Book picks similar to
In the Wake of the Butcher: Cleveland's Torso Murders Authoritative Edition, Revised and Expanded by James Jessen Badal
true-crime
non-fiction
abandoned
paper-books
Sins of the Mother
Maria Eftimiades - 1995
1994, a hysterical Susan Smith told police a tale that would strike terror in the hearts of mothers everywhere. An unidentified gunman had sped off with her two little boys, leaving her screaming on the side of the road.For more than a week, the people in the tiny town of Union, South Carolina rallied around the young mother. They combed the woods and neighborhood parks for the missing children and prayed for their safe return, while FBI teams launched a massive manhunt.No one ever suspected that the pretty 23-year-old who tearfully pleaded for her children in front of millions of TV viewers could be capable of such a heartless act...until she led police to the watery graves of her young sons. Now, as a shaken community confronts its outrage and sorrow, a stunned nation asks how is could have happened.
The Face of Evil: The True Story of Serial Killer Robert Black
Robert Giles - 2017
He died in HMP Maghaberry, Northern Ireland, in January 2016, aged sixty-eight, unmourned, and entirely unrepentant of his repellent crimes.These bald facts, horrific as they are, do not begin to scratch the surface of the truth about Robert Black, a Scottish-born serial killer who undoubtedly committed further murders for which he was never tried, both in this country and on the Continent. In this ground-breaking account, Robert Giles, who has spent years tracing the killer’s movements and sifting through all the evidence, including transcripts of the trials, convincingly argues that Black was an habitual serial killer over many years, and quite certainly responsible for more than the four child murders for which he was convicted.Co-written with Chris Clark, a former police intelligence officer whose tireless work into the Yorkshire Ripper produced convincing new evidence of other murders that went unnoticed or unrecorded, The Face of Evil shows once and for all that Robert Black was a serial killer whose crimes went far beyond what is generally believed. In doing so, it paints a portrait of human cruelty at its worst.
In Pursuit of the Truth
Clive Driscoll - 2015
For Clive, it was the pinnacle of a 35-year career with the world’s most famous police force, the Metropolitan Police Service.Clive’s prodigious rise through the ranks of the Met saw him front some of the most high-profile units at Scotland Yard. He was put in charge of their policy for sexual offences, domestic violence, child protection and the paedophile unit before heading up the Racial and Violent Crime Task Force tackling their backlist of cold cases. From action-packed moments chasing down criminals to more tender occasions, like gaining the trust of a murder victim’s family, to making crucial legal history, and unearthing huge national scandals,
In Pursuit of the Truth
is the definitive account of modern day policing, its successes and failings included, seen through the eyes of a man who has dedicated his life to making a difference. This is a book that every part of society can learn from.
The Griekwastad Murders: The Crime that Shook South Africa
Jacques Steenkamp - 2014
It was shortly before 19h00 when Don Steenkamp jumped out of the vehicle and ran into the station’s charge office, covered in blood, to announce that his parents and sister had been brutally shot and killed on the family farm, Naauwhoek. Although the killings were initially thought to be just another farm attack, months later a sixteen-year-old youth was arrested for the murders, setting in motion a chain of events that would grip South Africa, and divide the people of Griekwastad.Based on interviews with all the role-players, including the investigating officers on the case, the forensic and ballistic experts, and family and friends of the deceased, this is the riveting account of what really happened on Naauwhoek farm on that fateful day, as told by the reporter who followed the case from day one…
Donnie Brasco: Unfinished Business: Shocking Declassified Details from the FBI's Greatest Undercover Operation and a Bloody Timeline of
Joe Pistone - 2008
Posing as jewel thief “Donnie Brasco,” Pistone spent the next six years undercover in the Family, witnessing-and sometimes participating in-the Mafia's gruesome activities while gathering enough evidence to send over 200 gangsters to jail. Pistone told his story in the 1988 book Donnie Brasco: My Undercover Life in the Mafia-a New York Times bestseller and later a feature film starring Johnny Depp and Al Pacino. But because of pending trials at the time of publication, many details of the alleged crimes were held back. Now, in Donnie Brasco: Unfinished Business, Pistone for the first time reveals with great detail the horrific deeds of wiseguys Tony Mirra, “Lefty” Ruggiero, Sonny Black, and the rest of the cold-blooded Bonanno crew. Pistone puts the operation into historical perspective, detailing the timeline of Mafia trials that crippled the New York City crime family over the past 25 years. He also recounts his experiences after the operation, his time on the Hollywood set with Pacino and Depp, and other undercover operations through present-day. A tense, thrilling account of the greatest infiltration ever by a federal agent into the most brutal gang of killers in the world, Donnie Brasco: Unfinished Business is the final chapter in the story of a real American hero.
Blood Brothers: The Inside Story of the Menendez Murders
Ron Soble - 1994
businessman and his wife by their two sons, who used a defense of child abuse to obtain a mistrial.
Mr. New Orleans: The Life of a Big Easy Underworld Legend
Frenchy Brouillette - 2010
but you can just call him MR. NEW ORLEANS. Mr. New Orleans tells the incredible story of Frenchy Brouillette, a redneck Cajun teenager who stole his big brother's motorcycle and embarked on a 60-year vacation to New Orleans, where he became a legendary gangster and the underworld political fixer for his cousin, Louisiana Governor Edwin Edwards. Written by Crescent City native Matthew Randazzo V, the wickedly funny Mr. New Orleans is the first book to ever break the code of secrecy of the New Orleans Mafia Family, the oldest and most mysterious criminal secret society in America. "Mr. New Orleans is a rollicking, disturbing ride through the underbelly of a bygone New Orleans, lined with moments of dark, side-splitting hilarity. If you're a fan of James Lee Burke, drop what you're reading and pick this one up. In an era when popular wisdom tells us T.V. has stolen all depth from the literary true-crime narrative, Matthew Randazzo has found a way to beat that trend mightily; he's gone straight to the source and captured the singular, confounding voice of the New Orleans' mafia's top political fixer with fast-paced, riveting prose and a fine journalist's eye for detail." Chris Rice, New York Times Bestselling Author "Mr. New Orleans is a total knockout: Take everything you ever imagined about the sleazy good times to be had in New Orleans -- the sleazy good times capital of America -- and quadruple it, and you have a hint of what's inside these sticky pages." Bill Tonelli, Author of The Italian American Reader and Editor for Esquire and Rolling Stone
A Conspiracy of Crowns: The True Story of the Duke of Windsor and the Murder of Sir Harry Oakes
Alfred de Marigny - 1990
Its portrayal of the Duke of Windsor as a Nazi sympathizer--who would stop at nothing to hide it--is sure to make headlines. Black-and-white photographs.
The Faceless Villain: A Collection of the Eeriest Unsolved Murders of the 20th Century: Volume One
Jenny Ashford - 2017
This volume is comprised of the years 1900 through 1959, and includes all of the best known cases of the period, as well as many more lesser-known murders, all presented in a compelling chronological narrative that takes the reader on a grisly journey through the blood-soaked avenues of early twentieth century crime. Featuring: The Peasenhall Murder. The Seal Chart Murder. The Atlanta Ripper. The Villisca Axe Murders. The Axeman of New Orleans. The Green Bicycle Case. Little Lord Fauntleroy. Hinterkaifeck Farm. The St. Aubin Street Massacre. The Wallace Case. The Atlas Vampire. The Brighton Trunk Crime. The Cleveland Torso Murderer. The Horror in Room 1046. Who Put Bella in the Wych Elm? The Pitchfork Murder. The Sodder Children. The Phantom Killer. The Black Dahlia. Somerton Man. The Grimes Sisters. The Boy in the Box. And Much More!
The Ghost: The Murder of Police Chief Greg Adams and the Hunt for His Killer
Maureen Boyle - 2021
Christmas was coming to Saxonburg, Pennsylvania—a quaint borough of just 1,300—in three short weeks. The winter air was crisp. Colored lights sparkled on houses. He was only a block and a half from the Police Department, and this was just an average traffic stop.Until it wasn’t.The devoted husband and father of two little boys was about to meet any law enforcement officer’s nightmare. Moments later, he would lay dying in a pool of his own blood on that white winter snow, while his killer vanished like an apparition into thin air.Despite his many aliases, the true identity of the murderer was quickly found. The killer himself, was not. As State Police and FBI investigators peeled back the twisted layers of low-level mobster Donald Webb’s life, the path to the killer would wind through decades … toward a shocking conclusion. After all, secrets can only be kept for so long.
Stop The Ride, I Want To Get Off: The Autobiography of Dave Courtney
Dave Courtney - 2000
Dave Courtney - the original behind Vinnie Jones's character in Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels - tells all in his no-holds-barred bestselling autobiography.From the streets of southeast London to bare-knuckle fights; from the funeral of Ronnie Kray to drug-deals turned sour in Holland - Dave Courtney's story is like no one else's.
Evil Wives
John Marlowe - 2009
This book focuses on a carefully chosen selection of history’s deadliest female criminals, making it a chilling and engrossing read.
The Sweater Letter
Dave Distel - 2002
When it comes to classics among murder mysteries,
Beautiful Bad Girl
Gordon Basichis - 2010
Seething with power, intrigue, sex and obsession, it's a ringside seat into the darker habits of the world's rich and powerful.
Reasonable Doubt: The Fashion Writer, Cape Cod, and the Trial of Chris McCowen
Peter Manso - 2011
A former Vassar girl and scion of a prominent local family, Christa had abandoned a glamorous career as a fashion writer for a simpler life on the Cape, where she had an affair with a married fisherman and had his child. After her murder, evidence pointed toward several local men who had known her. Yet in 2005, investigators arrested Christopher McCowen, a thirty-four-year-old African-American garbage collector with an IQ of 76. The local headlines screamed, “Black Trash Hauler Ruins Beautiful White Family” and “Black Murderer Apprehended in Fashion Writer Slaying,” while the sole evidence against McCowen was a DNA match showing that he’d had sex with Worthington prior to her murder. There were no fingerprints, no witnesses, and although the state medical examiner acknowledged there was no evidence of rape, the defendant was convicted after a five-week trial replete with conflicting testimony, accusations of crime scene contamination, and police misconduct—and was condemned to three lifetime sentences in prison with no parole. Rarely has a homicide trial been refracted so clearly through the prism of those who engineered it, and in Reasonable Doubt, bestselling author and biographer Peter Manso is determined to rectify what has become one of the most grossly unjust verdicts in modern trial history. In his riveting new book he bares the anatomy of a horrific murder—as well as the political corruption and racism that appear to be endemic in one of America’s most privileged playgrounds, Cape Cod. Exhaustively researched and vividly accessible, Reasonable Doubt is a no-holds-barred account of not only Christa Worthington’s murder but also of a botched investigation and a trial that was rife with bias. Manso dug deep into the case, and the results were explosive. The Cape DA indicted the author, threatening him with fifty years in prison. The trial and conviction of Christopher McCowen for rape and murder should worry American citizens, and should prompt us to truly examine the lip service we pay to the presumption of innocence . . . and to reasonable doubt. With this explosive and challenging book Manso does just that.