Predator: Rape and Injustice in Seattle

Jack Olsen, "the master of the true crime", provides an incisive, probing look into the creation and development of the criminal mind, as well as a shocking case of injustice. From early childhood, McDonald Smith took to heart the lessons drummed into him by antisocial relatives and peers. As a teenager, unburdened by conscience or pity, he experimented with child abuse and bestiality, then moved on to larceny, stickups, incest, and finally, rape. After "a witch" warned Smith that he was about to be arrested, he fled Los Angeles for Seattle, which was already the breeding ground of serial rapist and killers like Ted Bundy, Kenneth Bianchi, and the Green River Killer. For years Smith stalked the women of Seattle, seeking his prey on the dark streets and in the quiet homes, before returning to his wife and family.

Meanwhile, a respectable young businessperson named Steve Titus found himself charged with one of Smith's most sadistic rapes in a nightmarish case of mistaken identity and injustice. The idealistic Titus was certain that the American system of justice would clear him -- right up to the day that a jury of his peers returned a verdict of guilty. As Mac Smith continued to terrorize the women of Seattle, Steve Titus lost everything: his reputation, his job, his loved ones, his freedom and eventually his life.

It was only when a Pulitzer prize-winning Seattle Times reporter answered Titus's pleas for justice that the terrible truth emerged: a truth that was darker than anyone imagined. PREDATOR is a gripping work of true crime reporting: Jack Olsen doing what he does best. It is a searing study of violations: of women, of justice, of power, and of the human spirit.