Murdered by Mumia: A Life Sentence of Loss, Pain, and Injustice


Maureen Faulkner - 2007
    Mumia Abu-Jamal was unanimously convicted of the crime by a racially mixed jury based on: the testimony of several eyewitnesses, his ownership of the murder weapon, matching ballistics, and Abu-Jamal’s own confession.After his conviction, however, a national anti-death penalty movement was started to “Free Mumia;” Mike Farrell, Ed Asner, Whoopi Goldberg, and Jesse Jackson rallied on his behalf, and led the charge.  For his part, while on death row, Abu-Jamal published several books, delivered radio commentaries, was a college commencement speaker, found himself named an Honorary Citizen of France, and had his defense coffers enhanced by ticket sales from a sold out (16,000-person) concert featuring Rage Against the Machine.Here, from Maureen Faulkner and acclaimed talk show host / journalist Michael Smerconish, is the first book to carefully and definitively lay out the case against Abu-Jamal, and those who’ve elevated him to the status of political prisoner. Smerconish, a lawyer, has provided pro bono legal counsel to Faulkner for over a decade and knows both the legal intricacies and personal subtleties of the case like no other person.  He’s personally acquainted himself with the more than five thousand pages of trial transcript.  “My reading starkly revealed that Abu-Jamal murdered Danny Faulkner in cold blood and that the case tried in Philadelphia in 1982 bore no resemblance to the one being home-cooked by the Abu-Jamal defense team.”As Abu-Jamal’s lawyers contemplate their final appeal, Faulkner and Smerconish weave a compelling, never-before-told account of one fateful night and the 25-year-long rewriting of history.

True Crime: Chilling Investigations Of Some Of Our Histories Most Unfamiliar True Crime Stories


Travis S. Kennedy - 2015
    When a crime has been committed, it is essential for the perpetrator to be punished. In that way, although the family of the victims won’t always be able to make sense of what happened, they will still understand that nobody is above the law. Publicizing the criminal’s modus operandi is sometimes good - the citizens will be well aware of their tactics and they can take better care of themselves. On the other hand, it can also be bad, because “would be” criminals and serial killers are also watching and they might like the idea. Such was the case of Eddie Seda. Other than him, 4 others wreaked havoc in different places, at various times: There was the man who killed prostitutes in his own home (with his family in it), a man who claimed to have killed 600 hundred women when only 3 victims were verified, a father who brought his son to “hunt” some humans, and a husband who killed his wife when she learned of his lies. How did they do it? And how did the law authorities catch them? Here Is A Preview Of What You'll Learn... True Crime – What Drives a Killer to the Edge? True Crime – A Day of Hunting in Leonia True Crime – Kendall and His House of Horrors True Crime – Try Harder: 2nd Zodiac True Crime – The Prankster Killer True Crime – Lori's Husband Much, much more!

Gangster: The biography of international drug trafficker John Gilligan


John Mooney - 2001
    The book is an extraordinarily account of how a young Dubliner became a multi-millionaire criminal. It uses first-hand interviews with Gilligan, his thugs, friends, family, enemies, anti-drugs activists, members of the IRA and the police. It tells of violence, kidnapping, shootings, criminal espionage, drug dealing and how criminal gangs vied for power to control the Irish trade in drugs. Shocking, fascinating and frightening, 'Gangster' also tells the story behind the murder of Veronica Guerin, the crime reporter. Fully updated and revised with new photographs.

Ministry of Crime: An Underworld Explored


Mandy Wiener - 2018
    It features new revelations about high-profile, unsolved hits and the intricate relationships between known criminals and police officers at all levels. It delves into the current power struggle between opposing factions in Cape Town's security industry and the suspected involvement of state operatives in the bloody standoff.Wiener has gained exclusive access to and on-the-record interviews with key underworld characters and police generals accused of colluding with criminals. These have helped her track the parallel narrative of the capture of law-enforcement agencies and unravel how players with inexplicable political backing have been able to pillage secret slush funds and abuse organs of state for their own benefit.Against this backdrop, prominent underworld figures - Radovan Krejcir key among them - have been able to thrive, setting up elaborate networks with the assistance of police. While crime is flourishing, the top echelons of the police and prosecution have been at war with themselves.The proximity of politics, law enforcement and organised crime over the past decade is frighteningly intertwined. The story of the rise and reign of the Ministry of Crime winds its way from the depths of the underworld, via multiple mysterious unsolved murders, to senior politicians and the very top ranks of the country's police force.

The Murder of Billie-Jo


Sion Jenkins - 2008
    Her foster father, Sion Jenkins, who had just been appointed headteacher of the local boys' secondary school, was arrested and charged with the murder. In July 1998 he was convicted and sent to prison for life. The case went on to become one of the most controversial in British criminal justice history. After a momentous legal battle, in which there were altogether an unprecedented six court hearings, he was finally acquitted in February 2006. Jenkins was lambasted in newspaper and television reports. So the real facts of the case were buried under an avalanche of innuendo and misinformation. Now, for the first time, this book puts on record his version of what actually happened.

Little Girl Lost: The True Story of The Vandling Murder


Tammy Mal - 2012
    But when Mae’s beaten and mutilated corpse was found the next day in an abandoned house, her throat slashed and her face battered beyond recognition, the small town of Vandling was thrust into one of the most intensive police investigations in the history of Pennsylvania.The murder sent shock waves through the small town and surrounding area, holding residents hostage in the grips of a paralyzing fear. Who could have committed such a brutal crime against a child who was walking home from church? What kind of animal would discard a little girl like nothing more than trash?As police doggedly investigated the horrific murder, long before the use of DNA, computers, or modern forensic science, one key piece of evidence would lead them to 13-year-old Myron Semunchick. Brilliant, good looking, and extremely popular, Myron projected the image of the all American boy. He was also a cunning killer who murdered sadistically and almost got away with it.Little Girl Lost is the true story of one of the most notorious crimes in history. A case that made headlines across the United States and into Canada, it is also the story of the youngest person ever charged with 1st degree murder and sentenced to life in prison in the state of Pennsylvania.

A Devil in the Valley


Paul Holes - 2021
    In 1994, an aspiring young cold case investigator in California’s East Bay, Paul Holes, puts aside trying to solve the Golden State Killer case as he waits for science to catch up. Paul returns to an old file cabinet at the back of the forensic lab to look for another cold case he can work - something with DNA. He finds one. The 1978 murder of a married mother who went for a morning jog in a nearby park. The original investigators believed that a serial killer named Phillip Hughes was responsible; they just couldn’t prove it. But Hughes was headed to prison for three other local homicides, all because of an unexpected break in those cases. Without it, Hughes might have gotten away with everything. In the years since though, as Hughes sat in prison, so did his secrets. And now he’s coming up for parole. In a race against time, Paul commits to solving the 1978 cold case before Hughes is let out. The victim’s family needs an answer. And, if Paul can prove that Hughes is the killer, he’ll use it as leverage to force Hughes to confess to everything else he may have done. Little does Paul know, however, that the 1978 cold case he opens will take an unexpected turn, lead to other cases and killers he never knew about and haunt him for his entire career. It turns out that the small towns of Contra Costa County were home to a more sinister history than anyone had imagined. But the clues didn’t disappear. They just needed the right person, at the right time, to see them.

Al Capone: A Biography


Luciano J. Iorizzo - 2003
    As America's most infamous criminal, he has intrigued, attracted, and repulsed the general public with his legendary criminal deeds. This concise biography separates the myth from the man. Beginning with a historical look at corruption in American society--along with a clarification of the terms Black Hand, Mafia, and Organized Crime--Capone is presented in his own time and place. A timeline summarizes the events of his life and career. A thorough bibliography of print and electronic sources will assist students and general readers interested in further research, making it perfect for anyone interested in Capone's life, organized crime, the prohibition era, and the struggle of lower-class Americans to rise in society.The son of poor Italian immigrants struggling for a better life in early 20th-century New York, Capone chose a life of crime as a means of advancing his place in the world. His success brought him fabulous wealth and fame. His criminal deeds made him many enemies among law enforcement officers, politicians, and fellow criminals. Yet ultimately, Capone's downfall was his own misdeeds. Following a lengthy prison term, he died at age 48 from complications of syphilis. In his short life, Capone had become America's most feared criminal, and after his death, his legend cast an even greater shadow.

Killer Doctors


Colin Evans - 2000
    Some do. In Killer Doctors, the dark side of the men in white is revealed.

Dancing with the Devil: Confessions of an Undercover Agent


Louis Diaz - 2010
    BUT THE KINGPIN BEHIND LUCAS’S CRIMINAL REIGN, LEROY “NICKY†BARNES, REMAINED “MR. UNTOUCHABLE.†UNTIL ONE UNDERCOVER AGENT PROVED TOUGH ENOUGH—OR CRAZY ENOUGH—TO INFILTRATE HIS DOMAIN AND NAIL THE MOST DANGEROUS DRUG CZAR IN AMERICAN HISTORY. Growing up in Red Hook, Brooklyn, where physical violence was a daily reality at home, at school, and on the streets, Louis Diaz had what it took to survive—and to one day become what he vowed to be: a man of uncompromising principles who is “compassionate on the inside, fierce on the outside.†These were the qualities, along with his street fighter’s steely nerves and hair-trigger temper, that drove Diaz from his savage beginnings and early forays in organized crime to become one of the DEA’s bravest undercover agents—the man who was instrumental in tak­ing down some of the nation’s and the world’s most notorious crime rings. In an unforgettable and utterly engaging first-person narrative, Diaz tells his gritty, colorful, painful, and even humorous life story—a story with all the raw emotional power and bare-knuckle action of Wiseguy or Serpico. From his headline-making cases of Nicky Barnes and the Medellín cartel . . . to his account of outwitting a key villain linked to the record-breaking heist known as The Great English Train Robbery . . . to his all-out confrontations with murderous gunrunners and drug dealers on the mean streets of New York . . . to leading commando raids on clan-destine cocaine labs inside the Bolivian jungles, Dancing with the Devil is an explosive memoir that stands as a classic of true-crime literature.

Auschwitz: The camp of disappearing men.


Scholastic Inc. - 2015
    All these memories are still haunting me and I often get lost in day dreaming about the horrible past.

Saving Stacy: The Untold Story of the Moody Massacre


Rob St. Clair - 2019
    The first time the killer thought he had succeeded, and he left Stacy bleeding in her bed. But a few minutes later he must have heard her moaning and returned to her upstairs bedroom. This time he approached the bed, pointed a .22 caliber rifle at her young face, and pulled the trigger again. Then he left.Later that morning, Memorial Day, May 25, 2005, the Logan County Sheriff would declare it a rampage. According to Sheriff Henry, 18-year-old Scott Moody lived on a family farm with his mother and sister; his grandparents lived nearby. The night before his high school graduation something snapped, and Scott went on a shooting spree. He murdered his two grandparents, his mother, a high school classmate who had spent the night after a graduation party, his girlfriend, and then he turned the rifle on himself, committing suicide. He thought he had killed his 15-year-old sister, but she was life-flighted to a hospital in Columbus where she remained in critical condition. Sheriff Henry declared the mystery solved: “It was horribly tragic, a murder/suicide case.”Three days later, Stacy woke up in intensive care. When asked by the county coroner to explain what happened – clearly expecting her to say that her brother, Scott, had shot her – Stacy, in a weak, distressed voice said something else. It was an older man with gray hair, wearing a blue shirt, someone she had never seen before. And then, once again – what everyone suspected but were afraid to publicly talk about – was the Logan County Sheriff’s Office really corrupt?After Stacy was released from the hospital, Detective Jon Stout wanted to interview her in private, away from the influence of her father and stepmother. On a Sunday afternoon he took 15-year-old Stacy in his unmarked cruiser to a shaded parking lot behind the county children services building. It was there he coerced her into taking off her clothes, playfully handcuffing her to the steering wheel, and then forcibly having sex with her. It was only a matter of time before wrongful death actions were filed against Scott’s estate. That’s when Scott’s father, wanting to remove the stigma of his son’s reputation, hired outside experts, who easily refuted the idea that Scott had been the shooter. People in the community knew all along what had happened. The sheriff’s office was corrupt. Underage sex and illicit drugs had finally raised their ugly heads.

No Lights, No Sirens: The Corruption and Redemption of an Inner City Cop


Robert Cea - 2005
    Rob Cea starts off as an idealistic young cop, a true believer in the system for which he works tirelessly. He is sadly mistaken. The system he tried so hard to appease ultimately led to his downfall and the ruination of his life.What separates this from other cop–and–robber stories is the brutal authenticity from the cop himself. We will see and hear exactly what is discussed in a patrol car. We will see how the law was栮d is汯utinely bent to make collars stick any way possible. And we will see how Cea slowly spirals to depths of hell.No Lights, No Sirens is simplistic in its scope: A young idealistic boy becomes a man through fire, and then becomes exactly what he has been chasing for so long, a hardened man possessed by demons. With rapid fire and gritty narrative, Cea writes about his fall to the depths, and his salvation. We see the dark side of detective work in New York's most crime–riddled neighbourhoods from a first–hand view never before seen.

The World's Worst Crimes: An A-Z of Evil Deeds


Charlotte Greig - 2007
    Some kill out of boredom, others because they’ve developed a taste for death. The motives that drive people to perpetrate the most terrible acts are many and various, and so are the crimes they commit. From the Acid Bath Murders and the Birmingham Church Bombing to the Voodoo Killings and the Woman in a Box, every category of crime is covered as our intrepid author sifts through the evidence to present a grisly but compelling history of the worst crimes ever.

Battle at Alcatraz: A Desperate Attempt to Escape the Rock


Ernest B. Lageson Jr. - 1999
    The escape attempt was the cumination of months of methodical planning. But, when a last-minute glitch foiled their escape, inmates shot the hostages in effort to leave no witnesses. Before order was restored, thousands of rounds were fired by federal prison personnel and a detachment of the U.S. Marines. Among the guards who survived the shooting was Ernie Lageson, Sr. the author's father. Now in Battle at Alcatrz, author Ernie Lageson Jr. passes on his father's story. Meticulously researched, this compelling story offers an insider's perspective on both the notorious riot and life inside the most infamous prison in America. Eight pages of photos.