Book picks similar to
Flesh Collectors: Their Ghoulish Appetites Drove Them to Crimes that Only Began With Murder by Fred Rosen
true-crime
non-fiction
humble-bundle
nonfiction
Fatal Prescription: A Doctor without Remorse
John Griffiths - 1995
a remarkable story—Leeza Gibbons, NBC-TV • Grippingly told ... a wonderful, powerful book—David Berner, Radio CKNW Vancouver • Reads with the pace of a taut thriller—George Henderson, Gloucestershire Citizen • Mesmerizing—Bob Stall, Vancouver Province. Now revised and updated. The amazing, true story of how medical authorities allow a family doctor to continue practising even after he begins living with a 15-year-old patient—and allegedly has sex with another girl in exchange for giving drugs to her father. The notorious doctor still carries on as before and a third patient complains about infamous conduct—until he silences her by putting out a contract for murder.
Extreme Evil - Taking Crime to the Next Level (True Crime)
Phil Clarke - 2011
Acts so powerful that they can scar a whole nation for generations. The perpetrators manage to achieve a level of notoriety only usually afforded to Hollywood icons. In their own twisted imaginations they sit in an Evil Hall of Fame among others of their kind: Ted Bundy, Charles Manson, Andrei Chikatilo all jostling for the top spot. Extreme Evil throws light on the most vicious crimes ever committed, and the turbulent lives of the men and women behind them. Contents:Cannibals including Albert Fish, Armin Meiwes, Dennis Nilsen, Eladio Baule, Jeffrey Dahmer, Ted Bundy Serial Killers including Andrei Chikatilo, H.H.Holmes, Javed Iqbal, John Wayne GacyLady Killers including Bell Gunness, Beverley Allit, Ilse Koch, Rosemary WestCult Killers including Charles Manson, David Koresh, Jim Jones, Shoko AsaharaTyrants including Adolf Hitler, Attila the Hun, Caligula, Pol Pot, Josef StalinChildren of Evil including Bryan and David Freeman, Edmund Kemper, Jon Venables and Robert Thompson
Mom Said Kill
Burl Barer - 2008
The shocking true story of Barbara Opel, a woman who convinced a group of teenagers, including her 13-year-old daughter, to savagely kill her boss.
Disturbed Ground
Carla Norton - 1994
Dorothea Puente ran a boarding house on F street in Sacramento, taking in the city's homeless. But when corpses were dug up in her garden, it became clear the "kind-hearted" landlady was, in fact, a psychotic killer.Carla Norton is the author of the #1 New York Times bestseller PERFECT VICTIM, which the FBI put on their Behavioral Sciences Unit reading list. She served as the special sections editor for the San Jose Mercury News and has written for numerous publications. She has an MFA from Goddard College and has twice served as a judge for the Edgar Awards. THE EDGE OF NORMAL, which won a Royal Palm Literary Award, is her highly anticipated debut novel to be released in September 2013. She lives in California and Florida."Brilliant... A classic!" --Ann Rule“Stunning... Disturbed Ground reads as smoothly as the most seamless blockbuster novel … Bravo!” --Jeffrey Deaver
Overkill
Lyn Riddle - 2001
So, with the help of another teen, she savagely slaughtered "her rival", 16-year-old Laurie Show. "Overkill" is a powerful look at the forces that drive young people into murderous rages, and the horrifying true story of one psycho teen killer who merciless took a young woman's life.
Hunting A Psychopath: The East Area Rapist / Original Night Stalker Investigation
Richard Shelby - 2014
Hunting A Psychopath chronicles the on-going search for the identity of the serial rapist and murderer known both as the East Area Rapist and Original Night Stalker. The author first lays the ground work for how the investigation was conducted. Then using what reports are still available, plus some personal insights, he examines each assault in the order they occurred. Gradually the methods used by the EAR/ONS in first searching out his victims, then stalking them, come to light. The EAR/ONS first surfaced in June,1976,in Sacramento, CA. He was last heard from in May, 1986,in Irvine, CA, where he brutally murdered an eighteen year old woman. In between those years he stayed busy, assaulting fifty-three people, and murdering twelve more, while spreading a blanket of fear across central CA and parts of Southern CA. It has been over thirty-years now,and still he has not been brought to justice. Although there have been other unsolved crimes of this same nature and of even greater magnitude, this series seems to have had a lasting impact on the public -- enough so that a virtual army of private citizens are pursuing this investigation on their own. When time permits, there are full time police officers who also work this investigation. By examining the information from each assault, it gradually becomes clear just how meticulous the EAR/ONS was. Every detail, from selecting a victim, to the actual assault, appear to have been carefully planned and orchestrated. The EAR/ONS was as devoted to committing sexual assaults and murders as anyone devoted to their own profession. In a distorted way, he was a professional rapist / murderer, and quite probably a certifiable psychopath. Perhaps this continuing interest is because those wanting to involve themselves in the investigation know it can still be brought to a satisfactory conclusion.
Similar Transactions: A True Story
S.R. Reynolds - 2015
Twenty years later S. R. Reynolds connects the dots and finds herself caught up in a real-life drama. Justice can come in many forms.
When the girl went missing in 1987, Reynolds, then a clinical social worker, warned the DA and police that the case was being mishandled. Michelle's classmates and her mother were unanimous in saying she had no reason to run away. A decade later, after having moved from Knoxville, Tennessee to another state, Reynolds learns from a cold case TV program that Michelle’s skeletal remains had been found two years after she went missing.Through a synchronistic meet-up with her former professor, famed forensic anthropologist Dr. William (Bill) Bass, who had been interviewed on the TV program and who is the founder of the University of Tennessee's Body Farm, Reynolds's curiosity suddenly becomes a commitment when Bass offers to send her his files. It begins a saga in which she travels extensively to seek out and meet with surviving victims, the murdered girl’s mother, and former police and FBI investigators who worked on the case after the girl’s remains had been found. As Reynolds presses neglected pieces of the puzzle into place, she unearths a string of brutal kidnappings and rapes across the South, crimes that span decades. A picture forms and patterns appear. All evidence points to one man: convicted sex offender Larry Lee Smith. But Larry Lee is about to be released from a Georgia prison where he is serving time for a related crime—a similar transaction. We find that prison means nothing more to Larry Lee than waiting until he can repeat his actions.During the seven years of pursuing this case, Reynolds joins with the former victims and the mother to form The Band of Sisters to seek Justice for Michelle's murder. As a result, the police department reopens the long cold-case of Michelle Anderson’s murder. A savvy prosecutor enters the scene as they join together in this true life saga. Similar Transactions is the recipient of the eLit Gold Award for True Crime, IAN True Crime Book of the Year, and is among the top five books named The Best of Everything Nonfiction by author, critic, and screenwriter Emilio Corsetti III.
Zero at the Bone
Bryce Marshall - 1991
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
Shannon: Betrayed from Birth
Rose Martin - 2009
The 999 call made by her mother, Karen, alerted the police to the nine-year-old's disappearance and sparked a massive search across the north of England. The story dominated newspaper headlines and television news for the weeks that followed and there was even an offer of a GBP 50,000 reward for the person who found Shannon. Twenty-four days later, Shannon was found, concealed in the base of a divan bed in a flat about a mile away from her home in West Yorkshire. The truth that unfolded over the subsequent weeks horrified the public, who had sympathized with the seemingly stricken mother and even helped in the search for Shannon. It transpired that the abduction of the innocent girl had been a wicked plan dreamed up by her own mother in league with an accomplice, her stepfather's uncle, Michael Donovan. Donovan lured Shannon into his car with the promise of a trip to the fair. For almost three weeks, she was kept hidden in his home and given temazepam and travel sickness tablets to subdue her. While Shannon suffered, her captors came up with a plan to release her in Dewsbury Market, and for Donovan to find her and claim the reward money. Shannon was finally discovered when neighbors told police that they had heard a child's footsteps coming from Donovan's flat.
Limb from Limb
George Hunter - 2009
. .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
Little Girl Lost: The True Story of The Vandling Murder
Tammy Mal - 2012
But when Mae’s beaten and mutilated corpse was found the next day in an abandoned house, her throat slashed and her face battered beyond recognition, the small town of Vandling was thrust into one of the most intensive police investigations in the history of Pennsylvania.The murder sent shock waves through the small town and surrounding area, holding residents hostage in the grips of a paralyzing fear. Who could have committed such a brutal crime against a child who was walking home from church? What kind of animal would discard a little girl like nothing more than trash?As police doggedly investigated the horrific murder, long before the use of DNA, computers, or modern forensic science, one key piece of evidence would lead them to 13-year-old Myron Semunchick. Brilliant, good looking, and extremely popular, Myron projected the image of the all American boy. He was also a cunning killer who murdered sadistically and almost got away with it.Little Girl Lost is the true story of one of the most notorious crimes in history. A case that made headlines across the United States and into Canada, it is also the story of the youngest person ever charged with 1st degree murder and sentenced to life in prison in the state of Pennsylvania.
Dead Men Talking: The World's Worst Killers in Their Own Words
Christopher Berry-Dee - 2010
Subjects include John Edward Robinson, convicted in 2003 of the murders of several women in Kansas; "Ice Queen" Melanie McGuire of New Jersey, convicted in 2007 of the murder and dismemberment of her husband; Philip Carl Jablonski, convicted of killing five women in California and Utah between 1978 and 1991; 94-year-old Viva Leroy Nash, serving two consecutive life sentences in Utah for murder and robbery; Michael Bruce Ross, executed in 2005 by the state of Connecticut, and "The Happy Face Killer" Keith Hunter Jesperson, serving three consecutive life sentences at the Oregon State Penitentiary.
Burned Alive: A Shocking True Story of Betrayal, Kidnapping, and Murder
Kieran Crowley - 1999
A business major with wild black hair, long polished fingernails, and a new Honda her loving father had bought her, Kim took good care of herself and looked forward to a bright future. But on her way home in the early morning darkness of that Ash Wednesday, Kim was abducted-and her mysterious kidnappers would be the last people to see her alive.Scorching BetrayalAs Kim's father, wealthy computer executive Tommy Antonakos, launched a widespread, feverish search for his daughter, he had no idea that her abductors were right under his nose. A cold mastermind had ordered had ordered Kim to be bound, gagged and left in the freezing basement of an abandoned house, hoping to extract ransom from her father. When the plans fell through, he and his henchman panicked, returned to the basement and doused a near-frozen Kim with gasoline, setting her on fire.Burned AliveWhen the fire was extinguished, all that was left of the lovely coed were her charred, lifeless remains. What would drive the kidnappers to commit such a cruel and senseless murder? How did their plans to cover their tracks result in another killing? And how were the murderers finally snared? Read all of the fascinating facts in a startling expose of extortion, murder, and ultimate justice.