Book picks similar to
Portrait of a Monster: Joran Van Der Sloot, a Murder in Peru, and the Natalee Holloway Mystery by Lisa Pulitzer
true-crime
non-fiction
nonfiction
murder
Manhunters: How We Took Down Pablo Escobar, the World's Most Wanted Criminal
Steve Murphy - 2019
Peña In the decades they spent at the DEA, Javier Peña and Steve Murphy risked their lives hunting large and small drug traffickers. But their biggest challenge was the hunt for Pablo Escobar in Colombia. The partners, who began their careers as small-town cops, have been immortalized in Netflix's Narcos, a fictional account of their hunt for Escobar. Now, for the first time ever, they tell the real story of how they brought down the world's first narco-terrorist, the challenges they faced, and the innovative strategies they employed to successfully end the reign of terror of the world's most wanted criminal.Readers will go deep inside the inner workings of the Search Bloc, the joint Colombian-US task force that resulted in an intensive 18-month operation that tracked Escobar. Between July 1992 and December 1993, Steve and Javier lived on the edge, setting up camp in Medellin at the Carlos Holguin Military Academy. There, they lived and worked with the Colombian authorities, hunting down a man who was thought by many to be untouchable. Their firsthand experience coupled with stories from the DEA's recently de-classified files on the search for Escobar forms the beating heart of Manhunters, an epic account of how two American agents risked everything to capture the world's most wanted man.
Living with Evil
Cynthia Owen - 2009
But behind the facade of respectability lurked a hideous reality. Cynthia was just eight years old when she was sexually abused by her father amongst others. Shortly before her eleventh birthday she was made pregnant and, minutes after giving birth to the baby, Cynthia watched in horror as her own mother murdered the tiny infant, named Noleen, by repeatedly stabbing her with a knitting needle. Cynthia's mother then wrapped the baby girl in a plastic bag, dumped her in an alleyway and made her daughter go back to school and pretend nothing had ever happened. After enduring many more years of rape and violence, Cynthia came forward and reported her abuse and Noleen's death. Finally, in 2007, after a fifteen-year legal fight to have her baby girl formally identified, the jury at the 'Dun Laoghaire Baby' inquest declared that the baby found dead in an alleyway thirty-four years previously was Noleen Murphy, the daughter of Cynthia Owen. Cynthia's is a horrific story of brutality and loss, but ultimately, it is an account of love, immense bravery and her fight for justice in Noleen's name.
The Man Who Killed Kennedy: The Case Against LBJ
Roger Stone - 2013
Kennedy. Consummate political insider Roger Stone makes a compelling case that Lyndon Baines Johnson had the motive, means, and opportunity to orchestrate the murder of JFK. Stone maps out the case that LBJ blackmailed his way on the ticket in 1960 and was being dumped in 1964 to face prosecution for corruption at the hands of his nemesis attorney Robert Kennedy. Stone uses fingerprint evidence and testimony to prove JFK was shot by a long-time LBJ hit man—not Lee Harvey Oswald.President Johnson would use power from his personal connections in Texas, from the criminal underworld, and from the United States government to escape an untimely end in politics and to seize even greater power. President Johnson, the thirty-sixth president of the United States, was the driving force behind a conspiracy to murder President Kennedy on November 22, 1963.In The Man Who Killed Kennedy, you will find out how and why he did it.Legendary political operative and strategist Roger Stone has gathered documents and uses his firsthand knowledge to construct the ultimate tome to prove that LBJ was not only involved in JFK’s assassination, but was in fact the mastermind.Skyhorse Publishing, as well as our Arcade imprint, are proud to publish a broad range of books for readers interested in history--books about World War II, the Third Reich, Hitler and his henchmen, the JFK assassination, conspiracies, the American Civil War, the American Revolution, gladiators, Vikings, ancient Rome, medieval times, the old West, and much more. While not every title we publish becomes a national bestseller, we are committed to books on subjects that are sometimes overlooked and to authors whose work might not otherwise find a home.
Call Me God: The Untold Story of the DC Sniper Investigation
Jim Clemente - 2019
Northgate Plaza.5:20 PM.Inside Michael’s craft supply store, cashier Ann Chapman rings up another customer. Then it happens. A loud crack; a gust of wind; the light in register five goes dark.Over the next 23 days, the entire DC area will be thrust into a reign of terror unprecedented in American history. Sniper attacks targeting and murdering everyday citizens will bring the entire region to its knees, as a nation still reeling from the recent attacks of 9/11 and the anthrax scare, are forced to confront a new type of brutal assault—this time in their own backyard. As law enforcement grapples with the mass carnage and chaos, media’s ravenous 24-hour cycle amplifies the very real fear, while steadily pumping new theories and bad leads onto a paralyzed public desperate for it all to end.But who can stop it? And exactly how?Call Me God is the never-before-told story of the fascinating and turbulent investigation that led to the diabolical and elusive killers' capture; one that pitted protocol against instinct, sacred institutions against individual insight. Told firsthand by those few who had the vision and expertise to solve it, and including a fascinating look into the behavioral, ballistic, forensic, and electronic analysis vital to cracking the case, FBI agent brothers Jim Clemente (former FBI behavioral profiler) and Tim Clemente (former FBI counter-terrorism expert) take us through every facet and flaw of a nationwide manhunt that pressure tested nearly every aspect of law enforcement capabilities—and its glaring vulnerabilities.Anchored by harrowing accounts from victims, intimate conversations with family members of those deceased, as well as candid accounts from those who knew the perpetrators best, relive the haunting events of the DC Sniper attack and piece together a true crime phenomenon that's impact can still be felt today.
Couple Found Slain: After a Family Murder
Mikita Brottman - 2021
Joe, Florida and confessed that he’d shot and killed his parents in their family home in Silver Spring, Maryland. He said he’d been possessed by the devil. He was eventually diagnosed with schizophrenia and ruled “not criminally responsible” for the murders on grounds of insanity.But after the trial, where do the "criminally insane" go? Brottman reveals Brian's inner life leading up to the murder, as well as his complicated afterlife in a maximum security psychiatric hospital, where he is neither imprisoned nor free. During his 27 years at the hospital, Brian has tried to escape and been shot by police, and has witnessed three patient-on-patient murders. He’s experienced the drugging of patients beyond recognition, a sadistic system of rewards and punishments, and the short-lived reign of a crazed psychiatrist-turned-stalker. In the tradition of One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest, Couple Found Slain is an insider’s account of life in the underworld of forensic psych wards in America and the forgotten lives of those held there, often indefinitely.
Son of a Gun: A Memoir
Justin St. Germain - 2013
Debbie St. Germain’s death in her remote trailer, apparently at the hands of her fifth husband, is a passing curiosity. “A real-life old West murder mystery,” the local TV announcers intone before the commercial break, while barroom gossips snicker cruelly. But for her twenty-year-old son, Justin St. Germain, the tragedy marks the line that separates his world into before and after. Long after his mother’s death is “solved,” closure still seems missing. Distancing himself from the legendary town of his childhood, Justin makes another life a world away in San Francisco and achieves all the surface successes that would have filled his mother with pride. Yet years later he’s still sleeping with a loaded rifle under his bed. Ultimately, he is pulled back to the desert landscape of his childhood on a search to make sense of the unfathomable. What made his mother, a onetime army paratrooper, the type of woman who would stand up to any man except the men she was in love with? What led her to move from place to place, house to house, man to man, job to job, until finally she found herself in a desperate and deteriorating situation, living on an isolated patch of desert with an unstable ex-cop? Justin’s journey takes him back to the ghost town of Wyatt Earp and the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral, to the trailers he and Debbie shared, to the string of stepfathers who were a constant, sometimes threatening presence in his life, to a harsh world on the margins full of men and women all struggling to define what family means. He decides to confront people from his past and delve into the police records in an attempt to make sense of his mother’s life and death. All the while he tries to be the type of man she would have wanted him to be. Brutally honest and beautifully written, Son of a Gun is a brave, unexpected and unforgettable memoir.
Spilled Milk
K.L. Randis - 2013
When social services jeopardize her safety condemning her to keep her father’s secret, it’s a glass of spilled milk at the dinner table that forces her to speak about the cruelty she’s been hiding. In her pursuit for safety and justice Brooke battles a broken system that pushes to keep her father in the home. When jury members and a love interest congregate to inspire her to fight, she risks losing the support of family and comes to the realization that some people simply do not want to be saved. Spilled Milk is a novel of shocking narrative, triumph and resiliency.
The Stranger She Loved: A Mormon Doctor, His Beautiful Wife, and an Almost Perfect Murder
Shanna Hogan - 2015
Martin MacNeill—a doctor, lawyer, and Mormon bishop—discovered his wife of 30 years dead in the bathtub of their Pleasant Grove, Utah home, her face bearing the scars of a facelift he persuaded her to undergo just a week prior.At first the death of 50-year-old Michele MacNeill, a former beauty queen and mother of eight, appeared natural. But days after the funeral when Dr. MacNeill moved his much younger mistress into the family home, his children grew suspicious. Conducting their own investigation into their mother's death, the MacNeill's daughters uncovered their father's multiple marital affairs, past criminal record, and falsified college transcripts he used to con his way into medical school. It would take six long years to solve the mystery of Michele's murder and secure a first-degree murder conviction against the once prominent doctor. New York Times bestselling author Shanna Hogan delves into the high-profile case, unmasking the monster beneath the doctor's carefully concocted façade.
Edmund Kemper: The True Story of The Brutal Co-ed Butcher (Real Crime by Real Killers #2)
Ryan Becker - 2017
Edmund Emil Kemper III achieved notoriety as a serial killer when he took the lives of 10 people between August 27, 1964, and April 21, 1973. His victims included his adoptive grandparents, six co-eds from the University of Santa Cruz, his mother, and his mother's friend. This book explored the life of Kemper from his abusive childhood to his sentencing in November 1973. The horror of Kemper's actions go beyond the killing of his victims; it was what he did with his victims' bodies after killing them. Necrophilia, cannibalism, and dismemberment were all part his routine in his attempts to satiate his morbid desires. Just as terrifying as his dark fantasies were his ability to appear and function as an average person, allowing him to avoid raising suspicion in those he interacted with, including law enforcement. Contrary to the myth that serial killers kill indiscriminately, Kemper’s killing spree may have been rooted in the hatred that he felt for his mother. In an interview after his capture, he admitted that he was intentionally developing his killing skills with each co-ed that he killed. He was training for the ultimate murder, which was the killing of his mother. From beginning to end, the book provides insights to why Kemper became a serial killer as well his mindset behind the killings.
The Onion Field
Joseph Wambaugh - 1973
This is the frighteningly true story of two young cops and two young robbers whose separate destinies fatally cross one March night in a bizarre execution in a deserted Los Angeles field.
At Mother's Request: A True Story of Money, Murder and Betrayal
Jonathan Coleman - 1985
A book that unfolds the full and truly astonishing story of how-and why-Frances Schreuder, board member of the New York City Ballet, masterminded a plan requiring her teenage son to kill one of the richest men in Utah-her father (and her son's grandfather), Franklin Bradshaw.
Victim F: From Crime Victims to Suspects to Survivors
Denise Huskins - 2021
Armed men bound and drugged them, then abducted Denise. Warned not to call the police or Denise would be killed. Aaron agonized about what to do. Finally he put his trust in law enforcement and dialed 911. But instead of searching for Denise, the police accused Aaron of her murder. His story, they told him, was just unbelievable. When Denise was released alive, the police turned their fire on her, dubbing her the "real-life 'Gone Girl'" who had faked her own kidnapping.In Victim F, Aaron and Denise recount the horrific ordeal that almost cost them everything. Like too many victims of sexual violence, they were dismissed, disbelieved, and dragged through the mud. With no one to rely on except each other, they took on the victim blaming, harassment, misogyny, and abuse of power running rife in the criminal justice system. Their story is, in the end, a love story, but one that sheds necessary light on sexual assault and the abuse by law enforcement that all too frequently compounds crime victims' suffering.
Alone: Orphaned on the Ocean
Richard Logan - 2010
She jumped overboard just in time to escape. Surviving four days on a cork float in the middle of the ocean, Terry Jo’s rescue pictures graced LIFE Magazine soon after she was found.This is the first time Terry Jo, now known as Tere Duperrault Fassbender, has been able to fully tell her story. In September 1988 Oprah Winfrey reunited her with the freighter captain who saved her but, even then, she was not healed enough to reveal what it took to survive for four days adrift and alone at sea.Co-authored by psychologist and survival expert Richard Logan, readers delve into the details of how a little girl survived the murder of her family; the gradual collapse of the small cork float she used to keep afloat while guarded by a small pod of whales; and the aftermath and the reclamation of life.ALONE is the ultimate inspirational tale of good.
A Death in White Bear Lake: The True Chronicle of an All-American Town
Barry Siegel - 1990
The autopsy report ruled peritonitis was the cause, but the startling photos of the boy suggested murder.How could the Jurgens kill a small child and get away with it? Determined to find answers, detectives Ron Meehan and Greg Kindle tracked down old witnesses and rebuilt the case brick by brick until they exposed the demons that drove an adopted parent to torture and eventually murder a helpless child. Just as compelling, they investigated why so many people watched and did absolutely nothing. A vivid portrait of an all-American town that harbored a killer, A Death in White Bear Lake is also the absorbing story of two detectives who refused to give up until they had the killer cold.
The Darkest Night: The Murder of Innocence in a Small Town
Ron Franscell - 2006
Eleven-year-old Amy Burridge rides with her eighteen-year-old sister, Becky, to the grocery store. When they finish their shopping, Becky’s car gets a flat tire. Two men politely offer them a ride home. But they were anything but Good Samaritans. The girls would suffer unspeakable crimes at the hands of these men before being thrown from a bridge into the North Platte River. One miraculously survived. The other did not.
Years later, author and journalist Ron Franscell—who lived in Casper at the time of the crime, and was a friend to Amy and Becky—can’t forget Wyoming’s most shocking story of abduction, rape, and murder. Neither could Becky, the surviving sister. The two men who violated her and Amy were sentenced to life in prison, but the demons of her past kept haunting Becky…until she met her fate years later at the same bridge where she’d lost her sister.