Solving Cold Cases: True Crime Stories That Took Years to Crack


Andrew J. Clark - 2015
    One of the best words to describe the cases recounted in this book. These gruesome crimes seemed to hit a dead end… That is until the case was reopened for investigation years later and solved. From the more famous cases to the more obscure, the crimes and hardships that the victims had to suffer will send shivers down your spine. Notably detailing the disappearance of Chandra Levy to the multiple murders committed by Dennis Rader. You will find that this book includes: • Bone chilling murder and disappearance cases • The rise of DNA technology • International cases from the United Kingdom • More local cases from North America • Ingenious methods that some investigators had to resort to in order to solve the cases. • Cases that took decades to solve!

Hunting the President: Threats, Plots and Assassination Attempts--From FDR to Obama


Mel Ayton - 2014
    Presidents have been murdered at the hands of an assassin. In each case the assassinations changed the course of American history.But most historians have overlooked or downplayed the many threats modern presidents have faced, and survived. Author Mel Ayton sets the record straight in his new book Hunting the President: Threats, Plots and Assassination Attempts—From FDR to Obama, telling the sensational story of largely forgotten—or never-before revealed—malicious attempts to slay America’s leaders.Supported by court records, newspaper archives, government reports, FBI files, and transcripts of interviews from presidential libraries, Hunting the President reveals: How an armed, would-be assassin stalked President Roosevelt and spent ten days waiting across the street from the White House for his chance to shoot himHow the Secret Service foiled a plot by a Cuban immigrant who told coworkers he was going to shoot LBJ from a window overlooking the president’s motorcade routeHow a deranged man broke into Reagan’s California home and attempted to strangle the former president before he was subdued by Secret Service agents.In early 1992 a mentally deranged man stalking Bush turned up at the wrong presidential venue for his planned assassination attemptThe relationships presidents held with their protectors and the effect it had on the Secret Service’s missionHunting the President opens the vault of stories about how many of our recent Presidents have come within a hair’s breadth of assassination, leaving America’s fate in the balance. Most of these stories have remained buried—until now. Includes glossy photo signature of historic pictures and documents

Al Capone: A Life From Beginning to End


Hourly History - 2018
    While opinions of the infamous mob leader varied from group to group, Capone was at one point seen by many as a lovable outlaw and modern Robin Hood. How could this man who ran the most vicious criminal organization in the country become so beloved by the general public? Was it the rags to riches tale of an immigrant that rose from the bottom to make it to the big time that transfixed the nation? Or is it something else entirely? Let us discover just what is it about the life of Al Capone that seems to spark both disgust and admiration in those that hear it.

The Gangs of Chicago: An Informal History of the Chicago Underworld


Herbert Asbury - 1940
    Recounting the lives of such notorious denizens as the original Mickey Finn, the mass murderer H. H. Holmes, and the three Car Barn Bandits, Asbury reveals life as it was lived in the criminal districts of the Levee, Hell's Half-Acre, the Bad Lands, Little Cheyenne, Custom House Place, and the Black Hole. His description of Chicago's infamous red light district -- where the brothels boasted opulence unheard of before or since -- vividly captures the wicked splendor that was Chicago. The Gangs of Chicago spans from the time "Slab Town" was settled to Prohibition days. The story of Chicago's golden age of crime climaxes with a dramatic account of the careers of the "biggest of the Big Shots": Big Jim Colosimo, Terrible Johnny Torrio, and the elusive Al Capone. Photographs and illustrations round out this telling of Chicago's early underworld. "Still the most detailed, reliable, and readable account of the nether side of Chicago's first century, deserves reading and rereading . . . " -- Perry R. Duis, Chicago historian

Michigan's Strychnine Saint: The Curious Case of Mrs. Mary McKnight


Tobin T. Buhk - 2014
      The spring of 1903 proved disastrous for the Murphy family. On April 22, the infant Ruth Murphy died in her crib. Within an hour, her mother, Gertrude, experienced a violent spasm before she, too, died. Ten days later, John Murphy followed his wife and child to the grave after suffering from a crippling convulsion. While neighbors whispered about a curse and physicians feared a contagious disease, Kalkaska County sheriff John W. Creighton and prosecuting attorney Ernest C. Smith searched for answers. As they probed deeper into the suspicious deaths, they uncovered a wicked web of intrigue. And at the center stood a widow in a black taffeta dress.   Includes photos

Blood Frenzy


Robert Scott - 2010
    . . Frankie Cochran knew her boyfriend, David Gerard, was possessive, controlling, and prone to violent rages. When she tried to break up with him, Gerard threatened her with a hammer. One week later, he used it to club her in the head. Again. And again. Then he stabbed her in the throat--and left her for dead. . .And A Sharp Knife. . . Miraculously, Frankie survived--but cops began to suspect Gerard of other vicious crimes. One of his previous girlfriends had died in a house fire, along with her children and her mother. A local prostitute's brutalized body was found in a pool of blood. But it was the unsolved murder of another woman--repeatedly run over on a country road--that finally exposed Gerard as a rage-driven monster out of control. . .To Unleash His Rage Justice finally caught up with Gerard. Hounded by the tireless efforts of detectives and incriminated by DNA evidence as well as up-to-date forensics that matched the tire marks at a crime scene to Gerard's car, one of the Pacific Northwest's most dangerous killers was finally locked behind bars. With 16 pages of shocking photos!

Vintage True Crime Stories Vol I: An Illustrated Anthology of Forgotten Cases of Murder & Mayhem


Frank Dalton O'Sullivan - 2018
    The cold-blooded killers of today are the same as they were long ago.  To prove this theory, consider the case summaries below that are featured in this book, Vintage True Crime Stories, Volume I.Summary of Chapter One: Twenty years before the 1932 kidnapping and murder of Charles Lindbergh Jr., there was the Marie Smith case of 1910. Her killer was German, spoke with a thick German accent, and his last name was even similar to Hauptmann’s. Both men were entrapped by scientific advancements that were landmarks for future cases. And, in the end, both men were executed in the same electric chair.Summary of Chapter Two: Like a scene in a 21st Century action movie, two hitmen on a motorcycle roar down a Rhode Island road late at night. At the designated location, they stop beside the chauffeur driven automobile of a wealthy doctor who was accompanied by his mistress that night. At nearly point blank range, the assassins emptied their pistols at the two figures in the backseat. They ignored the driver and sped away, disappearing into the darkness. The events of that night lead to a one-of-a-kind murder trial with an outcome that reinforced the duality of American justice for the next one-hundred years.Chapter 7 Summary: (No one has made a movie about this next case, but they should.) During the late hours of January 10, 1895, two burglars break into the parsonage of Rev. William Hinshaw and his wife Thurza. A fight breaks out; Thurza is shot in the head and dies on the steps to the back door. Bravely, William puts up a good fight despite being shot once and stabbed many times. Instead of finishing him off, the two men thought better of it and disappeared down a snow-covered lane.Neighbors, friends, and newspaper editors declare Rev. William Hinshaw a hero. One needed only to look at his many wounds to see that that he battled it out with the two robbers—the ones who never left footprints on the snow covered lanes of Belleville, Indiana.Chapter 11 Summary: On January 1, 1914, the small cabin of a local photographer burns to the ground. Inside, they find his body. Three days later, it happens again. Autopsies prove the men were killed before the fires were set. The evidence leads investigators to an elderly Civil War veteran with a dark past filled with dead bodies. These four stories were recently discovered in one of the rarest true crime books known to exist, Enemies of the Underworld: Embracing Sixty-Eight Stories by America's foremost Detectives, by Frank Dalton O’Sullivan.His 700-page tome is a combination manual for new detectives, and true crime book featuring true stories co-authored by senior detectives and police chiefs from across the United States. Self-published in 1917, the book sold for five-dollars, the 2018 equivalent of $108--which might explain why it's nearly impossible to find a copy of it today.With this artifact, Historical Crime Detective Publishing saw it as the perfect foundation to structure a new anthology series simply titled: Vintage True Crime Stories: An Illustrated Anthology of Forgotten Cases of Murder & Mayhem.Volume I contains fifteen stories from O’Sullivan’s book, while the remaining five chapters were selected from Fifty Years a Detective by Thomas Furlong, published in 1912.Mixed in with these twenty stories are sixty-five images, fifty-two footnotes, a dozen epilogues, and ten annotations.

Murder of an Elvis Girl: Solving the Jenny Maxwell Case


Buddy Moorehouse - 2021
    

L.A. Despair: A Landscape of Crimes & Bad Times


John Gilmore - 2005
    Gilmore obsesses on a relentless panorama of sex, violence and death in five new chronicles of So Cal sickness: *the sex-and-drug soaked Wonderland murders featuring porn legend John Holmes *Sexpot Starlet Barbara Payton's hellbent descent into the gutters of Tinseltown *the Hollywood Hooker who landed in San Quentin's gas chamber, the Ice Blonde Murderess Barbara Graham For those already steeped in the canon of John Gilmore's work, this is the long-awaited true-crime capstone to a celebrated collection of works, a blood-and-semen-soaked noir trail of all-night diners, nightclubs and cheap motels.

Breaking the Code: A True Story by a Hells Angel President and the Cop Who Pursued Him


Pat Matter - 2014
    An honest, hard-working cop. Both of their lives on totally different paths until their worlds collide..."With no holds barred, Omodt and Matter ripback the curtain of seedy reality and toss you headlongintothecomplex relationships of biker gangs and the cops whose job it is to pursue them. The writing is graphic, truthful, revealing and explores both sides of the law-the right side, and the wrong side-with equal detail. For lovers of true crime writing this is a must-read." - Mark Reps, author, Sheriff Zeb Hanks crime series"The story of an adversarial relationship that turned into one of the most unlikely, remarkable friendships I've ever been exposed to. And, as written by the two protagonists, BREAKING THE CODE is told in the most authentic voice you'll ever read. Beyond the true crime audience, this is a story filled with so much humanity it must be experienced by all readers." - Ali Selim, writer and director of the award-winning film, Sweet Land"Up until BREAKING THE CODE I knew Pat Matter to be a formidable but fair motorcycle drag racer and a competent professional as leader of Minneapolis Custom Cycle. This book fills in the blanks about the other 'dark' side of his life as a Hells Angel-a must-read to get the whole story." - George B. Smith, Executive Chairman and CEO of S&S Motor Company, Viola, WI"BREAKING THE CODE takes you on a real-life crime adventure ... a fascinating behind-the-scenes look at Hells Angels, and what it took to take down one of their most prominent leaders." - Tom Chorske, retired NHL player and commentator for FSN Sports

Through My Eyes: CSI Memoirs That Haunt the Soul


Tamara Mickelson - 2020
    Catch a glimpse of what she saw, touched, smelled, and even tasted during an average workday. Dare to join her as she takes you through a difficult journey of memories, uncovering layers of emotional trauma left behind. Discover the ways she healed from yesterday's pain to live an emotionally balanced life today.

Australian Heist


James Phelps - 2018
    On June 15, 1862 a gang of bushrangers pulled off the largest gold robbery in Australia's history atEugowra Rocks. The gang escaped with bank notes and 77kg of gold, worth about $10 million today. It remains Australia's largest gold robbery. The story of how Ben Hall, Frank Gardiner, John O'Mealley, John Gilbert, Harry Manns, Alex Fordyce, John Bow and Dan Charters - planned and executed the robbery and what happened to all that gold is the stuff of a brilliant, modern, exciting crime book. This is Australian history on the very best crime-writing steroids from Australia's number one true crime writer.

City of Secrets: The Truth Behind the Murders at the Vatican


John Follain - 2003
    It was the worst bloodbath to take place in more than a century in the heart of the supreme authority of the world's one billion Roman Catholics. Four hours later, the Vatican announced that the lance corporal, twenty-three-year-old Cédric Tornay, had shot the couple, then committed suicide in "a fit of madness" brought on by frutstration with the unit's discipline - a conclusion it reaffirmed after a nine-month internal inquiry.But as John Follain's hard-hitting exposé shows, the official report was a travesty, a tissue of suppositions, contradictions, and omissions. Based on an exhaustive three-year investigation - the first independent attempt to establish the truth - 'City of Secrets' reveals how the Vatican, the oldest and most secretive autocracy in the world, staged an elaborate plot to obstruct justice and hide the scandals it dares not confess. Echoing the pace and plotting of a highstakes thriller, Follain's true-life tale of intrigue moves from the guards' barracks and the pope's palace in Vatican City to Paris, Berlin, and the Swiss Alps, and features a fascinating cast: an old, suffering John Paul II; his chief bodyguard, formerly accused of spying for the Soviet bloc; a mysterious priest punished by the Vatican; and the powerful Opus Dei sect.Timely and explosive, 'City of Secrets' is the story of a still-unsolved crime committed on holy territory, and of a systematic attempt to hide the fatal failings of a security force charged with protecting one of the world's most influential leaders.

Jack The Ripper: The Truth About The Whitechapel Murders


Tom King - 2017
    In one of the first recognized mass murderers, he terrorized some of London’s poorest and most vulnerable residents and brutally killed a series of women before seeming to disappear. Police investigative practices were in their infancy at the time, and without sophisticated tools, London’s forces of order were unable to catch the criminal. More than 100 years later, his true identity is still unknown, and the hunt for Jack the Ripper has consumed many an armchair sleuth. By reading this book, you, too, will be able to take part in a now-historic search for a murderer who has never been brought to justice. Step back in time to 1888 and try to discover, if you can, the man who was Jack the Ripper. Scroll to the top of the page and click Add To Cart to read more about this extraordinary chapter of history

Hoods: The Gangs of Nottingham, A Study in Organised Crime


Carl Fellstrom - 2006
    The slaughter of Joan and John Stirland revealed an evil empire of powerful ganglords, contract killings and police corruption. At its dark heart was the East Midlands city of Nottingham. A prosperous centre of business, education and leisure, Nottingham had fallen under the shadow of vicious gangsters. Eventually its police were investigating so many murders that their boss had to appeal to other forces for help, and the influx of drugs and weapons saw the city labelled "Gun Capital UK".HOODS traces the roots of the gangs, revealing how economic dislocation and the clash of cultures between working-class white residents and black immigrants from the 1950s onwards created an alienated underclass. In the 1990s, a more malignant breed of organised criminal emerged. Crime families who had been involved in armed robbery, protection rackets and extortion now sought to control the recreational drugs trade and forged links across Europe to import wholesale quantities of cocaine, ecstasy and amphetamines. By 2002, shootings were running at one a week. HOODS uncovers how outlaw Yardies pioneered the sale of crack cocaine and imported the ruthless violence of the Jamaican ghettos; how young black gangs from the so-called NG Triangle of the Meadows, St Ann’s and Radford areas clashed in a series of turf wars; how the shadowy Dawes Cartel built a lucrative international drugs empire; and how the Bestwood Cartel and its terrifying leader, Colin Gunn, corrupted police officers and left dead and maimed in its wake. As local police struggled to cope with the mayhem, MI5 and the National Crime Squad launched a massive undercover investigation into the Nottingham ‘untouchables’. It led ultimately to the dismantling of some of the UK’s most powerful crime networks. HOODS is a stark account of what happens when the rule of the gun supplants the rule of law and fear stalks the streets.