Book picks similar to
Who Killed Scott Guy?: The Case That Gripped a Nation by Mike White
true-crime
new-zealand
non-fiction
review-books
Walking Towards Thunder: The true story of a whistleblowing cop who took on corruption and the Church
Peter Fox - 2019
A police officer with 36 years' service in the Hunter region, he rose to national prominence in 2012 for his major role in speaking out for the victims of abuse within the church. He had been at the coalface fighting these heinous crimes for decades. He had worked with the victims and supported their families. He knew an enquiry was long overdue. His decision to become a whistle blower helped trigger Prime Minister Julia Gillard's historic decision to establish a far-reaching Royal Commission into the sexual abuse of children in institutions.He had no idea what speaking up would unleash. Peter's dedication and focus cost him his career, his health and also affected his wife's health. He and his family were threatened. Former friends shunned him. But the victims and the families that he supported consider him their champion. To them he is a hero.Walking Towards Thunder details the cumulative horrors our police face every day, it reveals the cover ups and the way sexual predators were moved around. It shows the backlash he faced and the lengths those in power will go to avoid facing the truth. Confronting and inspiring, this is an unforgettable story.
Once Upon a Time in Melbourne
Liam Houlihan - 2014
. . An Unbelievable True StoryOnce upon a time in Melbourne there was a gigolo who thought he was a vampire. He bit the tongue off a prostitute and was then murdered in broad daylight on a suburban street. His execution, top brass believed, was organised by police. The aftershocks of this killing—and the murder of a state witness and his wife inside their fortresshome—rocked the police force and the Parliament, vanquished one government and brought the next to its knees.This is the story of police corruption for years swept under the carpet to avoid a Royal Commission. It is the story of a police force politicised to the point of paralysis and a witness protection program that buries its mistakes. It involves a policeman still free and living in a very big house, a drug baron who survived the gangland war only to be murdered in the state's most secure jail, and battles royale within a police force comprised of thousands of pistol-packing members.This is the story of Melbourne around the first decade of the new millennium: its lawmen, villains and politicians. It is a bizarre, tawdry, unbelievable tale. But every word of it happened.
One of the Family
John George Pearson - 2003
Moreover, he was as legendary a figure on the streets of New York as on the streets of London.Pearson persuaded the mysterious criminal leader to talk to him - and the result was a story even more extraordinary than that of the Kray twins. Here Pearson reveals the true story of the Englishman who became the adopted son of Joey Pagano, the head of one of the major New York crime families. Here the Englishman tells the story that no-one else dared to tell.
An Hour To Kill: A True Story of Love, Murder, and Justice in a Small Southern Town
Dale Hudson - 1999
Family friend. All-American boy. Murderer. Ken Register, much to the shock of the small town of Conway, South Carolina, was all of these things. Clean-cut, polite to a fault, and respectful of elders, Ken was the kind of guy parents wanted their daughters to date. But only months after a seventeen-year-old girl's brutal murder, the residents of Conway were in for another suprise: that the killer was one of their own.A stunned community.Crystal Todd and Ken were "best friends," and had even briefly dated. When Crystal's hideously gutted body was found near the woods of Conway, Ken checked in every day to console Crystal's mother and inquire about the murder investigation.A shocking killer.Ken was practically the last person anyone would suspect. Until he started acting nervous and suspicious, afraid he would be "framed" for Crystal's murder. And until DNA tests confirmed that he was indeed the man who repeatedly raped and stabbed Crystal Todd, then left her mutilated body in a ditch.Discover, through fascinating first-person accounts, the tortured Southern son who committed murder; the courageous detective determined to break the case; the broken mother who lost her only child; and the disbelieving parents who, to this day, defend their son's innocence.
JFK: The Dead Witnesses
Craig Roberts - 1994
Kennedy, more than one hundred witnesses, investigators, and other people linked to the ambush in Dealey Plaza have died. The majority have met their fate under extremely suspicious circumstances. Murders, mysterious accidents, and "suicides" account for more than half of those who have died since that fateful day in 1963. In "JFK: The Dead Witnesses" authors Craig Roberts and John Armstrong present the results of their investigations into the deaths of each of the victims. For the first time, the cases are detailed in chronological order exposing what each witness saw, what they might know, know they died, and how they were connected to the murder of JFK and often, to each other. Follow the trail of bodies through thirty years of intrigue, coverups and scandals as Roberts and Armstrong open the curtain that have for too long hidden the facts behind…the dead witnesses!
Women Who Kill: A Chilling Casebook of True-Life Murders
Al Cimino - 2019
But this disproportion can make their crimes seem all the more shocking.
In this chilling casebook, Al Cimino explores 34 female murderers. We meet 'Angel of Death' Kristen Gilbert who induced multiple cardiac arrests among her patients while working as a hospital nurse, Enriqueta Mart�, the 'Vampire of Barcelona' who killed children to make cosmetics, and many more. These case studies give riveting insight into the lives and motives of women who decided to commit the ultimate transgression. In many of these cases, the women had suffered years of abuse and psychological breakdown before their eventual crimes. Other times their heinous acts seemed to spring from nowhere, with an unpredictability that is haunting. The gruesome details within these pages are not for the faint hearted.
A Deal With the Devil: Discovering Chris Watts: - Part Two - The Facts
Netta Newbound - 2020
Frances Kray - The Tragic Bride: The True Story of Reggie Kray's First Wife
Jacky Hyams - 2014
Yet she very soon discovered the real world of the Kray Twins, the hidden, twisted world where violence, drink, drugs and terror dominated everything.Frances broke away and briefly enjoyed other relationships, struggling to maintain her freedom. Yet Reggie would never let her go. Paranoid and obsessive, he monitored her every move, stalking her night and day.By the time she married Reggie in their ‘Wedding of the Year’ in 1965, Frances and her family had become inextricably linked with the Twins’ downward spiral from gangland extortion and brutality into senseless murder and mayhem.Trapped, desperate and unable to cope, just two years later Frances died from a drug overdose.Only now, 50 years later, in a revealing and shocking examination of the facts, the truth about the life of Frances Shea and her short marriage to Reggie Kray is finally revealed in this new, revised edition. With hitherto unseen photographs, documents and revelations, the book explodes the many myths surrounding the marriage. In doing so, it uncovers the sordid reality of the Kray world – and shows how the effect of this tragic, doomed relationship haunted the lives of Frances’s loved ones right to the end.
The Good Wife: The Shocking Betrayal and Brutal Murder of a Godly Woman in Texas
Clint Richmond - 2007
Evangelical Christians living in booming Austin, Texas, in the mid-1990s, they were respected leaders in their church and community. As Roger diligently worked his way up the high-tech corporate ladder, Penny kept a pristine home and coached similarly devout young women on how to be perfect wives. But on a windy March evening, this godly woman met the devil head-on. And when the police discovered her lifeless body—repeatedly bludgeoned with a lead pipe, then mutilated with a knife from her own spotless kitchen—they were shocked by the rage and savagery behind her slaying.The Good Wife is a startling true story of greed, hatred, betrayal, and an unimaginable murder—a tale of the dark decay that can be hidden behind a facade of saintliness when a marriage seemingly made in heaven descends into hell.
When The Bough Breaks: The True Story Of Child Killer Kathleen Folbigg
Matthew Benns - 2003
She killed her four children over 10 years. Caleb, Patrick, Sarah and Laura Folbigg died one by one over a 10-year period in similar circumstances - suddenly, unexpectedly and while sleeping. Each was discovered by Kathleen, their mother, who raised the alarm to her husband, Craig, that they were not breathing. When the Folbiggs' marriage fell apart six weeks after the death of their fourth child, Laura, Craig was devastated. It only got worse when he discovered Kathleen's diary in her bedside drawer. Horrified at his wife's ramblings about losing control with the children, her 'terrible thoughts' and her fears she was her 'father's daughter', he took the diary to the police. The diary was the crucial evidence Detective Bernie Ryan had been searching for to confirm his suspicions that the babies had been murdered. With his career and credibility on the line, he made the decision to charge Kathleen Folbigg with the murder of her four innocent babies. No one who knew Kathleen could believe she had murdered her own children. Yet few knew of her tragic past - the fact that her own father had stabbed her mother to death four decades earlier. When The Bough Breaks exposes the secret life of Australia's worst convicted female serial killer, a woman jailed for the unthinkable crime of killing her own children. It raises important issues about parents who do not feel emotionally attached to their children and about the diagnosis of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome as a cause of death.
Darkness Descending: The Murder of Meredith Kercher
Paul Russell - 2010
On 4 December 2009, twenty-two-year-old American, Amanda Knox, and her twenty-five-year-old Italian former boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, were found guilty of murdering British student, Meredith Kercher, and were sentenced to twenty-six and twenty-five years in jail, respectively. Meredith was brutally stabbed to death in November 2007, in the apartment in Perugia that she shared with Amanda and two other girls. The details of the killing caught the world's attention with far-fetched rumour, and cold-hearted butchery, taking centre stage.The subject of intense speculation, 'Foxy Knoxy' was pilloried for her hard-partying, promiscuous lifestyle, while her well-dressed lover, Sollecito, collected knives, and was obsessed with violent comics. But that alone did not make them killers. Ivory Coast-born Rudy Guede, twenty-two, was found guilty of murder, and sexual assault, in a separate trial in October 2008, and sentenced to 30 years in jail. But evidence shows he could not have acted alone.In Darkness Descending TV producer, Paul Russell, and critically acclaimed crime writer, Graham Johnson, team up with leading Italian forensics expert, General Luciano Garofano, to reveal the full truth behind this sensational murder, and its trial. They skilfully unravel all the details, and study all the personalities, in this case that has stunned the world. Complex, and some say controversial, DNA evidence is explained in simple language and, bit by bit, a story emerges of brutality and jealousy in a university town where all was not what it seemed. Their findings make gripping reading.
Hunting Evil: Inside the Ipswich Serial Murders
Paul Harrison - 2008
For the quiet town of Ipswich it was fifty days of fear and soul seatching, from the disappearance of the first victim to the dramatic arrest of the lead suspect, Steve Wright.Journalist Paul Harrison and Professor of Criminology David Wilson arrived in Ipswich just as the first body was discovered. Their on-the-scene access, and Professor Wilson's unique experience as a profiler, meant that they were first to put forward the explosive theory that a serial killer was at large.In 'Hunting Evil' Harrison and Wilson take the reader to the heart of the story. Both visited the sites where the killer disposed of his victims' bodies; both walked the red-light area of Ipswich; and both talked to those who were closest to the victims and to Steve Wright. They explore the reasons why someone will kill and kill again and, perhaps most important of all, explain how serial killers target the most vulnerable in our society, and what can be done to make our communities safer for everyone.With sensitive portraits of the victims, a close examination of the police investigation, and full details of the trial, 'Hunting Evil' is the definitive account of a national tragedy.
When Nashville Bled: The untold stories of serial killer Paul Dennis Reid
Judith A. Yates - 2014
In the Spring of 1997, a serial killer held Nashville, Tennessee in an icy grip of terror. In February, he murdered two employees at a Captain D's restaurant. In March, he struck a McDonalds just miles away, killing three people and maiming one. In April, he kidnapped and slaughtered two Baskin-Robbins employees.They called him "The Fast Food Killer" but his real name is Paul Dennis Reid, Jr. When he was caught and sentenced to seven death sentences, yet a new chapter began in the saga of one of the most heinous serial killers in our time, and the people whose lives he cut short. The victims were reduced to being called "the victims of Paul Reid." Until now. Here, for the first time, and with the approval of the family and friends, are the stories of those innocent, young people whose lives were ended far too soon. It is also the story of how a crime ripped a city apart.
Prescription: Murder! Volume 3: Authentic Cases From the Files of Alan Hynd
Alan Hynd - 2014
From the files and pen of world renowned true crime writer Alan Hynd (1903 - 1974) comes the final installment of deliciously dark true murder cases of the first half of the 20th Century. These stories, the third of these three short collections, are unified by a single theme: they all involve physicians. And not for the autopsy, but as perpetrators or accused perpetrators. You may never see your family care giver again in the same light. Told in the characteristic wry, anecdotal reportorial style that made Alan Hynd famous in his day (two wartime best sellers in 1943, contributions to The Reader's Digest, Colliers, Coronet, The Saturday Evening Post, True, Liberty, The American Mercury and almost every true detective magazine in print) these tales will have you cringing one minute, laughing the next, and gasping in shock a moment later. Truly, no one could make up classics like these. We meet here the notorious Dr. Cream, a twitchy-eyed psychotic with a yen for prostitutes, a Philadelphia chiropractor whose girlfriend lost her head, and Marcel Petiot, whose patients payed their own way out of this world. Then as a bonus, get to know (from a safe distance) "Lethal Louise," the black widow of California, and Adolf Luetgert of Chicago, whose sausage-making plant was put to extracurricular uses. This is not for the faint of heart. True crime is always farther out there than fiction.
Property Of Folsom Wolf
Don Lasseter - 1995
Louis housewife who abandoned her family and became the sex-slave of ex-Folsom Prison convict Greg Marlow, known to his fellow inmates as "Folsom Wolf". Together, the pair went on a cross-country spree of sex, torture and murder that ended with their convictions and death sentences.