Ranging from the Knights Templar to the first Protestants, from Joan of Arc to Galileo, The Grand Inquisitor’s Manual is a fascinating and sobering study of the torture and murder of hundreds of thousands of “heretics” in God’s name—the original blueprints for persecution originally drafted in the Middle Ages but followed for centuries afterwards, up to and including the “advanced interrogation methods” recently employed at Guantanamo Bay.

    Holmes himself.There are many who claim Herman Mudgett (a.k.a. H. H. Holmes) was Jack the Ripper. While many of the facts support the theory, many do not. While no one can know the extent of Holmes crimes, his own words and those of contemporary reporters provide a unique view into the mind of the man who is probably the most prolific serial killer of all time. While Holmes admitted to 27 murders, the number is probably far higher. Holmes posted job opportunities for assistants in local papers and women who responded to these advertisements were never heard from again. During the World's Columbian Exposition in 1893 (frequently referred to as the Chicago World's Fair), a Holmes ran a hotel filled with secret rooms and traps made to murder his guests. Soundproof rooms allowed him to torture and kill both his guests and his lovers, sometimes for months on end. After his arrest, H.H. Holmes wrote two confessions. In the first confession, he admits that he is a swindler but insists he is not a murderer. In the second, after his conviction, he admits to murdering 27 people. For the first time in the 21st century, both confessions are now available to readers everywhere.The confessions have been painstakingly transcribed for all to see the devious nature of this monster. It is unknown how many people Holmes killed in his murder hotel in Chicago. The detectives who searched the horror chambers were unable to get a true body count because Holmes had installed lime pits to dissolve the bodies. Some place the number of murders attributed to Holmes as high as 200. The book now includes another book written shortly after the trial and execution of Holmes: Holmes, the Arch Fiend Or: A Carnival of Crime; The Life, Trial, Confession and Execution of H. H. Holmes. This book provides a narrative that is not covered in the other texts, including possible conversations between Holmes and his victims. A fourth book has been added to this series: The Holmes Castle. This contemporary account, written in 1895 prior to Holmes execution, describes more of the atrocities of Holmes and provides new names of people who simply disappeared after contacting Holmes.

    a notorious "murder house" which was once the scene of a brutal and bloody crime. If the walls of number 25 Cromwell Street had ears, what horrifying acts would they have overheard during the occupancy of serial killers Fred and Rose West? Brutal torture sessions and grisly murders were a regular occurrence. Even after the evidence has been removed and the perpetrators imprisoned or executed, an aura of horror, fear and disgust can linger on for decades. Houses of Death provides an incredible insight into ordinary homes and institutional buildings that have played host to extraordinary events. It explores the infamous buildings, the murderers and victims who called them ‘home’, as well as the bizarre and bloody events that took place behind their closed doors.Contents including:Countess Erzsebet Bathory,Castle Csejthe; Eastern State Penitentiary; The Bender family log cabin; Sing Sing;Lizzie Borden, 92 Second Street, Fall River; H H Holmes, The Murder Castle, Chicago; Newgate Prison; Lemp Mansion, St Louis; Bangkwang Prison, Thailand; Collingwood Manor Massacre; Washington State Penitentiary; John Christie, 10 Rillington Place; Ed Gein, Gein’s Farm, Plainfield, Wisconsin; Holloway Prison; Alcatraz; The Manson Family, 10050 Cielo Drive, Los Angeles; Jonestown; Fred and Rose West, 25 Cromwell Street; Jeffrey Dahmer, 213 Oxford Apartments;Gary Heidnik, 3520 North Marshall Street; Ian Huntley, 5 College Close, Soham.

    H. Holmes as America's first serial killer. He truly was a diabolical and evil individual. The intention of writing this book is not to declare anyone as America's first serial killer, but rather to reveal that serial killers existed very early in America's growth. America's Early Serial Killers contains in vivid detail the murderous activities of five serial killers starting back in the 1790s and continuing through to the 1890s. In one case, the killer has never been identified. Given that these cases occurred so long ago, there will certainly be differing accounts as to what happened and who did what. The research was as thorough as possible though the conclusions may differ from other resources. The serial killers included in this book used different tactics and methods than current day serial killers though the atrocities were as bad if not worse. Included are the cases of: -The Harpe Brothers who slaughtered up to forty people, including some of their own children -Felipe Espinosa who murdered many settlers in the Colorado territory -The Murderous Bender Family who killed travellers for their money -The still unsolved Servant Girl Murders of Austin, Texas, and finally -The story of H. H. Holmes himself. If you enjoy reading about true crime thats a bit unusual, this book will certainly satisfy and at the same time also reveal some facets of early American life. BUY right now to get your copy of America's Early Serial Killers: Five Cases of Frontier Madness.

    Mothers, daughters, sisters and grandmothers-fiendish killers all. Society is conditioned to think of murderers and predators as men, but in this fascinating book, Peter Vronsky exposes and investigates the phenomenon of women who kill-and the political, economic, social, and sexual implications. From history's earliest recorded cases of homicidal females to Irma Grese, the Nazi Beast of Belsen, from Britain's notorious child-slayer Myra Hindley to 'Honeymoon Killer' Martha Beck, from the sensational murder-spree of Aileen Wournos, to cult killers, homicidal missionaries, and the sexy femme fatale, Vronsky challenges the ordinary standards of good and evil and defies the accepted perceptions of gender role and identity.

    sexually tortured and murdered 33 boys. His friends and neighbors in his unassuming Illinois community never suspected a thing. Gacy was a Jekyll-and-Hyde figure, leading an outwardly normal life, but secretly brutalizing dozens of young men in a hidden lair, and concealing their bodies under the floorboards of his suburban home.Through extensive personal interviews with those who knew Gacy, veteran true-crime scribe Clifford L. Linedecker takes us on a shocking ride through Gacy's life, delving deep into the man's troubled past, recounting his appalling series of murders, and recreating the drama of his trial-- which resulted in his execution by lethal injection in 1994. Gruesome and horrifying, The Man Who Killed Boys reveals stark terror set amid the daily lives of an ordinary community.Documented with an 8-page photo archive

    Yet, however repugnant the practice of torture appears to us today, it was legal for at least 3,000 years, and formed a part of most legal codes in Europe and the Far East. In The History of Torture the complete story of torture is told, from its earliest uses right through to the present day.This book explains the many tools and techniques of torture, which range from blatantly vicious methods to the most subtle of mental cruelties. The rack is one of the most enduring torture tools: first written of in Ancient Greece, it was used to stretch the victim's body from either end. Thumbscrews were introduced to Western Europe from Russia in the seventeenth century. With the twentieth century came the use of new technologies: electrodes were attached to various parts of the victim's body to administer electric shocks, while a number of drugs, including hallucinogens, have been used to elicit confessions.The History of Torture is a meticulously researched account, its detailed text enhanced by over 100 etchings, paintings, and photographs. It offers a remarkable overview of man's inhumanity to man and the use and abuse of power, both outside and within the legal system.

    Manson...It started with a college course assignment, then escalated into a dangerous obsession. Eighteen-year-old honor student Jason Moss wrote to men whose body counts had made criminal history: men named Dahmer, Manson, Ramirez, and Gacy.Dear Mr. Dahmer...Posing as their ideal victim, Jason seduced them with his words. One by one they wrote him back, showering him with their madness and violent fantasies. Then the game spun out of control. John Wayne Gacy revealed all to Jason -- and invited his pen pal to visit him in prison...Dear Mr. Gacy...It was an offer Jason couldn't turn down. Even if it made him...The book that has riveted the attention of the national media, this may be the most revealing look at serial killers ever recorded and the most illuminating study of the dark places of the human mind ever attempted.

    One year later, a struggling writer named Edgar Allan Poe decided to take on the case-and sent his fictional detective, C. Auguste Dupin, to solve the baffling murder of Mary Rogers in "The Mystery of Marie Rog�t."

    "Katherine Ramsland has brilliantly captured the insights and drama of some fascinating cases" (Dr. Henry Lee) in her previous bestselling books. Now she examines the case histories of twelve of the most notorious serial killers of the last one hundred years, and answers the questions: What clues did they leave behind? How were they eventually caught? How was each twist and turn of their crimes matched by the equally compelling weapons of science and logic? From exploring the nineteenth century's earliest investigative tools to remarkable twenty-first century CSI advances, The Devil's Dozen provides a fascinating window into the world of those who kill-and those who dedicate their lives to bringing them to justice.

    history. For 31 years a man who called himself BTK (Bind, Torture, Kill) terrorized the city of Wichita, Kansas, sexually assaulting and strangling a series of women, taunting the police with frequent communications, and bragging about his crimes to local newspapers and TV stations. After disappearing for nine years, he suddenly reappeared, complaining that no one was paying enough attention to him and claiming that he had committed other crimes for which he had not been given credit. When he was ultimately captured, BTK was shockingly revealed to be Dennis Rader, a 61-year-old married man with two children.

    From the primitive snake pit to sophisticated methods of brainwashing, literally thousands of techniques have been devised to distort both the body and the mind - and to satisfy the sadistic needs of those who command, perform and witness human torture. In The History of Torture, Daniel P. Mannix examines with honesty and thoroughness every aspect of torture: the professional torturers, many of them history's most famous men and women; their theories and techniques; the role torture has played in history; and the refinements brought to the practice of torture by individual fanatics, religious groups, the military and entire cultures. The result is information on the infliction of pain for punishment or coercion from pre-history to modern times. This remarkable work discusses not only the history of torture but its moral implications as well. Everyone interested in the long and difficult course of human rights, personal and political freedom and in the history of crime and punishment will find the book fascinating and enlightening.

    A murder. A mystery.The most important person on the scene? The forensic scientist. And yet the intricate details of their work remains a mystery to most of us. Silent Witnesses looks at the history of forensic science over the last two centuries, during which time a combination of remarkable intuition, painstaking observation and leaps in scientific knowledge have developed this fascinating branch of detection. Throwing open the casebook, it introduces us to such luminaries as 'The Wizard of Berkeley' Edward Heinrich, who is credited with having solved over 2000 crimes, and Alphonse Bertillon, the French scientist whose guiding principle 'no two individuals share the same characteristics' became the core of identification. Along the way, it takes us to India and Australia, Columbia and China, Russia, France, Germany, Spain and Italy. And it proves that, in order to solve ever more complicated cases, science must always stay one step ahead of the killer.

    The investigation that follows uncovers an extraordinarily complex and puzzling true-crime story. Only Vincent Bugliosi, who recounted his successful prosecution of mass murderer Charles Manson in the bestseller Helter Skelter, was able to draw together the hundreds of conflicting details of the mystery and reconstruct what really happened when four people found hell in a tropical paradise. And the Sea Will Tell reconstructs the events and subsequent trial of a riveting true murder mystery, and probes into the dark heart of a serpentine scenario of death.

    DEPRAVED KIDNAPPERS, HORRIFIC ORDEALS, COURAGEOUS SURVIVORSTrue stories of twisted criminals who hold their victims in endless captivity to satisfy their perverse desires, Against Their Will is a comprehensive compendium of the most disturbing kidnappings of all time.Jaycee Lee Dugard — lived to tell the tale of her 18 years of captivity in paroled rapist Phillip Garrido’s suburban backyard.Elizabeth Smart — bravely held on for 9 long months in a forced marriage to religious fanatic Brian David Mitchell, who repeatedly raped her in the name of God.Elisabeth Fritzl — amazingly overcame 24 years trapped in a basement dungeon built especially for her by her father, Josef.Colleen Stan — heroically endured 7 years as a sex slave, brutally tortured with the full consent of her captor’s wife.Tina Marie Risico — escaped certain death at the hands of a killer by being an unwilling accomplice in other kidnappings.