Blood Trail

The acclaimed true-crime classic that delves into the twisted mind of a serial killer—updated with a new afterword by the only police detective the killer would talk to.


Joseph Weldon Brown confessed to more than a dozen murders across seven states. He was convicted and sentenced for killing a woman whose body he dismembered and scattered across three Indiana counties. In prison, he hogtied and strangled his cellmate, then asked the judge to lock him up for life because if he was released, he would continue killing.

Police detective Rick Reed was on the scene when Brown led authorities to the scattered remains of Ginger Gasaway in 2000. After Brown’s arrest, he confessed to a shocking number of other heinous crimes—the torture and murders of drifters and sex workers, the cold case of a naked woman’s body found in a roadside ditch, even the murder of his own mother. Detective Reed was the one man Brown opened up to—and the only one to cut through the deceptions and lies and learn the terrible truth . . .

In this newly updated edition, now-retired detective Reed reveals his personal theories and insights into one of the darkest minds he has ever encountered—and one of the most terrifying crime stories ever told . . .