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.

Guilt by Matrimony: A Memoir of Love, Madness, and the Murder of Nancy Pfister


Nancy Styler - 2015
    The question was: Who did it? Fewer than twelve hours after her body was found and without any evidence, police decided a married couple from Denver had killed her. Within a few days, they arrested and charged Nancy Styler, a friend of Pfister’s who’d had a falling out with her after a business deal went sour, and Dr. Trey Styler, Nancy’s disabled husband, who recently lost the family home, his medical practice, and any hope of a peaceful retirement for himself and his wife. Eleven days later, police also arrested and charged Kathy Carpenter, Pfister’s underpaid and overworked personal assistant and closest friend.Months later, Trey Styler, who was slowly losing his grip on reality as he battled with mental illness, confessed to the crime. Rampant speculation spread about whether he was involved at all—or if his confession was that of a man on his deathbed—because a medical condition appeared to have left him barely able to walk, much less carry out such a heinous crime.In Guilt by Matrimony, Styler’s widow, Nancy, reveals the answers to the biggest mysteries of this case and recounts the trauma of being falsely accused and imprisoned for a first-degree murder she had no knowledge of. And, in the only interview before his death, Trey gives his account of that fateful day.New York Times bestselling author Daleen Berry covers this compelling story from the inside, following the Stylers from their fairy-tale life in Denver to the morning of their simultaneous arrest to Nancy’s release from jail and her attempts to rebuild her shattered life. Filled with details from exclusive interviews, a close look at the botched small-town police work, and first-person accounts of what really happened, Guilt by Matrimony is the definitive look at a shocking murder that rocked Aspen.

Toxic Love: The Shocking True Story of the First Murder by Cancer


Tomás Guillén - 1995
    Sandy Johnson was in shock. Her husband, Duane, and young daughter, Sherrie, were violently ill when word arrived that her infant nephew just died of mysterious causes. Days earlier, the entire family was happy, healthy, and living the American dream. Now they were at the center of a terrifying medical crisis.   Duane soon died in a condition unlike anything the doctors had ever seen. As they raced to discover what disease or toxin could have done so much damage so quickly, Lt. Foster Burchard of the Omaha police began to suspect foul play. Sandy herself became a primary suspect, as did her ex-boyfriend Steven Harper—a man prone to violence who never got over their breakup.   In Toxic Love, investigative reporter and true crime author Tomás Guillén offers a detailed and vivid account of this baffling case from the day of the poisoning to the harrowing trial and the murderer’s eventual suicide on death row.

Pure Evil: Inside the Minds and Crimes of Britain’s Worst Criminals


Geoffrey Wansell - 2018
    . . A fascinating exposé of the country's most violent murderers and their horrifying crimes, based on years of original research.Pure Evil takes a close look at the country's deadliest criminals, from those who horrified the nation to those less famous but equally brutal; they are all serving life sentences behind bars, but what made them do it? Delving deeper into the stories of lifers such as Jeremy Bamber, Joanna Dennehy and Ian Huntley, Pure Evil asks whether they are just that...or something more complex.In this shocking, chilling and powerful book Geoffrey Wansell exposes killers' motivations and remorse, but also seeks out an answer to the vital question: should life always mean life?

The Forensic Psychology of Criminal Minds


Katherine Ramsland - 2010
    examines the real-life cases behind the hit television series Criminal Minds Week after week, the hit TV show Criminal Minds gives viewers a look inside the psyches of the fictional serial killers tracked by the BAU (Behavioral Analysis Unit). This elite team of FBI agents travels the country assisting law enforcement officials by examining the crime scene, "profiling" the perpetrator, and aiding in arrest and interrogation. In this book Katherine Ramsland reveals how reality differs from fiction and how forensic psychologists actually use their knowledge of human behavior and motivations as consultants in criminal investigations-as well as detailing the real cases that influenced some of Criminal Minds's most memorable episodes.

Survivors: One Brave Detective's Battle to Expose the Rochdale Child Abuse Scandal


Maggie Oliver - 2019
    Instead, she launched a one-woman campaign to bring down these sickening gangs.This is the heart-breaking and shocking story of how the actions of one determined detective secured convictions in what is now one of the most notorious grooming cases in the UK. Along the way Maggie discovered countless examples of how the authorities were letting down our most vulnerable children. She blew the whistle, losing her job and at times her mind at times, in a bid to stop others from experiencing the same.This is the first ever account from a police insider on the endemic problem of child sexual exploitation across the nation and how these cases are handled by the authorities put in place to protect us.It tells the story of a woman brave enough to speak out and a group of girls who found the strength to fight for justice after having their lives completely shattered by their abusers; together they show in shocking detail why this must never happen again.

Manson: The Unholy Trail of Charlie and the Family


John Gilmore - 1995
    Manson is a gripping account of one of the most chilling and fascinating crime sagas of our time, now available in a revised and updated edition containing 36 pages of previously unpublished photographs. New vectors into the kaleidoscopic tale that spins inexorably out of the slayin... Full description

Fatal Sunset: Deadly Vacations


Mark Yoshimoto Nemcoff - 2012
    Over 170 people have disappeared from cruise ships around the world since 1995, several under very suspicious circumstances. Others have their lives senselessly stolen, like the 8-year-old boy sucked into an unprotected pool drain at a major resort, leaving his mother crying out his name as security staff held her at gunpoint. Or 22-year old Nolan Webster, denied proper medical care after being pulled unconscious from a Cancun resort pool, only to have his dead body left in plain view for hours and his parents billed for his room.Vacations are meant to be joyous and fun. Sometimes terrible things happen unexpectedly. A parasailing newlywed plummets hundreds of feet to her death on the last day of her honeymoon when her harness snaps in midair. Hikers make a fatal plunge on an improperly-marked Kauai cliffside trail. And of course, there's every mother's nightmare: the disappearance of Natalee Holloway while on a high-school graduation trip to Aruba with members of her senior class.

The Last Victim: A True-Life Journey into the Mind of the Serial Killer


Jason M. Moss - 1999
    Manson...It started with a college course assignment, then escalated into a dangerous obsession. Eighteen-year-old honor student Jason Moss wrote to men whose body counts had made criminal history: men named Dahmer, Manson, Ramirez, and Gacy.Dear Mr. Dahmer...Posing as their ideal victim, Jason seduced them with his words. One by one they wrote him back, showering him with their madness and violent fantasies. Then the game spun out of control. John Wayne Gacy revealed all to Jason -- and invited his pen pal to visit him in prison...Dear Mr. Gacy...It was an offer Jason couldn't turn down. Even if it made him...The book that has riveted the attention of the national media, this may be the most revealing look at serial killers ever recorded and the most illuminating study of the dark places of the human mind ever attempted.

Psycho USA: Famous American Killers You Never Heard Of


Harold Schechter - 2012
    But for every celebrity psychopath who’s gotten ink for spilling blood, there’s a bevy of all-but-forgotten homicidal fiends studding the bloody margins of U.S. history. The law gave them their just desserts, but now the hugely acclaimed author of The Serial Killer Files and The Whole Death Catalog gives them their dark due in this absolutely riveting true-crime treasury. Among America’s most cold-blooded you’ll meet   • Robert Irwin, “The Mad Sculptor”: He longed to use his carving skills on the woman he loved—but had to settle for making short work of her mother and sister instead.   • Peter Robinson, “The Tell-Tale Heart Killer”: It took two days and four tries for him to finish off his victim, but no time at all for keen-eyed cops to spot the fatal flaw in his floor plan.   • Anton Probst, “The Monster in the Shape of a Man”: The ax-murdering immigrant’s systematic slaughter of all eight members of a Pennsylvania farm family matched the savagery of the Manson murders a century later.   • Edward H. Ruloff, “The Man of Two Lives”: A genuine Jekyll and Hyde, his brilliant scholarship disguised his bloodthirsty brutality, and his oversized brain gave new meaning to “mastermind.”   Spurred by profit, passion, paranoia, or perverse pleasure, these killers—the Witch of Staten Island, the Smutty Nose Butcher, the Bluebeard of Quiet Dell, and many others—span three centuries and a host of harrowing murder methods. Dramatized in the pages of penny dreadfuls, sensationalized in tabloid headlines, and immortalized in “murder ballads” and classic fiction by Edgar Allan Poe and Theodore Dreiser, the demonic denizens of Psycho USA may be long gone to the gallows—but this insidiously irresistible slice of gothic Americana will ensure that they’ll no longer be forgotten.

The Co-Ed Killer: A Study of the Murders, Mutilations, and Matricide of Edmund Kemper III


Margaret Cheney - 1976
    After five years in a California hospital for sex offenders, this intelligent giant (IQ 136; height 6'9") emerged to carry out the meticulously rehearsed murders of six hitchhiking girls, culminating in the murder, mutilation - and more - of his mother and her friend. Tried and found guilty, Kemper was labeled sane so that he could be given a life sentence in a prison. Margaret Cheney tells a totally compelling story based on Kemper's enormously detailed confession and extensive interviews with scores of those involved with Kemper's gruesome career. At the same time she perceptively explores Kemper's twisted motivations and the implications of his crimes and trial in a culture that seems to actively promote the acceptance of savagery.

Double Jeopardy


Bob Hill - 1995
    It is a law intended to protect the innocent from unfair harassment and persecution.But sometimes it protects the guilty as well.Guilty As SinThe circumstantial evidence against southern businessman Mel Ignatow was solid -- effectively damning him for the savage 1988 sex torture/slaying of his former girlfriend, Brenda Schaefer. There was motive, unimpeachable forensic evidence . . . even testimony from an eyewitness who took photographs of the gruesome, horrific crime. But in a Kentucky courtroom, frustration, ignorance, incompetence and fate pulled a supposedly open-and-shut case in shocking, unexpected directions -- and tied the concept of American justice into knots that might never be undone.

The Last Godfather: The Life and Crimes of Arthur Thompson


Reg McKay - 2004
    Arthur Thompson proved them all wrong. For forty years Thompson ruled Glasgow's mean streets, always devising new terror.

Murder in Greenwich


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

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.