Cruel Death

By: M. William Phelps

Narrated by: J. Charles

Length: 11 hrs and 18 mins

Publisher's summary

A life gone murderously wrong...

Erika Sifrit was once a high school basketball star and an honors student. Then she married Navy SEAL Benjamin Sifrit. Some say Erika was abused by "B.J." Some say she pulled his strings. But by the time they reached Ocean City, MD, Erika was packing a gun in her Coach bag and was caught in the grips of a new American death ride...

A trail of blood and body parts...

In the sun-kissed, sea-swept resort town, a loving couple crossed paths with Erika and B.J. Sifrit. Shortly thereafter, Erika was wearing a bloody wedding ring on her necklace, while what remained of two dismembered vacationers was buried in a Delaware landfill, and a modern-day "Bonnie and Clyde" story was being written - a lurid tale of madness, money, sex , and murder...

©2009 M. William Phelps (P)2009 Brilliance Audio, Inc.

I should have listened to the sample

I had no idea that the man I'd seen giving commentary on Forensic Files was a true crime author. So I looked him up and found this book after watching the episode about these murders.I had heard of this case but wanted to do a deeper dive into the facts. The book provided a lot of detail that I was craving regarding the motivation for the crime. I'm only disappointed that a privileged girl and a supposed patriot - a Navy Seal, were able to get away with petty crimes for so long; crimes that other groups/people would never get away with. Thus they were able to graduate to ultimate acts of depravity.

The narrator was over the top - especially when he attempted to change character by adding dialects in a somewhat exaggerated way in order to depict the region where the speaker lived or was raised. I would have appreciated it more if he would have just read the lines straight with a he-said or she-said. I'm not sure if it's technical but his voice had an odd way of dropping to lower frequencies on some sentences to the point where I had to re-listen to swallowed words in order to get what he was saying. Over time, I got used to the reader but it was challenging at first.

Such Disgusting People

While I listened to the entire book, it wasn’t my fave, for sure.
The characters were pure evil, there was no mystery to any of it. The crimes were senseless. I’ll forget this book by next week.

I usually like this author but...

This story was too over the top for me...and I listen to endless true crime! Too gory and too much needless graphic sex talk read from letters. But the worst thing was the narrator's voices where he tried to be different people. He has a pleasant voice when he is just narrating but when he did other men, they were hokey and sounded like goofy caricatures of men. Kind of like western characters on cartoons. It was so distracting and not befitting of judges or district attorneys. I'm almost done with it but really struggling because the courtroom parts sound absurd.

Well written

As a huge M. William Phelps fan, I usually know what I'm getting into when I pick up one of his well written, well researched books. However once in a while, I'll come across a book that is really hard to get through - this was one (the other being the Vampire Next Door). The twisted depravity of this couple! I had to take several breaks but eventually finished. The book is very well put together and narrated.

Well told true crime, I listened while driving and kept my driving back and forth to school much more enjoyable.

I had never heard of this case and found it fascinating. Us true crime junkies are all too familiar with men who are violent towards women, 2 or more men, even single women, like “angel of death” nurse killings, mothers who torture and/or kill their children, etc. but there aren’t many stories I’ve come across that portray psychopathic couples who murder. This story left me with many questions that I kind of hoped the author would have addressed. One is, it seems to me people don’t usually wake up one day and shoot another in cold blood then dismember the body. There’s usually a build up to such violence but not this couple. I would have liked maybe a little more research on whether BJ and Erica ever killed before the one they were captured for. Maybe not murder but other offenses perhaps. It just seems we’re thrown in the middle of an on going spree and we’ve missed the beginning.
Overall though great book and I would recommend it.

Bleeding from the ears!!

Would you try another book from M. William Phelps and/or J. Charles?

I will never listen to another book narrated by J. Charles. While Phelps is great (on tv, true crime shows, etc.) he chooses a really awful narrator that makes the entire book a two thumbs down. Charles makes this book boring, monotone and I find my mind wandering to everything but the story. The narrator is unable to capture emotion, a shame to the victims their story is lost. I could not even finish more than three hours.

What didn’t you like about J. Charles’s performance?

BOORING! Makes this book very boring, hard to follow and focus. I notice also this is the same narrator he uses for all his books. What a waste because I will never be able to listen to any of the others.

You didn’t love this book... but did it have any redeeming qualities?

After three hours I couldn't stand anymore of the narrator so I guess not.

Any additional comments?

Don't waste your money or your credit.

Sick Kids

Sick kids, bizarre events. Poor narration hides writing skill - but not enough to make it good

Too much repetition!

I really didn't care for this story. The amount of unnecessary back and forth dialogue during the trial and the narrator with his ridiculous voice changes, made this almost UNBEARABLE. I couldn't wait for the end.
Trust me on this, save your credit.

Extremely poor reader.

I always enjoy this author but cannot listen to this reader. I sincerely hope he has not been involved with any other of the numerous books I have purchased. Since I was unable to listen to the book I cannot rate the overall and story categorizes fairly. What a disappointment!!
Sincerely cccm.