Rhoda Penmark (Patty McCormack) is a well-mannered 8-year-old little lady-and an efficient, unfeeling killer.  And in this spellbinding chronicle of evil, whatever Rhoda wants, she ruthlessly gets.  Her mother Christine (Nancy Kelly), reluctantly made to see her offspring's moral blindness at work, is heartrendingly torn between the love for the child she bore and grief for Rhoda's victims.