Book picks similar to
Obsessed by M. William Phelps


true-crime
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Cruel Deception


Gregg Olsen - 1995
    Morgan's Texas-born mother Tanya, a nurse and devoted wife, pulled up stakes with her grieving husband Jim, and moved on. It was the best way to put the past behind them. Until their son Michael, a boy who by all accounts was terrified of his mother, began showing signs of the same affliction that stole the life of his baby sister...First, the suspicion: Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy. Then, Tanya was charged and convicted with felony child abuse of her son. She was later tried and ultimately convicted for first degree murder of Morgan. It would become a landmark trial that unfolded in a series of reversals and bizarre twists of fate as it gradually revealed another side of Tanya Reid—of her own troubling childhood and the dark secrets that drove a woman to the cruelest deception of all...

Poisoned Love


Caitlin Rother - 2005
    or Murder?On November 6, 2000, paramedics answered a call to find Kristin Rossum, 24, sobbing. Her husband, Gredg de Villers, wasn't breathing and she claimed he had overdosed on drugs after learning she was leaving him. But family and friends who knew of Greg's distaste for drugs weren't buying Kristin's story - particularly the idea that he would take his own life.American BeautyThe daughter of a well-to-do California family, Rossum was a brainy blonde beauty whose talent for toxicology had won her a post at the San Diego Count Medical Examiner's Office. But her sweet smile masked a dark side. She'd developed a taste for methamphetamine in high school, and six months after her marriage to Greg, she'd begun seeking secret trysts with other men.Toxic PassionAt the time of her husband's death, Rossum was engaged in an illicit affair with her married boss. Investigations found that the Medical Examiner's Office was missing supplies of meth and fentanyl, the narcotic that had killed her husband. With each clue discovered, another piece of Rossum's "good girl" façade fell away. What the world would eventually see was the true face of a murderer - and the hand of justice ...

Murdered Innocents


Corey Mitchell - 2005
    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.

A Taste For Murder


Burl Barer - 2016
    His wife and step-daughter are in shock, and so is the medical examiner when he performs the autopsy. Aside from being dead, Frank is in perfect health. Demanding to know the cause of her husband’s death, Angie Rodriguez badgers the police, insisting that Frank was murdered. The cops attribute her assertions to overwhelming grief, but soon they too believe that Frank didn’t die of natural causes. When the police enlist their number one suspect to help in the investigation, things spiral out of control until police are dealing with a daring plot to murder Angie’s best friend, and allegations of another homicide so evil and perverse that even seasoned L.A County Detectives are shocked beyond belief ... and so will the readers!

The Cases That Haunt Us


John E. Douglas - 2000
    Provocative. Shocking. Call them what you will...but don't call them open and shut. Did Lizzie Borden murder her own father and stepmother? Was Jack the Ripper actually the Duke of Clarence? Who killed JonBenet Ramsey?America's foremost expert on criminal profiling and twenty-five-year FBI veteran John Douglas, along with author and filmmaker Mark Olshaker, explores those tantalizing questions and more in this mesmerizing work of detection. With uniquely gripping analysis, the authors reexamine and reinterpret the accepted facts, evidence, and victimology of the most notorious murder cases in the history of crime, including the Lindbergh baby kidnapping, the Zodiac Killer, and the Whitechapel murders.Utilizing techniques developed by Douglas himself, they give detailed profiles and reveal chief suspects in pursuit of what really happened in each case.The Cases That Haunt Us not only offers convincing and controversial conclusions, it deconstructs the evidence and widely held beliefs surrounding each case and rebuilds them -- with fascinating, surprising, and haunting results.

The Hillside Stranglers


Darcy O'Brien - 1985
    But it would take more than another year and the mysterious disappearance of two young women in Seattle before the police would arrest one man—the handsome, charming, fast-talking Kenny Bianchi—and discover that the strangler was actually two men. Like Truman Capote in In Cold Blood and Norman Mailer in The Executioner's Song, Darcy O'Brien weds the narrative skill of an award-winning novelist with the detailed observations of an experienced investigator to bring the story of Bianchi and his animally magnetic cousin Angelo Buono vividly to the page. First exploring the symbiotic relationship between these two men who shared a lust as insatiable as their hate for women, O'Brien goes on to examine the crimes themselves and the lives of the victims.

Watch Mommy Die


Michael Benson - 2011
    . .First, he bound and beat his girlfriend, a 43-year-old librarian. Then he went after her teenaged daughter--warning her, "Scream and I will kill you both"--before knocking her unconscious. When the teenager awoke, he proceded to rape her. And in a final horrifying act of depravity, he forced the girl to watch as he slit her mother's throat. But the killing didn't stop there. . .In The Crosshairs Of A Killer. . .Stephen Stanko was described as "a perfect gentleman" who "seemed so pleasant. . .and so normal." But behind Stanko's mild-mannered appearance, round spectacles, and quiet intelligence was a coldblooded ex-convict who kept a grisly scrapbook on serial killers--and convinced everyone he was a nice guy--until he killed and killed again.On The Trail Of A Psycho. . .A well-orchestrated manhunt caught up with Stanko, who tried to get away with his crimes by pleading insanity. But the jury saw through his ruse and the ruthless killer was sentenced to death.Case Seen On 48 HoursIncludes 16 Pages of Shocking Photos

Deadly Lessons


Ken Englade - 1991
    Pam and Gregg Smart lived a seemingly storybook existence, the newlyweds very much in love.  All of this was shattered when Gregg was senselessly shot to death in 1990. In the trial that followed, staggering revelations came out as to the motive behind the killing: Pam Smart had seduced a fifteen-year-old boy into murdering her husband. Master of true crime Ken Englade paints a portrait of a trial that gripped the nation in its scintillating tale of sex and murder.  At its center is a woman who never quite grew up, and the reason why she had her husband murdered is the most stunning twist.

And Then She Killed Him


Robert Scott - 2012
    After finding the "sugar daddy" she was looking for in Alan Helmick, her new marriage seemed happy. Then, two years later, Alan met a gruesome fate. Returning home from errands, Miriam found him lying in a pool of blood. Miriam showed police a cryptic note warning her to "run, run, run." But Miriam was no distraught housewife. She was a master manipulator always able to stay one step ahead of her unwitting partnerand the lawuntil now. Case seen on Dateline Includes dramatic photos. Praise for Robert Scott and Shattered Innocence "Compelling and shocking. . .a groundbreaking book." Robert K. Tanenbaum"Fascinating and fresh. . .a fastpaced, informative read." Sue Russell

No Stone Unturned: The True Story of the World's Premier Forensic Investigators


Steve Jackson - 2002
    A hiker brutally murdered, then thrown off a cliff in a remote mountain range. A devious killer who hid his wife's body under a thick cement patio. For investigators, the story is often the same: they know a murder took place, they may even know who did it. But without key evidence, pursuing a conviction is nearly impossible. That's when they call NecroSearch International. Necrosearch boasts a brain trust of the nation's top scientists, specialists, and behaviourists who use the latest technology and techniques to help solve "unsolvable" crimes, no matter how decayed the corpse, no matter how cleverly the killer has hidden the victim's body. Now, for the first time ever, readers are taken on a fascinating, often-shocking journey into a realm of crime investigation of which few people are aware. Necrosearch's most challenging cases are described, step-by-step, as these modern-day Sherlock Holmes's detect bodies and evidence thought irretrievable, and testify in court to bring cold-blooded killers to justice.

Baby Be Mine


Diane Fanning - 2006
    Naming the child Abigail, the couple brought her to their local pastor. Miles away, police were investigating the brutal murder of a pregnant woman...THE HORROR OF MURDERTwenty-three year old Bobbie Jo Stinnett was found by her mother, lying in a pool of blood, looking as if her stomach "had exploded." Investigators soon determined: Someone had strangled Bobbie Jo to death—and then cut her fetus from her womb...THE WOMAN ACCUSED OF KILLING FOR AN UNBORN CHILD...In late 2004, two women met in a dog-breeding internet chat room. When Elizabeth Montgomery came face to face with eight-months-pregnant Bobbie Jo Stinnett, prosecutors claim she already had a plan. Investigators knew that Bobbie Jo had fought desperately for her life—and that her fetus, alive or dead, was gone. Investigators scrambled after a killer. An "Amber Alert" went out for an hours-old infant. And this horrifying case was about to shock neighbors and a nation: of a woman accused of murdering for a baby...

Pretty Little Killers: The Truth Behind the Savage Murder of Skylar Neese


Daleen Berry - 2011
    Including over 100 pages of new material, Pretty Little Killers shares the latest theories and answers the questions that have left many people baffled.After killer Shelia Eddy pled guilty to first degree murder and was sentenced to life in prison and Rachel Shoaf was sentenced to thirty years for second-degree murder, family, friends, investigators, and other key sources reveal the facts you would have learned if the case had gone to trial.Including specific details drawn from Rachel’s confession, Pretty Little Killers looks at the crime through the eyes of the victim and killers, providing intimate testimony from the pages of Rachel’s personal journal, Skylar’s diary and school papers, and court records.Berry and Fuller examine all this, including previously unreported details about Rachel and Shelia’s rumored lesbian relationship and explain why more than one investigator believes Skylar’s murder was a thrill kill.Most important, Pretty Little Killers provides a satisfying answer to Skylar’s final question: “Why?”

The Surgeon's Wife


Kieran Crowley - 2001
    He then drove her body to an airstrip in Caldwell, N.J., and dumped it into the Atlantic Ocean from a single-engine private plane. The next day, her reported her missing.Gail's parents had been thrilled to learn she was marrying Robert Bierenbaum. He seemed to be the perfect match for their daughter. He was from a well-to-do family, a medical student who spoke five languages fluently, a skier, and he even flew an airplane. But Gail would come to learn of her husband's dark side. On one occiasion when Robert had tried to choke Gail because he caught her smoking, she filed a police report. She also alleged that he tried to kill her cat because he was jealous of it. For years, her sister pleaded with Gail to run for her life. Even her therapist warned his vulnerable patient that she could eventually die at the hands of the man she married.Fifteen years after this unspeakable, unfathomable crime, a jury found Robert Bierenbaum guilty of murder—and stripped the mask off of this privileged professional to reveal a monster.

The Misbegotten Son


Jack Olsen - 1993
    Olsen delves into the psychology of Arthur Shawcross, who had characteristics of a pedophile, paraphile, misogynist, necrophile, and philanderer, yet still managed to charm a release out of a parole board.

Bringing Adam Home: The Abduction That Changed America


Les Standiford - 2011
    In the aftermath of that six-year old's abduction and slaying in 1981, everything about the nation's regard and response to missing children changed.The shock of the crime and the inability of law enforcement to find Adam's killer put an end to innocence, and altered our very perception of childhood itself - gone forever are the days when young children burst out the doors of American homes with a casual promise to be home by dark. And, due in large part to the efforts of Adam's parents, John and Reve Walsh, the entire mechanism of law enforcement has transformed itself in an effort to protect our children.Before Adam went missing, there were no children's faces on milk cartons and billboards, no Amber Alerts, no national Center for Missing and Abused Children, no national databases for crimes against children, no registration of pedophiles - in fact, it was easier to mobilize the FBI to search for a stolen car or missing horse than for a kidnapped child. Such facts may be sad testimony to the weariness of a modern world, but there is also an uplifting aspect to Adam's story - the 27 years of undaunted effort by decorated Miami Beach Homicide Detective, Joe Matthews, to track down Adam's killer and bring justice to bear at long last.Bringing Adam Home tells the story - the good, the bad, and the ugly - of what it took for one cop to accomplish what an entire system of law enforcement could not. Matthews' achievement is a stirring one, reminding us that such concepts as hard work, dedication, and love, survive, and that goodness can prevail.