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McGraw: The Incredible Untold Story of Tam 'The Licensee' McGraw
Reg McKay - 2008
He rose from poverty in the city's East End to amass a vast fortune from crime and, when he died in 2007, his empire stretched from Glasgow to the Canaries. When he was alive, few would talk openly about the man known as 'The Licensee'. But now his incredible, untold story can finally be revealed. Real stories about the time McGraw cheated The Godfather, risking his life to end a dynasty. How he was behind the UK's biggest coke heist and who paid the price. Who killed the six Doyles in the Ice Cream Wars. Why the BarL Team was never caught even with MI5 on their case. Armed jail breakouts - who arranged them, who grassed them. There are hit contracts, backstabbings, vendettas and scores to settle with everyone from The Godfather to The Devil, M Family, Specky Boyd and Paul Ferris. McGraw did all that and much more yet was never caught. Why? He was The Licensee. Licensed to Commit Crime.
Camouflaged Killer: The Shocking Double Life of Canadian Air Force Colonel Russell Williams
David A. Gibb - 2011
Canadian Air Force Colonel Russell Williams commanded the largest Canadian Forces base in the country. He had personally piloted prime ministers, dignitaries, and members of the British royal family, and was one of the most respected and trusted soldiers in the military.He was also a rapist and a murderer.This is the disturbing true account of how one of Canada's highest- ranking military officers became one of Canada's most notorious criminals, including his ultimate capture, trial and conviction for a twisted spree of sexual deviancy and two brutal rapes and murders.
The Cabin: A Riveting Kidnapping Mystery
Robert J. Walker - 2021
A thirty-year-old cold case. A kidnapper with nothing to lose.When a middle-aged man returns to a small town claiming to be a teenager abducted by a cult thirty years prior, a former detective steps out of retirement to uncover the truth. But picking at old wounds tends to make them bleed.
Olive Oatman: Explore The Mysterious Story of Captivity and Tragedy from Beginning to End
Brent Schulte - 2019
She is the girl with the blue tattoo.The story behind the distinctive tattoo is the stuff of legends. Some believed it was placed on her face during her captivity, following the brutal murders of her family members and the kidnapping of her and her sister. Others believe it was placed on her after her return.Rumors swelled. Her tattoo became a symbol of Native barbarianism and the triumph of American goodness, but like many stories of that era, the truth is far more complicated.This short book details the murders, her captivity, the aftermath, and her baffling return to her captors. Unravel the mystery of the woman who would become famous for all the wrong reasons and discover what her life story says about cultural identity, the power of resiliency, and what happens when fact and fiction bend and twist to muddy the waters.Read on to find out the truth!
The Kalinka Affair: A Father's Hunt for His Daughter's Killer
Joshua Hammer - 2012
Suspicions of murder began to surround her stepfather, a German doctor named Dieter Krombach, but Bamberski could only hope the truth would prevail. But when the authorities gave up their pursuit, he knew he had to act. So against the odds, Bamberski embarked on an obsessive quest to capture and punish his daughter’s killer. In this riveting true story by Joshua Hammer, a father travels to the limits of law in search of justice.
The Palm Beach Murder: The True Story of a Millionaire, Marriage and Murder
Marion Collins - 2004
But when the reckless social climber and adulterer turned marriage in their Palm Beach mansion into a luxurious hell, the beautiful Georgia debutante wanted out--and half of her husband's fortune to take with her.Then in 1987, a hit man unloaded three bullets into Lita's head.Her family demanded justice. James had other plans--and the money to insure it. But it wasn't until eleven years later that a startling confession from a surprise witness would bring James Sullivan's comfortable life crashing down around him. The cold-blooded millionaire was indicted and fled the country turning hotspots across the globe into exotic private playgrounds before settling with his new fiancée in a sumptuous resort near Bangkok, where he was arrested four years later. From Palm Beach elite to life in a squalid Thailand jail cell, Marion Collins' Palm Beach Murder is the astonishing true story of one man's flight from justice and one family's burning desire to make him pay.
Principal Suspect: The True Story of Dr. Jay Smith and the Main Line Murders
William C. Costopoulos - 1996
Jay Smith, a high school principal and her accused killer. The naked body of Susan Reinert, a suburban, Philadelphia school teacher was found jammed into the hatchback of a car. Her two young children were missing and never found.Thus began one of the most prominent murder cases Pennsylvania history, and one that would grip the nation. Now the defense attorney for the main suspect of the murders-- Jay Smith, the principal of the school where Reinert taught-- takes you inside the cover-ups and corruption that dramatically affected the outcome of the case. Did Jay Smith do it? Did he deserved the death penalty? it is you who must decide.
Gambino: The Rise: A Novel Based on the True Story
James Pierre - 2015
The Department of Justice’s endeavors to capture him on video surveillance likewise came up empty, because he rarely left his modest row house at 2230 Ocean Pkwy., in Brooklyn, New York. He was silent and reclusive to a fault. And by the time the public got their first look at him in 1970 (following an arrest on a trumped-up charge that was never prosecuted) he was already the most powerful mafia boss in the country, controlling a crew of 800 mafiosi, who oversaw nearly 50 criminal and legitimate businesses, which netted his crime family over $1 billion in annual revenue. Yet few even knew his name, let alone his story. Now, for the first time ever, the true story of Carlo Gambino is told in full, gory detail. Gambino: The Rise, A Novel Based on a True Story, unveils the intricate machinations of Gambino’s ascent, from poor, immigrant stowaway, to billionaire boss of America’s most deadly and elite crime family. On this journey, we meet such celebrity hoods as Charlie “Lucky” Luciano, Al “Scarface” Capone, Meyer Lansky, Vito Genovese, and Albert “The Mad Hatter” Anastasia… all of whom became pawns on Gambino’s Machiavellian chess set. Gambino’s story is a rags to riches tail of the bloodiest kind, which explores the dichotomies of family, wealth, and power within the mafia environment. With its careful scrutiny of mob business and brutality, Gambino: The Rise will undoubtedly draw comparisons to Mario Puzo’s timeless classic, The Godfather. But this is to be expected, especially when Puzo’s fictional crime patriarch, Vito Corleone, was based on none other than Carlo Gambino. Gambino: The Rise is a historical novel for the ages that will leave readers shell-shocked with every flip of the page, until its earth-shattering and climactic end.
Blood Frenzy
Robert Scott - 2010
. . Frankie Cochran knew her boyfriend, David Gerard, was possessive, controlling, and prone to violent rages. When she tried to break up with him, Gerard threatened her with a hammer. One week later, he used it to club her in the head. Again. And again. Then he stabbed her in the throat--and left her for dead. . .And A Sharp Knife. . . Miraculously, Frankie survived--but cops began to suspect Gerard of other vicious crimes. One of his previous girlfriends had died in a house fire, along with her children and her mother. A local prostitute's brutalized body was found in a pool of blood. But it was the unsolved murder of another woman--repeatedly run over on a country road--that finally exposed Gerard as a rage-driven monster out of control. . .To Unleash His Rage Justice finally caught up with Gerard. Hounded by the tireless efforts of detectives and incriminated by DNA evidence as well as up-to-date forensics that matched the tire marks at a crime scene to Gerard's car, one of the Pacific Northwest's most dangerous killers was finally locked behind bars. With 16 pages of shocking photos!
Bye Mam, I Love You
Sonia Oatley - 2014
A mother's search for justice. The shocking true story of the murder of Rebecca Aylward
On Saturday, 23 October 2010, Sonia Oatley waved off her 15-year-old daughter, Becca, to meet Joshua Davies, a former boyfriend. Becca’s hope was that the two of them would get back together, but it was not to be. By 3pm, oddly, she stopped answering her mobile. By 7.30 she was officially declared missing. And at 10am the following morning, while Sonia and the family were out searching, came the call that is every parent’s worst nightmare. The police had found the body of a young girl in local woodland: she’d been bludgeoned to death with a rock.
Bye Mam, I Love You is the story of Rebecca Aylward’s murder � a slaying that was described by an incredulous media as having been committed for �the price of a breakfast’. But, as soon became clear, this was no crime of passion. Becca’s death had apparently been many months in the planning, by a calculating, cold-blooded killer.
From the immediate arrest of 16-year-old Joshua Davies, to the lengthy investigation and harrowing five week trial that convicted him, this book is both an expression of a mother’s love and her pride in a daughter who had so much to live for, as well as an insight into the mind of a brutal murderer.
Hello Charlie: Letters from a Serial Killer
Charlie Hess - 2008
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 Ghost: How a California Golden Boy Became America's Most Unlikely-and Elusive- Fugitive
Paige Williams - 2012
He's the prime suspect in the 2004 murder of Keith Palomares, a 25-year-old armored truck guard. Despite the FBI's active investigation, Brown remains at large living among us without a trace. And yet, a faint pulse of his identity surfaces from time to time, haunting the detectives tasked to find him. In the Kindle Single The Ghost, crime writer Paige Williams chronicles the case and draws a portrait of a killer who is as slippery and elusive as he is enigmatic. Jason Derek Brown was raised by a Mormon father who held a high position in the church despite being a known con man. Jason himself was a devout Mormon for years, and maintained his generosity and Southern California charm even as he slid into a life of excessive materialism fueled by theft. Aside from the murder, he has no history of violence. His case is downright perplexing, and Williams captures it from multiple viewpoints in pitch-perfect prose. --Paul Diamond
KILLING WOMEN: The True Story of Serial Killer Don Miller's Reign of Terror
Rod Sadler - 2020
As a former youth pastor, he seemed a devout Christian. No one would have ever suspected that the recent graduate of the Michigan State University School of Criminal Justice was a serial killer.However, when Miller was arrested for the attempted murder of two teenagers in 1978, police quickly realized he was probably responsible for the disappearances of four women. Offered a still-controversial plea bargain, he led police to the bodies of the missing women.Now, after forty years in prison, Miller has served his time and is due to be released into an unsuspecting population. In KILLING WOMEN, author Rodney Sadler examines the crimes, the “justice” meted out, and the impending freedom of a man nationally renowned psychiatrist Dr. Frank Ochberg wrote:“… is a member of a small, deadly, dangerous population: murderers who stalk, capture, torture and kill; murderers who derive sexual and narcissistic gratification from their predation; murderers who maintain a ‘mask of sanity’ appearing normal and harmless.”
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.
Bending the Rules
Lizzie Scott - 2015
Two little boys joined our family when the bitter winter weather was still chilling our bones and their dad was absolutely destitute, no home, no money and no hope of getting his children back with a social worker who seemed to be a bit of a ladies man and favoured their mother. Steve was the second father we had met that would do anything and everything to get his children home…once he had managed to clean himself up and convince the department of Social Services that he would stay off the drink, stay away from women and that he intended to raise his sons in a happy and safe family home. We had to bend a few rules...then break a couple of them in order to help keep this family together…the rewards are immeasurable and, until now, I guess no-one but us and our nearest and dearest (and of course Elizabeth) knew how far we were willing to go to make sure that the right outcome for this placement happened in the end. This placement more than any other we have had, taught me that the determination that one man can have to save his family, against the determination of a department that knows he can’t is a powerful thing, and love really can conquer all.