Red-Haired Ash Reads

As someone who has a psychology degree with a minor in criminal justice, I found this investigation into Edward Rulloff fascinating, especially since I had never heard of him. Edward Rulloff was a psychopath who was tried multiple times for the murder of his wife and child, and speculated about other family members, and eventually given the death penalty and hanged in 1871. His case was the first time “mindhunters” tried to understand why this supposedly brilliant man was a killer. 

This was very interesting for me since I had never heard of this killer or why he is so important to the understanding of psychopathy and brain development. This book takes us from the very beginning with his life through to his marriage, his murder of his wife and child, the trials to charge him, his freedom and continued life of crime, and his eventual final arrest and guilty verdict. During all of this we learn about his weird obsession with language and how it led him to believe he was a genius with languages and was writing a breakthrough paper that would change the world. Said paper was part of the argument used to try and get him off the death penalty. It was just a really fascinating look at a man who was both psychotic and intelligent. 

While I did enjoy this, I will say that I don’t really view Edward as a serial killer because he didn’t really have a serial killer’s MO. It was more murder by domestic violence and then gun violence during a theft. I also didn’t view this man as a genius at languages, but I also understand why this was discussed. Psychopaths frequently are smart and can easily view themselves as a genius in an area, and do everything they can to reinforce their beliefs, which is what Edward did. So while I thought this was an interesting case for the study of psychology, it wasn’t exactly an interesting murder case. 

What I appreciated about this book was that Dawson was upfront that a lot of what we know about Edward came from his interviews with a journalist and that it’s full of lies and manipulations to get the journalist, and the world, to view him in a positive light, not the true Edward. I actually enjoyed learning about how he manipulated the press and what was published about him. She also interviewed the Schutt family descendants (his wife’s family) and so we have a bit of both sides of the story. I did at times feel that it was heavy on the journalists point of view though so it does make me wonder about how accurate some things are.

Overall, this was a really interesting piece of true crime history. It changed not only the death penalty in New York, but it also challenged phrenology and proved it wasn’t accurate. It was just really interesting to learn about a man from life to death, and after death because his brain was continuously studied afterwards to try and figure out what made him a killer. This is still something that is being investigated today with serial killers and what in their brains is different, and if there is anything that can be done to stop it from leading to a killing spree. 

TW: domestic violence; murder; death of a child; gun violence;

---

Goodreads | The StoryGraph | Amazon | Bookshop

---