The FBI Killer

Dirt poor, divorced, the mother of two young children, Susan Daniels Smith, 27, prayed for a handsome Prince Charming who would take her away from the squalor of her rural Kentucky community to live in romance and luxury. When a good-looking, big city FBI agent named Mark Putnam entered her life, Susan thought her prayers had been answered. She was dead wrong.

Their relationship began when Susan agreed to be Putnam's paid informant in an investigation of her ex-husband's criminal friends, then quickly grew into an illicit affair that consumed their lives for nearly two years – until she became pregnant and threatened to expose Putnam, ruining his career and his marriage. On June 8, 1989, Putnam took her for a drive into the hills to discuss her demands of marriage. She was never heard from again.

The FBI Killer recounts the bizarre events that forced Mark Putnam to confess to brutally killing his lover, then covering up his crime for over one year. The first...