The Woman Who Wasn't There: The True Story of an Incredible Deception


Robin Gaby Fisher - 2012
     It was a tale of loss and recovery, of courage and sorrow, of horror and inspiration. Tania Head’s astonishing account of her experience on September 11, 2001—from crawling through the carnage and chaos to escaping the seventy-eighth-floor sky lobby of the burning south tower to losing her fiancé in the collapsed north tower—transformed her into one of the great victims and heroes of that tragic day. Tania selflessly took on the responsibility of giving a voice and a direction to the burgeoning World Trade Center Survivors’ Network, helping save the “Survivor Stairway” and leading tours at Ground Zero, including taking then-governor Pataki, Mayor Bloomberg, and former mayor Giuliani on the inaugural tour of the WTC site. She even used her own assets to fund charitable events to help survivors heal. But there was something very wrong with Tania’s story—a terrible secret that would break the hearts and challenge the faith of all those she claimed to champion. Told with the unique insider perspective and authority of Angelo J. Guglielmo, Jr., a filmmaker shooting a documentary on the efforts of the Survivors’ Network, and previously one of Tania’s closest friends, The Woman Who Wasn’t There is the story of one of the most audacious and bewildering quests for acclaim in recent memory—one that poses fascinating questions about the essence of morality and the human need for connection at any cost.

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.

The Girls of Murder City: Fame, Lust, and the Beautiful Killers Who Inspired Chicago


Douglas Perry - 2010
    There was nothing surprising about men turning up dead in the Second City. Life was cheaper than a quart of illicit gin in the gangland capital of the world. But two murders that spring were special - worthy of celebration. So believed Maurine Watkins, a wanna-be playwright and a "girl reporter" for the Chicago Tribune, the city's "hanging paper." Newspaperwomen were supposed to write about clubs, cooking and clothes, but the intrepid Miss Watkins, a minister's daughter from a small town, zeroed in on murderers instead. Looking for subjects to turn into a play, she would make "Stylish Belva" Gaertner and "Beautiful Beulah" Annan - both of whom had brazenly shot down their lovers - the talk of the town. Love-struck men sent flowers to the jail and newly emancipated women sent impassioned letters to the newspapers. Soon more than a dozen women preened and strutted on "Murderesses' Row" as they awaited trial, desperate for the same attention that was being lavished on Maurine Watkins's favorites. In the tradition of Erik Larson's The Devil in the White City and Karen Abbott's Sin in the Second City, Douglas Perry vividly captures Jazz Age Chicago and the sensationalized circus atmosphere that gave rise to the concept of the celebrity criminal. Fueled by rich period detail and enlivened by a cast of characters who seemed destined for the stage, The Girls of Murder City is crackling social history that simultaneously presents the freewheeling spirit of the age and its sober repercussions.

The Central Park Five: A Chronicle of a City Wilding


Sarah Burns - 2011
    Within days, five black and Latino teenagers confess to her rape and beating. In a city where urban crime is at a high and violence is frequent, the ensuing media frenzy and hysterical public reaction is extraordinary. The young men are tried as adults and convicted of rape, despite the fact that the teens quickly recant their inconsistent and inaccurate confessions and that no DNA tests or eyewitness accounts tie any of them to the victim. They serve their complete sentences before another man, serial rapist Matias Reyes, confesses to the crime and is connected to it by DNA testing.Intertwining the stories of these five young men, the police officers, the district attorneys, the victim, and Matias Reyes, Sarah Burns unravels the forces that made both the crime and its prosecution possible. Most dramatically, she gives us a portrait of a city already beset by violence and deepening rifts between races and classes, whose law enforcement, government, social institutions, and media were undermining the very rights of the individuals they were designed to safeguard and protect.

In My Father's Name


Mark Arax - 1996
    From Simon & Schuster comes an unforgettable autobiography from Mark Arax: In My Father's Name.Mark Arax recounts the incredible events that transpired twenty years after his father's unsolved murder, during which he returned to Fresno under an assumed name and uncovered the startling disclosure that preceded his father's tragic death.

The Dungeon Master: The Disappearance of James Dallas Egbert III


William C. Dear - 1984
    But in the course of his astonishing, grueling investigation of life at MSU--and of a young man's tragic alienation from society--he came to understand that there could be no single explanation for the disappearance of James Dallas Egbert III.

Jeffrey Dahmer: The Gruesome True Story of a Hungry Cannibalistic Rapist and Necrophiliac Serial Killer (Real Crime by Real Killers Book 3)


Ryan Becker - 2017
    Necrophiliac. Kidnapper. Killer.The stories of serial killers often begin with terrible upbringings and sad events of trauma, but not all have such unfortunate beginnings. Some simply develop their evil on their own and become tainted without anyone realizing it.Jeffrey Dahmer was a man described by his own father as the result of a child becoming lost in the maelstrom while nobody paid attention, of a child who was strange and apathetic but who nobody bothered to ask why......The results were catastrophic.Seventeen men lost their lives and were defiled even after death because of the desires of a neglected young boy who just wanted to fulfill his needs. The following is the tale of said child, the same young man who grew up to become the infamous Milwaukee Cannibal, one of the worst serial killers in humanity's history.Jeffrey Dahmer: The Gruesome True Story of a Hungry Cannibalistic Rapist and Necrophiliac Serial Killer (Vol 3) is a book that recounts the tale of the Milwaukee Cannibal, a man capable of committing the most truly degrading acts on his victims before and even after death; a man who to his last days - and long after - still haunts the city of Milwaukee with the memories of his horrific murders.Be warned, reader, you aren't just about to read about Jeffrey Dahmer and his acts.You are about to walk into his very mind.

Toxic Love: The Shocking True Story of the First Murder by Cancer


Tomás Guillén - 1995
    Sandy Johnson was in shock. Her husband, Duane, and young daughter, Sherrie, were violently ill when word arrived that her infant nephew just died of mysterious causes. Days earlier, the entire family was happy, healthy, and living the American dream. Now they were at the center of a terrifying medical crisis.   Duane soon died in a condition unlike anything the doctors had ever seen. As they raced to discover what disease or toxin could have done so much damage so quickly, Lt. Foster Burchard of the Omaha police began to suspect foul play. Sandy herself became a primary suspect, as did her ex-boyfriend Steven Harper—a man prone to violence who never got over their breakup.   In Toxic Love, investigative reporter and true crime author Tomás Guillén offers a detailed and vivid account of this baffling case from the day of the poisoning to the harrowing trial and the murderer’s eventual suicide on death row.

Defending Gary: Unraveling the Mind of the Green River Killer


Mark Prothero - 2006
    He's too calm. He's too polite! He can't possibly have murdered forty-nine women. They can't be serious! They must have screwed up! I didn't realize then, but I was right. Gary Ridgway hadn't killed forty-nine women. He'd killed even more than that." Soon, Mark Prothero faced the question: "How could you possibly defend the most prolific serial killer in United States history, the infamous Green River Killer? If anyone deserved to be executed for his crimes, didn't he?"Mark Prothero, co-lead defense attorney who helped save Gary Ridgway from the death sentence, has heard that question many times. Now he's written a book that reveals the true, inside story of exactly how an idealistic public defender, high school swim coach, husband, and dad could bring himself to spend many months of close confinement with a man who brutally murdered at least 75 young women, often in the act of sex. Defending Gary shows how Prothero could reconcile these monstrous acts knowing the reality of this unassuming fellow Gary Ridgway, a mild-mannered, church-going, devoted husband, father, and former Navy man, with an IQ of around 82 and a longtime job as a truck-painter from Auburn, Washington, near Seattle.

Furious Hours: Murder, Fraud, and the Last Trial of Harper Lee


Casey CepCasey Cep - 2019
    With the help of a savvy lawyer, he escaped justice for years until a relative shot him dead at the funeral of his last victim. Despite hundreds of witnesses, Maxwell’s murderer was acquitted–thanks to the same attorney who had previously defended the Reverend.Sitting in the audience during the vigilante’s trial was Harper Lee, who had traveled from New York City to her native Alabama with the idea of writing her own In Cold Blood, the true-crime classic she had helped her friend Truman Capote research seventeen years earlier. Lee spent a year in town reporting, and many more working on her own version of the case.Now Casey Cep brings this story to life, from the shocking murders to the courtroom drama to the racial politics of the Deep South.

CASE CLOSED: Serial Killers Captured


R.J. Parker - 2011
    When a Serial Killer is active in a community it is extremely scary for everyone. This book focuses on Serial Killers who have been captured and some of the most notorious and ruthless killers in history. Serial killers stay close to home and their victims are random. Dennis Rader found all his victims in Kansas not far from the Wichita home he shared with his wife and two kids. Rader, the president of his local church, knocked on his victim's doors and they simply let him in. John Wayne Gacy, met many of his 33 victims, all young men and boys, at charity events where he appeared dressed a clown. After luring them to his house and murdering them he stuffed them under his Cook County, Illinois home. Gary Leon Ridgway, the Green River Killer, was convicted of strangling 49 random women he met in Washington. He confessed to killing 71 but authorities believe the number of victims could be over 90. Jeffrey Dahmer of Milwaukee admitted to killing and cannibalizing 17 young men and boys before he was arrested. Case Closed is a compilation of criminal file dossiers on several of those Serial Killers that were captured, including:Ted BundyJohn Wayne Gacy - The Killer ClownJeffrey DahmerDonald Henry GaskinsGary Ridgway - The Green River KillerDennis Rader - The BTK KillerDavid Berkowitz - The Son of SamOttis Toole and Henry Lee Lucas - The Homosexual Crime TeamAnd Many More.

Apocalypse Culture II


Adam ParfreyCrispin Hellion Glover - 2000
    No other book examined such disturbing cultural extremes, and no other book looked at the dark sides of society within the framework of the apocalypse. In the intervening 12 years, it has become clear that Apocalypse Culture inspired a new genre of cultural commentary that has been embraced by both independent and large mainstream publishers and eagerly sought after by the culture at large. Among its fans is X-Files creator Chris Carter.Now Adam Parfrey offers a follow-up to that first book. Apocalypse Culture II is an entirely new collection of essays that reflect the most recent revelations of the New World Order. Through the extremes of postmodern culture it details the moral disintegration of the old world. Essays cover biological warfare, taboo art, sexual fetishism, mind control for corporate gain, government sex-slavery, creepy superstars, and more.

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

Member of the Family: My Story of Charles Manson, Life Inside His Cult, and the Darkness That Ended the Sixties


Dianne Lake - 2017
    Over the course of two years, the impressionable teenager endured manipulation, psychological control, and physical abuse as the harsh realities and looming darkness of Charles Manson’s true nature revealed itself. From Spahn ranch and the group acid trips, to the Beatles’ White Album and Manson’s dangerous messiah-complex, Dianne tells the riveting story of the group’s descent into madness as she lived it.Though she never participated in any of the group’s gruesome crimes and was purposely insulated from them, Dianne was arrested with the rest of the Manson Family, and eventually learned enough to join the prosecution’s case against them. With the help of good Samaritans, including the cop who first arrested her and later adopted her, the courageous young woman eventually found redemption and grew up to lead an ordinary life.While much has been written about Charles Manson, this riveting account from an actual Family member is a chilling portrait that recreates in vivid detail one of the most horrifying and fascinating chapters in modern American history.Member of the Family includes 16 pages of photographs.

Jack the Ripper: The Final Solution


Stephen Knight - 1976
    The discovery of the murders is described by the men who were there, and evidence reveals that the hitherto unsolved Ripper murders were in fact a culmination of a full-scale cover-up organized at the highest level of government.