The news of his execution was flashed all over the world, and everywhere it was greeted with celebrations. Chaim Judah Rosenberg, the notorious endtime prophet, was dead -- shot through the head by a young Israeli sniper.
Killed with him was his partner in crime, Rayford Strait. Strait, too, had been shot in the head by the same soldier.
In the week before their execution they had, on two occasions, publicly burned to death people who had tried to arrest them. These were the final victims in a three-year worldwide reign of terror by the two desperadoes.
Chaim had been dubbed the "smiling assassin" because of his apparent indifference to the suffering that he inflicted on anyone who dared to challenge him. It is estimated that more people died as a result of these two men than had died during all of the genocides in history.
Authorities had been working for years to bring the pair to justice, but they had slipped through every dragnet that was thrown around them, often killing dozens of law enforcement personnel in the process.
Chaim and Rayford were leaders of a tiny cult of religious fanatics whose members were so totally under their control that it was said that they would gladly betray their own families and even lay down their own lives at the behest of either Rosenberg or Strait.
Some news reports, reflecting on the long-awaited deaths of the notorious cult leaders, sought to unravel the mystery of their twisted lives. Chaim, in particular, interested the public, because he had started out as a peace-loving liberal Quaker just a few years earlier, a man of tolerance and love. But in a few short years he had evolved into an evil, perverted monster. What had caused him to change so dramatically, and what had been going on inside his own head to have led him to such a tragic end?
This book is an attempt to tell Chaim's story.