The Road Out of Hell: Sanford Clark and the True Story of the Wineville Murders

It's not often we get to hear the story from the victim of a serial killer as we do in this sensitively written account of Sanford Clark, the nephew of serial killer Gordon Stewart Northcott.

In 1926 Northcott snatched his nephew, 13-year-old Sanford, away from his self-centered sister and used him for sex as well as his servant and accomplice as Northcott raped, tortured, and murdered about 20 young boys on his chicken ranch outside of Los Angeles. This scenario repeated itself with escalating mania for two years before Northcott was caught, convicted, and executed by the state.

In an earlier work about Northcott and his crimes, James Jeffrey Paul's book, Nothing Is Strange with You: The Life and Crimes of Gordon Stewart Northcott, Paul details the facts about Northcott and the legal ramifications of his horrific crimes.

But what of the nephew, Sanford Clark, Northcott's victim and accomplice who managed to survive the psychopathic depravity and sexual abuse at the hands of his uncle?

Sanford was small for his age during the years he lived with Northcott. He was young, alone, and so dominated by his abusive uncle, he lost all sense of the outside world and fully believed he would become Northcott's next victim. Daily, Northcott abused Sanford with beatings and humiliation, demeaning his intellect, satisfying his own sexual needs, and enlisting the boy to carry out his perverted atrocities on the young boys he lured to his ranch with promises of horseback riding, baby rabbit hutches, or a day's work. This constant terror forced Sanford to subsume his individuality to suit his uncle's appetites for sex and control.

There is nothing that can change the facts about Sanford's victimization at the hands of Northcott, but we can learn much. The story is told from inside Sanford's head as he attempts to survive his hellish life one minute to the next. As I was consumed reading about Sanford's life, I inhaled the hope he finally found when, "He felt a quick burst of pride over how fast he was learning to find his way around the worst of his uncle."

One minor frustration is that there could have been more detail about Sanford’s thoughts and steps toward recovery during his years at the Whittier Boys School where he was sent after the murder trial. It was there he found the love and acceptance so necessary at a critical time in his life. It would not be a careless assumption to suggest that without the Whittier school, Sanford's remaining years would have been a lot more painful for him and the world around him.

It takes an unusually gifted writer to describe Sanford's circumstances without descending into gratuitous salacious descriptions of sexual defilement.

Award winning author, Anthony Flacco, is at his best telling true stories as he did in previous books, A Checklist for Murder (Dell Books) and Tiny Dancer (St. Martin's Press). He writes from his point of view that the reader should get into the "heart and mind of his central character." He excels in this challenge.

Flacco's historical fiction, The Last Nightingale (Random House) and The Hidden Man (Ballantine Books), are equally well written and captivating as Flacco uses his main characters well to tell the story, but his powerful literary punch comes from his execution of the personal experience.

Painstaking insights into Sanford's strategy to prevail compelled me to keep reading. Although the facts are disgusting, Flacco's writing style is like being carried out of a burning house in the arms of a heroic fire fighter. You know what's happening is really bad, but Flacco's literary embrace, like that of being rescued, allowed me to witness the destruction from a safe place.

The book is inspired by Sanford Clark's son, Jerry Clark. It is his tribute to his father's amazing resolve and strength of will to go on and live a full and loving life in spite of his endless fight to exorcise Northcott's demons embedded within him.

Jerry Clark achieved his goal here. Readers who are skeptical that children can rise above a hellish childhood will find this book not only uplifting but wonderful to read.