When his military days were over, Simmons, a former Air Force sergeant, began a torturous series of acts of violence and humiliation against his family. While a fierce presence to his wife, Becky, and six of their seven children, he became exceptionally tender with his favorite daughter, Sheila, and forced her into an incestuous relationship that culminated in the birth of a child. Simmons went through a series of menial jobs and, after several moves, finally settled his family in the foothills of the Ozarks. But faced with growing frustration of his need for control, along with his daughter's rejection of him and marriage to another man, which he claimed had ruined his plans to have a happy life alone with her, he prepared the ritual killing of all those who had made his dream unworkable. While for the most part, Williams ( Tankwar ) and Marshall, a journalist, tell the story convincingly, they fail when they attempt to re-create and explain Simmons's thought processes.Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.From Library Journal

    The next morning, the Freeman family trailer was in flames and both girls were missing.While rumors of drug debts, revenge, and police collusion abounded in the years that followed, the case remained unsolved and the girls were never found.In 2015, crime writer Jax Miller--who had been haunted by the case--decided to travel to Oklahoma to find out what really happened on that winter night in 1999, and why the story was still simmering more than fifteen years later. What she found was more than she could have ever bargained for: jaw-dropping levels of police negligence and corruption, entire communities ravaged by methamphetamine addiction, and a series of interconnected murders with an ominously familiar pattern.These forgotten towns were wild, lawless, and home to some very dark secrets.

    But how could he have drowned when the water level was only four feet deep? And why was his body covered with cuts and bruises from head to toe?Wicked StepmotherSuspicion soon fastened on the dead boy's stepmother, Jessica Schwarz, who boastfully described herself as "loud and crude." She was a brute and a bully--but was she a torturer and child killer? Investigators unearthed a pattern of nightmarish physical and mental abuse that she had inflicted on the boy, one that left even hardened police sleuths sickened.Day Of ReckoningDuring her trials, Jessica Schwarz was smugly defiant, until convictions for criminal child abuse and second degree murder wiped the smirk off her face. She is now serving a seventy-year prison term. Carol J. Rothgeb, author of Hometown Killer, and Scott H. Cupp, the prosecutor who successfully convicted Jessica Schwarz, now tell the riveting inside story of how a brutal killer's reign of terror was finally brought to an end.

    While there is action here, there's also political hassle, the rich and often troubling history of a department not unfamiliar with corruption, and the day to day life of people charged with preserving order in America's largest city. Conlon's book is, in part, a memoir as he progresses from being a rookie cop working the beat at troubled housing projects to assignments in the narcotics division to eventually becoming a detective. But it's also the story of his family history within the enormous NYPD as well as the evolving role of the police force within the city.Conlon relates the controversies surrounding the somewhat familiar shooting of Amadou Diallou and the abuse, at the hands of New York cops, of Abner Louima. But being a cop himself, Conlon lends insight and nuance to these issues that could not possibly be found in the newspapers. And as an outstanding writer, he draws the reader into that world. In the book's most remarkable passage, Conlon tells of the grim but necessary work done at the Fresh Kills landfill, sifting through the rubble and remains left in the wake of the World Trade Center attacks on 9/11 (a section originally published in The New Yorker).In many ways, Blue Blood comes to resemble the world of New York City law enforcement that Conlon describes: both are expansive, sprawling, multi-dimensional, and endlessly fascinating. And Conlon's writing is perfectly matched to his subject, always lively, keenly observant, and possessing a streetwise energy.

    She had pretended that life was perfect after her parents divorced and she was suddenly uprooted from everything familiar and loving. She had to be silent and pretend not to be disturbed or upset by her father's actions. Those experiences prepared Moore to hide the deepest, darkest secret of all. As she began making different choices, building a successful and loving life on her own, her heart began to fill with rays of hope, though she could never quite rid herself of the dark shadow of secrecy and shame.Shattered Silence is an astonishing, true narrative of personal and spiritual transformation. From her secret life as "the daughter of The Happy Face Serial Murderer" to a woman who bared her soul and inspired millions, Moore leads the reader on the vulnerable, compelling, and sometimes very raw journey of what it took to shatter the silence and claim her own life.

    Targeted by the media, sentenced by the courts, and wrongfully imprisoned for four excruciating years for a crime neither could fathom let alone perpetrate, Raffaele Sollecito and Amanda Knox were the victims in a trial so bizarre it defied all reason. Now, for the first time since his acquittal, Raffaele reveals what really happened between him and his then girlfriend before, during, and after Amanda’s roommate Meredith Kercher’s brutal murder.Filled with family drama, wild reversals of fortune, and a blow-by-blow account of the legal catastrophe as it unfolded, this harrowing firsthand account sheds fascinating new light on one of the world’s most controversial murder cases. With startling candor, Raffaele shares intimate details about his changing relationship with Amanda—one that veered in a matter of days from giddy romance to grueling police interrogations. Over the next four years, Raffaele was the only solid alibi Amanda had for the night of the murder. He came under unrelenting pressure—from his own family and lawyers as much as the police and prosecution—to change his testimony and stop vouching for her. But he wouldn’t do it. He refused to testify against her to save his own skin, because he knew she would be lost forever. Raffaele sifts through the wild accusations depicting him as a druggie, a porn addict, and reckless thrill seeker, and shows how these stories were gross distortions of trivial episodes in his young life. With unflinching honesty, he takes readers behind the scenes of the trial of the century—and inside the day-to-day hell of prison life. Finally, and poignantly, Raffaele talks about his first face-to-face reunion with Amanda following their release. Emotional, disturbing, and ultimately galvanizing, this memoir is more than a true-crime story—it is a riveting account of an egregious miscarriage of justice, of public condemnation, and personal survival. Honor Bound is also, at its heart, a tragic love story about a young man who trusted his feelings, refused to give up hope, and ultimately triumphed.

    Agent's Relentless Pursuit of the Nation's Worst Predators, which Rinek wrote with the journalist Marilee Strong, sounds warm and humane, qualities missing from much crime writing. Their book is a professional job, filled with illuminating details about the day-to-day operations of the bureau.--New York Times Book Review FBI Special Agent Jeff Rinek had a gift for getting child predators to confess. All he had to do was share a piece of his soul . . .In the Name of the Children gives an unflinching look at what it's like to fight a never-ending battle against an enemy far more insidious than terrorists: the predators, lurking amongst us, who seek to harm our children.During his 30-year career with the FBI, Jeff Rinek worked hundreds of investigations involving crimes against children: from stranger abduction to serial homicide to ritualized sexual abuse. Those who do this kind of work are required to plumb the depths of human depravity, to see things no one should ever have to see--and once seen can never forget. There is no more important--or more brutal--job in law enforcement, and few have been more successful than Rinek at solving these sort of cases.Most famously, Rinek got Cary Stayner to confess to all four of the killings known as the Yosemite Park Murders, an accomplishment made more extraordinary by the fact that the FBI nearly pinned the crimes on the wrong suspects. Rinek's recounting of the confession and what he learned about Stayner provides perhaps the most revelatory look ever inside the psyche of a serial killer and a privileged glimpse into the art of interrogation.In the Name of the Children takes readers into the trenches of real-time investigations where every second counts and any wrong decision or overlooked fact can have tragic repercussions. Rinek offers an insider's perspective of the actual case agents and street detectives who are the boots on the ground in this war at home. By placing us inside the heart and mind of a rigorously honest and remarkably self-reflective investigator, we will see with our own eyes what it takes--and what it costs--to try to keep our children safe and to bring to justice those who prey on society's most vulnerable victims.With each chapter dedicated to a real case he worked, In the Name of the Children also explores the evolution of Rinek as a Special Agent--whose unorthodox, empathy-based approach to interviewing suspects made him extraordinarily successful in obtaining confessions--and the toll it took to have such intimate contact with child molesters and murderers. Beyond exploring the devastating impact of these unthinkable crimes on the victims and their families, this book offers an unprecedented look at how investigators and their loved ones cope while living in the specter of so much suffering.

    With no witnesses and only allegations of family greed, incest, and sexual abuse, the murder remains unsolved for years. The most likely suspects, the victims' youngest daughter Cindy, and her ex-Marine boyfriend, David West, had an alibi the police could not crack. And then West fell in love with Kim Paris, a sexy ex-stripper turned private investigator. She coaxed a confession from him that led to a complex murder case exploding into national news. Clifford Irving wrote: "I started out in Houston as a writer on assignment . . . but I became an investigator, a friend to many of the dramatis personae, and a trial witness. As a result, to my discomfort, I helped to determine the outcome of events . . ." The story of Cindy, a tortured woman, and David, a man determined to do the right thing even if it required multiple murder, is as spectacular and thrilling a true-crime courtroom drama as you will ever read.

    It was legendary homicide detective Lou Smit who finally broke the case, sending Robert Charles Browne, a forty-three-year-old Louisiana drifter and career criminal, to prison for life.But the savage saga of Robert Browne did not end there. In 2000, Smit, now retired, joined forces with Charlie Hess, an ex-FBI agent and former CIA operative, to reexamine the cold-case murder files of the local Sheriff's Department. With the addition of amateur forensics buff Scott Fischer, the Apple Dumpling Gang was born.As their volunteer work continued, Smit, Hess, and Fischer came upon a taunting letter written by Browne, hinting that the death of Heather Church was only the tip of the iceberg. What other law enforcement officials had simply ignored, the Apple Dumpling Gang took on with single-minded determination. Charlie Hess began a correspondence with Browne in which, over the course of dozens of letters, the killer teasingly spun out the details of a horrific killing spree spread over thirty years and nine states. The tally, according to Browne: forty-nine deaths, making him one of the most prolific serial murderers in the annals of American crime.Hess's unique insight into criminal psychology, honed over his years developing informants and working as a polygraph operator, made him uniquely suited to match wits with the cagey and canny killer. But Browne was every bit the retired cop's equal: quickwitted, mercurial, and charismatic, with a penchant for riddles and a lifetime full of grisly secrets.A riveting account of the complex and chilling cat-and-mouse game Hess and Browne played over five years, "Hello Charlie" details Browne's bloody swath of murder -- by strangulation, poisoning, and dismemberment -- even as it explores the special bond forged between the cop and the killer, allowing Hess unprecedented access into the mind of a remorseless psychopath.As compulsively readable as any crime novel, "Hello Charlie" picks up where "The Silence of the Lambs" left off, with the incredible true story of one man's search for justice with a murderer as his guide.

    The victims were strangled, shot, or savagely beaten. Six met their demise in pairs. They had one thing in common: being in the wrong place at the wrong time.The day she vanished, Colette Wilson waited for her mother after band practice. Best friends Debbie Ackerman and Maria Johnson loved to surf and were last seen hitchhiking. Laura Kate Smither dreamed of becoming a ballerina and disappeared just weeks before her thirteenth birthday.In this harrowing true crime exposition, award-winning journalist Kathryn Casey tracks these tragic cases, investigates the evidence, interviews the suspects, and pulls back the cloak of secrecy in search of elusive answers.

    For four months, arsenic consumed the body of promising young pediatric AIDS researcher Eric Miller. No one thought that his wife could be capable of such a horrible crime—except for veteran homicide investigator Chris Morgan, a man who would spend the next four years in his pursuit of justice.

    Then in a few horrifying moments, the tranquility of the day was shattered by rape, torture and murder. A small Vermont town and the entire nation was stunned - these gruesome crimes had been committed not by hardened criminals but by two young boys, fifteen and sixteen years old.One of America's finest investigative journalists, Peter Meyer, recounts this provocative true story of terror in the small Vermont town of Essex Junction. He powerfully recreates this tragic case and its complex emotional aftermath - the statewide manhunt, the trial, and the chilling results that sent one teenage killer to prison for life and set the other free after two and a half years. Here is the shocking story.

    Hundreds of active and former officers from all over the United States responded: men and women from big cities and small towns, some who had written professionally, but most of whom were doing so for the first time. The result is True Blue, a collection of funny, charming, exciting, haunting stories about murder investigations, missing children, bungling burglars, car chases, lonely and desperate shut-ins, routine traffic stops, officers killed in the line of duty, and the life-changing events of September 11. Here, officers reveal their emotions as they recount the defining moments of their careers. Some of the stories include:-Two cops' desperate search for a missing child feared kidnapped -The revival of the one-month old baby who was shot in the face in a drive-by shooting-A patrol officer's dramatic showdown with a hostage-holding gunman-On-the-scene details of rescue and tragedy during the 9/11 terrorist attacks

    Part social history, part detective story, part exposé, The Baby Thief is a riveting investigative narrative that explores themes that continue to reverberate today.

    One girl was about to turn sixteen, the other twenty-one.Exquisitely and inexorably, Deanne Stillman uses this tragedy as a prism through which she explores not only the murders and the families involved but a rootless culture of fatherless families, shattered dreams, and relentless violence. In haunting, vivid prose, she creates a farreaching story of America itself, carrying us into the empty white heart of the Mojave, as we meet and come to know the modern nomads who turn to the West for salvation only to be devoured by its false promise.