In just six years he'd gone from lowly assistant to running the UK's busiest murder morgue. He couldn't believe his luck.What he didn't know was that Southwark, operating in near-Victorian conditions, was a hotbed of corruption. Attendants stole from the dead, funeral homes paid bribes, and there was a lively trade in stolen body parts and recycled coffins.Set in the fascinating pre-DNA and psychological profiling years of 1985-87, this memoir tells a gripping and gruesome tale, with a unique insight into a world of death most of us don't ever see. Peter managed pathologists, oversaw post-mortems and worked alongside Scotland Yard's Murder Squad - including the case of the serial killer, the Stockwell Strangler. This is a thrilling tale of murder and corruption in the mid-1980s, told with insight and compassion.

    Highly recommended.” For the Love of Books blog “I was so absorbed by this book and found it such an easy read that I knocked it over in two days. Venables does a magnificent job of hitting the appropriate tone with a difficult and somewhat unpalatable topic.” The Bookshelf Gargoyle “I absolutely loved this book, it is a fabulous insight into what goes on behind the scenes of murders and disasters that result in tragic loss of life. I found it gripping and very interesting. Very well written. A great book.” Netgalley “Very interesting. If you ever want to satisfy your macabre curiosity as to how the police identify victims involved in a disaster without getting too much into the science, then this is the book for you. It never lets you forget the sensitivity and the human element of working in a field which deals with tragedy after tragedy. Richard Venables has a unique perspective to deliver an account of how Disaster Victim Identification has progressed from the ’80s to now, as he pretty much invented the process for the UK, and worked on a multitude of national and international disasters.” Love is a State of Mind blog “An invaluable insight into the actual workings of Disaster Victim Identification teams, which will pull at every human emotion. An incredible read." Detective Superintendent Graham Yip (rtd), Merseyside Police. “Although the subject matter - the police’s response in the face of tragedy - is tough, his story is both fascinating and uplifting, revealing how the human spirit never fails to shine through in the darkest of times.” Detective Chief Superintendent Rich Kerman (rtd) “It is a sincere reflection of the fate that can befall some unfortunate people but how those dealing with disasters can make such a tremendous difference by the way their loved ones are cared and treated with respect and dignity… Through his work Richard became a worldwide expert on DVI and is held in the highest esteem by those in the field.” DR N D Chapman DL, Coroner of Nottinghamshire (rtd) & President of BAHID (British Association of Human Identification) Detective Inspector Richard Venables (QPM, rtd.) has helped identify thousands of bodies all over the world, piecing together fragments from tsunamis, transport and other disasters to return the victims to their loved ones. A world-renowned expert in Disaster Victim Identification who was a member of the UK Police’s Major Disaster Advisory Team, Richard’s destiny was shaped in part by his presence as a uniformed sergeant at the 1989 Hillsborough Disaster. In A Life in Death, Richard tells his extraordinary story, of how death came to be a key feature of his personal as well as professional life, as well as how he coped with the biggest challenge of his life: the 2004 Asian Tsunami, the deadliest event of its kind ever experienced by human civilization, claiming 230,000 lives. Upon his retirement from the Police in 2006, Richard was awarded the Queen’s Police Medal in recognition of his distinguished service. In A Life in Death, Richard takes us behind the scenes of extraordinary events, explaining with compassion and searing honesty the absolute necessity of his work, his life’s passion.

    This is a unique personal perspective on forensic science, written in a darkly humorous voice by an expert who worked as a crime scene investigator for over 10 years.

    Its organization and thoroughness are unsurpassed, putting it above similar review books. Students who thoroughly read this book should have no trouble successfully completing their psychiatry clerkship and passing the shelf exam. As course director for the core psychiatry clerkship at my institution, I will recommend this book to students."--Doody's Review Service"First Aid for the Psychiatry Clerkship" gives you the core information needed to impress on the wards and pass the psychiatry clerkship exam. Written by students who know what it takes to succeed, and based on the national guidelines for the psychiatry clerkship, the book is filled with mnemonics, ward and exam tips, tables, clinical images, algorithms, and newly added mini-cases.Features Completely revised based on the psychiatry clerkship's core competencies Written by medical students who passed and reviewed by faculty for accuracy NEW integrated mini-cases illustrate classic patient presentations and/or commonly tested scenarios NEW illustrations and management algorithms Updated throughout with enhanced sections on medications, depression/anxiety, and child psychiatry Helps students hone in on the most important concepts for the clerkship and the examThe content you need to ace the clerkship: Section I: How to Succeed in the Psychiatry Clerkship Section II: High-Yield Facts; Examination and Diagnosis; Psychotic Disorders; Mood Disorders; Anxiety and Adjustment Disorders; Personality Disorders; Substance-Related Disorders; Cognitive Disorders; Geriatric Disorders; Psychiatric Disorders in Children; Dissociative Disorders; Somataform and Factitious Disorders; Impulse Control Disorders; Eating Disordes; Disorders; Sleep Disorders; Sexual Disorders; Psychtherapies; Psychopharmacology; Legal Issues; Section III: Awards and Opportunities.

    Spontaneous combustion and exhumation, drug mules and devil worshippers, a gruesome killing beneath the Palmerston North Airport control tower, a mysterious death in a historic homestead, a first-hand dissection of the infamous Mark Lundy case...In The Cause of Death, provincial pathologist Dr Cynric Temple-Camp lifts the lid on the most unusual stories of death and murder he's encountered during his 30-year career.

    But Cullen was no mercy killer, nor was he a simple monster. He was a favorite son, husband, beloved father, best friend, and celebrated caregiver. Implicated in the deaths of as many as 300 patients, he was also perhaps the most prolific serial killer in American history.Cullen's murderous career in the world's most trusted profession spanned sixteen years and nine hospitals across New Jersey and Pennsylvania. When, in March of 2006, Charles Cullen was marched from his final sentencing in an Allentown, Pennsylvania, courthouse into a waiting police van, it seemed certain that the chilling secrets of his life, career, and capture would disappear with him. Now, in a riveting piece of investigative journalism nearly ten years in the making, journalist Charles Graeber presents the whole story for the first time. Based on hundreds of pages of previously unseen police records, interviews, wire-tap recordings and videotapes, as well as exclusive jailhouse conversations with Cullen himself and the confidential informant who helped bring him down, THE GOOD NURSE weaves an urgent, terrifying tale of murder, friendship, and betrayal.Graeber's portrait of Cullen depicts a surprisingly intelligent and complicated young man whose promising career was overwhelmed by his compulsion to kill, and whose shy demeanor masked a twisted interior life hidden even to his family and friends. Were it not for the hardboiled, unrelenting work of two former Newark homicide detectives racing to put together the pieces of Cullen's professional past, and a fellow nurse willing to put everything at risk, including her job and the safety of her children, there's no telling how many more lives could have been lost.In the tradition of In Cold Blood, THE GOOD NURSE does more than chronicle Cullen's deadly career and the breathless efforts to stop him; it paints an incredibly vivid portrait of madness and offers a penetrating look inside America's medical system. Harrowing and irresistibly paced, this book will make you look at medicine, hospitals, and the people who work in them, in an entirely different way.

    

    Among the notorious murderers she has examined are Ted Bundy, Arthur Shawcross, and Mark David Chapman, the man who shot John Lennon. Now she shares her groundbreaking discoveries--and the chilling encounters that led to them.From a juvenile court in Connecticut to the psychiatric wards of New York City's Bellevue Hospital, from maximum security prisons to the corridors of death row, Lewis and her colleague, the eminent neurologist Jonathan Pincus, search to understand the origins of violence. Guilty by Reason of Insanity is an utterly absorbing odyssey that will forever change the way you think about crime, punishment, and the law itself.

    At the end of the nineteenth century, serial murderer Joseph Vacher, known and feared as "The Killer of Little Shepherds," terrorized the French countryside. He eluded authorities for years--until he ran up against prosecutor Emile Fourquet and Dr. Alexandre Lacassagne, the era's most renowned criminologist. The two men--intelligent and bold--typified the Belle Epoque, a period of immense scientific achievement and fascination with science's promise to reveal the secrets of the human condition. With high drama and stunning detail, Douglas Starr revisits Vacher's infamous crime wave, interweaving the story of how Lacassagne and his colleagues were developing forensic science as we know it. We see one of the earliest uses of criminal profiling, as Fourquet painstakingly collects eyewitness accounts and constructs a map of Vacher's crimes. We follow the tense and exciting events leading to the murderer's arrest. And we witness the twists and turns of the trial, celebrated in its day. In an attempt to disprove Vacher's defense by reason of insanity, Fourquet recruits Lacassagne, who in the previous decades had revolutionized criminal science by refining the use of blood-spatter evidence, systematizing the autopsy, and doing groundbreaking research in psychology. Lacassagne's efforts lead to a gripping courtroom denouement. "The Killer of Little Shepherds" is an important contribution to the history of criminal justice, impressively researched and thrillingly told.

    J. Simpson case, popular interest in forensic science has exploded: CBS's CSI has 16 to 26 million viewers every week, and Patricia Cornwell's novels featuring a medical examiner sleuth routinely top bestseller lists, to cite just a few examples. Now, everyone can get the lowdown on the science behind crime scene investigations. Using lots of fascinating case studies, forensics expert Dr. D. P. Lyle clues people in on everything from determining cause and time of death to fingerprints, fibers, blood, ballistics, forensic computing, and forensic psychology. With its clear, entertaining explanations of forensic procedures and techniques, this book will be an indispensable reference for mystery fans and true crime aficionados everywhere-and even includes advice for people interested in forensic science careers. D. P. Lyle, MD (Laguna Hills, CA), is a practicing cardiologist who is also a forensics expert and mystery writer. He runs a Web site that answers writers' questions about forensics, dplylemd.com, and is the author of Murder and Mayhem: A Doctor Answers Medical and Forensic Questions for Writers, as well as several mystery novels. John Pless, MD, is Professor Emeritus of Pathology at Indiana University School of Medicine and former President of the National Association of Medical Examiners.

    Two years later, Clea Koff, a twenty-three-year-old forensic anthropologist, left the safe confines of a lab in Berkeley, California, to serve as one of sixteen scientists chosen by the United Nations to unearth the physical evidence of the Rwandan genocide. Over the next four years, Koff’s grueling investigations took her across geography synonymous with some of the worst crimes of the twentieth century. The Bone Woman is Koff’s unflinching, riveting account of her seven UN missions to Bosnia, Croatia, Kosovo, and Rwanda, as she shares what she saw, how it affected her, who was prosecuted based on evidence she found, and what she learned about the world. Yet even as she recounts the hellish nature of her work and the heartbreak of the survivors, she imbues her story with purpose, humanity, and a sense of justice. A tale of science in service of human rights, The Bone Woman is, even more profoundly, a story of hope and enduring moral principles.

    It is also the text used in most police academies, including the prestigious FBI Academy in Quantico, Virginia. It emphasizes essential procedures, combines detailed techniques with instructive case studies, and outlines the foundation on which to build a solid, prosecutable case. The fundamental criminal investigative techniques stressed in the Fourth Edition are crucial for effective inquiry into sudden and violent death. Eminent author, lecturer, consultant, and expert witness Vernon J. Geberth begins the book with a comprehensive discussion of homicide crime scenes. The book evolves chronologically from initial police notification, the correct police response that follows, and the subsequent steps necessary to conduct an intelligent investigation. It then delves into more technical aspects of homicide investigation, augmented with numerous pictures and full-color illustrations that involve pertinent case histories. The book features two new chapters along with major revisions of those from the previous edition. In addition it contains 675 photos and illustrations - including 300 new entries that incorporate depictions of wound structures and procedures that portray exactly what to do and how to do it. All illustrations are presented in full color, including new medical-legal drawings for instruction and courtroom testimony. Vernon Geberth was featured in an interview on News 14 Carolina in Fayetteville discussing his 3-day seminar on Practical Homicide Investigation.He also discusses the book in a video on the CRC Press YouTube channel.Vernon Geberth was recently interviewed for an article entitled, The Hunt for a Serial Killer: Revisting the Gilgo Beach Murders.

    Now, with the benefit of twenty years' worth of additional knowledge and insight, Stanton Samenow offers a completely updated edition of his classic work, including fresh perceptions into crimes in the spotlight today, from stalking and domestic violence to white-collar crime and political terrorism. Dr. Samenow's three decades of working with criminals have reaffirmed his argument that factors such as poverty, divorce, and media violence do not cause criminality. Rather, as Samenow documents here, all criminals share a particular mind-set--often evident in childhood--that is disturbingly different from that of a responsible citizen. While new types of crime have grown more prevalent, or at least more visible to the public eye--from spousal abuse to school shootings--little has changed in terms of our approach to dealing with crime. Rehabilitation programs based on the assumption that society is more to blame for crime than the criminal, an assumption for which a causal link has yet to be established, have proved to be grossly inadequate. Crime continues to invade every aspect of our lives, criminal court dockets and prisons are oppressively overcrowded and expensive, and recidivism rates continue to escalate.To embark on a truly corrective program, we must begin with the clear understanding that the criminal chooses crime; he chooses to reject society long before society rejects him. The criminal values people only to the extent that he can use them for his own self-serving ends; he does not justify his actions to himself. Only by "habilitating" the criminal, so that he sees himself realistically and develops responsible patterns of thought, can we change his behavior. It is vital that we know who the criminal is and how and why he acts differently from responsible citizens. From that understanding can come reasonable, compassionate, and effective solutions.

    A former Supervisory Special Agent in the FBI's Behavioral Science Unit, Gregg McCrary takes us deep into the minds of the nation's shrewdest and most sinister predators. In The Unknown Darkness, he digs beneath the crime scene to examine in raw first-person detail the lethal competition between the country's deviously dangerous killers and the dedicated professionals who are determined to get them off the streets.In the basement offices of the FBI Academy at Quantico, Virginia -- now familiar from the books and films The Silence of the Lambs and Hannibal -- McCrary served in one of the most elite forces for criminal investigation in the world, profiling criminals for over twenty-five years in more than a thousand cases involving homicide, serial murder, kidnapping, and sexual assault. He takes us inside his process on some of his most fascinating cases, including:The Sam Sheppard case -- In revisiting this classic case, what new material did McCrary's analysis discover?The Poet's Shadow -- The strange story of Jack Unterweger and the hunt for an international serial killer that had a bizarre twist.The Buddhist Temple Massacre -- What did the crime scene reveal about the shocking evil that resulted in the deaths of nine gentle people?The Unknown Darkness also explores the strengths and pitfalls of modern criminal investigation and offers vivid details about what happens at a crime scene, what is actually involved in bringing a killer to justice, and finally what kind of a person is able to devote his or her life to grappling with the predators among us. Daring to relive the often harrowing experiences of his time with the FBI, McCrary has put together an eye-opening account of ten of America's most frightening and riveting manhunts. He has also written an engrossing narrative on our justice system -- from the perspective of someone who has lived it day to day.

    Gulag America tells the story of the eight years that followed, through two federal trials and the underworld of the federal prison system, at a time when it was undergoing unprecedented expansion due to the War on Drugs. Stratton was shipped by bus from LA's notorious Glass House to jails and prisons across the country, a softening process known as diesel therapy. Resisting pressure to falsely implicate his friend and mentor, Norman Mailer, he was convicted in his second trial under the kingpin statute and sentenced to twenty-five years without the possibility of parole.While doing time in prisons from Manhattan's Criminal Hilton to rural Pennsylvania, Virginia, Kentucky, and New York, he witnessed brutality as well as camaraderie, rampant trafficking of contraband, and crimes by both guards and convicts. He first learned the lessons of survival. Then he learned to prevail, becoming a jailhouse lawyer and winning the reversal of his kingpin sentence and eventual release.Gulag America includes cameos by Norman Mailer and Muhammad Ali, and an account of the author's friendship with mafia don Joe Stassi, a legendary hitman from the early days of the mob who knew gangsters Meyer Lansky, Bugsy Siegel, and Abe Zwillman and has insights into the killing of Dutch Schultz and the Kennedy assassinationGulag America is the second volume in Richard Stratton's trilogy, Remembrance of the War on Plants.