I Know My First Name is Steven: The True Story of the Steven Stayner Abduction Case


Mike Echols - 1991
    Now, the next terrible chapter unfolds as his brother Cary admits he's the Yosemite Killer.Bright and likeable, seven-year-old Steven Stayner always listened to his mother. Especially about talking to strangers. But when soft spoken "Reverend" Parnell asked to speak with his mother about church, Steven guessed it would be okay. Until he got into the man's car. By then, it was too late.Held captive by convicted child molester Kenneth Eugene Parnell for seven years as his "son Dennis," Steven was forced to endure abuse so terrible that he forgot his own name. Parnell evaded a statewide search for Steven, keeping his young prisoner moving from one cheap motel to the next. Finally, Steven made a desperate escape with five-year-old Timmy White, another kidnapped boy, return home to their parents, then courageously testifying to convict Parnell for his inhuman crimes.The basis for the blockbuster TV movie, I Know My First Name Is Steven is the compelling true account of Steven Stayner's seven years of horror and of his parents who never gave up hope for his safe return. It is also the complete, updated story of how Cary Stayner made headlines of his own—as the cold-blooded killer who terrorised Yosemite.

The Time of My Life


Patrick Swayze - 2007
    Known for his versatility, passion and fearlessness, he's become one of our most beloved actors. But in February 2008, Patrick announced he had been diagnosed with stage IV pancreatic cancer. Always a fighter, he refused to let the disease bring him to his knees, and his bravery has inspired both his legion of fans and cancer patients everywhere. Yet this memoir, written with wisdom and heart, recounts much more than his bout with cancer. In vivid detail, Patrick describes his Texas upbringing, his personal struggles, his rise to fame with North and South, his commercial breakthroughs in Dirty Dancing and Ghost, and the soul mate who's stood by his side through it all: his wife, writer and director Lisa Niemi. A behind-the-scenes look at a Hollywood life and a remarkable love, this memoir is both entertainment and inspiration. Patrick and Lisa's marriage is a journey of two lives intertwined and lived as one--throughout their years in Hollywood and at home on their working ranch outside Los Angeles, and culminating in the hope and wisdom they've imparted to all who know them. This book will open the door for families, individuals, and husbands and wives to grow, bond and discover entirely new levels of love and sharing, proving that life shouldn't be lived as a series of endings, but rather as the beginning of greater strength and love.

Your Blue Is Not My Blue: A Missing Person Memoir


Aspen Matis - 2020
    Both sought to redefine themselves beneath the stars. By the time they made it to the snowy Cascade Range of British Columbia—the trail’s end—Aspen and Justin were in love.Embarking on a new pilgrimage the next summer, they returned to those same mossy mountains where they’d met, and they married. They built a world together, three years of a happy marriage. Until a cold November morning, when, after kissing Aspen goodbye, Justin left to attend the funeral of a close friend.He never came back. As days became weeks, her husband’s inexplicable absence left Aspen unmoored. Shock, grief, fear, and anger battled for control—but nothing prepared her for the disarming truth. A revelation that would lead Aspen to reassess not only her own life but that of the disappeared as well.The result is a brave and inspiring memoir of secrets kept and unearthed, of a vanishing that became a gift: a woman’s empowering reclamation of unmitigated purpose in the surreal wake of mystifying loss.

Innocence Lost


Carlton Stowers - 1990
    When Raffield's cover became suspect, word spread through a small circle of friends that the young officer would pay with his life. No one stopped it. On a rainy fall evening in 1987, Raffield was lured to an isolated field. Three bullets were fired-one unloaded into his skull. The baby-faced killer, Greg Knighten, stole eighteen dollars from Raffield's wallet, divided it among his two young accomplices, and calmly said, "it's done."With chilling detail, Carlton Stowers illuminates a dark corner of America's heartland and the children who hide there. What he found was an alienated subculture of drug abuse, the occult, and an unfathomable teenage rage that exploded at point blank range on a shocking night of lost innocence...

A Rose for Her Grave and Other True Cases


Ann Rule - 1993
    Distinguished by the former Seattle policewoman's razor-sharp eye for telling detail and her penetrating analysis of the criminal mind, this gripping collection of accounts drawn from her personal files features the twisting case of Randy Roth, who married -- and murdered -- for profit. In her trademark narrative style, Ann Rule weaves a tale that is riveting, enraging, and heartbreaking all at once, and brilliantly chronicles the fateful confluence of a killer and his female victims, as well as the shattering investigation into Roth's heinous crimes.

The Ryan Green True Crime Collection: Volume 1


Ryan Green - 2018
     Volume one contains some of Green’s most fascinating accounts of violence, abuse, deception and murder. Within this collection, you'll receive: Harold Shipman: The True Story of Britain’s Most Notorious Serial Killer The story of Britain’s most notorious serial killer, Harold Shipman, from his upbringing, his victims, his trial, and his motivations. Shipman killed no less than 218 of his patients, making him Britain’s most prolific serial killer. What possessed a respected and trusted man to abuse his power on such a grand scale? Colombian Killers: The True Stories of the Three Most Prolific Serial Killers on Earth Luis Alfredo Garavito, Pedro Alonzo Lopez, and Daniel Camargo Barbosa are among the most prolific serial killers in the world. Between them, they were convicted of 329 murders, but it’s believed that the number they committed is over 750. Fred & Rose West: Britain’s Most Infamous Killer Couples This chilling book is based on the true life events of Britain’s most infamous killer couple, Rosemary and Frederick West, and the terror they wreaked on their hometown before their apprehension in 1994. The story includes decades of child abuse, an underground torture chamber and a burial ground containing the bodies of the spent victims – including that of their missing daughter. The Kuřim Case: A Terrifying True Story of Child Abuse, Cults & Cannibalism A horrific narrative uncovered by accident exposes a mother and sister’s sadistic acts of child abuse, confinement, and even cannibalism of two young boys. But this turned out to be the tip of the iceberg. The child abuse was performed at a much larger scale. Buy all four books today and save 50%

A Stolen Life


Jaycee Dugard - 2011
    It was the last her family and friends saw of her for over eighteen years. On 26 August 2009, Dugard, her daughters, and Phillip Craig Garrido appeared in the office of her kidnapper's parole officer in California. Their unusual behaviour sparked an investigation that led to the positive identification of Jaycee Lee Dugard, living in a tent behind Garrido's home. During her time in captivity, at the age of fourteen and seventeen, she gave birth to two daughters, both fathered by Garrido. Dugard's memoir is written by the 30-year-old herself and covers the period from the time of her abduction in 1991 up until the present. In her stark, utterly honest and unflinching narrative, Jaycee opens up about what she experienced, including how she feels now, a year after being found. Garrido and his wife Nancy have since pleaded guilty to their crimes.

Lobster Boy: The Bizarre Life and Brutal Death of Grady Stiles Jr.


Fred Rosen - 1995
    traded on the deformity that gave his hands and feet the look of lobster claws, to achieve fame as the "Lobster Boy". In November 1992, neighbor Christopher Wyant, in a conspiracy with Stiles's wife and stepson, shot Stiles in the head, leading to one of the most bizarre trials in criminal history.

Blood Lust: Portrait of a Serial Sex Killer


Gary C. King - 1992
    Dayton Leroy Rogers lived a normal life during the day, but at night he revealed his true violent personality as he abducted women from the streets of Portland and tortured and murdered them in sadistic rituals. 8 pages of photos.

The Bigamist: The True Story of a Husband's Ultimate Betrayal


Mary Turner-Thomson - 2007
    The woman on the other end of the line told her that Will Jordan, Mary's husband and the father of her two younger children, had been married to her for fourteen years and they had five children together. The Bigamist is the shocking true story of how one man manipulated an intelligent, independent woman, conning her out of £200,000 and leaving her to bring up the children he claimed he could never have. It's a story we all think could never happen to us, but this shameless con man has been doing the same thing to various other women for at least 27 years, spinning a tangled web of lies and deceit to cover his tracks. How far would you go to help the man you love? How far would he go to deceive you? And what would you do when you found out it was all a lie?

The Misfit (Kindle Single)


Steven Poser - 2011
    Ralph Greenson, the star of Hollywood psychoanalysts, treated Marilyn Monroe for fifteen months until her August 1962 suicide. He saw her seven days a week and brought her into his home. He never got over losing her. Written by a practicing psychoanalyst, The Misfit recounts this tragic alliance and Marilyn Monroe’s borderline personality.

Sutton


J.R. Moehringer - 2012
    If they weren't failing outright, causing countless Americans to lose their jobs and homes, they were being propped up with emergency bailouts. Trapped in a cycle of panics, depressions and soaring unemployment, Sutton saw only one way out, only one way to win the girl of his dreams.So began the career of America's most successful bank robber. Over three decades Sutton became so good at breaking into banks, and such a master at breaking out of prisons, police called him one of the most dangerous men in New York, and the FBI put him on its first-ever Most Wanted List.But the public rooted for Sutton. He never fired a shot, after all, and his victims were merely those bloodsucking banks. When he was finally caught for good in 1952, crowds surrounded the jail and chanted his name.Blending vast research with vivid imagination, Pulitzer Prize winner J.R. Moehringer brings Willie Sutton blazing back to life. In Moehringer's retelling, it was more than poverty or rage at society that drove Sutton. It was one unforgettable woman. In all Sutton's crimes and confinements, his first love (and first accomplice) was never far from his thoughts. And when Sutton finally walked free - a surprise pardon on Christmas Eve, 1969 - he immediately set out to find her.Poignant, comic, fast-paced and fact-studded, Sutton tells a story of economic pain that feels eerily modern, while unfolding a story of doomed love that is forever timeless.(overview via Barnes and Noble)

Sleep, My Child, Forever: The Riveting True Story of a Mother Who Murdered Her Own Children


John Coston - 1995
    Louis, Missouri, mother who murdered her two sons—and nearly killed her daughter. Ellen Boehm, a single mom from St. Louis, Missouri, appeared devoted to her children. But in reality, she was unequipped for motherhood, financially strapped, and desperate. Within a year of each other, her sons, ages two and four, died mysteriously, and Boehm’s eight-year-old daughter suffered a near-fatal mishap when a hair dryer fell into the girl’s bath. While neighbors wondered how Boehm remained so calm through it all, Det. Sgt. Joseph Burgoon of St. Louis Homicide had darker suspicions.   Burgoon soon unraveled a labyrinth of deception, greed, and obsession that revealed a cold-blooded killer whose get-rich-quick scheme came at the cost of her children’s lives. Boehm had taken out insurance policies on her children with six different companies totaling nearly $100,000. Using police reports, case documents, and photos, veteran journalist John Coston recreates the events that led to one mother’s unspeakable acts of filicide—and a cop’s relentless pursuit of the truth.

From Cradle to Grave: The Short Lives and Strange Deaths of Marybeth Tinning's Nine Children


Joyce Egginton - 1989
    She even worked as a nurse's aide in a pediatric ward. But this seemingly normal woman killed her ninth child by smothering it and is suspected of doing the same to her other eight children--while escaping suspicion for more than a decade.

Disgraceland: Musicians Getting Away with Murder and Behaving Very Badly


Jake Brennan - 2019
    Would it change your view of him if you knew that, or would your love for his music triumph?Real rock stars do truly insane thing and invite truly insane things to happen to them; murder, drug trafficking, rape, cannibalism and the occult. We allow this behavior. We are complicit because a rock star behaving badly is what's expected. It's baked into the cake. Deep down, way down, past all of our self-righteous notions of justice and right and wrong, when it comes down to it, we want our rock stars to be bad. We know the music industry is full of demons, ones that drove Elvis Presley, Phil Spector, Sid Vicious and that consumed the Norwegian Black Metal scene. We want to believe in the myths because they're so damn entertaining.DISGRACELAND is a collection of the best of these stories about some of the music world's most beloved stars and their crimes. It will mix all-new, untold stories with expanded stories from the first two seasons of the Disgraceland podcast. Using figures we already recognize, DISGRACELAND shines a light into the dark corners of their fame revealing the fine line that separates heroes and villains as well as the danger Americans seek out in their news cycles, tabloids, reality shows and soap operas. At the center of this collection of stories is the ever-fascinating music industry--a glittery stage populated by gangsters, drug dealers, pimps, groupies with violence, scandal and pure unadulterated rock 'n' roll entertainment.