The Devil’s Right-Hand Man: The True Story of Serial Killer Robert Charles Browne (Hardcover)
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Now available in paperback and on Kindle.
Praise for “The Devil’s Right-Hand Man”
“…this unsettling account of the man who may be one of the country’s most prolific serial killers is a must-read for true-crime fans.” — Publishers Weekly
“…the meticulous details included here are as riveting as an episode of CSI.” — Rocky Mountain News
“Having taunted authorities with a cryptic message claiming he had 49 total victims, Browne gleefully conversed with Hess, Smit, and company, sometimes spewing riddles but eventually giving up the gory details of his many crimes, which makes his story stand out amid recent true-crime titles.” — Booklist
The Devil’s Right-Hand Man
“The score is you one, the other team forty-eight.” With that enigmatic taunt, murderer Robert Charles Browne launched a sporadic, six-year dialogue with Colorado Springs investigators. The clues, some in rhyming verse, were cryptic and maddeningly vague — “seven sacred virgins side by side,” a white Grand Am, “a body in parts” — and hinted at a 25-year, cross-country killing spree. Was Browne, who was serving a life sentence without parole for the 1991 murder of a 13-year-old Colorado girl, merely playing games or was he one of the most prolific serial killers of modern times?
Browne’s initial letters from prison languished in the district attorney’s files until three volunteers, tasked to organize cold cases for the El Paso County sheriff, decided to stir the pot. As the volunteers — a 60-year-old retired newspaper publisher, a famed 70-year-old homicide detective and an 80-year-old former FBI agent, parsed riddles and kept Browne talking, sheriffs investigators went to work running down the wispy leads. Their search took them to Louisiana, where one of Browne’s next-door neighbors was stabbed to death in her bed and another went permanently missing, to Texas where Sugarland investigators found Browne’s detailed description of a dismembered body eerily exact, and to New Mexico where Browne’s account of a roadside shooting led state police to an unidentified skull stored in a forensic locker. Ultimately, their work uncovered a Colorado Springs murder, unknown to authorities, and with Browne’s confession, brought closure to a heart-breaking case.