House of Secrets

Lowell Cauffiel

Apr 2014 · Kensington Publishing Corp.

About this ebook

The epic horrors of psychopathic mastermind Eddie Lee Sexton from the New York Times bestselling author who “knows how to dramatize true crime” (Elmore Leonard).
 
For years, Eddie Lee Sexton ruled his large family like Charles Manson. The depraved patriarch dominated his ragged brood of twelve children mentally, physically, and sexually, and enforced every cruelty imaginable, from vicious beatings to raping his daughters and fathering their children. Finally, in 1992, Sexton’s eighteen-year-old daughter Machelle, seeking refuge in a women’s shelter, revealed the shocking, sordid details of her father’s abuse to authorities.
 
As the law attempted to catch up to Eddie Lee Sexton, he moved his family to a mobile home in western Florida. Ultimately, Sexton’s efforts to escape prosecution led to two grisly murders in his own family. Yet Sexton’s sick genius almost helped him elude the justice he deserved. Lowell Cauffiel’s true-crime masterpiece vividly exposes the horrors of Eddie Lee Sexton’s psychosis and the shattered lives of those who survived.
 
Includes sixteen pages of photos
 
“An odyssey into American pathology . . . Deeply disturbing.” —Detroit Free Press
 
“Incest, rape, murder, infanticide, torture, psychological abuse . . . House of Secrets is bedtime reading for devoted true crime fans!” —Booklist
 
“A balanced and grimly engaging account of one of the weirdest domestic situations this side of the House of Usher.” —Publishers Weekly

Ratings and reviews

Well just to say this is my family. We heard Eddie Jr.s side of the story on "Evil Lives Here". Maybe all of us should hear the rest of the stories. But I must say even though Eddie Sexton is my cousin he still discusts me even after his death. Sorry Lannie but maybe you should have told the story a long time ago.

I read the book recommended to me by my birth mother. My birth mother is a cousin of Estella May. My Grandfather would be Estella's brother, or half brother. This defiantly clued me into some of the dark secrets of the family. I knew "cousin joe" mentioned in the book and everything is just as the book described. Thank God I was Adopted.

So sad and unbelievable. The best book I have ever read! I couldn't put it down. Highly recommend this book if you enjoy true crime!

About the author

Lowell Cauffiel is an American true crime author, novelist, and TV producer. A native of Michigan, he was an award-winning reporter with the Detroit News and Detroit Monthly Magazine during the 1970s and 1980s. Cauffiel began his book-writing career in 1988 with Masquerade: A True Story of Seduction, Compulsion and Murder. That title and the 1997 New York Times bestseller House of Secrets have appeared on numerous critics’ lists of the best works in American true crime. In 2002, Cauffiel began writing and producing crime documentaries. Cauffiel is a surfer and motorcyclist. He has worked in alcohol and drug rehabilitation circles as a volunteer and headed a research grant about alcohol problems among young people for the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAA) for the National Institutes of Health. Visit him on Facebook.