Book picks similar to
In a Child's Name: The Legacy of a Mother's Murder by Peter Maas
true-crime
non-fiction
nonfiction
crime
Twisted: The Story of Larry Nassar and the Women Who Took Him Down
Mary Pilon - 2019
But beneath the athleticism, smiles, sponsorship deals, and haul of gold medals was a dark secret: a story of sexual abuse and trauma that, when revealed, became one of the biggest scandals in the history of American sports. In early 2018, Larry Nassar, the former doctor for USA Gymnastics and Michigan State University, was sentenced to serve out the rest of his life in prison after pleading guilty to a variety of sex crimes. In a show of unparalleled force, more than 150 young women - from gold medalists to former Michigan State University athletes to old family friends - confronted the once beloved Nassar in court, sharing their pain and resolve. Many of them took legal, financial, and career risks to speak out. But these women’s stories also reveal a stranger, more far-reaching truth: that the institutions responsible for protecting them - from the United States Olympic Committee to local police departments - had known in some form about the abuse for years, and had not put an end to it. Twisted tells the harrowing story of these crimes and how Larry Nassar got away with them for as long as he did. New York Times best-selling author Mary Pilon and Carla Correa chronicle the scandal from its inception, tracking the institutions that Nassar hid behind, the athletic culture that he benefited from, and the women who eventually brought him to justice. In this Audible Original, you’ll hear directly from these people - including the voices of coaches, parents, industry leaders, and the survivors themselves - as they grapple with the truth about Nassar and describe what it took to bring him down.
Murder in Italy: Amanda Knox, Meredith Kercher and the Murder Trial that Shocked the World
Candace Dempsey - 2010
Amazon Top Ten in True Crime and Criminology. Best True Crime Book Editor's & Reader's Choice Awards. Library Journal Bestseller . Police found the body of beautiful British exchange student Meredith Kercher in Perugia, Italy in 2007, police discovered the body of Meredith Prosecutor Giuliano Mignini blamed the murder on satanic rituals, Manga comic books, Halloween and Day of the Dead. American college student Amanda Knox, quickly became the prime suspect and became the star of a sensational international story, both vilified and eroticized by the tabloids and the Internet. Award-winning journalist Candace Dempsey gives readers a front-row seat at the trial and reveals the real story behind the media frenzy.
Tiger, Tiger
Margaux Fragoso - 2011
She is seven; he is fifty-one. When Peter invites her and her mother to his house, the little girl finds a child's paradise of exotic pets and an elaborate backyard garden. Her mother, beset by mental illness and overwhelmed by caring for Margaux, is grateful for the attention Peter lavishes on her, and he creates an imaginative universe for her, much as Lewis Carroll did for his real-life Alice. In time, he insidiously takes on the role of Margaux's playmate, father, and lover. Charming and manipulative, Peter burrows into every aspect of Margaux's life and transforms her from a child fizzing with imagination and affection into a brainwashed young woman on the verge of suicide. But when she is twenty-two, it is Peter -- ill, and wracked with guilt -- who kills himself, at the age of sixty-six. Told with lyricism, depth, and mesmerizing clarity, Tiger, Tiger vividly illustrates the healing power of memory and disclosure. This extraordinary memoir is an unprecedented glimpse into the psyche of a young girl in free fall and conveys to readers -- including parents and survivors of abuse -- just how completely a pedophile enchants his victim and binds her to him.
Breaking Point
Suzy Spencer - 2002
The next, the nation was shocked by the death of her five innocent children...The 911 call that shocked the country. "I just killed my children." Why were they killed?On June 20, 2001, in a middle-class Houston suburb, Andrea Yates and her husband Russell, a NASA engineer, prepared for the routine week-day ahead. But before the morning was over, tragedy would strike the quiet family and turn the day into a nightmare. Shortly before 10 a.m., Andrea calmly summoned the police with a grim confession...One by one, Andrea Yates' children, ages 6 months to 7 years, had been drowned in their bathtub. No one who knew Andrea could picture the devoted mother capable of such an unbelievable crime or imagine the terror in the eyes of her trusting children. As their father struggled between overwhelming grief and loyalty to his imprisoned wife, an outraged nation struggled with an unfathomable question...Breaking Point provides a harrowing portrait of the suffocating darkness at the heart of one all-American family, and exposes the private demons that pushed a mother over the edge.With 8 pages of photographs.
Broken Lives
Estelle Blackburn - 2009
Bashings and a hate-filled childhood followed for the boy with the crooked mouth, launching a personality unique among serial killers. He stalked the city of Perth for months, shooting strangers in the dead of night and using a sickening variety of weapons to steal the lives of strangers. Unknown to the terror-stricken citizens of this trusting, emerging metropolis, the young father of seven children who pulled the trigger had for years been doing other sinister night work. In a remarkable twist of fate, the killer’s life tangled with that of 19-year-old John Button, whose 17-year-old girlfriend was killed. Both men confessed to that crime. This riveting investigation into the life and untold crimes of the last man to hang in Western Australia reveals new evidence to indicate that at least one innocent man, John Button, went to jail for one of Cooke’s murders. Estelle’s efforts to clear John Buttons name, have led to the West Australian Court of Criminal Appeal re-opening the case against John Button after nearly 35 years. The new edition will include a chapter covering the case and the final decision.
Blood Games
Jerry Bledsoe - 1991
As they slept in their North Carolina home, wealthy Lieth Von Stein and his wife Bonnie suffered a vicious assault with a knife and a baseball bat. Bonnie barely survived. Lieth did not. The crime seemed totally baffling until police followed a trail that led to the charming stepson, Chris Pritchard, and his brilliant, drug-using, Dungeons and Dragons–playing friends at North Carolina State University. “Haunting . . . Addictive, chilling and a masterpiece of reportage,” Blood Games is the true story of depraved young minds and a son’s gruesome greed turned to horrifyingly tragedy (Patricia Cornwell). Jerry Bledsoe masterfully reconstructs the bloody crime and its aftermath as he takes us into the secret twisted hearts of three young murderers. “Mr. Bledsoe goes straight to the bigger issues.” —The New York Times Book Review “In Mr. Bledsoe’s hands, a mega-load of inert facts becomes a human story of hurricane force.” —The News & Observer “Devastating . . . A brilliant account.” —Publishers Weekly
Dying to Get Married: The Courtship and Murder of Julie Miller Bulloch
Ellen Harris - 1991
Julie Miller was a successful executive who, through a newspaper ad, met who she thought was "Mr. Right." Little did she know that he had a violent past and a predisposition for bizarre sexual rituals. This tragic, true-crime tale will shock its horrified readers.
Damaged: The Heartbreaking True Story of a Forgotten Child
Cathy Glass - 2007
Her last hope is Cathy Glass. At the Social Services office, Cathy (an experienced foster carer) is pressured into taking Jodie as a new placement. Jodie's challenging behaviour has seen off five carers in four months. Despite her reservations, Cathy decides to accept Jodie to protect her from being placed in an institution. Jodie arrives, and her first act is to soil herself, and then wipe it on her face, grinning wickedly. Jodie meets Cathy's teenage children, and greets them with a sharp kick to the shins. That night, Cathy finds Jodie covered in blood, having cut her own wrist, and smeared the blood over her face. As Jodie begins to trust Cathy her behaviour improves. Over time, with childish honesty, she reveals details of her abuse at the hands of her parents and others. It becomes clear that Jodie's parents were involved in a sickening paedophile ring, with neighbours and Social Services not seeing what should have been obvious signs. Unfortunately Jodie becomes increasingly withdrawn, and it's clear she needs psychiatric therapy. Cathy urges the Social Services to provide funding, but instead they decide to take Jodie away from her, and place her in a residential unit. Although the paedophile ring is investigated and brought to justice, Jodie's future is still up in the air. Cathy promises that she will stand by her no matter what -- her love for the abandoned Jodie is unbreakable.
Inventing America: Jefferson's Declaration of Independence
Garry Wills - 1978
Although Jefferson has long been idealized as a champion of individual rights, Wills argues that in fact his vision was one in which interdependence, not self-interest, lay at the foundation of society.
Conviction: Solving the Moxley Murder: A Reporter and a Detective's 20-Year Search for Justice
Leonard Levitt - 1990
She never made it. Her brutal murder with a golf club in her own backyard made national headlines. But for years no one was arrested, despite troubling clues pointing to the Skakels, a rich and powerful family related to the Kennedys. After the police department's first unsuccessful attempts to catch the killer, the case lay dormant, and the culprit remained free.Enter Leonard Levitt. In 1982, the Stamford Advocate and Greenwich Time newspapers asked investigative reporter Levitt to look into the murder and the undying rumors of a cover-up. Levitt soon uncovered groundbreaking information about how the police had bungled the investigation, and he learned that Tommy and Michael had lied about their activities on the night of the murder. But Levitt's articles about his findings -- and the haunting questions they raised -- almost never saw the light of day. For years, Levitt's superiors mysteriously refused to publish the stories. Convinced that the Moxley family deserved the peace and closure they had so long been denied, Levitt fought desperately to keep his discoveries alive. Finally, after Levitt's first article appeared, the case was reopened.Enter Frank Garr. As the newly appointed investigator on the Moxley case, the seasoned Greenwich detective doggedly pursued unexplored leads and became increasingly convinced that for over a decade, his colleagues had been pursuing the wrong suspects. At first mistrustful of one another, as reporters and detectives often are, Levitt and Garr became friends, encouraging each other in their quest for the truth as the obstacles against them piled up.In 2002, more than twenty-five years after Moxley's death, a shocked world watched as Michael Skakel was convicted of the murder, thanks largely to the evidence Garr alone had marshaled against him.Now, for the first time, Leonard Levitt tells the amazing true story of Garr's fight to solve the case and of how their friendship with each other, and with Martha Moxley's mother, Dorthy, sustained them over the years. A riveting, suspenseful drama that unfolds like a mystery novel, this incredible memoir also reveals how a police officer and a reporter refused to give up, and how they helped justice to prevail, against all odds.
The Shrine of Jeffrey Dahmer
Brian Masters - 1993
A severed head lay in the refrigerator. A freezer contained two more heads and a human torso. Two skulls and a complete skeleton were found in a filing cabinet. A styrofoam box concealed two more skulls, and a large blue plastic drum was found to contain three further human torsos in various stages of decomposition. This is the story of the mass murderer, Jeffrey Dahmer.
The Year We Disappeared: A Father-Daughter Memoir
Cylin Busby - 2008
Then, in the space of a night, everything that was normal about her life changed. Her police officer father, John, was driving to his midnight shift when someone pulled up alongside and leveled a shotgun at his window. The blasts that followed tore through his face and left him clinging to life. Overnight, the Busbys went from being the "family next door" to one under twenty-four-hour armed guard, with police escorts to and from school and no contact with friends. Worse, the shooter was still on the loose, and it seemed only a matter of time before he'd come after John-or someone else in the family-again. With their lives unraveling around them and few choices remaining for a future that could ever be secure, the Busby family left everything and everyone they had ever known...and simply disappeared.As told by both father and daughter, this is a harrowing, at times heartbreaking, account of a shooting and its aftermath-even as it shows a young girl trying to make sense of the unthinkable and the triumph of a family's bravery in the face of crisis.
Wilder Intentions: Love, Lies and Murder in North Dakota
C.J. Wynn - 2020
But this time, she didn’t show—and Christopher’s calls went unanswered. The police found what looked like a scene from a horror movie at their home. The backdoor kicked in. A bedroom splattered with blood. And a pregnant young woman violently stabbed to death.Could Christopher have murdered the woman he claimed to love? Or was the crime done by an intruder Angila had feared for weeks? Angila’s womanizing ex-husband, Richie Wilder, Jr., aimed detectives straight toward Christopher. The evidence, however, pointed squarely at Richie.Kindergarten teacher Cynthia Wilder thought her dreams had come true when she married Richie. But while her husband sat behind bars, Cynthia grew lonely. When she shared some disturbing details with a former lover, Cynthia finally revealed the truth behind the sinister plot to kill Angila Wilder. After four years of lies and deceit, the real story would shock a community to its very core …
Milking the Moon: A Southerner's Story of Life on This Planet
Eugene F. Walter - 2001
Milking the Moon, already a Washington Post bestseller in hardcover, is destined to become a Southern classic.
The Shoemaker
Flora Rheta Schreiber - 1983
Two Men in the same body...One Joseph Kallinger was a superb craftsman, a sensitive poet, a devoted family man, and a human being who held all life sacred.The other Joseph Kallinger was a lover who needed images of bloody violence to maintain sexual potency, and a father who physically tortured his children, lived in abnormal intimacy with his daughter, and enlisted his 12-year-old son in a campaign of rape and murder that terrified millions.This is the true story of Joseph Kallinger- both of him...