Couple Found Slain: After a Family Murder by Mikita Brottman

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


This is a fairly different take on a true crime story. It’s focused primarily on what happens to the murderer after he’s killed and is sent to a psychiatric facility. There’s still a good bit of foundation laid regarding his upbringing, his parents, the murder (he killed his parents – and I didn’t feel too bad about that since they were mostly awful), and his psychosis. He had some very serious problems.

Here’s the blurb:

Author of ‘An Unexplained Death’, Mikita Brottman’s ‘COUPLE FOUND SLAIN’, is an account of then 22-year-old Brian Bechtold’s 1992 murder of his parents and his subsequent life locked in a psychiatric hospital, offering rare insight into America’s approach to criminals with mental illness.

The book is interesting but not particularly engaging. I think I was mostly frustrated by what seemed like Brian’s inability to get a fair shake with the doctors and the courts. But I was also constantly aware that I’m getting Brian’s point of view through the author – who has no actual training in psychiatry (at least I got the impression that is the case) and only got to know him through a course she offered at the facility. So is Brian the most reliable source of information when it comes to his diagnosis? I don’t know. And that’s how I ended up feeling at the completion of the book: I don’t know. There was a lot of information given but I don’t know what the facts truly are so, in some ways, I’m feeling like maybe this wasn’t a good use of my reading time…

Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for letting me give this audiobook a shot.

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