think the police did as much of a god job as they could because their wasn’t a lot of advanced technologies as there is now like DNA testing. 3. If I headed this investigation I would of done a lot more with the evidence I had. I could of done blood testing, DNA testing, fingerprint analysis, and created an M. O. for these two killers. I would also make sure I had as much of security I could have around the areas where victims were murdered. Possibly a grid search when one murder scene was in the woods. 4. This crime was in the 1970s and new forensics tests that would have helped solve the crime would have been DNA and fingerprints testing.

These two tests would of definitely help find the murderers and convict them in a lower amount of time it took them to. Evidence they found around the crime scenes were fishing knife that would of have enough fingerprints, clothes from the raped victims that would of have DNA evidence like hair, nails, semen, etc. 5. My suspects were guilty and the evidence was more than enough evidence to support the guilty verdict. Rate the book: Amount of evidence| 5| Appropriate use of evidence| 5| Accuracy of evidence| 5| Performance of police or CSI| 4| Writing style (ease of reading)| 5| Recommended for future forensic students| 5|