Without a Trace: The Disappearance of Amy Billig -- A Mother's Search for Justice


Greg Aunapu - 2001
    and vanished. Several days later, Amy's frantic mother, Susan Billig, received an anonymous phone call saying that her daughter had been carried off by one of the biker gangs. And so began Susan's harrowing and extraordinary twenty-five-year search for her lost child -- an odyssey that led a desperate parent into the seedy heart of a dangerous subculture built on drugs, rebellion, brutality, and sex; a relentless hunt for the truth that showed her the best side of humanity...and the very worst.

I Am Cain


Gera-Lind Kolarik - 1994
    Chronicles the terrifying murder of newlyweds Nancy and Richard Langert, who were shot to death in their basement in April, 1990, and the investigation that lead to the identity of their killer--a man they both knew well.

Let's Kill Mom: Four Texas Teens and a Horrifying Murder Pact


Donna Fielder - 2015
    The worst was yet to come… Days before, seventeen-year-old Jennifer Bailey, her thirteen-year-old brother David, and their friends Paul Henson and Merrilee White had made a gruesome pact: they’d kill their parents, steal their cars and credit cards, and flee to Canada. Paul and Merrilee’s parents thwarted their fates, but Jennifer and David’s mother Susan Bailey wasn’t so lucky. When the devoted mother returned home from work, her two children and their friend Paul took turns stabbing her and slicing her throat. When they were done, they fled in Susan’s car. They made it as far as South Dakota before being arrested. What really led them to make such a despicable pact? The answers would cast a disturbing new light on the way we see the all-American family, our neighbors, our children—and the society that nurtured them.Now an Investigation Discovery TV Special

Murder in Pleasanton: Tina Faelz and the Search for Justice


Josh Suchon - 2015
    About an hour later, she was found in a ditch, brutally stabbed to death. The murder shook the quiet East Bay suburb of Pleasanton and left investigators baffled. With no witnesses or leads, the case went cold and remained so for nearly thirty years. In 2011, the investigation finally got a break. Improved forensics recovered DNA from a drop of blood found at the scene matching Tina’s classmate, Steven Carlson. Through dusty police files, personal interviews, letters and firsthand accounts, journalist Joshua Suchon revisits his childhood home to uncover the story of a disturbing crime and the controversial sentencing that brought long-awaited answers to a city tormented by questions.

Cold Kill: The True Story of a Murderous Love


Jack Olsen - 1987
    Or so he thought. The troubled young man clung to his new love and dreamed of their future together. So begins the chain of events that was to evolve into a horror of terrifying proportions. Jack Olsen, bestselling author of "Son," now reveals the details of a true-life romance gone hideously awry. After weeks of planning, the young misfits from two fine old Texas families donned grotesque battle gear and crept into the luxurious home where Cindy Ray's parents lay asleep with her two small sons. In the hot muggy room, the "cold kill" was over in seconds. Everyone who knew the unpredictable Cindy suspected that she was involved, but the ghastly crime had been so carefully orchestrated that Houston's top homicide detectives could get nowhere. Cindy wore black and sobbed at the funeral, then began a frenzied attempt to collect her inheritance and as many of her wealthy parents possessions as she could haul away. No one except David West was surprised when she walked out on him. Then the story took another bizarre turn. In a final bid to solve the case, a seductive young private investigator was assigned to cozy up to West. Soon the gullible killer was in love, once again with fateful consequences. Traditionally, true-crime drama illuminates the sinister motivations in the human psyche. Yet Cold Kill reveals something still more frightful -- unspeakable murders are committed, not out of greed, revenge, or blind demented rage, but out of a troubled young man's tragically misconceived code of honor and a desperate need to please and protect the woman of his dreams. Jack Olsen's Cold Kill is a stunning testament to the profoundly discerning eye of a grand master of true crime. To read Cold Kill is not to forgive David West. It is, however, to undergo the uncanny experience of feeling oneself slowly but surely moving into the shoes of a pathological killer.

Fatal Beauty


Burl Barer - 2010
    . . Jimmy Joste was a powerhouse in the oil and gas industry, but he was a weakling when it came to his gorgeous, athletic, longtime lover, Rhonda Glover. Addicted to her sexual prowess and madly in love, Joste gave her homes, cars, cash, and a $350,000 engagement ring. . . .But Left Him As A Corpse Their fifteen years of passion and excess ended the day Rhonda drove directly from a shooting range to the Austin home they once shared. After pumping ten bullets into him from a Glock 9mm, she stood over Joste's blood-splattered body and shot him six more times--twice below the waist. The Ultimate Girl Gone Wild According to Rhonda, Joste was violent, abusive, and threatened her life. Here, for the first time, are Rhonda Glover's shocking stories of drug-crazed devil worship and sexual perversity. But in a packed courtroom, prosecutors presented shocking evidence that beautiful Rhonda didn't act in self-defense--it was hot-blooded murder! Includes 16 Pages Of Shocking Photos

Every Mother's Nightmare


Charles Bosworth Jr. - 1995
    Louis, in 1986, someone murdered Jude Govreau's 15-year-old daughter and Mari Winzen's 3-year-old son. It would take five years of investigation to bring the killer to trial. This is the story of two determined mothers and a tireless young prosecutor who helped them achieve justice. The killer is now serving a life sentence in prison.

Is He Dead?


Rick H. Drew - 2014
    Experience the pain, suffering, and love of two children as they endure nearly a decade of abuse from their father. What they did was premeditated, but what the government did may surprise you.

Driven To Kill


Gary C. King - 1993
    Navy enlistee. But behind his mask of normalcy lurked a predatory sex fiend with a seventeen-year history of appalling acts of molestation and violence. Children were his victims and the parks of the Pacific Northwest his personal hunting grounds. On September 4, 1989, his unnatural desires had driven him to abduct, torture and kill two young boys in Vancouver, Washington. Undetected despite his record, Dodd killed a third innocent victim only weeks later near Portland, Oregon. But only when he was caught trying to kidnap a child from a local movie theater was he finally taken into custody by police. Confessing to these heinous murders, he was convicted on all three counts and sentenced to death. On January 5, 1993 at 12:05 a.m., Westley Allan Dodd became the first criminal in America in nearly three decades to be executed by hanging. Based on exclusive access to police files and riveting trial testimony, personal interviews with Dodd himself and excerpts from his chilling diary of death, DRIVEN TO KILL dramatically recounts a hideous spree of death and horror that brought every parent's worst nightmare frighteningly to life!

Hell Hath No Fury: A True Story of Wealth and Passion, Love and Envy, and a Woman Driven to the Ultimate Revenge


Bryna Taubman - 1992
    But when Betty discovered Dan's hidden life, the façade of LaJolla's golden couple was shattered. What followed was a vicious five-year battle that finally ended in a shocking double-murder.A Harvard Law School graduate, Dan manipulated the law to strip Betty of everything she loved: her home, her friends - even her children. When she frantically tried to fight back, he had her committed to a mental hospital. His new wife, Linda, even sent the once-beautiful Betty wrinkle cream ads and weight loss pamphlets.Consumed by hatred and thoughts of revenge, Betty's rage exploded on the night of November 5, 1989. Before the sun rose the next day, Dan Broderick and his gorgeous new wife were dead - their bullet-riddled bodies wrapped in the blood-soaked sheets of their bed.

The Deadly Daughter-in-Law


Gregg Olsen - 2014
    Gregg Olsen (If Loving You Is Wrong, Starvation Heights) and Rebecca Morris (Ted and Ann – The Mystery of a Missing Child and Her Neighbor Ted Bundy), are also the authors of If I Can’t Have You – Susan Powell, Her Mysterious Disappearance, and the Murder of Her Children (St. Martin’s, 2014) and Bodies of Evidence. About the Authors GREGG OLSEN IS THE NEW YORK TIMES, Wall Street Journal and USA Today bestselling author of twenty books, both true crime and fiction, including If I Can’t Have You, Abandoned Prayers, Closer than Blood, A Twisted Faith, Starvation Heights, If Loving You Is Wrong. He appears frequently on Dateline NBC, NPR, Good Morning America, The Early Show, FOX News; CNN, Anderson Cooper 360, Entertainment Tonight, Inside Edition, Extra, Access Hollywood, Snapped, Deadly Women, and A&E's Biography. REBECCA MORRIS IS A VETERAN JOURNALIST and the New York Times bestselling author (with Gregg Olsen) of Bodies of Evidence, and If I Can’t Have You – Susan Powell, Her Mysterious Disappearance, and the Murder of Her Children. She is also the author of Ted and Ann – The Mystery of a Missing Child and Her Neighbor Ted Bundy. She has appeared on Investigation Discovery, HLN, and in many other media. Stephanie Cook, contributor.

Fear Came to Town: The Santa Claus, Georgia, Murders


Doug Crandell - 2009
    The Christmas holiday spirit lives all year around. It?s also where Jerry Scott Heidler was raised. And where?in December 1997?he brutally slaughtered his former foster family in an act that devastated the town forever.

Where the Bodies Are Buried


Fannie Weinstein - 1998
    The piles of dismembered skeletons belonged to young men who has disappeared from the gay bars and cruising sites of this Midwest city.Their killer was Herb Baumeister, a beloved father and successful businessman who led a deadly double life. And until the day his son dug up a buried skull, Herb's pretty wife Julie never dreamed he was Indian's worst serial killer. She didn't know about the bizarre sexual encounters Herb held at the house when she went away with their kids...or about the brutal cravings that led him to kill.In this riveting account, two veteran journalists tell the uncensored story of Herb Baumeister--taking you into a psychopath's dark obsession to meet his victims, to witness the rituals of sex and death he forced his victims to perform, and to find out how this gruesome killing sprees finally--shockingly--came to an end...

Precious Victims


Don W. Weber - 1991
    Three years later her second newborn daughter suffered an identical fate and this time the police were unable to stop searching until they had discovered the whole, horrifying truth.This is the full terrifying story of twisted sexuality and hate seething below the surface of a seemingly normal family, and of the massive investigation and nerve shattering trial that made the unthinkable a reality. Written by the lawyer who won the case and the reporter who covered its entirety, the reader is given a unique close-up of the riveting drama that unfolds, painting a dark picture of the depraved family who lived with a murderous secret.

Reasonable Doubt: A Shocking Story of Lust and Murder in the American Heartland


Steve Vogel - 1990
    The apparent weapons, an ax and butcher knife, are found nearby. A month later the husband and father, who was away on a business trip when the bodies were found, is accused of the killings. Police believe he methodically murdered his wife and children before he left. But why? A successful businessman and devoted member of a fundamentalist religious group, David Hendricks has the total support of his extended family. Police paint a darker picture, and prosecutors face the daunting task of convicting him on a case based on completely circumstantial evidence. A New York Times best-seller, this book has now been updated with additional content and photos. Readers often comment they must continually remind themselves that this story is real, that "Reasonable Doubt" is testament to the fact truth is stranger than fiction. The book has also been used in college-level criminal justice courses to explain and illustrate the legal concept of reasonable doubt.