Dropping thousands of dollars on a shopping binge or a luxurious day spa was nothing out of the ordinary for Dana-nor for many wealthy women. But Dana wasn't wealthy-she was an unemployed nurse. She was also a serial murderess, who preyed upon elderly women, violently killed them, then used their credit cards to embark on wild, post-murder spending sprees.Women serial killers are rare-there are only 36 documented cases-and those, like Dana Sue Gray, who murder so brutally that veteran police officers are shaken by the bloodiness of the crime scene, are even rarer. Now, in an exposé as shocking and fascinating as its subject matter, author Kathy Braidhill explores the stunning story of Dana Sue Gray, one of the most dangerous, deadly, and disturbed women in history.

    . .On Valentine's Day 2007, in a suburb of Detroit, stay-at-home dad Stephen Grant filed a missing person's report with the local sheriff. Grant's wife Tara had disappeared five days earlier. He'd been searching for her ever since--or so he claimed. He Started With Her Hands. . .Over the next two weeks, police questioned Grant. He lashed out, accusing them of harassment, pleading his innocence in television interviews. He swore that his wife, a successful businesswoman, had abandoned him and their children. Then the police made a gruesome discovery. . .He Kept Her Torso In The Garage.After his arrest, Grant confessed to strangling his wife and cutting her body into fourteen pieces while the children slept. "Detroit News" reporter George Hunter interviewed Grant several times, learning shocking details of his relationship with Tara. This chilling account goes inside the twisted mind of a husband who snapped--and a marriage that ended in bloody carnage.Includes 16 Pages Of Shocking Photos

    On the morning of April 27, 1908, the farmhand on a lonely property outside La Porte, Indiana, woke to the smell of smoke. He tried to rouse the lady of the house, the towering Belle Poulsdatter Sorenson Gunness, and he called the names of her three children—but they didn’t answer, and the farmhand barely escaped alive. The house burned to the foundation, and in the rubble, firemen found the corpses of Belle, her two daughters, and her son. The discovery raised two chilling questions: Who started the fire, and who cut off Belle’s head?   As investigators searched the property, they uncovered something astonishing: The remains of a dozen or more men and children who had been murdered with poison or cleaver were buried beneath the hog pen. It turned out Belle Gunness was one of the most prolific serial killers in American history. And when the investigation revealed that the body found in the fire might not have been hers, the people of La Porte were forced to confront the terrifying realization that Belle might have gotten out alive.   Nominated for an Edgar Award for best factual crime story, The Truth about Belle Gunness is based on extensive interviews with witnesses and residents of La Porte who knew Belle and her family. Perfect for fans of In Cold Blood or The Devil in the White City, it is a “magnificent [and] brilliantly written” exploration of a highly unusual murderer (The New York Times).

    Hurley Fontenot was the principal in the junior school, Laura Nugent the school secretary, and Bill Fleming the school's coach. The two men loved the same woman. Did their obsession lead to murder?

    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.

    Local writer Mark Gribben reveals how Dr. James Howard Snook was captured and interrogated, including his gory confession of Theora Hix's death. During the trial, the details of the illicit love affair were so salacious that newspapers could only hint about what really led to the coed's murder and the professor's ultimate punishment. For the first time, read the full account of this astonishing story, from scandalous beginning to tragic end.

    And even though all three were desperately afaid of the water, they were so taken with friendly boat owner Oba Chandler that they gladly accepted a ride with him on beautiful Tampa Bay.Little did naive mom and two daughters know that behind Chandler's mask of a gracious host lurked a daring and ruthless ex-con, a thief and a liar, a seductive Don Juan who used and discarded wives and children. As they sun serenely sank below the Gulf of Mexico, Chandler suddenly shut down the engines, dropped anchor...and turned into a sadistic torturer.Hog-tying and brutally raping all three, Chandler tossed them overboard -- alive -- with 40-pound cement blocks tied to their necks. With cruel laughter, he spoke his last words to them: "Swim for it." But the dark green waters of Tampa Bay refused to hold his monstrous secret, and after only three days, the bodies of his victims surfaced.If it hadn't been for a dedicated team of detectives and the clues provided by Chandler's neighbors, a depraved killer might have gotten away with his ghastly crime. Instead, he now paces the floors of a Florida prision awaiting his rendezvous with the electric chair.

    The story of Stanley Barton Hoss, a small-time Pittsburgh hoodlum who became one of the FBI's Ten Most Wanted.

    When his military days were over, Simmons, a former Air Force sergeant, began a torturous series of acts of violence and humiliation against his family. While a fierce presence to his wife, Becky, and six of their seven children, he became exceptionally tender with his favorite daughter, Sheila, and forced her into an incestuous relationship that culminated in the birth of a child. Simmons went through a series of menial jobs and, after several moves, finally settled his family in the foothills of the Ozarks. But faced with growing frustration of his need for control, along with his daughter's rejection of him and marriage to another man, which he claimed had ruined his plans to have a happy life alone with her, he prepared the ritual killing of all those who had made his dream unworkable. While for the most part, Williams ( Tankwar ) and Marshall, a journalist, tell the story convincingly, they fail when they attempt to re-create and explain Simmons's thought processes.Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.From Library Journal

    Explores the tragic story of a small California town rocked by the 1955 murder of fourteen-year-old Stephanie Bryan, whose killer turned out to be college student Burton Abbott, who lived nearby.

    The district attorney had boasted, "Anyone can convict a guilty person, but it takes someone really good to convict an innocent one." Did Harris apply a naked choke-hold, or did the district attorney and his forensics team set up Harris?

    For aspiring actress Suzanne Reynolds, her dream ended in a gruesome encounter with eccentric New York artist Charles Yukl. Fooled by his choirboy looks, Reynolds had no idea the man who taught her the piano was a woman-hating recluse who spent his days lost in fantasies of perversion. As a result of the plea bargain for SuzanneAs brutal murder, Yukl soon gained his freedom due to a shocking series of legal errors -- and killed again.A riveting dramatization of two horrific crimes and their aftermath, The Piano Teacher brilliantly portrays a madman set on fulfilling his own sadistic and homicidal dreams...and the flawed justice system that gave him the opportunities to do so.

    A woman had wanted to leave him. You're not going anywhere, he told her. Later that day, a police officer reports to the house and finds some human tissue and organs in a bag left out for garbage. The person of interest in the case is a steelworker named Sam Pirrera, who lives in the house. But who is the victim? Sam's current estranged wife, Danielle? It is known that they had a stormy relationship; Sam had assaulted her as his coke addiction returned. Forensic detectives find traces of blood in the basement, and then the entire corpse, dismembered, the parts hidden behind a false wall and packed in boxes, each of the parts wrapped and doused in gasoline. The victim's identity is discovered through prints to be a prostitute named Maggie Karer. The dismemberment, defensive mutilation, is so calculated and deliberate, the detectives wonder, are there more victims? But Pirrera's first wife was named Beverly, and a woman named Lesa Davidson shows up at the police station to say she hasn't heard from her daughter-Beverly-in eight years. And Sam's estranged wife, Danielle, who is in fact alive, tells police that Sam had once told her he had killed his first wife and dumped her parts in a vat of molten steel at a steel plant. Detectives now pursue a double murder case, led by veteran homicide detective Peter Abi-Rashed, who had once chased a young Sam Pirrera on the streets of Hamilton's east end many years before. The outcome is shocking - and a mystery remains.

    But all of that changes when she drives her car into the darkened parking lot of a fast food restaurant. After she lowers her car window to place an order at the drive-thru, a man suddenly appears and places a gun at her temple. What follows is every woman's worst nightmare. The Edge of Malice is a true story about struggle, determination, and a quest for justice. The author, an attorney, places the reader into the swirling currents of the courtroom where no outcome is ever certain. But the story does not conclude when the legal battle is over. The reader follows Marie as she struggles to resolve the unrelenting anger that the legal system has been unable to extinguish. In the end, Marie's journey to find inner peace is as improbable as it is transformative.

    When a good-looking, big city FBI agent named Mark Putnam entered her life, Susan thought her prayers had been answered. She was dead wrong.Their relationship began when Susan agreed to be Putnam's paid informant in an investigation of her ex-husband's criminal friends, then quickly grew into an illicit affair that consumed their lives for nearly two years – until she became pregnant and threatened to expose Putnam, ruining his career and his marriage. On June 8, 1989, Putnam took her for a drive into the hills to discuss her demands of marriage. She was never heard from again.The FBI Killer recounts the bizarre events that forced Mark Putnam to confess to brutally killing his lover, then covering up his crime for over one year. The first agent in FBI history to be convicted of homicide, Putnam is now serving sixteen years in a federal prison.