True Murder: The Most Shocking Killers
Every week host Dan Zupansky will interview the true crime authors that have written about the most shocking killers of all time.
Episodes
THAT BEAST WAS NOT ME-Jeffrey L. Smalldon
In 1975, after Manson Family member Lynette “Squeaky” Fromme’s attempt to kill President Gerald Ford, the FBI found a cache of letters in the would-be assassin’s Sacramento apartment. The return address belonged to future forensic psychologist Jeffrey Smalldon, then a young undergraduate.A decade later, after the shocking murders of two co-workers, Smalldon’s quest to understand the twisted minds and motivations of killers became personal in a way it never had been before.THAT BEAST WAS NOT ME documents five decades of conversations with murderers like John Wayne Gacy, Charles Manson, Ted Bundy, serial sniper Thomas Lee Dillon, and Donald Harvey—then thought to be the most prolific serial killer in American history. Through letters, prison visits, and interviews, Smalldon gives readers a terrifying look into the darkest recesses of the human psyche. THAT BEAST WAS NOT ME: One Forensic Psychologist, Five Decades of Conversations With Killers-Jeffrey L. Smalldon
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02/09/24•1h 16m
THE DEVIL AT HIS ELBOW-Valerie Bauerlein
Power, privilege, and blood—this is the definitive and thrilling true story of Alex Murdaugh’s violent downfall, from a veteran Wall Street Journal reporter who has become an authority on the case. Alex Murdaugh was a benevolent dictator—the president of the South Carolina trial lawyers’ association, a political boss, a part-time prosecutor, and a partner in his family’s law firm. He was always ready with a favor, a drink, and an invitation to Moselle, his family’s 1,700-acre hunting estate. The Murdaugh name ignited respect—and fear—for a hundred miles.When he murdered his wife, Maggie, and son Paul at Moselle on a dark summer night, the fragile façade of Alex’s world could no longer hold. His forefathers had covered up a midnight suicide at a remote railroad crossing, a bootlegging ring run from a courthouse, and the attempted murder of a pregnant lover. Alex, too, almost walked away from his unspeakable crimes with his reputation intact, but his downfall was secured by a twist of fate, some stray mistakes, and a fateful decision by an old friend who’d finally seen enough.Why would a man who had everything kill his wife and grown son? To unwind the roots of Alex’s ruin, award-winning journalist Valerie Bauerlein reported not just from the courthouse every day but also along the backroads and through the tidal marshes of South Carolina’s Lowcountry. When the jurors made their pilgrimage to the crime scene, trying to envision Maggie and Paul’s last moments, she walked right behind them, sensing the ghosts that haunt the Murdaughs’ now-shattered legacy.Through masterful research and cinematic writing, The Devil at His Elbow is a transporting journey through Alex’s life, the night of the murders, and the investigation that culminated in a trial that held tens of millions spellbound. With her stunning insights and fearless instinct for the truth, Bauerlein uncovers layers of the Murdaugh murder case that have not been told. THE DEVIL AT HIS ELBOW: Alex Murdaugh and the Fall of a Southern Dynasty-Valerie Bauerlein
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26/08/24•1h 8m
IN THE WIND-Ron Peterson Jr.
The true story of a trailblazing detective’s search for a beautiful college coed who vanished without a trace.In 1981, detective Kay Schucker was the lead investigator in the high-profile missing persons case of Old Dominion University student Janice Starr. The beautiful co-ed disappeared without a trace from ODU’s Norfolk, Virginia campus. Among the only leads was Janice’s diary, which included detailed journal entries about her daily activities. As Kay studied the diary—going several years back—she learned that Janice, a US Army veteran, had faced the same challenges in the military that Kay did in law enforcement. They were both women trying to succeed in a man’s world. Feeling a kinship toward Janice, Kay became consumed with unraveling the mystery of Janice’s disappearance and possible death.As the investigation unfolded, Kay began to suspect that Janice had an affair with her ROTC professor at ODU, Army captain Dwight Beddingfield—a well-respected family man married with three kids. Kay was warned by superiors to tread lightly in her investigation of Beddingfield and cautioned not to dig too deeply. But she soon uncovered a life insurance scheme and discovered that Janice had been assigned a series of dangerous tasks by Captain Beddingfield. Did these circumstances play a role in Janice’s demise? Was the highly regarded Beddingfield actually a killer? If so, what did he do with Janice’s remains? IN THE WIND: The Disappearance of Janice Starr-Ron Peterson Jr.Ritual.com/MURDER
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19/08/24•1h 15m
BLOOD TRAIL-Rick Reed
Joseph Weldon Brown confessed to more than a dozen murders across seven states. He was convicted and sentenced for killing a woman whose body he dismembered and scattered across three Indiana counties. In prison, he hogtied and strangled his cellmate, then asked the judge to lock him up for life because if he was released, he would continue killing.Police detective Rick Reed was on the scene when Brown led authorities to the scattered remains of Ginger Gasaway in 2000. After Brown’s arrest, he confessed to a shocking number of other heinous crimes—the torture and murders of drifters and sex workers, the cold case of a naked woman’s body found in a roadside ditch, even the murder of his own mother. Detective Reed was the one man Brown opened up to—and the only one to cut through the deceptions and lies and learn the terrible truth . . .Now-retired detective Reed reveals his personal theories and insights into one of the darkest minds he has ever encountered—and one of the most terrifying crime stories ever told . . .BLOOD TRAIL: The Hunt For A Serial Killer-Rick Reed
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12/08/24•1h 12m
THE DEVIL BEHIND THE BADGE-Rick Jervis
The shocking true-crime story of a U.S. Border Patrol agent turned serial killer, the four sex workers whom he mercilessly killed, and the upended border town of Laredo where his heinous crimes occurred.Twelve days is all it took.Melissa Ramirez, Claudine Anne Luera, Guiselda Hernandez, and Janelle Ortiz were four marginalized women striving to make ends meet as sex workers. They looked out for one another. But they would soon share a connection that none of them could have imagined. When Melissa was found dead, the other three women were on edge but assumed they were safe. Twelve days later, they too were dead and police had detained an unlikely suspect—Juan David Ortiz, a ten-year veteran of the U.S. Customs and Border Protection, where he carried a badge, a service revolver, and was entrusted to protect the community in which he eventually killed. From September 3 through September 15, 2018, Ortiz, a husband and doting father to three children, lured his victims into his white Dodge truck and drove them to the outskirts of town where he violently executed them, leaving them dead or dying on the sides of dark, rural roads.In this fast-paced, electrifying tick-tock, Pulitzer Prize–winning USA TODAYjournalist Rick Jervis tells the gripping story of the four murders that shook the small border town of Laredo, and the quest to unmask a cold, calculated killer who was hiding in plain sight. The Devil Behind the Badge is also a deeply human portrait of the four lives lost and an attempt to uncover what motivated Ortiz’s descent into darkness. Along the way, it raises serious questions about the border crisis, the abuse of law enforcement, and the challenges of a federal agency to police its own ranks. THE DEVIL BEHIND THE BADGE: The Horrifying Twelve Days of the Border Patrol Serial Killer-Rick Jervishttps://magicmind.com/killers
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05/08/24•1h 13m
REAP THE WHIRLWIND-Peter Houlahan
The bestselling author of Norco ’80 returns to True Murder with a riveting story of mid-1980s San Diego that placed one young Black man at the center of a whirlwind of crime and punishment that profoundly altered Southern California.March 31, 1985. Two white patrol officers in search of a gang member followed a pickup truck carrying seven young Black men up a dirt driveway in the Encanto neighborhood of Southeastern San Diego. Minutes later, gunshots rang out, and the truck’s driver, Sagon Penn, fled the scene in an officer’s patrol car. The incident stunned the city. What followed would change it forever.Penn was an idealist who believed in the power of Buddhist chants to bring about the oneness of humanity. The two police officers were rising stars in one of the most progressive police departments in the country, yet one that had suffered more officers killed in the line of duty than any other. While the facts of the case were never in dispute, what remained unresolved was what, if anything, could justify such a violent confrontation? For over two years, a determined prosecutor and a charismatic defense attorney engaged in a sensational courtroom drama that revolved around matters of mental health, racial biases, and the self-image of a once-sleepy beach town grappling with its transformation into a major metropolitan area. The Sagon Penn incident forever altered how San Diego would respond to incidents involving police and communities of color. REAP THE WHIRLWIND: Violence, Race, Justice, And The Story Of Sagon Penn-Peter Houlahan
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29/07/24•1h 35m
GUILTY CREATURES
Mike and Denise Williams had a tight knit, seemingly unbreakable bond with childhood friends, Brian and Kathy Winchester. The two couples were devout, hardworking Baptists who lived perfect, quintessentially Southern lives. Their friendship seemed ironclad. That is, until December 16, 2000, when Denise’s husband Mike disappeared while duck hunting on Lake Seminole.After no body was found, everyone assumed that Mike had drowned in a tragic accident, his body eaten by alligators. But things took an unexpected turn when, within five years of Mike’s disappearance, Brian Winchester divorced his wife and married Denise. Their surprising romance set tongues talking. People began wondering how long they had been a couple, and whether they had anything to do with Mike’s death. It took another twelve years for the truth to come out—and when it did, it was unimaginable.Now, the full, shocking story is revealed by Mikita Brottman, acclaimed true crime writer of the “enthralling” An Unexplained Death. Through tenacious research and clear-eyed prose, she probes the psychology of a couple who killed and explores how it feels to live for eighteen years with murder on the soul. GUILTY CREATURES: Sex, God and Murder in Tallahassee, Florida-Mikita Brottman
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22/07/24•1h 2m
LOST HILLS-Dana Goodyear
It’s a case that has stumped generations of detectives and Internet sleuths. On Sept. 16, 2009, 24-year-old Richardson was arrested at an oceanside Malibu restaurant and taken to Malibu/Lost Hills Sheriff’s Station. With no money, no phone, and no ride, and in the midst of what was later described by law enforcement as a severe bipolar episode, Richardson was released by the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Dept. just after midnight, and disappeared into the night. Her whereabouts confounded authorities for nearly a year until her skeletonized and partially mummified remains were found on Aug. 9, 2010, up rugged Dark Canyon, some six miles away from the station.There was no sign of trauma to Mitrice’s remains and the coroner could not determine the cause of death. But Mitrice’s death was undoubtedly suspicious. Her bra, belt, and jeans were found some distance from her body; the rest of her clothing was never found. And investigators never recovered a tiny bone called the hyoid, which often breaks when a person is strangled.A tenacious reporter and gifted storyteller, Goodyear spent the past five years on the case, leading her and her co-reporter, Hayley Fox, to the secluded tight-knit mountain community of Monte Nido where Mitrice was last seen. Driven by conversations with Richardson’s grieving friends and family and undeterred by the scant clues that have been picked through by dozens of previous investigations, LOST HILLS: Dark Canyon probes where others have not, including Richardson’s never-before-seen personal journals, new eyewitness interviews, and new potential forensic evidence. In 12 gripping episodes, Goodyear painstakingly builds a case that Mitrice’s death involved foul play—and she identifies a potential suspect. LOST HILLS: Dark Canyon-Season 4-Dana Goodyear
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15/07/24•1h
WHEN A KILLER CALLS-John Douglas
On May 31, 1985, two days before her high school graduation, Shari Smith was abducted from the driveway of her family home in South Carolina. Based on the crime scene and the abductor’s repeated and taunting calls to the family, law enforcement quickly realized they were dealing with a sophisticated and highly dangerous criminal. A letter arrived the next day entitled “Last Will & Testament,” in which Shari, knowing she was to be murdered, wrote bravely and achingly of her love for her parents, siblings, and boyfriend, saying that while they would miss her, she knew they would persevere through their faith. The abduction rocked her quiet town, triggering a massive manhunt and bringing in the FBI, which enlisted profiler John Douglas. A few days later, a phone call told the family where they could find Shari’s body.Then nine-year-old Debra May Helmick was kidnapped from her yard, confirming the harsh realization that Smith’s murder was no random act. A serial killer was evolving, and the only way to stop him would be to use the study of criminal behavior to anticipate his next move before he could kill again. Douglas devised a risky and emotionally fraught strategy to use Shari’s lookalike older sister Dawn as bait to draw out the unknown subject. Dawn and her parents courageously agreed.One of the most haunting investigations of Douglas’s storied career, this case details how the eerily accurate profile he created—alongside his carefully crafted and stage-managed manipulation of the killer’s psychology—combined with dedicated police work and cutting-edge forensic science to end a reign of criminal terror. As Shari’s family took incredible personal risks to lure her killer from the shadows, Douglas and the FBI pushed criminal profiling to its limits, culminating in one of his most dramatic and effective confrontations with a sadistic and remorseless killer. WHEN A KILLER CALLS: A Haunting Story of Murder, Criminal Profiling, and Justice in a Small Town-John Douglas
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08/07/24•54m 35s
THE WITCH OF NEW YORK-Alex Hortis
Before the sensational cases of Amanda Knox and Casey Anthony—before even Lizzie Borden—there was Polly Bodine, the first American woman put on trial for capital murder in America’s debut media circus.On Christmas night, December 25, 1843, in a serene village on Staten Island, shocked neighbors discovered the burnt remains of twenty-four-year-old mother Emelin Houseman and her infant daughter, Ann Eliza. In a perverse nativity, someone bludgeoned to death a mother and child in their home—and then covered up the crime with hellfire.When an ambitious district attorney charges Polly Bodine (Emelin’s sister-in-law) with a double homicide, the new “penny press” explodes. Polly is a perfect media villain: she’s a separated wife who drinks gin, commits adultery, and has had multiple abortions. Between June 1844 and April 1846, the nation was enthralled by her three trials—in Staten Island, Manhattan, and Newburgh—for the “Christmas murders.”After Polly’s legal dream team entered the fray, the press and the public debated not only her guilt, but her character and fate as a fallen woman in society. Public opinion split into different camps over her case. Edgar Allen Poe and Walt Whitman covered her case as young newsmen. P. T. Barnum made a circus out of it. James Fenimore Cooper’s last novel was inspired by her trials.The Witch of New York is the first narrative history about the dueling trial lawyers, ruthless newsmen, and shameless hucksters who turned the Polly Bodine case into America’s formative tabloid trial. An origin story of how America became addicted to sensationalized reporting of criminal trials, The Witch of New York vividly reconstructs an epic mystery from Old New York—and uses the Bodine case to challenge our system of tabloid justice of today. THE WITCH OF NEW YORK-The Trials of Polly Bodine and the Cursed Birth of Tabloid Justice-Alex Hortis
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01/07/24•1h 18m
A HARVEST OF INNOCENCE-Dan Stidham
A Harvest of Innocence is Dan Stidham's story, until now untold, regarding his involvement in the West Memphis 3 murder case. He stepped into its current as a young lawyer, unaware of its strength and the immutable, unpredictable eddies that would forever change his life and his view of the law. He tells it now because it must be told. He spent most of the past 30 years viewed in widely disparate lights. In the beginning, to some he was a pariah, a man so bold as to represent a teenager accused of being a Satanic child killer. Much later, others began to respect his efforts in seeking justice for Jessie Misskelley. In the real world, it is much more complicated than that. He was nothing more than a lawyer committed to doing his job, what was required of him by his moral compass. As a reward for his efforts, he spent a good deal of the past 30 years being pummeled by those hellbent on stopping his quest for justice for the West Memphis 3, young men who spent nearly two decades in prison for heinous crimes they simply did not commit. This is the true story of those events. A HARVEST OF INNOCENCE: The Untold Story of the West Memphis Three Murder Case-Dan Stidham
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24/06/24•1h 31m
THE DEVIL IN MY FRIEND-Ivor Davis
Award-winning author and journalist Ivor Davis, author of Manson Exposed: A reporter's 50-year journey into Madness and Murder discusses he and his wife Sally's investigation into their longtime friend and neighbor when he is arrested for the murder of his wife and stepson.Ivor and Sally Davis were horrified when their Malibu neighbors, Verna Roehler and her son, Doug died in a terrible boating accident. The nightmare only continued when her husband, their friend, Fred Roehler, was arrested and then convicted for their murder. As investigative writers they set out hoping to find Roehler innocent—instead they found a viper’s nest of deceit and murder. THE DEVIL IN MY FRIEND: The Inside Story of a Malibu Murder-Ivor Davis
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17/06/24•1h 1m
THE MURDER OF MARY FALZONE-Rod Kackley
Step back in time to the winter of 1929, where the magic of Christmas in Brooklyn, New York, was shattered by a heinous act that reverberated through the ages. In "The Murder of Mary Falzone: A Shocking True Crime Story,” Rod Kackley unravels the chilling tale of a family torn apart by an explosion that claimed the lives of Mary, Philip, and Rose Falzone, innocent children whose lives were extinguished by a bomb disguised as a holiday gift.As the city grappled with the aftermath of this unspeakable tragedy, a relentless investigation unfolded to unmask the perpetrators behind the merciless attack. Rod Kackley takes readers on a gripping journey through the dark alleys of 1920s Brooklyn, where organized crime thrived, and the thin line between justice and retribution blurred. The narrative unfolds like a suspenseful thriller, capturing the tension of a city on the brink.Through painstaking research and vivid storytelling, Rod Kackley paints a vivid picture of a bygone era, immersing readers in the sights, sounds, and emotions of a community grappling with grief and the quest for justice.As the investigation deepens, readers will be engrossed by the cast of characters—dedicated detectives, grieving family members, and the shadowy figures lurking in the criminal underworld. The book unveils the layers of deception and betrayal that led to that fateful December morning, keeping readers on the edge of their seats with every revelation."The Murder of Mary Falzone" transcends the true crime genre, becoming a poignant exploration of the enduring quest for justice and the impact of violence on a family and a community. This is a tale that goes beyond the headlines, inviting readers to contemplate the fragility of life and the strength that can emerge in the face of tragedy. Gripping, evocative, and profoundly moving, this true crime narrative is a must-read for those seeking an unforgettable journey into the heart of a dark chapter in American history. THE MURDER OF MARY FALZONE: A Shocking True Crime Story-Rod KackleyRitual.com/Murder
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10/06/24•56m 21s
OF MOBSTERS AND MOVIE STARS-Joan Renner
No Hollywood script can compare to the terror of the 37 true tales in OF MOBSTERS AND MOVIE STARS: The Bloody "Golden Age" of Hollywood!In this gripping historical account, expert crime historian Joan Renner explores the shadowy world of fame and crime during Hollywood's most glamorous era. As Los Angeles transformed into the epicenter of film, it also became a haven for notorious criminals and mobsters, weaving a complex tapestry of allure and danger that is sure to intrigue.Renner brings to life stories that are more thrilling than fiction, including harrowing LAPD showdowns, dark dealings behind the studio gates, and tragic fates of luminaries whose off-screen lives were as dramatic as their on-screen personas. The most shocking murder stories from this collection that Joan and I discuss are: Bluebeard Watson; The Attic Love Slave; The Adventures of Tiger Girl; and Torso Murder. OF MOBSTERS AND MOVIE STARS offers a profound and enlightening look at Hollywood's dual nature, illustrating how its seductive glitter was deeply entangled with its sinister impulses. Step into the Prohibition Era with Joan Renner as she reveals the hidden crimes and undying ambition behind Hollywood's shimmering façade. OF MOBSTERS AND MOVIE STARS: The Bloody "Golden Age" of Hollywood-Joan Renner
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03/06/24•1h 6m
LONG HAUL-Frank Figliuzzi
In 2004, the FBI was tipped off to a gruesome pattern of unsolved murders along American roadways. Today at least 850 homicides have been linked to a solitary breed of predators: long-haul truck drivers. They have been given names like the “Truck Stop Killer,” who rigged a traveling torture chamber in the rear of his truck and is suspected to have killed fifty women, and “The Interstate Strangler,” who once answered a phone call from his mother while killing one of his dozen victims. The crisis was such that the FBI opened a special unit, the Highway Serial Killings Initiative. In many cases, the victims—often at-risk women—are picked up at truck stops in one jurisdiction, sexually assaulted and murdered in another, and dumped along a highway in a third place. The transient nature of the offenders and multiple jurisdictions involved make these cases incredibly difficult to solve.Based on his own on-the-ground research and drawing on his twenty-five-year career as an FBI special agent, Frank Figliuzzi investigates the most terrifying cases. He also rides in a big-rig with a long-haul trucker for thousands of miles, gaining an intimate understanding of the life and habits of drivers and their roadside culture. And he interviews the courageous trafficked victims of these crimes, and their inspiring efforts to now help others avoid similar fates.Long Haul is a gripping exploration of a violent, disordered world hiding in plain sight, and the heroes racing to end the horror. It will forever unsettle how you travel on the road. LONG HAUL: Hunting The Highway Serial Killers-Frank Figliuzzi
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27/05/24•1h 4m
THE DAY MY MOTHER NEVER CAME HOME-Reggie L. Reed Jr.
On August 23, 1987, the body of Selonia Reed, 26, was found partially clothed in the passenger seat of her car in an empty parking lot in Hammond, Louisiana. She had sustained incredible blunt force trauma to her head and face, her upper body suffering more than a dozen stab wounds from an-ice pick type weapon. Killed elsewhere, her body drained of blood, she had been displayed, sexually violated with an umbrella. Police investigated but with little evidence the case soon went cold.Selonia's son Reggie Reed Jr. was only 6 years old.Reggie Reed Sr. alone raised his son, and over the years Reggie Jr. managed to somehow recover from the incredible trauma, get married, have a family and become a business success. Then in 2019, a cigarette butt found at the crime scene of Selonia Reed was tested for DNA—and police found a match and made an arrest. The ex-con made a plea deal for Accessory After the Fact—naming Reggie Reed Sr. as the killer of Selonia Reed. The Day My Mother Never Came Home is not simply a true crime tale; it is a testament to the power of the human spirit and the importance of shedding light on the truth. Listen to Reed as he grapples with raw emotions and questions the complexities of true justice. His story will leave an indelible mark on your heart and mind, compelling you to reflect on the fragility of life and the strength it takes to overcome tragedy. THE DAY MY MOTHER NEVER CAME HOME-Reggie L. Reed Jr.
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20/05/24•58m 38s
DEAD END-Bob Cyphers
In 1992, a store clerk was found shot to death in broad daylight at the Boot Village in St. Charles, Missouri. Nothing was stolen and there was no sexual assault. This bizarre and seemingly isolated murder was quickly connected with others in Indianapolis, Wichita, Terre Haute, and Raytown. The media dubbed the suspect “The I-70 Serial Killer.” He has never been captured, and the story quickly fell out of the media’s attention. But the cases never went cold for the officers in those cities.In 2021, with the advancements in DNA, St. Charles Police Captain Raymond Floyd launched a task force, bringing all jurisdictions together along with federal agencies to take one final crack at solving the crimes. The task force selected Bob Cyphers of KMOV-TV to follow them along, city by city, in the hunt for the killer. Cyphers and his KMOV crew produced a seven-part award winning series called “Chasing the I-70 Serial Killer.” Their work led to national exposure of the case in People magazine and on the Discovery Channel, winning an Edward R. Murrow Award and being nominated for an Emmy.Dead End: Inside the Hunt for the I-70 Serial Killer follows on the work done by the task force with the important goal of keeping the story alive in the public eye. New evidence, never before available to the public, is revealed here, with the hopes of triggering a memory or revealing a new lead. The task force may be closed, but the drive to find this killer is alive and well. DEAD END: Inside the Hunt for the I-70 Serial Killer-Bob Cyphers
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13/05/24•58m 56s
CONNECTED BY FATE-LaDonna Humphrey
Connected by Fate unfolds against the haunting backdrop of the Ozark National Forest, where the unresolved murder of Melissa Witt has cast a long shadow over the dense woodlands for almost three decades. The mystery, woven into the fabric of the remote mountaintop, has become a part of the lore of the land, with the true identity of the murderer eluding capture, concealed by the forest's imposing presence.Enter LaDonna Humphrey, driven by a profound sense of justice and a personal commitment to uncovering the truth, despite never having met Melissa Witt. LaDonna's connection to the case transcends the ordinary, fueling her with a relentless determination that has defined her life for almost a decade.LaDonna's investigation is a riveting narrative of courage, resilience, and an unwavering pursuit of truth in the face of overwhelming odds. Each breakthrough and setback, each clue unearthed and lead followed, draws her deeper into a web of intrigue that extends far beyond the initial crime.Connected by Fate is more than a true crime story; it's a testament to the power of human spirit and determination fueled by the knowledge that solving Melissa's murder is not just about bringing a killer to justice—it's about restoring dignity to a life cut tragically short, and offering closure to a community haunted by the specter of an unsolved crime. CONNECTED BY FATE (Who Killed Melissa Witt? Book 2) LaDonna HumphreyRitual.com/murder
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06/05/24•1h 1m
RECKLESS-Douglas Thompson
John F. Kennedy's life is promoted by sentimental myth-makers as pure legend, but a sinister shadow lies across his life. JFK's death was such a shocking event that the vivid memory of his assassination still blinds us to much of what went before. It is almost always seen through the prism of that single, terrible day in Dallas, obscuring the dark corners of his life and government. For JFK, power was soundbites over policy, the White House a fairytale castle, and the President a hypersexualised movie star. As with Hollywood, the willing suspension of belief was required. Reality imposes no such limits. Drawing on essential new material, Reckless shatters the secrets and lies with a revelatory true-life thriller focusing on JFK and Robert F. Kennedy, both before and after they bought the White House. All the usual suspects, from FBI titan J. Edgar Hoover and billionaire Howard Hughes to CIA rogue agents and Mob hitmen appear in a narrative which sweeps from wartime London to the salons of Washington, from the bedrooms of Hollywood to the torture chambers and jungles of Central America, and on to revolutionary Cuba and the the tragic, bloody political carousel of Vietnam. RECKLESS: Sex, Lies and JFK-Douglas Thompson
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29/04/24•1h 5m
THE LAST STORY-Arthur Kane
Jeff German, a veteran Las Vegas Review-Journal investigative reporter, was no stranger to controversy or the danger of his work. For more than four decades, he wrote stories relentlessly confronting the mob, corrupt politicians, and greedy bureaucrats. As a result, he was often threatened—enough that he and his friend and fellow investigative reporter, Arthur Kane, sometimes joked about reporting on these threats if they were ever acted upon. Then, in the spring of 2022, German received a tip about abuses at a little-known county office. His subsequent investigation unearthed a scandalous, sexually incriminating video of a rising politician. The resulting stories in the Review-Journal ended the man’s political aspirations. Less than six months later, on September 3, German’s lifeless body was discovered outside his home with multiple stab wounds. His dedicated newsroom colleagues, including Kane, vowed to find the killer. In doing so, they exposed the true depths of corruption and malice in Sin City. Meanwhile, the police struggled to identify a suspect until they released a photo of the suspect's vehicle to the media. That tip led them to none other than the small-time politician, who was subsequently arrested and now faces life in prison, pending the outcome of his trial in August 2024. In The Last Story Kane delivers an intense narrative of courage, betrayal, and the unrelenting quest for justice. The Last Story: The Murder of an Investigative Journalist in Las Vegas-Arthur Kane
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22/04/24•59m 6s
THE SERIAL KILLER'S APPRENTICE-Katherine Ramsland
Elmer Wayne Henley, Jr. was only fourteen when he first became entangled with serial rapist and murderer Dean Corll in 1971. Fellow Houston, Texas, teenager David Brooks had already been ensnared by the charming older man, bribed with cash to help lure boys to Corll’s home. When Henley unwittingly entered the trap, Corll evidently sensed he’d be of more use as a second accomplice than another victim. He baited Henley with the same deal he’d given Brooks: $200 for each boy they could bring him. Henley didn’t understand the full extent of what he had signed up for at first. But once he started, Corll convinced him that he had crossed the line of no return and had to not only procure boys but help kill them and dispose of the bodies, as well. When Henley first took a life, he lost his moral base. He felt doomed. By the time he was seventeen, he’d helped with multiple murders and believed he’d be killed, too. But on August 8, 1973, he picked up a gun and shot Corll. When he turned himself in, Henley showed police where he and Brooks had buried Corll’s victims in mass graves. Twenty-eight bodies were recovered―most of them boys from Henley’s neighborhood―making this the worst case of serial murder in America at the time. The case reveals gross failures in the way cops handled parents’ pleas to look for their missing sons and how law enforcement possibly protected a larger conspiracy. The Serial Killer’s Apprentice tells the story of Corll and his accomplices in its fullest form to date. It also explores the concept of “mur-dar” (the predator’s instinct for exploitable kids), current neuroscience about adolescent brain vulnerabilities, the role of compartmentalization, the dynamic of a murder apprenticeship, and how tales like Henley’s can aid with early intervention. Despite his youth and cooperation, Henley went to trial and received six life sentences. He’s now sixty-five and has a sense of perspective about how adult predators can turn formerly good kids into criminals. Unexpectedly, he’s willing to talk. This book is his warning and the story of the unspeakable evil and sorrow that befell Houston in the early 1970s. THE SERIAL KILLER'S APPRENTICE: The True Story of How Houston's Deadliest Murderer Turned A Kid Into A Killing Machine-Katherine Ramsland
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15/04/24•1h 3m
THE COURAGE TO FACE COVID-19-John Leake
At the beginning of 2020, Dr. Peter McCullough was a highly regarded practicing physician, program director, teacher, and clinical investigator at a major academic medical center in Dallas, Texas. When COVID-19 arrived in March, he felt a duty to find a treatment for the disease. He wasn't alone. Other doctors all over the world were also searching for a cure. They followed the longstanding principle that it's best to tackle a sickness early, before it becomes life threatening. This is the story of how Dr. McCullough and his colleagues developed an early treatment protocol of generic, repurposed drugs and supplements that has saved millions of COVID-19 patients from hospitalization and death.In spite of their success, their early treatment protocol was not welcomed by public health officials. On the contrary, the news of their promising results was dismissed as soon as it was reported. At first this seemed like conventional skepticism, but then fraudulent papers maligning the protocol's repurposed drugs were published in academic medical journals. This and other acts of fraud revealed that a coordinated smear campaign against early treatment was being waged. Dr. McCullough and his colleagues soon found themselves censured, censored, attacked in the media, and fired from their jobs. The greatest victims of the smear campaign were COVID-19 patients who were consequently deprived of early treatment. Hundreds of thousands needlessly died of the disease.At the same time early treatment was suppressed, the US government and mainstream media proclaimed that the cure to COVID-19 lay in a new generation of vaccines that were being developed at warp speed. These were heralded as a forthcoming panacea that would save mankind and restore normalcy. As soon as they were mass deployed, public health officials would lift the restrictions on social and economic life.While many observers were thunderstruck by this turn of events, there were historical precedents. In his 1961 Farewell Address, President Eisenhower warned: We must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought of unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. As Dr. McCullough and his colleagues learned, Eisenhower’s warning has become equally applicable to the Bio-Pharmaceutical Complex of multinational drug companies, the NIH and other federal agencies, research and virology labs, and the Gates Foundation. Since COVID-19 arrived, this Complex has obtained misplaced power over every aspect of our lives and taken our liberties. The Courage to Face Covid-19 recounts how Dr. McCullough and his colleagues began their work by fighting a novel infectious disease, and then became leaders in fighting the tyrannical regime that endangers our American way of life. THE COURAGE TO FACE COVID-19: Preventing Hospitalization and Death While Battling The Bio-Pharmaceutical Complex-John Leake
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08/04/24•1h 13m
I WILL RUIN YOU-Emilio Corsetti
Moments before boarding a passenger flight on 11 May 2019 as the first officer, pilot Christian "Kit" Martin, a former army ranger, was arrested by a swarm of heavily armed officers for the murders of three of his neighbors. The arrest captured global attention as Martin's mugshot, clad in a pilot's uniform, spread across the internet, sparking a media firestorm with headlines such as "Monster in the Cockpit."A combat helicopter pilot, Kit Martin had seen his life unravel after seeking a divorce. His wife's threatening words, "If you leave me, I will ruin your life …," overheard by his daughter, seemed to have become a grim reality, escalating to a court-martial and culminating in a high-stakes murder trial at which he was convicted.I WILL RUIN YOU: The Twisted Truth Behind the Kit Martin Murder Trial delves into the complex circumstances behind Martin’s story. It looks beyond the sensational headlines and legal turmoil into the heart of this controversial case.With an investigative journalist’s eye, author Emilio Corsetti III presents the facts of the crime that led to the arrest and the extraordinary lengths used to secure a conviction in this unforgettable true crime page-turner. I WILL RUIN YOU: The Twisted Truth Behind The Kit martin Murder Trial-Emilio Corsetti lllRitual.com/Murder
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01/04/24•1h 8m
KILLING TIME WITH JOHN WAYNE GACY-Karen Conti
John Wayne Gacy raped, tortured, and murdered 33 boys and young men, burying most of them in the crawlspace under his Chicago home. Karen Conti was in high school at the time watching the bodies being removed on the television news.Fourteen years pass. Through a twist of fate, Conti, now a young and inexperienced attorney, is called upon to handle Gacy’s final death row appeals. The serial killer soon becomes her most famous, difficult, and haunting client.Thirty years after Gacy’s execution, Conti looks back through the eyes of a seasoned professional on the legal and media circus that ensued—and her countless hours of detailed conversation with the killer clown. We hear for the first time about Gacy’s gruesome “Body Book.” Were there more victims? Conspirators involved in the murders? What secrets were buried with him?If one were to ask Conti, “How could you represent such a monster?” she would respond, “What you really want to know is, ‘What was he like?’” This book answers that question. KILLING TIME WITH JOHN WAYNE GACY: Defending America's Most Evil Serial Killer on Death Row-Karen Conti
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25/03/24•1h 4m
THE MEANING OF MALICE-John Leake
Sandra Bridewell was a beguiling Dallas socialite in the seventies and early eighties. Her first husband was a prominent dentist who was found shot to death in their home in 1975. The medical examiner ruled his death a suicide. Her second husband, Robert Bridewell, developed the Mansion on Turtle Creek—the first property of Rosewood Hotels and Resorts. Shortly after Mr. Bridewell died of lymphoma in 1982, his treating doctor’s wife was found shot to death in her car at Love Field a few hours after giving Sandra a ride to the airport. The medical examiner ruled the woman’s death a suicide. Three years later, Sandra’s third husband was found shot to death in his car in which he was last seen driving to meet her. The medical examiner ruled his death a homicide and Sandra became the prime suspect but was never arrested. In 1987, Sandra was the subject of a D Magazine feature titled “The Black Widow” that suggested she had indeed murdered her third husband—as well as her first husband and the wife of the prominent cancer doctor who had treated Mr. Bridewell.Author John Leake grew up in Highland Park, down the street from Sandra Bridewell, and often visited her at her home to play with one of her children. He began his multi-year investigation in 2007, when Sandra was arrested for aggravated identity theft. Assuming the guise of a Christian missionary, she ingratiated herself with an elderly lady in Southport, North Carolina (near Cape Fear) to steal the unsuspecting victim’s identity and to plunder her financial assets. Leake visited Bridewell in pretrial detention and began documenting her life and wanderings. He then investigated the three gunshot deaths reported in the D Magazine feature with the assistance of former Los Angeles County criminalist Lynne Herold and former FBI forensic psychologist, Gregg McCrary.Dallas police photos of the first two death scenes display physical evidence that they were not suicides, but murders that were staged to look like suicides. These murders bear striking similarities to the murder of Sandra Bridewell’s third husband, and she was the last known contact of all three decedents. After serving two years in a federal penitentiary for aggravated identity theft, she was released in 2010 and now roams free. THE MEANING OF MALICE: On The Trail of the Black Widow of Highland Park-John Leake
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18/03/24•1h 14m
WOMEN WHO MURDER-Mitzi Szereto
From historical accounts to modern cases, explore the captivating psychology behind these killer women, unraveling their motives and unveiling the dark complexities of human behavior.The fair sex. We’ve often heard this clichéd expression being used to refer to women. Although it has become increasingly outdated, the mindset still exists that women are the gentle and nurturing sex. When it comes to murder, that notion gets turned on its head. And this isn’t a recent phenomenon; we can find plenty of female killers going back in history. In fact, some of the world’s most notorious serial killers have been women. These female killers give their male counterparts a run for their money, and deserve to be counted among the most famous serial killers. Unearth the disturbing histories of notorious women. From the chilling accounts of infamous black widow murders to the spine-tingling narratives of women who shocked the world with their sinister deeds, this anthology delves deep into the minds of these deadly women. Spanning eras and continents, these tales of true crime offer a chilling exploration of the darkest corners of human nature. WOMEN WHO MURDER: An International Collection of Deadly True Crime Tales-Mitzi Szereto
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11/03/24•1h 2m
THE BERMAN MURDERS-Doug Kari
At daybreak on January 6, 1986, a couple on a camping trip in the Mojave Desert set out for a stroll and never returned. The local sheriff’s office eventually discovered that Barry and Louise Berman had been murdered. As years passed and the double homicide remained unsolved, the Berman case spawned speculation and conjecture. Despite extensive investigation by local and federal authorities, to date there’s never been an arrest made in the case – let alone a conviction. But this doesn’t mean the crime is unsolvable. After years of investigation, research, and interviews, Kari was able to link the Berman murders to a Cambodian sex crimes and trafficking case involving a former Marine. This is the first book to tell the full story of the Berman murders and uncover the likely suspect. THE BERMAN MURDERS: Unravelling the Mojave Desert's Most Mysterious Unsolved Crime-Doug KariCookUnity.com/Murder
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04/03/24•1h 11m
FILTHY MURDERS OF YE OLDE ROCHESTER-Michael Benson
In the late 1800's in Rochester, New York, Monroe County—there were 5 sensational murders. The first story is about the home invasion murder of a young wife and mother. Her body was found in the cellar, a flour sack tied tightly around her neck, and her skirt hiked up. At first, of course, the husband is arrested amid rumors he and his wife are swingers. The husband's supporters protest he couldn't be the killer—it must have been a transient. The man is released in favor of a preferable suspect, a damaged young tramp who'd been floating around the neighborhood looking for food.In the second story a woman's husband's head was almost severed, and she was told he had borrowed her former husband's very sharp razor and cut his own throat in a suicide. In another story, the resort town of Charlotte, where the rich went to play along the crystal clear waters of Lake Ontario. At night it was where the pick pockets and the thugs went to fleece drunks who still had money in their pockets. After our victim checks into a hotel for the night complaining he'd been mugged, he dies overnight from brain swelling. But who bonked him on the head? The answer seems to come the next day when a man is going around trying to sell the victim's watch. In another story, brother kills brother. The book spans the last years of the gallows in Monroe County, and the first of the new-fangled electric chair. FILTHY MURDERS OF YE OLDE ROCHESTER: Monroe County Homicide in the era of Jack The Ripper-Michael BensonRitual.com/murder
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26/02/24•57m 41s
ZENITH MAN-McCracken Poston Jr.
Was this small-town TV repair man “a harmless eccentric or a bizarre killer” (Atlanta Journal Constitution). For the first time, Alvin Ridley’s own defense attorney reveals the inside story of his case and trial in an extraordinary tale of friendship and an idealistic young attorney’s quest to clear his client’s name—and, in the process, rebuild his own life.In October 1997, the town of Ringgold in northwest Georgia was shaken by reports of a murder in its midst. A dead woman was found in Alvin Ridley’s house—and even more shockingly, she was the wife no one knew he had.McCracken Poston had been a state representative before he lost his bid for U.S. Congress and returned to his law career. Alvin Ridley was a local character who once sold and serviced Zenith televisions. Though reclusive and an outsider, the “Zenith Man,” as Poston knew him, hardly seemed capable of murder.Alvin was a difficult client, storing evidence in a cockroach-infested suitcase, unwilling to reveal key facts to his defender. Gradually, Poston pieced together the full story behind Virginia and Alvin’s curious marriage and her cause of death—which was completely overlooked by law enforcement. Calling on medical experts, testimony from Alvin himself, and a wealth of surprising evidence gleaned from Alvin’s junk-strewn house, Poston presented a groundbreaking defense that allowed Alvin to return to his peculiar lifestyle, a free man.Years after his trial, Alvin was diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder, a revelation that sheds light on much of his lifelong personal battle—and shows how easily those who don’t fit societal norms can be castigated and misunderstood. Part true crime, part courtroom drama, and full of local color, Zenith Man is also the moving story of an unexpected friendship between two very different men that changed—and perhaps saved—the lives of both. ZENITH MAN: Death, Love, and Redemption in a Georgia Courtroom-McCracken Poston Jr.
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19/02/24•1h 9m
A MURDER IN HOLLYWOOD-Casey Sherman
From the outside, Hollywood starlet Lana Turner seemed to have it all―a thriving film career, a beautiful daughter, and the kind of fame and fortune that most people could only dream of. But when the famous femme fatale began dating mobster Johnny Stompanato, thug for the infamous west coast mob boss Mickey Cohen, her personal life became violent and unpredictable. Lana's teenage daughter, Cheryl, watched her beloved mother's life deteriorate as Stompanato's intense jealousy took over. Eventually, the physical and emotional abuse became too much to bear, and Lana attempted to break it off with Johnny―with disastrous consequences. The details of what happened that fateful night remain foggy, but it ended in a series of frantic phone calls and Stompanato dead on Lana's bedroom floor, with Cheryl claiming to have plunged a knife into his abdomen in an attempt to protect her mother. The subsequent murder trial made for the biggest headlines of the year, its drama eclipsing every Hollywood movie.New York Times bestselling author Casey Sherman pulls back Tinseltown's velvet curtain to reveal the dark underbelly of celebrity, rife with toxic masculinity and casual violence against women, and tells the story of Lana Turner and her daughter, who finally stood up to the abuse that plagued their family for years. A Murder in Hollywood transports us back to the golden age of film and illuminates one of the 20th century's most notorious true crime tales. A MURDER IN HOLLYWOOD: The Untold Story of Tinseltown's Most Shocking Crime-Casey Sherman
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12/02/24•59m 12s
THE EDGE OF DOUBT-David Miraldi
In the tight-knit community of Lorain, Ohio, a whirlwind of horror swept through as unsettling allegations surfaced - a trusted bus driver and her alleged companion accused of shattering the innocence of preschoolers in the respected Head Start program. The verdict? Life-long prison sentences that would cast a shadow over a community, and initiate an untiring quest for truth.'The Edge of Doubt' is a meticulously researched true crime narrative that delves into the reverberations of a sensational trial. This gripping tale is anchored in three decades of unwavering claims of innocence. As the pages turn, you'll find yourself torn between the scales of justice and the resilience of the human spirit.In a world that is quick to judge, 'The Edge of Doubt' compels you to lend an ear to the whispers of truth. This is your invitation to dive into a powerful account that will challenge your assumptions and unveil the complexities of human nature. Read it, and prepare to see the world with new eyes. THE EDGE OF DOUBT: The Trial of Nancy Smith and Joseph Allen-David MiraldiCookUnity.com/murder
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05/02/24•53m 38s
STARKWEATHER-Harry MacLean
On January 21, 1958, nineteen-year-old Charles Starkweather changed the course of crime in the United States when he murdered the parents and sister of his fourteen-year-old girlfriend (and possible accomplice), Caril Ann Fugate, in a house on the edge of Lincoln, Nebraska. They then drove to the nearby town of Bennet, where a farmer was robbed and killed. When Starkweather’s car broke down, the teenagers who stopped to help were murdered and jammed into a storm cellar. By the time the dust settled, ten innocent people were dead and the city of Lincoln was in a state of terror. Schools closed. Men with rifles perched on the roofs of their houses. The National Guard patrolled the street. If there is a cultural version of PTSD, the town suffered from it.Starkweather and Fugate’s capture and arrest, and the resulting trials about the killing spree, received worldwide coverage. The event would serve as the inspiration for the movie Natural Born Killers and Springsteen’s iconic album Nebraska. Today, the story has dropped far from the national consciousness. With new material, new reporting, and new conclusions about the possible guilt or innocence of Fugate, the tale is ripe for an updated and definitive retelling. In Starkweather, bestselling author Harry N. MacLean tells the story of this shocking event and its lasting impact, a crime spree that struck deep into the heart of the heartland. STARKWEATHER: The Untold Story of the Killing Spree that Changed America-Harry N. MacLeanRitual.com/murder
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29/01/24•56m 32s
THE COLONIAL PARKWAY SERIAL KILLINGS and ALAN WADE WILMER SR.-Blaine Pardoe
In their book, A Special Kind of Evil: The Colonial Parkway Serial Killings, authors Blaine Pardoe and Victoria Hester wrote about Alan Wade Wilmer, Sr., who was the prime suspect in the 1988 disappearance and murders of Richard Keith Call and Cassandra Hailey. He was under police surveillance and fit the profile the F.B.I. had developed. An expert polygrapher administered a polygraph exam to Wilmer—and he passed. As a result he was cleared as a suspect.On January 8th, 2024, the Virginia State Police announced that through DNA, Alan Wade Wilmer Sr., who died in 2017, has been identified as the killer of David Knobling and Robin Edwards, who are extensively written about in A Special Kind of Evil, and for the killing of a nearby Hampton, Virginia woman in 1989, Teresa Lynn Howell.Blaine Pardoe joins me to discuss the latest developments in the Colonial Parkway serial killings; Alan Wade Wilmer Sr.; the F.B.I. agent who zeroed in on Wilmer—and what's next in the on-going Colonial Parkway murder investigation. A SPECIAL KIND OF EVIL: The Colonial Parkway Serial Killings and Alan Wade Wilmer Sr.—Blaine Pardoe
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22/01/24•56m 8s
MISTRESS OF LIFE AND DEATH-Susan J. Eischeid
By the time of her execution at thirty-six, Maria Mandl had achieved the highest rank possible for a woman in the Third Reich. As Head Overseer of the women’s camp at Auschwitz-Birkenau, she was personally responsible for the murders of thousands, and for the torture and suffering of countless more.In this riveting biography, Susan J. Eischeid explores how Maria Mandl, regarded locally as “a nice girl from a good family,” came to embody the very worst of humanity. Born in 1912 in the scenic Austrian village of Münzkirchen, Maria enjoyed a happy childhood with loving parents—who later watched in anguish as their grown daughter rose through the Nazi system.Mandl’s life mirrors the period in which she lived: turbulent, violent, and suffused with paradoxes. At Auschwitz-Birkenau, she founded the notable women’s orchestra and “adopted” several children from the transports—only to lead them to the gas chambers when her interest waned. After the war, Maria was arrested for crimes against humanity. Following a public trial attended by the international press, she was hanged in 1948. For two decades, Eischeid has excavated the details of Mandl’s life story, drawing on archival testimonies, speaking to dozens of witnesses, and spending time with Mandl’s community of friends and neighbors who shared their memories as well as those handed down in their families. The result is a chilling and complex exploration of how easily an ordinary citizen chose the path of evil in a climate of hate and fear. MISTRESS OF LIFE AND DEATH: The Dark Journey of Maria Mandl, the Head Overseer of Auschwitz-Birkenau
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15/01/24•1h
WRECKING CREW-John Ferak
In 2016-17, while working for the USA TODAY NETWORK's Wisconsin Investigative Team, author John Ferak wrote dozens of articles examining the murder case against Steven Avery, who had already beaten one wrongful conviction only to be charged again with the murder of Teresa Halbach in 2005. This case captured global attention through the Netflix documentary "Making A Murderer."In this anniversary edition of WRECKING CREW: Demolishing the Case Against Steven Avery, Ferak not only lays out in meticulous detail the post-conviction strategy of Kathleen Zellner, the high-profile, high-octane lawyer fighting to free Avery but also includes a new "Five Years Later" section. This update provides fresh insights and developments in Avery's ongoing legal battle.Additionally, this special edition features an exclusive epilogue: a November 2023 interview with Steven Avery. For this book, Zellner, arguably America's most successful wrongful conviction attorney, granted Ferak unprecedented access to the exhaustive pro bono efforts she and her small suburban Chicago law firm have invested in a man she believes to be wrongfully ensnared by Manitowoc County's unscrupulous justice system. This anniversary edition offers new revelations and a comprehensive look at a case that continues to stir public debate and demand justice. WRECKING CREW: Demolishing The Case Against Steven Avery-John Ferak
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08/01/24•56m 40s
MONSTER MIRROR-Dr. Micheal Caparrelli
Chances are, you’ve already met the Son of Sam in movies, documentaries, books, etc. May I introduce you to David, a fellow human being with familiar vulnerabilities? The monster you met in print collides with the man I met in person. Irrefutably, the precious lives he ended scream from the graves about his barbarism. Yet, my 100 hours, 34 sessions with him will open your eyes to a guy who resembles your brother or friend.Here’s David, a lifer at Shawangunk Correctional, who still scratches his head about what “possessed” him decades ago in a city that has mythologized his crimes ever since. May I warn you that when you meet David, you will not look into the eyes of a monster, but a mirror. I present to you: Monster Mirror: 100 Hours With David Berkowitz, Once Known as Son of Sam-Dr. Michael CaparrelliRitual.com/Murder
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02/01/24•53m 39s
MURDERABILIA-Harold Schechter
From veteran true crime master Harold Schechter comes a unique look into the history of crime told through the dark objects left behind. The false teeth of a female serial killer from 1908, the cut-and-paste confession of the Black Dahlia killer, the newly cracked cipher of the Zodiac killer, the shotgun used in the Clutter family murders, which were made famous by Truman Capote's true crime classic In Cold Blood—these are more than simple artifacts that once belonged to notorious murderers. They are objects of fascination to the legion of true crime obsessives around the world. And not merely for fleeting dark thrills, but because they represent a way to better understand those who we typically label monsters in lieu of learning how they actually became one.In Murderabilia, veteran true crime writer Harold Schechter presents 100 murder-related artifacts spanning two centuries (1808–2014), with accompanying stories of various lengths. A visual and literary journey, it presents a history unlike any previously told in the true crime genre, one that speaks to the dark fascination of true crime fans while also presenting a larger historical timeline of how and why we continue to be captivated by the most sensational crimes and killers among us. MURDERABILIA: A History of Crime in 100 Objects-Harold SchechterRitual.com/murder
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11/12/23•48m 19s
KILLERS AMIDST KILLERS-Billy Jensen
Best-selling author, cohost of the hit podcast The Murder Squad, and true-crime investigative journalist Billy Jensen goes to Columbus, Ohio, where he examines the unsolved cases of 18 dead and missing women whom he suspects were the victims of serial killers on the loose and operating under cover of the opioid epidemic in America's heartland.In Chase Darkness with Me, listeners learned Billy Jensen's journalist origin story, his struggles, his call to adventure, and his first successes in solving murders.In Killers Amidst Killers, listeners will ride shotgun with Jensen as he takes on serial killers who are walking among us and planning their next moves in real time. The facts are not in old police reports and faded photos. They unfold before our ears.Our story begins in 2017, when two young women, best friends Danielle and Lindsey, go missing within weeks of each other, and their bodies are found soon thereafter.As Jensen investigates Danielle and Lindsey's cases, he comes across other missing and murdered women, and before long, he uncovers 18 of them. All unsolved. And no one was talking about it.These are not women who were raised in the street. They got hooked on pills. The pills were taken away. They get hooked on heroin. And when the money was gone, they had to sell themselves. It all happens very quick.Through his investigations and the help of experts, Jensen identifies serial killers in Cleveland and Columbus. Why there? Because it's easy. Sharks go where the swimmers are. Serial killers go where the easy prey are–ground zero of the opioid epidemic. The heart of America.Jensen hunts these predators to bring peace to the victims' suffering families while putting a spotlight on a system that is leaving hundreds of thousands of bodies in its wake. KILLERS AMIDST KILLERS: Hunting Serial Killers Operating Under the Cloak of America's Opioid Epidemic-Billy Jensen
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05/12/23•1h
Listen Now-Dr. Death: Bad Magic
From Wondery, and hosted by Laura Beil - The new season of Dr. Death, BAD MAGIC is a story of miraculous cures, magic and murder. When a charismatic young doctor announces revolutionary treatments for cancer and HIV, patients from around the world turn to him for their last chance. As medical experts praise Serhat Gumrukcu’s genius, the company he co-founded rockets in value to over half a billion dollars. But when a team of researchers makes a startling discovery, they begin to suspect the brilliant doctor is hiding a secret. You can listen to Dr. Death: Bad Magic exclusively and ad-free by subscribing to Wondery+ in the Wondery App or on Apple Podcasts.https://wondery.app.link/DRDS4-trumrd
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04/12/23•5m 53s
THE ASSASSINS OF YOUTH-Part 1
On Halloween morning, 1984, 17 year-old Scott Christopher Dove left home in his car heading to classes at high school and disappeared. 8 days later his abandoned car was discovered behind the psychiatric hospital, across the street from the high school. Evidently he had been abducted.On December 1st, 30 days after he had disappeared, Scott Dove’s body was discovered, dumped in a gravel pit, his body left for someone to find. He had been stabbed multiple times, and had bled to death.Immediately incredible rumors spread throughout the city, graphic tales of genital and facial mutilation done to Dove—sent as a message. Thunder Bay police proceeded with their murder investigation but by July, 1985 there had been no arrests.Scott’s parents Dolly and Mervin Dove were desperate to bring the killers of their son to justice, and so they requested the regional Coroner conduct an inquest into Scott’s death.In America, inquests are generally conducted by a coroner, who are officials of a county or city. These inquests are not trials, but investigations conducted to provide information that will assist in determining the manner in which a person died.In Canada, an inquest is a public hearing conducted by a coroner held to inform the public about the circumstances of a death. It is not an investigation. But unlike in America, inquest jurors are prohibited from making any finding of legal responsibility, or expressing any conclusion of law.2 days later the inquest was halted by an attorney on behalf of his client, convicted drug trafficker Gary Bruce Lamont. He had been named as Scott Dove's killer.By 1986, despite everyone, including the police believing that Lamont was their suspect, the murder case turned cold.Then just before Christmas 2013, Gary Lamont was arrested. But it was not for the murder of Scott Dove. The Ontario Provincial Police entered into an investigation regarding allegations of historical sexual assaults which had occurred between 1997 and 2007.At the preliminary trial in May 2014, victims of Lamont testified about 17 separate charges including seven counts of sexual assault, one count of administering a stupefying drug; one count of forcible confinement; and one count of sexual assault with a weapon—an axe. All involving young male victims, aged 17-24. He eventually plead guilty to 5 counts of sexual assault, and was sentenced to 5 years in prison.Gary Bruce Lamont as a convicted sex offender would be required to give a DNA sample. In 1984, DNA was in its infancy, as were its numerous future advancements. It was now 2016, 32 years later. For those watching, it seemed that soon DNA testing would finally confirm Lamont was Scott Dove's killer.In 2016 I began my own murder investigation, eventually cracking the case wide open and uncovering the truth about the murder of Scott Dove, Halloween, 1984.This is the horrifying true story—THE ASSASSINS OF YOUTH: Part 1-TRICK OR TREAT?Produced by Evan Gardiner and Dan ZupanskyMusic by Evan GardinerMusic by Ken Krotowich
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03/12/23•42m 29s
THE ASSASSINS OF YOUTH: Part 2-Satan, Marijuana and Murder
In 1937 U.S. drug czar Harry Anslinger claimed that Marijuana was the Assassin of Youth, connecting Marijuana use to psychosis, rape and murder. It began a wave of years of Marijuana hysteria, with harsh sentences imposed for users and dealers. The hysteria was clearly still evident in the mid-80's.Satan's Choice Motorcycle Club was a Canadian outlaw motorcycle club that by 1970 had more than 400 members, making it the second largest outlaw motorcycle club in the world, behind only the Hell’s Angels.In 1984 there was a chapter of Satan's Choice in Thunder Bay-in 2000 they became Hell's Angels.The Coroner's Inquest into Scott Dove's murder in January 1986, named convicted marijuana trafficker Gary Lamont as the sole murder suspect.But if marijuana leads to murder-who sold the marijuana to Gary Lamont?The police soon determined it was Pat Hagar.I spoke to Pat Hagar, former Satan's Choice and Hell's Angel about Gary Lamont, marijuana and the murder of Scott Dove. THE ASSASSINS OF YOUTH-Part 2-Satan, Marijuana and Murder.Produced by Evan Gardiner and Dan ZupanskyMusic-Ken KrotowichMusic-Evan Gardiner
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03/12/23•37m 13s
CONFLICTING LOYALTIES-Aiden Gabor
A memoir of a double life as a Mafia enforcer and a DOJ informant taking down corrupt cops and politicians.Aiden Gabor was still a teenager when Department of Justice agents approached him with an ultimatum: spend his life in prison for racketeering, embezzlement, extortion, and conspiracy to commit murder, or become an undercover agent.Conflicting Loyalties is a sharp, honest memoir in three parts: the bloody life of a mob soldier from outside la famiglia; the death-defying, paranoid existence of an informant bringing down corrupt politicians and police departments from the inside; and unexpectedly finding peace late in life through the Baha’i faith while coping with an ALS diagnosis.Conflicting Loyalties is a visceral tale of a man who gambles with his own life in order to save it, dodging his fate while searching for an identity, a father, and a family. CONFLICTING LOYALTIES: My Life as a Mob Enforcer Turned DOJ Informant-Aiden Gabor
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20/11/23•50m 12s
MY LIFE OF CRIME-Erin Moriarty
Erin Moriarty, a CBS News journalist for three decades, has been a correspondent on "48 Hours" since 1990. In addition to reporting for "48 Hours," Moriarty's work is featured on all CBS News broadcasts and platforms, including "CBS Sunday Morning," "CBS Mornings" and the CBS News Streaming Network. Her reporting has earned Moriarty virtually every major journalism award available. Erin Moriarty's award-winning original true-crime podcast, "My Life of Crime," returns for a fourth season. The captivating and thrilling podcast from CBS News Audio and "48 Hours, is available on all podcast platforms with new episodes released every Wednesday. Moriarty takes you inside true-crime investigations like no one else, taking on killers and those accused of crimes.In this 4th season she delves into the labyrinth of crime within families and the secrets that kept them together or tore them apart. Moriarty brings almost three decades of experience as a lawyer and reporter involved in murder cases – she brushes past the speculation to the evidence and talks to the people directly involved, including investigators and the families of victims.Erin Moriarty joins me to discuss the 4th season of her original true crime podcast MY LIFE OF CRIME.Ritual.com/murder
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13/11/23•51m 50s
CONVICTING A MURDERER-Brenda Schuler and Shawn Rech
CONVICTING A MURDERER unveils the shocking truth behind one of the most controversial criminal cases in history.In Netflix's MAKING A MURDERER docuseries, which had 100 million viewers, Steven Avery was portrayed as an innocent victim of corrupt law enforcement, but theres more to the story than what we were shown. CONVICTING A MURDERER is narrated by Candace Owens who sets the record staright by exposing the hidden evidence in the murder of Theresa Halbach. CONVICTING A MURDERER is a 10-part documentary series available on Daily Wire +Producer Brenda Schuler and Director Shawn Rech join me to discuss the documentary series.
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06/11/23•48m 25s
THE ASSASSINS OF YOUTH
On Halloween morning, 1984, 17 year-old Scott Christopher Dove left home in his car heading to classes at high school and disappeared. 8 days later his abandoned car was discovered behind the psychiatric hospital, across the street from the high school. Evidently he had been abducted.On December 1st, 30 days after he had disappeared, Scott Dove’s body was discovered, dumped in a gravel pit, his body left for someone to find. He had been stabbed multiple times, and had bled to death.Immediately incredible rumors spread throughout the city, graphic tales of genital and facial mutilation done to Dove—sent as a message. Thunder Bay police proceeded with their murder investigation but by July, 1985 there had been no arrests.Scott’s parents Dolly and Mervin Dove were desperate to bring the killers of their son to justice, and so they requested the regional Coroner conduct an inquest into Scott’s death.In America, inquests are generally conducted by a coroner, who are officials of a county or city. These inquests are not trials, but investigations conducted to provide information that will assist in determining the manner in which a person died. In Canada, an inquest is a public hearing conducted by a coroner held to inform the public about the circumstances of a death. It is not an investigation. But unlike in America, inquest jurors are prohibited from making any finding of legal responsibility, or expressing any conclusion of law.2 days later the inquest was halted by an attorney on behalf of his client, convicted drug trafficker Gary Bruce Lamont. He had been named as Scott Dove's killer.By 1986, despite everyone, including the police believing that Lamont was their suspect, the murder case turned cold.Then just before Christmas 2013, Gary Lamont was arrested. But it was not for the murder of Scott Dove. The Ontario Provincial Police entered into an investigation regarding allegations of historical sexual assaults which had occurred between 1997 and 2007.At the preliminary trial in May 2014, victims of Lamont testified about 17 separate charges including seven counts of sexual assault, one count of administering a stupefying drug; one count of forcible confinement; and one count of sexual assault with a weapon—an axe. All involving young male victims, aged 17-24. He eventually plead guilty to 5 counts of sexual assault, and was sentenced to 5 years in prison.Gary Bruce Lamont as a convicted sex offender would be required to give a DNA sample. In 1984, DNA was in its infancy, as were its numerous future advancements. It was now 2016, 32 years later. For those watching, it seemed that soon DNA testing would finally confirm Lamont was Scott Dove's killer.In 2016 I began my own murder investigation, eventually cracking the case wide open and uncovering the truth about the murder of Scott Dove, Halloween, 1984.This is the horrifying true story—THE ASSASSINS OF YOUTH: Part 1-TRICK OR TREAT?Produced by Evan Gardiner and Dan ZupanskyMusic by Evan Gardiner Music by Ken Krotowich
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30/10/23•42m 25s
MONSTERS ON THE LOOSE-Richard Carrico
In 1931, San Diego’s idyllic image as a beach town with peaceful suburbs concealed a harrowing reality: a series of unsolved crimes targeting women, fueling fear and vulnerability. MONSTERS ON THE LOOSE tells the tragic and true stories of three women murdered early that year: Virginia Brooks, Louise Teuber, and Hazel Bradshaw.Local law enforcement, out-of-town criminologists, and investigators from what would become the FBI pursued hundreds of leads. Statewide, newspapers covered every angle and clue and sometimes played a role in the investigations. Yet, the killer(s) were never identified and brought to justice.In MONSTERS ON THE LOOSE, award-winning author and historian Richard L. Carrico pieces fragments of evidence together for three cold cases, shedding light on a dark chapter in San Diego's history.More than ninety years after the murders, Carrico emerges as an advocate for the victims, meticulously reconstructing their stories. Immersed in dusty files, long-forgotten oral histories, and newly discovered investigation records, his primary objective remains unwavering: to seek justice for the three young women. With no witnesses to the crimes, the significance of circumstantial evidence and speculation, both then and now, became paramount. And he may have even solved one of the murders. MONSTERS ON THE LOOSE: The True Story of Three Unsolved Murders in Prohibition era San Diego-Richard L. Carrico
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23/10/23•1h 4m
Listen Now: MrBallen's Medical Mysteries
Follow MrBallen’s Medical Mysteries wherever you get your podcasts. You can binge the first 8 episodes, early and ad-free on Amazon Music. Download the Amazon Music app today. The human body is a miracle. But when it’s not working, it can be the stuff of nightmares. On this new series from master storyteller MrBallen, we’re sharing medical horror stories and diagnostic mysteries that are surgically calibrated to make your blood run cold. From bizarre, unheard-of diseases and miraculous recoveries to strange medical mishaps and unexplainable deaths — you’ll never hear the phrase “heart-stopping” in the same way again. MrBallen’s Medical Mysteries is a first of its kind collaboration between MrBallen and Wondery, the award-winning company behind Dr. Death. Listen Now: Wondery.fm/MBMM_TM
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17/10/23•7m 18s
BTK: Dr. Katherine Ramsland
In August 2023, BTK once again made headlines worldwide when he was named the prime suspect in an Oklahoma teen’s 1976 disappearance and a Missouri woman’s killing in 1990. The investigation started with the reexamination of the disappearance of Cynthia Kinney, a 16-year-old cheerleader last seen at a laundromat in Pawhuska, Oklahoma.Osage County Sheriff Eddie Virden decided to investigate a possible link between Rader and Kinney's disappearance when he learned that Rader had included the phrase “bad laundry day” in his writings.The investigation includes other unsolved murders and missing persons cases, including the death of 22-year-old Shawna Beth Garber, whose body was discovered in December 1990 in McDonald County, Missouri. She had been raped, strangled and restrained with different bindings. As part of the investigation, police conducted a dig near Rader's former Kansas property in Park City.Through jailhouse visits, telephone calls, and written correspondence, Dr. Katherine Ramsland, the renowned professor of forensic psychology and author worked with Rader himself to analyze the layers of his psyche. Using his drawings, letters, interviews, and Rader’s unique codes, she presents in meticulous detail the childhood roots and development of one man’s motivation to stalk, torture, and kill. She reveals aspects of the dark motivations of this most famous of living serial killers that have never before been revealed. With exclusive conversations with Rader himself, comprehensive interviews, and access to Rader's drawings and coded diaries all paired with Dr. Ramsland's expertise, we get to know the man behind the moniker, the truth behind the headline and a glimpse at the secrets Rader is still holding onto. BTK-Dr. Katherine Ramsland
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16/10/23•43m 13s
MURDER IN A SUNDOWN TOWN-Alexandra Kitty
In Murder in a Sundown Town, author Alexandra Kitty looks at the shocking 1968 homicide of Carol Jenkins, a sweet and resilient 21-year-old woman stabbed in the heart on her first day on the job selling encyclopedias in Martinsville, Indiana. What seemed to be an easily solved homicide turned into a four-decade cold case and became a tragic story about racism, sexism, gossip, and walls of silence. It is a case of injustice and persistence that still leaves as many questions as answers. In an age of both “true crime” fascination and modern social politics holding equal attention, this book looks at an old case in a contemporary light. From the clues to its racial and gender politics, investigation, resolution, and cultural impact, the book takes an in-depth look at a young woman’s frightening last hours and why Carol’s case is as relevant today as it was in the ‘60s. MURDER IN A SUNDOWN TOWN-Alexandra KittyRitual.com/Truemurder
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09/10/23•1h 1m
WHILE IDAHO SLEPT-J. Reuben Appelman
Just after 4:00 am on November 13, 2022, four University of Idaho students were viciously stabbed to death in an off-campus house. The killings would shake the small blue-collar college town of Moscow, Idaho, dominate mainstream news coverage, and become a social media obsession, drawing millions of clicks and views. While a reticent Moscow Police Department, the FBI, and the Idaho State Police searched for the killer, unending conjecture and countless theories blazed online, in chatrooms and platforms from Reddit and YouTube to Facebook and TikTok. For more than a month, the clash of armchair investigators and law enforcement professionals raged, until a suspect—a 28-year-old Ph.D. candidate studying criminology—was arrested at his family home 2,500 miles away in the Pocono Mountains of Pennsylvania on the day before New Year’s Eve. While Idaho Slept is a thought-provoking, literary chronicle of a small-town murder investigation blistering beneath the unceasing light of international interest, as traditional investigators, citizen sleuths, and the true-crime media acted—sometimes together, often in conflict—to uncover the truth. As J. Reuben Appelman brings this terrible crime into focus, he humanizes the four victims, examining the richness of their lives, dissects the mind and motivations of their presumed killer, and explores the world of northern Idaho, a rugged, deeply conservative stronghold steeped in Christian values and American patriotism. Going deep inside the case, Appelman addresses a crucial question: With so many millions of citizens armed by access and hungry to take part in a true crime hunt of their own, has the nature of homicide investigations permanently changed? Rising above the sensational, While Idaho Slept illuminates the intrinsic connection between today’s media, citizen sleuths, our societal mania for murder tales, and an impatient public’s insatiable appetite for spectacle as never before. Running beneath, the pulse of the story is a heartbreaking narrative of the people we love, the dreams we all share, and the uncertain time left for sharing them. WHILE IDAHO SLEPT: The Hunt for Answers in the Murders of Four College Students-J. Reuben Appleman ReplyForward
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02/10/23•1h 1m
RUSSIAN CANNIBALS-Nico Claux
Almost one third of Russian serial killers have committed cannibalism during their murder spree, but not much is known about their crimes outside of the Federation.This book follows the stories of 13 cannibals from the Motherland: Alexander Spesivtsev “The Siberian Ripper”, Dimitry and Natalia Baksheev, Nikolai “Metal Fang” Dzhumagaliyev, all these killers were characterized by the same fetish: the erotic desire to consume the flesh of a person. Cursed by an uncontrollable hunger, they have committed some of the worst atrocities in the history of true crime.Illustrated with more than 250 photographs unearthed from the confidential files of the Kremlin’s Ministry of Internal Affairs, Russian Cannibals – Addicted to Human Flesh is a brutal encyclopedia of the men and women who have broken the ultimate taboo. RUSSIAN CANNIBALS: Addicted To Human Flesh-Nico ClauxRitual.com/Truemurder
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25/09/23•1h 2m
Listen Now: 48 Hours
One of television's most popular true-crime series is now adapted for your ears with the “48 Hours” podcast. Every week, award-winning CBS News correspondents investigate the most intriguing crime and justice cases. Here’s a preview of a new “48 Hours” episode, “The Night of the Idaho Student Murders”. "48 Hours" correspondent Peter Van Sant sits down with family members of Kaylee Goncalves and Xana Kernodle, two of the four University of Idaho students shockingly murdered the night of November 13, 2022. You can hear the rest of this episode on the “48 Hours” podcast from CBS News. For even more “48 Hours”, listen to the new “Post Mortem” series every Tuesday, where the correspondents and producers share their first hand experiences reporting on the compelling cases they cover.Listen to 48 Hours ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery App or on Apple Podcasts: Wondery.fm/48_TM
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25/09/23•8m 14s
Listen Now-Even The Rich: Viva Selena!
Selena Quintanilla was a force of nature. But when a loyal friend betrayed her, she met a fate she never deserved. Even the Rich is a podcast from Wondery that tells you the stories of the crazy lives of the greatest family dynasties to pop culture superstars. In their new season “Viva Selena!”, you’ll hear how she made a massive cultural impact, and became a legend the world will never forget. All before her 24th birthday, she had already left a legacy across cultures that would continue for generations. This is just a preview of Even the Rich. You can listen to the full episode wherever you get your podcasts, or at Wondery.fm/ETR_truemurder
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20/09/23•6m 24s
MURDER OUTSIDE THE BACK DOOR-John Tommasi
Greed, arrogance and lust led Robert Anderson to kill his wife of nearly twenty years. He was a pillar of the community. He owned four Service Master franchises, he was a Kiwanis member and former President, and a former teacher and Athletic Director at Salem High School. The combination of his love for money and infatuation with a younger girl led him to the brutal beating of his wife and subsequent attempt to frame an employee and former student. The death of his wife in Lawrence Mass, was considered an extreme act of rage and was initially attributed to the violence that was pervasive in the city at the time. The homicide was subsequently compared to the murder of Carol Stuart by her husband Charles Stuart, five years earlier in Boston. That Stuart murder was also initially attributed to the violence of the city.Follow investigators from three agencies as they follow the evidence and track their quarry. In the end, justice reigned. MURDER OUTSIDE THE BACK DOOR: The True Story of the Murder of a popular Salem, NH teacher by her husband, the murder labeled as a Charles Stuart copycat-John TommasiMagicMind.com/Truemurder
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18/09/23•50m 5s
MARY & BILL: An Ohio Cold Case-Justin Glanville
In 1970, Mary Petry and Bill Sproat, two university students in love, were murdered in a Columbus, Ohio apartment. The crime was so brutal it drew comparisons to the Manson murders of the previous year. The case has never been solved. Host/Producer Justin Glanville and the sisters of the two victims track down friends, witnesses to the original investigation and the Columbus police to understand why the case remains unsolved, despite the existence of solid DNA evidence and the fact that police say they have a person of interest. Along the way, the three explore who really owns DNA collected at crime scenes – families or police? – and what it takes to bring new attention to a 53-year-old cold case in an era when police departments are struggling to attract new recruits. MARY & BILL: An Ohio Cold Case-Justin Glanville
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11/09/23•52m 28s
I AM ABIGAIL-Jamie Collins and Abigail Alvarado
My name is Abigail Alvarado. When I was nine, Child Protective Services removed me and my siblings from my mother’s home—a known crack house—due to neglect. After an extended stay at a children’s shelter in San Antonio, Texas, we were adopted by our Uncle Chevo, a Sergeant in the Army, and his wife, Laura. We moved to Hawaii, where they were stationed, thinking it would be paradise. For me, it became a living hell. What followed was 16 years of harrowing abuse, brainwashing, manipulation, stalking, physical abuse, sexual assault, and the stripping away of me, as a little girl, bit by bit, until there was nothing left. I became a sex slave to my sadistic aunt and uncle. Ultimately, I gave birth to three beautiful babies—each of whom was his. My children were raised to believe that I was their sister. And I was raised to believe that I was nothing. My abusers were masterful manipulators who wrapped pretty lies around the ugly truth to hide their abuse. No longer bound by their lies and my shame, I am here to take my power back, page by page. I am no one’s victim. I am a survivor, unbound. I AM ABIGAIL: A Texas Woman's Childhood Nightmare-And Her Escape From Hell As A Sex Slave/Survivor- Abigail Alvarado and Jamie Collins
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05/09/23•55m 23s
I AM A KILLER-Danny Tipping and Ned Parker
What goes through the mind of a killer when they commit murder? Based on the massively successful Netflix documentary series of the same name, this book features ten of the most compelling cases from the first two series and is full of exclusive never-seen-before material.The authors, Ned Parker and Danny Tipping secured exceptional access to high-security prisons across America. The majority of the killers will die in prison – either by serving their sentence of life without parole or they are on Death Row, waiting to be executed. In each of the cases the inmate speaks openly about themselves and reflects on their life and their crimes. To gain a complete picture of the impact of the murders the authors spoke to both the families of both the perpetrators and the victims, and those in law enforcement who were involved in the case, leaving it up to the reader to make up their own mind about the killers and their crimes.The book draws on handwritten letters from the inmates and full transcripts of the interviews to tell each story, and features exclusive material including personal pictures, crime scene images, and original police and court documents, this is a fascinating and detailed look at some of America's most gripping murder cases. I AM A KILLER: What makes a murderer, their shocking stories in their own words-Danny Tipping and Ned ParkerRitual.com/Murder
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04/09/23•54m 45s
GRIM PARADISE-Rod Sadler
When widow Frances Lacey was murdered in July 1960 on Mackinac Island, only a few meager clues were found by police, and the case soon turned cold. But more than sixty years later, will those same clues finally solve the mystery?On July 24, 1960, the quaint charm and serenity of Mackinac, nestled between Michigan’s Upper and Lower Peninsulas, was shattered by Lacey’s brutal death. Despite a massive manhunt and thousands of pages of police reports, her killer was never caught.Now, in GRIM PARADISE, true crime author Rod Sadler (Killing Women) delves into the secrets of one of Michigan's most perplexing murder cases. Offering an in-depth and suspenseful account of the long-standing mystery, he poses the question:Could advanced DNA technology lead to the identity of the Mackinac Island murderer as it did recently in the case of the Golden State Killer? Find out in GRIM PARADISE: The Cold Case Search for the Mackinac Island Killer-Rod Sadler
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28/08/23•58m 38s
THE COMBAT ZONE-Jan Brogan
At the end of the 1976 football season, more than forty Harvard athletes went to Boston's Combat Zone to celebrate. In the city's adult entertainment district, drugs and prostitution ran rampant, violent crime was commonplace, and corrupt police turned the other way. At the end of the night, Italian American star athlete Andy Puopolo, raised in the city's North End, was murdered in a stabbing. Three African American men were accused of the crime. His murder made national news and led to the eventual demise of the city's red-light district.Starting with this brutal murder, The Combat Zone tells the story of the Puopolo family's struggle with both a devastating loss and a criminal justice system that produced two trials with opposing verdicts, all within the context of a racially divided Boston. Brogan traces the contentious relationship between Boston’s segregated neighborhoods during the busing crisis; shines a light on a court system that allowed lawyers to strike potential jurors based purely on their racial or ethnic identity; and lays bare the deep-seated corruption within the police department and throughout the Combat Zone. What emerges is a fascinating snapshot of the city at a transitional moment in its recent past. THE COMBAT ZONE: Murder, Race and Boston's Struggle for Justice-Jan Brogan
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21/08/23•1h 1m
DEER CREEK DRIVE-Beverly Lowry
The stunning true story of a murder that rocked the Mississippi Delta and forever shaped one author’s life and perception of home.In 1948, in the most stubbornly Dixiefied corner of the Jim Crow south, society matron Idella Thompson was viciously murdered in her own home: stabbed at least 150 times and left facedown in one of the bathrooms. Her daughter, Ruth Dickins, was the only other person in the house. She told authorities a Black man she didn’t recognize had fled the scene, but no evidence of the man's presence was uncovered. When Dickins herself was convicted and sentenced to life in prison, the community exploded. Petitions pleading for her release were drafted, signed, and circulated, and after only six years, the governor of Mississippi granted Ruth Dickins an indefinite suspension of her sentence and she was set free.In Deer Creek Drive, Beverly Lowry—who was ten at the time of the murder and lived mere miles from the Thompsons’ home—tells a story of white privilege that still has ramifications today, and reflects on the brutal crime, its aftermath, and the ways it clarified her own upbringing in Mississippi. DEER CREEK DRIVE: A Reckoning of Memory and Murder in the Mississippi Delta-Beverly LowryRitual.com/Murder
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14/08/23•59m 33s
THE CRATER LAKE MURDERS-Monty Orrick
When two General Motors executives drove into Crater Lake National Park in July 1952, no one could predict they would be dead within an hour—not even their killers. It was a crime of opportunity, a botched robbery during the middle of summer in a crowded national park. When Albert Jones and Charles Culhane were found shot to death two days later, the story became a national obsession. The FBI used every resource and available agent but, as time wore on, the investigation ran out of steam. A lack of evidence worked to the killer’s advantage. He had committed a perfect crime.The FBI tried hard to solve the case. Their 2,000+ page report details a staggeringly complex, multi-agency effort: 200 ballistic tests, 1000 interviews, 466 license plate identifications. The man hours were beyond calculation, and yielded valuable information— buried within the individual reports of the FBI, Oregon State Police and local agencies are many clues to the nature and identity of the perpetrator.The FBI file has rarely been seen by anyone outside the Bureau until December 2015 when the author received it on two discs, satisfying a Freedom of Information Act request submitted three years before. This book summarizes all the information: the FBI file, Oregon State Police reports, fresh research and interviews, county records, rare first hand accounts, reaction from one victim’s family and an obscure college thesis that first named the killer. Add to this, the personal account of a man to whom the killer confessed. Before the confessor died, he swore his wife to secrecy, reminding her about “the things that nobody talks about.”The Crater Lake Murders tells the true narrative: four men with nothing in common until the day they met and, after that, the Fate all Men share. THE CRATER LAKE MURDERS: The story of the 1952 murders of two General Motors executives and the search for a killer in plain sight-Monty OrrickAugustaPreciousMetals.com
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14/08/23•51m 25s
MURDER BY THE BATHHOUSE DOOR-John Tommasi
They watched the 1996 movie Scream over and over again. One of the boys was truly infatuated with the movie and wanted to be part of it. He along with two friends, lured two teenage girls to a local park in Salem, New Hampshire late one night where the girls were brutally murdered by being stabbed over and over again.Read how they were tracked to Michigan from New Hampshire and how they were brought to justice. MURDER BY THE BATHHOUSE DOOR: The true story of the murder of 2 teenage girls by 3 boys who wanted to "play" Scream-John TomassiAugustaPreciousMetals.com
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07/08/23•52m 25s
BOSTON TABLOID-Don Stradley
The disappearance of a twenty-one-year-old woman from a Massachusetts suburb became one of the most discussed crimes of the twentieth century. The discussion intensified when the public learned that she worked as a prostitute in Boston's notorious red-light district, the “Combat Zone,” and was linked by a trail of blood to a famous professor from Tufts University.When Robin Benedict vanished the investigation and media circus that gripped the city of Boston hadn't been seen since the days of the Boston Strangler case. On a Sunday morning in March 1983, a small-time pimp walked into a police station and claimed his girlfriend was missing. He said she had been on her way to visit a client named William Douglas. In the year that followed, the case drew in detectives, state troopers, scores of journalists, and even psychics. But Robin was never found.Boston Tabloid reconstructs a grisly murder, and explores one man's bizarre obsession. In revisiting this legendary crime, Don Stradley consulted journalists involved in the media frenzy, prison authorities, arresting officers, and psychiatrists, all in an effort to unravel a most tangled story. Why was the city, and the nation, swept up in this sordid tale? It remains a grim and fascinating moment in Boston's history. BOSTON TABLOID: The Killing of Robin Benedict-Don Stradley
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31/07/23•1h 2m
SMALL JUSTICE-Jim Ridings
Stephen B. Small died in one of the most horrific ways a person can die -- being buried alive. He was one of the richest men in Kankakee, Illinois, in 1987, which made him the target of a desperate cocaine dealer who wanted to collect a million dollar ransom. Everything went tragically wrong. Danny Edwards was caught, convicted and was sentenced to death. His life was spared after all death sentences were commuted to life in prison by Governor George Ryan. A conviction of Danny Edwards was a sure thing. However, political pressure -- the Small family was at the top of Kankakee's powerful elite -- brought in the top prosecutors in the state, so they could use Edwards' case against his girlfriend, Nancy Rish. Their case against her was flimsy, at best. Every piece of forensic evidence at the trial cleared Nancy Rish. Not one piece of evidence and not one witness testimony proved her guilt. But she was convicted on the conjecture and false assertions of the prosecutors. There was no more evidence against her than the supposition that 'she had to know' what Edwards was planning. Every public defender and lawyer refused to defend her because of alleged conflicts or fear of the local powers. Everything was set up to railroad this woman into prison. She did not get a fair trial. She did not stand a chance. If Danny Edwards had picked any other victim, his girlfriend never would have been prosecuted. Nancy Rish got Small justice. Nancy Rish is innocent. Danny Edwards did not cooperate with the police and he never talked about the details of his crime. Until now. Danny Edwards and Nancy Rish have given their first in-depth interviews from prison to author Jim Ridings for this book. The incredible story and previously unknown background details are told here for the first time. This is not just the story of a sensational kidnapping and murder. It also is the story of how a corrupt system was able to convict an innocent woman and send her to prison for life. SMALL JUSTICE-Jim RidingsRitual.com/Murder
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24/07/23•39m 34s
BAD HENRY-Ron Chepsiuk
Henry Louis Wallace terrorized Charlotte, North Carolina, from May 1992 to March 1994.Wallace preyed on lower economic class Black women between 17 and 35 years old. He knew most of his victims, some through his job at Taco Bell, and gained their trust with his friendly demeanor and gentle nature—concealing a monster fueled by drug abuse and rage against women.A rarity in that he was an African American serial killer, his murderous rampage spurred controversy throughout the city. Community members accused local police of ignoring the murders because of the victims' race. Wallace attended the funerals of many of his victims and offered condolences to families. The ensuing investigation became the largest in North Carolina’s history.Wallace was eventually found guilty and convicted of nine counts of murder, but he admitted to more killings while incarcerated; he is potentially responsible for anywhere from 20 to 90 deaths of Black women. Wallace continues to appeal and awaits his execution at Central Prison in Raleigh. BAD HENRY: The Murderous Rampage of ‘The Taco Bell Strangler’ by Ron Chepesiuk offers valuable insight into the psychology of serial killers and sheds light on issues surrounding race and policing. BAD HENRY: The Murderous Rampage of 'The Taco Bell Strangler'-Ron ChepsiukRitual.com/Murder
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18/07/23•49m 30s
BEHOLD THE MONSTER-Jillian Lauren
Jillian Lauren had no idea what she was getting into when she wrote her first letter to prolific serial killer Samuel Little. All she knew was her research had led her to believe he was good for far more murders than the three for which he had been convicted. While the two exchanged dozens of letters and embarked on hundreds of hours of interviews, Lauren gained the trust of a monster. After maintaining his innocence for decades, Little confessed to the murders of ninety-three women, often drawing his victims in haunting detail as he spoke. How could one man evade justice, manipulating the system for over four decades?As the FBI, the DOJ, the LAPD, and countless law enforcement officials across the country worked to connect their cold cases with the confessions, Lauren's coverage of the investigations and obsession with Little's victims only escalated.New York Times bestselling author and lead of the Starz docuseries Confronting a Serial Killer Jillian Lauren delivers the harrowing report of her unusual relationship with a psychopath. But this is more than a deep dive into the actions of Samuel Little. Lauren's riveting and emotional accounts reveal the women who were lost to cold files, giving Little's victims a chance to have their stories heard for the first time. BEHOLD THE MONSTER: Confronting America's Most Prolific Serial Killer-Jillian LaurenAugustaPreciousMetals.com
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17/07/23•54m 41s
Listen Now: Suspect "Five Shots in the Dark"
Leon Benson spent 24 years in an Indiana state prison for the 1998 murder of a young man named Kasey Schoen. His conviction hinged on the testimony of two eyewitnesses – but what if their memories turned out to be wrong? And what if the people who knew what really happened had never been allowed to speak? Suspect Season 3: Five Shots in the Dark is the story of two victims: one murdered, one sentenced to life. Follow host Matt Shaer and attorney Lara Bazelon as they investigate how the justice system failed both Leon and Kasey, and who the real killer might be. Join this unprecedented look inside the attempt to overturn a wrongful conviction and find out if justice will finally be served. Listen to Suspect wherever you get your podcasts. You can binge Suspect ad-free on Wondery Plus. Find Wondery Plus in the Wondery App or on Apple Podcasts: Wondery.fm/SuspectS3_TM
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17/07/23•6m 19s
JUST IN THE NICK OF TIME-David B. Savitz
A 19-year-old accused of killing his parents is diagnosed with an unusual psychiatric disorder and spends a torturous six years in the Colorado judicial and mental health systems before his case experiences an unexpected end. “Just in the Nick of Time is one of the most profound cases of Multiple Personality Disorder (MPD), all told from the perspective of the person who interacted most with the personalities, his criminal defense lawyer David Savitz. It is a book about what happens when a mental disease far outpaces the understanding of the courts, the psychiatric community, and the public. JUST IN THE NICK OF TIME-David B. SavitzRitual.com/Murder
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10/07/23•56m 0s
LAST CHILD SEEN-Maureen Boyle
On an unseasonably warm winter evening in Pennsylvania, 15-year-old Patty Desmond sneaked out through the basement of her house. She had a history of running away, and that, combined with an argument with her mother, gave police reason to suspect she'd come home in a week or two. The year was 1965. That night was the last time her family ever saw her.Conrad Eugene Miller was well-known to local law enforcement. An older married man with a child, Miller's association with Patty was questionable at best. Yet he was the last person known to have seen her alive-and the suspect police continued to circle back toward.After nothing but false sightings and rumors, the case was moved to the backburner-where it stayed. As decades crept by, reality sunk in: Patty Desmond was never coming back. Then, a tiny crack unleashed a flood of information, and a mystery that had never quite been forgotten was solved. LAST CHILD SEEN: The Search For Patty Desmond-Maureen BoyleRitual.com/Murder
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03/07/23•48m 26s
LITTLE, CRAZY CHILDREN-James Renner
In September of 1990, in the Cleveland suburb of Shaker Heights, sixteen-year-old Lisa Pruett, a poetry lover and member of a church youth group, was on her way to a midnight tryst with her boyfriend, when she was viciously stabbed to death only thirty feet from the boy’s home.The murder cast a palpable gloom over the upscale community and sparked accusations, theories, and rumors among Lisa’s friends and peers. Together they wove a damning narrative that circled back to a likely suspect: “weird” high school outcast Kevin Young. Without a shred of evidence the teen was arrested, charged, and tried for the crime. His eventual acquittal didn’t squelch the anger and outrage among those who believed that Kevin got away with murder.With a fresh perspective and painstaking research culled from police files, court records, transcripts, uncollected evidence, and new interviews, James Renner reconstructs the events leading up to and following that heartbreaking night. What emerges is a portrait of a community seething with dark undercurrents—its single-minded authorities, protective status-conscious parents, and the deeply peer-pressured teens within Lisa’s circle.Who had the capacity for such unchecked violence? What monsters still lurk in the dark? After more than thirty years, questions like these continue to fester among the community of Shaker Heights, Ohio, still deeply scarred by wounds that remain hidden, unspoken, and unhealed. LITTLE, CRAZY CHILDREN: A True Crime Tragedy of Lost Innocence-James RennerRitual.com/Murder
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26/06/23•56m 40s
COAL COUNTRY KILLING-Steve Jackson
Coal Country Killing: A Culture, A Union, And The Murders That Changed It All, revolves around the cold-blooded 1969 assassination of United Mineworkers of America “reform candidate” Jock Yablonski, and murder of his wife and daughter in their Pennsylvania farmhouse. But driving the story are the extraordinary efforts of a tenacious special prosecutor and his “army” of investigators to bring the gunmen, the union boss who ordered the murders, and his henchmen who saw them carried out, to justice.Initially, three bumbling small-time criminals, dubbed “The Hillbilly Hitmen,” were arrested and charged. But they were the tip of the iceberg as the murders were directed by then-UMWA President “Tough Tony” Boyle as revenge for Yablonski running against him in the bitterly contested 1968 union election and to prevent his corruption from being exposed.Up against the tight-lipped culture of Appalachia coal country, legendary Philadelphia homicide prosecutor Richard A. Sprague, and his investigators, spent nearly nine years doggedly working their way up the ladder of those responsible to the final showdown with Boyle.Written by New York Times bestselling authors—former New York County Assistant District Attorney Robert K. Tanenbaum, a lifelong friend of Sprague’s, and Steve Jackson—Coal Country Killing is a tour de force for those who love justice. COAL COUNTRY KILLING: A Culture, A Union, and the Murders that Changed It All-Steve JacksonRitual.com/Murder
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19/06/23•1h 1m
THE MAN WITH THE KILLER SMILE-Mitchel P. Roth
On a cold, windy December night in 1926, hell was unleashed on a tenant farm near Farwell, the last Texas town before the New Mexico border. Prone to the bottle and fits of rage, the burly man with the smiling blue eyes was in no mood to quarrel with his third wife over his bootleg whisky and sexual abuse of his stepdaughter. He went from room to room in the house, killing his wife and each child with primitive cutting tools and his bare hands. By the time he concluded his bloody work, he had taken the lives of nine family members ranging in age from 2 to 41, committing what one local reporter called “the blackest crime” in the history of the West Texas Panhandle. Husband, father, uncle, embezzler, serial mass murderer, philanderer, child molester, convict, and military deserter, George Jefferson Hassell was many things to many people, most of them bad. His pattern of familicide crime had begun in 1917, when he slaughtered his common-law wife and her three kids in Whittier, California. Later, in Texas, he married his brother’s wife and became stepfather to her eight children. Using Hassell’s confessions and his many interviews with reporters as well as the trial transcripts and reminiscences of those who crossed paths with him in Texas, Oklahoma, and California, Mitchel P. Roth presents the first comprehensive account of the life and crimes of one of the least known multiple murderers in Texas, let alone American, history. Roth situates Hassell’s saga within the 1920s Texas criminal justice system, including the death penalty, which Hassell ultimately received from Old Sparky, the electric chair at Huntsville. THE MAN WITH THE KILLER SMILE: The Life and Crimes of a Serial Mass Murderer-Mitchel P. Roth
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13/06/23•56m 24s
BLOOD ON THE TRACKS-Rod Kackley
Discover the dark side of human nature with Blood on the Tracks.This true crime book takes you on a journey through the most heinous murder cases in history, including unsolved mysteries that will leave you wondering.Each story is expertly researched and crafted to provide a captivating account of the events leading up to the crime and the investigation that followed.From the infamous Thanksgiving Massacre to the shocking case of the Vanishing Bride & Groom, to the unbelievable story of a Dominatrix and her Doppelgänger, Blood on the Tracks leaves no stone unturned.As you turn each page, you'll feel the tension and suspense build as you try to piece together the clues and solve the case alongside the investigators.Don't miss out on this captivating journey through the world of murder and mystery. BLOOD ON THE TRACKS: Real-Life Tales of Murder and Mystery-Rod KackleRitual.com/murder
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12/06/23•52m 52s
AMERICAN AUTOPSY-Dr. Michael Baden
Dr. Michael Baden has been involved in some of the most high-profile civil rights and police brutality cases in U.S. history, from the government’s 1976 re-investigation of the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., to the 2014 death of Michael Brown, whose case sparked the initial Ferguson protests that grew into the Black Lives Matter movement. The playbook hasn’t changed since 1979, when Dr. Baden was demoted from his job as New York City’s Chief Medical Examiner after ruling that the death of a Black man in police custody was a homicide.So in 2020 when the Floyd family, wary of the same system that oversaw Michael Brown’s death, needed a second opinion—Dr. Baden is who they called.In these pages, Dr. Baden chronicles his six decades on the front lines of the fight for accountability within the legal system—including the long history of medical examiners using a controversial syndrome called excited delirium (a term that shows up in the pathology report for George Floyd) to explain away the deaths of Black and people of color, restrained by police. In the process, he brings to life the political issues that go on in the wake of often unrecorded fatal police encounters and the standoff between law enforcement and those they are sworn to protect.Full of behind-the-scenes drama and surprising revelations, American Autopsy is an invigorating—and enraging—read that is both timely and crucial for this turning point in our nation’s history. AMERICAN AUTOPSY: One Medical Examiner's Decades-Long Fight for Racial Justice in a Broken Legal System-Dr. Micheal Baden
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05/06/23•58m 34s
WHITE SMOKE-Patrick Strudwick
When the body of a young, gay, Black man, Gemmel Moore, was pulled out of the West Hollywood apartment of Ed Buck-a white, millionaire donor to the Democratic Party-the coroner called it an accidental overdose. The police didn’t arrest Buck. And the media refused to report on it.But just 18 months later, when a second Black man, Timothy Dean, was found dead in the same apartment from the same drug, the police still didn’t arrest Buck, sparking a series of terrifying questions. Why was Buck still free when two men had died in his home surrounded by drugs? How much were his wealth and political connections protecting him? And how many more men might have been harmed in that apartment?In White Smoke: America’s Chemsex Killer, investigative journalist Patrick Strudwick uncovers the secret world behind this explosive Hollywood scandal. Through original reporting, we discover how a cocktail of power, racism, sexual exploitation, and drug abuse had been detonating in Buck’s apartment for years. And how it’s connected to a wider chemsex scene playing out in queer communities all around the world-one that provides the perfect hunting ground for predators. But those communities are fighting back. In this series, we meet the men who lived a nightmare inside Buck’s apartment, the friends of the men who died, and the activists who triggered a movement to get Buck off the streets. WHITE SMOKE: America's Chemsex Killer-(An Audible Original)-Patrick Strudwick
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29/05/23•53m 49s
THE DELPHI MURDERS-Nic Edwards
On February 13, 2017, two Indiana teenagers, Abigail Williams, 13, and Liberty German, 14, went for a walk in the woods near the abandoned Monon High Bridge. They never returned home. Their bodies were discovered on Valentine's Day morning, sparking a torrent of news coverage and social media speculation that engrossed the attention of people around the world. A grainy photo of the suspected killer walking across the bridge and a chilling cellphone recording of his voice saying "down the hill" captured the public's attention. Numerous possible suspects were brought to the attention of the authorities but dismissed, leaving everyone wondering who could have committed such a heinous crime.Author Nic Edwards, host of the wildly popular True Crime Garage podcast, was fascinated by the case and for years conducted his own extensive research and commentary. As such he was able to dissect the investigation that included an extensive list of possible suspects, such as a hatchet-wielding lunatic, a kidnapper with unusual tattoos, a murderous pastor, a rapist, and a father and son catfishing team. Then in late October 2022, local pharmacy technician Richard Allen was charged with the murders. His arrest raised multiple questions about how he was able to evade law enforcement for so long and what motivated him to commit such a horrific crime. In THE DELPHI MURDERS: The Quest To Find ‘The Man On The Bridge’, Edwards and his bestselling co-author Brian Whitney (YOU HAVE A VERY SOFT VOICE, SUSAN) provide a detailed account of the investigation from the day the girls’ bodies were found to the events leading up to Allen's arrest, and unique insight into the minds of the killer and those who worked tirelessly to bring him to justice. THE DELPHI MURDERS: The Quest to Find 'The Man on the Bridge'-Nic Edwards
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23/05/23•56m 20s
INTRODUCING AMERICAN SCANDAL: The "Kids For Cash" Kickback Scheme
In the early 2000s, residents of northeastern Pennsylvania started to notice an alarming trend – children were being sent away to jail in high numbers, and for crimes so mild they might normally result in a grounding. The FBI began looking at two local judges, on the heels of an investigation into the mafia. And when the full picture emerged, it made national headlines. This is just a preview of American Scandal: The "Kids for Cash" Kickback Scheme. You can listen to the full episode wherever you get your podcasts, or at Wondery.fm/truemurder_AS
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22/05/23•6m 35s
DETAILS ARE UNPRINTABLE-Allan Levine
The narrative of Details Are Unprintable primarily unfolds over a seven-month period from October 1943 to April 1944—from the moment the body of twenty-two-year old Patricia Burton Lonergan is discovered in the bedroom of her New York City Beekman Hill apartment, to the arrest of her husband of two years, Wayne Lonergan, for her murder, and his subsequent trial and conviction. But this story goes back in time to the 1920s, when Wayne Lonergan grew up in Toronto and then forward to his post-prison life following his deportation to Canada. It is the chronicle of Lonergan in denial as a bisexual or gay man living in an intolerant and morally superior heterosexual world; and of Patricia, rich and entitled, a seeker of attention, who loved a night out on the town—all set against the fast pace of New York’s ostentatious café society.Part True Crime and part a social history of New York City in the 1940s, this book transports readers to the New York World’s Fair of 1939 when Patricia’s father William Burton first encountered Lonergan; the Stork Club, 21 Club, and El Morocco to experience with Patricia a night of drinking champagne cocktails and dancing; and the muggy New York courtroom where Lonergan’s fate was decided.What truly happened on that tragic night on October 24, 1943? Should we accept Lonergan’s confession at face value as the jury did? Or was he indeed a victim of physical and mental abuse by the state prosecutors and the police, as he maintained for the rest of his life? This book considers these, and other, key questions. DETAILS ARE UNPRINTABLE-Wayne Lonergan and the Sensational Cafe Society Murder-Allan Levine
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16/05/23•58m 1s
INTRODUCING: MORBID
It’s all a lighthearted nightmare on the MORBID podcast. Hosted by Alaina Urquhart and Ash Kelley, Morbid is a full dose of true crime with a splash of comedy. Join us all month long as we celebrate 5 years of MORBID with a special anniversary series, a festive edition of listener tales, and more surprises to come. Listen to Morbid wherever you get your podcasts: Wondery.fm/MB_TMHey Prime Members you can listen to Morbid early and ad-free on Amazon Music. Download the Amazon Music app today.
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15/05/23•7m 13s
DEADLY CALIFORNIA-David Kulczyk
David Kulczyk’s eighth book, Deadly California is another tome of off the wall murders, accidents and robberies gone wrong that have happened in California. With true crime tales stretching from 1912 to 1964, occurring in the San Francisco Bay Area, Los Angeles, Northern and Southern California, and Sacramento. Unforgettable stories such as When Sally Shot Harry; Double Murder on O Street; Keller and Sergeant Liquor Store and Corpus Delicti. DEADLY CALIFORNIA: Murders, Accidents, and Robberies Gone Wrong-David Kulczyk
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08/05/23•43m 54s
TREMORS IN THE BLOOD-Amit Katwala
Late one evening in the summer of 1922, Henry Wilkens burst through the doors of the emergency room covered in his wife’s blood. But was he a grieving husband, or a ruthless killer who conspired with bandits to have her murdered?To find out, the San Francisco police turned to technology and a new machine that had just been invented in Berkeley by a rookie detective, a visionary police chief, and a teenage magician with a showman’s touch.John Larson, Gus Vollmer and Leonarde Keeler hoped the lie detector would make the justice system fairer – but the flawed device soon grew too powerful for them to control. It poisoned their lives, turned fast friends into bitter enemies, and as it conquered America and the world, it transformed our relationship with the truth in ways that are still being felt.As new forms of lie detection gain momentum in the present day, Tremors in the Blood reveals the incredible truth behind the creation of the polygraph, through gripping true crime cases featuring explosive gunfights, shocking twists and high-stakes courtroom drama.Touching on psychology, technology and the science of the truth, Tremors in the Blood is a vibrant, atmospheric thriller, and a warning from history: beware what you believe. TREMORS IN THE BLOOD: Murder, Obsession, and the Birth of the Lie Detector-Amit Katwala
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01/05/23•51m 15s
PRECIOUS FEW CLUES-Marla Bernard
On an unseasonably warm April evening in 2001, the headless body of a tiny girl was found discarded in a makeshift dump site in the woods on the southeast side of Kansas City, Missouri.One long night turned into four long years for Sgt. David Bernard and the Kansas City Police Department’s 1020 Squad. They followed 1,500 leads, had a replica of the child’s head sculpted from her skull, and ultimately conducted the single most extensive area canvass in the KCPD's history. Erica Michelle Marie Green, aka “Precious Doe,” captured the hearts of not only the dedicated detectives who fought tirelessly to identify her and her killer but of an entire community. PRECIOUS FEW CLUES is a candid and touching account of the painful impact that this brutal murder had on Sgt. Bernard, his family, and the KCPD’s 1020 squad. It chronicles the all too frequent story of child abuse, failed social services, a flawed court system, and battered women who sacrificed their own children to shield their abusive lovers, echoing the same preposterous explanations of “…but I love him.” PRECIOUS FEW CLUES: The True Crime Investigation of Kansas City's "Precious Doe" Murder-Marla Bernard
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24/04/23•58m 27s
KORESH-Stephan Talty
No other event in the last fifty years is shrouded in myth like the 1993 siege of the Branch Davidians in Waco, Texas. Today, we remember this moment for the 76 people, including 20 children, who died in the fire; for its inspiration of the Oklahoma City bombing; and for the wave of anti-government militarism that followed. What we understand far less is what motivated the Davidians’ enigmatic leader, David Koresh.Drawing on first-time, exclusive interviews with Koresh’s family and survivors of the siege, bestselling author Stephan Talty paints a psychological portrait of this infamous icon of the 1990s. Born Vernon Howell into the hyper-masculine world of central Texas in the 1960s, Koresh experienced a childhood riven with abuse and isolation. He found a new version of himself in the halls of his local church, and love in the fundamentalist sect of the Branch Davidians. Later, with a new name and professed prophetic powers, Koresh ushered in a new era for the Davidians that prized his own sexual conquest as much as his followers’ faith. As one survivor has said, “What better way for a worthless child to feel worth than to become God?”In his signature immersive storytelling, Talty reveals how Koresh’s fixation on holy war, which would deliver the Davidians to their reward and confirm himself as Christ, collided with his paranoid obsession with firearms to destructive effect. Their deadly, 51-day standoff with the embattled FBI and ATF, he shows, embodied an anti-government ethic that continues to resonate today.Now, thirty years after that unforgettable moment, Koresh presents the tragedy at Waco—and the government mistrust it inspired—in its fullest context yet. KORESH: The True Story of David Koresh and the Tragedy at Waco-Stephan Talty
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17/04/23•54m 28s
THE CIGAR-Frank Dimatteo and Michael Benson
From real-life "Mafia Survivor" Frank Dimatteo, the gripping account of the life and crimes of the most feared mafia boss of all time: Carmine “Lilo” Galante, the prime mover behind the legendary French Connection.The brutal and blood-stained true story of one of the most feared bosses in American Mafia history, who rose from tenement street thug to notorious hit man to a prime mover behind the legendary French Connection. And the bodies piled up.The son of Sicilian immigrants, Camillo Carmine Galante was raised in Manhattan’s Little Italy and by all accounts born bad. At age ten his home away from home was juvenile detention. By fifteen he was terrorizing the streets of New York’s Lower East Side, scoring high marks for the “errands” he was running for his La Cosa Nostra elders. When he turned twenty, Galante was already one of the mob’s top enforcers–a sadistic thrill killer and clinically diagnosed psychopath with big dreams: whack his way into controlling organized crime the world over, vowing to kill Mafia chieftains Tommy Lucchese and Carlo Gambino and take control of their mob families.Carmine “Lilo” Galante’s rise to Mafia star was infamous: hit man for the Luciano and Genovese crime families; named consigliere by Joseph Bonnano; he wiped out eight members of the Gambinos; on behalf of Mussolini he assassinated the publisher of an anti-Fascist newspaper. “The biggest dope peddler in the country” according to law enforcement, Galante helped orchestrate one of the largest heroin trafficking operations on record—a power move too dangerous for his rivals in the narcotics trade. The heads of the five New York families decided that the psychotic Galante had to be stopped. On July 12, 1979, finishing his lunch in a Brooklyn restaurant, Galante got what he’d dished out his whole life: a shotgun blast to the face, his trademark cigar still clenched in his teeth . . .THE CIGAR: Carmine Galante, Mafia Terror-Frank Dimatteo and Michael BensonReplyForward
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10/04/23•45m 45s
SEVENTY TIMES SEVEN-Alex Mar
On a spring afternoon in 1985 in Gary, Indiana, a fifteen-year-old girl kills an elderly woman in a violent home invasion. In a city with a history of racial tensions and white flight, the girl, Paula Cooper, is Black, and her victim, Ruth Pelke, is white and a beloved Bible teacher. The press swoops in.When Paula is sentenced to death, no one decries the impending execution of a tenth grader. But the tide begins to shift when the victim’s grandson Bill forgives the girl, against the wishes of his family, and campaigns to spare her life. This tragedy in a midwestern steel town soon reverberates across the United States and around the world—reaching as far away as the Vatican—as newspapers cover the story on their front pages and millions sign petitions in support of Paula.As Paula waits on death row, her fate sparks a debate that not only animates legal circles but raises vital questions about the value of human life: What are we demanding when we call for justice? Is forgiveness an act of desperation or of profound bravery? As Bill and Paula’s friendship deepens, and as Bill discovers others who have chosen to forgive after terrible violence, their story asks us to consider what radical acts of empathy we might be capable of.In Seventy Times Seven, Alex Mar weaves an unforgettable narrative of an act of violence and its aftermath. This is a story about the will to live—to survive, to grow, to change—and about what we are willing to accept as justice. Tirelessly researched and told with intimacy and precision, this book brings a haunting chapter in the history of our criminal justice system to astonishing life. SEVENTY TIMES SEVEN: A True Story of Murder and Mercy-Alex Mar
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03/04/23•50m 29s
UNEXPECTED-Chris Thomas
Chris Thomas is not yet thirty years old when he finds himself managing the immense pressure, eccentric personalities, and extenuating circumstances of an international story, where one small misstep could adversely impact the search for a missing teenager and the reputation of her family. Now, twenty years later, Thomas takes readers behind the scenes, providing new details, perspectives, and commentary on finding Elizabeth Smart.In the process of reflecting on Elizabeth's search and rescue, Thomas discovers how growing up in the culture of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (commonly known as Mormon) helped push him to develop the exact kind of intuition needed to manage Elizabeth's kidnapping and rescue, and to do so while the world watched. Unexpected juxtaposes crucial events from the Smart case with Thomas's experience growing up in the Latter-day Saint culture, including coming to understand the secret of a broken war hero before it was too late. UNEXPECTED: The Backstory of Finding Elizabeth Smart and Growing Up in the Culture of an American Religion-Chris Thomas
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28/03/23•53m 21s
DEATH BY TALONS-Tiddy Smith
On December 9, 2001, Kathleen Peterson was found dead at the bottom of a staircase in her Durham, NC home. Her scalp was laced with deep incisions, and her blood was strewn from outside to inside the house.The sinister truth of that night turned her murder into North Carolina's most enigmatic criminal case, capturing media attention across the globe.Police zeroed in on Kathleen’s husband, Michael Peterson, and charged him with murder.But Was It The Truth?A neighbor, Larry Pollard, came up with an alternative “killer;” he claimed an owl had attacked Kathleen outside her house. He said it sliced her scalp with its fierce talons and caused her to run inside, collapsing at the stairwell, and bleeding to death.When the media heard about his theory, Larry was mocked. And Michael was convicted.Now, twenty years later, author Tiddy Smith explores Pollard’s theory and questions whether law enforcement ignored, or even hid, evidence to convict Michael Peterson. And was an owl, in fact, the real killer? DEATH BY TALONS: Did An Owl 'Murder' Kathleen Peterson?-Tiddy Smith
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21/03/23•49m 42s
JonBenet's SECRET SANTA, MY MURDERER-M'Linda Kula
M'Linda Kula is very familiar with this SECRET SANTA and the many links that tie him to JonBenet Ramsey. Each link is carefully explained within this book, to lead from one connection to the next between JonBenet and the SECRET SANTA. Follow the pieces of the puzzle to find out who this SECRET SANTA is and how this chameleon was able to evade the authorities. Included within is a pair of government generated documents for the same man under different aliases/assumed names. This alone should raise a red flag for authorities. This same individual also used a term of endearment common to the Ramsey family for JonBenet, in front of his peers and classmates at a karate school. When asked if he was "related to that girl found in a basement" he responded with "I don't know no Johnny B!" No one knew this term of endearment until it was used in the book The Death of Innocence by John Ramsey. Planned murder indicates that the killer knew the victim's schedule. Overkill is usually a message intended for someone else, other than the victim. Who was the overkill message intended for and why? DNA Phenotyping can be used to help generate an image of the killer's face, which may match up with some of the images found within this book, raising some serious questions.The true name of this SECRET SANTA is listed on Detective Lou Smit's suspect list. M'Linda has compiled the list of links to send out to the public, so that you may decide for yourselves if the information found within warrants interest and possibly an arrest. Perhaps together we can finally bring an end to this case, and justice for JonBenet Ramsey. JonBenet's SECRET SANTA, MY MURDERER?: The "True" JonBenet Ramsey Completed Puzzle-M'Linda Kula
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14/03/23•51m 48s
THE ANGEL MAKERS-Patti McCracken
The Angel Makers is a true-crime story like no other—a 1920s midwife who may have been the century’s most prolific killer leading a murder ring of women responsible for the deaths of at least 160 men.The horror occurred in a rustic farming enclave in modern-day Hungary. To look at the unlikely lineup of murderesses—village wives, mothers, and daughters—was to come to the shocking realization that this could have happened anywhere, and to anyone. At the center of it all was a sharp-minded village midwife, a “smiling Buddha” known as Auntie Suzy, who distilled arsenic from flypaper and distributed it to the women of Nagyrév. “Why are you bothering with him?” Auntie Suzy would ask, as she produced an arsenic-filled vial from her apron pocket. In the beginning, a great many used the deadly solution to finally be free of cruel and abusive spouses.But as the number of dead bodies grew without consequence, the killers grew bolder. With each vial of poison emptied, a new reason surfaced to drain yet another. Some women disposed of sickly relatives. Some used arsenic as “inheritance powder” to secure land and houses. For more than fifteen years, the unlikely murderers aided death unfettered and tended to it as if it were simply another chore—spooning doses of arsenic into soup and wine, stirring it into coffee and brandy. By the time their crimes were discovered, hundreds were feared dead. Anonymous notes brought the crimes to light in 1929. As a skillful prosecutor hungry for justice ran the investigation, newsmen from around the world—including the New York Times—poured in to cover the dramatic events as they unfolded.The Angel Makers captures in expertly researched detail the entirety of this harrowing story, from the early murders to the final hanging—the story of one of the most sensational and astonishing murder rings in all of modern history. THE ANGEL MAKERS: Arsenic, a Midwife, and Modern History's Most Astonishing Murder Ring-Patti McCracken
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13/03/23•45m 21s
SICARIUS: Sondra London
From his cell on Death Row in Florida, confessed serial killer Danny Rolling started writing and illustrating this novel about the Daggerman Sicarius in 1999, seven years before his 2006 execution for the five murders he committed in 1990.Drawing on years of research, Rolling follows zoologist Sir Winser Ashmole to the African island of Mauritius, to assist Dr. Borgum Konoff in saving endangered species.But the doctor is dabbling in sinister forces, torturing the island girls in a mad quest for immortality, as an alien relic gives him the superhuman powers of a Sicarius.Caught in the act, Konoff escapes to Boston, where he goes on a murder rampage. Ashmole helps police track him, but the power of the relic is still protecting the elusive Sicarius.As the Powers That Be close in on the crazed killer, a deal with the Forces of Darkness is brokered by a witch whose name is Cath... a nod to the woman who served as Rolling's muse in real life, at the time he dreamed up the tale.The novel was published in 2002 by Plotdigger Publications, a corporation owned by Canadian filmmaker Ryan Nicholson, who died in 2019 without renewing the copyright, so the book was orphaned until 2022, when Sondra London gave new life to this tale that Rolling had originally asked her to publish. SICARIUS: Sondra London Presents Death Row Fiction By a Serial Killer (Serial Killers Talk to Sondra London-Sondra LondonReplyForward
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06/03/23•1h 1m
LOU AND JONBENET-John Wesley Anderson
On Christmas Night 1996, six-year-old JonBenet Ramsey was murdered in her family’s home in Boulder, Colorado. A ransom note was found in the home, but it was hours before her father, John, found her body in the basement. She had been strangled with a garrote and her skull was fractured. The media sensationalized the tragic death of the “child beauty queen” and public speculation and rumors ran rampant. What followed was one of the most notorious unsolved murder investigations in American history. Boulder police fixated on JonBenet’s parents as suspects. Needing investigative help, the Boulder DA brought in legendary homicide detective Lou Smit. However, he was soon disenchanted with law enforcement’s obsession with the Ramsey family as the primary suspects, excluding other possibilities. Smit resigned but continued to work on his own time, and at his own expense, determined to find justice for JonBenet. He determined the Ramsey family was not involved in her death but died in 2010 before he could identify the killer. Thousands of people attended his funeral service, including John Ramsey, and the detective’s lifelong friend and colleague, John Anderson. Along with a handful of retired detectives, Anderson and Smit’s family continue to pursue justice based on Smit’s work. Now, for the first time in LOU AND JONBENET, Anderson tells the story of Smit’s investigation and why the Smit family team now believes that the killer can be identified. LOU AND JONBENET: A Legendary Lawman's Quest To Solve A Beauty Queen's Murder-John Wesley Anderson
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27/02/23•59m 59s
ERIE'S BACKYARD STRANGLER-Justin Dombrowski
On a cold morning in December 1960, 60-year-old Laura Mutch was found strangled behind a house in downtown Erie....At a time when the Gem City was at its peak, including a triumphant run for the coveted 'All-American City' award, the murder created a pandemonium. As the investigation progressed, attacks on women in and around the city of Erie continued, sending citizens - and seasoned investigators - to the brink of total chaos. Infamous attacks such as the brutal stabbing of 72-year-old Clara Carrig, the attempted strangling and knifing of Helen Knost and the strangling murders of Mary Lynn Crotty and Eleanor Free caused women to lock their doors and avoid the streets at night. The arrest of truck driver John Howard Willman in September 1963 was not the end of the story as soon the case attracted nationwide attention - including a lawsuit by the ACLU. Just who was Erie's infamous 'Backyard Strangler?' Would a technicality by police cause the suspected murderer to roam free again to kill more victims? Author Justin Dombrowski charts the harrowing attacks, investigations and mystery surrounding Erie's 1960s reign of terror. ERIE'S BACKYARD STRANGLER: Terror in the 60's-Justin Dombrowski
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20/02/23•52m 40s
THE BEST NEW TRUE CRIME STORIES: Crimes of Famous and Infamous Criminals-Mitzi Szereto
Actors, musicians, TV personalities, and other public figures in the spotlight aren’t always who they appear to be. You might be surprised by just how many have led nefarious, double lives, and have become infamous criminals!Power, status, and a rich lifestyle aren’t barriers to criminal behavior. Yes, people from all walks of life commit crimes. But the people featured here are not your typical neighbors or subway passengers—they are household names and Hollywood stars. Get the stories behind these public figures, both contemporary and historical, who have traveled down the murky pathway toward criminal activity. After committing their crimes, the world may have kept on turning, but their legacies as infamous criminals remain strong worldwide. This book offers a fascinating assortment of true crime cases from around the world and from various time frames. Like the previous anthologies in The Best New True Crime Stories series, this volume contains all new and original nonfiction accounts penned by international writers from across the literary spectrum, including true crime, crime fiction, and journalism.Inside, you’ll find:The stories of Hollywood stars and famous criminals who went down the wrong pathEncounters that feature the cases of infamous criminals like Robert Blake, Jimmy Savile, Fatty Arbuckle and more. The Best New True Crime Stories: Crimes of Famous & Infamous Criminals-Mitzi Szereto.
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14/02/23•50m 39s
THE REAL-LIFE MURDER CLUBS-Nicola Stow
What happens when ordinary people, in real-life murder clubs, set out to investigate crimes, both recent and cold cases?The Netflix hit Don’t F**k with Cats was based on the 2012 Montreal murder of thirty-three-year-old Lin Jun by his porn-star boyfriend, Luka Magnotta. Previously Magnotta had anonymously posted videos of himself killing kittens. This spurred horrified Facebook sleuths into working tirelessly to uncover his identity and location.Other investigations include:A self-taught forensic artist, who uses computer software and coroners’ photographs to help identify victims by showing how they looked when alive.The mother who swore at her murdered daughter’s graveside that she would get the gang who had sprayed her car with bullets. It took fourteen years in the case of one gang member, but she finally entrapped him via the fake profile she had created on MySpace.The retail clerk turned citizen sleuth who helped to match a photo of a missing man to a skull found in a bucket, which resulted in the conviction of the victim’s best friend.Websleuths matched the IP address of a suspicious contributor to a lottery-winning victim’s financial advisor, which led to his body being found beneath a newly poured concrete slab in his advisor’s boyfriend’s garden.Sometimes citizen sleuthing goes wrong, though, with innocent people being targeted, or accused of crimes they haven’t committed, with tragic results.The real-life version of Richard Osman’s The Thursday Murder Club is grittier, with intrepid amateur investigators delving into truly gruesome unsolved crimes in pursuit of justice. THE REAL-LIFE MURDER CLUBS: Citizens Solving True Crimes-Nicola StowGet $100 off your first month at Talkspace.com/ TRUEMURDER
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08/02/23•46m 18s
THE KILLING SPREE-Anita Paddock
John Edward Swindler never learned to read or write and instead became a bona fide criminal at the age of fifteen. His crimes quickly advanced from car theft to arson. At three hundred pounds, with long, fuzzy red hair and pimply skin, his appearance was so frightening that he intimidated fellow inmates into performing crimes from their jail cells. He sodomized other convicts, who dared not refuse him. He was moved in and out of solitary confinement in an attempt to break him of his violent ways. It failed. Released from prison because he was uncontrollable, he began a multi-state crime spree that culminated in the rape and murder of three young people and the shocking assault on a Fort Smith, Arkansas, policeman named Randy Basnett. In a matter of days, Swindler’s lust for death grew into an unforgettable KILLING SPREE.On September 24, 1976, two men—John Edward Swindler, a force for evil, and Officer Randy Basnett, laying his life on the line for good—came together. The result altered their lives, and the lives of many others. This is their story. THE KILLING SPREE: A True Story of a String of Brutal Murders, Rapes, and the Cop Who Tried to Stop It-Anita Paddock
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06/02/23•49m 40s
BUTCHER'S WORK-Harold Schechter
A Civil War veteran who perpetrated one of the most ghastly mass slaughters in the annals of U.S. crime. A nineteenth-century female serial killer whose victims included three husbands and six of her own children. A Gilded Age “Bluebeard” who did away with as many as fifty wives throughout the country. A decorated World War I hero who orchestrated a murder that stunned Jazz Age America. While other infamous homicides from the same eras—the Lizzie Borden slayings, for example, or the “thrill killing” committed by Leopold and Loeb—have entered into our cultural mythology, these four equally sensational crimes have largely faded from public memory. A quartet of gripping historical true-crime narratives, Butcher’s Work restores these once-notorious cases to vivid, dramatic life. BUTCHER'S WORK-True Crime Tales of American Murder and Madness-Harold Schechter
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30/01/23•43m 54s
TRIAL LAWYER-Richard Zitrin
Internationally known legal ethics professor Richard Zitrin's work as a trial lawyer placed him on the front lines of fighting systemic racism, pervasive elitism, and injustice against individuals in the legal system. In Trial Lawyer, he shares details of the most compelling cases he's encountered and exposes the dilemmas he faced throughout his one-of-a-kind career. The profound, the consequential, the shocking, the bizarre, and even the humorous, Trial Lawyer brings to life what it means to represent people against power.From his first case as a young law student on the famous and highly politicized San Quentin Six case and throughout his forty-year career, Zitrin has worked on dozens of cases that underscore the inherent biases of the legal system - towards people of color, the poor, the less educated, and those who just don't appear to fit the mold of whatever society considers "normal." His personal stories about him bring the reader inside the courtroom to experience a unique cast of characters, strange-but-true facts, brilliant trial tricks and tactics-and not-so-brilliant ones that failed miserably. Each had its own lessons: about social justice, fairness, strategy, ethics, morality, and more. TRIAL LAWYER: A Life Representing People Against Power-Richard Zitrin
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24/01/23•51m 5s
Wondery Presents: Frozen Head
Hosted by Ash Kelley and Alaina Urquhart from the hit show Morbid.When 90-year-old Laurence Pilgeram drops dead on the sidewalk outside his condo, you might think that’s the end of his story. But, really, it’s just the beginning. Because Laurence and others like him have signed up to be frozen and brought back to life in the future. And that belief will pull multiple generations of the Pilgeram family into a cryonics soap opera filled with dead pets, gold coins, grenades, fist fights, mysterious packages, family feuds, Hall of Fame baseball legends, and frozen heads — lots of frozen heads. From Wondery, comes a story about life, death, and what comes next.Follow Frozen Head on Amazon Music or wherever you get your podcasts. Binge early and ad-free by subscribing to Wondery+ in Apple Podcasts or the Wondery App. Listen to Frozen Head: Wondery.fm/FH_TM
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23/01/23•4m 4s
NEVER FORGIVE, NEVER FORGET-Rod Kackley
No body means no crime, which makes this the perfect murder.Doug Stewart even has an ironclad alibi. He's been seen hundreds of miles away when his lovely wife, Venus, vanishes. What better plan could any murderer hope for?But Doug's forgotten one thing: the power of a mother's love.Venus' mother believes her daughter's husband lured her outside. They fought. He won. Venus' mom wants her daughter back, dead or alive.Never Forgive, Never Forget: A Shocking True Crime Story by Rod Kackley tells the true story of a woman whose fear of her husband seems to turn out to be justified. It's also the story of a mother’s quest to win the return of her child — her best friend — even if it’s only to bury her.The disappearance of Venus Stewart is a shocking true crime story that rocked southwest Michigan and eventually the nation. Hundreds of volunteers spent thousands of days searching for the mother of two young girls.The police and her mother were sure Venus’ husband killed her. But he was in Newport News, Virginia when the crime was committed in Michigan. The neighbors saw him. He used his credit cards and even paid on his account at his lawyer’s office.And it wasn’t just the day that Venus disappeared that her husband was seen in Newport News. He was spotted the next day too. How can anyone be in two places at one time?Here’s something else: no corpse. That’s right, the police don’t have a body. How can investigators even be sure Venus is dead?Her mother had to wait more than eight long years before finding out what had happened to her child.A community rose up to stand by Therese McComb and her mission to learn the truth, and after searching for Venus hundreds of times, they stood by Therese at the very end.Never Forgive, Never Forget: A Shocking True Crime Story is a hard-hitting tale of a mother’s undying devotion and love for her child; and two police officers’ refusal to give up. It's a story that you will never forget. This gripping book will also leave you with a question. If you were Venus' mother; could you ever forgive?NEVER FORGIVE, NEVER FORGET: A Shocking True Crime Story-Rod Kackley.
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17/01/23•46m 38s
HIDDEN DEMONS-Margery B. Metzger
On January 7, 1994, residents of the Berkshire Hills woke up to a typical snowy winter day in the majestic woods of Western Massachusetts. The quaint New England towns, the idyllic scenery and the people who lived there could have stepped out of a Norman Rockwell painting.Rocked as imaginable evil converged on them, a pall would be cast over the region and its inhabitants for years to follow.That day, a trial was beginning for a college student who celebrated his 18th birthday by purchasing an assault rifle, then opening fire on campus killing two and wounding four others. Elsewhere, two young girls were accosted in the changing room at the local pool. Another young girl narrowly escaped being abducted at gunpoint on her way to school. Her quick thinking resulting later in profound repercussions regarding the case of a young boy who vanished from a strip mall, baffling law enforcement, his body discovered three years earlier by deer hunters in a remote wooded area 200 miles away.All these events appeared unrelated, but it seemed to police agencies and local residents that the world had suddenly gone mad. After all, they told each other, “These things don’t happen here!”In chilling, dramatic narrative HIDDEN DEMONS: Evil Visits a Small New England Town, by Margery Metzger, details these events and reveals a savage serial killer who lurked in the shadows. But the bravery of a father and daughter, and the remarkable work of law enforcement officers, would turn the table. HIDDEN DEMONS: Evil Visits A Small New England Town-Margery B. MetzgerReplyForward
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16/01/23•51m 20s
A LOVELY GIRL-Deborah Larkin
The incredible story of a 1958 murder that ended with the last woman to ever be executed in California—a murder so twisted it seems ripped from a Greek tragedy.Deborah Larkin was only ten years old when the quiet calm of her California suburb was shattered. Thirty miles north, on a quiet November night in Santa Barbara, a pregnant nurse named Olga Duncan disappeared from her apartment. The mystery deepens when it is discovered that Olga’s mother in-law—a deeply manipulative and deceptive woman—had been doing everything in her power to separate Olga and her son, Frank, prior to Olga’s disappearance.From a forged annulment to multiple attempts to hire people to “get rid” of Olga, to a faked excoriation case, Elizabeth seemed psychopathically attached to her son. Yet she denied having anything to do with Olga’s disappearance with a smile.But when Olga’s brutally beaten body is found in a shallow grave, apparently buried alive, a young DA makes it his mission to see that Elizabeth Duncan is brought to justice. Adding a wrinkle to his efforts is the fact that Frank—himself a defense attorney—maintained his mother’s innocence to the end.How does a young girl process such a crime along with the fear and disbelief that rocked an entire community? Decades later, Larkin is determined to revisit the case and bring the story of Olga herself to light. Long overshadowed by the sensationalism and scandal of Elizabeth and Frank, A Lovely Girl seeks to reveal Olga as a woman in full. Someone who was more than the twisted family that would ultimately ensnare her.As we follow the heart-pounding drama of the case through Larkin's young eyes—her father was the court reporter—A Lovely Girl is by turns page-turning yet poignant, and makes the reader reexamine how we handle fear, how we regard mental illness, and how we understand family as we carve our own path in a dangerous world. A LOVELY GIRL: The Tragedy of Olga Duncan and the Trial of One of California's Most Notorious Killers-Deborah LarkinReplyForward
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09/01/23•53m 19s
COLD BLOODED MURDER-Brad Hunter
Murder is the most vile crime known to man. It can be triggered by love or money or sex. Those are the three big ticket items for homicide. But people are strange. They will kill for the most obscure and ridiculous of reasons. In 30 years covering murder, Brad Hunter has discovered each one has its own flavour. Cops and friends can be stunned by the evil lurking within a seemingly ordinary man or woman. In this collection of some of the most memorable cases Brad has reported on, there are serial killers, rich kid monsters, football stars and wives in pursuit of hormone-charged hijinks… The very rich and the very poor. Successful lawyers and hotel executives. Southern belles who could melt butter with a come hither wink and a sexy drawl. Daddy’s girls with gleaming smiles, good marks and possessed by the devil.These are stories of American crimes and they stretch from coast to coast.You will find cheating husbands and wives so desperate for love that they’ll kill for it. COLD BLOODED MURDER: Shocking True Stories of Killers and Psychopaths-Brad Hunter
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03/01/23•55m 41s
MURDER IN THE FOX VALLEY-Jim Ridings
The western suburbs of Chicago were being terrorized by a serial rapist and murderer in the 1970s and 1980s. Bruce Lindahl was a psychotic rapist and killer who preyed on girls and young women for almost a decade. He managed to escape detection because he did not leave his rape victims alive. But in 1980, he kidnapped and raped Debra Colliander in Aurora, Illinois. She escaped before he could murder her, and Lindahl finally was arrested. Two months later, just before he was to go on trial on charges of kidnapping, rape and deviate sexual assault, Lindahl kidnapped and murdered Miss Colliander. Lindahl disposed of her body and no one could find her. The following year, because the victim did not show up in court, the kidnapping and rape charges had to be dropped – and he could not be charged with murder without a body. Reporter Jim Ridings wrote a number of stories for The Beacon-News over several months, determined to shine a light to try to stop Lindahl from getting away with another murder. Suddenly, the public knew the truth about this monster who had been able to evade justice and public attention. Aurora police said Lindahl planned to kill Ridings once the judge finally dismissed the case. But fortunately, a few days after the charges were dropped, Lindahl accidentally killed himself while murdering another person. The story took another turn nearly 40 years after Lindahl’s death when DNA tests linked Lindahl to an unsolved cold case murder from 1976. Murder in the Fox Valley tells the story of Bruce Lindahl’s terrible crime spree and how he finally was stopped. MURDER IN THE FOX VALLEY: The True Story of Serial Killer Bruce Lindahl-Jim Ridings
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02/01/23•47m 28s
ROOTED IN DECEPTION-Laura Churchill Duke
From the award-winning author of Two Crows Sorrow comes another historical true crime story about secret identities, deception, and murder.At the turn of the century, an ex-convict from Ireland arrives in the back country of rural Nova Scotia, whereupon he is accused of murdering a man and burying him in the victim’s own cellar under a pile of potatoes. Rooted in Deception follows the life of John Kavanagh and how this petty criminal deceives everyone in his path until he is eventually accused of a heinous and violent murder for which he is ultimately hanged. But how much of the tragedy was of his own doing and how much had been woven by his enemies? Told from a variety of perspectives, including that of the accused, the book creates a sympathetic case for a man who may deserve none. Using primary sources including newspaper articles, trial transcripts and actual letters from the accused, the true story of the murder of Freeman Harvey is told using creative nonfiction devices to fill in the gaps of the narrative. Rooted in Deception follows Two Crows Sorrow, which was awarded the 2020 Bronze Award for best creative nonfiction by the Miramichi Reader. ROOTED IN DECEPTION-Laura Churchill Duke
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21/12/22•52m 2s
Wondery Presents Suspect Season 2: Vanished In The Snow
For more than three and a half decades, the disappearance of 12-year-old Jonelle Matthews was a mystery – a riddle neither authorities nor her family members could solve. The residents of her cloistered Colorado hometown had scoured every inch of prairie. Jonelle’s face had been on milk cartons nationwide. Even the President of the United States had appealed to the public for help. Still, every lead had fizzled. Every person of interest had turned out to be a dead end. Then, in 2019, Jonelle’s remains were unearthed near the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. With the discovery came a troubling new question: Had the truth been hiding in plain sight the entire time? Was the man who couldn’t stop obsessing over Jonelle’s disappearance also the person who took her? From Campside Media and Wondery comes season two of SUSPECT. Former CNN reporter Ashley Fantz and executive producers Matthew Shaer and Eric Benson (Suspect, Over My Dead Body) dig into one of the most mind-bending cold cases in modern history, in an attempt to separate fact and fiction, compulsion from guilt, and true-crime fandom from a motive for murder. Listen to SUSPECT: Vanished in the Snow early and ad- free by subscribing to Wondery Plus in Apple Podcasts or the Wondery app.https://wondery.app.link/suspect-tm
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19/12/22•6m 40s
THE MAN WITH THE KILLER SMILE-Mitchel P. Roth
On a cold, windy December night in 1926, hell was unleashed on a tenant farm near Farwell, the last Texas town before the New Mexico border. Prone to the bottle and fits of rage, the burly man with the smiling blue eyes was in no mood to quarrel with his third wife over his bootleg whisky and sexual abuse of his stepdaughter. He went from room to room in the house, killing his wife and each child with primitive cutting tools and his bare hands. By the time he concluded his bloody work, he had taken the lives of nine family members ranging in age from 2 to 41, committing what one local reporter called “the blackest crime” in the history of the West Texas Panhandle. Husband, father, uncle, embezzler, serial mass murderer, philanderer, child molester, convict, and military deserter, George Jefferson Hassell was many things to many people, most of them bad. His pattern of familicide crime had begun in 1917, when he slaughtered his common-law wife and her three kids in Whittier, California. Later, in Texas, he married his brother’s wife and became stepfather to her eight children. Using Hassell’s confessions and his many interviews with reporters as well as the trial transcripts and reminiscences of those who crossed paths with him in Texas, Oklahoma, and California, Mitchel P. Roth presents the first comprehensive account of the life and crimes of one of the least known multiple murderers in Texas, let alone American, history. Roth situates Hassell’s saga within the 1920s Texas criminal justice system, including the death penalty, which Hassell ultimately received from Old Sparky, the electric chair at Huntsville. THE MAN WITH THE KILLER SMILE: The Life and Crimes of a Serial Mass Murderer-Mitchel P. Roth
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12/12/22•56m 50s
I DON'T LIKE MONDAYS-N. Leigh Hunt
In 1979, Brenda Spencer, a seemingly average teenage girl living in a nice suburban neighborhood, made and executed plans that would place her in infamy and set a violent and terrifying national precedent. She received a rifle for Christmas and a month later set her sights and opened fire on the elementary school across the street.The event is forever glorified by the song ‘I Don’t Like Mondays’ by The Boomtown Rats and marks the bloody beginning of the American phenomenon of school shootings. Long before Columbine and Sandy Hook, there was Brenda Spencer…I DON’T LIKE MONDAYS: The True Story of America’s First Modern School Shooting sifts through the mythology that has sprung up around this fateful day, presenting the raw and riveting facts for the first time. This book lays bare this seemingly average teenage girl’s brutal motives and subsequent arrest. N. Leigh Hunt spent years researching and uncovering shocking details from officers, investigators, and lost police dispatches. He has interviewed people who were on the scene and local reporters who spoke with the perpetrator directly after her shooting spree. Hunt has even cultivated an unlikely rapport with the killer and through personal interviews, has shed light on previously unknown details about her upbringing and influences. I DON'T LIKE MONDAYS: The True Story Behind America's First Modern School Shooting-N. Leigh Hunt
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07/12/22•49m 26s
FRANK SINATRA AND THE MAFIA MURDERS-Mike Rothmiller
Mike Rothmiller and Douglas Thompson draw on previously secret LAPD intelligence files, a cache of FBI documents released to the authors in 2021, and extensive interviews with prime sources, including many who worked with Frank Sinatra and many more who tracked his long and fatal association with the American Mafia, notably his ongoing connection, after his original godfather was assassinated: Sam 'Momo' Giancana, who shared a lover with President John F. Kennedy.Sixteen days after the assassination of John F. Kennedy on 30 November 1963, while the singer was 'consoling' the president's widow, nineteen-year-old Frank Sinatra Jr. was kidnapped at gunpoint from his hotel room in Lake Tahoe, Nevada. A $240,000 ransom was demanded from his father. While the FBI and Nevada and California law-enforcement agencies sprang into action, Frank secretly contacted his Mafia friends for help. The Mafia believed they could free young Frank much more quickly through their underworld connections. In the end, nine people died, having been beaten for information.Revealed here as never before is the extent to which Sinatra was adopted by the Mafia. They promoted his career and 'watched his back' and, in return, Sinatra danced to their tune. New information disclosed here shows that Sinatra also offered to spy for the CIA. Inside sources say Sinatra wanted the CIA to intercede to stop an investigation into his gaming license in Las Vegas. But the CIA declined because they were already working with the Mob and were concerned Sinatra would learn of the Mafia's connection to the CIA and leak it. FRANK SINATRA and the MAFIA MURDERS-Mike Rothmiller
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05/12/22•54m 15s
THE FOREVER WITNESS-Edward Humes
A relentless detective and an amateur genealogist solve a haunting cold case—and launch a crime-fighting revolution that tests the fragile line between justice and privacy. In November 1987, a young couple on an overnight trip to Seattle vanished without a trace. A week later, the bodies of Tanya Van Cuylenborg and her boyfriend Jay Cook were found in rural Washington. It was a brutal crime, and it was the perfect crime: With few clues and no witnesses, an international manhunt turned up empty, and the sensational case that shocked the Pacific Northwest gradually slipped from the headlines. In deep-freeze, long-term storage, biological evidence from the crime sat waiting, as Detective Jim Scharf poured over old case files looking for clues his predecessors missed. Meanwhile, 1,200 miles away in California, CeCe Moore began her lifelong fascination with genetic genealogy, a powerful forensic tool that emerged not from the crime lab, but through the wildly popular home DNA ancestry tests purchased by more than 40 million Americans. When Scharf decided to send the cold case’s decades-old DNA to Parabon NanoLabs, he hoped he would finally bring closure to the Van Cuylenborg and Cook families. He didn’t know that he and Moore would make history. Genetic genealogy, long the province of family tree hobbyists and adoptees seeking their birth families, has made headlines as a cold case solution machine, capable of exposing the darkest secrets of seemingly upstanding citizens. In the hands of a tenacious detective like Scharf, genetic genealogy has solved one baffling killing after another. But as this crime-fighting technique spreads, its sheer power has sparked a national debate: Can we use DNA to catch the murderers among us, yet still protect our last shred of privacy in the digital age—the right to the very blueprint of who we are? THE FOREVER WITNESS: How DNA and Genealogy Solved a Cold Case Double Murder-Edward Humes
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01/12/22•1h 7m
RUSSIAN SERIAL KILLERS VOLUME 1-Nico Claux
Much is known about American and European serial killers, but did you know that more than 150 homicidal maniacs have plagued the former Soviet Union during the last 100 years? Nicknamed “The Night Creature”, “The Urals Strangler” or “The Balashikha Ripper” in their native motherland, these sex fiends have committed some of the most heinous series of murders in the history of modern criminology.This book follows the stories of 25 maniacs: unable to control their dark fantasies, they savagely tortured, strangled, stabbed and defiled their victims in unspeakable ways.Illustrated with more than 200 photographs unearthed from the secret archives of retired police colonels and forensic psychiatrists, Russian Serial Killers – Volume 1: Maniacs takes you on a true crime journey from the suburbs of Moscow to the frozen wastelands of Siberia. RUSSIAN SERIAL KILLERS-Volume 1: Maniacs-Nico ClauxGet $15 off a Skylight Frame with promo code SHOCKING at SkylightFrame.com
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28/11/22•50m 51s
INSIDE THE MIND OF JOHN WAYNE GACY-Brad Hunter
Brad Hunter has spent over thirty years writing about some of America's most horrific crimes. In this new book he enters the mind of John Wayne Gacy, the real-life 'Killer Clown', often said to be the inspiration for Stephen King's evil Pennywise in It. Gacy lured victims to his home with the promise of work or a warm bed and then duped them into putting on handcuffs, claiming he wanted to show them a magic trick. He would then rape and torture his victims before killing them by suffocating or strangling them.Twenty-six were buried in the crawl space beneath his home; others were buried elsewhere on his property, while a handful were dumped in the Des Plaines River. Gacy was executed for his crimes in 1994, but many questions remain unanswered. How many victims were there? Did Gacy act alone? And what drove John Wayne Gacy to murder? What caused the seemingly normal Gacy to sexually assault, torture and murder at least thirty-three young men and boys?Drawing on his many years' experience investigating and interviewing perpetrators of terrible crimes, Hunter seeks to understand what drove Gacy to unleash a reign of terror in suburban Chicago. INSIDE THE MIND OF JOHN WAYNE GACY: The Real-Life Killer Clown-Brad Hunter
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21/11/22•50m 51s
THEIR BLOODY LIES AND PERSECUTION OF DAVID CAMM-Gary M. Dunn
Although featured nationally on 48 Hours, Dateline, and the Oxygen Network, the detailed, complete, and totally unbelievable story of the case of DAVID CAMM has never been fully revealed as police, prosecutors, forensic scientists, and judges either sought or facilitated the convictions of an innocent man while ignoring a mountain of exculpatory evidence.While David was being pursued, persecuted, and incarcerated, Kim, Brad, and Jill Camm’s true killer, a devil-worshiping, sexually obsessed, 11-time convicted violent psychopath was left free to roam the streets of metropolitan Louisville, Kentucky. Once identified by his DNA, but only through the efforts of David’s uncle and defense team, that same cold-blooded murderer was treated, incredibly, first as a victim and then shockingly as an accomplice of David.Their Bloody Lies & Persecution of DAVID CAMM is a chilling, reprehensible, yet very tragic and true American crime story, leaving readers demanding, “How did this case happen and why was this travesty allowed to continue?”Sam Lockhart knew, absolutely knew, his nephew couldn’t have killed his wife and children, for he was with David and ten other people at the time of the murders. For 13 years and at an enormous personal and financial cost, Sam, his family, and business suffered the disdain of those in the local community, but Sam never lost focus of his ultimate goal: the exoneration of David and justice for Kim, Brad, and Jill.Gary M. Dunn was a 27-year veteran Agent with the FBI in Miami, Chicago, Gary, Indiana, and Southern Indiana, with a wide array of experience investigating corruption, terrorism, white collar, and violent crimes while often dealing with true psychopaths. After becoming the private investigator for David’s second defense team, he was stunned by the incompetent, biased investigations; lack of a fair, impartial justice system; and those who claimed to be forensic scientists. Follow his and the defense team’s investigative path in a case you won’t soon forget. THEIR BLOODY LIES AND PERSECUTION OF DAVID CAMM: Part 1-Gary M. Dunn
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16/11/22•1h 16m
SARGE!-Debra DiMaggio
“SARGE!” is a fascinating memoir by the late Chicago Police Detective Sergeant John A. DiMaggio, one of the most decorated officers on the force during a career that spanned the years 1957 to 1991. Among his awards are two Superintendent’s Awards of Valor, Mayor Richard J. Daley’s Praiseworthy Acknowledgment Plaque for Exceptional Act of Bravery Involving Risk of Life, a Presidential Citation of Appreciation, the Illinois Police Association Award of Valor, and many more.Upon his retirement in 1991, DiMaggio wrote a fascinating account of his work as a cop. The manuscript languished among his personal effects until after his death in 2008, after which his family decided to resurrect it, spruce it up, and submit it for publication. It turns out that he was an excellent word craftsman and storyteller; in fact, he was no stranger to writing—for many years he wrote the “Ask Sarge” column for the Mystery Writers of America Midwest Chapter newsletter.Told in a conversational, “regular guy” voice in episodic fashion, “SARGE!” reveals to the reader what it was really like to be a cop. The manuscript in many ways takes the form of a prose treatment of a weekly television police drama. A large selection of PHOTOS is included.DiMaggio takes the reader back to the decades such as the turbulent 1960s, when the police department was making a painful transition from “old school” to modernization. The author describes firsthand the legendary riots that occurred in Chicago after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. He illustrates the integration of minorities into the department and how that played out. He also goes into famous cases of corruption and the politics of navigating such a large department. One of the “set pieces” of the book is the story of how DiMaggio, as part of the “Three Musketeers”—a trio that included two detectives who were close friends—investigated a series of terrifying slasher attacks on women that occurred in the city in the mid-70s. The case became one of the police department’s most memorable. Among the other cases detailed in the book include how DiMaggio found himself entering the home of a crazed young man holding hostages with a shotgun; the investigation of the discovery of a headless corpse; the take-down of the Chicago “Mad Bomber”; how an anonymous audio tape provided clues to the identities of armed robbers; and the manhunt for a cop killer. SARGE: Cases of a Chicago Police Detective Sergeant in the 1960s, '70s, and '80s-Debra DiMaggio
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14/11/22•44m 5s
KILL. BURY. FORGET.-Rod Kackley
January 14, 1927 — A.J. Mathis, a wealthy, elderly chicken rancher, is missing. One of the last of the cowboy sheriffs, Jim McDonald, is convinced A.J. is dead. Murdered. And McDonald says he knows who did it and vows to “prove it on her.”McDonald’s leading and only suspect is a former saloon singer and prostitute, Eva Dugan. Short, stocky, and plain, Eva takes off with a younger man in A.J.’s Dodge Coupe. They drive from Arizona to Texas before Eva makes her way to White Plains, New York.While on the run, her young friend, Jack, vanishes. And A.J.’s skeleton is discovered buried in a shallow grave.After she’s captured, Eva proclaims her innocence but is convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to death. Eva says if she was more attractive and a “flapper,” she would not have been convicted nor sentenced to death by hanging.A movement grows among people opposed to capital punishment to spare Eva’s life. They fail, and Eva walks to the gallows, proclaiming her innocence.What follows changes how Arizona treats those sentenced to death for capital crimes. Never again will anyone hang for murder in Arizona because of what happened the day Eva Dugan died. Was justice done? KILL. BURY. FORGET: A Shocking True Crime Story-Rod Kackley
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08/11/22•1h
BY THE SIDE OF THE ROAD-Marla Bernard
In the early hours of March 22, 1989, two friends – career criminals with violent felony convictions - drove around the eastern Kansas City area in a stolen car committing a series of crimes. The weather was mild for late March in Kansas City; the sky was clear, and there was the pale remnant of a Full Moon that bore the dubious name of Death Moon, the last full moon of winter.A little before 7 a.m., 15-year-old Ann Harrison walked to the end of her driveway on Kansas City’s east side to wait for the bus to take her to Raytown South High School. Ten minutes later, she disappeared but no one saw what happened. As if waiting for her return, her belongings were still stacked carefully by the side of the road.BY THE SIDE OF THE ROAD is the true crime story of the kidnapping, rape, and murder of Ann Harrison and the long journey forced upon her family who had to wait nearly three decades to see her killers brought to final justice. BY THE SIDE OF THE ROAD: The True Story of the Abduction and Murder of Ann Harrison-Marla Bernard
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07/11/22•50m 45s
Amazon Music Presents COLD: The Search for Sheree
Sheree Warren left her job in Salt Lake City on a mild October evening in 1985. She told a coworker she was headed to meet her estranged husband, Charles Warren, at a car dealership. But she never made it, Sheree vanished. When her car mysteriously surfaced weeks later, hundreds of miles away in Las Vegas, no one could say how it got there. When a young mother disappears under unexplained circumstances, police always turn suspicious eyes towards the husband. And although there was distrust around Charles Warren, he wasn’t the only suspect when Sheree went missing. She also had a boyfriend, a former cop named Cary Hartmann, who lived a sinister double life. Season three follows two suspects– men who both raised suspicion for investigators. But with two strong persons of interest with competing facts and evidence, it muddied the murder investigation. This season, host Dave Cawley, digs into the lives of these two men, the details of the case and examines the intersections between domestic abuse and sexual violence. The COLD team seeks to answer the question: what really happened to Sheree Warren? Hey Prime Members, listen to the Amazon Music exclusive podcast, COLD, in the Amazon Music App. Download the app today: www.amazon.com/COLD_us_pfd_AA_110122.
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01/11/22•9m 28s
EXTREME PUNISHMENT-Steven B. Epstein
A devoted father. One of the most accomplished criminal law scholars in the country. Someone wanted him dead. But why?On the morning of July 18, 2014, 41-year-old Florida State law professor Dan Markel dropped his boys off at preschool, hit the gym, and headed home to his quiet, tree-canopied neighborhood. Within seconds of pulling into his garage, two .38-caliber bullets fired from point-blank range were lodged in his brain.His brutal slaying defied explanation. The case went stone cold for nearly two years before dogged pursuit by the Tallahassee Police and the FBI resulted in the arrest of two life-long criminals who had driven 10 hours from Miami with one singular purpose: to murder the esteemed professor. Were his ex-wife Wendi Adelson and her South Florida family the masterminds behind this horrific crime?EXTREME PUNISHMENT is the riveting story of a divorce between two law professors that spiraled out of control, wealthy in-laws hell-bent on revenge, an unlikely love triangle, and the relentless quest to bring Dan’s killers—all of them—to justice. EXTREME PUNISHMENT: The Chilling True Story of Acclaimed Law Professor Dan Markel's Murder-Steven B. Epstein
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24/10/22•52m 26s
SILENT SILHOUETTE....WHO KILLED DEBORAH SUE-George Jared
Deborah Sue Williamson was a newly married young woman living in Lubbock Texas on Aug. 24, 1975. One night while her husband was away at work, she was brutally stabbed 17 times in the carport of their home. Many suspects were investigated, but no one was charged. The case went cold until the mid-1980s when Henry Lee Lucas, a man notorious for admitting to murders he didn't commit confessed to her murder. It was profiled in the Netflix doc series The Confession Killer. There was only one problem. He didn't kill her. Her mother and stepfather proved Lucas didn't end Debbie's life and the case went cold once more.True Crime Author and investigative journalist George Jared teamed with his friend and former Army counterintelligence officer and university professor Jennifer Bucholtz to study the case in-depth. The two became acquainted while trying to solve the unsolved murder of Rebekah Gould. In that case they were able to lure the man, now charged with the 22-year-old woman's slaying, onto a Facebook page. Their interactions with him prior to his arrest garnered national attention. Their goal was to do the same in this case.Follow their year-long journey that took them from the mountains of Colorado to the deserts of West Texas. Their investigation led them through row crop fields of the Mississippi Delta and into the rolling Ozark hills in Missouri. The tandem was able to track down nearly every witness, person of interest, and suspect in the case.Along the way they created a massive team of citizen detectives that have brought resources to bear on a case that is now 47 years old. The team created an investigative file many times larger than the original police file. The goal was to create a web that the killer could not escape.Silent Silhouette is an in-depth look into the work that was done, complete with full interviews of every key player in this real life tragedy. One thing became clear as the investigation unfolded. This case is solvable and it's only a matter of time before this killer is behind bars. SILENT SILHOUETTE...WHO KILLED DEBORAH SUE?-George Jared
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17/10/22•1h
EXPOSED-Dr. Mark Hewitt
The solution to the Zodiac serial killer case is as clear as it is controversial. One man, a letter writer, bomb maker, and code creator, was living in the area at the time of the Zodiac murders, had easy access to all the crime scenes, and had had a psychotic break at the time the Zodiac began his heinous murder campaign. A genius-level mathematician, he was clever enough to disguise his handwriting, avoid leaving evidence like fingerprints, and produce diabolically difficult ciphers to taunt the police and the public with his identity that lurked just on the other side of his impossibly difficult codes. That man is Theodore J. Kaczynski.A product of the MK Ultra project at Harvard University, Kaczynski was one of the youngest mathematics professors in UC Berkeley history, a position he despised. Kaczynski committed his first murder as the Zodiac over winter break, 1968, and his second just after resigning his post as professor in July 1969. His criminal signature, letter writing and code making, continued unabated across both of his criminal careers as the Zodiac and Unabomber.EXPOSED takes the reader through all the evidence presented in the first two books, HUNTED and PROFILED, and systematically connects the Zodiac and Unabomber cases through handwriting, codes, locations, literature, cultural references, and other unexpected details. EXPOSED makes it impossible to dismiss Kaczynski as the Zodiac, one of the most evil serial killers of all time. EXPOSED: The Zodiac Revealed (The Zodiac Serial Killer)-Dr. Mark Hewitt
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10/10/22•59m 29s
THE BEST NEW TRUE CRIME STORIES-Mitzi Szereto
Unsolved crimes, unanswered questions. Crimes are meant to be solved. But what happens when they’re not? For the individuals involved—from the victims and their families to police investigators—this is the most frustrating part of all. For them there’s no resolution, no justice, no tidy boxes in which to pack away all the bits and pieces of a puzzle that finally links together. Instead, they are only left with questions that may never get answered. Chilling cold cases & unexplained mysteries. The Best New True Crime Stories examines a fascinating assortment of unsolved murders, unsolved crimes, serial killers, and mysterious stories from around the world, from the past to the contemporary. Like the previous anthologies in The Best New True Crime Stories series, this volume contains all-new and original nonfiction accounts penned by international writers from across the literary spectrum, from true crime and crime fiction to journalism. Contributors include Dean Jobb, Joan Renner, Cathy Pickens, Lindsey Danis, Anya Wassenberg, and many others. Inside, you’ll find a varied assortment of unsolved crimes and mysterious murders. Murder cases to solve, told by writers from around the world, such as France’s “Valley of Hell” mystery and the story of Austria’s most wanted. THE BEST NEW TRUE CRIME STORIES: Unsolved Crimes & Mysteries-Mitzi Szereto
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06/10/22•47m 44s
ALL THAT IS WICKED-Kate Winkler Dawson
Acclaimed crime historian, podcaster, and author of American Sherlock Kate Winkler Dawson tells the thrilling story of Edward Rulloff—a serial murderer who was called “too intelligent to be killed”—and the array of 19th century investigators who were convinced his brain held the key to finally understanding the criminal mind.Edward Rulloff was a brilliant yet utterly amoral murderer—some have called him a “Victorian-era Hannibal Lecter”—whose crimes spanned decades and whose victims were chosen out of revenge, out of envy, and sometimes out of necessity. From his humble beginnings in upstate New York to the dazzling salons and social life he established in New York City, at every turn Rulloff used his intelligence and regal bearing to evade detection and avoid punishment. He could talk his way out of any crime...until one day, Rulloff's luck ran out. By 1871 Rulloff sat chained in his cell—a psychopath holding court while curious 19th-century "mindhunters" tried to understand what made him tick. From alienists (early psychiatrists who tried to analyze the source of his madness) to neurologists (who wanted to dissect his brain) to phrenologists (who analyzed the bumps on his head to determine his character), each one thought he held the key to understanding the essential question: is evil born or made? Eventually, Rulloff’s brain would be placed in a jar at Cornell University as the prize specimen of their anatomy collection...where it still sits today, slowly moldering in a dusty jar. But his story—and its implications for the emerging field of criminal psychology—were just beginning. Expanded from season one of her hit podcast on the Exactly Right network (7 million downloads and growing), in All That Is Wicked Kate Winkler Dawson draws on hundreds of source materials and never-before-shared historical documents to present one of the first glimpses into the mind of a serial killer—a century before the term was coined—through the scientists whose work would come to influence criminal justice for decades to come. ALL THAT IS WICKED: A Gilded-Age Story of Murder and the Race to Decode the Criminal Mind-Kate Winkler Dawson
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04/10/22•59m 35s
Introducing: The Generation Why Podcast
The Generation Why Podcast released its first episode in 2012 and pioneered the true crime genre in the podcasting world. Two friends, Aaron & Justin, break down theories and give their opinions on unsolved murders, controversies, mysteries and conspiracies. One of the longest running true crime podcasts out there, Generation Why has a little something for every true crime listener. Follow The Generation Why Podcast on Amazon Music, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Or you can listen ad-free by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app. wondery.fm/TM_GenWhy
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03/10/22•8m 30s
NOTHING BUT THE NIGHT-Greg King and Penny Wilson
Nearly a hundred years ago, two wealthy and privileged teenagers―Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb―were charged and convicted in a gruesome crime that would lead to the original “Trial of the Century”. Even in Jazz Age Chicago, the murder was uniquely shocking for the motive of the killers: well-to-do Jewish scions, full of promise, had killed fourteen-year-old Bobby Franks for the thrill of it. The trial was made even more sensational by the revelation of a love affair between the defendants and by defense attorney Clarence Darrow, who delivered one of the most famous defense summations of all time to save the boys from the death penalty. The story of their mad folie à deux, with Loeb portrayed as the psychopathic mastermind and Leopold as his infatuated disciple, has been endlessly repeated and accepted by history as fact. And none of it is true.Using twenty-first century investigative tools, forensics, and a modern understanding of the psychology of these infamous killers, Nothing but the Night turns history on its head. While Loeb has long been viewed as the architect behind the murders, King and Wilson’s new research points to Leopold as the dominant partner in the deadly relationship, uncovering a dark obsession with violence and sex. Nothing but the Night pulls readers into the troubled world of Leopold and Loeb, revealing a more horrifying tale of passion, obsession, and betrayal than history ever imagined. NOTHING BUT THE NIGHT: Leopold & Loeb and the Truth Behind the Murder That Rocked 1920's America-Greg King and Penny Wilson.
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26/09/22•1h 7m
AMERICAN DEMON-Daniel Stashower
Boston had its Strangler. California had the Zodiac Killer. And in the depths of the Great Depression, Cleveland had the Mad Butcher of Kingsbury Run.On September 5th, 1934, a young beachcomber made a gruesome discovery on the shores of Cleveland’s Lake Erie: the lower half of a female torso, neatly severed at the waist. The victim, dubbed “The Lady of the Lake,” was only the first of a butcher’s dozen. Over the next four years, twelve more bodies would be scattered across the city. The bodies were dismembered with surgical precision and drained of blood. Some were beheaded while still alive.Terror gripped the city. Amid the growing uproar, Cleveland’s besieged mayor turned to his newly-appointed director of public safety: Eliot Ness. Ness had come to Cleveland fresh from his headline-grabbing exploits in Chicago, where he and his band of “Untouchables” led the frontline assault on Al Capone’s bootlegging empire. Now he would confront a case that would redefine his storied career.Award-winning author Daniel Stashower shines a fresh light on one of the most notorious puzzles in the annals of crime, and uncovers the gripping story of Ness’s hunt for a sadistic killer who was as brilliant as he was cool and composed, a mastermind who was able to hide in plain sight. American Demon reconstructs this ultimate battle of wits between a hero and a madman. AMERICAN DEMON: Eliot Ness and the Hunt for America's Jack The Ripper-Daniel Stashower
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19/09/22•56m 28s
BLOOD & INK-Joe Pompeo
On September 16, 1922, the bodies of Reverend Edward Hall and Eleanor Mills were found beneath a crabapple tree on an abandoned farm outside of New Brunswick, New Jersey. The killer had arranged the bodies in a pose conveying intimacy. The murder of Hall, a prominent clergyman whose wife, Frances Hall, was a proud heiress with illustrious ancestors and ties to the Johnson & Johnson dynasty, would have made headlines on its own. But when authorities identified Eleanor Mills as a choir singer from his church married to the church sexton, the story shocked locals and sent the scandal ricocheting around the country, fueling the nascent tabloid industry. This provincial double murder on a lonely lover’s lane would soon become one of the most famous killings in American history—a veritable crime of the century. The bumbling local authorities failed to secure any indictments, however, and it took a swashbuckling crusade by the editor of a circulation-hungry Hearst tabloid to revive the case and bring it to trial at last.Blood & Ink freshly chronicles what remains one of the most electrifying but forgotten murder mysteries in U.S. history. It also traces the birth of American tabloid journalism, pandering to the masses with sordid tales of love, sex, money, and murder. BLOOD & INK: The Scandalous Jazz Age Double Murder that Hooked America on True Crime-Joe Pompeo
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13/09/22•59m 37s
THE COLUMBUS STOCKING STRANGLER-William Rawlings
During an eight-month period in 1977 and 1978, the city of Columbus, Georgia, was terrorized by a mysterious serial killer who raped and ritualistically strangled seven elderly women in one of the community's finer neighborhoods. Despite intensive efforts on the part of police the Stocking Strangler, as he came to be known, managed to elude capture. After the last murder in April 1978, the case went cold. In the spring of 1984, a series of fortuitous events connected to an unrelated murder and a stolen pistol led to the capture of Carlton Gary, who had recently escaped from a South Carolina prison. Following a dramatic trial in 1986, Gary was convicted of three of the seven Columbus murders and sentenced to death, a penalty that would not be carried out until 2018. This convoluted tale of crime and punishment is punctuated by dramatic twists and turns including issues of race, alleged conspiracy and misconduct on the part of the police and the judiciary, and errors in DNA analysis. THE COLUMBUS STOCKING STRANGLER-William Rawlings
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08/09/22•1h 11m
SIX INCHES DEEPER-William Rawlings
On August 31, 1972, Hellen Hanks, a pretty thirty-four-year-old mother of three disappeared from her place of employment at Wilcox Advertising in Valdosta, Georgia. After a brief investigation by local and state authorities, the case went cold. In the fall of 1980, a farmer clearing a field south of town discovered a buried object, a box containing the dismembered remains of the missing woman. After several months of investigation, police arrested "Foxy" Wilcox, his son Keller Wilcox, and two long-term African American employees of Wilcox Advertising. Keller was charged with Hanks's murder, and the others with concealing a death. The Wilcoxes were members of a prominent and wealthy Valdosta family. To defend their case, they hired famed defense attorney Bobby Lee Cook. Keller Wilcox's murder trial in January 1982 pitted Cook against a local prosecution team led by district attorney Lamar Cole. The case against Wilcox was entirely circumstantial, making the outcome uncertain. After a trial marked by controversy and conflicting testimony, Wilcox was convicted and sentenced to life in prison, all the while proclaiming his innocence. In 1985 he was freed by a federal judge based primarily on the harsh interrogation of the black witnesses. The true story of this horrific murder has all the elements of a work of suspense fiction: money, power, sex, race, and the haves vs. the have-nots. Multiple lives were forever changed. The outcome would have been totally different if the box had been buried only six inches deeper. SIX INCHES DEEPER: The Disappearance of Hellen Hanks-William Rawlings
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31/08/22•1h 2m
Introducing: Blood Ties S3: Strange Days
Our family members are not always who we think. When Eleonore Richland exposed her father’s dark legacy, she vowed to clean up the family business – and hired her half-brother, Santino Reyes, to help her do it. But old habits die hard. In the shocking new third season, Eleonore reckons with what her father always taught her growing up: medicine is a bloody business. From Wondery, the makers of “The Shrink Next Door” and “Dr. Death,” Blood Ties stars Gillian Jacobs (Community, Love), Christian Navarro (13 Reasons Why), and Peter Stormare. Listen to Blood Ties: wondery.fm/TM_BTS3
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29/08/22•5m 42s
THE TUSKEGEE STRANGLER-Linda Lou Long
Every serial killer is a “nice guy”—until he’s found out. The shocking, true account of a Southern charmer who left a trail of victims in his wake.Jerry Marcus fooled them all. He was “a nice guy,” always helped at home, did well in school, an athlete, and always employed. When things went wrong, he was the first to help clean up the mess. He was the last person anyone suspected of being a serial killer.After Marcus was caught and sentenced to life in prison in the late ’70s, author Linda Lou Long spent years corresponding with him. The Tuskegee Strangler gives an inside look into the workings of a man who is not your typical serial killer. THE TUSKEGEE STRANGLER: The Nicest Serial Killer They Ever Met-Linda Lou Long
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25/08/22•55m 50s
THE RED WIDOW-Sarah Horowitz
Paris, 1889: Margeurite Steinheil is a woman with ambition. But having been born into a middle-class family and trapped in a marriage to a failed artist twenty years her senior, she knows her options are limited.Determined to fashion herself into a new woman, Meg orchestrates a scandalous plan with her most powerful resource: her body. Amid the dazzling glamor, art, and romance of bourgeois Paris, she takes elite men as her lovers, charming her way into the good graces of the rich and powerful. Her ambitions, though, go far beyond becoming the most desirable woman in Paris; at her core, she is a woman determined to conquer French high society. But the game she plays is a perilous one: navigating misogynistic double-standards, public scrutiny, and political intrigue, she is soon vaulted into infamy in the most dangerous way possible.A real-life femme fatale, Meg influences government positions and resorts to blackmail―and maybe even poisoning―to get her way. Leaving a trail of death and disaster in her wake, she earns the name the "Red Widow" for mysteriously surviving a home invasion that leaves both her husband and mother dead. With the police baffled and the public enraged, Meg breaks every rule in the bourgeois handbook and becomes the most notorious woman in Paris. THE RED WIDOW: The Scandal that Shook Paris and the Woman Behind It All-Sarah Horowitz
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22/08/22•58m 43s
THE FISHERMEN AND THE DRAGON-Kirk Wallace Johnson
By the late 1970s, the fishermen of the Texas Gulf Coast were struggling. The bays that had sustained generations of shrimpers and crabbers before them were being poisoned by nearby petrochemical plants, oil spills, pesticides, and concrete. But as their nets came up light, the white shrimpers could only see one culprit: the small but growing number of newly resettled Vietnamese refugees who had recently started fishing. Turf was claimed. Guns were flashed. Threats were made. After a white crabber was killed by a young Vietnamese refugee in self-defense, the situation became a tinderbox primed to explode, and the Grand Dragon of the Texas Knights of the Ku Klux Klan saw an opportunity to stoke the fishermen’s rage and prejudices. At a massive Klan rally near Galveston Bay one night in 1981, he strode over to an old boat graffitied with the words U.S.S. VIET CONG, torch in hand, and issued a ninety-day deadline for the refugees to leave or else “it’s going to be a helluva lot more violent than Vietnam!” The white fishermen roared as the boat burned, convinced that if they could drive these newcomers from the coast, everything would return to normal. A shocking campaign of violence ensued, marked by burning crosses, conspiracy theories, death threats, torched boats, and heavily armed Klansmen patrolling Galveston Bay. The Vietnamese were on the brink of fleeing, until a charismatic leader in their community, a highly decorated colonel, convinced them to stand their ground by entrusting their fate with the Constitution. Drawing upon a trove of never-before-published material, including FBI and ATF records, unprecedented access to case files, and scores of first-hand interviews with Klansmen, shrimpers, law enforcement, environmental activists, lawyers, perpetrators and victims, Johnson uncovers secrets and secures confessions to crimes that went unsolved for more than forty years. This explosive investigation of a forgotten story, years in the making, ultimately leads Johnson to the doorstep of the one woman who could see clearly enough to recognize the true threat to the bays—and who now represents the fishermen’s last hope. THE FISHERMEN AND THE DRAGON: Fear, Greed, and a Fight for Justice on the Gulf Coast-Kirk Wallace Johnson
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12/08/22•59m 10s
GANGSTERS vs. NAZIS-Michael Benson
As Adolph Hitler rose to power in 1930s Germany, a growing wave of fascism began to take root on American soil. Nazi activists started to gather in major American cities, and by 1933, there were more than one-hundred anti-Semitic groups operating openly in the United States. Few Americans dared to speak out or fight back—until an organized resistance of notorious mobsters waged their own personal war against the Nazis in their midst. Gangland-style. . . .In this thrilling blow-by-blow account, acclaimed crime writer Michael Benson uncovers the shocking truth about the insidious rise of Nazism in America—and the Jewish mobsters who stomped it out. Learn about:* Nazi Town, USA: * Meyer Lansky and Murder Inc.: * Fritz Kuhn, “The Vest-Pocket Hitler”:.* Newark Nazis vs The Minutemen: * Hitler in Hollywoodland: Packed with surprising, little-known facts, graphic details, and unforgettable personalities, Gangsters vs. Nazis chronicles the mob’s most ruthless tactics in taking down fascism—inspiring ordinary Americans to join them in their fight. The book culminates in one of the most infamous events of the pre-war era—the 1939 Nazi rally in Madison Square Garden—in which law-abiding citizens stood alongside hardened criminals to fight for the soul of a nation. This is the story of the mob that’s rarely told—one of the most fascinating chapters in American history and American organized crime. GANGSTERS vs. NAZIS: How Jewish Mobsters Battled Nazis in WW2 Era America-Michael Benson
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11/08/22•57m 34s
JIMMY THE KING-Gus Garcia-Roberts
An incredible four-decade account of murder, power, and corruption in one of the country’s largest police departments In 1979, the gruesome slaying of a thirteen-year-old boy riveted the suburbs of Suffolk County, New York. As the county hustled to bring the case to a dubious resolution, a wayward local teenager emerged with a convenient story to tell. For his cooperation, Jimmy Burke was rewarded with a job as a cop.Thus began Burke’s unlikely ascent to the top of one of the country’s largest law enforcement jurisdictions. He and a crew of like minded allies utilized vengeance, gangster tactics, and political leverage to become the most powerful and feared figures in their suburban empire.Until a pilfered bag of sex toys brought it all crashing down.Jimmy the King is the story of the rise, reign, and paranoiac fall of a corrupt cop and his regime—a crime family with badges and guaranteed pensions. Novelistic in detail and piercing in its political insight, this book will leave you questioning who modern policing serves, who it protects, and who it preys upon and abandons. JIMMY THE KING: Murder, Vice, and the Reign of a Dirty Cop-Gus Garcia-Roberts
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05/08/22•57m 4s
AURORA-Dr. Lynne Fenton
A compelling look at violence and trauma from the psychiatrist who treated mass shooter James Holmes, perpetrator of the infamous movie theater massacre.As an expert and speaker on mass shootings and gun violence, Dr. Lynn Fenton knew it was impossible to “spot a killer.” But when she met her new patient, troubled grad student James Holmes, the hair on her arms stood up. She feared he was going to kill. Yet she could find no way to thwart him. A few months later, Holmes struck: he entered a packed movie theater and opened fire, killing twelve people and wounding seventy; some were left brain damaged, several were paralyzed for life. Immediately the familiar debates reignited: The crisis of mental health access. More restrictive gun laws vs more “good guys with guns.” The morality of the death penalty. The legitimacy of the insanity defense. But what about the victims and bystanders whose lives would never be the same? Dr. Fenton’s memoir is a voice for them. Her inability to thwart Holmes’s mass murder made her a scapegoat and elicited innumerable death threats. Her chilling account provides an intimate look at her life before and after the Aurora massacre, as well as alarming insight into the sinister patient who called himself “fear incarnate.” With unprecedented access to thousands of pages of documents, audio and video recordings, trial transcripts, medical records, and notes, Aurora attempts to answer the question Holmes himself posed in his infamous notebook: “Why? Why? Why?” AURORA: The Psychiatrist that Treated the Movie Theater Killer Tells Her Story-Dr. Lynne Fenton
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27/07/22•56m 19s
THE CASTLETON MASSACRE-Sharon Anne Cook and Margaret Carson
A former United Church minister massacres his family. What led to this act of femicide, and why were his victims forgotten?On May 2, 1963, Robert Killins, a former United Church minister, slaughtered every woman in his family but one. She (and her brother) lived to tell the story of what motivated a talented man who had been widely admired, a scholar and graduate from Queen’s University, to stalk and terrorize the women in his family for almost twenty years and then murder them.Through extensive oral histories, Cook and Carson painstakingly trace the causes of a femicide in which four women and two unborn babies were murdered over the course of one bloody evening. While they situate this murderous rampage in the literature on domestic abuse and mass murders, they also explore how the two traumatized child survivors found their way back to health and happiness. Told through vivid first-person accounts, this family memoir explores how a murderer was created. THE CASTLETON MASSACRE: Survivors' Stories of the Killins Femicide-Sharon Anne Cook and Margaret Carson
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19/07/22•1h
SIMPLE, SAFE & SECRET-Eve Carson
It was a brisk April morning in 1990 when a woman walking her dog stopped cold in her tracks. She reeled back from something strange and disturbing blocking the drainage tile: a human skull. Forensic examination showed that it was the remains of Joan Webster, the 25-year-old Harvard graduate student whose disappearance had rattled the community and stumped investigators for the past eight and a half years. The prosecutors had a suspect, Leonard Paradiso, who was tried and convicted for the murder of another local woman. The only similarity between the entangled crimes was that both victims had long dark hair. Assistant District Attorney Tim Burke was obsessed with proving Paradiso guilty of both murders. However, between the lack of evidence and ever-changing stories, the circumstances of Joan Webster’s death remains a mystery to this day.Hope is not lost as Joan’s sister-in-law, Eve Carson, continues to fight for justice. Simple, Safe & Secret divulges the diabolical details and dysfunctional system that has denied and obstructed justice in solving Joan Webster’s murder case. The messy truth of the botched investigation and a wrongful conviction may be darker than the story of Joan’s murder itself. SIMPLE, SAFE & SECRET: The 1981 Murder of Joan L. Webster-Eve Carson
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14/07/22•55m 22s
HELLTOWN-Casey Sherman
Before Charles Manson, there was Tony Costa—the serial killer of Cape Cod1969: The hippie scene is vibrant in Provincetown, Massachusetts. Long-haired teenagers roam the streets, strumming guitars and preaching about peace and love... and Tony Costa is at the center of it all. To a certain group of smitten young women, he is known as Sire—the leader of their counter-culture movement, the charming man who speaks eloquently and hands out hallucinogenic drugs like candy. But beneath his benign persona lies a twisted and uncontrollable rage that threatens to break loose at any moment. Tony Costa is the most dangerous man on Cape Cod, and no one who crosses his path is safe.When young women begin to disappear, Costa's natural charisma and good looks initially protect him from suspicion. But as the bodies are discovered, the police close in on him as the key suspect. Meanwhile, local writers Kurt Vonnegut and Norman Mailer are locked in a desperate race to secure their legacies as great literary icons—and they both set their sights on Tony Costa and the drug-soaked hippie culture that he embodies as their next promising subject, launching independent investigations that stoke the competitive fires between two of the greatest American writers.Immersive, unflinching, and shocking, Helltown is a landmark true crime narrative that transports us back to the turbulent late 1960s, reveals the secrets of a notorious serial killer, and unspools the threads connecting Costa, Vonnegut, and Mailer in the seaside city that played host to horrors unlike any ever seen before. HELLTOWN: The Untold Story of a Serial Killer on Cape Cod-Casey Sherman
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07/07/22•51m 8s
THE LAST JEWISH GANGSTER-David Larson
In 1944 Brooklyn, newborn Michael J. Hardy is rejected by his mother so she can run with gangster Bugsy Siegel, Hardy's godfather. Shirley Rook quickly rose to the top of the criminal ranks. As the Queen of New York City crime, she laundered Mob money, ran the city's largest bookmaking operation, and handed payouts to dirty cops, politicians, and judges.To win his mother's love and respect, Hardy became a fearless gangster. Throughout his career as a criminal, he robbed banks and drug dealers alike, ran a finger of an international stolen car ring, kidnapped drug lords, and even became a hired gun. At his lowest, he ended up doing time for his mother's counterfeiting operation in Mexico's most dangerous prison.Hardy's criminal code of conduct combines elements of tough Ukrainian Jew and warm Southern Baptist, whether dealing with family and friends or fellow inmates during a combined twenty-six years spent in prisons and jails. He maintained this characteristic gregarious strength throughout his astonishing life in which Hardy was shot eleven times, committed fourteen hits for the Mob, twice wore wires for Rudy Giuliani to nab dirty cops, wrote a letter to JFK to get out of military prison, choked the Hillside Strangler, shared prison time with notorious criminals, and even spent ten years in Hollywood working as muscle for a B-studio, where he was even cast in non-speaking roles. THE LAST JEWISH GANGSTER: The Early Years-David Larson
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05/07/22•49m 17s
12/26/75-Tony Reid
For Tony Reid, this case began as a claim of innocence in the murder of Donna Jo Richmond in 1975. While the errors in the original investigation and a flawed trial resulted in a guilty verdict, the reassessment confirmed that the defendant was framed but the question became: by whom? Working with a new team of investigators, which included two of the original detectives, the probe uncovered a startling new possibility: Was the real culprit a serial offender?Turning to the public for information, Mr. Reid created the 12/26/75 podcast. Based on primary evidence and new interviews surrounding the murder of Donna Jo on that date in Exeter, California, the team re-examined every possibility. The investigators soon found something more than a terribly failed verdict. They discovered connections to the unsolved murders of Jennifer Armour and Claude Snelling—and links to The East Area Rapist. They uncovered shocking corruption by the original lead investigator who illegally destroyed trial evidence and looked into the unexplained death of the original defense attorney. This pursuit led them right back to Exeter, where a new suspect in these murders emerged: Joseph DeAngelo, who was then a full-time sergeant with the local police department, the officer in charge of violent crimes and burglary investigations.This book is more than an adaptation of the 12/26/75 podcast. It shares new insight formed during the investigation and provides a first-hand look at the Tulare crimes, as well as exposing the faulty evidence used to obtain and maintain the false conviction. More than anything else, 12/26/75 demonstrates the enormous consequences of letting a serial killer go free, made worse when combined with the painful mistakes, in-fighting, and finger-pointing by certain jurisdictions. The catastrophic results are undeniable. Now that the mystery of how it all unfolded is revealed, we can also begin to examine the reforms necessary to prevent this tragedy from happening again. 12/26/75-Tony Reid
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30/06/22•1h 29m
UNDER A COLD MOON-Tony H. Latham
Under a Cold Moon is the extraordinary true story of a man that devastated two worlds. A killer that used the chump card as his cover for two brutal murders. His first victim lay under the rocks for fifteen nights. His second lay under the dirt for sixty-one. Two women. Two murders. One spurned slayer.In this cold tale, the author exposes the dark secrets of a man that stalked older women. Latham weaves this story from an insider’s window. A writer that was in the thick of things and interviewed the man behind these two cataclysmic homicides. UNDER A COLD MOON: A Chronicle of an Unrequited Killer-Tony H. Latham
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24/06/22•51m 37s
WHEN THE MOON TURNS TO BLOOD-Leah Sottile
WHEN THE MOON TURNS TO BLOOD examines the culture of end times paranoia and a trail of mysterious deaths surrounding former beauty queen Lori Vallow and her husband, grave digger turned doomsday novelist, Chad Daybell.When police in Rexburg, Idaho perform a wellness check on seven J.J. Vallow and his sister, sixteen-year-old Tylee Ryan, both children are nowhere to be found. Their mother, Lori Vallow, gives a phony explanation, and when officers return the following day with a search warrant, she, too, is gone. As the police begin to close in, a larger web of mystery, murder, fanaticism and deceit begins to unravel.Vallow’s case is sinuously complex. As investigators prod further, they find the accused Black Widow has an unusual number of bodies piling up around her. WHEN THE MOON TURNS TO BLOOD tells a gripping story of extreme beliefs, snake oil prophets, and explores the question: if it feels like the world is ending, how are people supposed to act? WHEN THE MOON TURNS TO BLOOD: Lori Vallow, Chad Daybell, and a story of Murder, Wild faith, and End Times-Leah Sottile
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21/06/22•1h 10m
Wondery Presents: The Execution Of Bonny Lee Bakley
On May 4, 2001, Bonny Lee Bakley was found fatally shot in a car on a dark North Hollywood street. The prime suspect was her husband, famed actor Robert Blake. But Bonny, a longtime con artist, had plenty of enemies. She left behind a trail of men she’d scammed, and she had a volatile relationship with Christian Brando, the troubled son of movie star Marlon Brando. Not since the O.J. Simpson case had the eyes of the nation been so fixated on a homicide. The search for Bonny’s killer took detectives on an eleven-month odyssey across the country and through Hollywood's underbelly of hustlers, drug addicts, and would-be hitmen. It would be the most expensive murder investigation in LAPD history to date. This is the story of Robert and Bonny’s toxic relationship, her shocking murder, and his chaotic trial. Did actor Robert Blake kill his wife? Or was the murder someone else's vendetta?From Wondery, and the team behind the hit series Hollywood & Crime (The Dating Game Killer, The Wonderland Murders, Death of Starlet) comes a six-part series about love, obsession and fame gone wrong. Co-hosted by Tracy Pattin and Josh Lucas. wondery.fm/TM_TEOBLB
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20/06/22•6m 14s
TED BUNDY: THE YEARLY JOURNAL-Kevin M. Sullivan
Due to Sullivan’s extensive writing about Ted Bundy (which has produced six books), he’s become a sort of magnet over the years, drawing out many people who were part of the Bundy story, but have otherwise kept a low profile over the decades; and these first-person contacts continue to this day. As such, this is the first book in a new series of books, whose aim is to bring new revelations to the public about Bundy, the victims, the murders, and the almost murders that failed Bundy for one reason or another.This first offering, Ted Bundy: The Yearly Journal Volume One, contains a great deal of never before published information from a number of women who barely escaped his grasp. It also reveals Bundy’s geographic hunting pattern after his arrival in Salt Lake City, Utah in September 1974; a surprising discovery the author never expected to make, but did, and it all came about through the valid testimonies of the women who encountered him during this period.The book also delves into what the author believes is perhaps an accurate, albeit it conservative estimate, of how many women or young girls Bundy approached but failed to abduct during his years of murder. Each new volume will focus on particular aspects of the case where further investigation is warranted. There are still “unknowns” out there, and as the author has experienced, where unknowns exist, the possibility of discovery awaits. TED BUNDY: The Yearly Journal-Kevin M. Sullivan
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17/06/22•1h 7m
AMERICAN MONSTER-J.T. Hunter
Summertime in Florida. Tourists flock to the subtropical paradise for its beautiful beaches, abundant sunshine, and the magical allure of Disney World. For one Midwestern mother and her two teenaged daughters, a trip to the Sunshine State seemed like a dream vacation. But the promise of a sunset cruise by a friendly stranger turned that dream into a deadly nightmare. This is the true story of that tragic encounter and the hunt for the Sunset Killer, a modern American Monster. AMERICAN MONSTER: The Search for the Sunset Killer-J.T. Hunter
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10/06/22•1h 6m
SOUTH DAKOTA'S MATHIS MURDERS-Noel Hamiel
South Dakota's Mathis Family Murders brought death and deception to the heartland.It was perhaps the most infamous murder case in state history. Ladonna Mathis was shot twice in the head at point-blank range inside the family's metal shed serving as their makeshift home. Two of her three children, ages 2 and 4, were also shot in the head. The brutality of the killings shocked the state and set off a frenzy of law enforcement activity. Despite its intensity, the investigation never found the murderer or the murder weapon. Though charged with the crime, the husband was acquitted, leaving the door open for endless speculation about what really occurred on that late summer morning of Sept. 8, 1981.With renewed insight from those involved, veteran South Dakota journalist Noel Hamiel explores this cold case of murder and mystery that still haunts the Mount Rushmore state. SOUTH DAKOTA'S MATHIS MURDERS: Horror In The Heartland-Noel Hamiel
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06/06/22•51m 46s
DRIFTING INTO DARKNESS-Mark I. Pinsky
Two grisly murders—a brutal double parricide—a suicide, and a fourth death under suspicious circumstances. Drifting Into Darkness is a tangled tale of family dysfunction, fatal attraction, and greed, a saga that wends its way from the elegant Southern mansions of Montgomery, Alabama, to the New Age salons of Boulder, Colorado, to rural, windswept Wyoming.On Thanksgiving weekend in 2004, philanthropists Charlotte and Brent Springford Sr.―a wealthy, socially prominent Montgomery couple―were brutally beaten to death with an ax handle, echoing the infamous case of Lizzie Borden. Suspicion quickly fell on the Springfords' gifted but troubled son Brent Jr., who would be tried and sentenced to life without parole. But a mystery remained: Who was the mysterious, elusive woman who claimed to be a Native American shaman that investigators believed manipulated Brent into this murder?Journalists solving murders is a time-tested trope in movies, mysteries, and on television. But cops and cop reporters know that rarely happens in real life. Except when it does. Veteran crime reporter Mark I. Pinsky, who covered the sensational cases of serial killer Ted Bundy and Green Beret Dr. Jeffrey MacDonald, broke the cardinal rule of journalism by involving himself in the story. Pinsky’s extensive research prompted investigators to invite him to join their dogged pursuit of justice. His access to unique and heart-breaking behind-the-scenes material enables him to take readers with him into the troubled, tortured minds of the case's main players. DRIFTING INTO DARKNESS: Murders, Madness, Suicide and a Death "Under Suspicious Circumstances"-Mark I. Pinsky
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30/05/22•1h 3m
MURF-Terrance Ryerson Neal
What do mobster Meyer Lansky, banker John D. MacArthur and Jack "Murf the Surf" Murphy, have in common? The biggest secret of the century about the biggest crime of the century, that's what! Now, for the first time ever, the true story of the 1964 museum robberies and the 1966 Hendersonville, North Carolina triple murders.Based on an in-person interview with Jack Murphy, aka Murf, in 2015, the author tells a revised version of the story that Murf swore was true. This dramatic narrative of events, reconstructed from several sources including never before released FBI files, takes the reader on a wild ride of adventure, mis-steps and several surprise endings.You may think you know the truth, but you haven't read this story. MURF: Based on a True Story-The True Story of the 1964 Museum Robberies and Hendersonville Triple Murders-TRL Neal
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27/05/22•50m 25s
THE MURDER GENE-Karen Spears Zacharias
As the soft-spoken, highly intelligent son of missionaries in Morganton, North Carolina, Luke Chang gave no indication of the killer he would become. But after hacking into a teacher's computer at his school, a stint in the Marines was his only option.As a young recruit, Luke was taunted for being a virgin who didn't cuss, drink, or smoke pot. That all changed when Luke met Casey Byrams, a fun-loving musician and fellow Marine from Cullman, Alabama. Their friendship set off a series of events that would eventually lead Luke to Pendleton, Oregon, where he brutally murdered nineteen-year-old Amyjane Brandhagen in August 2012. When Luke attempted to kill another woman almost a year later, Pendleton Police knew they had a serial-killer wannabe on their hands. Some forty years prior to Amyjane's murder, Luke's maternal grandfather, Gene Dale Lincoln, murdered a young Michigan woman and attempted to abduct a twelve-year-old girl. The similarities between the violent actions of grandfather and grandson compels the question: Is there such a thing as a murder gene? THE MURDER GENE: A True Story-Karen Spears Zacharias
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23/05/22•56m 23s
SNAKE EYES-Bitty Martin
By 1966, Hot Springs, Arkansas wasn’t your typical sleepy little Southern town. Once a favorite destination for mobsters like Al Capone and Lucky Luciano, illegal activities continued to lure out-of-state gamblers, flim-flam men, and high rollers to its racetracks, clubs, and bordellos. Still, the town was shaken to its core after a girl was found dead on a nearby ranch. The ranch owner claimed it was an accident. Then the rancher was found to be the killer of another woman – his fourth wife. The story begins when 13-year-old Cathie Ward was found dead after horseback riding at Blacksnake Ranch on the outskirts of Hot Springs, Arkansas. Frank Davis, the owner of the ranch, tells authorities Cathie’s death is an accident. He claims her foot caught in a stirrup and she was dragged to her death despite his pursuit of the runaway horse. People who know the 42-year-old skilled horseman don’t believe his story, and soon rumors of her rape and murder begin swirling around town. The rumors reach a crescendo after Davis viciously guns down his fourth wife and mother-in-law in broad daylight outside of a laundromat. Davis is arrested and charged with first-degree murder. Soon after, Hot Springs authorities re-open the investigation into Cathie Ward’s death. Snake Eyes is the first book to examine this decades-old murder and cover-up, and the only in-depth account of the man who would become the town’s most notorious villain. Featuring personal interviews, crime scene records, court documents, and Davis’ own prison files, author and lifelong Hot Springs resident Bitty Martin reveals the true story for the first time. SNAKE EYES: Murder In A Southern Town-Bitty Martin
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20/05/22•47m 26s
THE ALASKAN BLONDE-James T. Bartlett
Nicknamed “the most beautiful woman in Alaska,” 31-year-old Diane Wells was bruised and bloodied when she screamed for help in the early hours of October 17, 1953. Her husband Cecil, a wealthy Fairbanks businessman, had been shot dead, and she claimed they were the victims of a brutal home invasion.Blonde, glamorous and 20 years younger than Cecil, police were immediately suspicious of Diane's account, and the investigation soon turned toward her alleged lover, black musician Johnny Warren, who had left town the night of the murder.The scandal hit the pages of Newsweek, Life, Jet and the pulp detective magazines, and nearly 70 years later, journalist James T. Bartlett uncovers new evidence including an unpublished memoir, unseen photographs, and re-examines the FBI files. He tracks down and interviews the people close to Cecil, Diane, Johnny, and the mysterious “Third Suspect”, dance instructor William Colombany, to reveal the story of “the most notorious and baffling murder in the history of Fairbanks.” THE ALASKAN BLONDE: Sex, Secrets, and the Hollywood Story that Shocked America-James T. Bartlett
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18/05/22•1h 17m
SERIAL KILLERS: Dr. Joni Johnston
Learn the terrifying truth behind the world's deadliest serial killers…Serial killers haunt our dreams and inspire the terrifying villains of TV shows and horror movies. But how much do you really know about the minds behind the world's deadliest killers? What drives these murderers to kill and kill again? And what fuels our fascination with the true stories of their horrific crimes?Now forensic psychologist, private investigator, and crime writer Dr. Joni E. Johnston brings you the answers to these questions and more! SERIAL KILLERS: 101 Questions True Crime Fans Ask dives into the case files of the most infamous murderers in history, and answers the questions true crime fans have been dying to ask…SERIAL KILLERS: 101 Questions True Crime Fans Ask-Dr. Joni Johnston
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13/05/22•53m 39s
TRAILED-Kathryn Miles
In May 1996, two skilled backcountry leaders, Lollie Winans and Julie Williams, entered Virginia’s Shenandoah National Park for a week-long backcountry camping trip. The free-spirited and remarkable young couple had met and fallen in love the previous summer while working at a world-renowned outdoor program for women. During their final days in the park, they descended the narrow remnants of a trail and pitched their tent in a hidden spot. After the pair didn’t return home as planned, park rangers found a scene of horror at their campsite, their tent slashed open, their beloved dog missing, and both women dead in their sleeping bags. The unsolved murders of Winans and Williams continue to haunt all who had encountered them or knew their story.When award-winning journalist and outdoors expert Kathryn Miles begins looking into the case, she discovers conflicting evidence, mismatched timelines, and details that just don’t add up. With unprecedented access to crucial crime-scene forensics and key witnesses—and with a growing sense of both mission and obsession—she begins to uncover the truth. An innocent man, Miles is convinced, has been under suspicion for decades, while the true culprit is a known serial killer, if only authorities would take a closer look.Intimate, page-turning, and brilliantly reported, Trailed is a love story and a call to justice—and a searching and urgent plea to make wilderness a safe space for women. TRAILED: One Woman's Quest to Solve the Shenandoah Murders-Kathyrn Miles
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04/05/22•53m 7s
MAKING A PSYCHOPATH-Mark Freestone
Find out what truly creates and defines a psychopath, from the leading expert who helped to create Killing Eve's Villanelle.Dr. Mark Freestone has worked on some of the most interesting, infamous and disturbing cases of psychopathology in recent years. His expertise has led to a consultant role on several TV series, helping them accurately portray their fictional villains. Now, he shares his phenomenal insight into the minds of some of the world's most violent real-life criminals.Angela "the Remorseless", a rare female psychopath, casually confessed to murder on national television without a hint of regret. Danny "the Borderline" switched from grandiosity to rage to despair within minutes and killed his defenseless friend without explanation. Tony "the Conman" preferred charm, intimidation and sexual abuse over physical violence and once tried to dupe someone into buying the Eiffel Tower. Jason "the Liar" had a fantasy life that led to vicious murders around Europe and preyed on those who see the good in people. Case by fascinating case, get to know seven of the most dangerous minds that Dr. Freestone has encountered over the last 15 years. These are up-close accounts of some of the most psychopathic criminals, and of what can happen if you fall victim to their supreme powers of manipulation.Exploring the many factors that make a psychopath, the complexities and contradictions of their emotions and behavior, as well as an examination of how the lives of psychopaths develop inside and outside the institutions that are supposed to contain them, Making a Psychopath opens up a window into the world of those who operate in a void of human emotion―and what can be done to control them. MAKING A PSYCHOPATH: My Journey into Seven Dangerous MInds-Mark Freestone
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30/04/22•51m 7s
MADMAN IN THE WOODS-Jamie Gehring
A haunting account of the sixteen years when a young Jamie Gehring and her family lived closer than anyone to Ted Kaczynski, the Unabomber As a child in Lincoln, Montana, Jamie Gehring and her family shared their land, their home, and their dinner table with a hermit with a penchant for murder. But they had no idea that the odd recluse living in the adjacent cabin was anything more than a disheveled man who brought young Jamie painted rocks as gifts. Ted was simply Ted, and erratic behavior, surprise visits, and chilling events while she was riding horses or helping her dad at his sawmill were dismissed because he was “just the odd hermit.” In fact, he was much more—Ted eluded the FBI for seventeen years while mailing explosives to strangers, earning the infamous title of Unabomber. In Gehring’s investigative quest twenty-five years later to reclaim a piece of her childhood and to answer the questions, why, how, she recalls what were once innocent memories and odd circumstances that become less puzzling in hindsight. The innocence of her youth robbed, Gehring needed to reconcile her lived experience with the evil that hid in plain sight. In this book, through years of research probing Ted’s personal history, his writings, his secret coded crime journals, her own correspondence with him in his Supermax prison cell, plus interviews with others close to Kaczynski, Gehring unearths the complexity, mystery, and tragedy of her childhood with the madman in the woods. And she discovers a shocking revelation―she and her family were in Kaczynski’s crosshairs. A work of intricately braided research, journalism, and personal memories, this book is a chilling response to the question: Do you really know your neighbor? MADMAN IN THE WOODS: Life Next Door to the Unabomber-Jamie Gehring
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25/04/22•1h 6m
22 MURDERS-Part 2-Paul Palango
A shocking exposé of the deadliest killing spree in Canadian history, and how police tragically failed its victims and survivors.As news broke of a killer rampaging across the tiny community of Portapique, Nova Scotia, late on April 18, 2020, details were oddly hard to come by. Who was the killer? Why was he not apprehended? What were police doing? How many were dead? And why was the gunman still on the loose the next morning and killing again? The RCMP was largely silent then, and continued to obscure the actions of denturist Gabriel Wortman after an officer shot and killed him at a gas station during a chance encounter. Though retired as an investigative journalist and author, Paul Palango spent much of his career reporting on Canada’s troubled national police force. Watching the RCMP stumble through the Portapique massacre, only a few hours from his Nova Scotia home, Palango knew the story behind the headlines was more complicated and damning than anyone was willing to admit. With the COVID-19 lockdown sealing off the Maritimes, no journalist in the province knew the RCMP better than Palango did. Within a month, he was back in print and on the radio, peeling away the layers of this murderous episode as only he could, and unearthing the collision of failure and malfeasance that cost a quiet community 22 innocent lives. 22 MURDERS: Investigating the Massacres, Cover-up and Obstacles to Justice in Nova Scotia-Part 2-Paul Palango
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19/04/22•58m 54s
22 MURDERS-Part 1-Paul Palango
A shocking exposé of the deadliest killing spree in Canadian history, and how police tragically failed its victims and survivors.As news broke of a killer rampaging across the tiny community of Portapique, Nova Scotia, late on April 18, 2020, details were oddly hard to come by. Who was the killer? Why was he not apprehended? What were police doing? How many were dead? And why was the gunman still on the loose the next morning and killing again? The RCMP was largely silent then, and continued to obscure the actions of denturist Gabriel Wortman after an officer shot and killed him at a gas station during a chance encounter. Though retired as an investigative journalist and author, Paul Palango spent much of his career reporting on Canada’s troubled national police force. Watching the RCMP stumble through the Portapique massacre, only a few hours from his Nova Scotia home, Palango knew the story behind the headlines was more complicated and damning than anyone was willing to admit. With the COVID-19 lockdown sealing off the Maritimes, no journalist in the province knew the RCMP better than Palango did. Within a month, he was back in print and on the radio, peeling away the layers of this murderous episode as only he could, and unearthing the collision of failure and malfeasance that cost a quiet community 22 innocent lives. 22 MURDERS: Investigating the Massacres, Cover-up and Obstacles to Justice in Nova Scotia-Paul Palango
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15/04/22•59m 56s
THE GIRL I NEVER KNEW-LaDonna Humphrey
For over two decades the identity of Melissa Witt’s murderer has been hidden among the dense trees and thorny undergrowth rooted deeply in the uneven ground of a remote mountaintop in the Ozark National Forest.Determined to find answers, LaDonna Humphrey has spent the past seven years hunting for Melissa’s killer. Her investigation, both thrilling and unpredictable, has led her on a journey like no other.The Girl I Never Knew is an edge-of-your-seat account of LaDonna Humphrey’s passionate fight for justice in the decades-old murder case of a girl she never met in person. Her unstoppable quest for the truth has gained the attention of some incredibly dangerous people, some of whom would like to keep Melissa’s murder a mystery forever. THE GIRL I NEVER KNEW: Who Killed Melissa Witt-LaDonna Humphrey
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12/04/22•57m 33s
HELL'S HALF-ACRE-Susan Jonusas
A suspense filled tale of murder on the American frontier—shedding new light on a family of serial killers in Kansas, whose horrifying crimes gripped the attention of a nation still reeling from war.In 1873 the people of Labette County, Kansas made a grisly discovery. Buried by a trailside cabin beneath an orchard of young apple trees were the remains of countless bodies. Below the cabin itself was a cellar stained with blood. The Benders, the family of four who once resided on the property were nowhere to be found. The discovery sent the local community and national newspapers into a frenzy that continued for decades, sparking an epic manhunt for the Benders. The idea that a family of seemingly respectable homesteaders—one among the thousands relocating farther west in search of land and opportunity after the Civil War—were capable of operating "a human slaughter pen" appalled and fascinated the nation. But who the Benders really were, why they committed such a vicious killing spree and whether justice ever caught up to them is a mystery that remains unsolved to this day. Set against the backdrop of postbellum America, Hell’s Half-Acre explores the environment capable of allowing such horrors to take place. Drawing on extensive original archival material, Susan Jonusas introduces us to a fascinating cast of characters, many of whom have been previously missing from the story. Among them are the families of the victims, the hapless detectives who lost the trail, and the fugitives that helped the murderers escape. Hell’s Half-Acre is a journey into the turbulent heart of nineteenth century America, a place where modernity stalks across the landscape, violently displacing existing populations and building new ones. It is a world where folklore can quickly become fact and an entire family of criminals can slip through a community’s fingers, only to reappear in the most unexpected of places. HELL'S HALF-ACRE: The Untold Story of the Benders, A Serial Killer Family on the American Frontier-Susan Jonusas
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08/04/22•59m 2s
RIPPLE-Jim Cosgrove
For nine years, South Carolina officials struggled to identify “the boy in the woods,” a young man whose body had been discovered just south of Myrtle Beach in a fishing village called Murrells Inlet.Meanwhile, 1,200 miles away in Kansas City, Missouri, Frank McGonigle's family searched for him at Grateful Dead concerts and in the face of every long-haired hitchhiker they passed. Consumed by guilt for how they'd treated him, Frank's eight siblings slowly came to understand that — like Jerry Garcia sang — he's gone and nothin's gonna bring him back.Frank McGonigle was finally found — and identified as “the boy in the woods.”Four years later, the case still unsolved, Jim Cosgrove, a McGonigle family friend and investigative journalist, picked up the trail of Frank’s cold case and began uncovering connections to a ruthless local crime boss and blunders by the threadbare sheriff’s department.When his research began to stall, a chance meeting with the soft-hearted, straight-talking “energy reader” Carol Williams provided a metaphysical spark that reignited Jim's resolve. Although his work as a journalist trained him to be skeptical, Cosgrove found himself starting to become a believer when Carol provided details about Frank’s murder that turned out to be freakishly accurate.In 2019, Cosgrove returned to Murrells Inlet with one of Frank’s brothers to dredge up some old leads and settle Frank’s case once and for all…RIPPLE: A Long Strange Search for a Killer-Jim Cosgrove
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02/04/22•1h 1m
VAMPIRES, GATORS AND WACKOS-Frank Stanfield
From a teen vampire cult that killed one member’s parents to naked people who tell cops, “nothing to see here,” Frank Stanfield has seen it all in thirty years as a newspaper editor and reporter, mostly in Florida.Vampires, Gators, and Whackos: A Newspaperman’s Life recalls rustlers hiding ranchers’ bodies in a bottomless pit and a Jane Doe so mauled people believed it was a bear attack. It exposes cops who bungle murder cases and praises those who are heroes. There are tales of bears, sharks, snakes, alligators, and potbellied pigs. There is the teacher who was too pretty to go to jail despite having sex with a middle-school male student. Hurricanes lash out, tornadoes spin a blender of death, and sinkholes swallow homes, roads, and people. All of this takes place while newspapers—with their own zany characters—are fighting for their survival. VAMPIRES, GATORS AND WACKOS: A Newspaperman's Life-Frank Stanfield
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29/03/22•54m 56s
SEX AND THE SERIAL KILLER-William Steel
In the early 1980s, William Steel's life took a turn towards the macabre when he quite literally ran into Robert Durst in midtown Manhattan. Steel was attending a school for locksmithing and security systems at the time, and Durst -- the black sheep of a family that controls billions of dollars in New York real estate -- decided he could use a man of those specific talents. Little did Steel realize that his new acquaintance was not only the prime suspect in his first wife's mysterious disappearance but quite possibly the wealthiest serial killer in American history. For the better part of a decade, Steel and Durst maintained what has been called a friendship of mutual usury, as Durst paid Steel for use of his Brooklyn home to engage in drug- and fetish-fueled sex with a variety of prostitutes. As they got to know each other better, Durst boasted to Steel of darker deeds. Were they confessions of rape, torture and cold-blooded murder, or just the twisted fantasies of a maniacal multimillionaire? Steel didn't know for sure until years later. He's now convinced that Durst is, indeed, a murderous monster, and he remains haunted by thoughts that he should have done something to stop the fiend before he claimed more innocent lives. In his gripping memoir, Sex and the Serial Killer, My Bizarre Times with Robert Durst, Steel reveals the depths of the scion's depravity, and he demands justice for Durst's victims and their shattered families. SEX AND THE SERIAL KILLER: My Bizarre Times with Robert Durst-William Steel
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25/03/22•1h
SHIP OF BLOOD-Charles Oldham
ON AN OCTOBER NIGHT IN 1905, a horrifying scene was found on a wooden vessel off the coast of Cape Fear, North Carolina. Onboard the Harry A. Berwind, one crewman lay dead, his blood streaming down the deck. The four officers all were gone-murdered, too, it would turn out, their bodies dumped into the sea. Only three sailors remained alive, one tied up, all telling different stories, all blaming each other. The three sailors were Black. The dead officers were white.So began a legal spectacle that would captivate much of the nation's press and fuel a sensational trial in Wilmington. It was in Wilmington, after all, that shocking racial violence had occurred not long before, and now the city remained in the clutches of white supremacists. Most observers could have predicted a quick verdict and a triple hanging . . . if not an even quicker lynching. Yet the legal drama would defy predictions, lasting seven years, reaching the Supreme Court, pulling in presidents Teddy Roosevelt and William Howard Taft-then even being twisted into a fanciful, big-budget movie. In the end, so many participants-from jurors to lawyers to politicians-acted against type that justice had a fighting chance. SHIP OF BLOOD: Mutiny and Slaughter Aboard the Harry A. Berwind, and the Quest for Justice-Charles Oldham
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19/03/22•49m 26s
MURDER AT TEAL'S POND-David Bushman and Mark T. Givens
A brilliantly researched reinvestigation into the nearly forgotten century-old murder that inspired one of the most seductive mysteries in the history of television and film. In 1908, Hazel Drew was found floating in a pond in Sand Lake, New York, beaten to death. The unsolved murder inspired rumors, speculation, ghost stories, and, almost a century later, the phenomenon of Twin Peaks. Who killed Hazel Drew? Like Laura Palmer, she was a paradox of personalities—a young, beautiful puzzle with secrets. Perhaps the even trickier question is, Who was Hazel Drew? Seeking escape from her poor country roots, Hazel found work as a domestic servant in the notoriously corrupt metropolis of Troy, New York. Fate derailed her plans for reinvention. But the investigation that followed her brutal murder was fraught with red herrings, wild-goose chases, and unreliable witnesses. Did officials really follow the leads? Or did they bury them to protect the guilty? The likely answer is revealed in an absorbing true mystery that’s ingeniously reconstructed and every bit as haunting as the cultural obsession it inspired. MURDER AT TEAL'S POND: Hazel Drew and the Mystery that Inspired Twin Peaks-David Bushman and Mark T. Givens
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16/03/22•1h 1m
RIDING WITH EVIL-Ken Croke
Sons of Anarchy meets The Departed in this fast-paced, high-wire act memoir from former ATF agent Ken Croke, the first federal agent in history to go undercover and successfully infiltrate the infamous—and infamously violent—Pagan Motorcycle Club, a white supremacist biker gang. Longtime ATF agent Ken Croke had earned the right to coast to the end of a storied career, having routinely gone undercover to apprehend white supremacists, gun runners, and gang members. But after a chance encounter with an associate of the Pagan Motorcycle Gang created an opening, he transformed himself into “Slam,” a monstrous, axe-handle wielding enforcer whose duty was to protect the leadership “mother club” at all costs. He befriended the club’s most violent and criminally insane members and lived among them for two years, covertly building a case that would eventually take down the top members of the gang in a massive federal prosecution, even as he risked his marriage, his sanity, and his life. With today’s law enforcement largely moving toward the comparative safety of cyber operations, it became one of the last of its kind, a masterclass in old school tactics that marked Croke as a dying breed of undercover agent and became legendary in law enforcement. Now for the first time, Croke tells the story of his terrifying undercover life in the Pagans—the unspeakable violence, extremism, drugs, and disgusting rituals. Written with bestselling crime writer Dave Wedge and utilizing the exclusive cooperation of those who lived the case with him, as well as thousands of pages of court files and hours of surveillance tapes and photos, Croke delivers a frightening, nail-biting account of the secretive and brutal biker underworld. RIDING WITH EVIL: Taking Down the Notorious Pagan Motorcycle Gang-Ken Croke
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12/03/22•59m 23s
SHADOWMAN-Ron Franscell
The pulse-pounding account of the first time in history that the FBI’s Behavioral Science Unit created a psychological profile to catch a serial killerOn June 25, 1973, a seven-year-old girl went missing from the Montana campground where her family was vacationing. Somebody had slit open the back of their tent and snatched her from under their noses. None of them saw or heard anything. Susie Jaeger had vanished into thin air, plucked by a shadow.The largest manhunt in Montana’s history ensued, led by the FBI. As days stretched into weeks, and weeks into months, Special Agent Pete Dunbar attended a workshop at FBI Headquarters in Quantico, Virgina, led by two agents who had hatched a radical new idea: What if criminals left a psychological trail that would lead us to them? Patrick Mullany, a trained psychologist, and Howard Teten, a veteran criminologist, had created the Behavioral Science Unit to explore this new "voodoo" they called “criminal profiling.”At Dunbar’s request, Mullany and Teten built the FBI’s first profile of an unknown subject: the UnSub who had snatched Susie Jaeger and, a few months later, a nineteen-year-old waitress. When a suspect was finally arrested, the profile fit him to a T...Shadowman: An Elusive Psycho Killer and the Birth of FBI Profiling-Ron Franscell
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01/03/22•1h 23m
BONE DEEP-Charles Bosworth Jr. and Joel J. Schwartz
THE TRUE STORY BEHIND NBC’S MARQUEE MINI-SERIES "THE THING ABOUT PAM" STARRING RENEE ZELLWEGER AS PAM HUPP AND JOSH DUHAMEL AS JOEL SCHWARTZ, PREMIERING FEBRUARY 2022.The explosive, first-ever insider’s account of the case that’s captivated millions – the murder of Betsy Faria and the wrongful conviction of her husband – told by Joel J. Schwartz, the defense attorney who fought for justice on behalf of Russel Faria, and New York Times bestselling author Charles Bosworth Jr.On December 27th, 2011, Russell Faria returned to his Troy, Missouri, home after his weekly game night with friends to an unthinkable, grisly scene: His wife, Betsy, lay dead, a knife still lodged in her neck. She’d been stabbed fifty-five times. First responders concluded that Betsy was dead for hours when Russ discovered her. No blood was found implicating Russ, and surveillance video, receipts, and friends’ testimony all supported his alibi. Yet incredibly, police and the prosecuting attorney ignored the evidence. In their minds, Russ was guilty. But prominent defense attorney Joel J. Schwartz quickly recognized the real killer. The motive was clear. Days before her murder, the terminally ill Betsy replaced her husband with her friend, Pamela Hupp, as her life insurance beneficiary. Still, despite the prosecution’s flimsy case and Hupp’s transparent lies, Russ was convicted—leaving Hupp free to kill again. Bone Deep takes readers through the perfect storm of miscalculations and missteps that led to an innocent man’s conviction—and recounts Schwartz’s successful battle to have that conviction overturned. Written with Russ Faria’s cooperation, and filled with chilling new revelations and previously undisclosed evidence, this is the story of what can happen when police, prosecutor, judge, and jury all fail in their duty to protect the innocent—and let a killer get away with murder. BONE DEEP: Untangling the. Betsy Faria Murder Case-Charles Henry Bosworth and Joel Schwartz
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26/02/22•1h
PUT THE MONEY IN MY PURSE-Judith A. Yates
Drawing on media reports, interviews and court records, this book recounts the stories of women bank robbers in the United States, from the time of the Revolutionary War to the present. Ranging from sensational to poignant to comical, the heists of frontier outlaws, gun molls, insurrectionists, housewives, grandmas and young mothers "literally robbing for Pampers" are narrated as part of the social history of women in America. PUT THE MONEY IN MY PURSE: A History of Female Bank Robbers-Judith A. Yates
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24/02/22•59m 54s
THE MURDER OF THORA CHAMBERLAIN-Rod Kackley
November 2, 1945: On her way to a high school football game with friends, a fourteen-year-old girl vanishes after driving away with a man who says he needs a babysitter. The FBI unleashes its top kidnapping expert, an agent who helped bring John Dillinger down. Will that be enough to find the girl and her abductor? Agents chase the suspected kidnapper from California to Illinois and back again. Arrested in Los Angeles, he admits abducting the child. He also tells the FBI he killed the girl and threw her body into the Pacific Ocean. A search for her corpse proves fruitless. Then, when all hope is lost, authorities discover the skeleton of another young woman who's fallen victim to this madman.Ready for another twist? The wife of the man who made that discovery is found dead at the bottom of the cliff. During the accused killer's trial, women around the country fall in love with the handsome monster and literally break down the doors of a courthouse to get close to him. After the child's killer is convicted and sentenced to the gas chamber, a scientist shows up and says he can bring the murderer back from the dead.The Murder of Thora Chamberlain: A Shocking True Crime Story-Rod Kackley
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18/02/22•1h 1m
MURDER OF A MAFIA DAUGHTER: Expanded and Updated 20th Anniversary Edition-Cathy Scott
In this Expanded 20th Anniversary Edition of Murder of a Mafia Daughter, seasoned crime writer Cathy Scott provides in-depth new details of serial killer Robert Durst's arrest, trial, and conviction for the brutal murder of Susan Berman. Besides never-before-seen photos of Susan, also included is Durst’s $40,000 mask he planned to use to elude police while on the lam.Susan Berman grew up in Las Vegas luxury as the daughter of Davie Berman, casino mogul and notorious Mafia leader. After her father died, she learned about his mob connections. Susan then dedicated her life to learning about Vegas and its underworld chiefs. Her life took a bizarre turn in l982 when Kathie Durst, the wife of her good friend, Robert Durst, mysteriously disappeared. Kathie's husband was a prime suspect but the case was never solved. After the Kathie Durst case reopened, the media leaked that the district attorney was about to question Susan Berman about what she knew regarding a phone call that appeared to be Kathie calling her medical school dean saying she was sick and wouldn't be at school. The call was placed the morning after she disappeared. Soon after the Kathie Durst case was reopened, Susan Berman was found dead, shot in the back of head. No forced entry, no robbery, nothing missing from her home.This expanded and updated book covers what led to Durst's 2015 capture. Police records placed Durst in California at the time of his good friend Susan Berman's murder. HBO filmmakers discovered an envelope unknown before, written by Durst to Susan. The handwriting and spelling of Beverly Hills were a dead-on match to the cadaver letter police say the killer mailed to police informing them of Susan’s death before her body was discovered. This new release covers Durst’s lengthy murder trial in the slaying of his best friend. MURDER OF A MAFIA DAUGHTER: Expanded & Updated 20th Anniversary Edition-Robert Durst & Susan Berman-The Shocking Inside Story-Cathy Scott
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12/02/22•58m 48s
BATH MASSACRE: New Edition-Arnie Bernstein
The new edition of this Michigan Notable Book includes a new introduction and stories from interviews with two additional survivors, Myrna (Gates) Coulter and Ralph Witchell, which took place after the first edition was published in 2009.On May 18, 1927, the small town of Bath, Michigan, was forever changed when Andrew Kehoe set off a cache of explosives concealed in the basement of the local school. Thirty-eight children and six adults were dead, among them Kehoe, who had literally blown himself to bits by setting off a dynamite charge in his car. The next day, on Kehoe's farm, what was left of his wife—burned beyond recognition after Kehoe set his property and buildings ablaze—was found tied to a handcart, her skull crushed. With seemingly endless stories of school violence and suicide bombers filling today's headlines, Bath Massacre serves as a reminder that terrorism and large-scale murder are nothing new. BATH MASSACRE: New Edition-America's First School Bombing-Arnie Bernstein
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10/02/22•59m 41s
WHEN A KILLER CALLS-John Douglas
On May 31, 1985, two days before her high school graduation, Shari Smith was abducted from the driveway of her family home in South Carolina. Based on the crime scene and the abductor’s repeated and taunting calls to the family, law enforcement quickly realized they were dealing with a sophisticated and highly dangerous criminal. A letter arrived the next day entitled “Last Will & Testament,” in which Shari, knowing she was to be murdered, wrote bravely and achingly of her love for her parents, siblings, and boyfriend, saying that while they would miss her, she knew they would persevere through their faith. The abduction rocked her quiet town, triggering a massive manhunt and bringing in the FBI, which enlisted profiler John Douglas. A few days later, a phone call told the family where they could find Shari’s body.Then nine-year-old Debra May Helmick was kidnapped from her yard, confirming the harsh realization that Smith’s murder was no random act. A serial killer was evolving, and the only way to stop him would be to use the study of criminal behavior to anticipate his next move before he could kill again. Douglas devised a risky and emotionally fraught strategy to use Shari’s lookalike older sister Dawn as bait to draw out the unknown subject. Dawn and her parents courageously agreed.One of the most haunting investigations of Douglas’s storied career, this case details how the eerily accurate profile he created—alongside his carefully crafted and stage-managed manipulation of the killer’s psychology—combined with dedicated police work and cutting-edge forensic science to end a reign of criminal terror. As Shari’s family took incredible personal risks to lure her killer from the shadows, Douglas and the FBI pushed criminal profiling to its limits, culminating in one of his most dramatic and effective confrontations with a sadistic and remorseless killer. WHEN A KILLER CALLS: A Haunting Story of Murder, Criminal Profiling, and Justice in a Small Town-John Douglas
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31/01/22•59m 2s
AMERICAN INJUSTICE-David Rudolf
In the past thirty years alone, more than 2,800 innocent American prisoners – their combined sentences surpassing 25,000 years – have been exonerated and freed after being condemned for crimes they did not commit. Terrifyingly, this number represents only a fraction of the actual number of persons wrongfully accused and convicted over the same period. Renowned criminal defense and civil rights attorney David Rudolf has spent decades defending the wrongfully accused. In American Injustice, he draws from his years of experience in the American criminal legal system to shed light on the misconduct that exists at all levels of law enforcement and the tragic consequences that follow in its wake. Tracing these themes through the lens of some of his most important cases – including new details from the Michael Peterson trial made famous in The Staircase – Rudolf takes the reader inside crime scenes to examine forensic evidence left by perpetrators; revisits unsolved murders to detail how and why the true culprits were never prosecuted; reveals how confirmation bias leads police and prosecutors to employ tactics that make wrongful arrests and prosecutions more likely; and exposes how poverty and racism fundamentally distort the system.In American Injustice, Rudolf gives a voice to those who have been the victim of wrongful accusations and shows in the starkest terms the human impact of legal wrongdoing. Effortlessly blending gripping true crime reporting and searing observations on civil rights in America, American Injustice takes readers behind the scenes of a justice system in desperate need of reform. AMERICAN INJUSTICE: Inside Stories from the Underbelly of the Criminal Justice System-David S. Rudolf
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27/01/22•55m 45s
DARK ROSES-Michael Benson
Thirteen new insomnia inducing murder stories from True Crime master Michael Benson, including: Monster of the Low Country, Born to Raise Hell, The Hollywood Ripper, The Murder of Craig Rideout, Call Me Daddy, Savage Waitress, King Creep, A Dark Stretch of Road, Family of Terror, The Tell-Tale Knot, Vengeance is Mine, Breckenridge, and A Few Thoughts on the Black Dahlia. Dozens of photos! An excerpt from the book’s final story: "It is the most famous American murder case not involving a celebrity—a crime so horrible that it changed the tone of an entire city. Before, throughout Los Angeles, women routinely walked home alone. After, they required escorts—and all because of the mind-bogglingly bizarre ordeal of Elizabeth Short, the Black Dahlia, a celebrity only in death. The twenty-two-year-old raven-haired beauty, a show-biz wannabe, was found on the morning of January 15, 1947. She was naked, severed into two pieces below the ribcage, and arranged on the ground like a piece of surreal art, arms above her head, legs spread, her upper body parallel but to the side of her lower body, a Sardonicus smile carved into her face with a knife, and portions of a breast and a thigh cut out. The missing piece of thigh flesh was found inserted in her rectum. The skin attached to that piece contained a rose tattoo.She’s been tortured for days, tortured till dead, drained of blood and dumped, no presented, at the edge of a vacant lot, left foot only inches from the sidewalk, hair freshly washed, in the Leimert Park section of L.A. The cause of death was drowning. She’d drowned on her own blood." DARK ROSES:13 Horrific True Stories-Michael Benson
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25/01/22•59m 43s
THE BEST NEW TRUE CRIME STORIES: PARTNERS IN CRIME-Mitzi Szereto
Dive Deep Into the Crime Stories of Criminal CouplesFrom harrowing heists to murderous mayhem, this collection of true crime stories will have you on the edge of your seat as you discover exactly why two criminal minds are scarier than one, especially when they belong to lovers.Discover Infamous Legends and Lesser-Known Criminals and find out why they have become solidified in true crime history. From Ted Bundy to Jeffrey Dahmer, serial killers and other criminals often work alone. But when they're in a relationship, this isn't always the case. Acclaimed author and anthologist Mitzi Szereto brings us a collection that proves that two is better than one when it comes to murder, mischief, and mayhem.From Serial Killers to Your Average Joes. This chilling new collection of original crime stories takes you into the lawless and deadly activities of criminal couples who find more pleasure in crime than in each other. Featuring contributions from an international list of award-winning crime writers, journalists, and experts in the dark crimes field. THE BEST NEW TRUE CRIME STORIES: Partners in Crime-Mitzi Szereto
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20/01/22•51m 30s
BEYOND KILLER FICTION-Sondra London
25 years on, Florida's first serial killer GJ Schaefer returns with a new expanded volume of illustrated killer fiction, featuring the stories used to convict him of double murder in 1973. The ex-cop and serial killer was doing two life sentences for the murder of two teenage girls, when he himself murdered in 1995. Sondra London first published a collection of these stories in 1989, under the imprimatur of Media Queen. Feral House published Killer Fiction in 1997. Now comes the new expanded collection, that also includes the stories Schaefer wrote in prison for Sondra London. 73 illustrations include drawings by Schaefer seized by police in 1973 and used as evidence to convict him of murder; impressionistic sketches of Schaefer by Sondra London; and facsimiles of his handwritten statements. BEYOND KILLER FICTION: Rogue Cop-Sondra London
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13/01/22•1h 20m
TAKING DOWN BACKPAGE-Maggy Krell
For almost a decade, Backpage.com was the world’s largest sex trafficking operation. Seven days a week, twenty-four hours a day, in 800 cities throughout the world, Backpage ran thousands of listings advertising the sale of vulnerable young people for sex. Reaping a cut off every transaction, the owners of the website raked in millions of dollars. But many of the people in the advertisements were children, as young as 12, and forced into the commercial sex trade through fear, violence and coercion.In Taking Down Backpage, veteran California prosecutor Maggy Krell tells the story of how she and her team battled against this sex trafficking monolith. Beginning with her early career as a young DA, she shares the evolution of the anti-human trafficking movement. Through a fascinating combination of memoir and legal insight, Krell reveals how she and her team started with the prosecution of street pimps and ultimately ended with the takedown of the largest purveyor of human trafficking in the world. She shares powerful stories of interviews with survivors, sting operations, court cases, and the personal struggles that were necessary to bring Backpage executives to justice. Finally, Krell examines the state of sex trafficking after Backpage and the crucial work that still remains.Taking Down Backpage is a gripping story of tragedy, overcoming adversity, and the pursuit of justice that gives insight into the fight against sex trafficking in the digital age. TAKING DOWN BACKPAGE: Fighting the World's Largest Sex Trafficker-Maggy Krell
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10/01/22•49m 2s
BTK: CONFESSION OF A SERIAL KILLER-Dr. Katherine Ramsland
In 1974, Dennis Lynn Rader stalked and murdered a family of four in Wichita, Kansas. Since adolescence, he had read about serial killers and imagined becoming one. Soon after killing the family, he murdered a young woman and then another, until he had ten victims. He named himself “B.T.K.” (bind, torture, kill) and wrote notes that terrorized the city. He remained on the loose for thirty years. No one who knew him guessed his dark secret. He nearly got away with his crimes, but in 2004, he began to play risky games with the police. He made a mistake. When he was arrested, Rader’s family, friends, and coworkers were shocked to discover that B.T.K. had been among them, going to work, raising his children, and acting normal.This case stands out both for the brutal treatment of victims and for the ordinary public face that Rader, a church council president, had shown to the outside world. Through jailhouse visits, telephone calls, and written correspondence, Katherine Ramsland worked with Rader himself to analyze the layers of his psyche. Using his drawings, letters, interviews, and Rader’s unique codes, she presents in meticulous detail the childhood roots and development of one man’s motivation to stalk, torture, and kill. She reveals aspects of the dark motivations of this most famous of living serial killers that have never before been revealed.The Documentary BTK: Confession of a Serial Killer premieres January 8th and 9th on A&E. The 2 night event sheds new light on Rader's double life as both an upstanding citizen and a heartless killer. Dr. Katherine Ramsland, the renowned professor of forensic psychology and author, leads the examination of Rader's transformation from an American boy to an American monster who wreaked havoc in Wichita Kansas and went uncaptured for 30 years. With exclusive conversations with Rader himself, eye-opening new archival, comprehensive interviews, and access to Rader's drawings and coded diaries all paired with Dr. Ramsland's expertise, viewers get to know the man behind the moniker, the truth behind the headline and a glimpse at the secrets Rader is still holding onto. The documentary we are discussing tonight is BTK: Confession of a Serial Killer-Dr. Katherine Ramsland
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06/01/22•49m 13s
FORGOTTEN CALIFORNIA MURDERS-David Kulczyk
Forgotten California Murders 1915 to 1968 chronicles homicides that happened so long ago they have been forgotten even by the families of the killers and the victims. Their crimes are no less shocking than the murders that have had books and films made about them. FORGOTTEN CALIFORNIA MURDERS 1915-1968-David Kulczyk
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31/12/21•1h
AMERICAN SCANDAL
American Scandal is a podcast from Wondery that explores the darker stories that have shaped the United States. From the Unabomber to Bernie Madoff, these are stories that reveal the underbelly of America: ruthless, secretive, and power-hungry. The new season of American Scandal looks at the controversial decision made by a young government official named Daniel Ellsburg to leak the Pentagon Papers, the documents that led Americans to demand an end to the catastrophic Vietnam War. Once Ellsburg realized this terrible truth, he made the bold decision to leak the documents, and the consequences altered the course of American history. This is just a preview of American Scandal, but you can listen to the full episode at wondery.fm/AS_TrueMurder
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20/12/21•7m 51s
MURDER CAPITAL OF THE WORLD-Emerson Murray
Over 25 people murdered in just over two and a half years. What was happening in the small coastal town of Santa Cruz between October 1970 and Feburary 1973?John Linley Frazier’s home invasion murders of the Ohta family and Dorothy Cadwallader in 1970 and the serial murder sprees of Herbert Mullin and Edmund Kemper left tremors in Santa Cruz that can still be felt today.Local law enforcement, victims’ families and friends, classmates and acquaintances of the killers, local historians, voices from the past and present, and the killers themselves all come together to tell the horrific stories and explain why Santa Cruz was dubbed THE MURDER CAPITAL OF THE WORLD in the early 1970s.Murder Capital of the World is a primary source history telling the story of Santa Cruz in the early 1970’s through quotes and first person stories. MURDER CAPITAL OF THE WORLD: The Santa Cruz community looks back at the John Linley Frazier, Herbert Mullin, and Edmund Kemper murder sprees of the early 1970's-Emerson Murray
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18/12/21•1h 4m
THE MURDER OF MARY TAKAHASHI-Rod Kackley
A woman’s dead body is tossed off a cruise ship. It’s homicide on the high seas, a story of murder and greed, a true crime story you’ll never forget. Why are you always killed by the one you love? A research vessel finds a woman’s decomposing corpse floating in the Tyrrhenian Sea, about twenty miles off the Italian shoreline.Cruise ships frequent the area. Investigators’ best guess is that she came from one of those boats. But which one? And is it a case of accidental death, suicide, or even murder? Only one boat reported the possibility that a passenger had gone overboard. So she had to have come from the Island Star. The mystery of how she died was also swiftly solved. For one simple reason, it had to be a case of homicide. So, someone murdered this woman while both were aboard the cruise ship. Hundreds of people were onboard the Island Star. Who was the killer? Another perplexing question: Why should the DA’s office in Orange County, California, prosecute a murder that occurred off the coast of Italy? Prosecutors also have to deal with the fact that their star witnesses were thousands of miles away when Mary Takahashi went into the water. What complicated the prosecution’s case even more, was the propensity of their star witnesses to change their stories. Both had reasons to turn on the suspect. Would the jury believe them? The Murder of Mary Takahashi: A Shocking True Crime Story tells a story of greed and murder. But it’s also an extraordinary tale of legal intrigue and guile as prosecutors work for more than a decade to put one of their own, a fellow attorney, in prison for the rest of his life. THE MURDER OF MARY TAKAHASHI: A Shocking True Crime Story-Rod Kackley
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14/12/21•57m 45s
BUTCHER OF HANOVER-Alan R. Warren
Butcher of Hanover focuses on the serial killer of at least 27 young men and boys in Germany in the post-World War 1 era. At the center of this murder case were Fritz Haarmann and Hans Grans, who were lovers while committing these murders. It wasn't until the skulls and bones started washing ashore from the Leine River in Hanover that Germany realized they had a cold-blooded serial killer in their country.As you read the exploration of the case in this book, ask yourself, did Haarmann murder each victim to keep his lover Hans Grans to stay with him? Did Grans decide who it was that was to be murdered? The evidence on this case will keep you on the edge of your seat, trying to determine who was really behind these gruesome murders. BUTCHER OF HANOVER: Fritz Haarmann-Alan R. Warren
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09/12/21•1h 4m
THE VANISHED
Few things are more devastating than a loved one going missing. On The Vanished podcast from Wondery, host Marissa Jones tells stories of missing persons that have gone overlooked by mainstream media. In a recent episode, Marissa looks into the disappearance of James Foster Chance. The 48-year-old man from Texas went missing in March of 2021. Devastated and without any leads, James’ family began searching for him. But in their search they began uncovering clues that James was not the man they thought he was. And worse -- that he may have disappeared on purpose. Listen to The Vanished at wondery.fm/TV_truemurder
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06/12/21•8m 2s
IMMUNITY FOR MURDER-David M Beers
In the small city of Binghamton in upstate New York, 23-year-old Veronica Taft, a single mother with four small children, all under the age of five, was convicted of Murder and Manslaughter for the brutal murder of her two-year-old son Lyric. She was sentenced to 25-years-to-life in state prison, with her surviving children taken away and placed in foster care.After more than five years in prison, Taft was set free after a bombshell Appellate Court decision found the verdict was against the weight of the evidence. The court overturned the theory and evidence used by authorities, including time-of-death, Taft’s alibi, and controversial testimony of a desperate jail-house snitch.Working on behalf of Taft, Defense Investigator, David M. Beers conducted an independent investigation. In his account, Immunity for Murder, he’ll guide you through the ill-fated police investigation and the shameful prosecution that, contrary to the evidence, quickly turned the tides towards Veronica and away from the real killer. This book will look closely at the suspect, bizarre events, and disturbing facts never before revealed. Furthermore, it’ll show how the evidence proves Taft’s innocence, which is why he considers her story a tragic miscarriage of justice. IMMUNITY FOR MURDER: The Veronica Taft Story-David M. Beers
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03/12/21•1h 15m
THE WVU COED MURDERS-Geoffrey Fuller and Sarah James McLaughlin
Some said that the killer couldn't be a local. Others claimed that he was the wealthy son of a prominent Morgantown family. Whispers spread that Mared and Karen were sacrificed by a satanic cult or had been victims of a madman poised to strike again. Then the handwritten letters began to arrive: You will locate the bodies of the girls covered over with brush--look carefully. The animals are now on the move.Investigators didn't find too few suspects--they had far too many. There was the campus janitor with a fur fetish, the harmless deliveryman who beat a woman nearly to death, the nursing home orderly with the bloody broomstick and the bouncer with the girlish laugh who threatened to cut off people's heads. Local authors Geoffrey C. Fuller and S. James McLaughlin tell the complete story of the murders for the first time. THE WVU COED MURDERS: Who Killed Mared and Karen? Geoffrey Fuller and Sarah James McLaughlin
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25/11/21•58m 21s
THE JFK ASSASSINATION DISSECTED-Cyril Wecht and Dawna Kaufmann
Since President John F. Kennedy's 1963 murder in Dallas, medical examiner and lawyer Dr. Cyril Wecht was initially inclined to accept the official theory that one person alone was responsible for the crime. But as Wecht delved into the evidence with boundless curiosity and unprecedented access, he came to understand that America had, instead, suffered a coup d'etat at the hands of rogue elements within our own government.Nobody else has Wecht's up-close and personal experience in uncovering the facts behind this assassination--and now he is sharing it with the world. Co-authored by investigative journalist Dawna Kaufmann, this comprehensive book reveals Wecht's analyses of the case's forensic and medical evidence. With his keen eye and sharp tongue, Wecht wields his scalpel on JFK's dubious autopsy report, the inept Warren Commission Report, the mishandling of crucial materials, all of the key players, and the media malpractice that has allowed the truth to remain hidden for nearly six decades. THE JFK ASSASSINATION DISSECTED: An Analysis by Forensic Pathologist Cyril Wecht-Dawna Kaufmann and Cyril Wecht.
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24/11/21•50m 13s
THE SHRINK NEXT DOOR
Veteran journalist Joe Nocera’s neighbor in the Hamptons was a therapist named Ike. Ike counted celebrities and Manhattan elites as his patients. He’d host star-studded parties at his eccentric vacation house. But one summer, Joe discovered that Ike was gone and everything he’d thought he’d known about his neighbor -- and the house next door -- was wrong. From Wondery, the company behind Dirty John and Dr. Death, and Bloomberg, “The Shrink Next Door” is a story about power, control and turning to the wrong person for help for three decades. Written and hosted by Joe Nocera, a columnist for Bloomberg. The Shrink Next Door is now an Apple Original series, starring Will Ferrell and Paul Rudd. Watch now only on Apple TV+. Listen to the Shrink Next Door now! https://link.chtbl.com/shrink_next_door?sid=Audio-Shrink_Next_Door_2021-True_Murder
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22/11/21•8m 28s
THE WOLFPACK-Peter Edwards
A man watching the Cup on a restaurant patio is shot dead on a busy Sunday afternoon in Toronto. Another dies in a sidewalk ambush just outside a bus-tling college campus. Two men in a Vancouver hotel lobby are gunned down in an attack that sends an American soccer star scrambling for cover. In Mexico, a Canadian is killed at a Nuevo Vallarta coffee shop, his death barely registering amidst the terrifying death tolls of President Calderón’s war on drugs and the cartels’ response; while a Montreal cop is beaten within an inch of his life in a Playa del Carmen nightclub. An infamous heckler from an NBA Toronto Raptors game turns up dead in a bullet-riddled car in a midtown lane-way. Throughout the 2010s, these and other disparate acts of violence entered the public awareness like iso-lated tragedies - but there was nothing isolated about them.In this masterly investigation, veteran journalists Peter Edwards and Luis Nájera introduce listeners to the common cause of a near-decade of chaos. Meet the Wolfpack, millennial-aged gangsters from across the spectrum of Canada’s underworld. Vying to fast-track their way into the criminal void left by the death of Montreal godfather Vito Rizzuto, the Wolfpack sought advantage in a steady supply of cocaine from El Chapo Guzmán’s Sinaloa cartel, among the deadliest and most far-reaching of criminal organizations. The juniors had just stepped into the big leagues.This is the roiling landscape of The Wolfpack, a brilliant examination of a time of criminal disruption and rapid adaptation, when one gang’s unchecked ambition unwittingly gave away the most hotly contested corner of the Canadian underworld without a fight. Brazen criminal disruptors or entitled upstarts looking to get rich without paying their dues - whatever you think of them, you will never forget the Wolfpack. THE WOLFPACK: The Millennial Mobsters Who Brought Chaos and the Cartels to the Canadian Underworld-Peter Edwards
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20/11/21•1h 4m
KLAN OF DEVILS-Stanley Nelson
In the summer of 1965, several Ku Klux Klan members riding in a pickup truck shot two Black deputies on patrol in Washington Parish, Louisiana. Deputy Oneal Moore, the driver of the patrol car and father of four daughters, died instantly. His partner, Creed Rogers, survived and radioed in a description of the vehicle. Less than an hour later, police in Mississippi spotted the truck and arrested its driver, a decorated World War II veteran named Ernest Ray McElveen. They returned McElveen to Washington Parish, where he spent eleven days in jail before authorities released him. Afterward, the FBI sent its top inspector to Bogalusa, Louisiana, to participate in the murder inquiry, the only civil rights era FBI investigation into the killing of a Black law enforcement officer by the KKK. Despite that assistance, lack of evidence and witnesses unwilling to come forward forced Louisiana prosecutors eventually to drop all charges against McElveen. The FBI continued its investigation but could not gather enough evidence to file charges, leaving the murder of Oneal Moore unsolved.Klan of Devils: The Murder of a Black Louisiana Deputy Sheriff is Stanley Nelson's investigation of this case, which the FBI probed from 1965 to 2016. Nelson describes the Klan's growth, and the emergence of Black activism in Bogalusa and Washington Parish, against the backdrop of political and social change in the 1950s and early 1960s. With the assistance of two retired FBI agents who worked the case, Nelson also explores the lives of the primary suspects, all of whom are now dead, and points to the Klansmen most likely responsible for the senseless and horrific attack. KLAN OF DEVILS: The Murder of a Black Louisiana Deputy Sheriff-Stanley Nelson
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16/11/21•1h 20m
EYES OF A MONSTER-Ron Peterson Jr.
Schoolteacher Olivia Dare Christian was murdered in her Hampton, Virginia apartment in 1981. Her killer left few clues and the murder went unsolved. Three decades later, in 2011, next-generation detective Randy Mayer re-opened Olivia’s dusty cold case file and began unraveling the mystery. Mayer located a reluctant witness who was a teenager back in 1981. She recalled a suspicious man lurking outside Olivia’s apartment the morning of the murder and provided a detailed description of the man. Detective Mayer then researched hundreds of old cases, hunting for a person who fit the description and used a similar MO. He identified a prime suspect, a Smithfield Foods employee, by then in his 60s, previously convicted of several brutal sexual assaults. Digging further, Mayer linked him to two other unsolved Hampton homicides. Was this man a serial killer? Mayer enlisted the help of FBI agent Liza Ludovico and special prosecutor Phil Figura. Could the team uncover enough evidence to bring Olivia’s murderer to justice? Could the witness from 1981 identify him? And would a jury convict in a cold case based entirely on circumstantial evidence? EYES OF A MONSTER-Ron Peterson Jr.
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09/11/21•1h 13m
THE KILLER PSYCHE
Killer Psyche is a new weekly true crime podcast from Wondery that explores the minds behind infamous killers and criminals. They cover high-profile cases that have shocked the world, and host Candice Delong uses her five decades of experience as a clinical psychiatric nurse and FBI Criminal Profiler to dissect the motivations and behaviors of the most terrifying felons in history. In a recent episode, Candace examines the mind of Ed Gein, the notorious murderer who inspired the movies "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" and Alfred Hitchcock's "Psycho." Candace dives deep into Gein’s mind — and how his mental illnesses led to his obsession with grave-robbing and murder. This is just a preview of Killer Psyche, but you can listen to the full episode at wondery.fm/KP_TrueMurder
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08/11/21•8m 21s
MONSTER-David McGrath
In an incredible 6-year investigation, True crime writer and investigative journalist David McGrath tells the unbelievable story of one of the most prolific predators in American history. Wayne Chapman admitted to abusing 100 children over a 8-year span from 1967-76. What the world could never have known is that Chapman did not act alone. He worked in concert with other serial predators unbeknownst to parents and law enforcement. Chapman was suspected in multiple child murders, and was a completely fixated abuser. McGrath lifts the veil on Wayne Chapman, and a child sex-ring that operated in the area at the time, in this incredible true story. MONSTER: The Life and Crimes of Wayne Chapman-David McGrath
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06/11/21•1h 35m
WHAT EVIL LURKS-Donna Fielder
Laura Smither, twelve, was taken from the road in front of her home in the small suburban Texas town of Friendswood. Sandra Sappaugh barely escaped with her life when she was abducted from a Waffle House parking lot in the tiny Texas coastal town of Webster. Kelli Cox vanished from the police department parking lot in the Texas college town of Denton. Anjanette Sorrentino fled into woods in Harris County, trying to escape a man with murderous intentions. He caught her. Tiffany Johnston was raped and murdered in the Oklahoma City suburb of Bethany. She was washing her car when she disappeared. Jessica Cain was on her way home from dinner with friends to the Village of Tiki Island, Texas, population seven hundred and seventy-eight.Within five months in 1997, all six (most likely more; some say many more) suffered the same fate. They met a monster wearing the face of a man. WHAT EVIL LURKS: The Good Samaritan Killer-Donna Fielder
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28/10/21•1h 5m
JANE DOE # 9-HOW I SURVIVED R. KELLY-Lizzette Martinez
In January of 1995, 17-year-old Lizzette Martinez met Grammy-winning musician and record producer R. KELLY at Aventura Mall in Florida where he was performing. At first, it seemed that her hopes of becoming a professional singer were about to come true when he offered to help boost her career. However, this mentorship quickly turned into sexual grooming, leading to years of physical, emotional, and sexual abuse.After struggling to free herself of the relationship and rebuild on her own, Lizzette’s successful new life, far away from the entertainment industry, was interrupted in 2017 by allegations against R. Kelly by other women. This led her to coming forward to the authorities with her own history of abuse by the music icon.In January 2019, she participated with other survivors in a documentary series with Lifetime called “Surviving R. Kelly.” It should have been a healing experience but instead left them feeling abandoned and fearful for their lives.In August 2021, Kelly went on trial in New York on racketeering and sex trafficking charges and was found guilty of all charges. JANE DOE # 9: How I Survived R. Kelly-Lizzette Martinez
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27/10/21•1h 13m
Introducing: SHADOW OF TRUTH
It’s one of the most haunting murder cases you’ll ever hear about, and it takes place in a small town in Israel. Tair Rada was only 13-years-old when her body was found inside a locked bathroom stall. She was viciously murdered during a school day, and yet no one saw or heard a thing. The police arrested the janitor, Roman Zadorov, and he eventually confessed, but this was far from being the end of it. Based on the hit true-crime series from Netflix, the podcast "Shadow of Truth" will take you on a journey into one of the wildest and most contested murder cases in the history of Israel, as it reaches its final resolution, 15 years after it all started.Listen to Shadow of Truth It’s one of the most haunting murder cases you’ll ever hear about, and it takes place in a small town in Israel. Tair Rada was only 13-years-old when her body was found inside a locked bathroom stall. She was viciously murdered during a school day, and yet no one saw or heard a thing. The police arrested the janitor, Roman Zadorov, and he eventually confessed, but this was far from being the end of it. Based on the hit true-crime series from Netflix, the podcast "Shadow of Truth" will take you on a journey into one of the wildest and most contested murder cases in the history of Israel, as it reaches its final resolution, 15 years after it all started.Listen to Shadow of Truth: http://wondery.fm/SOT_TrueMurder
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27/10/21•5m 58s
SERIAL SLAUGHTER ZODIAC KILLER-Anne Penn
Serial Slaughter is the story of the infamous Zodiac Killer. The killer roamed California, especially Northern California for decades. He announced himself with dramatic flair corresponding with Law Enforcement and the media in order to gain the attention he craved. "This is the Zodiac Speaking" & "This is the murderer of the 2 teenagers last Christmas at Lake Herman & the girl on the 4th of July." Making sure they knew his kills, connecting the dots for them. Fading away as promised in 1969, he continued to kill & ceased to "help" those who would hunt him. Details now included are new. The crimes are looked at, thoroughly researched, investigated, and written about with a new perspective. Great new finds of information at last to add to the story. The cases of murdered women and girls are brought back to the surface as the author works to bring attention once again to their cases. SERIAL SLAUGHTER ZODIAC KILLER-Anne Penn
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21/10/21•58m 53s
THE FLAT TIRE MURDERS-Michael P. Burns
South Florida in the 1970s was one of the nation's most dangerous locations. Behind the image of sun and surf, young women were the victims of a brutal killer. In the mid-1970s, over a dozen young women were murdered and found in canals. These cases became known as the Flat Tire Murders and the Canal Murders. Only one case was ever solved. More than four decades have passed since these crimes, and no arrests were ever made.This is the first book to explore these murders in depth, as well as a bizarre series of murders occurring in the years earlier, known as the Gold Sock Stranglings. Interviews with the detectives that originally worked to solve these cases provide an intimate view of the attempt to capture the killer that terrorized South Florida. In addition to the cases themselves, the book explores several suspects, including the infamous serial killer Ted Bundy. Detailed maps of South Florida illustrate the complex canal system that became the victims' graveyard. THE FLAT TIRE MURDERS: Unsolved Crimes of a South Florida Serial Killer-Michael P. Burns
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20/10/21•1h 1m
IF YOU CAN'T QUIT CRYIN', YOU CAN'T COME HERE NO MORE-Betty Frizzell
On May 12, 2013, 48-year-old Vicky Isaac of rural Puxico, Missouri―a woman with a history of learning disabilities, traumatic brain injuries, and drug addiction― loaded a .22 caliber handgun and shot her violent addict husband while he slept in the trailer they shared with Vicky’s adult son. Or did she? According to police reports, Vicky called 911 and confessed to the crime.Was this another sad case of murder amongst addicts or something more?Betty Frizzell escaped her family’s legacy of crime, addiction, and abuse to become a respected law enforcement officer and teacher. Drawn back to the town and people of her past, Betty works to uncover the truth of murder and her family’s history of violence. Her investigation uncovers sad realities about mental illness, small-town politics, and a society that doesn’t care about “poor, white trash”.There are never easy answers when the odds are stacked against you and no amount of “elegies” will save your family. IF YOU CAN'T QUIT CRYIN', YOU CAN'T COME HERE NO MORE: A Family's Legacy of Poverty, Crime and Mental Illness in Rural America-Betty Frizzell
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12/10/21•1h 11m
Introducing: Over My Dead Body: Season 3-Fox Lake
A small town cop known as “GI Joe” is gunned down in a swamp in the summer of 2015 and quickly becomes a martyr in the national media. But when a dogged investigator and his team set out to get justice, they uncover unsettling secrets about Joe, the local police department, and the village of Fox Lake. From Wondery, the makers of The Shrink Next Door and Dr. Death comes the third season of Over My Dead Body: Fox Lake. Hosted by Matt Baglio. Listen to Over My Dead Body: wondery.fm/FL_TrueMurder
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11/10/21•6m 7s
MYSTERY AT THE BLUE SEA COTTAGE-James Stewart
Set in Jazz Age San Diego against the backdrop of yellow journalism, notorious Hollywood scandals, Prohibition corruption and a lively culture war, Mystery At The Blue Sea Cottage tells the intriguing true crime story of a beautiful dancer, a playboy actor, and a debonair doctor.In January 1923, 20-year-old Fritzie Mann left home for a remote cottage by the sea to meet a man whose identity she had revealed to no one. The next morning, the barely clad body of the beautiful and bewitching dancer washed up on lonely Torrey Pines beach, her party dress and possessions strewn about on the sand.The scene baffled investigators. Was it suicide, murder, or an accidental drowning? A botched autopsy created more questions than it answered. However, the investigation revealed a scandalous secret and, possibly, a powerful motive for murder.After a suspect was arrested and charged with murder, an ambitious district attorney battled a high-profile L.A. private counsel in the most sensational trial in San Diego’s history that was followed avidly across the nation. The big question: What really happened at the Blue Sea Cottage? MYSTERY AT THE BLUE SEA COTTAGE: A True Story of Murder in San Diego's Jazz Age-James Stewart
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08/10/21•1h 19m
BRINGING DOWN CULLOTTA-David Bowman
In October of 1977, David Bowman moved to Las Vegas as a 16 year old kid with his parents and older brother. Bowman chronicles his journey through the streets of Las Vegas for the next 3 years. Bringing Down Cullotta, Bowman tells us how he worked his way into the most elite criminal organization in Las Vegas. He recounts how he became the "point man" in the Las Vegas Organized Crime Strike Force's investigation of the Chicago Outfit and Tony Spilotro and his right-hand man Frank Cullotta, the leader of the Hole in the Wall Gang. BRINGING DOWN CULLOTTA: The. Story Casino Couldn't Tell You-David Bowman
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05/10/21•1h 36m
TED BUNDY: Examining The Unconfirmed Survivor Stories-Erin Banks
“Ted Bundy: Examining The Unconfirmed Survivor Stories,” is the first publication to collate the known and frequently discussed stories of those individuals who shared their encounters with Ted Bundy decades after the execution of the serial killer. It compares these reports with data compiled by investigators, psychologists and contemporaries of Ted Bundy, as found in police files, psychological assessments and relevant literature. Includes thorough investigations into the accounts of “Blondie” singer Debbie Harry, Rhonda Stapley, Sara A. Survivor, Sotria Kritsonis, as well as numerous other unconfirmed survivors. Features the self-debunked story of a woman who had previously believed to be a Ted Bundy survivor. Delves into the possible motivations of deliberate and indeliberate victim-players, as well as Dr. Elizabeth Loftus' discoveries of the malleability of human memory. Erin Banks, who was mentored by Ted Bundy expert Kevin M. Sullivan, previously contributed a chapter to the author's sixth book on the case, “The Enigma Of Ted Bundy: The Questions And Controversies Surrounding America's Most Infamous Serial Killer.” TED BUNDY: Examining The Unconfirmed Survivor Stories-Erin Banks
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29/09/21•1h 4m
INTRODUCING THIS IS ACTUALLY HAPPENING
What would you do if a singular moment changed your life forever? This is Actually Happening is a weekly podcast from Wondery that features extraordinary life-changing stories told by the people who lived them...wondery.fm/TIAH_TrueMurder
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28/09/21•9m 4s
WATCH ME DIE-Bill Kimberlin
Bill Kimberlin, Psy.D, invites the reader on an extensive and unbiased journey inside Ohio’s death row in WATCH ME DIE: Last Words From Death Row.You will see how these inmates think as Kimberlin not only spends time interviewing them, but also eats meals with them and, in some cases, is the last person to speak with them before they are executed. From the moment they are placed on suicide watch until the moment they are pronounced dead right in front of him, Kimberlin will walk you through the twisted and complex execution process in the state of Ohio.WATCH ME DIE presents an unbiased look at the realities of death row, in Ohio and America as a whole. This book is much more than an argument about the death penalty. Instead, Kimberlin exposes the harsh truth of what it is like to be on death row, counting the days until your own execution, as told to him by those who have lived it.With no physical or mental restraints, Kimberlin’s conversations earn the trust of many high-level and violent offenders. He shares with the reader these unfiltered and honest thoughts from people staring in the face of death. Their writings, their artwork, and their own words will put the reader in the room with these dangerous killers. Nothing is off-limits and there is nothing to shield Kimberlin from the same hands that have taken countless lives, leaving Kimberlin himself asking, “Will this be my last trip to death row?”In this newly revised edition of WATCH ME DIE, Bill Kimberlin takes the reader on a more intimate journey into death row than ever before. This edition includes a “Where Are They Now?” section, updating the reader on which inmates have faced their execution, which inmates are still counting their days, and who else has asked Kimberlin to watch them die. WATCH ME DIE: Last Words From Death Row-Bill Kimberlin
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23/09/21•1h 1m
DEEP IN THE WOODS-Bryan Johnston
In 1935, nine-year-old George Weyerhaeuser, heir to one of the wealthiest families in America, is snatched off the streets two blocks from his home. The boy is kept manacled in a pit, chained to a tree, and locked in a closet. The perps—a career bank robber, a petty thief, and his nineteen-year-old never-been-in-trouble Mormon wife—quickly become the targets of the biggest manhunt in Northwest history. The caper plays out like a Hollywood thriller with countless twists and improbable developments. Perhaps the most astonishing thing of all, though, is how it all ends. DEEP IN THE WOODS: The 1935 Kidnapping of Nine Year-Old George Weyerhaeuser, Heir To America's Mightiest Timber Dynasty-Bryan Johnston
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22/09/21•1h 1m
DEFENDING A SERIAL KILLER-Jim Potts
The Fifth and Sixth Amendments to the Constitution of the United States guarantee the right against self-incrimination, the right to remain silent, and the right to counsel.A crime wave swept California in the late 1970s. Several young girls were abducted, raped, and murdered. Michael Dee Mattson was convicted of these crimes and sentenced to death.Law clerk by day, family man by night.In 1982, Jim Potts—a brilliant, idealistic, African American law student—is honored when one of his professors recruits him to assist in writing a death penalty appeal on behalf of a serial killer.Potts discovers a loophole in the case that had somehow been overlooked. One that could not only get Mattson off death row, but once presented to the Supreme Court of California, could release him to rape and murder again. When Potts confides in his pregnant wife, she says if Mattson goes free, their marriage is over. But if Potts quits the case, or withholds information, he violates his duty to client and Constitution and risks his career before it even begins.A moral dilemma with no good way out.To avoid losing his family and releasing pure evil back into the world, Potts must be smarter than his options. He must find a way to keep his family together, fulfill his duties, and keep Mattson behind bars.But can he? DEFENDING A SERIAL KILLER: The Right To Counsel-Jim Potts
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15/09/21•1h 8m
THE WHEELS OF JUSTICE-Renee Fehr
“The wheels of justice turn slowly, but grind exceedingly fine.”Renee Fehr knew that Gregory Houser killed her sister Sheryl. There was not a single doubt in her mind. Yet for 27 years Houser walked free.But Renee wouldn’t rest until he was convicted for murder.THE WHEELS OF JUSTICE is equal parts the story of a monstrous killer, a harrowing look at domestic violence, and an inspirational story of a family that wouldn’t quit until justice prevailed. THE WHEELS OF JUSTICE: The True Story of a 27-Year Battle To Convict My Sister's Killer-Renee Fehr
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08/09/21•1h 10m
REDHANDED-Suruthi Bala and Hannah Maguire
Based off Hannah Maguire and Suruthi Bala's popular podcast of the same name, RedHanded explores real-life true crime cases to help answer once and for all if a killer is born or made.After meeting at a house party in London, where they discovered a mutual obsession for all things true crime, Suruthi Bala and Hannah Maguire drunkenly promised to one day start their own murder podcast. Six weeks later they ordered their first microphones and the rest is history. From the hosts of the hit podcast RedHanded (dubbed by Anna Paquin as her “all- time favorite true crime podcast”), Bala and Maguire have amassed a cult following of “spooky bitches.”What is it about killers, cults, and cannibals that capture our imaginations even as they terrify and disturb us? Do we find these stories endlessly and equally compelling and frightening, because they hold up a mirror to society’s failings and to the horrors that we humans are capable of? RedHanded rejects the outdated narrative of killers as monsters and that a victim “was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.” Instead, it dissects the stories of killers in a way that challenges perceptions and asks the hard questions about society, gender, poverty, culture, and even our politics.With their trademark humor, research on real-life cases, and unflinching analysis of what makes a criminal, Bala and Maguire take you through what drives the most extreme of human behavior to find out once and for all: what makes a killer tick? REDHANDED: An Exploration of Criminals, Cannibals, Cults, and What Makes A Killer Tick-Suruthi Bala and Hannah Maguire
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03/09/21•51m 10s
16 MINUTES-Diane Marger Moore
From The Author Of INCONVENIENCE GONEOn the early morning of March 6, 1993, an intense fire broke out in a tiny nursery. Sixteen minutes later, firefighters had extinguished the blaze, only to reveal a room burned so severely, everything was virtually unrecognizable. Then, they were told to look for a baby. What they discovered looked more like a monster from a horror film. The small skull had been incinerated, and the legs and arms were nothing more than charred stumps. The only identifiable human feature was the baby's genitals, covered in what remained of his diaper.Two people were home at the time the fire broke out: the newborn's parents.argerThe arson squad declared the fire suspicious and the homeowner's insurance company hired investigators, who determined the fire to indeed be arson. The prosecutor wanted to dismiss the case, but the arson unit had a newly appointed prosecutor who refused to do so.Was it arson? What was the motive? Along with the tenacious and determined Detective Leslie Van Buskirk, Diane Marger Moore persisted for more than two years to find the truth and get justice for Baby Matthew Wise. 16 MINUTES: Was The Death of Baby Matthew an Accident or Murder?-Diane Marger Moore
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01/09/21•1h 2m
Introducing: SUSPECT
An apartment complex hosts a big Halloween party with themed rooms and costumed partygoers. By the end of the night one of the party’s hosts is murdered. And the partygoers are the main suspects in the eyes of the police: was it the guy in the devil mask, the guy dressed as Jesus, the bank robber, the construction worker? As a complex investigation winds its way through forensic evidence, witness testimony, DNA, and even a psychic, the police zero in on one suspect in particular -- but why? From Campside Media and Wondery, the makers of Chameleon and the Shrink Next Door, comes SUSPECT. Matthew Shaer and Eric Benson (Over My Dead Body) return to the scene of the crime to uncover what happened, and speak with everyone about a party that still haunts them a decade later. It’s a series about cutting-edge science and mislaid justice, race and policing, and the kinds of weighty choices that cops and prosecutors make every day. Choices that, once made, are difficult to reverse. wondery.fm/Suspect_TrueMurder
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31/08/21•6m 0s
THE BEST NEW TRUE CRIME STORIES: Passion, Obsession and Revenge-Mitzi Szereto
Obsession, Unrequited Love, Jealousy, Revenge, and Violence Collide in this Page-Turning Anthology. How can someone you hold dear become someone you fear? This riveting anthology explores the question through some of the most compelling true crime accounts and stories of obsession and vengeance.Crimes fueled by emotions. Love, passion, obsession, jealousy, and betrayal. When it comes to the emotions, people can react in strange and unexpected ways. Whether it's a heart hurt by unrequited love, or a lover so passionate they'll stop at nothing to get their way - even the most mild-mannered soul can suddenly flip, becoming a vengeful spirit with dark intentions. From the ancient Greek myth of Jason and Medea to Shakespeare's Othello, themes dealing with deeply felt emotions have persisted. But unlike mythology or fiction, The Best New True Crime Stories: Crimes of Passion, Obsession & Revenge contains stories from real life.A special selection of stories written exclusively for this book. The Best New True Crime Stories: Crimes of Passion, Obsession & Revenge includes stories from around the world and from different times. As with all titles in the popular The Best New True Crime Stories series, this volume contains original nonfiction accounts penned by writers from across the literary spectrum. Dive into these twisted true tales of passion and unrequited love turned violent. Examine why some have fully embraced their dark side, resorting to crime to achieve their own special brand of satisfaction and retribution. THE BEST NEW TRUE CRIME STORIES: Crimes of Passion, Obsession and Revenge-Mitzi Szereto
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27/08/21•1h 3m
THE EAST RIVER RIPPER-George R. Dekle Sr.
Shortly after NYPD Chief of Detectives Thomas Byrnes publicly criticized the London police for failing to capture Jack the Ripper, he received a letter purportedly from Jack himself saying New York was his next target. Not long after, Byrnes was confronted by his own Ripper-style murder case in the death of Carrie Brown, a.k.a. "Old Shakespeare," a colorful character who worked as a prostitute and had a penchant for quoting Shakespeare. Given the near-hysteria surrounding this vicious murder soon after the Jack the Ripper murders in London, people were worried that Jack might have actually come to America.The detective bureau finally arrested Amir Ben Ali, an Algerian immigrant. The newspapers, however, immediately criticized Byrnes for moving too quickly, suggesting that he had tried to save face by pinning the crime on an easy target. When the verdict of murder in the second degree was announced, the papers erupted in anger and disbelief. With the aid of the French consulate, they embarked on a 10-year campaign to have Ben Ali pardoned and finally won his release by producing new evidence. Immediately upon Ben Ali's departure for France, fresh evidence of his guilt surfaced.Was Ben Ali falsely convicted or falsely exonerated? And if he did not commit the murder, then who did? Issues of false convictions, fake news, illegal immigration, police corruption, and racial prejudice are common tropes in today's news cycles. The East River Ripper demonstrates that these are not simply matters of recent vintage and seeks to answer such questions in trying to determine whether and in what way justice miscarried. THE EAST RIVER RIPPER: The Mysterious 1891 Murder of Old Shakespeare-George R. Dekle Sr.
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24/08/21•1h 26m
THE IOWA MURDERS-Rod Kackley
Someone you know or even love is the person who will kill you. Usually, that’s true.But that is not what happened in 2018 to two college students in Iowa.Two young women who had everything to live for, killed by two men with nothing to lose. Completely random attacks. Neither case had anything else in common except they both shocked the nation and even the world.What’s worse, being murdered by a loved one or a stranger who jumps out of the bushes when you are most vulnerable?Previously published as We’ll Find You and Let’s Do Murder, The Iowa Murders tells the shocking true crime stories of the senseless deaths of Mollie Tibbetts and Celia Barquin Arozamena.When Mollie Tibbetts disappeared on July 18, 2018, her mother, Laura Calderwood, promised she would never quit searching.For five weeks in the summer of 2018, she searched, and the whole world watched Brooklyn, Iowa because this was more than a murder story — it also became one of the top political stories of 2018.Then, just after her killer led police to Mollie’s body, hidden in a cornfield, news of another shocking, senseless homicide came from Iowa.Celia Barquin Arozamena was ready to begin the next phase of her life, including a professional career and marriage.Collin Richards only wanted a woman to rape and murder.Celia had everything to live for, and Collin had nothing to lose.They would come together one day in September 2018. Only one would survive.This is the shocking true crime story of two communities and two families coming to grips with the worst crime imaginable, knowing that even if the killer’s put behind bars today, another could be waiting tomorrow. THE IOWA MURDERS: A Shocking True Crime Story-Rod Kackley
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20/08/21•55m 1s
Introducing-Dr. Death Season 3: Miracle Man
Paolo is a smart and handsome surgeon, renowned for his ability to perform surgeries that transform his patients’ lives. When television producer Benita covers him for a story, he’ll transform her life too, but not in the ways she expects. As Benita crosses professional lines to be with him, she learns how far Paolo will go to protect his secrets. And halfway around the world, four doctors at a prestigious medical institute make shocking discoveries of their own that call everything into question. From Wondery comes Season Three of the hit podcast, Dr. Death. MIRACLE MAN tells the story of a globe-trotting surgeon who seduces the medical world, and sweeps one woman off her feet. Hosted by Laura Beil.Listen to Dr. Death Season 3: wondery.fm/DDS3_TrueMurder
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17/08/21•6m 8s
SOLVING THE WEST GEORGIA MURDER OF GWENDOLYN MOORE-Clay Bryant
On a sultry August morning in 1970, the battered body of a young woman was hoisted from a dry well just outside Hogansville, Georgia. Author and investigator Clay Bryant was there, witnessing the macabre scene. Then fifteen, Bryant was tagging along with his father, Buddy Bryant, Hogansville chief of police. The victim, Gwendolyn Moore, had been in a violent marriage. That was no secret. But her husband had connections to a political machine that held sway over the Troup County Sheriff's Office overseeing the case. To the dismay and bafflement of many, no charges were brought. That is, until Bryant followed his father's footsteps into law enforcement and a voice cried out from the well three decades later. SOLVING THE WEST GEORGIA MURDER OF GWENDOLYN MOORE: A Cry From The Well-Clay Bryant
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16/08/21•1h 5m
SCRAPPED-Lisa Peebles and John O'Brien
Criminal defense lawyer Lisa Peebles was taken aback by a secretly recorded phone call and police interrogation video that surfaced in a 20-year-old kidnapping case. They held the stench of a cover-up. She recruited an investigative reporter to help unearth the truth and exonerate Gary Thibodeau, the man convicted in the 1994 kidnapping and murder of 18-year-old Heidi Allen.Scrapped: Justice and a Teen Informant exposes the underbelly of a system built more for finality than justice. It's the true story of Peebles' pursuit of new evidence against three new suspects and her discovery that Heidi had lived a double life: convenience store cashier and undercover informant. The sheriff's office hid the truth after her death as the real killers roamed free. Peebles became a de facto prosecutor to prove their guilt and Gary's innocence. As Heidi's family stood by the sheriff, her remains were likely secreted right under their noses - probably inside a scrapped van and shipped to a car shredder in Canada. SCRAPPED: Justice and a Teen Informant-Lisa Peebles and John O'Brien
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10/08/21•1h 28m
TERROR TOWN, U.S.A.-John Ferak
From the author of WRECKING CREW, John Ferak returns to discuss his incredible book TERROR TOWN U.S.A.https://podcasts.apple.com/.../true-murder.../id393525078...https://www.spreaker.com/show/truemurderhttps://open.spotify.com/show/3lB164qZi9SySMEhC2bKuVDuring the early morning hours of July 17, 1983, fatigue became a factor for the young couple from central Illinois who spent their day under the hot sun at Marriott’s Great America amusement park north of Chicago. On their drive home, the tired teenagers pulled to the shoulder of Interstate 55 to get a restful sleep.As the teens slept inside their car under the moon and the stars, a dangerous force of evil lurked in the shadows, parking directly behind them.The summer of 1983 was like no other for Joliet, Ill., a hard-working, rough-and-tough blue-collar industrial city an hour’s drive southwest of Chicago. This was one of the hottest summers on record for Joliet, and an elusive serial-killing madman kept piling up the body count as he showed no signs of being caught.One overnight killing spree claimed five victims, including members of the Will County Sheriff’s Office. The following month brought more bloodshed: a quadruple murder inside a small Joliet shop best known for its pottery classes.The plague of senseless violence sparked the controversial New York City-based Guardian Angels to mobilize foot patrols in Joliet, generating more unwanted news media attention for the community. Even the National Enquirer produced its own sensational piece, labeling Joliet “Terror Town, U.S.A.”Residents shuddered with horror. Determined detectives worked in overdrive, trying to find an overlooked clue or two. Finally, when an arrest seemed to come out of nowhere, area citizens breathed a sigh of relief.Authorities linked the so-called stone-cold killing machine to a chilling count of 14 homicides, plus three women who miraculously survived their agonizing encounters.But with multiple murder trials on the horizon, it remained anyone’s guess whether Milton Johnson, whose family nicknamed him “Big’un,” short for “Big One,” was guilty of mass murder and if so, would he die by means of lethal injection at the Illinois Department of Corrections? TERROR TOWN, U.S.A.: The Untold Story of Joliet's Notorious Serial Killer-John Ferak
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05/08/21•1h 11m
DANNY ROLLING SERIAL KILLER-Sondra London
Criminologist Anthony Meoli said Sondra London broke ground in publishing the confessions of serial killer Danny Rolling. But only part of that story could be told in 1996.Now in this unique new volume, the controversy surrounding The Making of a Serial Killer is revealed in a series of interviews and appearances including NBC Dateline, Court TV, talk radio and courtroom drama. Meoli shows off Rolling’s art, with a stunning painting Rolling called his Masterpiece and his hand-written explanation of its symbolism.Podcasters Dan Zupansky (True Murder) and Ariel Cooksey (Malice) share thought- provoking conversations that elicit new revelations about London's work with Rolling. And a sensational secret interview with Rolling is finally revealed. DANNY ROLLING SERIAL KILLER: Interviews-Sondra London
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30/07/21•1h 19m
RAGING ON-Paula May
From the author of FIRST DEGREE RAGE: The True Story of ‘The Assassin,’ An Obsession, and Murder comes the ongoing and chilling true crime saga of L. C. Underwood, the obsessively jealous police officer from North Carolina. Underwood shocked an entire city with his reign of terror in the lives of his ex-fiancé Kay Weden, a woman he refused to let go, her son Jason whom he despised, and her mother Catherine Miller who got in his way. In FIRST DEGREE RAGE, Underwood arrogantly evaded justice for his heinous crimes until Detective Paula May and her investigative team uncovered who he really was. Because of their efforts, he was convicted for First Degree Kidnapping and Murder of Viktor Gunnarsson, Kay’s new boyfriend. But was Underwood also responsible for the brutal murder of Catherine Miller that occurred mere days after Gunnarsson’s demise?Sentenced to life in prison plus forty years, Underwood has no intention of staying in prison and vows not to stop until he exacts revenge on those he blames for his current predicament. His thirst for revenge will not be quenched until more blood is shed. Underwood rages on, plotting his next move, enlisting others to perform the evil deeds he imagines. Wreaking havoc in the lives of Kay, Jason, Detective May, and others, he sends them all on an emotional roller coaster ride that never seems to end. Will they ever find peace? Will Catherine Miller’s murderer ever be brought to justice? Will Underwood’s reign of terror ever be stopped? RAGING ON-Paula May
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29/07/21•1h
THE BEST NEW TRUE CRIME STORIES-Mitzi Szereto
Sometimes the Nicest People Make the Deadliest CriminalsEnjoy a collection of non-fiction accounts by international writers and experts on crooks, criminals, and serial killers who disguise themselves among society by being what you least expect-your friendly next-door neighbor.From mild mannered coworkers to doting parents. Some might be your jack-of-all-trades friend, or others might be your family member with an altruistic persona. The Best New True Crime Stories: Well-Mannered Crooks, Rogues & Criminals takes you deeper into the unconventional criminal's psyche . The ones where their most prominent feature isn't a bloodied knife, but a bright smile and warm gaze meant to lure their next victim.Meet the real killers. You've heard about John Wayne Gacy. You've read about Jeffrey Dahmer. You've delved into the Ted Bundy fascination. It's time for you to meet the infamous Naun Briones, who struck fear into the hearts of the rich, and Freddie Brenman, a notorious street-fighter with mysterious ties to the Dillinger Gang. You'll find yourself realizing that being nice and friendly is a killer combination.Edited by acclaimed author and anthologist Mitzi Szereto, The Best New True Crime Stories: Well-Mannered Crooks & Criminals reveals all-new accounts of true crime stories featuring serial killers from the contemporary to the depression-era. The international list of contributors includes award-winning crime writers, true-crime podcasters, journalists, and experts in the dark crimes field such as Tom Larsen, David Blumenfeld, and Anthony Ferguson. THE BEST NEW TRUE CRIME STORIES: Well-Mannered Crooks, Rogues & Criminals-Mitzi Szereto
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22/07/21•1h 1m
COLD BLOODED-Anita Paddock
On a cold January morning in 1981, a knock on an apartment door began what would become one of the bloodiest crime sprees in Arkansas history. In the coming days the bodies of newlyweds Larry and Jawana Price, businessman Holly Gentry, and Police Detective Ray Tate were discovered. They had been executed in cold blood and discarded like so much trash. What kind of person murders four people in cold blood? Did the right one go to prison? COLD BLOODED: A Chilling, True Tale of Terror, Rape and Murder in the Arkansas River bottoms-Anita Paddock
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19/07/21•1h 2m
BOMBSHELL-Mike Rothmiller
‘Bobby called. He’s coming to California. He wants to see me.’Drawing on secret police files, Marilyn Monroe's private diary and never before published first-hand testimony, this book proves that Robert Kennedy was directly responsible for her death. It details the legendary star's tumultuous personal involvement with him and his brother, President John Kennedy, and how they sought to silence her.The new evidence and testimony is provided by Mike Rothmiller who, as a detective of the Organized Crime Intelligence Division (OCID) of the LAPD, had direct personal access to hundreds of secret LAPD files on exactly what happened at Marilyn Monroe’s Californian home on August 5, 1962.With his training and investigator’s knowledge, Rothmiller used that secret information to get to the heart of the matter, to the people who were there the night Marilyn died – two of whom played major roles in the cover-up – and the wider conspiracy to protect the Kennedys at all costs.There will be those with doubts, but to them, the lawman – who directed international intelligence operations targeting organized crime – says the printed, forensic and oral evidence are totally convincing. He insists: ‘If I presented my evidence in any court of law, I’d get a conviction.’ BOMBSHELL: The Night Bobby Kennedy Killed Marilyn Monroe-Mike Rothmiller
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15/07/21•1h 10m
COUPLE FOUND SLAIN-Mikita Brottman
On February 21, 1992, 22-year-old Brian Bechtold walked into a police station in Port St. Joe, Florida and confessed that he’d shot and killed his parents in their family home in Silver Spring, Maryland. He said he’d been possessed by the devil. He was eventually diagnosed with schizophrenia and ruled “not criminally responsible” for the murders on grounds of insanity.But after the trial, where do the "criminally insane" go? Brottman reveals Brian's inner life leading up to the murder, as well as his complicated afterlife in a maximum security psychiatric hospital, where he is neither imprisoned nor free. During his 27 years at the hospital, Brian has tried to escape and been shot by police, and has witnessed three patient-on-patient murders. He’s experienced the drugging of patients beyond recognition, a sadistic system of rewards and punishments, and the short-lived reign of a crazed psychiatrist-turned-stalker.In the tradition of One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest, Couple Found Slain is an insider’s account of life in the underworld of forensic psych wards in America and the forgotten lives of those held there, often indefinitely. COUPLE FOUND SLAIN: After A Family Murder-Mikita Brottman
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07/07/21•1h 4m