Showing results by author "R. Barri Flowers" in All Categories

Spanning murder cases from the beginning of the 20th century to today, this is a must-hear for fans of true crime and will also be compelling to mystery and thriller listeners. The contributors include Harold Schechter, Katherine Ramsland, Carol Anne Davis, Burl Barer, and other leading writers in this genre. Each of the 17 contributors draws on his or her own strengths, backgrounds, interests, and research skills to describe, in a vivid narrative, not only the facts of each notorious case but also the terrible emotions and macabre circumstances surrounding the crimes.

A marriage made in hell.... Barely five feet tall, sweet and innocent looking, Charlene Gallego used all of her charms to beguile pretty teenage girls and young women into the back of a van, where her lethal husband, Gerald, lay waiting. A killer couple bound together by secrets, lies, and sex slave fantasies... Married multiple times and still in his early 30s, Gerald Gallego found the perfect companion in Charlene. Over a grisly period of twenty-six months, their bloody and brutal rampage of kidnapping, rape, and murder spanned three states and claimed 11 lives.

Serial Killers and Prostitutes taps into the best-selling author's expertise on serial murderers and sex trade workers in offering an in-depth look at four noteworthy cases in which the two worlds collide.

Thirteen-year-old Mary Phagan arrived at the National Pencil Factory in Atlanta, Georgia, where she worked, to pick up her paycheck. The next day, Mary’s bloody, battered, and bruised dead body was found in the basement of the pencil factory, the victim of foul play. The Jewish-American factory superintendent Leo Frank was arrested, tried, and convicted for the murder in a controversial trial. Frank himself became the victim of a lynch mob, when they broke him out of prison and hung him from a tree.

Women’s fiction author Irene Stoddard thought she had it all with a successful husband Robert and their daughter Patty, while making a good life for themselves in Boston. But that all changed when, in the middle of Patty’s eighth birthday party, Irene caught Robert in their own bed with a sexy neighbor. In spite of feeling devastated by this betrayal, Irene chose to stay in the marriage for the sake of their daughter.

In the late 1970s, a serial killer prowled the campus of Michigan State University, terrorizing students and faculty alike. Donald Miller was a graduate of MSU's renowned School of Criminal Justice, but somehow went awry and turned into a monster, targeting pretty coeds for sexual assault and murder. Miller's victims included his ex-fiancée. Only after the killer was brought to justice could the campus return to normal, as a place for education and enjoyment. Donald Miller's path from promising criminal justice grad to deadly criminal is chronicled in this riveting short.

On the evening of Monday, February 25, 1867, Mary Ellen Coriell was brutally murdered at her home in Newmarket, New Jersey. The cold-blooded nature of the murder was shocking enough for residents of the town and elsewhere, but even more disturbing was that the culprit turned out to be the victim's housemaid, an attractive young Irishwoman named Bridget Durgan.

One case that stood out to Flowers for its sheer brutality as well as shocking aftermath was that of Karla Faye Tucker and Daniel Garrett, who used a pickaxe to hack to death two people. It began in the wee hours of June 13, 1983, in Houston, Texas, as lovers Tucker and Garrett broke into the apartment of Jerry Lynn Dean. By the time the couple left, Dean and his companion, Deborah Thornton, were dead following a vicious attack with a pickaxe and hammer.

In this frightening tale of dark fantasies, pornography, rape, and murder, British serial killers Ian Brady and Myra Hindley targeted children in the early 1960s - killing five and burying most of them in the Saddleworth Moor in Northern England - before being brought to justice. Included as a bonus is a complete true crime short, The Sunset Strip Killers, about serial killers Douglas Clark and Carol Mary Bundy, who targeted runaways and prostitutes in Hollywood, California in 1980 for rape, torture and murder.

On April 3, 1961, 38-year-old former vocalist Ella Mae Cooley was beaten to death in her home in Willow Springs, an unincorporated area located in Kern County, California. The cruelty of the crime was shocking to local residents in the normally idyllic community. A greater shock was that the murder was committed by the victim's 50-year-old husband, Donnell Clyde Cooley, a well-known big-band leader, musician, actor, host of a television variety show, and businessman. See how this tragic story of celebrity, suspicion, and homicidal rage unfolds in the historical crime of passion.

Three years ago, Miami defense attorney Grace Gaynor was the victim of a violent sexual assault in which she killed her attacker. She has been undergoing therapy to deal with the trauma. When her therapist Doctor Austin Winchester, whom she had begun to develop feelings for, is arrested and charged with the violent murder of her friend Kara Pedrosa, Grace reluctantly takes on his case for her law firm of Kendall, Francois, and Larosa.

When sixteen-year-old Paige Preston and her mother relocated to Dead Lake, Michigan, they were unaware that a seventeen-year-old previous resident of their house had killed himself by jumping off a cliff into the lake six months earlier. But was it really suicide? Noah Snyder is a ghost. At least he thinks so. Only he's not sure how he died. He recruits the cute Paige to help him get to the bottom of the mystery so he can move on.

In the wee hours of the morning on November 13, 1974, shots rang out in the upscale home at 112 Ocean Avenue in Amityville, New York, a village within the town of Babylon. The house belonged to forty-three year old Ronald DeFeo, Sr. and his forty-two year old wife, Louise, who lived there with their five children, ranging in age for nine to twenty-three. The DeFeos and four of their children were shot to death, execution style, while in bed.

Sally Keller decides to visit Farmer Pete's farm next door, where the animals and other creatures she meets along the way warn her to stay away from mean Greeley, the goat.

Leonard Lake and Charles Ng left their dark mark on society as two of America's worst and most appalling serial killers. Between 1984 and 1985, the unlikely homicidal pair perpetrated their sex-motivated crimes at a secluded cabin and adjacent custom-made bunker of horrors in an unincorporated area in Calaveras County, California, where they brought abducted victims, sexually assaulted, tortured, and murdered, often videotaping their heinous crimes for their sick pleasure.

The gripping tale chronicles the lives of Britain's most infamous husband and wife serial killers couple. Over the course of two decades, Fred and Rosemary West murdered more than a dozen young females. Most of the murders were sexually motivated and took place at the couple's house of horrors on 25 Cromwell Street in Gloucester, in South West England. Only when the killers were brought to justice did their murderous reign of rape, torture, bondage, and terror come to an end.

16-year-old Kula Lockhart attends Transylvanica High School - one of several integrated pilot schools across the country where human and vampire students peacefully coexist. Kula is caught completely off guard upon learning that she is the half human daughter of Count Dracula, She soon discovers that someone is killing vampires and Kula fears she may be on the hit list. Staying alive becomes a priority as she adjusts to her birthright. She also has a hot human boyfriend named Eriq. Will he accept her for who she is?

To discover why a fellow DEA agent was murdered, Dex Adair is undercover at Kauai’s most beautiful resort. And when its owner, Katrina Sizemore, receives threatening letters, Dex wonders if her husband’s recent death could be connected. But uncovering an insidious conspiracy together means Dex and Katrina must put their fragile trust—and irresistible passion—on one deadly line …

Street Kids: The Lives of Runaway and Thrownaway Teens, Second Edition, by award-winning and best-selling criminologist R. Barri Flowers, is an audiobook that examines the pathway from home to homeless for runaways and thrownaways, including precursors to life on the street. Street Kids will be a useful source for child welfare advocates, academics, professionals, sociologists, criminologists, researchers, laypersons, and others with an interest in the plight and mistreatment of children living on the streets or away from a safe home environment.

The Runaway Rabbit Named Robbie is a fun children's adventure story about a rabbit who, along with his pet frog, Pepper, decide to run away from home. Children will enjoy the charming tale of Robbie Rabbit and his various encounters in the forest as he and Pepper find themselves lost on their journey.