When she "accidentally" shot her husband, a popular high school coach, the police believed it was an accident. Then they found out her previous husband had died in a similar manner, and her facade began to unravel. Photos.

    Now, she updates the most astonishing cases from that acclaimed series—and presents shocking, all-new true-crime accounts—in one riveting anthology. In every explosive chapter of Without Pity, Ann Rule deepens her unrelenting exploration of the evil that lies behind the perfect facades of heartless killers...and the deadly compulsions of greed and power that shatter their outward trappings of material success. They are the admired, trusted neighbor; the affable family man; the sexy, charismatic lover; the high-achieving professional. Perhaps most frightening of all is that they are heroes in their own minds. But when someone gets in the way of their deluded dreams, they are capable of deadly acts of violence with no remorse. Analyzing the true nature of the sociopathic mind in chilling detail, Ann Rule traces the murderous crimes of seemingly ordinary men—killers who drew their unsuspecting victims into their twisted worlds with devastating consequences.

      On a warm spring evening in 1982, thirty-seven-year-old accountant Margaret Barbera left work in New York City and walked to the West Side parking lot where she kept her BMW. Finding the lock on the driver’s side door jammed, she went to the passenger’s side and inserted her key. A man leaned through the open window of a van parked in the next spot, pressed a silenced pistol to the back of Margaret’s head, and fired. She was dead before she hit the pavement.   It was a professional hit, meticulously planned—but the killer didn’t expect three employees of the nearby CBS television studios to stumble onto the scene of the crime. “You didn’t see nothin’, did you?” he demanded, before shooting the first eyewitness in the head. After chasing down and executing the other two men, the murderer sped out of the parking lot with Margaret’s lifeless body in the back of his van.   Thirty minutes later, the first detectives arrived on the scene. Veterans of Midtown North, a sprawling precinct stretching from the exclusive shops of Fifth Avenue to the flophouses of Hell’s Kitchen, they thought they’d seen it all. But a bloodbath in the heart of Manhattan was a shocking new level of depravity, and the investigation would unfold under intense media coverage. Setting out on the trail of an assassin, the NYPD uncovered one of the most diabolical criminal conspiracies in the city’s history.   Richard Hammer’s blow-by-blow account of “the CBS Murders” is a thrilling tale of greed, violence, and betrayal, and a fascinating portrait of how a big-city police department solved the toughest of cases.

    The location: a quiet, picturesque seaside town. The scene: two bodies in a car filled with carbon monoxide. Police officer Trevor Buchanan and nurse Lesley Howell have apparently taken their own lives, unable to live with the pain of their spouses’ affair with each other. The adulterous pair — Sunday school teacher Hazel Buchanan and dentist Colin Howell — had met in the local Baptist Church. Following the apparent double–suicide, they continue their affair secretly before both later remarrying. A series of disasters in Howell’s life — the death of his eldest son, massive losses in an investment scam and the revelation that he has been sexually assaulting female patients — lead to him declaring that he is a fraud and a godless man. He tells the elders of his Church that he and Hazel Stewart conspired together to murder their spouses nearly two decades earlier. What follows the dramatic confession are two of the most sensational murder investigations ever seen in Ireland, leading to both Howell’s conviction for murder in December 2010, and Stewart’s in March 2011 — despite her protestations of innocence.

    It is a gory, grotesque tale befitting a Stephen King novel. It is also a David and Goliath saga—the story of a young lawyer fresh from the Public Defender’s Office whose first client in private practice turns out to be the worst serial killer in our nation’s history. Sam Amirante had just opened his first law practice when he got a phone call from his friend John Wayne Gacy, a well-known and well-liked community figure. Gacy was upset about what he called “police harassment” and asked Amirante for help. With the police following his every move in connection with the disappearance of a local teenager, Gacy eventually gives a drunken, dramatic, early morning confession—to his new lawyer. Gacy is eventually charged with murder and Amirante suddenly becomes the defense attorney for one of American’s most disturbing serial killers. It is his first case. This is a gripping narrative that reenacts the gruesome killings and the famous trial that shocked a nation.

    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.

    No one knew that Nance was the “Missoula Mauler,” a psychopath responsible for a series of sadistic sex slayings that rocked the idyllic town between 1974 and 1986.   Nance’s only requirement for murder was accessibility—a preacher’s wife, a teenage runaway, a female acquaintance, a married couple. Putting on a friendly façade, he could easily gain his victims’ trust. Then, one September night, thirty-year-old Nance pushed his luck, preying on a couple who lived to tell the tale.   A true story with an incredible twist, written by former Wall Street Journal editor John Coston and complete with photos, To Kill and Kill Again reveals the disturbing compulsions of a charming serial killer who fooled everyone he knew, stumped the authorities, terrified a community, and nearly got away with it.

    But marriage to her high school sweetheart, a cushy secretarial job, and motherhood were not enough to satisfy Marie, and she soon began to act out in troubling ways. Only when her husband, Frank, became sick with a mysterious illness, did it seem that she was ready to put someone else’s needs ahead of her own. The truth was far more disturbing.   Four years after Frank died, Marie’s daughter, Carol, began to experience debilitating stomach pains. The young woman was near death when the horrifying reality finally emerged: Marie had poisoned her husband with arsenic and was attempting to do the same to her daughter. It was the first in a series of shocking twists that exposed Marie Hilley as a cold-blooded chameleon capable of the most sinister of crimes. From Alabama to Florida to New Hampshire, her trail of death and deceit included multiple identities, a second marriage, a false kidnapping, a fake death, several dramatic escapes, and a final act of desperation that brought the whole sordid saga to an astonishing end.

    The Oakland County Child Murders spawned panic across southeast Michigan, triggering the most extensive manhunt in U.S. history. Yet after less than two years, the task force created to find the killer was shut down without naming a suspect. The case "went cold" for more than 30 years, until a chance discovery by one victim's family pointed to the son of a wealthy General Motors executive: Christopher Brian Busch, a convicted pedophile, was freed weeks before the fourth child disappeared.Veteran Detroit News reporter Marney Rich Keenan takes the reader inside the investigation of the still-unresolved murders—seen through the eyes of the lead detective in the case and the family who cracked it open—revealing evidence of a decades-long coverup of malfeasance and obstruction that denied justice for the victims.

    Sandy Johnson was in shock. Her husband, Duane, and young daughter, Sherrie, were violently ill when word arrived that her infant nephew just died of mysterious causes. Days earlier, the entire family was happy, healthy, and living the American dream. Now they were at the center of a terrifying medical crisis.   Duane soon died in a condition unlike anything the doctors had ever seen. As they raced to discover what disease or toxin could have done so much damage so quickly, Lt. Foster Burchard of the Omaha police began to suspect foul play. Sandy herself became a primary suspect, as did her ex-boyfriend Steven Harper—a man prone to violence who never got over their breakup.   In Toxic Love, investigative reporter and true crime author Tomás Guillén offers a detailed and vivid account of this baffling case from the day of the poisoning to the harrowing trial and the murderer’s eventual suicide on death row.

    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.

    Using guns, knives, poison, ice picks, tire irons, baseball bats, and bombs, the family man from New Jersey killed for fun, for money, to cover up his own crimes, and to satisfy his inner rage. Law enforcement officials knew all about Kuklinski and had a list of his victims, but couldn’t get near him—until undercover agent Dominick Polifrone posed as a mobster and began a deadly game of cat and mouse. In this harrowing true-crime account, Anthony Bruno delves into the mind of a cold-blooded killer, chronicling the Iceman’s grisly crimes and probing the bizarre dynamics of Agent Polifrone’s dangerous liaison with him. For as Polifrone carefully built up a case against Kuklinksi, he knew he was running out of time—because the Iceman was planning to kill him too.

    What emerged was a story wrought with sex, manipulation, and deceit that stunned the public at every turn. Arias, always playing the wronged and innocent woman, changed her story continually as her bizarre behavior surrounding the crime and its aftermath came to light. Unwavering, Arias and her defense team continued to play off the salacious details of the case, until she was finally found guilty and—controversially—sentenced to life behind bars.Now, speaking openly for the first time, prosecutor Juan Martinez will unearth new details from the investigation that were never revealed at trial, exploring key facts from the case and the pieces of evidence he chose to keep close to the vest. Throughout the trials, his bullish and unfaltering prosecution strategy was both commended and criticized, and in his book, Martinez will illuminate the unique tactics he utilized in this case and how they lead to a successful conviction, and-for the first time-discuss how he felt losing the death penalty sentence he’d pursued for years.Going beyond the news reports, Martinez will explore the truth behind the multiple facades of Jodi Arias. Sparring with her from across the stand, Martinez came to know Arias like no one else could, dissecting what it took for a seemingly normal girl to become a deluded, cunning, and unrepentant murderer.With new stories from behind the scenes of the trial and Martinez’s own take on his defendant, the book takes you inside the mind of Jodi Arias like never before. Complete with 16 pages of photos from the case and trial, this book is the definitive account of the case that shocked America.

    As we reel from the latest horror . . . " So begins a new epilogue, illustrating how Columbine became the template for nearly two decades of "spectacle murders." It is a false script, seized upon by a generation of new killers. In the wake of Newtown, Aurora, and Virginia Tech, the imperative to understand the crime that sparked this plague grows more urgent every year.What really happened April 20, 1999? The horror left an indelible stamp on the American psyche, but most of what we "know" is wrong. It wasn't about jocks, Goths, or the Trench Coat Mafia. Dave Cullen was one of the first reporters on scene, and spent ten years on this book-widely recognized as the definitive account. With a keen investigative eye and psychological acumen, he draws on mountains of evidence, insight from the world's leading forensic psychologists, and the killers' own words and drawings-several reproduced in a new appendix. Cullen paints raw portraits of two polar opposite killers. They contrast starkly with the flashes of resilience and redemption among the survivors.

    Drawing on extensive interviews with key witnesses and lead investigators, as well as secret evidence files that never made it to trial, Crier traces Scott's bizarre behavior; shares dozens of transcripts of Scott's chilling and incriminating phone conversations; offers accounts of Scott's womanizing from two former mistresses before Amber Frey; and includes scores of never-before-seen police photos, documents, and other evidence.The result is thoroughly engrossing yet highly disturbing -- an unforgettable portrait of a charming, yet deeply sociopathic, killer.