Book picks similar to
Gone Forever by Diane Fanning


true-crime
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truecrime

Open Secrets


Carlton Stowers - 1994
    True story of the murder in 1983 of Rozanne Gailiunas. Was the killer her husband, Dr. Peter Gailiunas? Her lover, Larry Aylor? Her lover's wife, Joy Aylor? Or was it someone totally unexpected? March 2002 printing of St. Martin's Paperback edition.

The Surgeon's Wife


Kieran Crowley - 2001
    He then drove her body to an airstrip in Caldwell, N.J., and dumped it into the Atlantic Ocean from a single-engine private plane. The next day, her reported her missing.Gail's parents had been thrilled to learn she was marrying Robert Bierenbaum. He seemed to be the perfect match for their daughter. He was from a well-to-do family, a medical student who spoke five languages fluently, a skier, and he even flew an airplane. But Gail would come to learn of her husband's dark side. On one occiasion when Robert had tried to choke Gail because he caught her smoking, she filed a police report. She also alleged that he tried to kill her cat because he was jealous of it. For years, her sister pleaded with Gail to run for her life. Even her therapist warned his vulnerable patient that she could eventually die at the hands of the man she married.Fifteen years after this unspeakable, unfathomable crime, a jury found Robert Bierenbaum guilty of murder—and stripped the mask off of this privileged professional to reveal a monster.

The Doctor's Wife: A True Story of Marriage, Deception and Two Gruesome Murders


John Glatt - 2007
    Then, on the morning of December 4, 2004, neighbors found seven-year-old Dalton Corbin at their front door sobbing. Until then no one could have seen what was going on behind closed doors: that beautiful Jennifer Corbin was immersed in a cyber-sex lesbian affair--or that Bart, now a wealthy dentist, had a bizarre, frightening past… Jennifer Corbin's death looked like a suicide. But the crime didn't fool young Dalton, and in the coming weeks an even more horrifying story emerged: That Dr. Corbin had been left by a woman once before--and that time he may have gotten away with murder. But this time justice would be served….

Stolen in the Night: The True Story of a Family's Murder, a Kidnapping and the Child Who Survived


Gary C. King - 2007
    On the Internet he proudly boasted of his perversions. But the system turned Duncan loose, and no one would stop him from committing an even more horrifying act...This time, he prepared meticulously. He chose his getaway car. He chose his murder weapon and loaded a video camera. Then, when he saw young Shasta and Dylan Groene playing outside their Idaho home, he struck—killing their mother and her boyfriend, and their older brother…and vanishing into the night with Shasta and Dylan.Detectives pored over the bloody murder scene. The FBI scrambled to find the children and the abductor. And even when Duncan was finally located, the story was not yet over: Dylan was still missing…and the depth of one man's evil was still coming horribly to light….

Murdered Innocents


Corey Mitchell - 2005
    Describes how, in 1991, four teenage girls were brutally raped, murdered, and set on fire in a small yogurt shop, a shocking crime that rocked the town of Austin, Texas and resulted in false confessions and an unexpected twist.

A Wife's Revenge


Eric Francis - 2005
    She recounted a harrowing tale of domestic abuse-one that the raging mother of two finally brought to an end-her way.But prosecutors had a story of their own...Susan Wright was a seductress...who set the mood for kinky sex with her unsuspecting husband. After tying Jeffrey to the bed, Susan straddled him, stabbed him 193 times with a butcher knife, then buried his body in a makeshift grave in their backyard.Justice would not come easy. The fury was just beginning.The bloodstained theatrics that unfolded in the Houston courtroom would stun jurors, make national headlines, and brand Susan Wright as both a desperate martyr on the edge and a brutal killer who would be brought to justice.

Lethal Guardian


M. William Phelps - 2004
    But she wanted more- namely guardianship of her two-year-old niece, Rebecca, daughter of Beth's estranged sister, Kim. When Kim married Anson "Buzz" Clinton, 28, a former male exotic dancer deemed an unsuitable guardian by the Carpenter family, Beth Ann became obsessed with the idea that only his death could ensure that she and her parents would get custody of the child. On March 10,1994, along a lonely stretch of road, Clinton was shot five times. His body was discovered by passing motorists. Behind Clinton's death lay a bizarre murder-for-hire conspiracy that found privileged professionals and local misfits joined in a cold-blooded plot against an innocent man. This homicidal group included attorney Haiman Clein,52. A husband, father and successful businessman, Clein was Beth Ann Carpenter's boss- and also her sexually obsessed, cocaine-snorting, murderously obedient lover. The paid killers were two buddies, organizer Joe Fremut and triggerman Mark Despres, who brought his 15-year-old son Christopher along for the hit. The aftermath of this brutal crime would set investigators and prosecutors on a long and twisted path strewn with lies, treachery, and deceit that would cross the Atlantic Ocean before finally bringing justice home.

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.

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.

Black Widow: A Beautiful Woman, Two Lovers, Two Murders


Marion Collins - 2007
    But Glenn died in agony - his body racked with spasms, his mind plunged into delirium. And by the time he was found dead, Glen's wife was more than ready for his funeral.Julia Lynn Turner, a former sheriff's assistant and 911 operator, had a thing for men in uniform - and for their money. While detectives and forensic examiners ruled Glenn's death the result of a virulent flu, time would tell another story. Lynn was already secretly living with Randy Thompson, a firefighter, who would meet the same excruciating death.Driven by family who would not give up their quest for justice, a new investigation and an explosive trial eventually exposed the truth about a woman who had a way of making men die, and about a means of murder that was pure intoxicating evil.

The Stranger In My Bed


Michael Fleeman - 2003
    What she didn't know was that the FBI had been watching him for years. In the Fall of 2000, she found out why-it was a crime that had been haunting authorities for decades. They called it the mystery of the Lady in the Box.Fifteen Years Later, Police Found The Remains...A decaying body that had been left along an Indiana roadside ditch in 1980 had finally been identified as Janice Hartman. In 1974, the Ohio woman had been reported missing by her estranged husband...John David Smith. The gruesome discovery was only the beginning of Diane Smith's brutal awakening-for Hartman was only the first of Smith's wives to have vanished off the face of the earth. This is the chilling true story of one woman who escaped the deadly hold of the killer she loved and married; and of the grieving families of his victims who banded together after nearly thirty years to prove that justice never forgets. Or forgives.

Betrayal in Blood


Michael Benson - 2006
      “Mommy . . . won’t be with us anymore.”   That’s what attorney Kevin C. Bryant, forty-five, told his two young sons in the spring of 2003. At the time, blond, pretty, twenty-six-year-old Tabatha Bryant was alive and well in an upscale suburb of Rochester, New York. But that was about to change—because Bryant knew his wife was cheating, and he intended to end the affair by ending her life. On June 14, 2003, he called 9-1-1 to report Tabatha slain by an unknown intruder who’d shot her in the eye with a .22 and repeatedly stabbed her in the neck and upper body. Soon, a drug bust led to Cassidy Green’s confession that she’d driven the getaway car. She fingered boyfriend Cyril Winebrenner as the killer.   Winebrenner and Kevin Bryant were buddies who’d regularly gone on cocaine-fueled sex binges with hookers. Astoundingly, Winebrenner was also the victim’s half-brother—but Bryant’s offer of $5,000 had convinced him that money is thicker than blood.   In a trial that shook “Country Club Row,” prosecutors would present evidence and testimonies that revealed even more sordid details, bringing the lawyer who tried to get away with murder to justice. Betrayal in Blood reveals the full story, from the author of numerous true crime accounts including Escape from Dannemora: Richard Matt, David Sweat, and the Great Adirondack Manhunt.

Dismembered


Susan D. Mustafa - 2011
    I wanted to keep those legs."One by one, investigators found the women's bodies. Each one carefully posed. Each one brutally mutilated. An arm here. A leg there. A breast, nipples, a tattoo. The killer was cutting his victims to pieces. . ."At that point, I pretty much went for the head."For ten years in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, the killings went on. Women of slight stature were hunted down, bludgeoned and strangled. And what the killer did with their bodies in the privacy of his car, his home, his kitchen, and his shower was beyond anything police could imagine."I was pure evil."When investigators finally caught mild-mannered, Star Trek fan Sean Vincent Gillis, he couldn't wait to tell his story. In the presence of shocked veteran detectives, Sean told them every detail of his killings, everything he did with the bodies. . . And he smiled the whole time. . .Includes 16 pages of shocking photographs. Warning: Contains graphic details.

A Checklist for Murder: The True Story of Robert John Peernock


Anthony Flacco - 1995
      Robert Peernock appeared to have the ideal life. Working as a pyrotechnics engineer and computer expert and coming home to his wife and daughter, Peernock projected the American dream. Even when he and his wife separated, it seemed amicable, just a small bump for the well-to-do family. But there was madness in his house: in private, Peernock was violent, subtly manipulative, and bordering on psychotic. But the horrifying details of his home life would only come to light after Peernock finally lost all control.   Peernock had come home, brutally beat both his wife and daughter, force fed them alcohol, and deliberately sent them to their death behind the wheel, staging it to look like a drunk driving accident. He didn’t foresee that his daughter would survive, and even with years of abuse, her attempted murder, and horrendous injuries, he never anticipated that she would speak so powerfully against him.   Throughout his trial, Peernock claimed a massive government conspiracy against him. He hired and fired lawyers multiple times, deadlocking juries and spinning a web of lies. New York Times bestselling author Anthony Flacco chronicles the sensational trial and all the terror that preceded it, looking deep into the mind of a deranged killer whose American dream was a waking nightmare for those trapped within it.

Hush Little Babies: the true story of a mother who murdered her own children


Don Davis - 1997
    At first Darlie's heartfelt testimony evoked fear and sympathy in her safe Dallas community. Then police became suspicious after these troubling questions were raised:Why, according to a police report, didn't Darlie make any attempt to help her dying sons?Why, when she called 911, did she tell the dispatcher that her own fingerprints would be on the murderer's knife because she had picked it up?Why did the trail of blood left behind contradict Darlie's testimony?From the dark forces that drove her to kill her own flesh and blood, to the evidence that snared her in her own twisted web, here is a chilling account of homemaker, loving wife, mother of three, and cold-blooded killer—Darlie Routier.