House of Secrets

The epic case of horrific family dysfunction and the psychopathic mastermind whose reign of terror and abuse could only lead to brutal murder . . . For years, Eddie Lee Sexton ruled his large family like Charles Manson. The depraved patriarch dominated his ragged brood of 12 children mentally, physically, and sexually, and enforced every cruelty imaginable, from vicious beatings to raping his daughters and fathering their children. Finally, in 1992, Sexton's 18-year-old daughter Machelle, seeking refuge in a women's shelter, revealed the shocking, sordid details of her father's abuse to authorities. As the law attempted to catch up to Eddie Lee Sexton, he moved his family to a mobile home in western Florida. Ultimately, Sexton's efforts to escape prosecution led to two grisly murders in his own family. Yet Sexton's sick genius almost helped him elude the justice he deserved. Lowell Cauffiel's true-crime masterpiece vividly exposes the horrors of Eddie Lee Sexton's psychosis and the shattered lives of those who survived. ';An odyssey into American pathology. Deeply disturbing.' Detroit Free Press ';A balanced and grimly engaging true-crime account.' Publishers Weekly ';Cauffiel knows how to dramatize true crime.' Elmore Leonard Contains16 pages of photos.