Book picks similar to
Minds on Trial: Great Cases in Law and Psychology by Charles Patrick Ewing
psychology
non-fiction
nonfiction
law
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.
Profiles in Murder: An FBI Legend Dissects Killers and Their Crimes
Russell Vorpagel - 1998
Was her killer a raging psychotic, or as timid as she was?In a charred house a partially clothed woman is found in her bed with a pornographic magazine and a mirror. Did she die in the fire -- or at a sex killer's hands?Before it was immortalized in The Silence of the Lambs, the FBI Behavioral Science Profiling Unit was pioneered by Russell Vorpagel. Now the legendary profiler takes you into the most intriguing cases of his career -- actual cases of serial killings, sex crimes, celebrity murders, and hostage takings. Showing how profiling turns the chaos and blood of a crime scene into a psychological snapshot of a suspect -- his age, his personality, even the model car he drives -- Vorpagel illuminates the twisted minds of the most vicious criminals of our time. From the vampire murderer Richard Trenton Case -- who consumed the blood of his victims -- to Vorpagel's own duel with an assassin on the island of St. Croix, Profiles in Murder is the chilling real-life story of the human monsters who share our streets -- and the men and women who hunt them down.
Such Good Boys: The True Story of a Mother, Two Sons and a Horrifying Murder
Tina Dirmann - 2005
She even locked him out of the house, tied him up with electrical cord, and on one occasion, gave him a beating that sent him to the emergency room. His fifteen-year-old half brother Matthew Montejo also was a victim to Jane Bautista's dark mood swings and erratic behavior, but for some reason, Jason received the brunt of the abuse—until he decided he'd had enough…A SON'S REVENGEOn the night of January 14, 2003, Jason strangled his mother. To keep authorities from identifying her body, he chopped off her head and hands, an idea he claimed he got from watching an episode of the hit TV series "The Sopranos." Matthew would later testify in court that he sat in another room in the house with the TV volume turned up while Jason murdered their mother. He also testified that he drove around with Jason to find a place to dump Jane's torso.A CRIME THAT WOULD BOND TWO BROTHERSThe morning following the murder, Matthew went to school, and Jason returned to his classes at Cal State San Bernardino. When authorities zeroed in on them, Jason lied and said that Jane had run off with a boyfriend she'd met on the Internet. But when police confronted the boys with overwhelming evidence, Jason confessed all. Now the nightmare was only just beginning for him…
Let the People Pick the President: The Case for Abolishing the Electoral College
Jesse Wegman - 2020
Lawmakers have tried to amend or abolish it more than 700 times. To this day, millions of voters, and even members of Congress, misunderstand how it works. It deepens our national divide and distorts the core democratic principles of political equality and majority rule. How can we tolerate the Electoral College when every vote does not count the same, and the candidate who gets the most votes can lose?Twice in the last five elections, the Electoral College has overridden the popular vote, calling the integrity of the entire system into question—and creating a false picture of a country divided into bright red and blue blocks when in fact we are purple from coast to coast. Even when the popular-vote winner becomes president, tens of millions of Americans—Republicans and Democrats alike—find that their votes didn't matter. And, with statewide winner-take-all rules, only a handful of battleground states ultimately decide who will become president.Now, as political passions reach a boiling point at the dawn of the 2020 race, the message from the American people is clear: The way we vote for the only official whose job it is to represent all Americans is neither fair nor just. Major reform is needed—now. Isn't it time to let the people pick the president?In this thoroughly researched and engaging call to arms, Supreme Court journalist and New York Times editorial board member Jesse Wegman draws upon the history of the founding era, as well as information gleaned from campaign managers, field directors, and other officials from twenty-first-century Democratic and Republican presidential campaigns, to make a powerful case for abolishing the antiquated and antidemocratic Electoral College. In Let the People Pick the President he shows how we can at long last make every vote in the United States count—and restore belief in our democratic system.
Cult City: Jim Jones, Harvey Milk, and 10 Days That Shook San Francisco
Daniel J. Flynn - 2018
The Reverend Jim Jones, the darling of the San Francisco political establishment, orchestrates the murders and suicides of 918 people at a remote jungle outpost in South America. Days later, Harvey Milk, one of America’s first openly gay elected officials—and one of Jim Jones’s most vocal supporters—is assassinated in San Francisco’s City Hall. This horrifying sequence of events shocked the world. Almost immediately, the lives and deaths of Jim Jones and Harvey Milk became shrouded in myth. The distortions and omissions have piled up since. Now, forty years later, this book corrects the record. The product of a decade of research, including extensive archival work and dozens of exclusive interviews, Cult City reveals just how confused our understanding has become. In life, Jim Jones enjoyed the support of prominent politicians and Hollywood stars even as he preached atheism and communism from the pulpit; in death, he transforms into a fringe figure, a “fundamentalist Christian,” and a “fascist.” In life, Harvey Milk outed friends, faked hate crimes, and falsely claimed that the U.S. Navy dishonorably discharged him over his homosexuality; in death, he is honored in an Oscar-winning movie, with a California state holiday, and with a U.S. Navy ship named for him. His assassin, a blue-collar Democrat who often voted with Milk in support of gay issues, is remembered as a right-winger and a homophobe. But the story extends far beyond Jones and Milk. Author Daniel J. Flynn vividly portrays the strange intersection of mainstream politics and murderous extremism in 1970s San Francisco—the hangover after the high of the Summer of Love. In recounting the fascinating, intersecting lives of Jim Jones and Harvey Milk, Cult City tells the story of a great city gone horribly wrong.
The Education of a Coroner: Lessons in Investigating Death
John Bateson - 2017
Judy Melinek’s Working Stiff, an account of the hair-raising and heartbreaking cases handled by the coroner of Marin County, California throughout his four decades on the job—from high-profile deaths to serial killers, to Golden Gate Bridge suicides.Marin County, California is a study in contradictions. Its natural beauty attracts thousands of visitors every year, yet the county also is home to San Quentin Prison, one of the oldest and largest penitentiaries in the country. Marin ranks in the top one percent of counties nationwide in terms of affluence and overall health, yet it is far above the norm in drug overdoses and alcoholism, and comprises a large percentage of suicides from the Golden Gate Bridge. Ken Holmes worked in the Marin County Coroner’s Office for thirty-six years, starting as a death investigator and ending as the three-term, elected coroner. As he grew into the job—which is different from what is depicted on television—Holmes learned a variety of skills, from finding hidden clues at death scenes, interviewing witnesses effectively, managing bystanders and reporters, preparing testimony for court to notifying families of a death with sensitivity and compassion. He also learned about different kinds of firearms, all types of drugs—prescription and illegal—and about certain unexpected and potentially fatal phenomena such as autoeroticism. Complete with poignant anecdotes, The Education of a Coroner provides a firsthand and fascinating glimpse into the daily life of a public servant whose work is dark and mysterious yet necessary for society to function.
CASE CLOSED: Serial Killers Captured
R.J. Parker - 2011
When a Serial Killer is active in a community it is extremely scary for everyone. This book focuses on Serial Killers who have been captured and some of the most notorious and ruthless killers in history. Serial killers stay close to home and their victims are random. Dennis Rader found all his victims in Kansas not far from the Wichita home he shared with his wife and two kids. Rader, the president of his local church, knocked on his victim's doors and they simply let him in. John Wayne Gacy, met many of his 33 victims, all young men and boys, at charity events where he appeared dressed a clown. After luring them to his house and murdering them he stuffed them under his Cook County, Illinois home. Gary Leon Ridgway, the Green River Killer, was convicted of strangling 49 random women he met in Washington. He confessed to killing 71 but authorities believe the number of victims could be over 90. Jeffrey Dahmer of Milwaukee admitted to killing and cannibalizing 17 young men and boys before he was arrested. Case Closed is a compilation of criminal file dossiers on several of those Serial Killers that were captured, including:Ted BundyJohn Wayne Gacy - The Killer ClownJeffrey DahmerDonald Henry GaskinsGary Ridgway - The Green River KillerDennis Rader - The BTK KillerDavid Berkowitz - The Son of SamOttis Toole and Henry Lee Lucas - The Homosexual Crime TeamAnd Many More.
Physics Essentials for Dummies
Steven Holzner - 2010
Free of ramp-up and ancillary material, Physics Essentials For Dummies contains content focused on key topics only. It provides discrete explanations of critical concepts taught in an introductory physics course, from force and motion to momentum and kinetics. This guide is also a perfect reference for parents who need to review critical physics concepts as they help high school students with homework assignments, as well as for adult learners headed back to the classroom who just need a refresher of the core concepts. The Essentials For Dummies SeriesDummies is proud to present our new series, The Essentials For Dummies. Now students who are prepping for exams, preparing to study new material, or who just need a refresher can have a concise, easy-to-understand review guide that covers an entire course by concentrating solely on the most important concepts. From algebra and chemistry to grammar and Spanish, our expert authors focus on the skills students most need to succeed in a subject.
The Psychopath: A True Story
Mary Turner-Thomson - 2021
Unbeknownst to her, this would be the start of a bold new chapter in her life, fighting to protect other women from his heartless gaslighting campaigns—and putting a stop to his endless deception.
Without a Trace: Unsolved Disappearances and Mysterious Vanishings
Troy Taylor - 2020
Such strange and chilling tales run the gamut of the terrifying and the bizarre and include crime victims, lost explorers, ships vanished at sea, outdoor disappearances, and supernatural mysteries that defy all explanation. Among these pages you’ll find accounts of America’s Lost Colony, history’s most famous ghost ships, famous figures who vanished into the unknown, the unknown fate of America’s first kidnapping for ransom, a vanished heiress, lighthouse keepers who impossibly disappeared, the killer who escaped the noose – permanently, the Grand Canyon adventurers who were never seen again, the Prohibition lawman’s nephew who was never found, the Ohio sorority girl who never made it home, the abducted housewife who disappeared, the Hollywood starlet who left her family behind, a missing West Point cadet, the babysitter who vanished on Halloween, the missing Texas couple who may have been Russian spies, the little boy who walked away for good in the Smoky Mountains, a missing heiress to a candy empire, a missing TV news reporter, a long distance runner whose run never ended, plus infamous vanishings of figures like Theodosia Burr, Amelia Earhart, Glenn Miller, Judge Crater, Jimmy Hoffa, and far too many more! Just remember as you turn the pages, that if these people so easily vanished from the face of the earth, then it means it could happen to anyone – perhaps even you. You may want to read this one with the lights on.
Mind Fixers: Psychiatry's Troubled Search for the Biology of Mental Illness
Anne Harrington - 2019
She shows how the stalling of early twentieth century efforts in this direction allowed Freudians and social scientists to insist, with some justification, that they had better ways of analyzing and fixing minds.But when the Freudians overreached, they drove psychiatry into a state of crisis that a new “biological revolution” was meant to alleviate. Harrington shows how little that biological revolution had to do with breakthroughs in science, and why the field has fallen into a state of crisis in our own time.Mind Fixers makes clear that psychiatry’s waxing and waning biological enthusiasms have been shaped not just by developments in the clinic and lab, but also by a surprising range of social factors, including immigration, warfare, grassroots activism, and assumptions about race and gender. Government programs designed to empty the state mental hospitals, acrid rivalries between different factions in the field, industry profit mongering, consumerism, and an uncritical media have all contributed to the story as well.In focusing particularly on the search for the biological roots of schizophrenia, depression, and bipolar disorder, Harrington underscores the high human stakes for the millions of people who have sought medical answers for their mental suffering. This is not just a story about doctors and scientists, but about countless ordinary people and their loved ones.A clear-eyed, evenhanded, and yet passionate tour de force, Mind Fixers recounts the past and present struggle to make mental illness a biological problem in order to lay the groundwork for creating a better future, both for those who suffer and for those whose job it is to care for them.
Because We Are Bad: OCD and a Girl Lost in Thought
Lily Bailey - 2016
She had killed someone with a thought, spread untold disease, and ogled the bodies of other children. Only by performing an exhausting series of secret routines could she make up for what she’d done. But no matter how intricate or repetitive, no act of penance was ever enough.Beautifully written and astonishingly intimate, Because We Are Bad recounts a childhood consumed by obsessive compulsive disorder. As a child, Bailey created a second personality inside herself—"I" became "we"—to help manifest compulsions that drove every minute of every day of her young life. Now she writes about the forces beneath her skin, and how they ordered, organized, and urged her forward. Lily charts her journey, from checking on her younger sister dozens of times a night, to "normalizing" herself at school among new friends as she grew older, and finally to her young adult years, learning—indeed, breaking through—to make a way for herself in a big, wide world that refuses to stay in check.Charming and raw, harrowing and redemptive, Because We Are Bad is an illuminating and uplifting look into the mind and soul of an extraordinary young woman, and a startling portrait of OCD that allows us to see and understand this condition as never before.
The Other Side of the River: A Story of Two Towns, a Death, and America's Dilemma
Alex Kotlowitz - 1998
His beautifully narrated, heartbreaking nonfiction account of two black boys struggling to grow up in a Chicago public housing complex spent eight weeks on The New York Times bestseller list, was a made-for-television movie starring and produced by Oprah Winfrey, won many distinguished awards, and sparked a continuing national debate on the lives of inner-city children.In The Other Side of the River, his eagerly awaited new book, Kotlowitz takes us to southern Michigan. Here, separated by the St. Joseph River, are two towns, St. Joseph and Benton Harbor. Geographically close, they are worlds apart, a living metaphor for America's racial divisions: St. Joseph is a prosperous lakeshore community and ninety-five percent white, while Benton Harbor is impoverished and ninety-two percent black. When the body of a black teenaged boy from Benton Harbor is found in the river, unhealed wounds and suspicions between the two towns' populations surface as well. The investigation into the young man's death becomes, inevitably, a screen on which each town projects their resentments and fears.The Other Side of the River sensitively portrays the lives and hopes of the towns' citizens as they wrestle with this mystery--and reveals the attitudes and misperceptions that undermine race relations throughout America. In this gripping and ultimately profound book, Alex Kotlowitz proves why he is one of this country's foremost writers on the ever explosive issue of race.From the Hardcover edition.
The Cyber Effect: A Pioneering Cyberpsychologist Explains How Human Behavior Changes Online
Mary Aiken - 2016
Levitt, co-author of Freakonomics - One of the best books of the year--NatureMary Aiken, the world's leading expert in forensic cyberpsychology, offers a starting point for all future conversations about how the Internet is shaping development and behavior, societal norms and values, children, safety, privacy, and our perception of the world. Drawing on her own research and extensive experience with law enforcement, Aiken covers a wide range of subjects, from the impact of screens on the developing child to the explosion of teen sexting and the acceleration of compulsive and addictive behaviors online. Aiken provides surprising statistics and incredible-but-true case studies of hidden trends that are shaping our culture and raising troubling questions about where the digital revolution is taking us.Praise for The Cyber Effect"How to guide kids in a hyperconnected world is one of the biggest challenges for today's parents. Mary Aiken clearly and calmly separates reality from myth. She clearly lays out the issues we really need to be concerned about and calmly instructs us on how to keep our kids safe and healthy in their digital lives."--Peggy Orenstein, author of the New York Times bestseller Girls & Sex"[A] fresh voice and a uniquely compelling perspective that draws from the murky, fascinating depths of her criminal case file and her insight as a cyber-psychologist . . . This is Aiken's cyber cri de coeur as a forensic scientist, and she wants everyone on the case."--The Washington Post"Fascinating . . . If you have children, stop what you are doing and pick up a copy of The Cyber Effect."--The Times (UK)"An incisive tour of sociotechnology and its discontents."--Nature"Just as Rachel Carson launched the modern environmental movement with her Silent Spring, Mary Aiken delivers a deeply disturbing, utterly penetrating, and urgently timed investigation into the perils of the largest unregulated social experiment of our time."--Bob Woodward"Mary Aiken takes us on a fascinating, thought-provoking, and at times scary journey down the rabbit hole to witness how the Internet is changing the human psyche. A must-read for anyone who wants to understand the temptations and tragedies of cyberspace."--John R. Suler, PhD, author of The Psychology of Cyberspace"Drawing on a fascinating and mind-boggling range of research and knowledge, Mary Aiken has written a great, important book that terrifies then consoles by pointing a way forward so that our experience online might not outstrip our common sense."--Steven D. Levitt"Having worked with law enforcement groups from INTERPOL and Europol as well as the U.S. government, Aiken knows firsthand how today's digital tools can be exploited by criminals lurking in the Internet's Dark Net."--Newsweek
Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty
Patrick Radden KeefePatrick Radden Keefe - 2021
The Sackler name adorns the walls of many storied institutions: Harvard, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Oxford, the Louvre. They are one of the richest families in the world, known for their lavish donations to the arts and sciences. The source of the family fortune was vague, however, until it emerged that the Sacklers were responsible for making and marketing OxyContin, a blockbuster painkiller that was a catalyst for the opioid crisis.Empire of Pain is a masterpiece of narrative reporting and writing, exhaustively documented and ferociously compelling.