Showing titles in Serial Killers

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.

On September 6, 1949, 28-year-old Howard Barton Unruh shot 13 people, in less than 12 minutes, on his block in East Camden, New Jersey. The shocking, true story of the first recorded mass-shooting in America has never been told, until now. Through the eyes of the young boy who visited Howard regularly to listen to his war stories, and the mother trying to piece together the disturbing inner-workings of her son’s mind, Ellen Green uncovers the chilling true story of Howard Unruh - the quiet oddball who meticulously plotted his revenge on the neighbors who shunned him.

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.

Welcome to the latest box set in the New York Times best-selling series of stories about America's most notorious criminals. For DARKEST WATERS, Wall Street Journal best-selling author Katherine Ramsland is the perfect guide to the famous and not so famous cases that still haunt the states huddled around the Great Lakes. Say hello to Notorious USA!

Shocking and brutal true crimes against innocent victims who deserve to have their stories remembered. A true crime anthology of 20 stories, Killer Case Files delivers gripping accounts of depraved and horrifying murders. These killers can range from seemingly normal people to psychopaths and serial killers who commit years of murder and mayhem.

Lindsey always knew she wanted to be a detective. Her inspiration came after reading about the murders committed by Ted Bundy, who grew up in her hometown of Tacoma, Washington. Also seared into her memory was the 1986 murder of a young girl who'd been out for a bike ride when she went missing. The teen was later found murdered, but the case was never solved. The senseless killing of an innocent young girl would leave a black cloud over Tacoma for three decades.

In some murder cases, the truth behind the most tragic of crimes crystallizes with relative ease. Not so with these fascinating accounts drawn from the personal files of Ann Rule. What happens when the case itself becomes an intractable puzzle, when clues are shrouded in smoke and mirrors, and when criminals skillfully evade law enforcement in a maddening cat-and-mouse chase? Even the most devoted true-crime listener won't predict the outcome of these truly baffling cases until the conclusions revealed in Ann Rule's marvelously insightful narrative.

This audiobook uncovers 10 amazing true crimes that exploded into the national news, shocking Americans from coast to coast - crimes that were eventually forgotten - until now. Many of these incredible cases went unexplored for decades.

To his neighbors, Anthony Sowell was a friendly and helpful former Marine. But they didn't know about his dark side - or the gruesome secret inside his house. Sowell's secret life was revealed to the nation on October 29, 2009, when a Cleveland Police SWAT team entered his house to arrest him for an alleged rape. They didn't find Sowell, but they encountered a nightmarish scene: two decomposed bodies in his third-floor living room. Eight more bodies were hidden throughout the house and buried in the back yard.

In Unsolved Serial Killers, Volumes 1 and 2, here is just a fraction of what you will discover explorations of the cities and historical contexts of the killings, so you understand the atmosphere when they were taking place, in-depth profiles of the victims of each killer and what happened to them, and much more. If you're a true crime junkie, you may think you know the world of serial killers inside and out, but prepare to be surprised by what you find within these lines.

Seven Bones is the story of one of the more bizarre murder investigations in Australia’s history. Two wives die in suspicious circumstances: co-incidence or, as husband Thomas Keir describes it, ‘bad luck’? Three years after Thomas Keir alleged his first wife, Jean, deserted him and her young son for another man, his second wife, Rosalina, Jean’s cousin, lay scorched and strangled on her bed. Arriving on the scene, Detective Peter Seymour realised he was either dealing with the world’s unluckiest husband or a serial wife killer.

Joel Rifkin trolled the streets on Manhattan and Long Island under the cover of night searching for a way to ease the intense urges he couldn’t deny. Prostitutes were his targets, and although he allowed some to live, there were many who were much less fortunate. Of all the serial killer audiobooks out there, this one delves into the controversy surrounding the death penalty and discusses whether monsters like Rifkin should be executed or allowed to live their days out in prison.

A chilling genre-busting memoir by a major American essayist. Late in 2004, Maggie Nelson was looking forward to the publication of her book, Jane: A Murder, a narrative in verse about the life and death of her aunt, who had been murdered 35 years before. The case remained unsolved, but Jane was assumed to have been the victim of an infamous serial killer in Michigan in 1969.

It’s a chilling reality that homicide investigators know all too well: The last face most murder victims see is not that of a stranger, but of someone familiar. Whether only an acquaintance or a trusted intimate, such killers share a common trait that triggers the downward spiral toward death for someone close to them: They are masters at hiding who they really are. Their clever masks let them appear safe, kind, and truthful. They are anything but - and almost no one can detect the murderous impulses buried deep in their psyches.

The horrific and disturbing nature of these stories often makes you question everything you thought or believed about humanity. Yet they are engaging and fascinating at the same time. We all had evil thoughts throughout our lives. What is it that makes us different from those who actually act upon it? Is it the act alone? These are questions that many ask themselves, and these stories will help dig into the elements and psychology behind some of the most terrifying killers in history.

We accompany him on the Journey Into Darkness that marks every case he examines; every instance in which he helps police identify the unknown perpetrator of a violent series of rapes, kidnappings, or murders through his remarkable criminal personality profiling.

In 1991, flight attendant Nancy Ludwig checked in to an airport hotel near Detroit. The next morning she was found gagged, raped, and tortured - her throat slit with such rage that she was nearly decapitated. Her husband Arthur never gave up hope that the future would bring enough evidence to close the case. But it was the past that held the clue. In 1985, 55-year-old Margarette Eby, a music professor, met the same grisly death at her cottage in Flint, Michigan. The case went cold - until six years later when the victim's son Mark came upon the story of Nancy Ludwig's slaying.

In 1981, Peter Sutcliffe, the "Yorkshire Ripper", was convicted of 13 murders and seven attempted murders. All his proven victims were women; most were prostitutes. There is a still-secret story of how Sutcliffe's terrible reign of terror claimed at least 22 more lives and left five other victims with terrible injuries. Police and prosecution authorities have long known that Sutcliffe's reign of terror was far longer and far more widespread than the public has been led to believe. But the evidence has been locked away in the files and archives.

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.

Randy Roth was handsome, hardworking, kind, and in top physical shape. But for all his charm and good looks, he was seemingly cursed with the ladies. His first marriage ended in divorce before the couple's fifth anniversary; his second wife plunged to her death during a hike; and his third wife left him after less than five months. But when Roth's fourth wife, Cynthia, drowned in an apparent speedboating accident in Washington State's Lake Sammamish just weeks after their first anniversary, a pattern of suspicious behavior finally caught up to him.