Deadly Goals: The True Story of an All-American Football Hero Who Stalked and Murdered


Wilt Browning - 1995
     A star athlete with a winning smile, Pernell Jefferson had no trouble attracting women. But beneath his immaculate exterior lurked a beast that left nothing but battered women and broken dreams in his path. Addicted to steroids and nearly destitute after walking away from a football career with the Cleveland Browns, Pernell set his sights obsessively on Jeannie Butkowski. Calling her at every hour of the day, showing up to her home unannounced, and battering her when she turned her attention toward other men, Pernell made Jeannie a prisoner of her own home and her own mind. After Jeannie’s sudden disappearance, the Butkowski family and Jeannie’s friends could name the man responsible. But police, despite subsequently discovering Jeannie’s charred remains in a small Virginia town, refused to question the man most likely linked to the brutal crime. Deadly Goals explores the devastating details of Pernell Jefferson’s past, the disturbing nature of his crimes, and the impassioned cries for justice from Jeannie’s family at a pace so compelling that True Crime fans won’t be able to set down this must-read from seasoned author Wilt Browning.

Exile on Front Street: My Life as a Hells Angel . . . and Beyond


George Christie - 2016
    As president of the high-profile Ventura charter of the club, he had been the yin to Sonny Barger’s yang. Barger was the reckless figurehead and de facto world leader of the Hells Angels. Christie was the negotiator, the spokesman, the thinker, the guy who smoothed things out. He was the one who carried the Olympic torch and counted movie stars, artists, rock musicians, and police chief captains among his friends.But leaving the Hells Angels isn’t easy, and within two weeks of retirement, he was told he was “out bad”---blackballed by his fellow Angels, prohibited from wearing the club patch, and even told he should remove his Death Head tattoo.Now Christie sets out to tell his story. Exile on Front Street is the tale of how a former Marine gave up a comfortable job with the Department of Defense and swore allegiance to the Hells Angels. In this revealing, hard-hitting memoir, he recounts his life as an outlaw biker with the world’s most infamous motorcycle club.

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.

The Boy from Nowhere


Rosie Goodwin - 2009
    After one 'accident' too many, he's taken into care aged four. Although his mother promises to get him back, he's adopted by a childless couple and renamed Franky. It should be a fresh start, but his new dad has a twisted idea of fatherhood. Abused and alone, Franky escapes - but his freedom is short-lived, and after a series of foster homes no one can get through to him. He says he's 'the boy from nowhere', but deep down he's still waiting for his mum to take him home.Franky slips into a dangerous world on the streets of London, earning a living the only way he can. One day he might find a way out, but can he ever trust again?

The People's Princess: Cherished Memories of Diana, Princess of Wales, from Those Who Knew Her Best


Larry King - 2007
    For "The People's Princess," Larry King asked many people who knew Diana, some officially and some more personally, for their favorite memories. Sir Richard Branson recalls Diana sitting in the cockpit of one of his private planes with baby Prince William on her lap; as they flew past Windsor Castle she announced, "On our right you have Grandma's house!" Heather Mills, who, like Diana, has been a tireless campaigner for charitable causes, recalls Diana's work to eradicate the scourge of land mines, as well as the time she was photographed shaking hands with an AIDS patient in a London hospital, doing so much to counteract the stigma associated with the disease at the time. British radio and television personality Chris Tarrant recalls how clearly nervous he was upon meeting Diana for the first time, and how she put him at ease with an incredibly rude joke about Kermit the Frog. Photographer Tim Graham remembers Diana lying on the floor with baby William in order to coax a smile from the young prince. And her chief bodyguard recalls how happy and at peace she seemed on the day he agreed to her simple request: to be allowed to walk, truly alone for once, along a beautiful, deserted beach. Some of these recollections are warm and intimate, celebrating Diana for her ability to make a human connection with everyone she met, others are perceptive and revealing, even about Diana's human failings and frailties. Together, they coalesce into a multifaceted portrait of a woman that the world has long desired to know a little better.

Kingpin: Prisoner of the War on Drugs


Richard Stratton - 2017
    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.

Bloody Lies: A CSI Scandal in the Heartland


John Ferak - 2014
    In fact, the little town had gone more than a century without a single homicide. But on the night of Easter 2006, Wayne and Sharmon Stock were brutally murdered in their home. The murders garnered sensational frontpage headlines and drew immediate statewide attention. Practically everybody around Murdock was filled with fear, panic, and outrage. Who killed Wayne and Sharmon Stock? What was the motive? The Stocks were the essence of Nebraska’s all-American farm family, self-made, God-fearing, and of high moral character. Barely a week into this double murder investigation, two arrests brought a sense of relief to the victims’ family and to local residents. The case appeared to fall neatly into place when a tiny speck of murder victim Wayne Stock’s blood appeared in the alleged getaway car. Then, an obscure clue left at the crime scene took the investigation down a totally different path, stretching into Iowa, Louisiana, New York, Texas, and Wisconsin. By the time this investigation was over, the charges against the original suspects were dismissed and two new individuals emerged from the shadows. Author John Ferak covered the Stock murders from the very beginning, including all of the trial proceedings. When the criminal prosecution finally ended in 2007, he remained puzzled by one nagging question: Why was the blood of victim Wayne Stock in a car that was ultimately proven to have no connection to the murders? Over the next few years, the astonishing “bloody lies” were revealed, culminating in a law enforcement scandal that turned the case on its head and destroyed the career of Nebraska’s celebrated CSI director, David Kofoed.

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'.

Someone Else's Daughter: The Life And Death Of Anita Cobby


Julia Sheppard - 1991
    The recovery of her ravaged body two days later sparked Australia's greatest police manhunt and ignited unprecedented fury and outrage across the nation.

Prescription for Murder: The True Story of Mass Murderer Dr. Harold Frederick Shipman


Brian Whittle - 2004
    He pleaded Not Guilty. Each of Shipman's alleged victims was middle-aged or elderly and each was his patient and neighbour. The macabre exhumations of some of the bodies devastated the suburban community of Hyde in Greater Manchester, and it is the authors' inside knowledge of the region that provides the context for their investigation of the case.

Kids Who Kill: Case 1: Joshua Phillips


Kathryn McMaster - 2018
    There is something about him they don’t like, including his talk of sex with their girls. However, Maddie Clifton, bubbly and friendly, considers Joshua to be one of her best friends and they continue to play together. On the evening she disappears he is seen creeping up on Maddie in her front yard. For a while a neighbor watches them talk before going back inside. After that, Maddie disappears into thin air.For a frantic week the neighborhood is searched, people are interviewed, and yellow ribbons hang from trees in the hope that Maddie will return alive and well. Little do they know that Maddie Clifton is just across the street encased in a space under the waterbed of Joshua Phillips where she has been the whole time."We were raising our girls in a Christian home where we prayed every day. What we didn't know was that the devil himself had moved in right across the street."This true crime story will suit readers who enjoy books by Ann Rule, Jack Rosewood, or Kathryn Casey. Kathryn McMaster is an accomplished author who specializes in true crime and unsolved cases and explores the darkest side of the human mind.

Marilyn's Last Words: Her Secret Tapes and Mysterious Death


Matthew Smith - 2003
    The coroner's report stated that her death was due to a massive overdose of Nembutal capsules. But what about the discrepancies between the official report and the eyewitness accounts and memories of the people who were there at the scene of her death—friends, her housekeeping staff, police officers, and doctors? And what about the forensic evidence that disappeared between the time of her death and the coroner's report being issued? Looking back at thousands of documents, many never before published, and interviewing dozens of sources, Matthew Smith argues strongly for a startling new version of events, as he paints a portrait of Monroe's day-to-day world toward the end of her life. The case he makes is based not only on the documents and on complete forensic evidence, but also on the secret, confidential tapes Monroe made for her psychiatrist in the days leading up to her death—tapes that reveal a woman in charge of her life and her fate, a woman looking forward to a busy, bright future. Here, in her own words from the transcripts of the tapes, are the most private, secret thoughts of Marilyn Monroe.

The World's Worst Crimes: An A-Z of Evil Deeds


Charlotte Greig - 2007
    Some kill out of boredom, others because they’ve developed a taste for death. The motives that drive people to perpetrate the most terrible acts are many and various, and so are the crimes they commit. From the Acid Bath Murders and the Birmingham Church Bombing to the Voodoo Killings and the Woman in a Box, every category of crime is covered as our intrepid author sifts through the evidence to present a grisly but compelling history of the worst crimes ever.

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.

Getting it Through My Thick Skull: Why I Stayed, What I Learned, and What Millions of People Involved With Sociopaths Need to Know


Mary Jo Buttafuoco - 2009
    The 'Long Island Lolita' saga sparked a media frenzy that has not died to this day. As the years passed and Mary Jo steadfastly stood by her man while Joey Buttafuoco and Amy Fisher continued to make headlines, one question lingered in the minds of women everywhere: Why did she stay for so long? In Getting It Through My Thick Skull, Mary Jo finally answers that question fully and convincingly. The answer is simple, yet it took almost three decades of turmoil: She was married to a sociopath. And while Mary Jo's face and story are known all over the world, she's just one of countless women who have become similarly enmeshed with a partner who wreaks utter havoc on the lives around them.Using her own experiences, Mary Jo helps readers determine if they are indeed involved with a sociopath and offers hope and help for them throughher tragic and triumphant life lessons. In addition, readers will be inspired by Mary Jo's comeback: A true reclamation and re-creation of her life from the inside out. Through private details of the resiliency and rebuilding she has forged over the past sixteen years, Mary Jo shares with readers for the first time:Her addiction to painkillers and her recovery through the Betty Ford CenterHer overdue decision to leave Joey and start over again on her own in California-3,000 miles from her support systemTaking control of her physical, spiritual, and emotional health and learning to feel attractive and in control again, despite the scars and trauma of the gunshotHer highly controversial and public forgiveness of Amy FisherThe new love in her life and how she found the courage to trust, believe, and find hope in a committed relationship once again