Even the most avid true crime fans will be shocked by the story of Marcus Wesson of Fresno, California, the worst mass-murderer in the cityās history. But the horrors he inflicted upon his family are nothing compared to the strength of the survivors, and one brave reporter who risked everything to help them.
Originally published as Where Hope Begins.
For decades, the family of Marcus Wessonāhis wife, Elizabeth, and seventeen childrenālived sequestered in a social and emotional prison, enduring his tyrannical reign of physical, sexual, and mental abuse. Then came the terrible day when a family confrontation erupted into a harrowing standoff: with police and SWAT teams descending on a small blue house in central Fresno, Marcus Wesson murdered nine of his children.
Television reporter Alysia Sofios got the first tip about Wessonās arrest and was witness to every twist and turn of the horrific case through to Wessonās trial. Risking her job and her life to offer friendship and support to the traumatized family membersāscarred by memories and guilt, reviled for having the Wesson nameāSofios chronicles the case that shocked the nation, and gives voice to their astounding stories of survival. This is a stunning account of healing from one manās unimaginable acts, and how each, in time, learned to break free from a deadly devotion.