Everything She Ever Wanted: A True Story of Obsessive Love, Murder, and Betrayal

I can't much improve on the one review where the fellow who wrote it said he wish he could've reached into the book and strangled Pat Allanson.This sociopath was never made to face reality. But, then again, her mother indulged in illusion. Marguerite had three illegitimate children before she was 20 years old by a married man, but acted as if she was this paragon of virtue and looked down her nose at everyone else. Meanwhile, her precious daughter, who drove her own brother to suicide, is ruining lives right and left.I think the entire family was nuts and if Pat Allanson got the opportunity she would just repeat her past conduct because she knows her family...save the only sane member, her daughter, Susan...will continue to defend her and cover up for her!Heaven preserve us from people who think they are entitled to everything they want and don't care who they run over to get it.

Ann Rule never disappoints me! This book spans some 20 years, telling the story of how two families came together in a Gone-With-The-Wind marriage that left some family members dead, and others nearly dead or with ruined lives. Usually I can get the gist of the story by reading the captions under the pictures in the middle of the book, but not this one. Pat Allanson's husband is convicted of murdering his parents, but you don't quite know until the end whether he really did it. Pat tries to kill her husband's grandparents, the book takes you through the trial and conviction, but there are still hundreds of pages left to read! Pat Allanson just doesn't know when to quit! You won't believe how she (and her family) treats her daughter, how she thought she could get away with more attempted murders, and how many lives she could ruin. I just wish Susan would have been tested for poison, and I wish her and her children all the best for having the guts it took to do what she did.

Pat Allenson was undoubtably a sociopath. No two ways about it. From a child she exhibited demanding, ruthless behavior. Her maternal grandmother adored her and placed Pat's interests and needs over her own large brood. Pat was indulged to the point of excess.When Pat was 5, her mother married a career army officer named Clifford Radcliffe. Pat, resentful of having to leave the charmed life her grandmother gave her and share any part of the limelight with her half-brother, Kent, was forced to move out of state and move into a new lifestyle.In true sociopathic form, Pat, like the proverbial rat, could survive just about anywhere. Radcliffe's career took the family to different countries where they were warmly received. Pat, blessed with physical attractiveness, used this to charm people into indulging her. Kent, on the other hand was a gentle, mild mannered boy. A hearing loss in infancy appeared to exacerbate his shyness. He was easily eclipsed and dominated by his bullying sister. Never able to find peace with himself, he committed suicide in 1966.Pat married at age 15 and had three children. Like her mother, she married a career officer whose assignments led to distant travel. Pat's oldest child Susan remembers that when she was 4, Pat crushed her hand while the family was in the Phillippines. This incident seemed to set the tone for Susan's future relationship with Pat. She did not want to see Pat when her hand was injured and this sentiment seemed to remain consistent throughout their lives together.Pat's middle child, Debbie, appeared to be her mother's daughter. A child bride, Debbie would later embark on a series of affairs, become involved in prostitution and work with Pat in drugging and robbing elderly patients.Ron, Pat's youngest child seemed most like his uncle Kent. Never able to find his place, he became a drifter and had a series of unsatisfactory relationships. In 1980 he eventually had a daughter named Ashlynne who was the apple of Pat's mother's eye.History repeated itself. Pat's maternal grandmother adored her. Ashlynne's maternal grandmother adored her. Pat resented her mother lavishing love on Ashlynne. To compensate for this, she showered gifts upon Susan's children. A Southern Belle wannabe, Pat remarried a very gentle man named Tom Allenson. They had a "Gone With the Wind" themed wedding and Tom appeared to care very deeply about his new wife. He, too, had some disastrous marriages and was crushed at having no way to contact his children.Pat, ever the seductress, devised newer and more frightening methods to command center stage. A possible victim of "Munchausen's Syndrome," she inflicted deep wounds on her body, reinfected one to the point she had to be hospitalized and sought ways to make people care about her. She resented the attention and time her grandchildren required and saw them as intrusions. She was especially antagonistic towards Ashlynne.Pat was a ruthless sociopath who would stop at nothing to secure her goal

Pat Allanson liked to think of herself as a modern day Scarlett O'Hara, and it's true that she and Scarlett did share some characteristics - seductiveness, flirtatiousness and charm, but Pat had none of Scarlett's extraordinary strength or backbone. Instead, she was, and remains, a self centred sociopath who would do anything and destroy anybody who obstructed her from gaining whatever she wanted. Fifteen years of her husband Tom's life, her daughter's health, and for her victims, precious time with their loved ones were sacrificed to the greed of this antisocial woman, who, thanks to her too kind upbringing and lack of parental discipline, thought that she was entitled to "everything she ever wanted" without once thinking about the repercussions of her actions on other people.If this story was to be presented as fiction, it would be dismissed as being the product of an author's sick and twisted imagination, but Ann Rule proves in this extraordinary book that it is not imaginations which are sick and twisted, but what truly IS twisted, sick and utterly incomprehensible is the malignant mind of a sociopath.

The most horrific, conniving, controlling, murderous, childish, sick person I have ever read about. Ann Rule is excellent in plotting the story of a truly heinous pathetic soul as Pat. Her enabling, sad parents and family members are to also be responsible for allowing such appalling behavior to continue. Pat would destroy anyone who was in her way, including her own children and grandchildren. There was absolutely no one who was exempt. The pain caused to her own parents was another devious act. She would keep her imprisoned husband from his only family; she would keep a small son from his sick mother (Pat's daughter); she would keep a dying old man from his beloved wife. etc. After serving prison time, and released, it was shocking to learn that she would include one of her daughters into her life of crime and deceit AGAIN. But fortunately, one daughter had the tenacity and courage to report her back to authorities. Family members become enablers and someone should have stopped her long ago, before innocent people are hurt.