Deadly Mistress: A True Story of Marriage, Betrayal and Murder (St. Martin's True Crime Library)


Michael Fleeman - 2005
    MURDER GONE West Coast doctor Kenneth Stahl would do anything to free himself from his wife Carolyn. Then Adriana Vasco-Kenneth's former receptionist and mistress of nine years-obliged by introducing him to ex-con Dennis Earl Godley. The deal was set. Godley would murder Carolyn for thirty-thousand dollars. On the day after her 44th birthday, the trusting victim was lured to a lonely stretch of road. The deadly rendezvous took a shocking turn. Not only was Carolyn gunned down with a .357 Magnum, but Kenneth would also be killed.The hit man's getaway driver was the other woman, Adriana Vasco. In a sensational trial, a tangled web of lies, sex, and betrayal unfolded as Adriana and Dennis turned against each other...

Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI


David Grann - 2017
    After oil was discovered beneath their land, the Osage rode in chauffeured automobiles, built mansions, and sent their children to study in Europe.Then, one by one, they began to be killed off. One Osage woman, Mollie Burkhart, watched as her family was murdered. Her older sister was shot. Her mother was then slowly poisoned. And it was just the beginning, as more Osage began to die under mysterious circumstances.In this last remnant of the Wild West—where oilmen like J. P. Getty made their fortunes and where desperadoes such as Al Spencer, “the Phantom Terror,” roamed – virtually anyone who dared to investigate the killings were themselves murdered. As the death toll surpassed more than twenty-four Osage, the newly created F.B.I. took up the case, in what became one of the organization’s first major homicide investigations. But the bureau was then notoriously corrupt and initially bungled the case. Eventually the young director, J. Edgar Hoover, turned to a former Texas Ranger named Tom White to try to unravel the mystery. White put together an undercover team, including one of the only Native American agents in the bureau. They infiltrated the region, struggling to adopt the latest modern techniques of detection. Together with the Osage they began to expose one of the most sinister conspiracies in American history.A true-life murder mystery about one of the most monstrous crimes in American history.

West Cork: Aftershow


Sam Bungey - 2018
    In this bonus episode (aftershow) the producers reflect on the making of the documentary, and how the interviewees reacted to the West Cork presentation.

Missing: Missing Without Trace in Ireland


Barry Cummins - 2003
    Looking at who may be responsible for these disappearances, this book outlines the fact that some of Ireland's most cold and calculating killers have not been caught.

Fatal Jealousy: The True Story of a Doomed Romance, a Singular Obsession, and a Quadruple Murder


Colin McEvoy - 2014
    A Pennsylvania State Trooper, heading home from work, witnesses a car speeding and crashing into trees. Stopping to help, he finds that the driver, Michael Ballard, is alive—and drenched in blood. When asked what happened, the man answers: “I just killed everybody.” OUT OF HIS MINDNot far from the accident, police make a gruesome discovery in the home of Michael’s ex-girlfriend, Denise Mehri. Four bodies are found, stabbed repeatedly with a knife: Denise on the kitchen floor; her grandfather, in his wheelchair; her neighbor, who tried to help; and her father, in a room with a blood-smeared obscenity painted on the wall. How could anyone do something so sinister? OUT OF TIME…Michael had already been convicted of murder when he was only eighteen. Despite several misconducts during his time in prison, he was found suitable for parole shortly after his minimum sentence lapsed. But this time, his deadly rampage would not be so easily pardoned. From authors Colin McEvoy and Lynn Olanoff, this is the shocking true story about four innocent people who fell prey to one man’s  FATAL JEALOUSY .  Includes 8 pages of dramatic photographs

Targeted: A Deputy, Her Love Affairs, A Brutal Murder


M. William Phelps - 2017
    But as New York Times bestselling author and investigative journalist M. William Phelps digs in, the truth leads to questions about her guilt. In his first full-length, original true-crime book for WildBlue Press, Phelps delivers a hard-hitting, unique reading experience, immersing readers in the life of the first female deputy in Oglethorpe County, Georgia, who claims a sexual harassment suit she filed against the sheriff led to a murder charge. Is Tracy Fortson guilty or innocent? You read and decide.

Death of an Altar Boy: The Unsolved Murder of Danny Croteau and the Culture of Abuse in the Catholic Church


E.J. Fleming - 2018
    Despite numerous indications—including 40 claims of sexual misconduct with minors—pointing to him as Croteau’s killer, the Reverend Richard R. Lavigne remains “innocent.” Drawing on more than 10,000 pages of police and court records and interviews with Danny’s friends and family, fellow abuse victims, and church officials, the author uncovers the truth—church complicity in a cover up and the masking of priests’ involvement in a ring of abusive clergy—behind Croteau’s death and those who had a hand in it.

Trejo: My Life of Crime, Redemption, and Hollywood


Danny Trejo - 2021
    He’s been shot, stabbed, hanged, chopped up, squished by an elevator, and once, was even melted into a bloody goo. Off screen, he’s a hero beloved by recovery communities and obsessed fans alike. But the real Danny Trejo is much more complicated than the legend.Raised in an abusive home, Danny struggled with heroin addiction and stints in some of the country’s most notorious state prisons, including San Quentin and Folsom, from an early age, before starring in such modern classics as Heat, From Dusk till Dawn, and Machete. Now, in this funny, painful, and suspenseful memoir, Danny takes us through the incredible ups and downs of his life, including meeting one of the world’s most notorious serial killers in prison and working with legends like Charles Bronson and Robert De Niro.In honest, unflinching detail, Danny recounts how he managed the horrors of prison, rebuilt himself after finding sobriety and spirituality in solitary confinement, and draws inspiration from the adrenaline-fueled robbing heists of his past for the film roles that made him a household name. He also shares the painful contradictions in his personal life. Although he speaks everywhere from prison yards to NPR about his past to inspire countless others on their own road to recovery and redemption, he struggles to help his children with their personal battles with addiction, and to build relationships that last.Redemptive and painful, poignant and real, Trejo is a portrait of a magnificent life and an unforgettable and exceptional journey through tragedy, pain, and, finally, success that will transfix and inspire.

The Lynching: The Epic Courtroom Battle That Brought Down the Klan


Laurence Leamer - 2016
    The young men were members of Klavern 900 of the United Klans of America. They were seeking to retaliate after a largely black jury could not reach a verdict in a trial involving a black man accused of the murder of a white man. The two Klansmen found nineteen-year-old Michael Donald walking home alone. Hays and Knowles abducted him, beat him, cut his throat, and left his body hanging from a tree branch in a racially-mixed residential neighborhood.Arrested, charged, and convicted, Hays was sentenced to death—the first time in nearly a century that the state of Alabama had found a white man guilty of killing a black man. On behalf of Michael’s grieving mother, Morris Dees, the legendary civil rights lawyer and co-founder of the Southern Poverty Law Center, filed a civil suit against the members of the local Klan unit involved and the UKA, the largest Klan organization. Charging them with conspiracy, Dees put the Klan on trial, resulting in a verdict that would level a deadly blow to its organization.Based on countless interviews and extensive archival research, The Lynching brings to life two dramatic trials, during which the Alabama Klan's motives and philosophy were exposed for the evil they represent. In addition to telling a gripping and consequential story, Laurence Leamer chronicles the KKK and its activities in the second half the twentieth century, and illuminates its lingering effect on race relations in America today.

America's First Female Serial Killer: Jane Toppan and the Making of a Monster


Mary Kay McBrayer - 2020
    America’s First Female Serial Killer novelizes the true story of first-generation Irish-American nurse Jane Toppan, born as Honora Kelley. Although all the facts are intact, books about her life and her crimes are all facts and no story. Jane Toppan was absolutely a monster, but she did not start out that way.When Jane was a young child, her father abandoned her and her sister to the Boston Female Asylum. From there, Jane was indentured to a wealthy family who changed her name, never adopted her, wrote her out of the will, and essentially taught her how to hate herself. Jilted at the altar, Jane became a nurse and took control of her life, and the lives of her victims.

The Wicked Boy: The Mystery of a Victorian Child Murderer


Kate Summerscale - 2016
    Their father had gone to sea the previous Friday, the boys told their neighbours, and their mother was visiting her family in Liverpool. Over the next ten days Robert and Nattie spent extravagantly, pawning their parents' valuables to fund trips to the theatre and the seaside. But as the sun beat down on the Coombes house, a strange smell began to emanate from the building. When the police were finally called to investigate, the discovery they made sent the press into a frenzy of horror and alarm, and Robert and Nattie were swept up in a criminal trial that echoed the outrageous plots of the 'penny dreadful' novels that Robert loved to read. In The Wicked Boy, Kate Summerscale has uncovered a fascinating true story of murder and morality - it is not just a meticulous examination of a shocking Victorian case, but also a compelling account of its aftermath, and of man's capacity to overcome the past.

The Unclaimed Victim


D.M. Pulley - 2017
    Ethel Harding, a prostitute struggling to survive both the cold streets and the Torso Killer, takes refuge with a devout missionary sect—only to find that its righteous facade conceals the darkest of secrets.Sixty years later, the police find the butchered body of Alfred Wiley in the woods. But before his daughter, Kris, can even identify the remains, things he never told her begin to surface one by one—a mysterious private eye who’d been tracking him, an eerie website devoted to the unsolved “Torso” murders, missing archives, stolen books, and an abandoned Bible factory harboring vagrants. The more she learns about her father’s obsession with the Torso Killer, the more Alfred’s death appears to be related, pulling Kris further into Cleveland’s hellish past.Living decades apart, Ethel and Kris must unravel the truth behind the city’s most notorious serial killer…or die trying.

Shakespeare Saved My Life


Laura Bates - 2013
    Laura Bates was trying to break in. She had created the world’s first Shakespeare class in supermax – the solitary confinement unit.Many people told Laura that maximum-security prisoners are “beyond rehabilitation." But Laura wanted to find out for herself. She started with the prison's most notorious inmate: Larry Newton. When he was 17 years old, Larry was indicted for murder and sentenced to life with no possibility of parole. When he met Laura, he had been in isolation for 10 years.Larry had never heard of Shakespeare. But in the characters he read, he recognized himself. In this profound illustration of the enduring lessons of Shakespeare through the ten-year relationship of Bates and Newton, an amazing testament to the power of literature emerges. But it's not just the prisoners who are transformed. It is a starkly engaging tale, one that will be embraced by anyone who has ever been changed by a book.

Ghettoside: A True Story of Murder in America


Jill Leovy - 2015
    His assailant ran down the street, jumped into an SUV, and vanished, hoping to join the vast majority of killers in American cities who are never arrested for their crimes. But as soon as the case was assigned to Detective John Skaggs, the odds shifted. Here is the kaleidoscopic story of the quintessential American murder--one young black man slaying another--and a determined crew of detectives whose creed was to pursue justice at all costs for its forgotten victims. Ghettoside is a fast-paced narrative of a devastating crime, an intimate portrait of detectives and a community bonded in tragedy, and a surprising new lens into the great subject of murder in America--why it happens and how the plague of killings might yet be stopped.

UNSUB


Meg Gardiner - 2017
    Caitlin Hendrix has been a Narcotics detective for six months when the killer at the heart of all her childhood nightmares reemerges: the Prophet. An UNSUB—what the FBI calls an unknown subject—the Prophet terrorized the Bay Area in the 1990s and nearly destroyed her father, the lead investigator on the case.The Prophet’s cryptic messages and mind games drove Detective Mack Hendrix to the brink of madness, and Mack’s failure to solve the series of ritualized murders—eleven seemingly unconnected victims left with the ancient sign for Mercury etched into their flesh—was the final nail in the coffin for a once promising career.Twenty years later, two bodies are found bearing the haunting signature of the Prophet. Caitlin Hendrix has never escaped the shadow of her father’s failure to protect their city. But now the ruthless madman is killing again and has set his sights on her, threatening to undermine the fragile barrier she rigidly maintains for her own protection, between relentless pursuit and dangerous obsession.Determined to decipher his twisted messages and stop the carnage, Caitlin ignores her father’s warnings as she draws closer to the killer with each new gruesome murder. Is it a copycat, or can this really be the same Prophet who haunted her childhood? Will Caitlin avoid repeating her father’s mistakes and redeem her family name, or will chasing the Prophet drag her and everyone she loves into the depths of the abyss?