Book picks similar to
All She Wanted by Aphrodite Jones


true-crime
non-fiction
crime
nonfiction

Murder in Greenwich


Mark Fuhrman - 1998
    Read the book that spawned the Connecticut Grand Jury Investigation.

Whatever Mother Says...: A True Story of a Mother, Madness and Murder


Wensley Clarkson - 1995
    But her youngest daughter, 16-year-old Terry, told police another story: one almost too terrible to believe.But accused of imprisoning her children in a house of horrors...According to Terry, Theresa - no longer the petite brunette she once was - had turned insanely jealous of her pretty eldest daughters and enlisted the help of her two teenaged sons in a vicious campaign against their sisters.Of beating, torturing and killing her own flesh and blood...Terry's gruesome tale told how Theresa had drugged, handcuffed and shot 16-year-old Suesan, allowing her wounds to fester, until the day she ordered her sons to burn their sister alive. Next, Terry said Theresa severely beat 20-year-old Sheila and then locked her in a stifling broom closet, so that when the girl finally starved to death, her brothers dumped her body in the same desolate mountain range where they had cremated Suesan.She could be one of the most evil murderesses of our time...It took Terry five agonizing years to convince authorities to investigate her grisly accounts of burning flesh, starvation and torture...of a mother from hell, so sadistic and so deranged, she had become her children's own executioner.

Precious Victims


Don W. Weber - 1991
    Three years later her second newborn daughter suffered an identical fate and this time the police were unable to stop searching until they had discovered the whole, horrifying truth.This is the full terrifying story of twisted sexuality and hate seething below the surface of a seemingly normal family, and of the massive investigation and nerve shattering trial that made the unthinkable a reality. Written by the lawyer who won the case and the reporter who covered its entirety, the reader is given a unique close-up of the riveting drama that unfolds, painting a dark picture of the depraved family who lived with a murderous secret.

Small Sacrifices


Ann Rule - 1987
    Ann Rule's shocking and powerful account of the destructive forces that drove Diane Downs, a beautiful young mother, to shoot her three young children in cold blood.

The Jeffrey Dahmer Story: An American Nightmare


Don Davis - 1991
    They heard the power saw buzzing in the dead of night but neighbors never imagined the horrors happening right next door.The hot sultry night of July 22, 1991 was one the tenants of the Oxford Apartments would never forget. A panic stcricken young man--a pair of handcuffs still dangling from his wrists--ran out of Apartment 213 and told police an incredible tale of terror.Shaking with fear, he led officers back to his captor's lair, where they made the gruesome discovery. Inside were the body parts of at least fifteen men--including torsos stuffed into a barrel, severed heads in a refrigerator, and skulls boiled clean and stashed in a filing cabinet. Tacked to the freezer were Poloroid photographs of mutilated corpses.When investigators arrested 31-year-old Jeffrey Dahmer, they realized they had stumbled onto a "real-life Hannibal Lecter"--a sadistic murderer who told them he had saved a human heart "to eat later". What could turn a handsome, former tennis player, the son of middle-class parents, into a perverse serial killer whose unthinkable acts shocked the nation?The Jeffrey Dahmer Story takes you into Jeffrey Dahmer's twisted world of bizarre sexual encounters, mutilation and cannibalism--in one of history's most appalling true crime cases.With 8 pages of chilling photographs.

Killing for Company: The Case of Dennis Nilsen


Brian Masters - 1985
    Within days he had confessed to fifteen gruesome murders over a period of four years. His victims, all young homosexual men, had never been reported missing. Brian Masters, with Nilsen's full cooperation, has produced a unique study of a serial killer's mind, revealing the disturbing psychology of a mass murderer.

Death of an Altar Boy: The Unsolved Murder of Danny Croteau and the Culture of Abuse in the Catholic Church


E.J. Fleming - 2018
    Despite numerous indications—including 40 claims of sexual misconduct with minors—pointing to him as Croteau’s killer, the Reverend Richard R. Lavigne remains “innocent.” Drawing on more than 10,000 pages of police and court records and interviews with Danny’s friends and family, fellow abuse victims, and church officials, the author uncovers the truth—church complicity in a cover up and the masking of priests’ involvement in a ring of abusive clergy—behind Croteau’s death and those who had a hand in it.

The Meaning of Matthew: My Son's Murder in Laramie, and a World Transformed


Judy Shepard - 2009
    For the first time in book form, Judy Shepard speaks about her loss, sharing memories of Matthew, their life as a typical American family, and the pivotal event in the small college town that changed everything.The Meaning of Matthew follows the Shepard family in the days immediately after the crime, when Judy and her husband traveled to see their incapacitated son, kept alive by life support machines; how the Shepards learned of the incredible response from strangers all across America who held candlelit vigils and memorial services for their child; and finally, how they struggled to navigate the legal system as Matthew's murderers were on trial. Heart-wrenchingly honest, Judy Shepard confides with readers about how she handled the crippling loss of her child, why she became a gay rights activist, and the challenges and rewards of raising a gay child in America today.The Meaning of Matthew not only captures the historical significance and complicated civil rights issues surrounding one young man's life and death, but it also chronicles one ordinary woman's struggle to cope with the unthinkable.

Real Queer America: LGBT Stories from Red States


Samantha Allen - 2019
    Now she's a senior Daily Beast reporter happily married to another woman. A lot in her life has changed, but what hasn't changed is her deep love of Red State America, and of queer people who stay in so-called "flyover country" rather than moving to the liberal coasts. In Real Queer America, Allen takes us on a cross-country road-trip stretching all the way from Provo, Utah to the Rio Grande Valley to the Bible Belt to the Deep South. Her motto for the trip: "Something gay every day." Making pit stops at drag shows, political rallies, and hubs of queer life across the heartland, she introduces us to scores of extraordinary LGBT people working for change, from the first openly transgender mayor in Texas history to the manager of the only queer night club in Bloomington, Indiana, and many more.Capturing profound cultural shifts underway in unexpected places and revealing a national network of chosen family fighting for a better world, Real Queer America is a treasure trove of uplifting stories and a much-needed source of hope and inspiration in these divided times.

Pure Murder


Corey Mitchell - 2008
    On a summer night in Houston, two bright, beautiful, success-bound teenage girls crossed paths with a group of young men fueled with alcohol and rage. Four days later, when searchers finally found Jennifer Ertman and Elizabeth Peña, their bodies were unrecognizable.AN ORGY OF VIOLENCEAt first, the teenage boys grabbed Elizabeth, while Jennifer escaped. But Elizabeth's desperate cries brought Jennifer back to help her best friend. Both girls were subjected to sexual assaults of every conceivable kind--and long, painful, drawn-out deaths.NO MERCYFor days afterward, the killers bragged openly about their crime. By the time prosecutors got the case, convictions for double murder looked like a "slam dunk." But the families of the victims were in for a horrible surprise. In this terrifying case, justice would be a torturous journey.

The Killing Season


Alex French - 2016
    For Jim Fromm and Doug Rushing, the two young detectives assigned to the case, the investigation is a chance to earn their stripes and prove their mettle. At first, Fromm and Rushing peg the woman’s mercurial husband, a pipe-fitter who works outside of town, as the primary suspect. But as their case against Steve Benson unravels, the detectives find themselves short on leads—and running out of time. With the city on edge and anxious for answers, a notorious serial killer goes on the lam, and yet another young woman and her children turn up dead.In The Killing Season, acclaimed journalist Alex French traces the story of the Benson murders from the night Linda and Kelley’s bodies are found strewn across their second floor apartment, to an improbable discovery, made more than 30 years later, that enabled a new breed of detectives to crack the case and bring closure to those who'd watched justice slip away. Writing in taut, atmospheric prose, French has crafted a heart-pounding tale of tragedy, resilience, and redemption—set against the burning-red vistas of the American Southwest.Alex French is a freelance journalist. His reportage and oral histories have appeared in the New York Times Magazine, BuzzReads, GQ, New York Magazine, Grantland, This American Life and a variety of other venues. He lives in Monmouth County, New Jersey, with his wife and two children.Cover design by Adil Dara.

No, Daddy, Don't!: A Father's Murderous Act of Revenge


Irene Pence - 2003
    The horrifying true story of an abusive husband who committed the ultimate act of violence and betrayal by murdering his two young daughters, as their mother helplessly listened on the telephone.

Sleep In Heavenly Peace


M. William Phelps - 2006
    When the long-dead bodies of several infants are discovered, the trail leads to Dianne Odell, a fifty-year-old mother of eight children who claimed that her late mother forced her into teen prostitution and murdered her 'bastard children.'.

Gentleman Jack: The Real Anne Lister


Anne Choma - 2019
    This is her remarkable, true story.Anne Lister was extraordinary. Fearless, charismatic and determined to explore her lesbian sexuality, she forged her own path in a society that had no language to define her. She was a landowner, an industrialist and a prolific diarist, whose output has secured her legacy as one of the most fascinating figures of the 19th century. Gentleman Jack: The Real Anne Lister follows Anne from her crumbling ancestral home in Yorkshire to the glittering courts of Denmark as she resolves to put past heartbreak behind her and find herself a wife. This biographical portrait introduces the real Gentleman Jack, featuring unpublished journal extracts decrypted for the first time by series creator Sally Wainwright and historian Anne Choma.

She Wants It: Desire, Power, and Toppling the Patriarchy


Jill Soloway - 2018
    When Jill's parent came out as transgender, Jill pushed through the male-dominated landscape of Hollywood to create the groundbreaking and award-winning Amazon TV series Transparent. Exploring identity, love, sexuality, and the blurring of boundaries through the dynamics of a complicated and profoundly resonant American family, Transparent gave birth to a new cultural consciousness. While working on the show and exploding mainstream ideas about gender, Jill began to erase the lines on their own map, finding their voice as a director, show creator, and activist. She Wants It: Desire, Power, and Toppling the Patriarchy moves with urgent rhythms, wild candor, and razor-edged humor to chart Jill's evolution from straight, married mother of two to identifying as queer and nonbinary. This intense and revelatory metamorphosis challenges the status quo and reflects the shifting power dynamics that continue to shape our collective worldview. With unbridled insight that offers a rare front seat to the inner workings of the #metoo movement and its aftermath, Jill captures the zeitgeist of a generation with thoughtful and revolutionary ideas about gender, inclusion, desire, and consent.