Guilty Creatures: Sex, God, and Murder in Tallahassee, Florida

From critically acclaimed author Mikita Brottman, a true ＂psychological thriller as intricately organized as a Hitchcock movie＂ (Madison Smartt Bell, author All Souls’ Rising) about sex, religion, and murder in the deep South.

Mike and Denise Williams had a tight knit, seemingly unbreakable bond with childhood friends, Brian and Kathy Winchester. The two couples were devout, hardworking Baptists who lived perfect, quintessentially Southern lives. Their friendship seemed ironclad. That is, until December 16, 2000, when Denise’s husband Mike disappeared while hunting on Lake Seminole.

After no body was found, everyone assumed that Mike had drowned in a tragic accident, his body eaten by alligators. But things took an unexpected turn when, within five years of Mike’s disappearance, Brian Winchester divorced his wife and married Denise. Their surprising romance set tongues talking. People began wondering how long they had been a couple, and whether they had anything to do with Mike’s death. It took another twelve years for the truth to come out--and when it did, it was unimaginable.

Now, the full, ＂richly atmospheric, deeply researched, and terrifying true crime＂ (Betsy Bonner, author of Round Lake) tale is revealed as never before. Through tenacious research and clear-eyed prose, Guilty Creatures probes the psychology of a couple who killed and explores how it feels to live for eighteen years with murder on the soul.

Mikita Brottman is a writer and psychoanalyst living in Baltimore, Maryland. Her book, An Unexplained Death, was shortlisted for the Gold Dagger Award for nonfiction by the Crime Writers Association of the UK. She has a DPhil from Oxford University and is a professor of literature at the Maryland Institute College of Art.