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I Killed While I Slept: 18 True Cases of Murder, Sleepwalking, and Trials at the Edge of Consciousness
Paperback
Publisher: Independently Published
Published: Sep 2 2026
Pages: 368
Weight: 1.08
Height: 0.76 Width: 6.00 Depth: 9.00
Language: English
What if you could kill someone... and never know you had done it?
A man gets out of bed, drives twenty-three kilometers through the night, enters a house, and kills.
A husband wakes to discover that the woman he loved has died by his own hands.
A mother believes she is protecting her daughter from an enemy she can see only in a dream.
They all claimed they were asleep.
Some were acquitted.
Some were declared legally insane.
Others were sentenced to spend the rest of their lives behind bars.
But how can a court decide whether a killer was truly unconscious-or simply found the perfect excuse?
I KILLED WHILE I SLEPT takes you inside 18 extraordinary true cases of murder, violent sleepwalking, parasomnias, amnesia, and courtroom battles that pushed doctors, lawyers, judges, and juries to the limits of what science can prove.
Across six countries and almost two centuries of criminal history, you will discover cases in which ordinary people suddenly became capable of terrifying violence-sometimes against the very people they loved most.
No obvious motive. No remembered decision. Sometimes no memory at all.
Was the body acting while the conscious mind remained asleep?
Or was I don't remember the last refuge of a murderer?
Through dramatic case reconstructions, forensic evidence, sleep studies, witness testimony, expert clashes, and landmark trials, John De Santi explores the disturbing territory where true crime meets neuroscience and criminal law.
Inside these pages you will discover:
- why a sleepwalker can perform surprisingly complex actions without full awareness
- how REM and NREM parasomnias can distort perception and behavior
- why amnesia does not automatically prove unconsciousness
- how investigators distinguish genuine automatism from a fabricated defense
- why the same sleep-related killing can lead to acquittal in one country and conviction in another
- what happens when science can explain what is possible-but cannot prove what happened during one fatal night
And behind every medical theory and legal argument remains a far more unsettling reality:
someone died while the person responsible claimed not to be there inside their own mind.
This is not a collection of sensational headlines. It is a documented journey into real crimes, real victims, and some of the most disturbing questions ever placed before a courtroom.
If you are fascinated by true crime, forensic psychology, criminal trials, neuroscience, unexplained behavior, and cases that refuse to offer easy answers, this book will keep challenging what you believe about guilt, intention, and consciousness.
Because after these 18 cases, one question becomes impossible to ignore:
If your body commits murder while your mind is asleep... are you still a killer?
Buy the book. Examine the evidence. Decide for yourself.
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