Catch Me a Killer: Serial Murders: A Profiler's True Story


Micki Pistorius - 2001
    I am familiar with his feelings of emptiness, loneliness, depression, death, omnipotence and fear. I dive deeply to get a grip on his torment..." A profiler who wants to understand the mind of the serial killer must have been prepared by life experiences before he or she can dare to venture into the abyss. A person who has led a protected life will not survive.

Slow Death


Jim Fielder - 2001
    Transcripts of audio and videotapes are featured, as well as over 16 pages of shocking photos.

Catching a Serial Killer: My hunt for murderer Christopher Halliwell


Stephen Fulcher - 2017
    Stephen Fulcher receives a life-changing call that thrusts him into a race against the clock to save missing 22-year-old Sian O’Callaghan, who was last seen at a nightclub in Swindon. Steve knows from experience that he has a small window of time to find Sian alive, but his hopes are quickly dashed when his investigation leads him to Christopher Halliwell, a cabbie with sick obsessions. Following the investigation as it develops hour-by-hour, Steve’s gripping inside story of the cat-and-mouse situation that ensues shows how he hunted down Halliwell – his number-one suspect – which led him to the discovery of Sian’s body and another victim, Becky Godden-Edwards, who had been missing since 2002. The murders shocked the nation and Halliwell become one of the most hated men in Britain. Since then, he has been linked to several murders and disappearances, and has been called 'sick in the head' by an ex-cellmate for his unrelenting hatred of women.Catching a Serial Killer is a thrilling, devastating and absorbing look at a real-life murder case and potentially one of the UK’s most prolific serial killers.

The Crime of the Century


Dennis L. Breo - 1993
    He broke in as his helpless victims slept, bound them one by one, and then stabbed, assaulted, and strangled all eight in a sadistic sexual frenzy. By morning only one young nurse had miraculously survived. The barbarity of the attack shocked a nation and opened a new chapter in the history of American crime: mass murder. Here is the never-before-told story of Richard Speck by the prosecutor who put him in prison for life."In the Crime of the Century," William J. Martin has teamed up with Dennis L. Breo to re-create the blood-soaked night that made American criminal history, offerning fascinating behind-the-scenes descriptions of Speck, his innocent victims, the desperate manhunt and massive investigation, and the trial that led to Speck's successful conviction. In 1991 Richard Speck died of a heart attack in prison, but the horror of his crime still haunts the conscience of a nation.

The Ice Man: Confessions of a Mafia Contract Killer


Philip Carlo - 2006
    . . if I kill Mommy, if something happens and she dies, I’ll have to kill you all . . .  I can’t leave any witnesses.”“Yes, Daddy.  I know, Daddy,” she said.As strange and horrible a thing as this was to tell a child, Richard was trying to let Merrick know in advance—out of consideration—what might happen.  He wanted her to understand that he was doing such a thing out of . . . love.  Only out of love.He loved Barbara too much. He loved the children too much.That was the problem.  The only way he could deal with their loss, if he inadvertently killed Barbara, was to kill them.  That was how Richard had dealt with all his problems since he was a child. “But you, Merrick . . . You’ll be the hardest to kill.  You understand that?”“Yes. Daddy,” she said, and she did understand this.  She knew she was his favorite, and she coveted that. ---from The Ice Man

The Monster of Florence


Douglas Preston - 2008
    Then he discovered that the olive grove in front of their 14th century farmhouse had been the scene of the most infamous double-murders in Italian history, committed by a serial killer known as the Monster of Florence. Preston, intrigued, meets Italian investigative journalist Mario Spezi to learn more.This is the true story of their search for—and identification of—the man they believe committed the crimes, and their chilling interview with him. And then, in a strange twist of fate, Preston and Spezi themselves become targets of the police investigation. Preston has his phone tapped, is interrogated, and told to leave the country. Spezi fares worse: he is thrown into Italy's grim Capanne prison, accused of being the Monster of Florence himself. Like one of Preston's thrillers, The Monster of Florence, tells a remarkable and harrowing story involving murder, mutilation, and suicide—and at the center of it, Preston and Spezi, caught in a bizarre prosecutorial vendetta.

The Most Dangerous Animal of All


Gary L. Stewart - 2014
    Stewart decided to search for his biological father. His quest would lead him to a horrifying truth and force him to reconsider everything he thought he knew about himself and his world.Written with award-winning author and journalist Susan Mustafa, The Most Dangerous Animal of All tells the story of Stewart's decade-long hunt. While combing through government records and news reports and tracking down relatives and friends, Stewart turns up a host of clues—including forensic evidence—that conclusively identify his father as the Zodiac Killer, one of the most notorious and elusive serial murderers in history.For decades, the Zodiac Killer has captivated America's imagination. His ability to evade capture while taunting authorities made him infamous. The vicious specificity of his crimes terrified Californians before the Manson murders and after, and shocked a culture enamored with the ideals of the dawning Age of Aquarius. To this day, his ciphers have baffled detectives and amateur sleuths, and his identity remains one of the twentieth century's great unsolved mysteries.The Most Dangerous Animal of All reveals the name of the Zodiac for the very first time. Mustafa and Stewart construct a chilling psychological profile of Stewart's father: as a boy with disturbing fixations, a frustrated intellectual with pretensions to high culture, and an inappropriate suitor and then jilted lover unable to process his rage. At last, all the questions that have surrounded the case for almost fifty years are answered in this riveting narrative. The result is a singular work of true crime at its finest—a compelling, unbelievable true story told with the pacing of a page-turning novel—as well as a sensational and powerful memoir.

Murders of the Black Museum: The Dark Secrets Behind a Hundred Years of the Most Notorious Crimes in Britain


Gordon Honeycombe - 1994
    Fifty of those crimes were murders and they are explored in detail in this compelling book. Gordon Honeycombe was given privileged access to its darkest secrets of the place that was renamed The Crime Museum. His book spans a hundred years of murder, manslaughter, and attempted assassinations and reveals the true facts behind some of the U.K.'s most notorious murder cases, including Jack the Ripper, Dr. Crippen, and the Krays.

Killing Season: The Unsolved Case of New England's Deadliest Serial Killer


Carlton Smith - 1994
    Over the course of seven months in 1988, eleven women disappeared off the streets of New Bedford, Massachusetts, a gloomy, drug-addled coastal town that was once the whaling capital of the world. Nine turned up dead. Two were never found. And the perpetrator remains unknown to this day.   How could such a thing happen? How, in what was once one of America’s richest cities, could the authorities let their most vulnerable citizens down this badly? As Carlton Smith, a Pulitzer Prize finalist for his coverage of the Green River Killer case, demonstrates in this riveting account, it was the inability of police officers and politicians alike to set aside their personal agendas that let a psychopath off the hook.   In Killing Season, Smith takes readers into a close-knit community of working-class men and women, an underworld of prostitution and drug abuse, and the halls of New England law enforcement to tell the story of an epic failure of justice.

Bundy:The Deliberate Stranger


Richard W. Larsen - 1980
    NOW REISSUED. Richard W. Larsen’s expose, based on first-hand conversations with the killer himself, remains the granddaddy Bundy book of them all – even inspiring a hit miniseries, starring Mark Harmon, that riveted America for weeks. Now BUNDY: THE DELIBERATE STRANGER returns to mark the 30th anniversary of the execution of America’s most famous serial killer. Between 1974 and 1978 a series of brutal sex slayings claimed the lives of nearly forty innocent young women and left a trail of blood that stretched from Seattle, Washington to Tallahassee, Florida...a trail that seemed to lead to Ted Bundy. But Theodore Robert Bundy is an unlikely looking murderer. A handsome, articulate former law student, Bundy looks more like a candidate for public office than for Death Row. But in July 1979, 32-year-old Bundy was sentenced to the electric chair for bludgeoning to death two Florida coeds. And Bundy is suspected by police of being responsible for as many as 36 murders, spanning four years and four states. Larsen, who knew Ted Bundy well before he ever fell under suspicion for murder – when Bundy was a rising star in Washington State politics helping to re-elect Governor Daniel Evans – interviewed Bundy extensively in writing the definitive account of his story. In 1975, when Bundy was released on bail after his first arrest – a kidnapping charge in Utah – it was Larsen who met him at the door of the police headquarters and spend the day with him, and Larsen who lent Bundy his car after dinner so he could go out on the town that night, catching himself on the verge of parting joke – “Ted, I’d just as soon not read in the morning paper that some girl mysteriously disappeared in a Gremlin” In BUNDY: THE DELIBERATE STRANGER, Larsen brings his masterful reporting and writing skills to bear on one of the most chilling, true crime stories in U.S. history. From the moment the first young woman disappears under mysterious circumstances, you are caught up in a cumulatively tense and gripping drama. Larsen has captured it all: the anguish of the parents, the frustration of the police, the horror of discovery, the growing suspicions and mounting evidence pointing to “all-American” Ted, the drama of his arrest, his incredible escapes – one from prison, one from a courthouse – his recaptures and the sensational, televised Florida murder trial at which Bundy conducted his own defense. And through it all, the enigmatic figure of Ted Bundy – the deliberate stranger – known by the author as well as he will ever be known by any person. At once an exciting, fast-paced thriller, and a dazzling, unsentimental dissection of a cold-blooded killer, BUNDY: A DELIBERATE STRANGER is a true crime classic

Almost the Perfect Murder: The Killing of Elaine O’Hara, the Extraordinary Garda Investigation and the Trial That Stunned the Nation: The Only Complete Inside Account


Paul Williams - 2015
    But after her remains were found gardaí discovered that Elaine was in thrall to a man who had spent years grooming her to let him kill her. That man was Graham Dwyer, a married father of three and partner in a Dublin architecture practice.>Almost the Perfect Murder details the exhaustive investigation - one of the most complex and chilling in Irish criminal justice history - that allowed gardaí to build a case against Dwyer. And it outlines the twists and turns - both in the courtroom and behind the scenes - during the dramatic trial that followed.This book includes fresh insights into the garda investigation and background information on Graham Dwyer.

Tragedy in the North Woods: The Murders of James Hicks (True Crime)


Trudy Scee - 2009
      Jennie Cyr disappeared in 1977. Jerilyn Towers vanished in 1982. Lynn Willette never came home on a night in 1994. Each woman had a relationship with James Hicks, who in 2000 confessed to murdering them, dismembering their bodies and burying the remains alongside rural roads in Aroostook County. This is their story. Trudy Irene Scee follows Hicks from the North Woods to west Texas, detailing three decades of evasion, investigation and prosecution. She interviews police officers and victims’ families—and meets Hicks at the state prison in Thomaston, where he remains remorseless as he lives out his days behind bars. Thoroughly researched and carefully documented, Tragedy in the North Woods is the definitive history of one of Maine's most ruthless killers.   Includes photos!

Dead Men Walking


Bill Wallace - 2010
    What is it like to live out your days inside one of the toughest prisons,knowing you'll never again see beyond the exercise yard?Is it really possible to make friends or form relationships inside?What should you do if you've been sentenced to die for a crime you did not commit?This book examines the life-stories of men who claim to be innocent, men who were eventually proven innocent and those who are so dangerous that life simply has to mean life.CONTENTS:PART ONE : LIFERS including Machine Gun Kelly, The Bostons Strangler, Charles Manson, Son of Sam, The Yorkshire Ripper, Dennis Nilsen, Jeffrey Dahmer PART TWO : HIGH PROFILE EXECUTIONS including Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, Derek Bentley, The Night Caller, James Hanratty, Gary Gilmore, Ted Bundy, John Wayne Gacy PART THREE : DEATH ROW USA including Ray Krone, Nick Yarris, Richard Allen Davis, Kenny Richey, Michael Morales, Richard Ramirez, Karl ChamberlainPART FOUR : WOMEN ON DEATH ROW including Ruth Snyder, Ruth Ellis, Velma Barfield, Aileen Wuornos

Escaping the Arroyo


Joyce Nance - 2012
    The next morning, the girls were found in a desolate mountain arroyo; one raped and murdered, the other savagely stabbed 33 times and left for dead. As fear engulfed the University of New Mexico's quiet campus, police had few clues to assist them in tracking down the vicious killer. This book is based on the true story of what happened that night in the Sandia Mountains, a shockingly brutal crime that changed the city of Albuquerque forever. It is a gritty tale of unspeakable violence and the relentless search for justice, but it is also the story of a young woman's incredible will to live ... and her life-long struggle to escape the legacy of that deadly arroyo.

Chasing the Devil: My Twenty-Year Quest to Capture the Green River Killer


David Reichert - 2004
    For eight years, Sheriff David Reichert devoted his days and nights to capturing the Green River Killer. He was the first detective on the case in 1982, doggedly pursuing clues as the body count climbed to 49 and it became the most infamous unsolved case in the nation. Frantically following all of his leads, Sheriff Reichert befriended the victims families, publicly challenged the killer, and risked his own safety -- and the endurance and love of his family -- before he found his madman. But Reichert's hunt didn't end when he finally cornered a truck painter named Gary Ridgway. It would be yet another 11 haunting years before forensic science could prove Ridgway's guilt beyond a shadow of a doubt. Told in vivid detail by the man who knows the whole story, this is a real life suspense story of unparalleled heroism.