Secrets of the Congdon Mansion
Joe Kimball - 1985
Reporter Joe Kimball, who has covered the case from the beginning, reveals the inside information behind the murder of Elisabeth Congdon, who was smothered in her bed in the 39-room Glensheen Mansion. The night nurse was beaten to death with a candlestick holder on the mansion's grand stairway while trying to protect the partially-paralyzed heiress.Police immediately suspected Congdon's adopted daughter and her new husband. The motive: speeding up the inheritance. The husband was convicted of the crimes, but the daughter -- Marjorie Congdon Caldwell Hagen -- was found not guilty of charges that she helped plan the murders. But that's not the end of the story. Marjorie has been in the news -- and in prison -- in the years since the mansion murders. Bigamy charges, two arson convictions, charges of another murder, and the mysterious death of an elderly man she befriended in Arizona have kept her story alive.Kimball updates the book regularly to bring readers the latest news on this fascinating case.
Terrible Secrets: Ted Bundy on Serial Murder
Robert D. Keppel - 2011
No sex criminal, from Jack the Ripper to Zodiac to the Green River Killer, inhabits the popular mind as does Bundy. Now, the two men who know Bundy’s criminal nature best – Dr. Robert Keppel and author Stephen Michaud – have teamed to write the definitive narrative of Bundy’s bloody career, as well as the inside story of how Keppel tracked the elusive killer for 15 years, from his first days as a rookie Seattle homicide investigator to a series of tense encounters within the Florida State Prison where Bundy, in a doomed attempt at forestalling his execution, finally gave up some of his Terrible Secrets. The story of Keppel’s long struggle to identify the handsome, articulate onetime law student, and confront him with his crimes, is abundantly illustrated with photos, drawings and documents from the investigator’s personal file. The book’s dozens of pictures include a map of Bundy’s Issaquah, Washington, hillside body dump that Ted drew for Keppel at the prison. Also shown for the first time are handwritten notes from Bundy’s investigative file. The authors also draw from Keppel’s extensive mail correspondence with Bundy. The result is a riveting, close-up portrait of a “diabolical genius,” as a federal judge described Bundy, stripped of myths and misinformation and revealed - in his own words – for the archly-sly, murder-obsessed predator he became. There’s never been a book quite like Terrible Secrets.
Murder in Little Egypt
Darcy O'Brien - 1988
Fusing the narrative power of an award-winning novelist and the detailed research of an experienced investigator, Darcy O'Brien unfolds the story of Dr. John Dale Cavaness, the southern Illinois physician and surgeon who in December 1984 was charged with the murder of his son Sean. Outraged by the arrest of the skilled medical practitioner who selflessly attended to their needs, the people of Little Egypt rose to his defense. In the trial, however, a radically different, disquieting portrait of Dr. Cavaness would emerge. For throughout the three decades that he enjoyed the admiration and respect of his community, Cavaness was privately terrorizing his family, abusing his employees, and making disastrous financial investments as well as brawling and womanizing. What was not revealed in the trial, however, was that seven years earlier, in a homicide that had never been solved, the body of Cavaness's firstborn son, Mark, had been found shot dead in the woods of Little Egypt. In addition to a compelling chronicle that uncovers the truth behind two ghastly crimes and lays bare the Jekyll–Hyde psyche of their perpetrator, Murder in Little Egypt brings into stark midwestern light the hidden, gothic underside of an America bred on violence and bathed in blood. "Stunning material,"—Nobel Prize-winner Seamus Heaney "A meticulous account ... an implicit indictment of a culture that condones and encourages violent behavior in men."—The New York Times Book Review
Obsession
John E. Douglas - 1998
With a deep sense of compassion for the victims and an uncanny understanding of the perpetrators, Douglas exposes the chilling obsessions that compel the murderers, rapists, and stalkers.
Prince of the City: The True Story of a Cop Who Knew Too Much
Robert Daley - 1978
Young and enthusiastic, Detective Robert Leuci was chosen by federal prosecutors Rudolf Giuliani, Maurice Nadjari, and Tom Puccio to probe this world of corruption as an undercover agent.Operating in deep cover, with only the prosecutors and the police commissioner aware of his dual role, Leuci walked a tightrope that made his life a nightmare. He was in mortal danger from both sides.In a world where conflicting pressures are excruciating, who should bear the burden of being right when so much of the system is wrong?
The Demon Next Door
Bryan Burrough - 2019
One of his high school classmates, Danny Corwin, was a vicious serial killer who had raped and mutilated six women, murdering three of them. Yet the town had denied all early signs of the radical evil that was growing within Corwin. What had led the local media to ignore his early rapes? Why had the local Presbyterian Church tried to shield him from prison? Why had local law enforcement been unable to solve and prosecute his murders as they continued? Burrough is widely admired as a master storyteller, and this chilling tale raises important questions of whether serial killers can be recognized before they kill or rehabilitated after they do. It is also a story of Texas politics and power that led the good citizens of the town of Temple to enable a demon who was their worst nightmare. This title contains mature themes, including physical and sexual violence, that some listeners may find unsettling.
My Story
Ronnie Kray - 1993
Following on from Our Story, Ron Kray fills in the gaps and gives his version of the murders of Jack The Hat McVitie and George Cornell, describing his bisexuality and his marriage in Broadmoor and clarifying many of the misconceptions about the years when he and Reg ruled the London underworld, shot enemies at will and simultaneously socialized with some of the most glittering politicians, celebrities and hostesses of the time.
Donnie Brasco: Unfinished Business: Shocking Declassified Details from the FBI's Greatest Undercover Operation and a Bloody Timeline of
Joe Pistone - 2008
Posing as jewel thief “Donnie Brasco,” Pistone spent the next six years undercover in the Family, witnessing-and sometimes participating in-the Mafia's gruesome activities while gathering enough evidence to send over 200 gangsters to jail. Pistone told his story in the 1988 book Donnie Brasco: My Undercover Life in the Mafia-a New York Times bestseller and later a feature film starring Johnny Depp and Al Pacino. But because of pending trials at the time of publication, many details of the alleged crimes were held back. Now, in Donnie Brasco: Unfinished Business, Pistone for the first time reveals with great detail the horrific deeds of wiseguys Tony Mirra, “Lefty” Ruggiero, Sonny Black, and the rest of the cold-blooded Bonanno crew. Pistone puts the operation into historical perspective, detailing the timeline of Mafia trials that crippled the New York City crime family over the past 25 years. He also recounts his experiences after the operation, his time on the Hollywood set with Pacino and Depp, and other undercover operations through present-day. A tense, thrilling account of the greatest infiltration ever by a federal agent into the most brutal gang of killers in the world, Donnie Brasco: Unfinished Business is the final chapter in the story of a real American hero.
The Killer Inside Me
Jim Thompson - 1952
A deputy sheriff, Lou's known to the small-time criminals, the real-estate entrepreneurs, and all of his coworkers--the low-lifes, the big-timers, and everyone in-between--as the nicest guy around. He may not be the brightest or the most interesting man in town, but nevertheless, he's the kind of officer you're happy to have keeping your streets safe. The sort of man you might even wish your daughter would end up with someday.But behind the platitudes and glad-handing lurks a monster the likes of which few have seen. An urge that has already claimed multiple lives, and cost Lou his brother Mike, a self-sacrificing construction worker who fell to his death on the job in what was anything but an accident. A murder that Lou is determined to avenge--and if innocent people have to die in the process, well, that's perfectly all right with him.In The Killer Inside Me, Thompson goes where few novelists have dared to go, giving us a pitch-black glimpse into the mind of the American Serial Killer years before Charles Manson, John Wayne Gacy, and Brett Easton Ellis's American Psycho, in the novel that will forever be known as the master performance of one of the greatest crime novelists of all time.
Gone, Just Gone: Thirteen Baffling Disappearances
Harry M. Bobonich - 2015
We bring you some cases you may have heard of, but others that will be new to you. A Pennsylvania DA goes for a drive and doesn’t return, years later he’s found to have passed on the early prosecution of some involved in the Penn State molestation scandal. Two young lovers in the 1970’s head off for an iconic rock festival and are never seen again—their classmates still wonder. The man behind the most important civil rights case before the landmark Brown decision steps into a cold rainy Chicago night and vanishes. A beautiful, but troubled, young Indian doctor goes missing in New York City on 9/11—or was it the night before? One of the richest and most unscrupulous men in the world falls out a small plane filled with his associates--or at least that was their story. Only one cadet in the history of West Point has gone missing and never been found—where in the world did Richard Cox go? As a bonus, you’ll read of people who went missing only to eventually turn up in the most unusual places.
Minds on Trial: Great Cases in Law and Psychology
Charles Patrick Ewing - 2006
Television series centered on courtroom trials, criminal investigations, and forensic psychology are more popular than ever. More and more people are interested in the American system of justice and the individuals who experience it firsthand.Minds on Trial: Great Cases in Law and Psychology gives you an inside view of 20 of the highest profile legal cases of the last 50 years. Drs. Ewing and McCann take you behind the scenes of each of these cases, some involving celebrities like Woody Allen, Mike Tyson, and Patty Hearst, and explain the impact they had on the fields of psychology and the law. Many of the cases in this book, whether involving a celebrity client or an ordinary person in an extraordinary circumstance, were determined in part by the expert testimony of a psychologist or other mental health professional. Psychology has always played a vital role in so many aspects of the American legal system, and these fascinating trials offer insight into many intriguing psychological issues. In addition to expert testimony, some of the issues discussed in this entertaining and educational book include the insanity defense, brainwashing, criminal profiling, capital punishment, child custody, juvenile delinquency, and false confessions.In Minds on Trial, the authors skillfully convey the psychological and legal drama of each case, while providing important and fresh professional insights.Mental health and legal professionals, as well as others with an interest in psychology and the law will have a hard time putting this scholarly, yet readable book down.
Murder In Brentwood
Mark Fuhrman - 1997
Simpson to get away with murder, an innocent cop - a brilliant detective - had to he destroyed. That was the cynical strategy of the Simpson "Dream Team, " and it worked. But as certainty about Simpson's guilt grows, so does outrage about the scapegoating of Mark Fuhrman. Now the former LAPD detective tells his side of the story in a damning expose. The veteran detective gives the inside story of why and how Simpson's interrogation was bungled; how police criminalists made previously unrevealed errors that torpedoed the prosecution's case; why Marcia Clark foolishly suppressed evidence of an affair between Ron and Nicole; and why Clark refused to call a key police witness who could have corroborated Fuhrman's testimony and blown away the defense team's claim of planted evidence. Fuhrman's own hand-drawn maps of the crime scene and his reconstruction of the murders leave no doubt about what really happened on June 12, 1994. New revelations about the incompetence and corruption that pervaded the "Trial of the Century" will exonerate this decent, loyal detective, the innocent cop who was sacrificed so a rich, guilty celebrity could go free.
The Mafia and the Machine: The Story of the Kansas City Mob
Frank R. Hayde - 2007
Events unfolding in this city affected the fortunes of all the 'families', & shaped the entire underworld. In this book, Frank Hayde ties in every major name in organised crime as well as the corrupt Kansas City police force.
I Know My First Name is Steven: The True Story of the Steven Stayner Abduction Case
Mike Echols - 1991
Now, the next terrible chapter unfolds as his brother Cary admits he's the Yosemite Killer.Bright and likeable, seven-year-old Steven Stayner always listened to his mother. Especially about talking to strangers. But when soft spoken "Reverend" Parnell asked to speak with his mother about church, Steven guessed it would be okay. Until he got into the man's car. By then, it was too late.Held captive by convicted child molester Kenneth Eugene Parnell for seven years as his "son Dennis," Steven was forced to endure abuse so terrible that he forgot his own name. Parnell evaded a statewide search for Steven, keeping his young prisoner moving from one cheap motel to the next. Finally, Steven made a desperate escape with five-year-old Timmy White, another kidnapped boy, return home to their parents, then courageously testifying to convict Parnell for his inhuman crimes.The basis for the blockbuster TV movie, I Know My First Name Is Steven is the compelling true account of Steven Stayner's seven years of horror and of his parents who never gave up hope for his safe return. It is also the complete, updated story of how Cary Stayner made headlines of his own—as the cold-blooded killer who terrorised Yosemite.