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Death Trap by M. William Phelps


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Duct Tape Killer: The True Inside Story of Sexual Sadist & Murderer Robert Leroy Anderson


Phil Hamman - 2020
    Piper's three-and-a-half-year-old daughter, Shaina, answered and said, "A mean man carried Mommy away." Then the line went dead. In the tranquil region of southeast South Dakota, word of the young mother who was brazenly abducted from her home in broad daylight shocked residents. Piper was the second woman to vanish, following the startling incident of a young woman who narrowly escaped abduction by fighting for her life on a dark and secluded highway.An intensive search by an elite team of investigators uncovered a secret crime location, but the discovery of a nightshirt cut in half, a burnt candle, and a homemade bondage board revealed the chilling truth behind the missing women. With the help of a quick-witted and streetwise maximum security prison inmate, prosecutor Larry Long and his team were able to piece together the sinister facts of the diabolical crimes.Bestselling authors PHIL AND SANDY HAMMAN, along with former Attorney General LARRY LONG, dive into the grim and demented world of Robert Leroy Anderson, a sexual sadist, rapist, and murderer. Duct Tape Killer is also the story of perseverance and proof that love will not be extinguished by the ruinous evil that seeks to take root in our world.

Your Blue Is Not My Blue: A Missing Person Memoir


Aspen Matis - 2020
    Both sought to redefine themselves beneath the stars. By the time they made it to the snowy Cascade Range of British Columbia—the trail’s end—Aspen and Justin were in love.Embarking on a new pilgrimage the next summer, they returned to those same mossy mountains where they’d met, and they married. They built a world together, three years of a happy marriage. Until a cold November morning, when, after kissing Aspen goodbye, Justin left to attend the funeral of a close friend.He never came back. As days became weeks, her husband’s inexplicable absence left Aspen unmoored. Shock, grief, fear, and anger battled for control—but nothing prepared her for the disarming truth. A revelation that would lead Aspen to reassess not only her own life but that of the disappeared as well.The result is a brave and inspiring memoir of secrets kept and unearthed, of a vanishing that became a gift: a woman’s empowering reclamation of unmitigated purpose in the surreal wake of mystifying loss.

True Crime Case Histories, Volume 2: 12 Disturbing True Crime Stories


Jason Neal - 2019
    The stories you are about to read are brutally gruesome. They represent humanity at its worst. TV crime shows and stories in the news tend to gloss over the truly horrible parts, but the True Crime Case Histories series leaves out none of the details. A sampling of the stories include: The Girl in the Barrel - A homeowner finds a fifty-five gallon barrel in the crawl space beneath his home. What they find inside the barrel unlocks a murder mystery dating back thirty years. The Dexter Wannabe - A young man obsessed with the TV show Dexter lures unsuspecting victims to his "kill room" and keeps a detailed diary of the dismemberment of his prey. The Murder of Elizabeth Olten - A fifteen-year-old girl wants to know what it feels like to kill a person. Interpol's Most Wanted - When fishermen pull up the dead body of a man in the English Channel, police stumble upon one of Interpol's Most Wanted criminals. The Girl in the Box - An unbelievable story of a psychopath who kidnaps a young girl and keeps her as a slave locked beneath his bed for seven years. The Green Chain Rapist - A beautiful young mother is butchered in broad daylight in a London park and the only witness is her two-year-old son. Police then waste three years chasing the wrong man while the real killer slaughters another woman. Paige’s Secret Life - A young single-mother of three goes missing and police realize she's been living a secret life that her friends and family didn't know about. A Walking Shadow - A suicidal teenager, frustrated with the bank threatening to foreclose on the family home, kidnaps the bank manager's ten-year-old son and holds him for ransom. Plus three more disturbing true crime stories. The stories included in this collection are dark and creepy and will leave you with a new understanding of just how fragile the human mind can be. Scroll up to get your copy True Crime Case Histories Volume 3 is coming December 2019 featuring 12 more short stories of; True Crime, Murder & Mayhem, Serial Killer Biographies, and True Murder Case Files. Stories include: Mark Twitchell, Howard Elkins, Rick Valentini, Cameron Hooker, Alyssa Bustamante, Jamie Reynolds, Albert Johnson Walker, Lester Jones, Robert Napper, Mike Adams, Harvey Glatman, and Myles Fukunaga. Also included is the full text of Mark Twitchell's "SK Confessions" diary.

The Big Goodbye: Chinatown and the Last Years of Hollywood


Sam Wasson - 2020
    and Fosse comes the revelatory account of the making of a modern American masterpiece Chinatown is the Holy Grail of 1970s cinema. Its twist ending is the most notorious in American film and its closing line of dialogue the most haunting. Here for the first time is the incredible true story of its making.In Sam Wasson's telling, it becomes the defining story of the most colorful characters in the most colorful period of Hollywood history. Here is Jack Nicholson at the height of his powers, as compelling a movie star as there has ever been, embarking on his great, doomed love affair with Anjelica Huston. Here is director Roman Polanski, both predator and prey, haunted by the savage death of his wife, returning to Los Angeles, the scene of the crime, where the seeds of his own self-destruction are quickly planted. Here is the fevered dealmaking of "The Kid" Robert Evans, the most consummate of producers. Here too is Robert Towne's fabled script, widely considered the greatest original screenplay ever written. Wasson for the first time peels off layers of myth to provide the true account of its creation.Looming over the story of this classic movie is the imminent eclipse of the '70s filmmaker-friendly studios as they gave way to the corporate Hollywood we know today. In telling that larger story, The Big Goodbye will take its place alongside classics like Easy Riders, Raging Bulls and The Devil's Candy as one of the great movie-world books ever written.Praise for Sam Wasson:"Wasson is a canny chronicler of old Hollywood and its outsize personalities...More than that, he understands that style matters, and, like his subjects, he has a flair for it." - The New Yorker "Sam Wasson is a fabulous social historian because he finds meaning in situations and stories that would otherwise be forgotten if he didn't sleuth them out, lovingly." - Hilton Als

Death on the Devil's Teeth: The Strange Murder That Shocked Suburban New Jersey (True Crime)


Jesse P. Pollack - 2015
    That mood was shattered when the body of sixteen-year-old Jeannette DePalma was discovered in the local woods, allegedly surrounded by strange objects. Some feared witchcraft was to blame, while others believed a serial killer was on the loose. Rumors of a police coverup ran rampant, and the case went unsolved--along with the murders of several other young women. Now, four decades after Jeannette DePalma's tragic death, authors Jesse P. Pollack and Mark Moran present the definitive account of this shocking cold case.

The Riverman: Ted Bundy and I Hunt for the Green River Killer


Robert D. Keppel - 1989
    Now, read the true story of one man's attempt to get inside the mind of the Green River Killer July 15, 1982: a woman's strangled body was found, caught on the pilings of Washington state's Green River. Before long, the "Green River Killer" would be suspected in at least forty-nine more homicides, with no end in sight. Then the authorities received an unbelievable letter from the infamous serial killer Ted Bundy -- then on Florida's death row -- offering to help catch the Green River Killer. But he would only talk to one man: Robert Keppel, the former homicide detective who had helped track Bundy's cross-county killing spree. Now these conversations are revealed, in which Bundy speculates about the motive and methods of the Green River Killer -- and reveals his own twisted secrets as well. Now, as never before, we look into the face of evil...and into the heart of a killer.

Righteous Carnage: The List Murders in Westfield


Timothy B. Benford - 1991
    She was still in her nightgown and slippers. John List came up behind her and put a 9mm German-made Steyr automatic pistol to the side of her head and fired once. She died instantly. The bullet smashed into the opposite wall. John made his way up the stairs to the third floor where his 85-year old mother, Alma, wearing a housedress, was preparing breakfast in her efficiency kitchen. She was standing near the storage room that adjoined her kitchen when a 9mm bullet ripped through the side of her scull. Alma List was dead before her body crumpled in a heap on the floor. The Righteous Carnage had begun.

Murder in the Bayou: Who Killed the Women Known as the Jeff Davis 8?


Ethan Brown - 2016
    The women came to be known as the Jeff Davis 8, and local law enforcement officials were quick to pursue a serial killer theory, opening a floodgate of media coverage and stirring a wave of panic across Jennings’ class-divided neighborhoods. The Jeff Davis 8 had been among society’s most vulnerable—impoverished, abused, and mired with mental illness. They engaged in sex work as a means of survival. And their underworld activity frequently occurred at a decrepit no-tell motel called the Boudreaux Inn. As the cases went unsolved, the community began to look inward. Rumors of police corruption and evidence tampering, of collusion between street and shield, cast the serial killer theory into doubt. But what was really going on in the humid rooms of the Boudreaux Inn? Why were crimes going unsolved and police officers being indicted? What had the eight women known? And could anything be done do stop the bloodshed? Mixing muckraking research and immersive journalism over the course of a five-year investigation, Ethan Brown reviewed thousands of pages of previously unseen homicide files to posit what happened during each victim’s final hours.

Black Dahlia Avenger: A Genius for Murder


Steve Hodel - 2003
    Despite an unprecedented allocation of money and manpower, police investigators failed to identify the psychopath responsible for the sadistic murder and mutilation of beautiful twenty-two-year-old Elizabeth Short. Decades later, former LAPD homicide detective-turned-private investigator Steve Hodel launched his own investigation into the grisly unsolved crime—and it led him to a shockingly unexpected perpetrator: Hodel's own father.A spellbinding tour de force of true-crime writing, this newly revised edition includes never-before-published forensic evidence, photos, and previously unreleased documents, definitively closing the case that has often been called "the most notorious unsolved murder of the twentieth century."

Richard Cottingham: The True Story of The Torso Killer: Historical Serial Killers and Murderers (True Crime by Evil Killers Book 20)


Jack Rosewood - 2016
     A deranged serial killer who apparently melted into the crowd was picking up hookers and sadistically torturing them, leaving some girls wondering if there was a real-life Dr. Frankenstein out there attempting to create his own personal plaything from pieces of his dismembered victims. Some working girls were butchered in seedy hotel rooms, their heads, hands or breasts sliced off, their remains then set ablaze in an effort to dispose of any incriminating evidence. Others narrowly escaped death, but only after enduring hours of terrifying torture that included brutal bite marks, surface knife slashes and stab wounds that all served as bloody foreplay for frenzied sexual assaults. Survivors were found bleeding and delirious, unable to remember much due to the cocktail of drugs they’d been given by their assailant. But their bodies told a horrific story that was almost worse than death, and the sadistic calling cards left by the serial killer would eventually tie together victims in this true crime murder spree that crossed two states. It wasn’t until one victim’s screams grew loud enough that Richard Cottingham, an American serial killer who was part narcissist, part sadist and all evil, was finally caught by police as he fled his hotel room carrying his bag of torture devices. His capture allowed them to close the books on some of the most horrific murder cases in U.S. history. This serial killer biography not only unearths Cottingham’s sick, twisted crime spree, it also delves into the murderer’s psyche, attempting to reveal why an insurance company IT guy’s seemingly normal life would devolve into madness. Among true crime stories, Richard Cottingham’s is particularly brutal, and will likely make you look twice at your own coworkers, and wonder what sick secrets they might be keeping.

Hush Little Babies: the true story of a mother who murdered her own children


Don Davis - 1997
    At first Darlie's heartfelt testimony evoked fear and sympathy in her safe Dallas community. Then police became suspicious after these troubling questions were raised:Why, according to a police report, didn't Darlie make any attempt to help her dying sons?Why, when she called 911, did she tell the dispatcher that her own fingerprints would be on the murderer's knife because she had picked it up?Why did the trail of blood left behind contradict Darlie's testimony?From the dark forces that drove her to kill her own flesh and blood, to the evidence that snared her in her own twisted web, here is a chilling account of homemaker, loving wife, mother of three, and cold-blooded killer—Darlie Routier.

The Pretty Girl Killer


Andrew Byrne - 2019
    Wilder was handsome and charming, and time and time again he managed to convince beautiful young women that he was a fashion photographer looking to help them start a career in modelling. What followed were some of the most brutal, sadistic crimes the world has ever seen – as well as a years-long police operation, dogged by missed opportunities and bad decisions, to track the killer down. Featuring new evidence unearthed from case files and interviews with FBI agents, witnesses and survivors, some of whom have spoken for the first time since the horrendous crimes were committed, The Pretty Girl Killer takes us right into the mind and moment of one of Australia’s most heinous exports.

Without a Doubt


Marcia Clark - 1997
    It's a book about a woman. Marcia Clark takes us inside her head and her heart. Her voice is raw, incisive, disarming, unmistakable. Her story is both sweeping and deeply personal. How did she do it, day after day? What was it like, orchestrating the most controversial case of her career in the face of the media's relentless klieg lights? How did she fight her personal battles - those of a working mother balancing a crushing workload and a painful, very public divorce? When did she know that her case was lost? Who stood by her, and who abandoned her? And how did she cope with the outcome? As Clark shares the secrets of her own life, we understand for the first time why she identified so strongly with Nicole, in a way no man ever could. No one is spared in this unflinching account - least of all Clark herself, who candidly admits what she wishes she'd done differently - and, for the first time, we understand why the outcome was inevitable.

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.

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.