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The Vengeful Heart: And Other Stories: A True-Crime Casebook by Stephen G. Michaud
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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?'
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.
A Heather's Forge Cozy Mystery Series: Complete Boxed Set
NL Cameron - 2019
After Allie Garrett's great Aunt mysteriously passes away, Allie inherits the Barrell Inn and it's mysterious clue finding cat, Pixie. When Pixie turns up a clue, she also turns the entire town upside town, uncovering a secret that's been hidden for years. This quirky cozy mystery is full of twists, turns and memorable characters as well as a hunky handyman that turns all of the heads in town. The Heather's Forge Cozy Mystery Series includes all six books: * Green with Envy * Choked Up * Straight Through the Heart * Hounded to Death * Inside Out * Under the Family Tree This fun cozy mystery is full of amateur female sleuthing but does not include graphic violence, sex or swearing.
General Leemy's Circus (Illustrated): A Navigator’s Story Of The Twentieth Air Force In World War II
Earl A. Snyder - 2020
The navigator's role was a critical one and involved making complex directional calculations during the chaos of combat. Author Earl Snyder was a whiz at steering pilots through sorties and skirmishes and had a knack for thinking on the fly in the middle of the storm. His renowned navigational skills earned him a place in Lemay's Circus and the critical series of bombings of Japan that ended World War 2.
Half A Brain: Confessions of a Special Needs Mom
Jenni Basch - 2020
The Creek Side Bones: Reality is more horrifying than fiction
George Jared - 2017
A friend needed help with his car. What happened to Carl, Lisa, Gregory, and Felicia that night is worse than any fictional horror story you've ever read or seen on the big screen. Little girls should never have to live in a barrel ... Award-winning journalist and best-selling author George Jared takes readers on a gripping and chilling journey with his latest true-crime book, The Creek Side Bones ... Reality is more horrifying than fiction. The book details how the Elliott family in Dalton, Ark., lived in constant fear in the summer 1998. How they met their fates is ghastly. Jared covered two murder trials in connection with the case, and provides his own theories as to how and why the Elliott family was murdered. Four other murder cases are also detailed in the book. Sidney Nicole Randall was a beauty pageant queen, about to enter high school when a monster stole her away in the dark. Bridgett Sellers was a mother of three who vanished without a trace while on a walk down Peace Valley Road. Her fate is incomprehensible. Bob Castleman was a respected attorney and Vietnam War vet until the drugs, murder, a live copperhead snake; Native American artifact fraud consumed his life. The book also includes an update on the unsolved Rebekah Gould case. The 22-year-old college student was murdered Sept. 20, 2004, in Melbourne, Arkansas. There are suspects in the case, but to this day, no one has been jailed for her brutal death. Jared has won numerous first place awards for investigative journalism, feature writing, news stories, and others with the coveted Associated Press Managing Editors and the Arkansas Press Association. His first book Witches in West Memphis ... and another false confession detailed his coverage of the internationally famous "West Memphis Three" case. Three Marion, Ark., teens - Damien Echols, Jason Baldwin, and Jessie Misskelley Jr. - were convicted in the 1993 murders Christopher Byers, Stevie Branch, and Michael Moore. The boys' bodies were found nude and bound in a drainage ditch near their homes one day after they disappeared May 5, 1993. Prosecutors claimed the boys were sacrificed in a Satanic ceremony orchestrated by the convicted. There was only one problem. These three didn't do it. It took nearly 20 years to free them. Jared wrote more stories about the case than any journalist in the world. He was cited in Life After Death, a New York Times best-selling book about the case. He also received credit for in the Academy Award nominated documentary Paradise Lost Three ... Purgatory also about the case. Through the years, the longtime newsman has written thousands of stories on a wide range of topics. Get a copy of The Creek Side Bones today.
The Murder of Adrianne Reynolds & Other Stories: A Collection of True Crime
Pete Bird - 2019
Sarah and Cory would take Adrienne's body to Sarah's grandparents' farm where they attempted to burn it to no avail. They would then recruit another friend to help dismember the body after which they would dump it in a historic site. The three then went and ate lunch at McDonald's to celebrate their crime. What would ever possess these teens to commit such a horrific crime?
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.
Broadmoor - My Journey Into Hell
Charlie Bronson - 2015
His journey has, until now, never been told.In the winter of 1979, aged just twenty-seven, the inmate who would come to be known as 'Charlie Bronson' was considered uncontrollable by the prison system. Certified insane, he was transferred from Parkhurst Prison to the most infamous high-security psychiatric hospital in England, Broadmoor Asylum for the Criminally Insane. There he embarked on a one-man campaign to retain his sanity, and to fight against the brutality of a largely hidden regime that relied on enforced drug control.This outstandingly honest account takes the reader back to those dark days. It is a journey filled with sadness, and yet it is one that includes much laughter and pathos, as well as detailing the camaraderie among fellow patients, who included Ronnie Kray and Frankie Fraser.How Charlie Bronson survived Broadmoor, what he endured and the things he witnessed are, for the very first time, documented in this sad, often chilling, sometimes funny and often moving account of one man's journey into madness and his methods for surviving the UK's most feared and notorious psychiatric hospital. Capturing Bronson's unique voice, it is a roller-coaster ride of madness, pain, laughter and tears. It is also a testament to one man's triumph over adversity.
Wrestling With Madness: John E. Du Pont and the Foxcatcher Farm Murder
Tim Huddleston - 2013
Part of one of the most prominent and richest families in America: The du Pont Family. Then, strangely, he started losing his mind. This is what is known: du Pont was a fan of amateur sports and established a wrestling facility at his Foxcatcher Farm. He befriended several Olympic champions--including Dave Schultz, who he murdered. It was a never a question of if he did it; the question is why. What turns an otherwise sane man into a psychotic killer? This page-turning true crime story will take you into the mind of a man who had everything and let it all fall away due to madness and paranoia.
Ashes From A Burning Corpse (An American True Crime Reporter in the 20th Century Book 3)
Noel Hynd - 2017
When police found him the next morning, there were four wounds to his skull. His corpse had been abused, covered ritualistically with feathers and set on fire. The murder was perverse, horrific and jaded by anyone’s standards. A few evenings later in New York City, the phone rang in the home of Alan Hynd, identified in that era by the NY Times as America’s highest paid true crime reporter. The Oakes case would send the writer, with a quarter of a century of experience covering murders, to the Bahamas in wartime. He would try to bring truth to a case that was littered with a colorful cast of international characters and which, in its resolution, became unique in the annals of true crime. "Ashes From A Burning Corpse" is the fictionalized story of that writer’s coverage of the case – and how it changed his life forever. It is also a literary and cultural journey into New York and the colonial Bahamas of the World War Two era, a story touching upon Hemingway, Sinatra and FDR, big-shot film and Broadway producers, crooked cops, gangsters and a murder trial so big that it knocked the world war off the front pages. Welcome to what is also a literary journey into true crime, politics, book publishing and magazine work in the World War Two era, with allusions to writers from Edmond Pearson to Scott Fitzgerald. "Ashes" is part of a trilogy titled "An American True Crime Reporter in the 20th Century," three cases which were the centerpieces of a veteran real-life crime reporter’s legacy. The trilogy will also include first person novels on the original Charles Ponzi swindling case, "The Pied Piper of Boston" and the Charles Lindbergh kidnapping case, "The Crimes of The Century." The latter two titles will appear in early 2018 and feature the same writer/reporter at earlier stages of his long career. Noel Hynd is the author of more than a dozen novels, originally published by Doubleday, Dial, Bantam, Tor, Kensington, Zondervan/HarperCollins, and currently, his own imprint, Red Cat Tales LLC Publishing of Los Angeles, California. He has sold more than 7 million books worldwide, including hardcover, trade paperback, mass market paperback, Literary Guild and digital editions. His best known titles in the espionage genre are "Flowers From Berlin" and "Truman's Spy." In the supernatural genre, his best known titles are "Ghosts" and "Cemetery of Angeles." "Ingenious...Suspense fiction that stands out!" - New York Times "Noel Hynd knows the ins and outs of Washington's agencies both public and private" - Publishers Weekly "A few notches above the Ludlums and Clancys of the world." - Booklist
Gosnell's Babies: Inside the Mind of America's Most Notorious Abortion Doctor
Steve Volk - 2013
That distinction belongs to Gosnell's Babies." — Alexander Nazaryan, The Atlantic Wire"Very well written ... A must-read for anybody who followed this case." — Jake Tapper, CNNIn this chilling tale set against the backdrop of one of the most controversial issues of our times, award-winning journalist Steve Volk tells the decades-long saga of Kermit Gosnell — the abortion doctor whose clinic in a poor section of Philadelphia was revealed to be a house of horrors.Volk — the only journalist to speak to Gosnell since his conviction and imprisonment — brings the eccentric doctor to life, detailing his past in the early days of the abortion-rights movement and getting him to reveal, for the first time ever, why he did what he did. Was Gosnell a monster, or something else?Volk's powerful storytelling gives us a definitive understanding of a complex character, a horrific case, and a divisive issue.
Fatal Dosage: The True Story of a Nurse on Trial for Murder
Gary Provost - 1985
Now she had everything she wanted—until the nightmare began at Morton General Hospital.THE CRIMELicensed practical nurse Anne Capute administered a fatal dose of morphine to a dying patient, Norma Leanues. Anne claimed she was following common practice at Morton General, with a verbal approval by Dr. Hillier, to administer unrestricted doses of morphine as a humane antidote to the unbearable suffering of terminal cases.THE CHARGEOne day after the death of Mrs. Leanues, Dr. Hillier was off on a European vacation, and Anne Capute was suspended. Three days later she was advised to retain a lawyer—she would be standing trial for first degree murder.THE TRIALOne after another, doctors and nurses with whom Anne had worked so closely testified against her. And the most damaging prosecution witness of all was Dr. Hillier. Suddenly Anne’s life’s dream was destroyed. And as her personal life, too, began to shatter, there remained little hope of acquittal—or justice.Anne Capute: A woman on trial for her life. One dedicated nurse battling against the vast influence of the medical establishment. Hers is a true story of courage, drama, and penetrating suspense that no reader will soon forget.
The Ragged Stranger: The Hero, The Hobo, And The Crime That Shocked Jazz Age Chicago
Harold Schechter - 2019
Guns are drawn, and in the ensuing hail of bullets, only the husband walks away. However, police soon find out, that what seems to be a robbery gone wrong is anything but. The Case of the Ragged Stranger, as the tabloids dubbed it, is a tale of deceit, betrayal, and depravity, a stranger-than-fiction mystery story whose shocking solution riveted the nation and made it one of the most sensational crimes of the Jazz Age.
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.