Reasonable Doubt: A Shocking Story of Lust and Murder in the American Heartland


Steve Vogel - 1990
    The apparent weapons, an ax and butcher knife, are found nearby. A month later the husband and father, who was away on a business trip when the bodies were found, is accused of the killings. Police believe he methodically murdered his wife and children before he left. But why? A successful businessman and devoted member of a fundamentalist religious group, David Hendricks has the total support of his extended family. Police paint a darker picture, and prosecutors face the daunting task of convicting him on a case based on completely circumstantial evidence. A New York Times best-seller, this book has now been updated with additional content and photos. Readers often comment they must continually remind themselves that this story is real, that "Reasonable Doubt" is testament to the fact truth is stranger than fiction. The book has also been used in college-level criminal justice courses to explain and illustrate the legal concept of reasonable doubt.

Death Row Romeo: The True Story of Serial Killer Oscar Ray Bolin


J.T. Hunter - 2017
    For years, their killer remained a mystery as the cases turned cold. Then a Crime Stoppers call led to his arrest. Charming and handsome, serial killer Oscar Ray Bolin married a member of his legal defense team, and he toyed with the criminal courts for decades while on Death Row. This is the first book written about Oscar Ray Bolin and his victims. Bestselling True Crime Books by JT Hunter - Devil in The Darkness: True Story of Serial Killer ISRAEL KEYES - In Colder Blood: True Story of the Walker Family Murder as depicted in Truman Capote’s, In Cold Blood - The Vampire Next Door: True Story of the Vampire Rapist and Serial Killer - The Country Boy Killer: The True Story of Serial Killer Cody Legebokoff

Missing Mom: A True Crime, True Family Story


Daniel Murphy - 2015
     This true story begins on a sunny July morning in 2003, just outside of Flint Michigan, when an eighty year old grandmother has mysteriously disappeared from the face of the earth. Days later the charred remains of her car were identified, after being completely destroyed by an intentional fire; but she was nowhere to be found. We had to find her. She was my mom...

In Cold Storage: Sex and Murder on the Plains


James W. Hewitt - 2015
    More than forty years later, author James W. Hewitt returns to the scene and unearths new details about what happened. After pieces of Edwin and Wilma Hoyt’s dismembered bodies were found floating on the surface of a nearby lake, authorities charged McCook resident Harold Nokes and his wife, Ena, with murder. Harold pleaded guilty to murder and Ena pleaded guilty to two counts of wrongful disposal of a dead body, but the full story of why and how he murdered the Hoyts has never been told. Hewitt interviews law enforcement officers, members of the victims’ family, weapons experts, and forensic psychiatrists, and delves into newspaper reports and court documents from the time. Most significant, Harold granted Hewitt his first and only interview, in which the convicted murderer changed several parts of his 1974 confession. In Cold Storage takes readers through the evidence, including salacious details of sex and intrigue between the Hoyts and the Nokeses, and draws new conclusions about what really happened between the two families on that fateful September night.

Lawyer X


Patrick Carlyon - 2020
    It took the police a decade to curtail the violence and bring down criminal kingpins Carl Williams, Tony Mokbel and their accomplices. When the police finally closed the case file, just how they really won the war, with the help of an unlikely police informer, would become a closely guarded secret and its exposure, the biggest legal scandal of our time.Lawyer X is the scandalous, true story of how a promising defence barrister from a privileged background broke all the rules - becoming both police informer and her client's lover - sharing their secrets and shaping the gangland war that led to sensational arrests and convictions. The story of how Nicola Gobbo became Lawyer X, and why, is a compelling study in desperation and determination.Lawyer X is the definitive story of Melbourne's gangland wars and its most glamorous and compelling central character, based on the ground-breaking work of investigative journalists Anthony Dowsley and Patrick Carlyon, who broke the story for the Herald Sun in 2014, and their five-year struggle to reveal the truth about the identity of Lawyer X.

The Sweater Letter


Dave Distel - 2002
    When it comes to classics among murder mysteries,

Ladykiller


Donna Fielder - 2012
    But the answer wasn't really so simple...

Death of a Dream


Paul LaRosa - 2008
     She was a gifted midwestern beauty, the daughter of Ohio State University's marching band director: to dance on Broadway. Soon after high school graduation, Catherine left Columbus for New York City, determined to be a star. Three years later, she was dead -- murdered in cold blood in her East Side apartment. The shocking revelations that emerged from the police investigation made tabloid headlines: few knew that the struggling artist paid her bills by dancing in a topless club. But there was another hidden facet to Catherine's life -- a shattering love triangle with two men, one of whom would ultimately be convicted of her brutal stabbing death. It's a chilling account of obsession, violence, and the surprising, minute evidence on which the entire case hinged. For a talented young woman reaching for the top, and the heartbroken family she left behind, it is truly the death of a dream.

Body of Proof: Tainted Evidence In The Murder Of Jessica O'Grady?


John Ferak - 2015
    Along with his fascinating debut book, BLOODY LIES, Mr. Ferak is making an indelible mark in the true crime genre.”— Jim Hollock, author of the award-winning crime story, BORN TO LOSE When they met, Jessica O'Grady was a tall, starry-eyed Omaha, Nebraska co-ed in search of Mr. Right, Christopher Edwards was a deceitful and darkened soul. In May of 2006, Jessica's mystifying disappearance and a blood-soaked mattress turned into Nebraska's biggest news story. Enter Douglas County Sheriff's CSI stalwart Dave Kofoed, driven to solve high-profile murders and in this case would lead to questions surrounding the forensic evidence used against Edwards. "The case of Jessica O'Grady's disappearance remains controversial. ... A compelling account of a strange case." - Peter Vronsky, bestselling author of Serial Killers: The Method and Madness of Monsters "Compelling ... a memorable true story." - RJ Parker, bestselling true crime author and publisher

Adnan's Story: The Search for Truth and Justice After Serial


Rabia Chaudry - 2016
    Syed has maintained his innocence, and Rabia Chaudry, a family friend, has always believed him. By 2013, after almost all appeals had been exhausted, Rabia contacted Sarah Koenig, a producer at This American Life, in hopes of finding a journalist who could shed light on Adnan’s story. In 2014, Koenig's investigation turned into Serial, a Peabody Award-winning podcast with more than 500 million international listenersBut Serial did not tell the whole story. In this compelling narrative, Rabia Chaudry presents new key evidence that she maintains dismantles the State's case: a potential new suspect, forensics indicating Hae was killed and kept somewhere for almost half a day, and documentation withheld by the State that destroys the cell phone evidence -- among many other points -- and she shows how fans of Serial joined a crowd-sourced investigation into a case riddled with errors and strange twists. Adnan's Story also shares Adnan’s life in prison, and weaves in his personal reflections, including never-before-seen letters. Chaudry, who is committed to exonerating Adnan, makes it clear that justice is yet to be achieved in this much examined case.

Murder in Battle Creek: The Mysterious Death of Daisy Zick (True Crime)


Blaine Lee Pardoe - 2013
    No fewer than three witnessescaught a glimpse of the killer, yet today, it remainsone of Michigan’s most sensational unsolved crimes. The act of puresavagery rocked not only the community but also the Kellogg Company, where sheworked. Here, Blaine Pardoe artfully takes the reader into this true crime thriller. Utilizing long-sealed policefiles and interviews with the surviving investigators,the true story of the investigation can finally be told. Who were thekey suspects? What evidence does the police still have on this five-decades-oldcold case? Just how close did this murder come to being solved? Is the killerstill alive? These questions and more are masterfully brought to the forefrontfor true crime fans and armchair detectives.

DOUBT: The Madeleine McCann Mystery (Gone Girl Book 1)


Nick van der Leek - 2017
    We also know the original lead investigator, Goncalo Amaral’s, counter-narrative, now a legally defensible matter of public record. The questions that arise from these opposing narratives are dead simple: Which narrative is more credible? Which narrator is more credible? What was the motive behind all the publicity? Neither Madeleine nor her abductor ultimately benefited from the ongoing media barrage, so who did? True crime maestro, Nick van der Leek, plumbs quagmires of confusion and a thicket of thorny inconsistencies to probe what lies beneath: the psychologies. What is the significance of "doctors" as suspects? Did it matter or mean anything that the McCanns and their cabal of friends in the Algarve were mostly doctors? Peeling away the gossamer threads, over the course of just four days [April 29th – May 2nd], van der Leek intuits that very little was routine: not the weather, not where meals were eaten, not where or when they slept and not what they did as a family. But what were their routines when it came to other, murkier things, like sleeping patterns, cell phones and sedatives? Drawing intangibles out of the darkness, van der Leek sews the vexing loose ends from several conflicting stories into a definite - if not definitive - end-result.

The Deadly Dozen: India's Most Notorious Serial Killers


Anirban Bhattacharya - 2019
    A schoolteacher who killed multiple paramours with cyanide; a mother who trained her daughters to kill children; a thug from the 1800s who slaughtered more than 900 people, a manservant who killed girls and devoured their body parts.If you thought serial killers was a Western phenomenon, think again!These bone-chilling stories in The Deadly Dozen will take you into the hearts and heads of India's most devious murderers and schemers, exploring what made them kill and why?

The Jersey Shore Thrill Killer: Richard Biegenwald


John E. O'Rourke - 2014
    Explore the true story of the Jersey Shore's "Thrill Killer."

Head Over Heels: A Story Of Tragedy, Triumph and Romance in the Australian Bush


Sam Bailey - 2006
    After months of struggle, he learned how to resume his life as a farmer, running a sheep and cattle property in northwest New South Wales. then he met and fell in love with Jenny Black, an ABC Rural journalist, proposed to her on air, and the rest is history. Jenny tells Sam's story in his own laconic, wry style. By turns romantic, funny and moving, it affirms the strength of iron-willed determination and the power of love.