Nobody's Child
A Tragedy, a Trial, and a History of the Insanity Defense
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Nobody's Child
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Narrated by:
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Laural Merlington
About this listen
A powerful and humane exploration of the history of the "insanity defense", through the story of one poignant case.
When a three-year-old child was found with a head wound and other injuries, it looked like an open-and-shut case of second-degree murder. Psychologist and Attorney Susan Vinocour agreed to evaluate the defendant, the child's mentally ill and impoverished grandmother, to determine whether she was competent to stand trial. Even if she had caused the child's death, had she realized at the time that her actions were wrong, or was she legally "insane"?
What followed was anything but an open-and-shut case. Nobody's Child traces the legal definition of "insanity" back to its inception in Victorian Britain nearly 200 years ago, from when our understanding of the human mind was in its infancy, to today, when questions of race, class, and ability so often determine who is legally "insane" and who is criminally guilty. Vinocour explains how "competency" and "insanity" are creatures of a legal system, not of psychiatric reality, and how, in criminal law, the insanity defense has too often been a luxury of the rich and white.
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Really, really good book.
- By Danette on 12-23-20
By: Barry Siegel
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Let the Lord Sort Them
- The Rise and Fall of the Death Penalty
- By: Maurice Chammah
- Narrated by: Kevin R. Free
- Length: 11 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 57
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 49
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 50
In 1972, the United States Supreme Court made a surprising ruling: The country’s death penalty system violated the Constitution. The backlash was swift, especially in Texas, where executions were considered part of the cultural fabric, and a dark history of lynching was masked by gauzy visions of a tough-on-crime frontier. When executions resumed, Texas quickly became the nationwide leader in carrying out the punishment.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Very Slanted
- By appreciative reader on 02-07-21
By: Maurice Chammah
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The Wrong Man
- The Final Verdict on the Dr. Sam Sheppard Murder Case
- By: James Neff
- Narrated by: Charles Constant
- Length: 15 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 45
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 43
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 43
At 5:40 a.m. on July 4, 1954, the mayor of Bay Village, a small suburb of Cleveland, Ohio, received a frantic phone call from his neighbor Dr. Sam Sheppard. The news was too terrible to comprehend: Marilyn, Sam's lovely wife, was dead, her face and torso beaten beyond recognition by an unknown assailant who had knocked Sam unconscious and escaped just before dawn. In the adjacent bedroom, Chip, the Sheppards' seven-year-old son, had slept through the entire ordeal. Almost immediately, the police began to suspect Sam Sheppard.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Outstanding! But troubling
- By Tyree on 09-26-22
By: James Neff
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Marked for Life
- One Man's Fight for Justice from the Inside
- By: Isaac Wright Jr., Jon Sternfeld - contributor
- Narrated by: Isaac Wright Jr.
- Length: 9 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 31
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 31
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Story5 out of 5 stars 30
An empowering memoir of courage and hope in the face of injustice—and the basis for the ABC television show, For Life—Marked for Life is the true story of Isaac Wright Jr.’s battle to win his freedom after being wrongfully imprisoned for crimes he didn’t commit, and a critical indictment of America’s judicial system.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Outstanding Book!
- By JXL on 06-10-24
By: Isaac Wright Jr., and others
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House of Evil
- The Indiana Torture Slaying
- By: John Dean
- Narrated by: John Glouchevitch
- Length: 6 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 146
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 119
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 120
In the heart of Indianapolis in the mid-1960s, through a twist of fate and fortune, a pretty young girl came to live with a 37-year-old mother and her seven children. What began as a temporary childcare arrangement between Sylvia Likens's parents and Gertrude Baniszewski turned into a crime that would haunt cops, prosecutors, and a community for decades to come. When police found Sylvia's emaciated body, with a chilling message carved into her flesh, they knew that she had suffered tremendously before her death.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Horrific
- By Karri on 05-29-18
By: John Dean
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Deadly Dose
- The Untold Story of a Homicide Investigator's Crusade for Truth and Justice
- By: Amanda Lamb
- Narrated by: Chelsea Stephens
- Length: 7 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 55
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 48
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Story4 out of 5 stars 48
The death of promising young pediatric AIDS researcher Eric Miller stunned the Raleigh, North Carolina, community, largely because of the horrific way he was killed. For months, Eric was slowly tortured as arsenic consumed his body. No one thought that Eric Miller's wife, Ann - an attractive, demure, educated scientist - could be capable of such a horrible crime. No one except for veteran homicide investigator Chris Morgan, a man in the twilight of his career. But from the moment Morgan saw the 30-year-old widow in the police department interview room, he knew he was seeing pure evil.
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2 out of 5 stars
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Sleepy narration
- By bethany on 02-10-20
By: Amanda Lamb
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Lust Killer
- By: Ann Rule, Andy Stack
- Narrated by: Callie Beaulieu
- Length: 7 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 907
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 808
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 805
When young women begin mysteriously disappearing in Oregon, Police Lieutenant James Stovall leads a relentless search for a killer. With little evidence available, and the public screaming for answers, he must find a remorseless, brutal killer whose identity will shock them all....
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5 out of 5 stars
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Great book on Brudos!
- By Ms.Bliss on 01-06-18
By: Ann Rule, and others
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A Wilderness of Error
- The Trials of Jeffrey MacDonald
- By: Errol Morris
- Narrated by: John Pruden
- Length: 14 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 203
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 172
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Story4 out of 5 stars 179
Early on the morning of February 17, 1970, in Fort Bragg, North Carolina, a Green Beret doctor named Jeffrey MacDonald called the police for help. When the officers arrived at his home they found the bloody and battered bodies of MacDonald's pregnant wife and two young daughters. The word "pig" was written in blood on the headboard in the master bedroom. As MacDonald was being loaded into the ambulance, he accused a band of drug-crazed hippies of the crime.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Interesting but Unconvincing
- By A customer on 03-31-15
By: Errol Morris
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A Death in Belmont
- By: Sebastian Junger
- Narrated by: Kevin Conway
- Length: 8 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 463
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 225
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 221
In 1963, with the city of Boston already terrified by a series of savage crimes known as the Boston Stranglings, a murder occurred in Belmont, just a few blocks from the house of Sebastian Junger's family, a murder that seemed to fit exactly the pattern of the Strangler. Roy Smith, a black man who had cleaned the victim's house that day, was convicted, but the terror of the Strangler continued.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Excellent
- By Susanna on 01-13-15
By: Sebastian Junger
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Anatomy of Injustice
- A Murder Case Gone Wrong
- By: Raymond Bonner
- Narrated by: Mark Bramhall
- Length: 11 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 78
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 66
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 66
In January 1982, an elderly white widow was found brutally murdered in the small town of Greenwood, South Carolina. Police immediately arrested Edward Lee Elmore, a semiliterate, mentally retarded black man with no previous felony record. His only connection to the victim was having cleaned her gutters and windows, but barely ninety days after the victim’s body was found, he was tried, convicted, and sentenced to death. Elmore had been on death row for eleven years when a young attorney named Diana Holt first learned of his case.
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5 out of 5 stars
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A miscarriage of justice if I've ever seen it
- By Education is KEY on 10-11-17
By: Raymond Bonner
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The Want Ad Killer
- By: Ann Rule
- Narrated by: Paul Boehmer
- Length: 7 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 424
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 394
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 389
After his first grisly crime, Harvey Louis Carignan beat a death sentence and continued to manipulate, rape, and bludgeon women to death - using want ads to lure his young female victims. And time after time, justice was thwarted by a killer whose twisted legal genius was matched only by his sick savagery. Here, complete with the testimony of women who suffered his unspeakable sexual abuses and barely escaped with their lives and of the police who at last put him behind bars, is one of the most shattering and thought-provoking true-crime stories of our time.
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1 out of 5 stars
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Paul Booooomer
- By Murder Fancier on 04-08-17
By: Ann Rule
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My Life Among the Serial Killers
- Inside the Minds of the World's Most Notorious Murderers
- By: Helen Morrison M.D., Harold Goldberg
- Narrated by: Helen Morrison
- Length: 5 hrs and 54 mins
- Abridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 446
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 184
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Story4 out of 5 stars 182
Dr. Helen Morrison has profiled more than 80 serial killers around the world. What she has learned about them will shatter every assumption you've ever had about the most notorious killers known to man.
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1 out of 5 stars
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Boring reader,boring writing
- By P. Minor on 02-03-08
By: Helen Morrison M.D., and others
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Love Me to Death
- The Chilling True Story of WIlliam “Wild Bill Cody” Neal—The Vicious Denver Lady-Killer
- By: Steve Jackson
- Narrated by: Kevin Pierce
- Length: 6 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 64
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 58
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 58
William Neal, who called himself "Wild Bill Cody," was seductive and skillful at separating love-struck women from their money, and ultimately, their lives. Apprehended by police, Neal, who proclaimed himself “better than Ted Bundy,” pleaded guilty to three murders then insisted on representing himself at his death penalty trial. But the psychopathic killer found himself up against the incredible courage of his one surviving victim.
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2 out of 5 stars
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Disappointed
- By donald on 02-09-23
By: Steve Jackson
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Dead Certain
- A Novel
- By: Adam Mitzner
- Narrated by: Erin Bennett
- Length: 8 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 2,651
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 2,382
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Story4 out of 5 stars 2,381
Ella Broden is living a double life. By day, Ella works as a buttoned-up attorney on some of the city's most grueling cases. By night, she pursues her passion for singing in the darkest clubs of Manhattan. No one knows her secret, not even Charlotte, the younger sister she practically raised. But it seems she's not the only one in the family with something to hide. When Charlotte announces she's sold her first novel, Ella couldn't be more thrilled...until she gets a call that her sister's gone missing.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Mixed Review
- By Amazon Customer on 06-16-17
By: Adam Mitzner
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A Cold-Blooded Business
- Adultery, Murder, and a Killer's Path from the Bible Belt to the Boardroom
- By: Marek Fuchs
- Narrated by: Kevin T. Collins
- Length: 6 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 369
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 335
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Story4 out of 5 stars 329
In 1959, Olathe, Kansas was made famous by the murder of the Clutter family and Truman Capote's ground-breaking book on the crime, In Cold Blood. But fewer know that Olathe achieved notoriety again in 1982, when a member of Olathe's growing Evangelical Christian population, a gentle man named David Harmon, was bludgeoned to death while sleeping - the force of the blows crushing his face beyond recognition.
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5 out of 5 stars
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GOOD TRUE CRIME STORY
- By The Louligan on 08-17-14
By: Marek Fuchs
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The Best New True Crime Stories: Small Towns
- By: Mitzi Szereto - editor
- Narrated by: Holly Palance, Phil Thron
- Length: 8 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 55
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 50
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Story4 out of 5 stars 49
Whether in Truman Capote’s detailed murder of the Clutter family or Ted Bundy’s small-town charm, criminals have always roamed rural America and towns worldwide. Featuring murder stories, criminal case studies, and more, The Best New True Crime Stories: Small Towns contains all-new accounts from writers of true crime, crime journalism, and crime fiction. And these entries are not based on a true story - they are true stories. Edited by acclaimed author and anthologist Mitzi Szereto, the stories in this volume span the globe.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Crime in other countries is not my cup of tea.
- By Brenda on 01-03-21
What listeners say about Nobody's Child
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Allyson
- 05-24-24
One of those books that change your life
Separate the story from the writing. Loved the book, hated the facts of the case, but the way it was told created much empathy and connection. The ending asks important questions that I don’t think anyone has the answers to yet.
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