Book picks similar to
By Their Father's Hand: The True Story of the Wesson Family Massacre by Monte Francis
true-crime
non-fiction
nonfiction
crime
High Achiever: The Incredible True Story of One Addict's Double Life
Tiffany Jenkins - 2017
Now, she's clean and sober, a married mother of three. As she found her way in her new life, she started sharing on social media as an outlet for her depression and anxiety. She struck a chord, several of her videos went viral (one with 46million views), and in the past year her following exploded from a few hundred thousand to more than 3 million.The memoir opens in the Florida women's prison where Tiffany was incarcerated for 180 days. The memoir flashes back in time to the events that led to Tiffany's imprisonment (during the time of her active addiction, Tiffany was dating and living with a cop), and moves forward to her eventual sobriety.
The Blooding
Joseph Wambaugh - 1989
Though a massive 150-man dragnet is launched, the case remains unsolved. Three years later the killer strikes again, raping and strangling teenager Dawn Ashforth only a stone's throw from where Lynda was so brutally murdered. But it will take four years, a scientific breakthrough, the largest manhunt in British crime annals, and the blooding of more than four thousand men before the real killer is found.
RedHanded: An Exploration of Criminals, Cannibals, Cults, and What Makes a Killer Tick
Suruthi Bala - 2021
Six weeks later they ordered their first microphones and the rest is history. From the hosts of the hit podcast RedHanded (dubbed by Anna Paquin as her “all- time favorite true crime podcast”), Bala and Maguire have amassed a cult following of “spooky bitches.”What is it about killers, cults, and cannibals that capture our imaginations even as they terrify and disturb us? Do we find these stories endlessly and equally compelling and frightening, because they hold up a mirror to society’s failings and to the horrors that we humans are capable of? RedHanded rejects the outdated narrative of killers as monsters and that a victim “was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.” Instead, it dissects the stories of killers in a way that challenges perceptions and asks the hard questions about society, gender, poverty, culture, and even our politics.With their trademark humor, research on real-life cases, and unflinching analysis of what makes a criminal, Bala and Maguire take you through what drives the most extreme of human behavior to find out once and for all: what makes a killer tick?
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.
Shattered Dreams: My Life as a Polygamist's Wife
Irene Spencer - 2007
Yet Irene managed to overcome these obstacles to seek a life that she believed would be better for her and her children. She made a bold step into the "outside world" and into a freedom she never knew existed.The details of her harrowing experience will appall, astonish, and in the end, greatly inspire. This dramatic story reveals how far religion can be stretched and abused, and how one woman and her children found their way into truth and redemption.
Shallow Graves: The Hunt for the New Bedford Highway Serial Killer
Maureen Boyle - 2017
In Shallow Graves, investigative reporter Maureen Boyle tells the story of a case that has haunted New England for thirty years. The Crimes: The skeletal remains of nine of the women, aged nineteen to thirty-six, were discovered near highways around New Bedford. Some had clearly been strangled, others were so badly decomposed that police were left to guess how they had died. The Victims: All the missing women had led troubled lives of drug addiction, prostitution, and domestic violence, including Nancy Paiva, whose sister was a hard-working employee of the City of New Bedford, and Debra Greenlaw DeMello, who came from a solidly middle-class family but fell into drugs and abusive relationships. In a bizarre twist, Paiva’s clothes were found near DeMello’s body. The Investigators: Massachusetts state troopers Maryann Dill and Jose Gonsalves were the two constants in a complex cast of city, county, and state cops and prosecutors. They knew the victims, the suspects, and the drug-and-crime-riddled streets of New Bedford. They were present at the beginning of the case and they stayed to the bitter end. The Suspects: Kenneth Ponte, a New Bedford attorney and deputy sheriff with an appetite for drugs and prostitutes, landed in the investigative crosshairs from the start. He was indicted by a grand jury in the murder of one of the victims, but those charges were later dropped. Anthony DeGrazia was a loner who appeared to fit the classic serial-killer profile: horrific childhood abuse, charming, charismatic, but prone to bursts of violence. He hunted prostitutes in the city by night and served at a Catholic church by day. Which of these two was the real killer? Or was it someone else entirely? Maureen Boyle first broke the story in 1988 and stayed with it for decades. In Shallow Graves she spins a riveting narrative about the crimes, the victims, the hunt for the killers, and the search for justice, all played out against the backdrop of an increasingly impoverished community beset by drugs and crime. Drawing on more than one hundred interviews, along with police reports, first-person accounts, and field reporting both during the killings and more recently, Shallow Graves brings the reader behind the scenes of the investigation, onto the streets of the city, and into the homes of the families still hoping for answers.
Stalemate: A Shocking True Story of Child Abduction and Murder
John Philpin - 1997
For 10 years, Bindner has stayed one step ahead of the law; at every turn, he has challenged the police and FBI to make their case. Featuring the suspect's own words, "Stalemate" takes us into the complex realm of forensic investigation, bringing readers face-to-face with a man who may be playing a deadly game and winning.
Murder of Innocence: The Tragic Life and Final Rampage of Laurie Dann
Joel Kaplan - 1990
Driven by fear and hate, she was going to make something terrible happen. Before the end of the day, Dann had blazed a murderous trail of poison, fire, and bullets through the unsuspecting town of Winnetka, Illinois, and other North Shore suburbs. She murdered an eight-year-old boy and critically wounded 5 other children inside an elementary school. It finally took a massed force of armed police to end the killing. The shocking story of innocence destroyed by a rich young babysitter inexplicably gone mad made headlines all across the nation and inspired at least two psychotic killers to follow her example. What lead her to do it? Could she have been stopped? The case raised a host of agonizing questions that have remained unanswered—until now. In this book, three Chicago Tribune reporters who covered the Laurie Dann tragedy have pulled together all the available police evidence, unearthed valuable psychiatric information, and interviewed at length scores of people who knew Dann, many of whom had never before spoken to the media about this case. Despite clear and ominous warning signs, a young woman of beauty and privilege was allowed to deteriorate and go slowly berserk—and no one stopped her. Her parents, her doctors, and the police officers who knew her pathological behavior all failed her at critical times. By its passivity and silence, a community comfortable and quiet on the surface, yet reluctant to admit its underlying flaws, became an unwitting accomplice to the final rampage of Laurie Dann. MURDER OF INNOCENCE is a searing portrayal of a family—and a society—unable to cope, and of a young woman who wanted all too desperately only to be loved.
A Need to Kill: The True-Crime Account of John Joubert, Nebraska's Most Notorious Serial Child Killer
Mark Pettit - 1990
Now, dramatic and chilling new evidence comes to light exposing the sinister thoughts running through the mind of John Joubert--the man behind the Nebraska killings. Former TV news anchorman, investigative reporter and three time Emmy winner Mark Pettit returns to the case to write the final chapter in his best-selling, and now newly updated book: A Need to Kill: The True-Crime Account of John Joubert, Nebraska’s Most Notorious Serial Child Killer. In the spirit of Truman Capote’s “In Cold Blood,” Pettit delves into the Joubert case to tell the dramatic story from all angles as a non-fiction novel. In a series of exclusive, face-to-face interviews with Pettit, Joubert admits to a string of violent crimes and another killing that sends investigators into a frenzy ending with Joubert being convicted for a third murder and ultimately executed in Nebraska’s electric chair. Now, 30 years after the murders in Nebraska, Pettit uncovers shocking new evidence from Joubert’s prison records that proves the killer was fantasizing about committing more violent crimes. Never-before-seen death row drawings made by Joubert while he waited to be executed once again send a chill through Nebraska and those touched by Joubert’s horrific crimes. In the updated version of his book, Pettit opens his investigative files to the public and for the first time, shares handwritten letters Joubert wrote to the journalist while in prison. Pettit also reveals aspects of Joubert’s personality gleaned during the exclusive interviews and details from the death row discussions that have never been shared publicly.
Lethal Marriage: The Unspeakable Crimes of Paul Bernardo and Karla Homolka
Nick Pron - 1995
The sensational trials of Paul Bernardo and Karla Homolka for abduction, rape, manslaughter and murder caused widespread controversy, as did the twelve-year sentence Homolka received as part of her deal with government lawyers. Yet, even though the publication ban on the case has been lifted, there is much the Canadian public still has not been told. Nick Pron now gives us a comprehensive account of previously banned information about Bernardo and Homolka's backgrounds and early relationship; of Homolka's role in the death of her sister, Tammy; of what turned Bernardo into a sadistic rapist and killer; of slip-shod police work and lack of communication that gave Bernardo and Homolka the opportunity to murder schoolgirls Leslie Mahaffy and Kristen French; of the fifteen-month suppression of key videotape evidence; and a host of disturbing facts that were ruled inadmissable at the trial.Warning: This book contains graphic descriptions of violence.From the Paperback edition.
Without Mercy: Obsession and Murder Under the Influence
Gary Provost - 1990
She was also a three-bottle-a-day alcoholic, hopelessly in love with the IHOP’s manager, Allen Bryant. Bryant wanted his live-in lover, IHOP owner Art Venecia, dead. And Dee Casteel helped him to arrange it. After Venecia’s murder, Dee and Bryant moved into his house, forged checks, spent his money, and embezzled from the IHOP to buy gifts for Bryant’s boyfriends. But there was an even more gruesome killing to come … WITHOUT MERCY is an engrossing, bizarre true story that traces the twisted path to a loathsome crime. But it is also the story of middle-class citizens gone wrong, of an almost-perfect murder, the traumas of alcoholism, and a legal system that can be deadly in itself. Dee Casteel was an ordinary woman—who now stands convicted of one of the most cold-blooded crimes of this century.
Black Widow: A Beautiful Woman, Two Lovers, Two Murders
Marion Collins - 2007
But Glenn died in agony - his body racked with spasms, his mind plunged into delirium. And by the time he was found dead, Glen's wife was more than ready for his funeral.Julia Lynn Turner, a former sheriff's assistant and 911 operator, had a thing for men in uniform - and for their money. While detectives and forensic examiners ruled Glenn's death the result of a virulent flu, time would tell another story. Lynn was already secretly living with Randy Thompson, a firefighter, who would meet the same excruciating death.Driven by family who would not give up their quest for justice, a new investigation and an explosive trial eventually exposed the truth about a woman who had a way of making men die, and about a means of murder that was pure intoxicating evil.
One of Us: The Story of Anders Breivik and the Massacre in Norway
Åsne Seierstad - 2013
He then proceeded to a youth camp on the island of Utøya, where he killed sixty-nine more, most of them teenage members of Norway’s governing Labour Party. In The Island, the journalist Åsne Seierstad tells the story of this terrible day and what led up to it. What made Breivik, a gifted child from an affluent neighborhood in Oslo, become a terrorist? As in her bestseller The Bookseller of Kabul, Seierstad excels at the vivid portraiture of lives under stress. She delves deep into Breivik’s troubled childhood, showing how a hip-hop and graffiti aficionado became a right-wing activist and Internet game addict, and then an entrepreneur, Freemason, and self-styled master warrior who sought to “save Norway” from the threat of Islam and multiculturalism. She writes with equal intimacy about Breivik’s victims, tracing their political awakenings, aspirations to improve their country, and ill-fated journeys to the island. By the time Seierstad reaches Utøya, we know both the killer and those he will kill. We have also gotten to know an entire country—famously peaceful and prosperous, and utterly incapable of protecting its youth.
Dead Reckoning
Caitlin Rother - 2011
They were delighted when former child star Skylar Deleon and his pregnant wife Jennifer offered cash to purchase their 55-foot yacht The Well Deserved. . . Bad Couple But a trial voyage turned into a nightmare. Out at sea, the Hawkses begged for their lives as they were forced to sign everything over to Skylar. In return, they were tied to the ship's anchor and thrown overboard--alive. . . Dead Couple Skylar and Jennifer's twisted story became even more shocking when Skylar's unusual sexual motivations were revealed in court. After killing a man while out of jail on work furlough, he reportedly tried to hire hits from prison on four witnesses, including his father. . . For this former child actor, the answer to "Where Are They Now?" is Death Row. "A thrilling account of murder and mayhem." --M. William Phelps "A chilling read by a writer at the top of her game." --Gregg Olsen "A breathless tale of unthinkable events that no true crime fan should miss." --Katherine Ramsland 16 Pages Of Shocking Photos!
Strange Piece of Paradise: A Return to the American West to Investigate My Attempted Murder - And Solve the Riddle of Myself
Terri Jentz - 2006
As they lay sleeping in the central Oregon desert, a man in a pickup truck deliberately ran over their tent and proceeded to attack them with an axe. The horrific crime was reported in newspapers across the country, but no one was ever arrested. Fifteen years later, Jentz returns to the small town where she was nearly murdered and makes an extraordinary discovery: the violence of that night is as present for the community as it is for her. Shockingly, many say they know who did it, and he is living freely in their midst.Powerful, eloquent, and paced like the most riveting of thrillers, Strange Piece of Paradise is a startling profile of a psychopath, a sweeping reflection on violence and the myth of American individualism, and a moving record of Jentz's brave inner journey from violence to hope.