As Lisa and Kosta Fotopoulos lay sleeping in their home, a burglar broke in and shot Lisa at point-blank range in the head. Miraculously, she survived to learn the sobering truth about her would-be assassin—and about her sociopathic husband's deadly agenda.

     This true story begins on a sunny July morning in 2003, just outside of Flint Michigan, when an eighty year old grandmother has mysteriously disappeared from the face of the earth. Days later the charred remains of her car were identified, after being completely destroyed by an intentional fire; but she was nowhere to be found. We had to find her. She was my mom...

    . . until his sexual manipulations of his young female students were exposed. This gripping insider's account tells of a popular sixth-grade teacher in Illinois who took advantage of his female students in the darkest case of serial sex abuse ever told. 8 pages of photos.

    Thirty years of dead ends. Until one rookie investigator began piecing it all together. One morning in July 1974, Anita Andrews, the owner and bartender at Fagiani’s Cocktail Lounge in Napa, California was found dead in her bar–raped, beaten, and stabbed to death in a bloody frenzy. She’d last been seen alive the night before talking to a drifter who sat at the end of the bar, playing cards and flirting with her. But the stranger, along with Anita’s Cadillac, had disappeared. Unable to locate a suspect, police investigators sadly watched the case grow cold over the years. "Jackson writes with muscle and heart.--New York Times bestselling author Gregg Olsen Meanwhile a month after Anita’s murder, young Michele Wallace, was driving down a road in the mountains near Crested Butte, Colorado, when she gave two stranded motorists, Chuck Matthews and a man named Roy, a ride. Dropping Matthews off at a bar in Gunnison, she agreed to take “Roy” to his truck. She was never seen alive again, nor could a massive search of the mountains locate her remains. The trail leading to her killer also ran into deadends. Fourteen years later, Charlotte Sauerwin, engaged to be married, met a smooth-talking man at a Laundromat in Livingston Parish, Louisiana. The next evening, her body was found in the woods; she’d been raped, tortured, and her throat slashed. The police suspected her fiance, Vince LeJeune, though he proclaimed his innocence to anyone who would listen. Meanwhile, the man from the Laundromat couldn’t be located. The three murders would remain unsolved, eating at the hearts, minds and lives of the women’s families, friends and communities. Then in the early 1990s, a rookie Gunnison County sheriff’s investigator named Kathy Young began looking into the Wallace case and identified a suspect named Roy Melanson, a serial rapist from Texas. It would lead her and other investigators looking into murders and rapes in other states to a serial killer who struck again and again with seeming impunity. SMOOTH TALKER is the story of Melanson, his depredations, and the intrepid police work that went into bringing him to justice not just in Colorado, but California and Louisiana.

    Reprint.

    Gregg Olsen (If Loving You Is Wrong, Starvation Heights) and Rebecca Morris (Ted and Ann – The Mystery of a Missing Child and Her Neighbor Ted Bundy), are also the authors of If I Can’t Have You – Susan Powell, Her Mysterious Disappearance, and the Murder of Her Children (St. Martin’s, 2014) and Bodies of Evidence. About the Authors GREGG OLSEN IS THE NEW YORK TIMES, Wall Street Journal and USA Today bestselling author of twenty books, both true crime and fiction, including If I Can’t Have You, Abandoned Prayers, Closer than Blood, A Twisted Faith, Starvation Heights, If Loving You Is Wrong. He appears frequently on Dateline NBC, NPR, Good Morning America, The Early Show, FOX News; CNN, Anderson Cooper 360, Entertainment Tonight, Inside Edition, Extra, Access Hollywood, Snapped, Deadly Women, and A&E's Biography. REBECCA MORRIS IS A VETERAN JOURNALIST and the New York Times bestselling author (with Gregg Olsen) of Bodies of Evidence, and If I Can’t Have You – Susan Powell, Her Mysterious Disappearance, and the Murder of Her Children. She is also the author of Ted and Ann – The Mystery of a Missing Child and Her Neighbor Ted Bundy. She has appeared on Investigation Discovery, HLN, and in many other media. Stephanie Cook, contributor.

    Along with his fascinating debut book, BLOODY LIES, Mr. Ferak is making an indelible mark in the true crime genre.”— Jim Hollock, author of the award-winning crime story, BORN TO LOSE When they met, Jessica O'Grady was a tall, starry-eyed Omaha, Nebraska co-ed in search of Mr. Right, Christopher Edwards was a deceitful and darkened soul. In May of 2006, Jessica's mystifying disappearance and a blood-soaked mattress turned into Nebraska's biggest news story. Enter Douglas County Sheriff's CSI stalwart Dave Kofoed, driven to solve high-profile murders and in this case would lead to questions surrounding the forensic evidence used against Edwards. "The case of Jessica O'Grady's disappearance remains controversial. ... A compelling account of a strange case." - Peter Vronsky, bestselling author of Serial Killers: The Method and Madness of Monsters "Compelling ... a memorable true story." - RJ Parker, bestselling true crime author and publisher

    They seemed to be happily married, living the American dream. But only months shy of their second anniversary, Kristen found her handsome husband dead from a drug overdose-his corpse sprinkled with rose petals. By his side was their wedding photo. The scene was reminiscent of American Beauty, one of Kristen's favorite movies. Authorities deemed it a suicide.Until they discovered that the rare poison found in Greg's body was the same poison missing from Kristen's office. Until they discovered the truth about Kristen's lurid affair, about her own long-time drug addiction, and about the personal and professional secrets she would kill to keep hidden-secrets that would ultimately expose the beautiful blonde as the deadly beauty she really was...a Deadly American Beauty

    . . Coming off a failed marriage, a beautiful woman named Toni joined an online dating site, hoping to find true and lasting love. Harold Henthorn seemed like her dream come true--a handsome man who said he had "a heart for others." Only weeks after meeting, they were wed. But Toni's family began noticing Harold's dark side--especially his controlling nature, which Toni didn't seem to mind. Until she met her end at the bottom of a ravine. . .Was he a grieving husband--or a black widower?Harold's tearful story of his wife's hiking "accident" just didn't hold up with Toni's family--or the police. Then a shocking truth was uncovered: twenty years before, Harold's first wife had also died suspiciously in a remote area with no witnesses. Soon, more questions arose: Who was Harold Henthorn--a devoted, grief-stricken husband or a cold, calculating killer? Could authorities find a way to connect his wives' deaths and expose the truth?

    Describes how, in 1991, four teenage girls were brutally raped, murdered, and set on fire in a small yogurt shop, a shocking crime that rocked the town of Austin, Texas and resulted in false confessions and an unexpected twist.

    But in the summer of 2000, Michael found himself standing trial for the murder of his pregnant wife, Leann. The verdict—guilty of second-degree murder—would leave friends, family, and the public at large scrambling to make sense of a twisted and frightening series of events that ended in the brutal killing of Leann Fletcher. What could possibly have led Michael Fletcher to commit such a gruesome act?As a college student, Michael Fletcher married the girl of his dreams after a three-year courtship. It seems like a fairy-tale romance come true: a match made in heaven. So why would a man with no history of domestic violence murder his devoted wife right after he told her how much he loved her? Why would Michael shoot Leann in the back of the head, not only killing her but also the child that she was carrying inside her? According to prosecutors, Fletcher has been involved in an extramarital affair with a beautiful judge for two years. Was his relationship with respected District Judge Susan Chrzanowski enough cause for him to murder his wife in cold blood? Raising even more troubling questions, the startling discovery colored Leann's already shocking murder with shadings of sex, political scandal, and deadly betrayal.

    But seven months later, investigators found Jennifer’s remains in a Mesa County landfill, and things took a darker turn… Jennifer had been shot in the head, investigators discovered, and Abby was nowhere to be found.  While Michael, a respected prayer-group leader, played the part of grieving survivor, authorities became increasingly suspicious. There was blood evidence in the back of the family’s van. Was Blagg a cold-blooded killer? A religious fanatic? This is the terrifying true story of what happened when Jennifer and Abby Blagg were…

    They crowned him "cool, " trusted him as their protector, and took him to their hearts. And why not? An articulate young African American, he was a cheerful companion, flashy dancer, and urban sophisticate. He had good looks, professional parents, rich friends, a beguiling style and smile. George was a local favorite. Then, bodies started turning up - in a nightclub parking lot, in a quiet, out-of-the-way house, and in a tastefully decorated apartment. The victims, attractive young females, had been bludgeoned to death, violated sexually, then outrageously posed like gallery sculptures. Seasoned investigators were sickened by the cold brutality. A prosecutor described the bodies as "the killer's collected works of art." No one suspected George Russell. He offered the police helpful clues and even put the finger on a pal. When frustrated detectives ran out of leads, they came close to giving up on the case. In this riveting examination into the mind and life of a vicious killer and his deceptively charming persona, Jack Olsen tracks Russell's thirty-year psychological decline, which culminated in a shocking killing spree. But Charmer is more than the tragic story of a murderer and his victims. Written with a thriller's edge, it is a stirring portrait of race and crime in America today.

    But it would take more than thirty years before the case finally came to its shocking, unexpected, and long-awaited concusion.

    He was a man with no conscience. He killed sixteen people, three of them children. Hatcher was also responsible for a different kind of tragedy--the conviction and imprisonment of an innocent man who was mercilessly hounded by the police, the prosecutor and the community for a brutal murder that Hatcher himself committed. A nomadic Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde who manipulated the legal system with gruesome skill, Charles Hatcher was the embodiment of evil, the devil's emissary on Earth. His nemesis was the lone FBI-man in St. Joseph, Missouri who risked his career to end Hatcher's reign of terror. "Innocent Blood" is the true story of Charles Hatcher and his life of crime--a powerful, and blood-chilling glimpse into the darkness between sanity and madness. It also chronicles a justice system gone wrong. Throughout his criminal career Hatcher was able to fool dozens of psychiatrists, who repeatedly failed to identify him as a multiple murderer. Hatcher's astonishing skill was not just in his ability to murder and escape imprisonment. He became an expert at manipulating the criminal justice system; overall, he outwitted police, prosecutors, psychiatrists and judges in twelve cities and eight states. Terry Ganey first covered this story as a reporter for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Later, he spent four years researching the material for this book, interviewing over seventy-five people and reviewing thousands of documents, court transcripts, prison files, police reports and mental health records. What emerges is a fascinating and horrifying portrait of a mass murderer at large in America--a murderer who could have stalked his victims in any of our towns and cities, whether urban or rural, large or small. This is an updated edition of the New York Times bestseller that was originally published in hardback under the title "St. Joseph's Children." The New York Times called the book, "a powerfully affecting story...every parent's nightmare." Kirkus Reviews said it was "an effective cautionary tale of crime and too-late punishment." The Library Journal described the book as "a gripping tale of murder, pursuit, and justice." And Publishers Weekly's conclusion was: "Disturbing...Justice is shown to triumph--ultimately--in this engaging, instructive true crime study." Customer reviews of the hardback edition "St. Joseph's Children" had this to say about it on the Amazon book website: --"My favorite book of ALL TIME!" --"I can hardly put this book down..." --"I highly recommend this book to all." --"What a wonderful book on a horrible miscarriage of justice." --"Book was very well written." This "Innocent Blood" eBook edition contains additional material that editors had discarded for the first print edition. Some events and background relating to Charles Hatcher's early life have been added, as well as context, description and background. The epilogue has also been updated. The revised eBook recounts the original, shocking narrative, which one reviewer wrote "penetrates the murky darkness of a soul in torment and of a town caught in despair, a town that witnessed both the unremarkable beginning and savage end of Charles Hatcher's criminal career."