On January 7, 1994, residents of the Berkshire Hills woke up to a typical snowy winter day in the majestic woods of Western Massachusetts. The quaint New England towns, the idyllic scenery and the people who lived there could have stepped out of a Norman Rockwell painting.

Rocked as imaginable evil converged on them, a pall would be cast over the region and its inhabitants for years to follow.

That day, a trial was beginning for a college student who celebrated his 18th birthday by purchasing an assault rifle, then opening fire on campus killing two and wounding four others. Elsewhere, two young girls were accosted in the changing room at the local pool. Another young girl narrowly escaped being abducted at gunpoint on her way to school. Her quick thinking resulted later in profound repercussions regarding the case of a young boy who vanished from a strip mall, baffling law enforcement, his body discovered three years earlier by deer hunters in a remote wooded area 200 miles away.

All these events appeared unrelated, but it seemed to police agencies and local residents that the world had suddenly gone mad. After all, they told each other, “These things don’t happen here!”

In chilling, dramatic narrative Hidden Demons: Evil Visits a Small New England Town, by Margery Metzger, details these events and reveals a savage serial killer who lurked in the shadows. But the bravery of a father and daughter, and the remarkable work of law enforcement officers, would turn the table.