Book excerpt: Located half a mile from the glittering office towers of downtown Los Angeles, Skid Row exists as a world within a world. It's a world where life is cheap. It's a world where chaos reigns. It's a world where addiction is rampant, violence is chronic, and potential danger lurks around every gritty corner. Since the late nineteenth century, Skid Row has experienced every variation of human horror. Revenge killings and rape murders. Infernos and infanticides. Celebrity slayings and psychotic rampages. Home to more serial killers than any neighborhood in America, Skid Row is a bastion for the brazen, not a fairyland for the faint of heart. In Skid Row Slaughterhouse, author Gray George examines thirteen homicide cases that made the Row infamous. In examining these cases, George details the full history of Skid Row-a uniquely troubled neighborhood with a uniquely compelling past.