Inside Oregon State Hospital: A History of Tragedy and Triumph (Landmarks)


Diane Goeres-Gardner - 2013
    In desperate attempts to cure their patients, physicians injected them with deadly medications, cut holes in their heads, and sterilized them. Years of insufficient funding caused the hospital to decay into a crumbling facility with too few staff, as seen in the 1975 film "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest." Today, after a $360 million makeover, Oregon State Hospital is a modern treatment hospital for the state's civil and forensic mentally ill. In this compelling account of the institution's tragedies and triumphs, author Diane Goeres-Gardner offers an unparalleled look at the very human story of Oregon's historic asylum.

Ted Bundy: The Horrific True Story behind America's Most Wicked Serial Killer (Real Crime By Real Killers Book 4)


Ryan Becker - 2018
    history. A murderer’s tale is not always shrouded in darkness, trauma and failure to perform as a normal person. Some killers are just as successful in life as those around them or even more so. They are able to function as any regular human being and charm their communities and victims into believing that they are of a good, pure nature. Ted Bundy was a handsome, charming and ambitious man who carried his hatred deeper and more hidden than any other murderers do. He was able to lead a life that included normal friendships and relationships, and he even got far as both a student and a politician. But the hatred was there…it was always there… Bundy ended the lives of over thirty young women, ensuring that their final moments were ugly and violent. His torture methods were cruel, and there was no mercy shown to each female as he bludgeoned, strangled or cut them. Ted Bundy - The Campus Killer - a name of nightmares. This is his story.

Olive Oatman: Explore The Mysterious Story of Captivity and Tragedy from Beginning to End


Brent Schulte - 2019
    She is the girl with the blue tattoo.The story behind the distinctive tattoo is the stuff of legends. Some believed it was placed on her face during her captivity, following the brutal murders of her family members and the kidnapping of her and her sister. Others believe it was placed on her after her return.Rumors swelled. Her tattoo became a symbol of Native barbarianism and the triumph of American goodness, but like many stories of that era, the truth is far more complicated.This short book details the murders, her captivity, the aftermath, and her baffling return to her captors. Unravel the mystery of the woman who would become famous for all the wrong reasons and discover what her life story says about cultural identity, the power of resiliency, and what happens when fact and fiction bend and twist to muddy the waters.Read on to find out the truth!

The Corpsewood Manor Murders in North Georgia


Amy Petulla - 2016
    They brutally murdered their hosts. Dr. Charles Scudder and companion Joey Odom built the "castle in the woods" in the Trion forest after Scudder left his position as professor at Loyola. He brought with him twelve thousand doses of LSD. Rumors of drug use and Satanism swirled around the two men. Scudder even claimed to have summoned a demon to protect the estate. The murders set the stage for a trial vibrant with local lore.

Vanished at Sea: The True Story of a Child TV Actor and Double Murder


Tina Dirmann - 2008
    A retired probation officer and a stay-at-home mom, they were looking forward to entering the next phase of their golden years. Their plan: To sell their home--a 55-foot, $435,000 yacht--and start a new life on land...and spend as much time with their grandchildren as possible. The Hawks were thrilled when a young man named Skylar Deleon wanted to buy the boat for himself, his wife, and their two kids. Little did Thomas and Jackie know that this unemployed, former childhood actor and dishonorably discharged Marine had another devious plan in mind: To lure the couple out to sea, force them to sign away their life savings, throw them overboard, and leave them

The Lincoln Obsession: The Author of Manhunt Chases Down His Own Lincoln Obsession


James L Swanson - 2021
    Taking listeners behind the scenes of his research, Swanson discusses the origins of his boyhood passion for Lincoln, including his first visits to Springfield, Illinois, and Ford’s Theatre as a high school student; accounts for Booth’s movements during the manhunt; reveals how he authenticates Lincoln blood relics; and offers details about historic sites that remain little-known or obscure. Swanson describes the intrigue he continues to pursue - the women who aided Booth, lingering questions regarding other conspirators, and a timeline for both Lincoln and the conspirators on the night of April 14, 1865. The Lincoln Obsession is a uniquely personal look at how historical places and relics will forever shed new light on the first presidential assassination in America.

Murderers' Row: A Collection of Shocking True Crime Stories


M. William Phelps - 2016
    William Phelps, someone tries to pin a gruesome murder on a horse, infamous serial killer Son of Sam shows us his true evil nature in a series of lost letters this psychopath never wanted you to see, and Sesame Streets Big Bird comes home to find a dead woman on his estate. These shocking stories join several others that only a master storyteller like Phelps can bring to life for readers. The six stories in this collection have been published in various print and digital places but have never been brought together in one terrifying, mysterious read. Phelps updates each case. One story involves a young man who believes he's figured out the perfect way to commit a murder after binge-watching "Forensic Files." In this opening tale, a Massachusetts man is stalked by a hired killer because of the information he holds in the case of insurance scam gone bad, resulting in savage murder. Next up is the story of a restaurant owner and her husband, enjoying a calm, peaceful life in the Berkshires, with all the charm and tranquility New England has to offer, until a bloody trail inside a barn leads to a gruesome discovery and a familys deepest, darkest secrets are exposed. Phelps also takes readers behind the scenes of his hit Investigation Discovery series "Dark Minds," revealing his investigative secrets with an intimate look at those serialkiller cold cases that still haunt Phelps today. Finally, as another bonus, Phelps, who author Vincent Bugliosi called one of Americas best true crime journalists, heads out to meet renowned forensic scientist Dr. Henry Lee in a narrative interview that reveals Lees ingenious and humorous take on life, his crime-scene philosophy, and the ways in which he deals with the brutality of the work he does.

The Altar Boys


Suzanne Smith - 2020
    A community betrayed ... The whistle-blower priest who paid the ultimate price Glen Walsh and Steven Alward were childhood friends in their tight-knit working-class community in Shortland, on the outskirts of Newcastle, New South Wales. Both proud altar boys at the local Catholic church, they went on to attend the city's Catholic boys' highs schools: Glen to Marist Brothers and Steven to St Pius X. Both did well: Steven became a journalist; Glen a priest. But when Glen discovered another priest was sexually abusing boys, he reported the offending to police, breaking Canon Law and his vows to the Catholic 'brotherhood' in the process. Just weeks before he was due to give evidence at a key trial against the highest cleric to ever be charged with covering up child abuse, Father Glen Walsh was dead. Two months later, his friend Steven also died, only weeks before he was to marry the love of his life. Ensuing investigations revealed that at least 60 men in the region had taken their own lives. Why? What had happened, and why were so many from the three Catholic high schools in the area?By six-time Walkley Award-winning investigative reporter Suzanne Smith, The Altar Boys is the powerful expose of widespread and organised clerical abuse of children in an Australian city, and how the cover-up in the Catholic Church in Australia extended from parish priests to every echelon of the organisation. Focusing on two childhood friends, their families and community, this gripping and explosive story is backed by secret documents, diary notes and witness accounts, and details a deliberate church strategy of using psychological warfare against witnesses in key trials involving paedophile priests.

Jack the Ripper: The Simple Truth


Bruce Paley - 1995
    Not only does he build a powerful case against his suspect, Joseph Barnett, but Paley probably did more research than anyone else, with the result that his depiction of the East End of London c. 1888 is second to none, and has been singled out for its unrivalled richness and vividness. Paley has also been praised for his studious, unsensational account of the crimes, and his compassionate portraits of the Ripper’s victims. This is what some of the critics had to say. Writing in The Daily Mail (25/11/95), Val Hennessy wrote: "Bruce Paley's excellent book convinces me, for one, that Jack the Ripper has at last been nailed…Apart from convincingly identifying the Ripper, Paley's book paints an extraordinarily vivid picture of late 19th century London. It opens your eyes to the hopeless, harsh lives endured by single and deserted women, especially those with children, in the days before job opportunities and full time education." As such, Hennessey echoes the words of the esteemed writer Colin Wilson, who wrote in the foreword to Paley's book: "If I had to recommend a single book on Jack the Ripper to someone who knew nothing about the subject, I would unhesitatingly choose this one. Bruce Paley has captured the atmosphere of Whitechapel at the time of the murders - and indeed, London in the late 19th century - with a sense of living reality that no other writer on the case has achieved…[It is] the most evocative book on the period that I have ever read." Writing in the Guardian (22/11/06), Nancy Banks-Smith wrote: "[Jack the Ripper] was almost certainly Joseph Barnett, the live-in lover of the last victim, Mary Kelly, a theory convincingly argued by Bruce Paley in his book Jack the Ripper: The Simple Truth." Some years later, Adrian Morris, the editor of The Journal of the Whitechapel Society, declared Paley's book to be the best Jack the Ripper book of them all. "The immense strength of Paley's book," Morris wrote in February, 2010, "is that his suspect Barnett is perfectly placed to act as an almost unknowing device to explore the milieu of the East End with its poverty, exploitation and vice, whilst also drawing the reader into the soulless world of the victim...This Paley does brilliantly. His prose is powerful and, dare I say it beautiful. In Paley's words the Nietzschian hordes that are measured and understood as a value of history become material to act within a story that explores the full tragedy of the East End. Paley really does understand the East End A.D.1888, his words map out its DNA, his sentences tap out the arithmetic of existence. For one to understand the Whitechapel murders, one must understand the times. Nowhere can one do this better than in the chapters Paley devotes to this historical sociology. For Paley understands that while the Ripper was killing its womenfolk (albeit destitutes), the East End itself was eating its children in the jaws of poverty. Paley's excellent and wide ranging research underpins his descriptions. This is history with a poetical syncopation that adds to the subject matter in the mind of the reader. Paley describes the environs of Dorset Street and Miller's Court that takes some beating and is redolent of an informed approach that makes you feel he must have known the old place…I can only amplify [Colin Wilson's] endorsement uttered on the book's 1995 release by adding, without wishing to seem overly unctuous, that when compiling a booklist of authors that one would like to proffer to the uninitiated, soon-to-be initiated or just plain curious on the subject of the Whitechapel murders, I would advise that the list starts wit

The Phillip Island Murder


Vikki Petraitis - 2013
    It also created an enduring mystery, for no one was ever brought to trial for her brutal death, and the main suspect disappeared – never to be seen again. Beth Barnard, a popular and attractive 23-year-old, had been having an affair with a local married man. On the night of her brutal murder, a car belonging to Vivienne Cameron – wife of Beth’s lover – was found abandoned near the bridge that connects the famous tourist island to the mainland. No trace of Vivienne was ever found, and her disappearance has never been adequately explained. Nevertheless, a Coroner's Court found that Vivienne had killed her rival then jumped to her death into the waters of Westernport Bay. The case was closed but not forgotten. Ever since their first edition of The Phillip Island Murder, in 1993, Vikki Petraitis and Paul Daley have been regularly contacted by people wanting to know more; people who, like the authors, let the case get under their skin. More than three decades later the mystery, rumours and arm-chair solutions continue.

Pearl: Lost Girl of White Oak Mountain


Bill Yates - 2020
    The search for little Pearl consumed the next several weeks, and the story became front page news all over the United States. Hundreds of residents from the nearby towns of Waldron and Booneville Arkansas helped in the search, and a mysterious mountain hermit seemed to hold the secret to Pearl's disappearance. The incredible events that followed contributed to a mountain legend that still exists today.

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.

Bloodstains


Jeff Mudgett - 2009
    H.H. Holmes, the monster and master of Chicago's Murder Castle! Unable to accept this horrible secret, the author's initial research turns from an eerie fascination into obsession and finally a struggle for his very survival as his inner demons are turned loose while he dances with the devil. Halfway through the book and right up to the terrifying conclusion you'll find yourself asking what would you have done in his place on this unique and compelling voyage to the undiscovered.

DOUBT: The Madeleine McCann Mystery (Gone Girl Book 1)


Nick van der Leek - 2017
    We also know the original lead investigator, Goncalo Amaral’s, counter-narrative, now a legally defensible matter of public record. The questions that arise from these opposing narratives are dead simple: Which narrative is more credible? Which narrator is more credible? What was the motive behind all the publicity? Neither Madeleine nor her abductor ultimately benefited from the ongoing media barrage, so who did? True crime maestro, Nick van der Leek, plumbs quagmires of confusion and a thicket of thorny inconsistencies to probe what lies beneath: the psychologies. What is the significance of "doctors" as suspects? Did it matter or mean anything that the McCanns and their cabal of friends in the Algarve were mostly doctors? Peeling away the gossamer threads, over the course of just four days [April 29th – May 2nd], van der Leek intuits that very little was routine: not the weather, not where meals were eaten, not where or when they slept and not what they did as a family. But what were their routines when it came to other, murkier things, like sleeping patterns, cell phones and sedatives? Drawing intangibles out of the darkness, van der Leek sews the vexing loose ends from several conflicting stories into a definite - if not definitive - end-result.

Lord High Executioner: The Legendary Mafia Boss Albert Anastasia


Frank DiMatteo - 2020
    legend who helped create the modern American Mafia—one body at a time—featuring shocking eyewitness accounts . . . Umberto “Albert” Anastasia was born in Italy at the turn of the century. Five decades later, he would be gunned down in a barber shop in New York City. What happened in the years in between-- and why every crime family had reason to want him dead-- is one of the most brutal and fascinating stories in the history of American organized crime. This in-depth account of the man who became one of the most powerful and homicidal crime bosses of the twentieth century from Mafia insider Frank Dimatteo is the first full-length book to chronicle Anastasia’s bloody rise from fresh-off-the-boat immigrant to founder of the notorious killer’s club Murder, Inc.—featuring never-before-told accounts from those who feared him most . . . They called him “The One Man Army.” “Mad Hatter.” “Lord High Executioner.” Albert Anastasia came to America mean and became a prolific killer. His merciless assassination of Mafia godfather Vincent Mangano is recounted here in chilling first-hand detail. He set the record: the first man in the history of American justice to be charged with four separate murders—and walk free after each one. But in the end, he was the last obstacle in rival Mafia hoodlum Vito Genovese’s dream of becoming the boss of bosses—and paid the ultimate price . . .