Book picks similar to
Cry the Darkness: One Woman's Triumph Over the Tragedy of Incest by Donna L. Friess
non-fiction
true-crime
sexually-abused-human-beings
trauma
Learning to Love Amy: The foster carer who saved a mother and a daughter (HarperTrue Life - A Short Read)
Mia Marconi - 2014
She came to foster carer Mia Marconi’s house when she was three; she’d already been in care for five months by then. But her mum Amy didn’t get on with her carer and threatened to kill her so India was moved.But no matter how inadequate parents are, children in care love them and want the world to love them too.Amy had had a hard life: she was one of seven siblings, all of who had been abused and ended up in care. She was an alcoholic and she phoned all times of day and night threatening suicide.When India finally settled in Mia’s happy household, Mia embarked on amazing journey to help Amy too.
Being the Soham Psychic
Dennis McKenzie - 2009
'I am really sorry but both the girls are dead'. Dennis McKenzie was brought to the world's attention following his involvement in the tragic Soham murder case. Making stunningly accurate predictions about the deaths of Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman, he was dubbed the 'Soham Psychic'. Since then, Dennis's expertise has continually been drawn on to help solve many horrific crimes, including the case of the 'BTK' Killer - a serial killer who bound, tortured and killed women in Wichita, Kansas and evaded the police for over 30 years. An ordinary boy from a working-class background, Dennis never imagined his life would follow such an extraordinary path. From his first psychic sighting at the age of four to his traumatic prediction of a family friend's death, Dennis shares the experiences that have defined his remarkable life in his typically frank and down-to-earth way. This is the fascinating story of how Dennis discovered his gift and how, with the help of his spirit guides, he has shared his psychic wisdom with the world.
Run: A Complete Beginners Guide (Learn How To Start Running)
Michael Thomas - 2012
Anyone can become a runner with proper training and motivation, and I’m going to show you how.Learn the first steps to becoming a runnerTaking your first steps as a runner can be challenging and frustrating without a solid plan. Too many books push you too hard and too fast which can lead to failure. In this book, I show you proven techniques that changed me from being a complete non-runner into a slim, fit, efficient runner in 16 weeks. Training plans to take you to your first race!In this book, you will get a 6 week "Pre-Running" Plan that gets you off the couch and into basic running shape. This plan is adaptable to anyone no matter your age, physical fitness, or ability level. Once you complete this "Pre-Running" plan, you will start on a 10 week training plan to get you into shape for your first 5K race!The best running “gear” to be a more effective runnerRunning itself is not enough. There are proven ways to make your running easier, more enjoyable, and YES, even FUN! Learn what type of gear you need to succeed in running. Everything from shoes to technology is right here.Motivation and techniques to keep running<Do you know the #1 reason people fail at running? Motivation. This is not an abstract idea like simply telling yourself "I think I can!" In this book you'll learn actionable motivation techniques to get you out the door and running every single time. Everything you need to go from zero to 5K is included in this book.Personal Note From The AuthorThis book blends years of personal experience gained from my successes and failures. I show you my unique approach to running that took me from a complete couch potato to running 5K races with ease. I understand the challenges and frustrations of transitioning from being a complete non-runner because I went through it personally. I lost over 60 pounds, and I am in the best shape of my life due to the techniques used in this book.This is why I've put together this step-by-step guide to learning how to run. I'm confident that the techniques I used to turn myself from an out of shape non-runner into a healthy, fit, and efficient runner will work for you as well!In an effort to provide my readers exceptional value, I also promise a response to all reader emails. All running related questions will be answered with a quick personal reply!I thoroughly hope you enjoy this book.Happy running!Michael
Beaten and Left for Dead: The Story of Teri Jendusa-Nicolai
Dave Alfvin - 2017
The Crime of the Decade in Wisconsin. WITH PHOTOS Teri Jendusa never dreamed she would marry a violent, malignant narcissist like David Larsen. But she did. Why? Simple. Larsen cleverly concealed his true nature until the marriage vows were final. David, an eventual church council president and model citizen, rapidly began to morph into a monster and sociopath, telling Teri on their wedding day, “Now, I own you.” Beaten and Left For Dead is a book about extreme marital violence, dominant control and psychological torment through the mind of the out-of-control David Larsen. It's also about survival, faith and a mother’s will to live for her children’s sake...as she faces death, face to face. This is an ideal book for women’s studies and book clubs as it looks inside a large women’s shelter, giving the reader a glimpse of a support network. The author also interviews a counselor who works with violent men with surprising results. Teri Jendusa-Nicolai continues to crusade for women’s issues to this day and currently works with a Wisconsin commission on domestic violence. EDITORIAL PRAISE "Teri Jendusa-Nicolai's story is a powerful example of the horrific lengths of barbarism a man can go to when he considers a woman his personal property. And it is, equally, an inspiring, riveting story of a woman's courage and clear thinking under the absolute worst of conditions, and of her tenacious hold to life...I am so grateful to Teri Jendusa-Nicolai and to Dave Alfvin for getting this story out to us. Don't miss it." --Lundy Bancroft, best-selling author on domestic violence, trainer, and activist on male violence against women "This book is important because it gets our message out as to what we do to help abusers change their value systems." --Maureen Manning-Rosenfeld, Clinical Professional Counselor
Mafia Murders: 100 Kills that Changed the Mob
M.A. Frasca - 2015
For the Mob (as they are also known), crime was big business. Feuds between Mafia families and their associates led to Lucky Luciano, the preeminent Mob boss, creating the Commission, which to this day rules over Mob activity and disputes. Throughout the 20th century, the ruthlessness of the Mafia has been in evidence: the list of Mob victims seems endless. Mafia Hits recalls the most important executions - the rival bosses, the stool pigeons and snitches, the good cops and the dirty cops, the vicious feuds and the hit-men who lived by the gun and died by it. All are here in this fascinating tale of the American underworld.
Breakfast, School Run, Chemo: The Sometimes Funny, Definitely Not Depressing, True Story of a Mum With Cancer
Julia Watson - 2015
But with humour and courage, Julia faces the greatest challenge of her life – and in the process becomes the person she'd always wanted to be.A survivor of child abuse, brought up by a mother with mental illness, Julia was no stranger to adversity. After her daughter Georgie was born with Down syndrome, she thought she'd faced it all. But when doctors offer her the chance of risky but potentially life-saving surgery, Julia faces her toughest situation yet.Follow Julia and her family, as she writes her way through the crisis, chases her dreams, gets her dancing shoes on and discovers the lighter side of life with a colostomy bag.This is a candid, entertaining look at life with cancer and living each day with humour and hope.
How to Heal a Broken Heart: From Rock Bottom to Reinvention (via ugly crying on the bathroom floor)
Rosie Green - 2021
Tony Accardo is Joe Batters
Neil Gordon - 2018
Throw in the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre and the murders of John F. Kennedy, Lee Harvey Oswald, Marilyn Monroe, Bugsy Siegel, Sam Giancana, Lucky Luciano, Tony the Ant Spilotro, Johnny Roselli and Jimmy Hoffa. Toss in Hollywood scandal and the mobbed up career of Frank Sinatra and his Rat Pack. Now you can begin to grasp the epic story of Tony Accardo. Why has this story never been told? Accardo killed everyone in his path: family, friends, cops, reporters, movie stars, and politicians. Operating from deep within the shadows Tony influenced national policy, exploited the FBI, owned politicians, and fixed presidential elections. Connected to every gangster from Al Capone to Lucky Luciano to John Gotti, Joe Batters is the must-read that every Godfather fan is craving.
A Girl Raised by Wolves: An inspiring memoir of one woman's journey through sex trafficking, cancer, murder and more.
Lockey Maisonneuve - 2018
town, an adolescent girl is unwittingly handed a one-way ticket by her mother to allegedly "visit" her estranged father in Florida. Young and vulnerable, Lockey Maisonnueve has no idea she is being abandoned and sent to live with a vile and dangerous pedophile who would spend the next several years violently raping, abusing and mercilessly selling his daughter's body into childhood prostitution to other adult men. After being rescued by her naive, but well-intentioned, grandparents, her troubled life is further devastated by cancer and ravaged by the subsequent brutal murder of her mother, in which Lockey is briefly considered a suspect. "A Girl Raised by Wolves' is the inspirational memoir of a survivor of the darkest circumstances one can endure in a single lifetime and still emerge with a sense of humor and to defiantly proclaim "they didn't break me!"
Crowded House: The Definitive Story Behind the Gruesome Murder of Patricia O'Connor
Frank Greaney - 2021
It was the first of fifteen dismembered body parts belonging to retired hospital worker Patricia O'Connor.Kieran Greene, the father of three of Patricia's grandchildren, later handed himself in, confessing to beating her to death in the home they shared in what he said was an act of self-defense. He also confessed to dismembering her and disposing of her remains but later changed his story, implicating several members of Patricia's household, including her husband and daughter.In this nuanced and meticulous account of a deeply disturbing crime, journalist Frank Greaney, who covered every day of the shocking trial and conducted exclusive follow-up interviews with other members of Patricia's family, uncovers the story behind the gruesome murder of Patricia O'Connor, and looks at who Patricia really was.
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?
Mafia Boss Sam Giancana: The Rise and Fall of a Chicago Mobster
Susan McNicoll - 2015
Born in 1908, in The Patch, Chicago, Giancana joined the Forty-Two gang of lawless juvenile punks in 1921 and quickly proved himself as a skilled 'wheel man' (or getaway driver), extortionist and vicious killer. Called up to the ranks of the Outfit, he reputedly held talks with the CIA about assassinating Fidel Castro, shared a girlfriend with John F. Kennedy and had friends in high places, including Sammy Davis Jr., Frank Sinatra, Shirley MacLaine, Marilyn Monroe and, some say, the Kennedys, although he fell out with them.The story of Sam Giancana will overturn many of your beliefs about America during the Kennedy era. If you want to know Giancana's role in the brother's deaths, and more of the intrigue surrounding that of Marilyn Monroe, this book will fill you in on the murky lives of many shady characters who really ruled the day, both in Chicago and elsewhere.
Saving Stacy: The Untold Story of the Moody Massacre
Rob St. Clair - 2019
The first time the killer thought he had succeeded, and he left Stacy bleeding in her bed. But a few minutes later he must have heard her moaning and returned to her upstairs bedroom. This time he approached the bed, pointed a .22 caliber rifle at her young face, and pulled the trigger again. Then he left.Later that morning, Memorial Day, May 25, 2005, the Logan County Sheriff would declare it a rampage. According to Sheriff Henry, 18-year-old Scott Moody lived on a family farm with his mother and sister; his grandparents lived nearby. The night before his high school graduation something snapped, and Scott went on a shooting spree. He murdered his two grandparents, his mother, a high school classmate who had spent the night after a graduation party, his girlfriend, and then he turned the rifle on himself, committing suicide. He thought he had killed his 15-year-old sister, but she was life-flighted to a hospital in Columbus where she remained in critical condition. Sheriff Henry declared the mystery solved: “It was horribly tragic, a murder/suicide case.”Three days later, Stacy woke up in intensive care. When asked by the county coroner to explain what happened – clearly expecting her to say that her brother, Scott, had shot her – Stacy, in a weak, distressed voice said something else. It was an older man with gray hair, wearing a blue shirt, someone she had never seen before. And then, once again – what everyone suspected but were afraid to publicly talk about – was the Logan County Sheriff’s Office really corrupt?After Stacy was released from the hospital, Detective Jon Stout wanted to interview her in private, away from the influence of her father and stepmother. On a Sunday afternoon he took 15-year-old Stacy in his unmarked cruiser to a shaded parking lot behind the county children services building. It was there he coerced her into taking off her clothes, playfully handcuffing her to the steering wheel, and then forcibly having sex with her. It was only a matter of time before wrongful death actions were filed against Scott’s estate. That’s when Scott’s father, wanting to remove the stigma of his son’s reputation, hired outside experts, who easily refuted the idea that Scott had been the shooter. People in the community knew all along what had happened. The sheriff’s office was corrupt. Underage sex and illicit drugs had finally raised their ugly heads.
Any Last Words?
Les Macdonald - 2014
Each story features a short synopsis of the crime and the journey through the justice system that brought them to the execution chamber.
Nightmare in Jonestown: Cult of Death (Singles Classic)
Time Inc. - 2016
December 4, 1978.In an appalling demonstration of the way in which a charismatic leader can bend the minds of his followers with a devilish blend of professed altruism and psychological tyranny, some 900 members of the California-based Peoples Temple died in a self-imposed ritual of mass suicide and murder.The followers of the Rev. Jim Jones, 47, a once respected Indianaborn humanitarian who degenerated into egomania and paranoia, had first ambushed a party of visiting Americans, killing California Congressman Leo Ryan, 53, three newsmen and one defector from their heavily guarded colony at Jones-town. Then, exhorted by their leader, intimidated by armed guards and lulled with sedatives and painkillers, parents and nurses used syringes to squirt a concoction of potassium cyanide and potassium chloride onto the tongues of babies. The adults and older children picked up paper cups and sipped the same deadly poison sweetened by purple Kool-Aid.This story is part of the TIME Classic Coverage Collection from Time Inc. This is a reproduction of a story that appeared in the December 4, 1978 issue of TIME magazine. Time Inc. is one of the world’s most influential media companies – home to 90 iconic brands like People, Sports Illustrated, Time, InStyle, Real Simple, Food & Wine, and Fortune. The Spotlight Stories in this collection aim to provide you with a quick read on a single subject, highlighting our readers’ most popular stories and featuring great reporting from our Time Inc. journalists.