Book picks similar to
Cradle of Death by John Glatt
true-crime
non-fiction
nonfiction
crime
Blood Bath
Susan D. Mustafa - 2005
He watched his victims and chose carefully. Then he struck—each attack more brutal than the last. By the time detectives arrived, all they found were gruesome crime scenes of bloodied, brutalized bodies.They Knew He Would Strike AgainFor more than ten years in south Louisiana the killings went on. Task forces were formed. The killer even spent time in jail. But that wouldn't stop the bloodshed. One victim was stabbed with a screwdriver 83 times.But They Couldn't Stop Him—Until Was Too LateHe was a father. A husband. A co-worker. And a killer. Derrick Todd Lee was ultimately convicted of two savage murders and tied to at least seven more. From the slender trace of DNA that finally nabbed him to the courageous prosecutors who took him down in court, this is the shocking story of a homicidal maniac hiding in plain sight—and an evil that could never be washed away.Includes 16 pages of shocking photographs. Previously published as I've Been Watching You.
Hell Hath No Fury: Women Who Kill
Les Macdonald - 2013
Part One: Women Who Kill Their Children features 21 stories on mothers who have murdered their own children. The high profile cases such as Susan Smith and Andrea Yates are here but also some that you may not have heard of. Part Two: Women Who Kill Their Husbands has 10 chapters including the Anti Freeze Killer and the Black Widow of the Internet. Part Three: More Notorious Murders by Women has eight more cases including A Fatal Attraction and Hell Born Hitchhiker. The book concludes with Part Four: Some Younger Females Who Kill which features six chapters including Girls Just Want To Have Fun and The Killer and His Raven. The second book in the series, Hell Hath No Fury 2: More Women Who Kill was released in December 2014.
Beyond All Reason: My Life With Susan Smith
David Smith - 1995
Smith, husband of Susan Smtih, the woman convicted of murdering their two young sons in August 1994, speaks out about his marriage, his beloved children, and the painful process of putting his life back together. Smith has updated this edition with a chapter exploring his feelings about Susan's conviction and his life today. 16-pp photos.
A Taste For Murder
Burl Barer - 2016
His wife and step-daughter are in shock, and so is the medical examiner when he performs the autopsy. Aside from being dead, Frank is in perfect health. Demanding to know the cause of her husband’s death, Angie Rodriguez badgers the police, insisting that Frank was murdered. The cops attribute her assertions to overwhelming grief, but soon they too believe that Frank didn’t die of natural causes. When the police enlist their number one suspect to help in the investigation, things spiral out of control until police are dealing with a daring plot to murder Angie’s best friend, and allegations of another homicide so evil and perverse that even seasoned L.A County Detectives are shocked beyond belief ... and so will the readers!
Sickened: The Memoir of a Munchausen by Proxy Childhood
Julie Gregory - 2003
Just twelve, she’s tall, skinny, and weak. It’s four o’clock, and she hasn’t been allowed to eat anything all day. Her mother, on the other hand, seems curiously excited. She's about to suggest open-heart surgery on her child to "get to the bottom of this." She checks her teeth for lipstick and, as the doctor enters, shoots the girl a warning glance. This child will not ruin her plans.SickenedFrom early childhood, Julie Gregory was continually X-rayed, medicated, and operated on—in the vain pursuit of an illness that was created in her mother’s mind. Munchausen by proxy (MBP) is the world’s most hidden and dangerous form of child abuse, in which the caretaker—almost always the mother—invents or induces symptoms in her child because she craves the attention of medical professionals. Many MBP children die, but Julie Gregory not only survived, she escaped the powerful orbit of her mother's madness and rebuilt her identity as a vibrant, healthy young woman.Sickened is a remarkable memoir that speaks in an original and distinctive Midwestern voice, rising to indelible scenes in prose of scathing beauty and fierce humor. Punctuated with Julie's actual medical records, it re-creates the bizarre cocoon of her family's isolated double-wide trailer, their wild shopping sprees and gun-waving confrontations, the astonishing naïveté of medical professionals and social workers. It also exposes the twisted bonds of terror and love that roped Julie's family together—including the love that made a child willing to sacrifice herself to win her mother's happiness. The realization that the sickness lay in her mother, not in herself, would not come to Julie until adulthood. But when it did, it would strike like lightning. Through her painful metamorphosis, she discovered the courage to save her own life—and, ultimately, the life of the girl her mother had found to replace her. Sickened takes us to new places in the human heart and spirit. It is an unforgettable story, unforgettably told.
Once Upon a Time: A True Tale of Memory
Harry N. MacLean - 1993
Reprint.
Death of a Jewish American Princess: The True Story of a Victim on Trial
Shirley Frondorf - 1988
Restaurateur Steven Steinberg, who killed his wife by stabbing her 26 times, was acquitted; his legal defense portrayed the victim as an overpowering "Jewish American Princess" whose excesses may have provoked her violent end. Examining the structure of the defense's case, Frondorf, an attorney who was previously a psychiatric social worker, follows the theme that made Elana Steinberg the villain, instead of the victim, of the piece. The defense's forensic presentation, bolstered by testimony from psychiatrists, maintained that Steinberg committed the crime while sleepwalking, an abnormality allegedly brought on by the intemperate spending of his wife. Frondorf recreates the trial whose outcome scarred the tightly knit Jewish community of Phoenix.
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.
Sudden Fury
Leslie Walker - 1989
One of the couple's three adopted children, he was shy and emotionally undemonstrative. His background and the circumstances leading to murder are the thrust of this searching study by Baltimore Evening Sun reporter Walker, less a true-crime re-creation than the story of a tortured being. Larry was given up by his birth mother when he was two and shunted from family to family, none of them willing to cope with his increasing insecurity and alienation. At age six, he was adopted by Bob and Kay Swartz, a model church-going Catholic couple but severe and demanding of their children, the father's temper sometimes growing into physical abuse.
The Murder of Rachel: A Stranger Murdered My Daughter When She Was 21. This is the Whole Story
Wanda Moran - 2007
On the morning of New Year's Day 2003, Rachel Moran left her family’s home for a quick stop at her apartment and feed her new kittens. After not hearing from Rachel for some time, a search for her began. It was two weeks before her belongings were fished out of a nearby drain and another two weeks before her body was discovered. At some stage during that twenty minute walk, she had been abducted near her apartment and raped and murdered. This heartbreaking account details the family grief and mourning, the extensive search for the killer, and the trail that followed.
Why Not Kill Her: A Juror's Perspective: The Jodi Arias Death Penalty Retrial
Paul A. Sanders Jr. - 2015
The killer went to great lengths to cover up her crime including sending his grandmother flowers, going to the memorial service, driving by the victim’s house and calling the lead investigator, Detective Esteban Flores. This incident took place in a suburb of Phoenix, Arizona. It would be five years before this case of capital murder would be put in front of a jury to decide the fate of Jodi Arias although the fate of Travis Alexander had been set in stone. Was she a cold, calculating murderess or was she a victim of extreme domestic violence at the hands of an abusive boyfriend? The first jury was left to decide in 2013. It was the most watched trial of the century. The jury decided that Jodi Arias was guilty of first-degree murder with cruel and heinous circumstances which qualified her for the death penalty. The jury could not reach a decision in the penalty phase and justice was delayed. A new jury, drawn from a pool of four hundred people, was drawn for the highly anticipated retrial of Jodi Arias. On October 21, 2014, a jury of nineteen was given the responsibility of deciding whether Jodi Arias should live or die for her crime. So began a retrial that would last almost five months with Juan Martinez and Detective Flores representing the State of Arizona and the return of Kirk Nurmi and Jennifer Willmott speaking to the defense of the convicted killer. The journey will walk the reader through the meticulous actions of the courtroom and extend to an appellate court, a municipal court and a day in the in the original courthouse in phoenix, Arizona. The trial speaks toward the long arm of the law and the implications of decisions made daily. With the help of former jurors of the Jodi Arias death penalty retrial, the reader will step into the jury box when Jodi Arias was on the witness stand and reach a climax when the reader accompanies the jury foreman into the deliberation room as the jury decides the fate of the defendant. “The lambs to the law were now executors of the law. It was humbling, intimidating and powerful at the same time. It was also the time that the jurors’ souls would be tested for truths and experiences that would mark many discussions in the deliberation room. The jury would remember Travis Alexander and what was done to him.” Why Not Kill her is the suspenseful follow-up to the authors first book, Brain Damage: A Juror’s Tale, the true story of being a death penalty juror on the case of Marissa DeVault and the brutal killing of Dale Harrell. The third revised edition is now available in honor of Dale Harrell. Take a journey into the life of Travis Alexander and a search for truth and justice. Somehow, Lady Justice will wield her sword and the end of a seven year saga would be realized but in no way that anyone could have anticipated. Special thanks to True Crime Radio, Trial Talk Live, the Trial Diaries, FOX 10, ABC, NBC and CBS. The author would also like to thank those who supported this work on Go Fund Me with extra recognition to the administrators and fans of Juan Martinez Prosecutor Support Page, The State vs. Jodi Arias, Joey Jackson Fan Page, Justice For Travis, Justice 4 Dale, Justice For Travis Alexander and His Family, Court Chatter, Beth Karas on Crime, Gavel geeks, Trial Watchers, The House That Travis Built, Understanding The Travesties of Unexpected Murder Trials and For The Love of Travis. This work could not have happened without your support! Why Not Kill Her is dedicated to Travis Alexander, his family and all those whom he touched in his short life.
Winter of Frozen Dreams
Karl Harter - 1990
Karl Harter unravels the grisly plot surrounding Barbara Hoffman, college student turned prostitute, whose cold-bloodied ambition would lead to an almost perfect crime. 25 black-and-white photographs.
A Slaying in the Suburbs: The Tara Grant Murder
Steve Miller - 2008
To their suburban Detroit neighbors, Stephen and Tara Grant were happy as could be. But their marriage, plagued by resentment and extramarital affairs, was held together only by their children. Until the night Stephen snapped, strangled and dismembered his wife, then disposed of her body piece by piece in the very park his children played in.
Irreparable: Three Lives. Two Deaths. One Story that Has to be Told.
Mark Gerardot - 2020
When what had begun as a harmless flirtation blossomed into a passionate love affair, Mark confessed his infidelity and began taking the painful steps toward what he thought was an amicable but long-overdue divorce. What he didn't realize, however, was that Jennair was taking steps of her own--steps that would end with both women dead and Mark a prime suspect in their murder.A harrowing account of marriage, infidelity and murder, Irreparable is a must-read for anyone who has ever been faced with, or thought about betrayal, divorce, or electronic surveillance of a loved one. Based on hundreds of hours of recorded conversations and videotapes documenting a marriage as it shatters and a romance as it blooms, Irreparable will stun and surprise you on every page. The suspense builds as each chapter takes you deeper into the grief of a man tortured by his guilt, and the madness of a heartbroken woman determined to destroy the man she loved.Unexpectedly thrust into the media spotlight after a life-altering personal tragedy in 2018, Mark Gerardot's obsessive two-year search to understand the bewildering secret life that led his wife to kill and to come to terms with his grief and remorse for his own actions is told in his debut book, "Irreparable". Determined to share the sad but true story of his 24-year marriage, the events that led up to the tragedy and the lessons he has learned since, Gerardot hopes to help others who find themselves at a crossroads in a troubled marriage or relationship. "We have a responsibility," Gerardot says "to not only take care of those we love, but those we hurt, to make sure they're okay."
Frozen Tears: The Fort Leonard Wood MP Murders
J.B. King - 2019
Only one survived. This true crime book is written by Missouri State Highway Patrol Trooper J.B. King, the first law enforcement officer on the scene. He recounts the events from the moment of the crime until the conviction of Military Police Game Warden Johnny Lee Thornton.