Deadly Dose: The Untold Story of a Homicide Investigator's Crusade for Truth and Justice


Amanda Lamb - 2008
    For four months, arsenic consumed the body of promising young pediatric AIDS researcher Eric Miller. No one thought that his wife could be capable of such a horrible crime—except for veteran homicide investigator Chris Morgan, a man who would spend the next four years in his pursuit of justice.

The Only Living Witness: The True Story of Serial Sex Killer Ted Bundy


Stephen G. Michaud - 1983
    Handsome, boyish and well-spoken, a law student with bright political prospects, Bundy was also a predator and sexual deviant who murdered and mutilated at least thirty young women and girls, many of them college coeds but at least two as young as twelve.

Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI


David Grann - 2017
    After oil was discovered beneath their land, the Osage rode in chauffeured automobiles, built mansions, and sent their children to study in Europe.Then, one by one, they began to be killed off. One Osage woman, Mollie Burkhart, watched as her family was murdered. Her older sister was shot. Her mother was then slowly poisoned. And it was just the beginning, as more Osage began to die under mysterious circumstances.In this last remnant of the Wild West—where oilmen like J. P. Getty made their fortunes and where desperadoes such as Al Spencer, “the Phantom Terror,” roamed – virtually anyone who dared to investigate the killings were themselves murdered. As the death toll surpassed more than twenty-four Osage, the newly created F.B.I. took up the case, in what became one of the organization’s first major homicide investigations. But the bureau was then notoriously corrupt and initially bungled the case. Eventually the young director, J. Edgar Hoover, turned to a former Texas Ranger named Tom White to try to unravel the mystery. White put together an undercover team, including one of the only Native American agents in the bureau. They infiltrated the region, struggling to adopt the latest modern techniques of detection. Together with the Osage they began to expose one of the most sinister conspiracies in American history.A true-life murder mystery about one of the most monstrous crimes in American history.

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.

Murder in the Midlands: Larry Gene Bell and the 28 Days of Terror that Shook South Carolina


Rita Y. Shuler - 2007
    Shuler leads us through the twenty-eight days of terror and shocking events of one of the most notorious double murders and manhunts in South Carolina history. Shuler shares her own personal interactions with some of the key players in this famous manhunt and investigation. Also included are Bell’s chilling calls from area phone booths to the Smith family, along with his disconcerting interviews and bizarre actions in the courtroom, which show the dark, evil and criminal mind of this horrific killer. This case has been featured on the Discovery Channel’s FBI Files, episode “Cat and Mouse,” and in the CBS movie Nightmare in Columbia County, which can still be seen on Lifetime TV. It currently runs as the episode “Last Will” on Court TV’s Forensic Files.

Gaslight Villainy: True Tales of Victorian Murder


Grahame Farrell - 2012
    But where A Mix of Murders covers the Twentieth Century, Gaslight Villainy treats the reader, in exquisite detail, to a selection of fourteen crimes committed during the Victorian period. Founded, as with A Mix of Murders, on meticulous research, Farrell presents these cases with an equally clear, readable and articulate style that demonstrates the author’s fine command of his subject. In one case, Gaslight Villainy educates us in the techniques of execution, and the methods of specific executioners – not, it is clear, an always-professional process performed by ever-adept professionals. In another tale, Farrell shows that lingering abhorrence towards dissection of human cadavers held great sway over resolution of the crimes of the time, and yet shows still how a jury used other lines of reason to find the perpetrator in question guilty. In Voyage of Death, as with the other cases, the reader enjoys excellent characterisation: shipboard existence and the very feel of the vessel itself come to life vividly, thus forming a backdrop to a most intriguing case. Most murders occur on dry land, over which the perpetrator may flee a great distance following their ungodly deed, but murder at sea changes this parameter, and the concomitant effects thus frame this particular case tightly, where one pressing-question is ever to the fore: who exactly was the guilty party? Farrell characterises the times superbly in this book, painting a detailed picture of a culture that relished public executions, where the remoteness of rural murders – counter-intuitively – did not lend a greater chance of escape from the law, and where good-old-fashioned policing was the public’s strongest weapon in the face of malice aforethought. As with A Mix of Murders, the intelligent analyses in Gaslight Villainy give more than enough to satisfy the reader, but the rich context this book gives to its descriptions make it a must-have for true-crime aficionados. If you like your true crime served up with style, clarity and a sense of the times, you owe it to yourself to buy this book post haste. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Chapter Listing: The Lothario of Portland Town Secret Poisoning A Species of Madness The Stoic's Tale The Fickle Waters of the Arran Unservantlike Behaviour The Two Bakers of St. Luke's Insured for Murder A Drop too Much Drink, Drugs and Doctors The Home Improvements of Frederick Deeming The Late Mrs Anderson Incident at Ardlamont Voyage of Death

The Woodchipper Murder


Arthur Herzog III - 1989
    Rita Buonanno remembers the words exactly: " If anything happens to me don't think it was an accident." Helle Crafts was last seen on November 18, 1986. In the style of a brilliant detective novel, Arthur Herzog skillfully re-creates the hour-by-hour circumstantial details that inform this grisly true-crime narrative. We observe dispassionate Richard Crafts as he buys a truck with a pintle hook for towing heavy equipment, promised for delivery before November 18. A day later he reserves a Badger Brush Bandit woodchipper.

Cruel Deception


Gregg Olsen - 1995
    Morgan's Texas-born mother Tanya, a nurse and devoted wife, pulled up stakes with her grieving husband Jim, and moved on. It was the best way to put the past behind them. Until their son Michael, a boy who by all accounts was terrified of his mother, began showing signs of the same affliction that stole the life of his baby sister...First, the suspicion: Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy. Then, Tanya was charged and convicted with felony child abuse of her son. She was later tried and ultimately convicted for first degree murder of Morgan. It would become a landmark trial that unfolded in a series of reversals and bizarre twists of fate as it gradually revealed another side of Tanya Reid—of her own troubling childhood and the dark secrets that drove a woman to the cruelest deception of all...

Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets


David Simon - 1991
    Twice every three days another citizen is shot, stabbed, or bludgeoned to death. At the center of this hurricane of crime is the city's homicide unit, a small brotherhood of hard men who fight for whatever justice is possible in a deadly world.David Simon was the first reporter ever to gain unlimited access to a homicide unit, and this electrifying book tells the true story of a year on the violent streets of an American city. The narrative follows Donald Worden, a veteran investigator; Harry Edgerton, a black detective in a mostly white unit; and Tom Pellegrini, an earnest rookie who takes on the year's most difficult case, the brutal rape and murder of an eleven-year-old girl.Originally published fifteen years ago, Homicide became the basis for the acclaimed television show of the same name. This new edition--which includes a new introduction, an afterword, and photographs--revives this classic, riveting tale about the men who work on the dark side of the American experience.

Hot Blood


Ken Englade - 1996
    . . only to become an eccentric, pet-loving widow who, one day, disappeared without a trace.   WAS SHE A VICTIM OF "THE GALLOPING GIGOLO?"Richard Bailey was an admitted swindler who spent years persuading rich women to invest in bum horses…even though he claims not to have harmed Helen Branch. Other suspects included a champion rider and an Olympic hopeful--each with dangerous connections to wealthy horsemen, and both with cold-blooded  schemes to achieve their mission.  ONE MAN IS DEAD-SET ON FINDING OUT.When Assistant U.S. Attorney Steve Miller launched an investigation into Helen Branch's death, he went from the polo grounds of Palm Beach to the lavish horse farms of Connecticut to Kentucky's thoroughbred stables in search of answers. What he learned would cast a dark shadow on one of America's favorite pastimes. . . .

In Broad Daylight


Harry N. MacLean - 1988
    Again and again, the law had failed to stop him. UNTIL THEY TOOK JUSTICE INTO THEIR OWN HANDS.On July 10, 1981, Ken was shot to death on the main street of this small farming community. Forty-five people watched. No indictments were ever issued, no trial held and the town of Skidmore protected the killers with silence. With this powerful, true-life account, Edgar Award-winning author Harry N. MacLean reveals what drove a community of everyday American citizens to commit murder.IN BROAD DAYLIGHT

Bind, Torture, Kill: The Inside Story of the Serial Killer Next Door


Roy Wenzl - 2007
    A bloodthirsty serial killer, self-named "BTK"—for "bind them, torture them, kill them"—he slaughtered men, women, and children alike, eluding the police for decades while bragging of his grisly exploits to the media. The nation was shocked when the fiend who was finally apprehended turned out to be Dennis Rader—a friendly neighbor . . . a devoted husband . . . a helpful Boy Scout dad . . . the respected president of his church.Written by four award-winning crime reporters who covered the story for more than twenty years, Bind, Torture, Kill is the most intimate and complete account of the BTK nightmare told by the people who were there from the beginning. With newly released documents, evidence, and information—and with the full cooperation, for the very first time, of the Wichita Police Department’s BTK Task Force—the authors have put all the pieces of the grisly puzzle into place, thanks to their unparalleled access to the families of the killer and his victims.

Beyond Belief: The Moors Murderers. The Story of Ian Brady and Myra Hindley.


Emlyn Williams - 1967
    Emlyn Williams' classic account of the notorious Moors Murderers, Ian Brady and Myra Hindley, who between 1962 and 1965 abducted, brutally abused and murdered five children - Pauline Reade, John Kilbride, Keith Bennett, Lesley Ann Downey and Edward Evans - and buried them in shallow graves on Saddleworth Moor, in Lancashire.

Prison Time


Shaun Attwood - 2014
    After being attacked by a 20-stone California biker in for stabbing a girlfriend, Shaun writes about the prisoners who befriend, protect and inspire him. They include T-Bone, a massive African American ex-Marine who risks his life saving vulnerable inmates from rape, and Two Tonys, an old-school Mafia murderer who left the corpses of his rivals from Tucson to Alaska. They teach Shaun how to turn incarceration to his advantage, and to learn from his mistakes.Resigned to living alongside violent, mentally-ill, and drug-addicted inmates, Shaun immerses himself in psychology and philosophy to try to make sense of his past behaviour, and begins applying what he learns as he adapts to prison life. Encouraged by Two Tonys to explore fiction as well, Shaun reads over a thousand books which, with support from brilliant psychotherapist Dr. O, speed along his personal development. As his ability to deflect daily threats improves, Shaun begins to look forward to his release with optimism and a new love waiting for him. Yet the words of Aristotle from one of Shaun’s books will prove prophetic: 'We cannot learn without pain'.

Vanished: Cold-Blooded Murder in Steeltown


Jon Wells - 2009
    A woman had wanted to leave him. You're not going anywhere, he told her. Later that day, a police officer reports to the house and finds some human tissue and organs in a bag left out for garbage. The person of interest in the case is a steelworker named Sam Pirrera, who lives in the house. But who is the victim? Sam's current estranged wife, Danielle? It is known that they had a stormy relationship; Sam had assaulted her as his coke addiction returned. Forensic detectives find traces of blood in the basement, and then the entire corpse, dismembered, the parts hidden behind a false wall and packed in boxes, each of the parts wrapped and doused in gasoline. The victim's identity is discovered through prints to be a prostitute named Maggie Karer. The dismemberment, defensive mutilation, is so calculated and deliberate, the detectives wonder, are there more victims? But Pirrera's first wife was named Beverly, and a woman named Lesa Davidson shows up at the police station to say she hasn't heard from her daughter-Beverly-in eight years. And Sam's estranged wife, Danielle, who is in fact alive, tells police that Sam had once told her he had killed his first wife and dumped her parts in a vat of molten steel at a steel plant. Detectives now pursue a double murder case, led by veteran homicide detective Peter Abi-Rashed, who had once chased a young Sam Pirrera on the streets of Hamilton's east end many years before. The outcome is shocking - and a mystery remains.