Killers Amidst Killers: Hunting Serial Killers Operating Under the Cloak of America’s Opioid Epidemic

Bestselling author, co-host of the hit podcast The Murder Squad, and true-crime investigative journalist Billy Jensen goes to Columbus, Ohio, where he examines the unsolved cases of eighteen dead and missing women, whom he suspects were the victims of serial killers on the loose and operating under cover of the opioid epidemic in America’s heartland.In Chase Darkness with Me, readers and listeners learned Billy Jensen’s journalist origin story, his struggles, his call to adventure, and his first successes in solving murders. In Killers Amidst Killers, readers will ride shotgun with Jensen as he takes on serial killers who are walking among us and planning their next moves in real time. The facts are not in old police reports and faded photos. They unfold before our eyes on the page. Our story begins in 2017, when two young women, best friends Danielle and Lindsey go missing in Columbus, Ohio, within weeks of each other, and their bodies are found soon thereafter. As Jensen investigates Danielle and Lindsey’s cases, he comes across other missing and murdered women, and before long, he uncovers eighteen of them. All unsolved. And no one was talking about it. These are not women who were raised in the street. They got hooked on pills. The pills were taken away. They get hooked on heroin. And when the money is gone, they have to sell themselves. It happens very quick. Through his investigations and the help of experts, Jensen identifies serial killers in Cleveland and Columbus. Why there? Because it’s easy. Sharks go where the swimmers are. Serial killers go where the easy prey are: Ground zero of the opioid epidemic. The heart of America. That is what happened to Danielle and Lindsey. But serial killers murdering sex workers in the 21st century will get 45 seconds on the local news, and page 3 in the local paper, and then can disappear in the wind. Jensen hunts these predators to bring peace to the victims’ suffering families while putting a spotlight on a system that is leaving hundreds of thousands of bodies in its wake.