Manson in His Own Words


Nuel Emmons - 1986
    16 pages of photos.

The Crate: A Story Of War, A Murder, And Justice


Deborah Vadas Levison - 2018
    So much more than a true crime." - Steve Jackson, New York Times bestselling author of NO STONE UNTURNED After surviving the horrors of the Holocaust – in ghettos, on death marches, and in concentration camps – a young couple seeks refuge in Canada. They settle into a new life, certain that the terrors of their past are behind them. They build themselves a cozy little cottage on a lake in Muskoka, a cottage that becomes emblematic of their victory over the Nazis. The charming retreat is a safe haven, a refuge from haunted memories. That is, until a single act of unspeakable violence defiles their sanctuary. Poking around the dark crawl space beneath their cottage, they discover a wooden crate, nailed tightly shut and almost hidden from view. Nothing could have prepared them for the horror of the crate’s contents – or how the peace and tranquility of their lives would be shattered. Now, their daughter, Deborah Vadas Levison, an award-winning journalist, tells the extraordinary account of her parents' ordeals, both in one of the darkest times in world history and their present-day lives. Written in searing, lyrical prose, THE CRATE: A Story Of War, A Murder, And Justice examines man’s seemingly limitless capacity for evil... but also, his capacity for good.

Deadly Lessons


Ken Englade - 1991
    Pam and Gregg Smart lived a seemingly storybook existence, the newlyweds very much in love.  All of this was shattered when Gregg was senselessly shot to death in 1990. In the trial that followed, staggering revelations came out as to the motive behind the killing: Pam Smart had seduced a fifteen-year-old boy into murdering her husband. Master of true crime Ken Englade paints a portrait of a trial that gripped the nation in its scintillating tale of sex and murder.  At its center is a woman who never quite grew up, and the reason why she had her husband murdered is the most stunning twist.

American Heiress: The Wild Saga of the Kidnapping, Crimes and Trial of Patty Hearst


Jeffrey Toobin - 2016
    The weird turns that followed in this already sensational take are truly astonishing--the Hearst family tried to secure Patty's release by feeding the people of Oakland and San Francisco for free; bank security cameras captured "Tania" wielding a machine gun during a roberry; the LAPD engaged in the largest police shoot-out in American history; the first breaking news event was broadcast live on telelvision stations across the country; and then there was Patty's circuslike trial, filled with theatrical courtroom confrontations and a dramatic last-minute reversal, after which the term "Stockholm syndrome" entered the lexicon. Ultimately, the saga highlighted a decade in which America seemed to be suffering a collective nervous breakdown.

A Dark and Bloody Ground: A True Story of Lust, Greed, and Murder in the Bluegrass State


Darcy O'Brien - 1993
    Acker’s own life hung in the balance, but it was already too late for his college-age daughter, Tammy, savagely stabbed eleven times and pinned by a kitchen knife to her bedroom floor. Three men had breached Dr. Acker’s alarm and security systems and made off with the fortune he had stashed away over his lifetime.The killers—part of a three-man, two-woman gang of the sort not seen since the Barkers—stopped counting the moldy bills when they reached $1.9 million. The cash came in handy soon after when they were caught and needed to lure Kentucky’s most flamboyant lawyer, the celebrated and corrupt Lester Burns, into representing them. Full of colorful characters and desperate deeds, A Dark and Bloody Ground is a “first-rate” true crime chronicle from the author of Murder in Little Egypt (Kirkus Reviews).

The Stranger Beside Me: Ted Bundy: The Shocking Inside Story


Ann Rule - 1980
    With a slow chill that intensifies with each heart-pounding page, Rule describes her dawning awareness that Ted Bundy, her sensitive coworker on a crisis hotline, was one of the most prolific serial killers in America. He would confess to killing at least thirty-six young women from coast to coast, and was eventually executed for three of those cases. Drawing from their correspondence that endured until shortly before Bundy's death, and striking a seamless balance between her deeply personal perspective and her role as a crime reporter on the hunt for a savage serial killer -- the brilliant and charismatic Bundy, the man she thought she knew -- Rule changed the course of true-crime literature with this unforgettable chronicle.

Gotti's Boys: The Mafia Crew That Killed for John Gotti


Anthony M. DeStefano - 2019
    He didn’t do it alone. Surrounding himself with a rogues gallery of contract killers, fixers, and enforcers, he built one of the richest, most powerful crime empires in modern history. Who were these men? Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Anthony M. DeStefano takes you inside Gotti’s inner circle to reveal the dark hearts and violent deeds of the most remorseless and cold-blooded characters in organized crime. Men so vicious even the other Mafia families were terrified of them. Meet Gotti’s Boys …   * Charles Carneglia: the ruthless junkyard dog who allegedly disposed of bodies for the mob—by dissolving them in acid then displaying their jewels.   * Gene Gotti: the younger Gotti brother who ran a multimillion-dollar drug smuggling ring—enraging his bosses in the Gambino family.   * Angelo “Quack-Quack” Ruggiero: the loose-lipped contract killer who was wire-tapped by the FBI—and dared to insult Gotti behind his back.   * Tony “Roach” Rampino: the hardcore stoner who looked like a cockroach—and used his gangly arms and horror-mask face to frighten his enemies.   * Salvatore Gravano: the Gambino underboss who helped John Gotti execute Gambino mob boss Paul Castellano—then sang like a canary to take Gotti down.   Rounding out this nefarious group were the likes of Frank “Franky D” DeCicco, Vincent “Little Vinny” Artuso, and Joe “The German” Watts, a man who wasn’t a Mafiosi but had all of the power and prestige of one in John Gotti’s slaughterhouse crew. Gotti’s Boys is a killer line-up of the crime-hardened mob soldiers who killed at their ruthless leader’s merciless bidding—brought to vivid life by the prize-winning chronicler of the American mob.

Monster


Steve Jackson - 1998
    Her predator's violence had only just begun. Tom Luther enticed a chain of women into his murderous trap. Steve Jackson recounts the pursuit and long-awaited conviction of a charismatic, monstrous psychopath.

Fred & Rose


Howard Sounes - 1995
    What was left of Fred West's eight-year-old stepdaughter was dug up from under the Wests' previous Gloucester home; his first wife and nanny were buried in open country outside the city. Several victims had been decapitated and dismembered, their remains showing signs of sexual torture. These twelve are just the ones the police found when the Wests were arrested in 1994. There may be more whose bones have not been located.Howard Sounes broke the first major story about the Wests as a journalist, and covered the murder trial of Rosemary West, before writing this , the classic book about the case. Beginning with Fred's and Rose's bizarre childhoods, Sounes charts their lives and crimes in forensic detail, creating a fascinating and truly frightening account of a marriage soaked in blood.

A Serial Killer's Daughter: My Story of Faith, Love, and Overcoming


Kerri Rawson - 2019
    When she opened it, an FBI agent informed her that her father had been arrested for murdering ten people, including two children. It was then that she learned her father was the notorious serial killer known as BTK, a name he’d given himself that described the horrific way he committed his crimes: bind, torture, kill. As news of his capture spread, Wichita celebrated the end of a thirty-one-year nightmare. For Kerri Rawson, another was just beginning. She was plunged into a black hole of horror and disbelief. The same man who had been a loving father, a devoted husband, church president, Boy Scout leader, and a public servant had been using their family as a cover for his heinous crimes since before she was born. Everything she had believed about her life had been a lie.Written with candor and extraordinary courage, A Serial Killer’s Daughter is an unflinching exploration of life with one of America’s most infamous killers and an astonishing tale of personal and spiritual transformation. For all who suffer from unhealed wounds or the crippling effects of violence, betrayal, and anger, Kerri Rawson’s story offers the hope of reclaiming sanity in the midst of madness, rebuilding a life in the shadow of death, and learning to forgive the unforgivable.

Truevine: Two Brothers, a Kidnapping, and a Mother's Quest: A True Story of the Jim Crow South


Beth Macy - 2016
    George and Willie Muse were two little boys born to a sharecropper family. One day a white man offered them a piece of candy, setting off events that would take them around the world and change their lives forever.Captured into the circus, the Muse brothers performed for royalty at Buckingham Palace and headlined over a dozen sold-out shows at New York's Madison Square Garden. They were global superstars in a pre-broadcast era. But the very root of their success was in the color of their skin and in the outrageous caricatures they were forced to assume: supposed cannibals, sheep-headed freaks, even "Ambassadors from Mars." Back home, their mother never accepted that they were "gone" and spent 28 years trying to get them back. Through hundreds of interviews and decades of research, Beth Macy expertly explores a central and difficult question: Where were the brothers better off? On the world stage as stars or in poverty at home? Truevine is a compelling narrative rich in historical detail and rife with implications to race relations today.

The Killer Book of Infamous Murders: Incredible Stories, Facts, and Trivia from the World’s Most Notorious Murders


Tom Philbin - 2010
    The Killer Book of Infamous Murders takes you behind the crime scene tape and into the heart of notorious and remorseless massacres. Uncover fascinating facts about killers’ dark pasts, pent-up rage, and what finally caused them to snap—leading them to commit some of the world’s most shocking crimes, including: Leopold and Loeb’s “perfect crime”: the kidnapping and slaying of fourteen-year-old Bobby Franks The bloody shootings of Alan and Diane Johnson, killed by their sixteen-year-old daughter The cold-blooded murder of the Clutter family The puzzling and controversial murder of Marilyn Sheppard And much more… Bury yourself in these edge-of-your-seat tales, read chilling quotes and courtroom transcripts, and test your crime IQ with trivia. You’ll shudder in horrified delight—and you just might need to sleep with the lights on.

17 Deadly Women Through the Ages: True Crime (Bus Stop Reads)


Stephanie Glover - 2015
    The female nests, creates, and nurtures doesn’t she or is it that we just want to believe in the intrinsic non-threatening nature of women? Yet, history is full of instrumentally violent women: women who have fought wars and battles throughout the world, with no less ferociousness than men, women such as Dynamis of Bosphorous, who starved her husband to death and took control of his kingdom, or Artemisia, the queen of Halicarnassus in the 5th century, who conducted a brilliant but brutal military campaign against the Greeks. Mary Tudor, Queen Mary 1 of England, in 1553 became known as “Bloody Mary,” for her extreme cruelty and willingness to execute people. In this short book meet 17 less known but equally murderous cold blooded women. After reading it you may find your perception of the gentler sex changed irrevocably. Enjoy.

Rooster: The Life and Times of the Real Rooster Cogburn


Brett Cogburn - 2012
    

The Perfect Father: The True Story of Chris Watts, His All-American Family, and a Shocking Murder


John Glatt - 2020
    It was the last time anyone would see her alive. By the next day, Shanann and her two young daughters, Bella and Celeste, had been reported missing, and her husband, Chris Watts, was appearing on the local news, pleading for his family's safe return.But Chris Watts already knew that he would never see his family again. Less than 24 hours after his desperate plea, Watts made a shocking confession to police: he had strangled his pregnant wife to death and smothered their daughters, dumping their bodies at a nearby oil site. Heartbroken friends and neighbors watched in shock as the movie-star handsome, devoted family man they knew was arrested and charged with first degree murder. The perfect mask Chris had presented to the world in his TV interviews and the family's Facebook accounts was slipping--and what lay beneath was a horrifying image of instability, infidelity, sexual ambivalence, and boiling rage.In this first major account of the case, bestselling author and journalist John Glatt reveals the truth behind the tragedy and constructs a chilling portrait of one of the most shocking family annihilator cases of the 21st century.