Book picks similar to
Finding Sharon by Matt Birkbeck


true-crime
lost-missing-people
done
social-psychological-issues

Frozen Tears: The Fort Leonard Wood MP Murders


J.B. King - 2019
    Only one survived. This true crime book is written by Missouri State Highway Patrol Trooper J.B. King, the first law enforcement officer on the scene. He recounts the events from the moment of the crime until the conviction of Military Police Game Warden Johnny Lee Thornton.

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.

Irreparable: Three Lives. Two Deaths. One Story that Has to be Told.


Mark Gerardot - 2020
    When what had begun as a harmless flirtation blossomed into a passionate love affair, Mark confessed his infidelity and began taking the painful steps toward what he thought was an amicable but long-overdue divorce. What he didn't realize, however, was that Jennair was taking steps of her own--steps that would end with both women dead and Mark a prime suspect in their murder.A harrowing account of marriage, infidelity and murder, Irreparable is a must-read for anyone who has ever been faced with, or thought about betrayal, divorce, or electronic surveillance of a loved one. Based on hundreds of hours of recorded conversations and videotapes documenting a marriage as it shatters and a romance as it blooms, Irreparable will stun and surprise you on every page. The suspense builds as each chapter takes you deeper into the grief of a man tortured by his guilt, and the madness of a heartbroken woman determined to destroy the man she loved.Unexpectedly thrust into the media spotlight after a life-altering personal tragedy in 2018, Mark Gerardot's obsessive two-year search to understand the bewildering secret life that led his wife to kill and to come to terms with his grief and remorse for his own actions is told in his debut book, "Irreparable". Determined to share the sad but true story of his 24-year marriage, the events that led up to the tragedy and the lessons he has learned since, Gerardot hopes to help others who find themselves at a crossroads in a troubled marriage or relationship. "We have a responsibility," Gerardot says "to not only take care of those we love, but those we hurt, to make sure they're okay."

Mind Games: Inside the Serial Killer Phenomenon


Paul Harrison - 2018
    It will shock, surprise and astound the reader. Paul Harrison has a unique set of skills and experiences based upon his life in the British police service and later as a crime writer. Now, for the first time ever, you can read of his gripping experiences as a profiler dealing with the world's most notorious serial killers and violent offenders. Mind Games is a forensic examination of the psyche of the world's most vicious and evil offenders in their own words, just as they related it. It's an exploration into the darkest recesses of the criminal mind and possibly the most in-depth examination of the serial killer phenomenon ever published. Includes exclusive interviews with Charles Manson, John Wayne Gacy, Kenneth Harrison, Henry Lee Lucas, Aileen Wuornos, Ted Bundy, Carl Watts, Donald 'Pee Wee' Gaskins, Donald Neilson, Kenneth McDuff, Jeffrey Dahmer, Joe 'The Cannibal' Metheney.

The Law Killers


Alexander McGregor - 2009
    But only when their rage explodes and unspeakable crimes are committed do we realise we hold them in our midst. Some are unpredictable psychopaths, others achieve notoriety after a moment of madness when a single out-of-character act changes their lives forever. One thing is for certain, homicide comes in many guises - the only thing most have in common is a corpse. In The Law Killers, journalist Alexander McGregor examines some of the people and deeds, which have terrorised Dundonian communities. Having reported on many of them first-hand, he has unique insight into the cases and they are as chilling as they are compelling. The father who wanted to go one better than his double-killer son...and did. The groom who promised to love, honour and cherish both his brides...before he strangled them. The thirteen-year-old who was almost as much a victim as the child she killed. The trail of slaughter that started with a break-in and ended hundreds of miles away after an escaped convict killed again...and again and again.The unsolved murder of the wealthy spinster who led a secret life. The trail of dead women in the life of a social worker who thought he could outwit the police...and nearly did

Double Life: The Shattering Affair between Chief Judge Sol Wachtler and Socialite Joy Silverman


Linda Wolfe - 1994
    He was the top justice of New York’s highest court. She was a stunning socialite and his wife’s step-cousin. In 1993 Sol Wachtler was convicted of blackmail and extortion against Joy Silverman, his former mistress. How did a respected jurist and one of the most prominent men in America end up serving time in prison? Linda Wolfe starts at the beginning—from Wachtler’s modest Brooklyn upbringing through his courtship and marriage to Joan Wolosoff, the only child of a wealthy real estate developer.   Joy Fererh was three and a half when her father walked out. When she and Sol met, he was fifty-five and nearing the pinnacle of his legal career. She was a thirtysomething stay-at-home mother who, with Sol’s help, made a career for herself as a Republican Party fundraiser. They kept their affair a secret—until an explosive mix of sex, power, betrayal, and prescription-drug abuse set the stage for the tabloid headlines of the decade.

No One Can Hurt Him Anymore


Carol J. Rothgeb - 2005
    But how could he have drowned when the water level was only four feet deep? And why was his body covered with cuts and bruises from head to toe?Wicked StepmotherSuspicion soon fastened on the dead boy's stepmother, Jessica Schwarz, who boastfully described herself as "loud and crude." She was a brute and a bully--but was she a torturer and child killer? Investigators unearthed a pattern of nightmarish physical and mental abuse that she had inflicted on the boy, one that left even hardened police sleuths sickened.Day Of ReckoningDuring her trials, Jessica Schwarz was smugly defiant, until convictions for criminal child abuse and second degree murder wiped the smirk off her face. She is now serving a seventy-year prison term. Carol J. Rothgeb, author of Hometown Killer, and Scott H. Cupp, the prosecutor who successfully convicted Jessica Schwarz, now tell the riveting inside story of how a brutal killer's reign of terror was finally brought to an end.

The Murders of Christopher Watts


Cheryln Cadle - 2020
    Cheryln Cadle contacted him and started visiting him in prison. Christopher started writing her letters from his prison cell in Wisconsin. These letters had his confessions of things he had never told anyone else. Now she shares the letters and the truth about what happened that fateful night in Frederick Colorado to Shanann, Nico, Bella and Celeste Watts at the hands of their father. Was he just a monster or was it truly his girlfriend that he wanted to start a life with the reason he was willing to kill his family?

Columbine: A True Crime Story


Jeff Kass - 2009
    United States Studies. With a foreword by Douglas Brinkley and cover illustration by Ralph Steadman. Ten years after Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold killed twelve classmates and a teacher, Columbine remains the world's most iconic school shooting. COLUMBINE: A TRUE CRIME STORY, A VICTIM, THE KILLERS AND THE NATION'S SEARCH FOR ANSWERS is the first book of investigative journalism to tell the complete story of that day, the far-reaching consequences, and the common denominators among school shooters across the country. Jeff Kass was one of the first reporters on scene and has continued to cover the story as a staff writer for Denver's Rocky Mountain News.

Sold in Secret: A mother’s desperate search to find the men who trafficked and killed her daughter


Karen Downes - 2018
    Because I would never, ever know peace again.' Charlene Downes was 14 when she went missing in Blackpool's seedy underbelly. Once a happy-go-lucky schoolgirl, she had become a truant - hanging out with the wrong crowd by the takeaway shops and pier. But Charlene's mum, Karen, always knew her typical teenage daughter would come home.Until one day she didn't.Karen has been searching for 15 years, campaigning for the truth of what happened to her daughter. To this day, Karen and her family have no body, no convictions and no answers. Arrests were made and a murder trial took place, but no one has ever been brought to justice.On the 15th anniversary of Charlene's disappearance, Karen shares this heartbreaking account of every parent's worst nightmare.

The Hunt for the 60s' Ripper


Robin Jarossi - 2017
    A look at the 1960s Nude Murders in West London, a series of prostitute killings that were never solved, with contemporary insights from ex-detectives and experts.

Women Who Kill: A Chilling Casebook of True-Life Murders


Al Cimino - 2019
    But this disproportion can make their crimes seem all the more shocking. In this chilling casebook, Al Cimino explores 34 female murderers. We meet 'Angel of Death' Kristen Gilbert who induced multiple cardiac arrests among her patients while working as a hospital nurse, Enriqueta Mart�, the 'Vampire of Barcelona' who killed children to make cosmetics, and many more. These case studies give riveting insight into the lives and motives of women who decided to commit the ultimate transgression. In many of these cases, the women had suffered years of abuse and psychological breakdown before their eventual crimes. Other times their heinous acts seemed to spring from nowhere, with an unpredictability that is haunting. The gruesome details within these pages are not for the faint hearted.

Pearl: Lost Girl of White Oak Mountain


Bill Yates - 2020
    The search for little Pearl consumed the next several weeks, and the story became front page news all over the United States. Hundreds of residents from the nearby towns of Waldron and Booneville Arkansas helped in the search, and a mysterious mountain hermit seemed to hold the secret to Pearl's disappearance. The incredible events that followed contributed to a mountain legend that still exists today.

Murder in Room 305


Gary C. King - 1994
    King spins a gripping real-life tale of a woman caught in a deadly web of lust and violence...a riveting story of love gone horribly, tragically wrong. Kathryn Ann Martini graduated from Yale with a bright future in the banking business. Young, beautiful and ambitious, she had everything going for her. Until she met Michael David Lissy, the sleazy proprietor of a scuba diving school who was a coke addict that consorted with pimps, prostitutes and other known criminals. Burned out and broke, he had nothing going for him. Then he met Kathryn...a match made in hell.On July 6, 1984, the raped and mutilated body of Kathryn Martini Lissy was found at the Valley River Inn in Eugene, Oregon. Soon afterward, police arrested Michael David Lissy, Kathryn's husband of one year. A few months earlier, Lissy had taken out a large insurance policy on Kathryn's life, naming him as sole beneficiary. Then he hired an underworld assassin to stalk and kill his wife. After one of the most sensational trials in Eugene's history, Lissy was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment.Notice to readers: This book was previously published as Web of Deceit.

"I'm just an ordinary girl." The Sharon Kinne Story


James C. Hays - 1997
    husband, her boyfriend's wife and a man in Mexico. All this before her twenty-fifth birthday.Sentenced to thirteen years in Mexican prison, she escaped and is still at large with an active murder warrant biting at her ass.This story has been featured on Unsolved Mysteries and Discovery I.D.'s Deadly Women series. (Episode-"Born Bad").