Mindhunter: Inside the FBI's Elite Serial Crime Unit


John E. Douglas - 1995
    He has confronted, interviewed and researched dozens of serial killers and assassins, including Charles Manson, Richard Speck, John Wayne Gacy, and James Earl Ray - for a landmark study to understand their motives. To get inside their minds. He is Special Agent John Douglas, the model for law enforcement legend Jack Crawford in Thomas Harris's thrillers Red Dragon and The Silence of the Lambs, and the man who ushered in a new age in behavorial science and criminal profiling. Recently retired after twenty-five years of service, John Douglas can finally tell his unique and compelling story.

Life After Death


Damien Echols - 2012
    The ensuing trial was rife with inconsistencies, false testimony and superstition. Echols was accused of, among other things, practising witchcraft and satanic rituals – a result of the “satanic panic” prevalent in the media at the time. Baldwin and Miskelley were sentenced to life in prison. Echols, deemed the ringleader, was sentenced to death. He was eighteen years old.In a shocking reversal of events, all three were suddenly released in August 2011. This is Damien Echols' story in full: from abuses by prison guards and wardens, to descriptions of inmates and deplorable living conditions, to the incredible reserves of patience, spirituality, and perseverance that kept him alive and sane for nearly two decades. Echols also writes about his complicated and painful childhood. Like Dead Man Walking, Life After Death is destined to be a classic.

The Beast: A Chilling True Story of a Psychopathic Child Killer (Ryan Green's True Crime)


Ryan Green - 2021
    He kidnapped, raped and killed six children and teenagers in a single month. While the previous missing children had been treated like runaways, there was now no question that somebody was abducting children in the Lower Mainland area, and the media went berserk.The police immediately came under scrutiny for failing to connect the previous disappearances. The missing person cases were passed to homicide detectives, and a whole new investigation began. The police were now hunting a serial killer and Clifford Olson Junior was one of the main suspects.From the age of seventeen, Clifford Olson Junior spent only 1,501 days outside of prison or jail. If his claims are to be believed, he averaged about one murder every ten days. During his imprisonment, he was assessed on the Hare Psychopathy Checklist, a tool designed to evaluate psychopathy. The standard threshold is 25-30. He scored a 38 out of 40, the highest rating ever recorded.The Beast is a chilling account of Clifford Olson Junior and one of the most disturbing true crime stories in Canada’s history. Ryan Green’s riveting narrative draws the reader into the real-live horror experienced by the victims and has all the elements of a classic thriller.CAUTION: This book contains descriptive accounts of torture, abuse and violence. If you are especially sensitive to this material, it might be advisable not to read any further.

Lost Girls: An Unsolved American Mystery


Robert Kolker - 2013
    Lost Girls is a portrait of unsolved murders in an idyllic part of America, of the underside of the Internet, and of the secrets we keep without admitting to ourselves that we keep them.

And Then the Darkness


Sue Williams - 2005
    The only witness was Peter′s girlfriend, Joanne Lees, who was found wandering the highway, her hands bound in front of her and tape matted in her hair. The only clue was a pool of blood found by police at the back of the couple′s Kombi.Joanne′s account of her ordeal - the apparent murder of her partner, her binding and gagging, and her miraculous escape into the bush away from her burly attacker and his dog - provoked a frenzy of media interest and a huge police operation, but as clues to the attacker′s identity were few and far between and police blunders mounted, doubts about Joanne′s story began to surface. Was this seemingly innocent English backpacker a liar, after all?Three years on, the saga continues with the trial of Bradley Murdoch, a gun-happy drifter from Western Australia, numerous conspiracy theories and, finally, the discover of some vital genetic evidence.

A Death in Belmont


Sebastian Junger - 2006
    Sensing a break in the case that has paralyzed the city of Boston, the police track down a black man, Roy Smith, who cleaned the victim's house that day and left a receipt with his name on the kitchen counter. Smith is hastily convicted of the Belmont murder, but the terror of the Strangler continues.On the day of the murder, Albert DeSalvo—the man who would eventually confess in lurid detail to the Strangler's crimes—is also in Belmont, working as a carpenter at the Jungers' home. In this spare, powerful narrative, Sebastian Junger chronicles three lives that collide—and ultimately are destroyed—in the vortex of one of the first and most controversial serial murder cases in America.

The Monster of Florence


Douglas Preston - 2008
    Then he discovered that the olive grove in front of their 14th century farmhouse had been the scene of the most infamous double-murders in Italian history, committed by a serial killer known as the Monster of Florence. Preston, intrigued, meets Italian investigative journalist Mario Spezi to learn more.This is the true story of their search for—and identification of—the man they believe committed the crimes, and their chilling interview with him. And then, in a strange twist of fate, Preston and Spezi themselves become targets of the police investigation. Preston has his phone tapped, is interrogated, and told to leave the country. Spezi fares worse: he is thrown into Italy's grim Capanne prison, accused of being the Monster of Florence himself. Like one of Preston's thrillers, The Monster of Florence, tells a remarkable and harrowing story involving murder, mutilation, and suicide—and at the center of it, Preston and Spezi, caught in a bizarre prosecutorial vendetta.

No, Pete Townshend: The Kids Aren't Alright


Les Macdonald - 2019
    These murders were all committed by children from the ages of 6-17. Part One contains nine chapters of children from the ages of 6-11. It opens with two chapters on two kids who were both six years old. One boy in 1929 and one boy in 2000. The stories of Carl Mahan and Dedrick Owens occurred 71 years apart but the results were very similar. Nothing good happens when a six year old boy picks up a gun. Part Two holds eight chapters on kids from 12-14 years old. This section opens with 12 year old Jasmine Richardson who murdered her family in Canada in 2006. Part Three consists of five chapters on children ages 15-17 who have committed murder. This section opens with 15 year old school shooter, Kip Kinkel. The book ends with another school shooting. Brenda Spencer was 16 years old when she started firing at an elementary school across the street. Also, a Supreme Court case, Miller vs Alabama (2012), makes its presence felt in a few chapters.

Fast Eddie: My 20 Years on the Run as Britain's Most Wanted Man


Eddie Maher - 2017
    The moment in crime history that one of Britain's most audacious thefts ever took place and the legend of 'Fast Eddie' was created.This is the story of how Securicor guard Eddie Maher managed to pull off a £1.2 million heist, fled the country despite every port being closed, spawned an international manhunt, and managed to evade capture for 20 years. As Britain's Most Wanted Man, he led 30 detectives, FBI and Interpol on a wild goose chase across the USA.Dubbed 'Fast Eddie' by the press, he was always one step ahead and after two decades on the run with his family using a series of of aliases and identities, Eddie began to think he'd committed the perfect crime until a cruel and dramatic betrayal proved otherwise...Like a Hollywood movie script and told in full for the first time, Fast Eddie is the compelling story of how an ordinary British man became America's most notorious fugitive.

Spilled Milk


K.L. Randis - 2013
    When social services jeopardize her safety condemning her to keep her father’s secret, it’s a glass of spilled milk at the dinner table that forces her to speak about the cruelty she’s been hiding. In her pursuit for safety and justice Brooke battles a broken system that pushes to keep her father in the home. When jury members and a love interest congregate to inspire her to fight, she risks losing the support of family and comes to the realization that some people simply do not want to be saved. Spilled Milk is a novel of shocking narrative, triumph and resiliency.

In Search of the Rainbow's End: Inside the White House Farm Murders


Colin Caffell - 2020
    . . both deeply moving and quietly inspiring' FREDDIE FOX'A beautiful, very moving book' CRESSIDA BONASIn 1985, the shocking murder of a family of five in a quiet country house in Essex rocked the nation. The victims were Nevill and June Bamber; their adopted daughter Sheila Caffell, divorced from her husband Colin; and Sheila and Colin's twin sons, Nicholas and Daniel. Only one survivor remained: the Bamber's other adopted child, Jeremy Bamber. Following his lead, the police - and later the press - blamed the murders on Sheila, who, so the story went, then committed suicide.Written by Sheila's ex-husband Colin and originally published in 1994, In Search of the Rainbow's End is the first and only book about the White House Farm murders to have been written by a family member. It is the inside story of two families into whose midst the most monstrous events erupted. When Jeremy Bamber is later convicted on all five counts of murder, Colin is left to pick up the pieces of his life after not only burying his ex-wife, two children and parents-in-law, but also having to cope with memories of Sheila almost shattered by a predatory press hungry for stories of sex, drugs and the high life. Colin's tale is not just a rare insider's picture of murder, but testimony to the strength and resilience of one man in search of healing after trauma: he describes his process of recovery, a process that led to his working in prisons, helping to rehabilitate,among others, convicted murderers. By turns emotive, terrifying, and inspiring, Colin Caffell's account of mass murder and its aftermath will not fail to move and astonish.

Hell's Prisoner: The Shocking True Story Of An Innocent Man Jailed For Eleven Years In Indonesia's Most Notorious Prisons


Christopher V.V. Parnell - 2003
    A world where murder, torture and fights to the death are the norm. Where the guards turn a blind eye to the lethal weapons prisoners carry . . . and use almost daily.Hell's Prisoner is the powerful story of one man's battle to survive in some of the world's cruellest and most inhumane prisons. Christopher Parnell, wrongly accused of drug trafficking, found himself catapulted into the maelstrom of madness and degradation that exists within Indonesian jails. Surrounded by murderers and sadistic violent criminals, he soon learned that life can be as cheap as a bowl of rice or a cigarette.During his imprisonment, Parnell was subjected to unthinkable sessions of torture, both physical and psychological. Left to starve and fight every day for his survival, he was forced to eat everything from cockroaches to human flesh.This is an incredible tale of fatalism and bureaucracy, of corruption and the horrors of prison, but most of all it is a no-holds-barred account of what the human spirit can endure.

A Fair Cop. Michael Bunting


Michael Bunting - 2008
    It was Michael Bunting's life ambition to follow in his father's footsteps & become a police officer. But six years after his family watch him pass out & begin his life's dream, he is serving a sentence for a crime he didn't commit. This is his story.

The Ice Man: Confessions of a Mafia Contract Killer


Philip Carlo - 2006
    . . if I kill Mommy, if something happens and she dies, I’ll have to kill you all . . .  I can’t leave any witnesses.”“Yes, Daddy.  I know, Daddy,” she said.As strange and horrible a thing as this was to tell a child, Richard was trying to let Merrick know in advance—out of consideration—what might happen.  He wanted her to understand that he was doing such a thing out of . . . love.  Only out of love.He loved Barbara too much. He loved the children too much.That was the problem.  The only way he could deal with their loss, if he inadvertently killed Barbara, was to kill them.  That was how Richard had dealt with all his problems since he was a child. “But you, Merrick . . . You’ll be the hardest to kill.  You understand that?”“Yes. Daddy,” she said, and she did understand this.  She knew she was his favorite, and she coveted that. ---from The Ice Man

Devil's Knot: The True Story of the West Memphis Three


Mara Leveritt - 2002
    Award-winning journalist Mara Leveritt's The Devil's Knot remains the most comprehensive, insightful reporting ever done on the investigation, trials, and convictions of three teenage boys who became known as the West Memphis Three.For weeks in 1993, after the murders of three eight-year-old boys, police in West Memphis, Arkansas seemed stymied. Then suddenly, detectives charged three teenagers, alleged members of a satanic cult, with the killings. Despite the witch-hunt atmosphere of the trials, and a case which included stunning investigative blunders, a confession riddled with errors, and an absence of physical evidence linking any of the accused to the crime, the teenagers were convicted. Jurors sentenced Jason Baldwin and Jessie Misskelley to life in prison and Damien Echols, the accused ringleader, to death. The guilty verdicts were popular in their home state, even upheld on appeal, and all three remained in prison until their unprecedented release in August 2011.With close-up views of its key participants, this award-winning account unravels the many tangled knots of this endlessly shocking case, one which will shape the American legal landscape for years to come.