Book picks similar to
FBI Myths and Misconceptions: A Manual for Armchair Detectives by Jerri Williams
non-fiction
crime
nonfiction
true-crime
Without a Trace: Unsolved Disappearances and Mysterious Vanishings
Troy Taylor - 2020
Such strange and chilling tales run the gamut of the terrifying and the bizarre and include crime victims, lost explorers, ships vanished at sea, outdoor disappearances, and supernatural mysteries that defy all explanation. Among these pages you’ll find accounts of America’s Lost Colony, history’s most famous ghost ships, famous figures who vanished into the unknown, the unknown fate of America’s first kidnapping for ransom, a vanished heiress, lighthouse keepers who impossibly disappeared, the killer who escaped the noose – permanently, the Grand Canyon adventurers who were never seen again, the Prohibition lawman’s nephew who was never found, the Ohio sorority girl who never made it home, the abducted housewife who disappeared, the Hollywood starlet who left her family behind, a missing West Point cadet, the babysitter who vanished on Halloween, the missing Texas couple who may have been Russian spies, the little boy who walked away for good in the Smoky Mountains, a missing heiress to a candy empire, a missing TV news reporter, a long distance runner whose run never ended, plus infamous vanishings of figures like Theodosia Burr, Amelia Earhart, Glenn Miller, Judge Crater, Jimmy Hoffa, and far too many more! Just remember as you turn the pages, that if these people so easily vanished from the face of the earth, then it means it could happen to anyone – perhaps even you. You may want to read this one with the lights on.
Dying to Get Married: The Courtship and Murder of Julie Miller Bulloch
Ellen Harris - 1991
Julie Miller was a successful executive who, through a newspaper ad, met who she thought was "Mr. Right." Little did she know that he had a violent past and a predisposition for bizarre sexual rituals. This tragic, true-crime tale will shock its horrified readers.
Too Close to Home: The Samantha Zaldivar Case
Laurinda Wallace - 2017
This is one of them. Seven-year-old Samantha Zaldivar is reported missing in February 1997. Despite the best efforts of the community and law enforcement to find her, it seems the first grader has disappeared without a trace until the forensic evidence leads a multi-agency task force to an ugly possibility. Months later, an unlikely turn of events reveals the young girl’s fate, which rocks the rural county in Western New York. Dedicated and meticulous police work brings a murderer to justice, but not without a cost to those involved. Stephen C. Tarbell, a retired Wyoming County Sheriff’s investigator shares his personal account of the investigation into the disappearance and murder of Samantha Zaldivar.
The Cases That Haunt Us
John E. Douglas - 2000
Provocative. Shocking. Call them what you will...but don't call them open and shut. Did Lizzie Borden murder her own father and stepmother? Was Jack the Ripper actually the Duke of Clarence? Who killed JonBenet Ramsey?America's foremost expert on criminal profiling and twenty-five-year FBI veteran John Douglas, along with author and filmmaker Mark Olshaker, explores those tantalizing questions and more in this mesmerizing work of detection. With uniquely gripping analysis, the authors reexamine and reinterpret the accepted facts, evidence, and victimology of the most notorious murder cases in the history of crime, including the Lindbergh baby kidnapping, the Zodiac Killer, and the Whitechapel murders.Utilizing techniques developed by Douglas himself, they give detailed profiles and reveal chief suspects in pursuit of what really happened in each case.The Cases That Haunt Us not only offers convincing and controversial conclusions, it deconstructs the evidence and widely held beliefs surrounding each case and rebuilds them -- with fascinating, surprising, and haunting results.
Cult City: Jim Jones, Harvey Milk, and 10 Days That Shook San Francisco
Daniel J. Flynn - 2018
The Reverend Jim Jones, the darling of the San Francisco political establishment, orchestrates the murders and suicides of 918 people at a remote jungle outpost in South America. Days later, Harvey Milk, one of America’s first openly gay elected officials—and one of Jim Jones’s most vocal supporters—is assassinated in San Francisco’s City Hall. This horrifying sequence of events shocked the world. Almost immediately, the lives and deaths of Jim Jones and Harvey Milk became shrouded in myth. The distortions and omissions have piled up since. Now, forty years later, this book corrects the record. The product of a decade of research, including extensive archival work and dozens of exclusive interviews, Cult City reveals just how confused our understanding has become. In life, Jim Jones enjoyed the support of prominent politicians and Hollywood stars even as he preached atheism and communism from the pulpit; in death, he transforms into a fringe figure, a “fundamentalist Christian,” and a “fascist.” In life, Harvey Milk outed friends, faked hate crimes, and falsely claimed that the U.S. Navy dishonorably discharged him over his homosexuality; in death, he is honored in an Oscar-winning movie, with a California state holiday, and with a U.S. Navy ship named for him. His assassin, a blue-collar Democrat who often voted with Milk in support of gay issues, is remembered as a right-winger and a homophobe. But the story extends far beyond Jones and Milk. Author Daniel J. Flynn vividly portrays the strange intersection of mainstream politics and murderous extremism in 1970s San Francisco—the hangover after the high of the Summer of Love. In recounting the fascinating, intersecting lives of Jim Jones and Harvey Milk, Cult City tells the story of a great city gone horribly wrong.
Why the Innocent Plead Guilty and the Guilty Go Free: And Other Paradoxes of Our Broken Legal System
Jed S. Rakoff - 2021
Rakoff, a leading authority on white-collar crime, explores these and other puzzles in Why the Innocent Plead Guilty and the Guilty Go Free, a startling account of our broken legal system. Grounded in Rakoff's twenty-four years as a federal trial judge in New York in addition to the many years he worked as a federal prosecutor and criminal defense lawyer, Rakoff 's assessment of our justice system illuminates some of our most urgent legal, social, and political issues: plea deals and class-action lawsuits, corporate impunity and the death penalty, the perilsof eyewitness testimony and forensic science, the war on terror and the expanding reach of the executive branch. A fundamental problem, he reveals, is that the judiciary is constraining its own constitutional powers.Like few others, Rakoff understands the values that animate the best aspects of our legal system--and has a close-up view of our failure to live up to these ideals. But he sees within this gap great opportunities for practical reform, and a public mandate to make our justice system truly just.
The Crime Writer's Guide to Police Practice and Procedure
Michael O'Byrne - 2009
'The Crime Writer's Guide To Police Practice And Procedure' is the detective in your pocket - something you can reach for when you feel your writing needs that short sharp shock of real-life investigating.
From Crime to Crime: Harold Shipman to Operation Midland - 17 cases that shocked the world
Richard Henriques - 2020
Duct Tape Killer: The True Inside Story of Sexual Sadist & Murderer Robert Leroy Anderson
Phil Hamman - 2020
Piper's three-and-a-half-year-old daughter, Shaina, answered and said, "A mean man carried Mommy away." Then the line went dead. In the tranquil region of southeast South Dakota, word of the young mother who was brazenly abducted from her home in broad daylight shocked residents. Piper was the second woman to vanish, following the startling incident of a young woman who narrowly escaped abduction by fighting for her life on a dark and secluded highway.An intensive search by an elite team of investigators uncovered a secret crime location, but the discovery of a nightshirt cut in half, a burnt candle, and a homemade bondage board revealed the chilling truth behind the missing women. With the help of a quick-witted and streetwise maximum security prison inmate, prosecutor Larry Long and his team were able to piece together the sinister facts of the diabolical crimes.Bestselling authors PHIL AND SANDY HAMMAN, along with former Attorney General LARRY LONG, dive into the grim and demented world of Robert Leroy Anderson, a sexual sadist, rapist, and murderer. Duct Tape Killer is also the story of perseverance and proof that love will not be extinguished by the ruinous evil that seeks to take root in our world.
Fallen: The inside story of the secret trial and conviction of Cardinal George Pell
Lucie Morris-Marr - 2019
'Guilty' he pronounced five times. The third most senior Catholic cleric in the world had been found guilty of sex crimes against children, bringing shame to the Church on a scale never seen before in its history. Investigative journalist Lucie Morris-Marr was the first to break the story that Cardinal George Pell was being investigated by the police. In this riveting dispatch, she recounts how the cleric was trailed by a cloud of scandal as he rose to the most senior ranks of the church in Australia, all the way to his appointment by Pope Francis to the position of treasurer in the Vatican.Despite anger and accusations, it seemed nothing could stop George Pell. Yet in 2017 he was charged by detectives, returning to Australia to face trial.Take a front row seat in court with the author as she reveals the many intriguing developments in the secret legal proceedings which the media could not report at the time. Fallen reveals the full story of the brutal battle waged by the prince of the church as he fought to clear his name, including a ferocious bid to be freed from jail. The author also shares her own compelling personal journey investigating the biggest story of her career and the frequent attacks she endured from powerful Pell supporters. This book also charts how Pell's shocking conviction plunged the Vatican into an unprecedented global crisis after decades of clergy abuse cases. It is a vitally important story that will fascinate anyone interested in the failure of the Catholic Church to address the canker in its heart.
The Paradiso Files: Exposing an Unknown Serial Killer
Timothy M. Burke - 2008
Burke makes his case against one Leonard Paradiso. Lenny “The Quahog” was convicted of assaulting one young woman and paroled after three years, but Burke believes that he was guilty of much more – that Paradiso was a serial killer who operated in the Boston area, and maybe farther afield, for nearly fifteen years, assaulting countless young women and responsible for the deaths of as many as seven. Burke takes the reader inside the minds of prosecutors, police investigators, and one very dangerous man who thought he had figured out how to rape and murder and get away with it. The Paradiso Files generated headlines when first published in February 2008. Nine days later, Paradiso died at the age of sixty-five without commenting on any of Burke’s accusations, including that he murdered Joan Webster, a Harvard graduate student who disappeared from Logan Airport in 1981. Boston-area prosecutors announced in September 2008 that Burke’s revelations had led them to reopen the unsolved murder cases of three young women – Melodie Stankiewicz, Holly Davidson, and Kathy Williams. There were “too many similarities between the individual cases to ignore,” a prosecutor involved in the new investigation said. Burke’s account leaves little doubt that Paradiso’s deeds should go down in infamy, alongside those of the Boston Strangler.
True Crime Stories Volume 2: 12 Terrifying True Crime Murder Cases (List of Twelve)
Ryan Becker - 2017
From Blaine Norris and Ryan Trimble, who conspired to commit bloody murder for the sake of a film, to James Edward Pough who became a mass shooter after his car was repossessed, it is a frightening yet fascinating look at the sometimes-trivial things which set people onto a path of brutal killing and terror. Each one made their darkest fantasies into a reality when they made the decision to kill and each one has earned their own terrible place in this gruesome hall of fame. Get a copy of List of Twelve: Volume 2 and be prepared for an insight into the darkest recesses of dangerous minds like no other book before it.
The Missing Beaumont Children: 50 Years of Mystery and Misery
Michael Madigan - 2015
A crime so shocking that it has often been described as a defining moment in this country's history.After 50 years of intense police investigation the whereabouts of Jane (9), Arnna (7) and Grant Beaumont (4) is still a mystery; Australia's most famous unsolved crime.On the morning of January 26, 1966 the three children set off from their Somerton Park home to Glenelg Beach on a bus to enjoy a brief excursion at Adelaide's most popular beach only a few kilometres away. Apart from a brief sighting from the Beaumont family's postman early on that afternoon, there have been no other sightings of the children since.The 'mystery' of the children's disappearance has often overshadowed the 'misery' the Beaumont parents have had to endure. This book takes the reader inside the trauma of Nancy and Grant; from the panic and heartbreaking first few days to the utter despair in later years.Only seven years after the Beaumont disappearance, two girls Joanne Ratcliffe (11) and Kirste Gordon (4) were abducted from Adelaide Oval during a football match. Were the two abductions connected? How could they not be connected?Author Michael Madigan delves into the sordid world of the numerous 'persons of interest' who have at times been suspects in this case and forensically answers the question 'who could do such a thing?'
101 Habits of Highly Successful Novelists: Insider Secrets from Top Writers
Andrew McAleer - 2008
Readers will learn how to adopt those habits on their quest to become novelists. The book will inspire, nourish, and provide the needed kick in the pants to turn the wannabes into doers! The 101 Habits of Highly Successful Novelists is full of "aha" experiences as the reader uncovers the collected wisdom from the cream of today’s fiction writers.
A Conspiracy of Crowns: The True Story of the Duke of Windsor and the Murder of Sir Harry Oakes
Alfred de Marigny - 1990
Its portrayal of the Duke of Windsor as a Nazi sympathizer--who would stop at nothing to hide it--is sure to make headlines. Black-and-white photographs.