Rope Burns: The Shocking True Story of the Most Twisted Couple in American Crime!


Robert Scott - 2001
    James Daveggio was a drug abuser and violent rapist. Together, they forged one of the most perverse alliances in criminal history - and in September 1997 - began a nightmare spree of incest, kidnapping, rape, torture...and maybe, murder.Torture VanAfter customizing Michaud's green minivan into the ultimate mobile torture chamber, the predatory pair hit the road to hell. From California to Nevada, they abducted defenseless young women, including one of Daveggio's own relatives, and forced them to endure hours—sometimes days—of unspeakable sexual acts in their orgy of terror.Rope BurnsEventually captured by police, Michaud and Daveggio were convicted on May 19, 1999 for the abduction and rape of 20–year-old Juanita Rodriguez in Reno, Nevada. They have also been indicted for the first degree murder of Vanessa Samson, 22, in Pleasanton, California. Now awaiting trial, they face a possible conviction that could condemn them both to die by lethal injection.16 Pages Of Shocking Photos!

While She Slept: A Husband, a Wife, a Brutal Murder


Marion Collins - 2005
    Six months later, she was dead. Jeff and Jill Cahill seemed to have it all. Two kids, a dog, a nice house of the picket fence variety. But their relationship wasn't as happy as it seemed. Jeff and Jill had been having serious financial problems and were headed towards divorce, legally separated but living in the same house until Jill could afford to move out. But on April 21, 1996 Jeff and Jill had a torrid argument while their kids were upstairs sleeping. In the aftermath, Jeff claimed that his wife had started stabbing him with a kitchen knife - and that was the reason for his taking a Louisville slugger straight to her head. She lay in a coma for nearly six months, and just as she started to show signs of coming out of it.... she received a visitor.On October 27th of that same year, staffers at the University Hospital in Syracuse New York, noticed a strange-looking guy lurking in the hallway wearing a wig and outdoor boots. When Jill's nurse went to check on her patient, she found her gasping for air, with bruises around her mouth, and white powder (later to be determined as cyanide) flecked across her chest.

Betrayal in Blood


Michael Benson - 2006
      “Mommy . . . won’t be with us anymore.”   That’s what attorney Kevin C. Bryant, forty-five, told his two young sons in the spring of 2003. At the time, blond, pretty, twenty-six-year-old Tabatha Bryant was alive and well in an upscale suburb of Rochester, New York. But that was about to change—because Bryant knew his wife was cheating, and he intended to end the affair by ending her life. On June 14, 2003, he called 9-1-1 to report Tabatha slain by an unknown intruder who’d shot her in the eye with a .22 and repeatedly stabbed her in the neck and upper body. Soon, a drug bust led to Cassidy Green’s confession that she’d driven the getaway car. She fingered boyfriend Cyril Winebrenner as the killer.   Winebrenner and Kevin Bryant were buddies who’d regularly gone on cocaine-fueled sex binges with hookers. Astoundingly, Winebrenner was also the victim’s half-brother—but Bryant’s offer of $5,000 had convinced him that money is thicker than blood.   In a trial that shook “Country Club Row,” prosecutors would present evidence and testimonies that revealed even more sordid details, bringing the lawyer who tried to get away with murder to justice. Betrayal in Blood reveals the full story, from the author of numerous true crime accounts including Escape from Dannemora: Richard Matt, David Sweat, and the Great Adirondack Manhunt.

The Surgeon's Wife


Kieran Crowley - 2001
    He then drove her body to an airstrip in Caldwell, N.J., and dumped it into the Atlantic Ocean from a single-engine private plane. The next day, her reported her missing.Gail's parents had been thrilled to learn she was marrying Robert Bierenbaum. He seemed to be the perfect match for their daughter. He was from a well-to-do family, a medical student who spoke five languages fluently, a skier, and he even flew an airplane. But Gail would come to learn of her husband's dark side. On one occiasion when Robert had tried to choke Gail because he caught her smoking, she filed a police report. She also alleged that he tried to kill her cat because he was jealous of it. For years, her sister pleaded with Gail to run for her life. Even her therapist warned his vulnerable patient that she could eventually die at the hands of the man she married.Fifteen years after this unspeakable, unfathomable crime, a jury found Robert Bierenbaum guilty of murder—and stripped the mask off of this privileged professional to reveal a monster.

Seven Days of Rage: The Deadly Crime Spree of the Craigslist Killer (48 Hours Mystery)


Paul LaRosa - 2006
    But Philip Markoff, the handsome, clean-cut, twenty-two-year-old med student who hired Brisman on Craigslist, had different plans. On April 14, 2009, guests notified management of a woman screaming on the twentieth floor, and Brisman was found in a pool of blood, with several bullet wounds to her torso and…plastic restraints around her wrist.Hotel surveillance video captured Markoff’s image, and an additional tip helped police connect him to attacks on several other women, including a prostitute who was tied up at a Boston hotel, and the assault of an exotic dancer in Rhode Island, both of which bear a striking similarity to the Brisman murder.A skillful blend of hard journalism and fascinating yet chilling true-crime narrative, this headline-making story will appeal to fans of Ann Rule.

Vanished at Sea: The True Story of a Child TV Actor and Double Murder


Tina Dirmann - 2008
    A retired probation officer and a stay-at-home mom, they were looking forward to entering the next phase of their golden years. Their plan: To sell their home--a 55-foot, $435,000 yacht--and start a new life on land...and spend as much time with their grandchildren as possible. The Hawks were thrilled when a young man named Skylar Deleon wanted to buy the boat for himself, his wife, and their two kids. Little did Thomas and Jackie know that this unemployed, former childhood actor and dishonorably discharged Marine had another devious plan in mind: To lure the couple out to sea, force them to sign away their life savings, throw them overboard, and leave them

Blood Will Tell: A Shocking True Story of Marriage, Murder, and Fatal Family Secrets (St. Martin's True Crime Library)


Carlton Smith - 1996
    . .For twenty years, Ken and Kristine Fitzhugh and their two sons had lived lives of comfortable middle-class normality in the university town of Palo Alto, California. Then came the shocking news that Kristine Fitzhugh was dead, the victim of a terrible accident.... By the time the Palo Alto Police Department looked closer at the death of Kristine Fitzhugh, there could be only one conclusion. Someone had murdered Kristine in her own home, inflicting a series of horrific blows to the back of her head, and then cleaned up the mess to make it look like an accident. Who would do such a thing? Protesting his innocence, Kenneth Fitzhugh was arrested and tried for the murder of his wife. And as the case progressed, one by one, the hidden secrets of the Fitzhugh family came spilling out. . .

No Safe Place


Bill G. Cox - 2000
    The shocking true story of a marriage that spiraled into the most forbidden acts a man and woman could commit, and of a husband who began a campaign of intimidation against his wife that ended in murder.

Kill For Me


M. William Phelps - 2010
    After Rozzo refused the 'roided-up ex-con's advances, she described how he imprisoned, raped, and brutalized her for two days. When the courageous woman pledged to testify against him, Humphrey knew he had to silence her. . .His WeaponThat's when he turned to 19-year-old Ashley Laney. She had fallen in love with Humphrey, her personal trainer, and would do anything for him. On their wedding night, he made a strange request--one that would end with eight gunshot wounds and a dead body.His SchemeThe police knew Humphrey was the likely suspect, but he had an alibi for the time of the shooting. How could they prove that, even if he didn't pull the trigger, he was the manipulative psychopath behind Sandee's murder? It would all come down to a prison escape, a manhunt for a killer, and an explosive trial. . ."One of our most engaging crime journalists." --Dr. Katherine Ramsland"Phelps gets into the blood and guts of the story" --Gregg OlsenCase seen on 48 Hours Includes 16 Pages Of Shocking Photos

Blood Justice: The True Story of Multiple Murder and a Family's Revenge


Tom Henderson - 2004
    The next morning she was found gagged, raped, and tortured—her throat slit with such rage that she was nearly decapitated. Her husband Arthur never gave up hope that the future would bring enough evidence to close the case. But it was the past that held the clue.In 1985, fifty-five-year old Margarette Eby, a music professor, met the same grisly death at her cottage in Flint, Michigan. The case went cold—until six years later when the victim's son Mark came upon the story of Nancy Ludwig's slaying. With nothing to go on but intuition, he called authorities, certain that the same fiend committed both crimes.A cunning sting operation yielded irrefutable DNA evidence, and authorities were led to the home of respected navy veteran Jeffrey Gorton living quietly with his wife and two children. But his cold-blooded secrets were only beginning to come to light leaving fears that there were more victims yet to be found in a killing spree that had finally come to an end.

The Doctor's Wife: A True Story of Marriage, Deception and Two Gruesome Murders


John Glatt - 2007
    Then, on the morning of December 4, 2004, neighbors found seven-year-old Dalton Corbin at their front door sobbing. Until then no one could have seen what was going on behind closed doors: that beautiful Jennifer Corbin was immersed in a cyber-sex lesbian affair--or that Bart, now a wealthy dentist, had a bizarre, frightening past… Jennifer Corbin's death looked like a suicide. But the crime didn't fool young Dalton, and in the coming weeks an even more horrifying story emerged: That Dr. Corbin had been left by a woman once before--and that time he may have gotten away with murder. But this time justice would be served….

An Hour To Kill: A True Story of Love, Murder, and Justice in a Small Southern Town


Dale Hudson - 1999
    Family friend. All-American boy. Murderer. Ken Register, much to the shock of the small town of Conway, South Carolina, was all of these things. Clean-cut, polite to a fault, and respectful of elders, Ken was the kind of guy parents wanted their daughters to date. But only months after a seventeen-year-old girl's brutal murder, the residents of Conway were in for another suprise: that the killer was one of their own.A stunned community.Crystal Todd and Ken were "best friends," and had even briefly dated. When Crystal's hideously gutted body was found near the woods of Conway, Ken checked in every day to console Crystal's mother and inquire about the murder investigation.A shocking killer.Ken was practically the last person anyone would suspect. Until he started acting nervous and suspicious, afraid he would be "framed" for Crystal's murder. And until DNA tests confirmed that he was indeed the man who repeatedly raped and stabbed Crystal Todd, then left her mutilated body in a ditch.Discover, through fascinating first-person accounts, the tortured Southern son who committed murder; the courageous detective determined to break the case; the broken mother who lost her only child; and the disbelieving parents who, to this day, defend their son's innocence.

Precious Angels: A True Story of Two Slain Children and a Mother Convicted of Murder


Barbara Davis - 1999
    But the subsequent investigation revealed a darker truth -- the murder of two innocent children by their own mother. Through meticulous research and exclusive sources, "Precious Angels" presents the complete story of this shocking crime.

Bitter Harvest


Ann Rule - 1997
    Debora Green and her husband, Dr. Michael Farrar. Trapped and burned to death in the flames were twelve-year-old Tim and his six-year-old sister Kelly. Lissa, ten, was barely able to leap to safety from the garage roof into the arms of her mother, who was standing outside the house. When Michael Farrar returned to the scene, he had lost more than his children and his home. His entire life was in ruins. The fire was the climactic event of Michael and Debora's lives. Until that summer, they seemed to have it all -- a happy marriage, successful medical practices, three bright and beautiful children. Then they went on a trip to Peru with their son. There, they met attractive, blonde Celeste Walker, whose husband, John was also a successful doctor. But after that trip, nothing was the same again for either couple, and all the dark hidden places in Debora and Michael's marriage bubbled to the surface in a series of almost unbelievable horrors. "Bitter Harvest" is the chronicle of this tragedy in the heartland of America, the true story of the disintegration of a marriage and its horrifying consequences. Rule takes us deep in the psyche of a killer whose behavior was so twisted and so evil that it defies belief. Gripping, powerful, and ultimately terrifying, "Bitter Harvest" is a vivid recreation of an unthinkable crime -- and a depiction of the unimagined depths of a darkness within the human spirit. Copyright © 1998 Ann Rule. All Rights Reserved Performance copyright 1998 by Simon & Schuster Inc. All Rights Reserved

Love, Lies, And Murder: They Were the Perfect Couple... Then He Killed Her


Gary C. King - 2007
    Through his wife Janet, Perry won a position in his father-in-law's firm and joined the city's social elite. The couple raised two children in a mansion that Janet, a talented artist, designed. They seemed to have the good life and more...A Husband's Betrayal...But in 1996, when Janet vanished, police dug into Perry's past, turning up strange stories of sexual obsession, unfaithfulness, and vicious arguments with Janet. When they suspected that one of those fights ended in murder, Perry skipped town with his children. A Father's Vow For Justice  Janet's father would not let Perry escape so easily. He and his agents pursued the murder suspect to Chicago, and then to Mexico, where Perry opened a new practice and remarried. Still, ten years would pass before the desperate fugitive became trapped in his own web of deceit and betrayal. Includes 16 Pages Of Revealing Photos!