A man rages in his home on April 4, 1999, breaking furniture and dishes. A woman wants to leave him. "You're not going anywhere," he tells her. Later that day, a police officer reports to the house and finds human tissue and organs in a bag left out for garbage. The person of interest in the case is a steelworker named Sam Pirrera, who lives in the house. But who is the victim? Sam's current estranged wife, Danielle? It is known that they had a stormy relationship; Sam had assaulted her as his coke addiction returned. Forensic detectives find traces of blood in the basement and then the entire corpse, dismembered, the parts hidden behind a false wall and packed in boxes, each of the parts wrapped and doused in gasoline. The victim's identity is discovered through prints to be a prostitute named Maggie Karer. The dismemberment, "defensive mutilation," is calculated and deliberate, and the detectives wonder: Are there more victims?

Following an investigation led by veteran homicide detective Peter Abi Rashed, who had once chased a young Sam Pirrera on the streets of Hamilton's east end many years before, Vanished takes us behind the scenes of a grisly real-life case and its shocking outcome.

JON WELLS reports on crime and a variety of other subjects for The Hamilton Spectator, and he has written seven books. He has won two National Newspaper Awards and sixteen Ontario Newspaper Awards, including Journalist of the Year for his true-crime series on James Kopp. Post-Mortem was shortlisted for an Arthur Ellis Award for best crime non-fiction. Born in Montreal, Wells has a master's degree in journalism from Carleton University in Ottawa. His true-crime research has taken him into forensic laboratories and shooting ranges, and to India, Ireland, France, San Francisco, New York City and western Canada. He has interviewed a half dozen convicted killers in prison. He lives in Hamilton, Ontario.

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