As a child, I was known as "Jessica Pelley." When I was nine, I went to a sleepover at a friend's house for the weekend. While I was away, my entire family was murdered. I would spend the next 30 years fighting, crawling, and clawing my way through the darkness. This wasn't just a national news headline, a cold case, or a true crime show. It was my family. And my life. I was the broken little girl left behind to tell this story. I am now "Jessi," in the pages of this unapologetic memoir, set free. *** JESSI - APRIL 29, 2016 April 29, 1989. A date I cannot forget. Numbers forever seared deep into my soul. It was 27 years ago, today. Jesus. Get a grip, Jessi. They’re just numbers. They don’t mean anything. You’re giving them power over you, again. That’s what I tell myself. But the numbers—those damn numbers—they haunt me. They always will. I cannot escape them. Not now. Not ever. For most people, dates are just numbers on a calendar. No big deal. Random markers of time affixed to the top left corner of small, white squares on a page to depict days filled with choices, chances, and opportunities. At least that’s what they are for the normal people. But I’m no longer one of them. For me, they serve as numeric reminders of the girl I used to be. A tragedy that would irrevocably and mercilessly alter the life of a little girl wearing dark blue jeans, canvas lace-up sneakers, and a white tee shirt, accessorized by prominent coke bottle glasses, her hair hanging in a messy bob. Her life would be forever dismantled. Gone. The moment they told me the words. The ones that I will never forget. At that moment, my life froze and shattered into pieces, splintering like bits of broken glass, dropping down onto the ground around me, like the remnants of a cracked windshield, falling fast before the spinning mind and broken heart of a wide-eyed little girl. Life, as I knew it, was over in that moment. What happened on April 29, 1989, has scarred me forever. A day that started out normally, before it became ensnared in marred memories, tucked between folds of tragedy and darkness. The lingering memories cut straight to the core of the hollow girl left behind. The darkness delivers itself to me, every year, on schedule. Steadily. Greedily. On the 29th day of April. Relentless. Haunting. It taunts the pieces of me that remain. Every single year. I try to lift myself out of the darkness. I tell myself the numbers shouldn’t matter. Not after 27 years have passed. Jessi, It’s just another day. You can do anything you want with it. Don’t slip into the darkness. But not even the voice in my head believes those lies I tell myself. Year after year, my happiness recoils, my thoughts run to a dark place filled with foggy memories and a void that swallows me whole. The door of despair opens and I’m trapped: alone, numb to the bone, emotionally deplete, void of all reality, space, and time. I hate the helplessness as I slip further into that dark place. A place that, long ago, was filled with light. A place where three little girls would sing happy songs, pick flowers, hold hands while skipping through tall blades of grass, and sit down at the dining room table, where they would bow their heads to pray before plates filled with food, in a home filled with laughter. Then it hits me—the life-defining, self-inflicted images of horror—of their final moments—dragging me deep into the darkness.

    But in "The Unforgiven", three young children are in the back seat of a car driven by Amanda Hamm's boyfriend as it slips into an Illinois lake. Amanda and her boyfriend survive. Her three children do not. The question of whether it was a horrible accident or a murderous plot divided family and friends and traumatized the entire community. The brief but intense police investigation included seven interviews Hamm voluntarily gave police without the benefit of counsel. The outcome remains controversial to this day and comes full circle with state child welfare workers' concern about children born to Hamm since the fateful day at Clinton Lake. "The Unforgiven" co-author and journalist Edith Brady-Lunny covered the case from start-to-finish, beginning the night of the drownings. Her co-author Steve Vogel lives nearby. His "Reasonable Doubt", considered a true crime classic, was a New York Times best-seller. Together they have extensive first-hand knowledge of the case and access to nearly every record related to the court proceedings.

    Over 170 people have disappeared from cruise ships around the world since 1995, several under very suspicious circumstances. Others have their lives senselessly stolen, like the 8-year-old boy sucked into an unprotected pool drain at a major resort, leaving his mother crying out his name as security staff held her at gunpoint. Or 22-year old Nolan Webster, denied proper medical care after being pulled unconscious from a Cancun resort pool, only to have his dead body left in plain view for hours and his parents billed for his room.Vacations are meant to be joyous and fun. Sometimes terrible things happen unexpectedly. A parasailing newlywed plummets hundreds of feet to her death on the last day of her honeymoon when her harness snaps in midair. Hikers make a fatal plunge on an improperly-marked Kauai cliffside trail. And of course, there's every mother's nightmare: the disappearance of Natalee Holloway while on a high-school graduation trip to Aruba with members of her senior class.

    This book cuts through the myth to reveal the astonishing true-life story of its elderly mastermind, Brian Reader. Gang insiders, family, friends and detectives talk for the first time about Reader’s six-decade career, from mixing with the Krays and the cream of the London underworld to an ill-fated collaboration with violent gangster Kenny Noye.

    For nearly seven decades, Santo Trafficante, Sr. and his son, Santo, Jr. were prominent gangsters on the Tampa crime scene. Santo, Sr. arrived in Tampa in 1902 and settled in the Ybor City area where he slowly began his climb to the top of the Tampa mob scene. Along the way, he became a clever and ruthless gangster who preferred to operate in the shadows. By the mid 1920s, Santo, Sr. had become a powerful force in the Tampa mafia. Two decades later, the U.S. government reported that he was “strongly suspected of having financed important narcotics transactions.” During Tampa’s “Era of Blood” from 1930 through the 1950s, in which several local gangsters were murdered, Santo, Sr. emerged as Tampa’s most powerful mobster. He would remain so until his death in 1954.His successor, Santo, Jr., lead the Tampa mob for more than three decades and became involved in some of history’s most seminal events. They include mob dominance of the gambling scene in pre-Castro Cuba, the CIA plots to kill Castro, the spectacular mob hit of godfather Albert Anastasia in 1957, the famous mob meeting at Apalachin in upstate New York that followed shortly after, the John F. Kennedy assassination, and the development of narcotics networks in Latin America and Southeast Asia, among others. Unlike most other godfathers, Santo, Jr. never spent more than a night in an American jail. When he died in 1987, organized crime expert Ralph Salerno described Santo, Jr.’s death as “the end of an era” and the godfather as “the last of the old time (gangland) leaders.” In vivid prose and concise detail, Chepesiuk weaves the fascinating story of the legendary gangsters, the Trafficantes.“Ron Chepesiuk’s book on the Trafficantes takes the reader behind the headlines to the real story, uncensored and without filters. The book is fast-paced with fascinating factual details told in Chepesiuk's trademark tell-it-as-it-is writing style. A must read for true crime aficionados.”--Elle Andra-Warner, author of several best-selling books, including Edmund Fitzgerald: The Legendary Great Lakes Shipwreck and The Mounties; Robert Service.

    He was in the prime of his life enjoying good health, financial success, world travel and a bustling social life. But, things weren't always so good for him. His life began in dismal circumstances, and tragically, it ended worse than it began. He was born to drug addicted parents and suffered many of the worst privations of life. His family was poor and his parents were neglectful and abusive. He was teased and bullied as a small child and had few, if any, friends.    After running away at the age of ten and going to live with his Grandmother, he became active in his church. Travis began to thrive in this environment. He had found a place where he was accepted. He had a support group, many friends and a purpose. Travis did not let his dark childhood stop him from accomplishing great things in his life. He used his negative experiences to propel him into a life of abundance and success by becoming better every day. Like many single, thirty-year-old men, he was dating in hopes of finding Mrs. Right, so he could get married, start a family and live the good life. Unfortunately, Jodi Arias, one of the women Travis was dating, was a psychopath. When Travis was dating her, they were living in different states. Soon after he broke things off, she moved within a mile of his house in Mesa, Arizona! She stalked him, hacked his email and social media accounts, and made his life unlivable. Her manipulation, lies, conniving, need for control and invasive behaviors were too much for Travis and he finally convinced her to move back to Yreka, California in April of 2008. On May 26, 2008 Travis finally saw Jodi for the evil monster she is. Via text, chat and email, they got into a huge fight. In June 2008, she set off on a 1,027 mile road trip to Mesa, Arizona to murder Travis. With Travis’ blood still under her fingernails, she headed to Utah to hook-up with a new love interest. Travis was found with twenty-nine stab wounds, shot in the face, and with his throat slit from ear to ear. After a heart-wrenching, five-year delay, the case finally went to trial, and became one of the highest profile murder trials in recent history. On May 8, 2013, his killer was convicted of first-degree, pre-meditated murder. During the grueling, ten month trial, which was in large part a circus act of character assassination, lies and fiction, Travis’s life was purposefully distorted and despicably misrepresented. This book was written to share with the world who Travis Victor Alexander was, the reality of what he endured, and the positive impact he continues to have on the world. Our Friend Travis is a book about the real Travis; his life, his light, his triumphs, his mistakes, his death, his murderer’s trial and his legacy. Chris and Sky Hughes are able to offer an insight that few, if any, have into Travis’s life and the evil that ended it. The world deserves to know the real Travis, and they hope you will get to know him through this book. They hope that his loving demeanor, zest for life, passion for service and ability to make people realize their divine potential jumps off the pages and into your heart. NOTE ABOUT REVIEWS OF THIS BOOK: This book includes information about the Jodi Arias murder trial, which was one of the highest profile murder trials in recent history. As a result of the media attention this case garnered, millions around the world have come to know Travis Alexander and Jodi Arias, the woman who viciously murdered him. Though the public came out overwhelmingly in support of Travis Alexander, his friends and family, there is a very small, but vocal group, who, for whatever reason, are supportive of a convicted murderer.

    But he becomes increasingly haunted by childhood ghosts and by the ever-growing influence of Danny, his psychopathic partner in crime. Billy finds himself starting to look beyond the violence and the scams, slowly descending into a drug-fuelled netherworld that affects his judgment and his perceptions. He is finally tipped over the edge when Danny commits an act even Billy cannot stomach. And that's when things really start to go wrong. This explosive first novel from a reformed career criminal comes with authenticity stamped throughout.

    

    The trial itself was sensational enough to attract the attention of the world’s largest association of professional forensic investigators. At the start, everyone expected a ‘guilty’ verdict. His fingerprints were at the scene, the murder weapon was in his car and a blood stain in the bathroom was matched to one of his shoes. And yet, he was acquitted and is now suing the Minister of Police, saying that the evidence was fabricated. Altbeker witnessed the trial, and looks closely at how the justice system failed both van der Vyver and Lotz.

    Organized geographically, the elements of each murder—from the prior movements of both killer and victim to the eventual location of the body—are meticulously replotted using archival maps and bespoke plans, taking readers on a perilous journey around the murder hot spots of the world.From the “French Ripper,” Joseph Vacher, who roamed the French countryside brutally mutilating and murdering at least eleven people, to H. H. Holmes and his “Murder Castle” in Chicago, crime expert Dr. Drew Gray recounts the details of each case. His forensic examination uncovers both the horrifying details of the crimes themselves and the ingenious detective work that led to the capture of the murderers. Throughout the book, Gray highlights the development of police methods and technology, from the introduction of the police whistle to the standardization of the mug shot to the use of fingerprinting and radiotelegraphy in apprehending criminals.Vividly recreating over one hundred individual murder cases through historic maps, photographs, newspaper excerpts, court papers, and police reports, Murder Maps is perfect for everyone interested in criminal history, forensics, or the macabre.

    In order to break the dysfunctional cycle, Charisse needs to overcome the chaos caused by generations of family secrets, extreme poverty, fanatical religion and sexual abuse all of which leaves her ill equipped to make her own adult decisions. Can she overcome a legacy of lies?

    A family of five held hostage in their home. A frantic police manhunt across the snowbound Derbyshire moors. Just one survivor. The definitive account of the terrifying 1977 Pottery Cottage murders that shocked Britain. For three days, escaped prisoner Billy Hughes played macabre psychological games with Gill Moran and her family, keeping them in separate rooms of their home while secretly murdering them one by one. On several occasions Hughes ordered Gill and her husband, Richard, to leave the house for provisions, confident that they would return without betraying him in order to protect their loved ones. Blizzards hampered the desperate police search, but they learned where the dangerous convict was hiding and closed in on the cottage. A high-speed car chase on icy roads ended with a crash and the killer being shot as he swung a newly sharpened axe at his final victim. This was Britain's first instance of police officers committing 'justifiable homicide' against an escapee. The story of these terrible events is told here by Carol Ann Lee and Peter Howse, the former Chief Inspector who saved Gill Moran's life more than 40 years ago. Peter's professional role has permitted access to witness statements, crime-scene photographs and police reports. Peter Howse and Carol Ann Lee have made use of these, along with fresh interviews with many of those directly involved, to tell a fast-paced and truly shocking story with great insight and empathy.

    But that picture was to tell a desperate story. In the lower right-hand corner of the shot, Tina Watson's lifeless body lies 25 metres down on the ocean floor, her arms outstretched, reaching upwards. This is the photograph which shocked millions across Australia and the US.How could this young woman have died, a mere seven minutes into her dive, when Gabe Watson, her diving buddy and husband of only eleven days, was a certified rescue diver? How could such an experienced diver have panicked and abandoned his new wife to her fate, as he later told police? As the tragedy unfolded and witnesses came forward, disturbing evidence mounted that something more sinister might have occurred. Could Gabe Watson have murdered Tina?This is the captivating mystery at the heart of this true-life thriller, as Lindsay Simpson and Jennifer Cooke cover two continents to discover the real story.

    We are then forced to re-live the moments we have spent decades burying beneath amicable smiles and a false sense of security. This is my story; one shrouded in as much truth as my mind can tolerate. My story may mean nothing to you, but I believe, that if these words were to fall into the right hands, then they could have the potential to change someone’s life, someone’s mind. At a young age I learned what it meant to carry the scorching secrets of a fiery hell. For years I allowed the flames to consume my mind as I proceeded to live a life devoted to destruction and chaos. I blamed my mother. I blamed the men that raped me. I blamed the woman that refused to love me back. But when the smoke cleared, the mirror on the wall only painted a single reflection, that of myself. So, when the big bad wolf no longer blows, yet the house still falls, who will I have to blame then? Only me.

    The only surviving member of this tragic ordeal was Ronald DeFeo Jr., who was later charged and convicted to six-life-sentences. Still, the evidence shows that Ronnie "Butch" DeFeo could not have killed all six of his family members by himself, while they lay sleeping in their beds. Thirteen months later, the Lutz family moved into the lavish Dutch Colonial home and moved out mysteriously after just 28-days with only the clothes on their backs, claiming that the house was haunted; they would never return! Then came a media frenzy and with the release of Jay Anson's runaway best selling book, "The Amityville Horror," which was later transformed into a blockbuster movie, the story became an international phenomenon. What really happened at 112 Ocean Ave. in Amityville? Mentally Ill in Amityville (MIA), is the true story of the events as they occurred, with exclusive interviews and official documents of these dramatic events. MIA is a must read for anyone who wants to know the complete story behind the most famous haunted house in the world