Cruel Death

By: M. William Phelps

Narrated by: J. Charles

Length: 11 hrs and 18 mins

Publisher's Summary

A life gone murderously wrong...

Erika Sifrit was once a high school basketball star and an honors student. Then she married Navy SEAL Benjamin Sifrit. Some say Erika was abused by "B.J." Some say she pulled his strings. But by the time they reached Ocean City, MD, Erika was packing a gun in her Coach bag and was caught in the grips of a new American death ride...

A trail of blood and body parts...

In the sun-kissed, sea-swept resort town, a loving couple crossed paths with Erika and B.J. Sifrit. Shortly thereafter, Erika was wearing a bloody wedding ring on her necklace, while what remained of two dismembered vacationers was buried in a Delaware landfill, and a modern-day "Bonnie and Clyde" story was being written - a lurid tale of madness, money, sex , and murder...

©2009 M. William Phelps (P)2009 Brilliance Audio, Inc.

Extremely poor reader.

I always enjoy this author but cannot listen to this reader. I sincerely hope he has not been involved with any other of the numerous books I have purchased. Since I was unable to listen to the book I cannot rate the overall and story categorizes fairly. What a disappointment!!
Sincerely cccm.

Too much repetition!

I really didn't care for this story. The amount of unnecessary back and forth dialogue during the trial and the narrator with his ridiculous voice changes, made this almost UNBEARABLE. I couldn't wait for the end.
Trust me on this, save your credit.

Sick Kids

Sick kids, bizarre events. Poor narration hides writing skill - but not enough to make it good

Bleeding from the ears!!

Would you try another book from M. William Phelps and/or J. Charles?

I will never listen to another book narrated by J. Charles. While Phelps is great (on tv, true crime shows, etc.) he chooses a really awful narrator that makes the entire book a two thumbs down. Charles makes this book boring, monotone and I find my mind wandering to everything but the story. The narrator is unable to capture emotion, a shame to the victims their story is lost. I could not even finish more than three hours.

What didn’t you like about J. Charles’s performance?

BOORING! Makes this book very boring, hard to follow and focus. I notice also this is the same narrator he uses for all his books. What a waste because I will never be able to listen to any of the others.

You didn’t love this book... but did it have any redeeming qualities?

After three hours I couldn't stand anymore of the narrator so I guess not.

Any additional comments?

Don't waste your money or your credit.

I usually like this author but...

This story was too over the top for me...and I listen to endless true crime! Too gory and too much needless graphic sex talk read from letters. But the worst thing was the narrator's voices where he tried to be different people. He has a pleasant voice when he is just narrating but when he did other men, they were hokey and sounded like goofy caricatures of men. Kind of like western characters on cartoons. It was so distracting and not befitting of judges or district attorneys. I'm almost done with it but really struggling because the courtroom parts sound absurd.

Well told true crime, I listened while driving and kept my driving back and forth to school much more enjoyable.

I had never heard of this case and found it fascinating. Us true crime junkies are all too familiar with men who are violent towards women, 2 or more men, even single women, like “angel of death” nurse killings, mothers who torture and/or kill their children, etc. but there aren’t many stories I’ve come across that portray psychopathic couples who murder. This story left me with many questions that I kind of hoped the author would have addressed. One is, it seems to me people don’t usually wake up one day and shoot another in cold blood then dismember the body. There’s usually a build up to such violence but not this couple. I would have liked maybe a little more research on whether BJ and Erica ever killed before the one they were captured for. Maybe not murder but other offenses perhaps. It just seems we’re thrown in the middle of an on going spree and we’ve missed the beginning.
Overall though great book and I would recommend it.

Well written

As a huge M. William Phelps fan, I usually know what I'm getting into when I pick up one of his well written, well researched books. However once in a while, I'll come across a book that is really hard to get through - this was one (the other being the Vampire Next Door). The twisted depravity of this couple! I had to take several breaks but eventually finished. The book is very well put together and narrated.