Nonfiction Murders

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...

In the summer of 1967, 19-year-old Brenda Joyce Holland disappeared. She was a mountain girl who had come to Manteo to work in the outdoor drama The Lost Colony. Her body was found five days later, floating in the sound. This riveting narrative, built on unique access to the state investigative file and multiple interviews with insiders, searches for the truth of her unsolved murder. This island odyssey of discovery includes seances, a suicide, and a supposed shallow grave. Journalist John Railey cuts through the myths and mistakes to finally arrive at the long-hidden truth.

David Parrish was in disbelief when he learned that 19-year-old Jon Bowie's body had been found hanged from a backstop at the local high school's baseball field and the death declared a suicide. David had known Jon and his twin brother since they were boys. He had coached them on the baseball field and welcomed them into his home for sleepovers with his own sons. However, when David learned how Jon's body was found, he felt compelled to find the facts behind this incomprehensible tragedy.

In August of 1975, Hampton, NH Police Officer Robert McLaughlin arrested Robert Cushing Sr. for disorderly conduct. The following month, McLaughlin arrested Cushing's neighbor Gladys Ring. As a result, Robert Cushing and his son Renny, attempted to get McLaughlin and another officer fired for their "heavy handed tactics." The officers were cleared of any wrongdoing but McLaughlin didn't forget and blamed Robert Cushing for his lack of advancement in the police department over the years. The resentment simmered and built while McLaughlin's stress level from previous life events and the job ...

Two men, each handsome and unusually adept at his chosen work, embodied an element of the great dynamic that characterized America’s rush toward the twentieth century. The architect was Daniel Hudson Burnham, the fair’s brilliant director of works and the builder of many of the country’s most important structures, including the Flatiron Building in New York and Union Station in Washington, D.C. The murderer was Henry H. Holmes, a young doctor who, in a malign parody of the White City, built his “World’s Fair Hotel” just west of the fairgrounds.

On the eve of a major treaty conference between Iroquois leaders and European colonists in the distant summer of 1722, two White fur traders attacked an Indigenous hunter and left him for dead near Conestoga, Pennsylvania. This act of brutality set into motion a remarkable series of criminal investigations and cross-cultural negotiations that challenged the definition of justice in early America. Leading historian Nicole Eustace reconstructs the crime and its aftermath, bringing us into the overlapping worlds of white colonists and Indigenous peoples in this formative period.

Minutes into this rollicking good story, the central figure, Lee Chagra, comes alive: "[Lee] washed his morning cocaine down with strong coffee and remembered the time he had met Sinatra, how genuine he appeared." Everything you'll need to know and remember about Chagra - the son of Syrian immigrants to Mexico and an attorney who spun the world of dope-running, border-crossing, high-living outlaws along the El Paso-Juarez border around his finger like the gaudy rings he favored - can be neatly summarized in that one sentence.

Shots rang out in Savannah's grandest mansion in the misty,early morning hours of May 2, 1981. Was it murder or self-defense? For nearly a decade, the shooting and its aftermath reverberated throughout this hauntingly beautiful city of moss-hung oaks and shaded squares. John Berendt's sharply observed, suspenseful, and witty narrative flows like a thoroughly engrossing novel, and yet it is a work of nonfiction.

Serial sexual homicide is a crime that is committed purely for sexual gratification. Well known serial killers such as Ted Bundy, John Wayne Gacy, and BTK were all motivated by power, sexuality, and brutality. These types of murders often receive widespread publicity, and create a sense of fear due to their nonsensical, motiveless, and random nature. At some point in the killer’s life, their sexual urges and arousal become intertwined with sadism – taking sexual pleasure from their victim’s fear, humiliation, physical, and emotional pain. The obsession often takes root during the ...

Defying both civil authorities and the Mormon establishment in Salt Lake City, the renegade leaders of these Taliban-like theocracies are zealots who answer only to God; some 40,000 people still practice polygamy in these communities. At the core of Krakauer’s book are brothers Ron and Dan Lafferty, who insist they received a commandment from God to kill a blameless woman and her baby girl. Beginning with a meticulously researched account of this appalling double murder, Krakauer constructs a bone-chilling narrative of messianic delusion, polygamy, savage violence, and unyielding faith.

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 ...

Imagine having everything taken away from you - permanently - with no hope of resuming a normal life. This is the case for many teenagers in America who are tried and convicted as adults for the crime of murder. Here Susan Kuklin takes you behind bars for frank interviews with a collection of young men who will spend the better part of their lives in jail. She lets them speak for themselves, providing the raw details of their incarceration and the anger, despair, and surprising hope they experience every day. Kuklin also provides an in-depth look at the American penal system, highlighting its many intricacies and inequities while focusing on capital cases involving juveniles.

In 1941, with London burning in the Blitz, a group of hedonistic English nobles partied shamelessly in Kenya. Far removed from falling bombs, the wealthy elites of "Happy Valley" indulged in morphine, alcohol, and unrestricted sex, often with their friends' spouses. But the party turned sinister in the early hours of a January morning for Josslyn Hay, Lord Erroll, who had been enjoying the favors of the beautiful young wife of a middle-aged neighbor. Hay was found dead, a bullet in his brain.

Killers of the Zodiac - Fire Signs looks at 9 serial killers and the different astrological signs they belong to, the year they were born, and the crimes they committed. Included, you will find killers from The Houses of Aries, Sagittarius, and Leo. Female Serial Killer Judias Buenoano moves from state to state, changing husbands along the way. The problem is people around here keep mysteriously dying. Is she the most unlucky woman alive? Or has she been killing everyone that stands between her and a payday? Jesse Pomeroy is one of the youngest killers of all time who was not only caught ...

Step into the shadows of 1948 New York, where the once-blissful marriage of Robert and Vera Lotito takes a nightmarish turn in "The Murder of Vera Lotito." In this gripping true crime novel, author Rod Kackley unravels a tale of love, betrayal, and a brutality that shocks the very essence of post-war New York society. It's March, and the city pulses with life, but for Robert Lotito, the rhythm of happiness abruptly halts. A chilling discovery awaits him in the confines of their apartment – Vera, his bride of four months, lies lifeless on the floor, a tableau of horror painted in her own ...

In 1927, while the majority of the township of Bath, Michigan, was celebrating a new primary school - one of the most modern in the Midwest - Andrew P. Kehoe had other plans. The local farmer and school board treasurer was educated, respected, and an accommodating neighbor and friend. But behind his ordinary demeanor was a narcissistic sadist seething with rage, resentment, and paranoia. On May 18 he detonated a set of rigged explosives with the sole purpose of destroying the school and everyone in it.

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.

The victim's on trial in this tragic true crime story that captivated two nations when the killer’s attorneys unleashed a 50 Shades of Grey Defense. A young woman sets off on a yearlong, around the world, backpacking trip. Six weeks into the adventure of a lifetime, she meets the wrong guy, at the wrong time. Her dream ends in every father's worst nightmare. Their night of sex games ends in death. What follows is a tragic story that captivates the attention of people battling violence against women in two nations as the killer’s attorneys make a controversial case for their client with ...

Before Alex Marzano-Lesnevich begins a summer job at a law firm in Louisiana, working to help defend men accused of murder, they think their position is clear. The child of two lawyers, Alex is staunchly anti-death penalty. But the moment convicted murderer Ricky Langley’s face flashes on the screen as Alex reviews old tapes—the moment they hear him speak of his crimes—they are overcome with the feeling of wanting him to die. Shocked by their reaction, Alex digs deeper and deeper into the case.

In 1978, the bloody conflict in Northern Ireland, known as The Troubles, had reached a boiling point. Hundreds of members of the Irish Republican Army, determined to drive the hated British out of the province—killing soldiers and police, detonating bombs, while arming themselves with firearms and explosives—had been arrested and incarcerated in the notorious British prison known as the Maze.