Chucky Taylor was born in Boston, Mass. and grew up in Orlando, Fla., in a middle class neighborhood nine miles away from a resort.

That first sentence of his biography is also the last sentence that might appear “normal.”

After a run-in with local police as a teenager, Chucky moved to Liberia to live with his father, the dictator Charles Taylor. After attending schools in West Africa, Chucky tried his hand at the timber trade before spearheading his father’s violent security force and terrorizing anyone considered a threat to his father’s regime.

In 2006, Chucky was arrested in Miami and accused of participating in torture in Liberia. He became the first American to be charged and convicted of torture abroad. Now, the story of how Chucky became to be one of the most feared men in West Africa is chronicled in “An American Warlord” by reporter Johnny Dwyer. Read an excerpt below.

Johnny Dwyer, author of “American Warlord: A True Story” will appear on The Kojo Nnamdi Show on Tuesday, April 21.