Marissa A. Harrison's "Just as Deadly"

Marissa A. Harrison is a research psychologist, author, and associate professor at Penn State Harrisburg. Her studies on serial murder and human sexuality have been covered in popular media such as The Washington Post, The New Yorker, and Time.

Harrison applied the "Page 99 Test" to her new book, Just as Deadly: The Psychology of Female Serial Killers, and reported the following:

Readers opening Just as Deadly: The Psychology of Female Serial Killers to page 99 will get an accurate and disturbing snapshot of what the book is all about. Page 99 continues the case study of female serial killer (FSK) Rhonda Belle Martin. Using arsenic, she murdered six people—three of her children, two of her husbands, and her own mother. She told authorities, "I don't know why I did it. I don't understand it. I loved my family. I guess I loved them to death." A psychiatrist testified she had schizophrenia. (I must emphasize, however, that most people with mental illness do not harm anyone.)

The Page 99 Test works very well for my book. Page 99 features a FSK, the crime, the victims, and the mental state of the murderer. According to consistent feedback I have received from readers or audience members, these are the most sought out details. Moreover, presenting the heinous crimes of Rhonda Belle Martin—the murder of six people close to her—illustrates my point that women can be just as deadly as men.

I don't know that I could have found a single, better page to represent the entire book. In Just as Deadly, as a research psychologist, I aimed to present the data I collected over the years about the backgrounds, crimes, motives, and victims of FSKs. Whereas some people believe that women are incapable of such heinous acts, evidence speaks loudly to the contrary—as shown on page 99. Further, I delve into the psychology of why someone might go down the dark path of becoming a murderer. I explore traumagenic, clinical, historical, cultural, and biological contributions to serial murder. Further, as I am a science writer, there are over 1200 references/footnotes in the book, making this a fact-based effort. It is important for the reader to know that, whereas the themes herein are disturbing, I do not sensationalize. We remember that there were real victims of these terrible crimes.

Visit Marissa A. Harrison's website.

--Marshal Zeringue