Murderer with a Badge: 2The Secret Life of a Rogue Cop (True Crime) - Hardcover

Humes, Edward

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0525934987 ISBN 13: 9780525934981

Publisher: Dutton Adult, 1992

Synopsis

An account of the traffic cop who moonlighted as a killer describes how William Leasure carefully planned three murders and stole a string of luxury yachts worth more than two million dollars. National ad/promo. Tour.

About this title

Review:

As a Los Angeles police offer, Bill Leasure was so lacking in ambition that he was content to be a traffic cop who hardly ever gave out tickets. As a thief, he ran six-figure scams stealing yachts, and collected guns and cars, but also stockpiled worthless goods such as other people's linens. He was involved in murder for hire, but didn't pull the trigger himself, and never seemed to care much about the outcome. Was he a thrill seeker? Did he get off on hanging out with criminals and planning elaborate schemes? As the New York Times writes, "In Murderer with a Badge, Edward Humes presents us with a puzzle.... Despite [his] admirable assembling of the facts, the secret of William Leasure remains inviolate." Perhaps the "secret" is that "Mild Bill" is the type of psychopath who's so completely self-contained and empty on the inside that there is no secret. Even Leasure's savvy wife, a city prosecutor, was bamboozled by him. Murderer with a Badge is a well-crafted, absorbing story.

From Publishers Weekly:

One can hardly imagine a a more unlikely criminal than William Leasure: bland and passive, the Los Angeles Traffic Division cop who never fired his gun on the job and usually gave lectures rather than tickets was nicknamed Mild Bill by his fellow officers. But from the mid-1970s to the mid-1980s he masterminded at least three contract killings, played a major role in the theft of several yachts and made off with vintage Corvettes. When he was arrested in 1986 aboard a stolen yacht, his co-workers simply could not believe him guilty of theft, and when his seedier associates tied him to the murders, they were absolutely staggered. Humes, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, relates the obviously complex case lucidly and dramatically, combining painstaking research and hair-trigger pacing. Like his Buried Secrets , this book is a noteworthy contribution to the true-crime genre. Photos not seen by PW.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Dutton Adult
• Publication date: 1992
• ISBN 10: 0525934987
• ISBN 13: 9780525934981
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 464