Book picks similar to
Inside the Firm: The Untold Story of the Krays' Reign of Terror by Tony Lambrianou
non-fiction
true-crime
kray-twins
biography
The Altar Boys
Suzanne Smith - 2020
A community betrayed ... The whistle-blower priest who paid the ultimate price Glen Walsh and Steven Alward were childhood friends in their tight-knit working-class community in Shortland, on the outskirts of Newcastle, New South Wales. Both proud altar boys at the local Catholic church, they went on to attend the city's Catholic boys' highs schools: Glen to Marist Brothers and Steven to St Pius X. Both did well: Steven became a journalist; Glen a priest. But when Glen discovered another priest was sexually abusing boys, he reported the offending to police, breaking Canon Law and his vows to the Catholic 'brotherhood' in the process. Just weeks before he was due to give evidence at a key trial against the highest cleric to ever be charged with covering up child abuse, Father Glen Walsh was dead. Two months later, his friend Steven also died, only weeks before he was to marry the love of his life. Ensuing investigations revealed that at least 60 men in the region had taken their own lives. Why? What had happened, and why were so many from the three Catholic high schools in the area?By six-time Walkley Award-winning investigative reporter Suzanne Smith, The Altar Boys is the powerful expose of widespread and organised clerical abuse of children in an Australian city, and how the cover-up in the Catholic Church in Australia extended from parish priests to every echelon of the organisation. Focusing on two childhood friends, their families and community, this gripping and explosive story is backed by secret documents, diary notes and witness accounts, and details a deliberate church strategy of using psychological warfare against witnesses in key trials involving paedophile priests.
Restless Souls: The Sharon Tate Family's Account of Stardom, the Manson Murders, and a Crusade for Justice
Alisa Statman - 2012
More than forty years later, the gruesome barbarity of the “Manson Family” still fascinates and horrifies.This true crime memoir by Alisa Statman, a 20-year Tate family friend, and Brie Tate, the daughter of Sharon Tate’s niece, includes interviews with the Tate family, accounts from personal letters, tape recordings, home movies, and private diaries.Complete with color photographs and personal insights, Restless Souls is the most revealing, riveting, and emotionally raw account of the gruesome slayings, the hunt and capture of the killers, and the behind-the-scenes drama of their trials, as well as a touching view of the torment that the victims families’ have endured for years after such tragedy.
Inside Rikers: Stories from the World's Largest Penal Colony
Jennifer Wynn - 2001
She chronicles their journeys as they struggle to "go straight" and find respect in a city that fears and rejects them.
Killer Dad
Robert Scott - 2007
. .there's blood all over!" The 911 call came from a Colorado family man, Michael Blagg, distraught over his missing wife and six-year-old daughter. Frantic search parties and Michael's anguished pleas on national television came up empty--until the investigation stumbled across Blagg's dark side. . .A Sordid SecretA devout born-again Christian addicted to Internet porn, Blagg allegedly indulged in the services of paid escorts and reportedly abused his wife. Then in June 2002, nearly a year after her disappearance, when his wife's mummified remains were found in a local landfill, Michael quickly left town. . .Only One Way OutExtradited from Georgia, Blagg was charged with first-degree murder. But the explosive trial was rocked by even more bizarre revelations, stunning twists, and an unspeakable mystery that haunted the country: What made Blagg do it? And, even more disturbing, whatever happened to little Abby?
34 Years in Hell: My Time Inside America's Toughest Prisons
Jamie Morgan Kane - 2019
Fearing that he would be blamed and sensing that his wife was somehow involved, he wanted to do all to protect his young family. Jamie worked through the night to dispose of the body all the while disbelieving the situation he found himself in. His luck ran out days later as he was arrested and sentenced to 13 years in prison. Jamie entered the U.S. prison system and was to stay there for 34 years with stints in San Quentin, Folsom State Prison and the notorious Deuel Vocational Institution (DVI) in California. He would rub shoulders with some of the world’s most infamous serial killers such as Charles Manson, Edmund Kemper, Charles Tex Watson and Herbie Mullin as well as gangs such as the Aryan Brotherhood and Mexican cartels. This book tells of his time: locked up with no hope of release, living the brutality of the unforgiving penitentiary system and finding his new purpose in life, as well as tales of his many run-ins with some of the world’s most dangerous inmates.
The Medusa File: Secret Crimes and Coverups of the U.S. Government
Craig Roberts - 1996
During the period of 1940 to this day the power brokers, working from their positions of trust, have committed and then covered up the most heinous of crimes known to mankind. Investigative journalist Craig Roberts, author of "Kill Zone--a Sniper Looks at Dealey Plaza", now provides us with the results of his ten -year investigation regarding the secret crimes and coverups of the U.S. Government. You will read his case files on such subjects as the Japanese "Devil Unit 731" who experiments on American POWs in WWII with germ warfare weapons--and what happened when the war ended and the commanding officer was hired by the government instead of hanged for war crimes; Operation Paperclip in WWII when the U.S. brought Nazi scientists to America to work for us on our weapons programs instead of standing trial as war criminals; CIA and military mind control experiments on unsuspecting citizens--including children--without our knowledge; Secret drug and bacteriological weapons experiments on the American population; Atomic guinea pigs, Agent Orange, and the Gulf War Syndrome; what really happened to over 30,000 U.S. POWs after World War II, Korea and Vietnam; International assassinations, drug smuggling and money laundering; What the media did not tell you about the shoot down of TWA 800, the bombing of Pan AM 103, the Oklahoma City bombing, the crash of Arrow Air in Gander, Newfoundland, the derailment of the Sunset Limited in Arizona, the World Trade Center bombing in 1993, and much more….
The North Country Murder of Irene Izak: Stained by Her Blood (True Crime)
Dave Shampine - 2010
Irene Izak, a young French teacher from Scranton, Pennsylvania, was headed toward a new job and the promise of a new life in Quebec. She never reached the border that early June morning. Savagely bludgeoned—her face and head pummeled with rocks—Irene’s body was discovered in a ravine by a state trooper patrolling Route 81 in Jefferson County, New York. Blending suspense with true-crime reporting, author Dave Shampine investigates the brutal murder that shook the communities of northeast Pennsylvania and New York’s North Country. Join Shampine as he tells the story of this vicious and confounding killing that has remained unsolved for four decades.
Where is Daniel?
Bruce Morcombe - 2014
For Bruce and Denise Morcombe - the parents of Daniel - and his brothers, Bradley and Dean, it was apparent within hours that something was very wrong. In the first few days following Daniels disappearance, Bruce and Denise made a promise to their son that they would never ever stop looking for him, and bring who was responsible to justice.We will never give up. As the nightmare of hours became days then weeks, and months and years, the family mobilised to become the moral force behind the longest criminal investigation in Australia's history.Where is Daniel? covers the decade-long investigation into the disappearance of Daniel and the extraordinary courage, dignity, persistence and fortitude Bruce and Denise displayed under unbearable circumstances.This determination also applied to Bruce and Denise's desire to mine something positive from the darkest of experiences. They started the Daniel Morcombe Foundation in 2005, to teach children about safety, and have since visited hundreds of schools around Australia. They've established Australia's largest annual child safety day-of-action, Day for Daniel, and utilised the funds raised to support other children who have been the victims of abuse.Over a decade later, with Daniel's killer brought to justice thanks to an amazing covert police sting, this is the family's story. Where is Daniel? is a testament to the enduring power of love between parents and their child, and the strength and bonds of family to survive.
This Crazy Thing Called Love: The Golden World and Fatal Marriage of Ann and Billy Woodward
Susan Braudy - 1992
While she was cleared by a grand jury, which believed her story that she had mistaken Billy for a prowler who had been recently breaking into neighboring houses, New York society was convinced that she had deliberately murdered Billy and that her formidable mother-in-law, Elsie Woodward, had covered up the crime to prevent further scandal to the socially prominent family. The incident became fiction in Truman Capote's malicious 1975 Esquire story, leading to Ann's suicide, and later was the subject of Dominick Dunne's The Two Mrs. Grenvilles. Now, after years of research, Braudy reveals the truth behind the legend. Tracing Ann's life from her difficult Kansas childhood through her early years as a model and aspiring actress to her stormy marriage to Billy Woodward and the sad years of her social exile after his death, Braudy shows how Ann, a victim of cruel gossip and class snobbery, could not have deliberately killed Billy.
The Autobiography of an Execution
David R. Dow - 2010
"People think that because I am against the death penalty and don't think people should be executed, that I forgive those people for what they did. Well, it isn't my place to forgive people, and if it were, I probably wouldn't. I'm a judgmental and not very forgiving guy. Just ask my wife."It this spellbinding true crime narrative, Dow takes us inside of prisons, inside the complicated minds of judges, inside execution-administration chambers, into the lives of death row inmates (some shown to be innocent, others not) and even into his own home--where the toll of working on these gnarled and difficult cases is perhaps inevitably paid. He sheds insight onto unexpected phenomena-- how even religious lawyer and justices can evince deep rooted support for putting criminals to death-- and makes palpable the suspense that clings to every word and action when human lives hang in the balance.
The Happy Face Murderer: The Life of Serial Killer Keith Hunter Jesperson (Serial Killer True Crime Books Book 3)
Jack Smith - 2015
Tracking down a mass murderer is a constant plot line in films, television, and literature. But these stories are so often based on real life. In certain circumstances, however, real life goes a step beyond what we could imagine happening in fiction. Sometimes, the actions of a serial killer can seem so extreme and strange, their motivations so twisted and evil, that we struggle to comprehend exactly how they fit into the modern world. In the case of Keith Hunter Jesperson, the truth behind his murder spree is more horrific than anything dreamt up by Hollywood’s best screenwriters. After a disturbing childhood left the giant of a man riddled with emotional and psychological scars, Jesperson travelled across Canada and spent time strangling and killing women whom he met along the way. While he was only convicted of eights murders, his own boasts suggest that total could have reached as high as 160. As a truck driver, he had the perfect cover story for travelling from town to town without having to put down roots. Often leaving an unsuspecting family at home, he was out in the wilderness committing heinous acts without anyone from the authorities coming close to suspecting his guilt. Jesperson, annoyed by the lack of attention he was receiving, began to leave messages to the public. Scrawled onto the walls of truck stop bathrooms, he signed each confession with a happy, smiley face. This led the media to christening him the Happy Face Killer. It was decades before the investigators came close to catching the killer, so read on to discover just how Keith Hunter Jesperson managed to get away with numerous horrific murders. This is the story of the Happy Face Killer. Scroll back up and grab your copy now!
If I Can't Have You, No One Can
Don Lasseter - 2006
Sarah Rodriquez, 21, wasn't so lucky. On April 16, 2002, in Orange County, California, she and her true love, Matt Corbett, 20, were forced off the road by Namey, who shot them both at point-blank range with a .357. Sarah was killed. Corbett was paralyzed for life.Real HeroAfter a 42-mile chase, Namey was finally cornered in a drainage tunnel by a police dog. He pleaded manslaughter, claiming he'd really meant to kill himself in front of Sarah. No deal. The man he faced was not your average deputy district attorney: Dennis Conway had pulled himself out of a wayward life torn by seemingly insurmountable tragedy and into law school. He knew all about guys like Namey--and exactly where to find the holes in his story. The verdict: first-degree murder, life sentence. Score one for the good guys.Includes 16 pages of shocking photos.
Banged Up Abroad: Hellhole: Our Fight to Survive South America's Deadliest Jail
James Miles - 2011
That's the only way I can describe Yare. It's a murderous viper's nest of assassins, cut throats and killers.'
When James Miles and his best friend Paul Loseby were caught smuggling ten kilos of cocaine out of Caracas, Venezuela, they couldn't deny their guilt. Young and naive, the lads had thought the one-off drug mule job would be a passport to a better life. But in reality it was a ticket to hell ...They were sentenced to thirty years and flung into the world's deadliest prison system, ending up in the notorious Yare. A place where drugs and weaponry are currency and the rules are: there are no rules.This is the gripping true-life story of how two men endured untold savagery in the most appalling conditions. It's about what it's like to witness murder and rape every day, fearing you'll be next. How it feels to join a dangerous Latino gang and eat dead rats in order to survive. And, what you do when you're at the centre of a riot between thousands of men with machine guns.As seen on Channel 5's
Banged Up Abroad
, this is the most shocking prison story ever told and an inspiring account of human endurance.
True State Trooper Stories
Charles A. Black - 2016
Sgt. Charles Black is a 35 year veteran of the Iowa State Patrol during those years he has had many experiences and he shares his favorites in this book. In 35 years I have seen a lot of changes from the name of the organization to the primary function. From hearses to ambulances to rescue units with EMT's. From paper list of stolen cars to computers.From no recorders to body cameras. From fist fights to gun fights.But human nature and the effects of drugs and alcohol remain the same.
The Profiler Diaries: From the case files of a police psychologist
Gérard Labuschagne - 2020