Appointment with Murder

Dentist Glennon Engleman served a largely blue-collar community of St. Louis; to its members he was a model professional, kind and considerate and even willing to forget his bill if the patient was financially strapped. But there was also a Mr. Hyde aspect to this Dr. Jekyll: a hater of communists, homosexuals, blacks and Jews, the dentist used his prestige to exercise an almost hypnotic power over his more suggestible acquaintances, the author shows. At times, he used this power sexually, but eventually he evolved a modus operandi for murder. He would arrange for a woman to marry an employee of a leading corporation, then kill him and collect part of the insurance and other death benefits; in one instance, he allegedly even killed the woman's parents-in-law. How the skein of slayings was unraveled is the story of freelance journalist Bakos's expose, and it is a good one. In 1985, the 58-year-old Engelman pleaded guilty to three murders and was sentenced to life imprisonment. (August)