Wednesday, June 26, 2013

Book 103: By Their Father's Hand / The True Story of the Wesson Family Massacre by Monte Francis


True crime is not normally my genre of choice, but I saw this at the library and needed a beach book short notice and it grabbed my curiosity. I have always been a fan of the macabre, but this book took macabre to a new level. 
I'm not sure where to start.
The Wesson family lived in California, in and around the Fresno area. They were an enormous family - 12 people, I think - and they all lived together in campsites, on a defunct freighter, and in a storefront property. Marcus Wesson, father, led them from one place to another, living on welfare checks and foodstamps to keep the family afloat. Wesson was father to all, uncle and husband to some, grandfather and father to others. He had sexual relations with all of his daughters and nieces with his wife's permission. Eventually, he was responsible in some way for their deaths, either committing the murders himself or orchestrating and carrying out a family murder-suicide plan.
Believe it or not, this story gets weirder, but I'll let you discover this for yourself. It was not a pleasant book to read, although it gripped me from the outset. 



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