Book picks similar to
To Die For: The Shocking True Story of Serial Killer Dana Sue Gray by Kathy Braidhill
true-crime
non-fiction
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Betrayal in Blood
Michael Benson - 2006
“Mommy . . . won’t be with us anymore.” That’s what attorney Kevin C. Bryant, forty-five, told his two young sons in the spring of 2003. At the time, blond, pretty, twenty-six-year-old Tabatha Bryant was alive and well in an upscale suburb of Rochester, New York. But that was about to change—because Bryant knew his wife was cheating, and he intended to end the affair by ending her life. On June 14, 2003, he called 9-1-1 to report Tabatha slain by an unknown intruder who’d shot her in the eye with a .22 and repeatedly stabbed her in the neck and upper body. Soon, a drug bust led to Cassidy Green’s confession that she’d driven the getaway car. She fingered boyfriend Cyril Winebrenner as the killer. Winebrenner and Kevin Bryant were buddies who’d regularly gone on cocaine-fueled sex binges with hookers. Astoundingly, Winebrenner was also the victim’s half-brother—but Bryant’s offer of $5,000 had convinced him that money is thicker than blood. In a trial that shook “Country Club Row,” prosecutors would present evidence and testimonies that revealed even more sordid details, bringing the lawyer who tried to get away with murder to justice. Betrayal in Blood reveals the full story, from the author of numerous true crime accounts including Escape from Dannemora: Richard Matt, David Sweat, and the Great Adirondack Manhunt.
Body Dump
Fred Rosen - 2002
All were young, pretty, and petite. Most were hustlers and crackheads. By August 1998, as the toll reached eight, a victim's mother said bitterly, “When they find one, they'll find them all.” She didn't know how horrifyingly right she was.HULKING AND HOMICIDALAt the height of the manhunt, prostitute Christine Sala, hysterical, told police she had barely escaped being strangled by Kendall Francois, 27, a 6'4," 300-lb. middle-school hall monitor whose slovenly personal hygiene had earned him the nickname “Stinky.” When caught, Francois said that he'd killed the women because they hadn't given him all the sex he claimed he'd paid for.HOUSE OF HORRORSInvestigators in white bio-hazard suits entered the house where Francois lived and found eight female corpses, almost all decomposed. Some were placed in plastic bags together in the attic. Others lay in shallow graves in the crawl space under the house. It was such a tangle of rotting flesh and bones, even the investigators couldn't tell how many bodies there were. Now, sentenced to life in prison without parole, the man whom others dismissed as a smell oaf had finally been unmasked as one of the most bizarre serial sex-killers of modern times.Includes pages of disturbing photos.
A Family Business: A Chilling Tale of Greed as One Family Commits Unspeakable Crimes Against the Dead
Ken Englade - 1992
An unsettling look at the Sconce family from the acclaimed true crime author of Deadly Lessons. For sixty years, families in Southern California trusted the Sconce Family Funeral Home with their loved ones’ remains. That trust was betrayed in an extraordinary, horrifying fashion, as it was discovered that the family, seeing an opportunity, had been stealing gold fillings and harvesting the organs of the newly deceased, hiding the evidence by burning the bodies in their crematorium. When the shocking acts came to light, a trial brought every gruesome detail to the forefront, and Ken Englade has—with even-handed, clear-eyed reporting—chronicled every chilling detail.
Under the Knife
Diane Fanning - 2007
But money was never enough for Faiello, whose hard-partying ways constantly left him on the edge of ruin. So he did the unthinkable and worked as a cosmetic surgeon--even though he had no medical degree, or training whatsoever. In the spring of 2003, a beautiful, successful woman named Maria Cruz went to "Doctor" Faiello for a relatively simple cosmetic procedure…and succumbed to a fatal complication while under his care. Faiello allegedly buried her corpse beneath a concrete slab at his Newark, New Jersey home--and went on the run. It was only after Cruz's body was found that the true callousness of Faiello's plan would be dissected…and he would be accused of putting her
UNDER THE KNIFE
Evil Eyes
Corey Mitchell - 2006
Only hours before, he'd killed another woman by drowning her in her bathtub. As Watts attempted to do the same to 20-year-old Lori Lister, her roommate Melinda Aguilar, 18, made a daring escape, leading to Watts's arrest.Justice DeferredWatts was a sadistic slayer with a lust for killing in a variety of ways: strangulation, suffocation, drowning, and stabbing. He confessed to thirteen murders, but with no direct evidence to link him to the crimes, he managed to plea bargain his sentence down to 60 years for burglary.A Fiend ThwartedDue to a legal flaw in the Texas criminal justice system, Watts was supposed to be released from prison in 2006. Through the ceaseless efforts of investigators and the mother of one of the victims, Watts was finally tried and convicted to life in prison for a murder he'd committed in Michigan in 1979. He remains the prime suspect in approximately 90 other slayings. Experts theorize that Watts may have slain more than Ted Bundy, Jeffrey Dahmer, and John Wayne Gacy. . .combined! Here is the chilling story of how he almost got away with murder.16 Pages Of Shocking Photos
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
Dead of Night: The True Story of a Serial Killer
Don Lasseter - 1997
Always In Our Hearts: The Story Of Amy Grossberg, Brian Peterson, The Pregnancy They Hid And The Baby They Killed
Doug Most - 1999
But in November of their Freshman Year, the two young lovers spent a night in a Delaware motel room where, after hiding her pregnancy from her family and her friends for nine months, Amy gave birth to a baby boy. Only she and Brian knew the child even existed . . . until the next morning when the newborn's corpse turned up in the motel dumpster. The case caused a countrywide outrage, and the teenagers ended up in court, desperately fighting for their lives and ultimately against each other...
Crossing the Yard: Thirty Years as a Prison Volunteer
Richard Shelton - 2007
Richard Shelton was a young English professor in 1970 when a convict named Charles Schmid—a serial killer dubbed the “Pied Piper of Tucson” in national magazines—shared his brooding verse. But for Shelton, the novelty of meeting a death-row monster became a thirty-year commitment to helping prisoners express themselves. Shelton began organizing creative writing workshops behind bars, and in this gritty memoir he offers up a chronicle of reaching out to forgotten men and women—and of creativity blossoming in a repressive environment. He tells of published students such as Paul Ashley, Greg Forker, Ken Lamberton, and Jimmy Santiago Baca who have made names for themselves through their writing instead of their crimes. Shelton also recounts the bittersweet triumph of seeing work published by men who later met with agonizing deaths, and the despair of seeing the creative strides of inmates broken by politically motivated transfers to private prisons. And his memoir bristles with hard-edged experiences, ranging from inside knowledge of prison breaks to a workshop conducted while a riot raged outside a barricaded door. Reflecting on his decision to tutor Schmid, Shelton sees that the choice “has led me through bloody tragedies and terrible disappointments to a better understanding of what it means to be human.”Crossing the Yard is a rare story of professional fulfillment—and a testament to the transformative power of writing.
The Doctor's Wife: A True Story of Marriage, Deception and Two Gruesome Murders
John Glatt - 2007
Then, on the morning of December 4, 2004, neighbors found seven-year-old Dalton Corbin at their front door sobbing. Until then no one could have seen what was going on behind closed doors: that beautiful Jennifer Corbin was immersed in a cyber-sex lesbian affair--or that Bart, now a wealthy dentist, had a bizarre, frightening past… Jennifer Corbin's death looked like a suicide. But the crime didn't fool young Dalton, and in the coming weeks an even more horrifying story emerged: That Dr. Corbin had been left by a woman once before--and that time he may have gotten away with murder. But this time justice would be served….
Evil Next Door: The Untold Stories of a Killer Undone by DNA
Amanda Lamb - 2010
An abundance of DNA evidence. A three-and-a-half year search for a killer who was always so close-yet untouchable. After the rape and murder of Raleigh, North Carolina, resident Stephanie Bennett, police had ample DNA evidence. They also had a suspect: the man next door. But for more than three years, he eluded them by refusing to hand over a DNA sample, wiping down anything he touched and even planting decoy samples. This is the gripping story of how a team of detectives finally tripped him up-and brought closure to an innocent young woman's family.
Serial Killers: Horrifying True-Life Cases of Pure Evil
Charlotte Greig - 2012
From perverse acts of cannibalism and dark sexual fantasies to vicious acts motivated by greed and a simple lust for blood, this book reveals the methods and motivations of some of the world's most notorious serial killers, including Juan Corona, Ian Brady and Myra Hindley, Pee Wee Gaskins, and Ivan Milat.
Shattered Silence: The Untold Story of a Serial Killer's Daughter
Melissa G. Moore - 2009
She had pretended that life was perfect after her parents divorced and she was suddenly uprooted from everything familiar and loving. She had to be silent and pretend not to be disturbed or upset by her father's actions. Those experiences prepared Moore to hide the deepest, darkest secret of all. As she began making different choices, building a successful and loving life on her own, her heart began to fill with rays of hope, though she could never quite rid herself of the dark shadow of secrecy and shame.Shattered Silence is an astonishing, true narrative of personal and spiritual transformation. From her secret life as "the daughter of The Happy Face Serial Murderer" to a woman who bared her soul and inspired millions, Moore leads the reader on the vulnerable, compelling, and sometimes very raw journey of what it took to shatter the silence and claim her own life.
Broken Doll
Burl Barer - 2004
Details the true story of Richard Matthew Clark, a petty criminal, who, unable to control his penchant for murder and pedophilia, raped and murdered seven-year-old Roxanne Doll and went on to taunt her parents upon his conviction.
Seven Days of Rage: The Deadly Crime Spree of the Craigslist Killer (48 Hours Mystery)
Paul LaRosa - 2006
But Philip Markoff, the handsome, clean-cut, twenty-two-year-old med student who hired Brisman on Craigslist, had different plans. On April 14, 2009, guests notified management of a woman screaming on the twentieth floor, and Brisman was found in a pool of blood, with several bullet wounds to her torso and…plastic restraints around her wrist.Hotel surveillance video captured Markoff’s image, and an additional tip helped police connect him to attacks on several other women, including a prostitute who was tied up at a Boston hotel, and the assault of an exotic dancer in Rhode Island, both of which bear a striking similarity to the Brisman murder.A skillful blend of hard journalism and fascinating yet chilling true-crime narrative, this headline-making story will appeal to fans of Ann Rule.