Cary Stayner: the True Story of the Yosemite Park Killer

Cary Stayner: the True Story of the Yosemite Park Killer
Author: Jack Rosewood
Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
Total Pages: 102
Release: 2015-08-09
Genre: Murder
ISBN: 9781516893089

While some would say that American serial killer Cary Stayner was influenced by family tragedy - his already-troubled family was shattered when his brother was abducted for seven years and held as a sex slave before his heroic return inspired the miniseries "I Know My First Name Is Steven" - in reality, Cary Stayner's true crime story is much more ominous. The handsome, outdoorsy guy with a love for marijuana, nude beaches and the Sierra Nevada mountain range where he once spotted Bigfoot had been harboring fantasies of brutally killing women years before his brother's abduction turned the Stayner family upside down. And in the annals of historical serial killers, Stayner's story stands out, because for months he made one of the most beautiful places on earth a nightmare for women when California's majestic Yosemite National Park became his own devil's playground, and he finally found himself unable to control his long-suppressed urges. Because he didn't look menacing, the man one FBI agent compared to actor Tom Laughlin in "Billy Jack" was able to gain the trust of his victims, and three vacationing women who were staying at the lodge where he lived and worked during the busy tourist season and a nature-loving teacher who help kids become stewards of the land she loved made that fatal mistake before they were savagely, sadistically murdered. The biography of serial killer Cary Stayner and his psychopathic crime spree leaves spine-tingling chills, because as far as the outside world was concerned, he was a fairly normal guy who found himself uncontrollably compelled to kill. Stayner has been on death row in California's famed San Quentin for more than 10 years, but for the families of his victims, no punishment is just enough to make up for the vibrant lives Stayner took, making him one of the most depraved American serial killers in contemporary history.

I Know My First Name Is Steven

I Know My First Name Is Steven
Author: Mike Echols
Publisher: Pinnacle Books
Total Pages: 372
Release: 1999
Genre: True Crime
ISBN: 9780786011049

In 1972, the Steven Stayner story chocked the nation. Now the next terrible chapter unfolds as his brother Cary admits he's the Yosemite killer.

Cary Stayner

Cary Stayner
Author: Jack Rosewood
Publisher:
Total Pages: 95
Release: 2015
Genre: Murder
ISBN:

In the Name of the Children

In the Name of the Children
Author: Jeffrey L. Rinek
Publisher: BenBella Books
Total Pages: 254
Release: 2018-07-17
Genre: True Crime
ISBN: 1946885282

"The voice that narrates In the Name of the Children: An F.B.I. Agent's Relentless Pursuit of the Nation's Worst Predators, which Rinek wrote with the journalist Marilee Strong, sounds warm and humane, qualities missing from much crime writing. Their book is a professional job, filled with illuminating details about the day-to-day operations of the bureau." —New York Times Book Review FBI Special Agent Jeff Rinek had a gift for getting child predators to confess. All he had to do was share a piece of his soul . . . In the Name of the Children gives an unflinching look at what it's like to fight a never-ending battle against an enemy far more insidious than terrorists: the predators, lurking amongst us, who seek to harm our children. During his 30-year career with the FBI, Jeff Rinek worked hundreds of investigations involving crimes against children: from stranger abduction to serial homicide to ritualized sexual abuse. Those who do this kind of work are required to plumb the depths of human depravity, to see things no one should ever have to see—and once seen can never forget. There is no more important—or more brutal—job in law enforcement, and few have been more successful than Rinek at solving these sort of cases. Most famously, Rinek got Cary Stayner to confess to all four of the killings known as the Yosemite Park Murders, an accomplishment made more extraordinary by the fact that the FBI nearly pinned the crimes on the wrong suspects. Rinek's recounting of the confession and what he learned about Stayner provides perhaps the most revelatory look ever inside the psyche of a serial killer and a privileged glimpse into the art of interrogation. In the Name of the Children takes readers into the trenches of real-time investigations where every second counts and any wrong decision or overlooked fact can have tragic repercussions. Rinek offers an insider's perspective of the actual case agents and street detectives who are the boots on the ground in this war at home. By placing us inside the heart and mind of a rigorously honest and remarkably self-reflective investigator, we will see with our own eyes what it takes—and what it costs—to try to keep our children safe and to bring to justice those who prey on society's most vulnerable victims. With each chapter dedicated to a real case he worked, In the Name of the Children also explores the evolution of Rinek as a Special Agent—whose unorthodox, empathy-based approach to interviewing suspects made him extraordinarily successful in obtaining confessions—and the toll it took to have such intimate contact with child molesters and murderers. Beyond exploring the devastating impact of these unthinkable crimes on the victims and their families, this book offers an unprecedented look at how investigators and their loved ones cope while living in the specter of so much suffering.

Edmund Kemper: the True Story of the Co-Ed Killer

Edmund Kemper: the True Story of the Co-Ed Killer
Author: Jack Rosewood
Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
Total Pages: 102
Release: 2015-07-11
Genre:
ISBN: 9781514746967

American serial killer Edmund Kemper III stalked co-eds in California at the height of the era of peace and free love, dismembering his victims and tossing their body parts in remote areas around Santa Cruz. As pieces of young women began washing up on shore and turning up alongside rural highways, female residents - especially college students - were decidedly on edge. A lust killer who savored the act of decapitating his victims - and often used their severed heads for sexual pleasure - Kemper's story is particularly twisted among historical serial killers. Still, the true crime tale of Edmund Kemper is particularly fascinating, because the man many people called "a gentle giant" was a near genius whose cunning manipulation of others made him particularly depraved and dangerous. This true crime story, a detailed biography of one of the most psychopathic serial killers of our time, shares some insight into the troubled childhood and awkward nature that led the American serial killer to take 10 lives, including those of six pretty co-eds, his paternal grandparents, his calculatingly cruel mother and his mother's best friend. Among historical serial killers, Kemper is especially depraved, since he included necrophilia and cannibalism in his gruesome mix of sordid criminal activity. Ultimately, Kemper's murderous inclinations and urges to kill were satisfied after he bludgeoned to death his mother, a woman he'd hated since he was eight years old, and he turned himself in. But if he hadn't finally acted on his long-held fantasy to end his mother's life, he might still be trolling California highways, getting away with murder.

William Bonin: the True Story of the Freeway Killer

William Bonin: the True Story of the Freeway Killer
Author: Jack Rosewood
Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
Total Pages: 128
Release: 2015-11-25
Genre:
ISBN: 9781519631190

In the 1970s and early '80s, southern California was shocked when dead boys began turning up with disturbing regularity alongside some of the picturesque state's most heavily traveled freeways. Victims of sadistic torture, the dead boys and young men had been raped and strangled, and their untimely deaths were eventually attributed to the Freeway Killer, an elusive psychopath whose trail of death would go down in California history as one of the worst true crime stories in the country. While the Freeway Killer ultimately turned out to be three different men, one of them was truck driver William Bonin, one of the most prolific and sadistic among American serial killers. Bonin usually preferred to work with an accomplice, and the lust killer and his cronies brutally raped and tortured his victims - Bonin loved the sounds of their screams - before strangling them and dumping them on the side of the road like garbage. Bonin confessed to committing 21 murders in the span of just a year, although many experts believe he was responsible for the deaths of many more missing young men. He was executed in 1996, and in this detailed serial killer biography, you'll learn the background that might offer some understanding of what makes a man go off the rails and become a deranged lust killer. Of course, spine-tingling story of a man whose youngest victim was a 12-year-old who was waiting for a bus to take him to Disneyland might be one that causes you to sleep with the lights on for weeks after turning the final gruesome page.

Christopher Wilder

Christopher Wilder
Author: Jack Rosewood
Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
Total Pages: 138
Release: 2016-04-28
Genre:
ISBN: 9781533070302

Of all the many psychopaths and sociopaths that have hunted for human victims throughout history, few have been more disturbing or mysterious than Christopher Bernard Wilder - the beauty queen killer. From the middle of the 1960s until 1984, Wilder sexually assaulted countless women and murdered at least nine in Australia and the United States. The beauty queen killer was not only a true psychopath, but also a hunter as he carefully chose attractive girls and young women to victimize. But Wilder was no creepy looking killer; he was an attractive, articulate man who used a camera and offers of a modelling career to get his unsuspecting, naive victims to remote locations where he would then rape, torture, and ultimately kill them. Among serial killer biographies, Wilder's is a cautionary tale. First as a juvenile and later as a young man, Wilder was arrested on numerous occasions for sexual assaults in both Australia and United States; but he never served any time behind bars due to technicalities, witnesses refusing to testify, or the judges showing sympathy towards the beauty queen killer. When one considers some of the better known American crime stories from history, many red-flags are apparent that point towards the future criminal potential of an individual: for Wilder, the flags were bright, crimson, quite large, and difficult to avoid, yet were ignored by his friends, family, and the authorities. Christopher Wilder's saga is therefore not just a true crime murder story, but also an unfortunate example of how the system can fail to protect the public from a known sexual sadist. Open the pages of this intriguing book and read the story of an American serial killer who had it all: looks, money, and beautiful women. But as this captivating true crime story will reveal, nothing was ever enough for the beauty queen killer as he killed his way across the United States in order to satisfy his sadistic lust. Aspects of the Christopher Bernard Wilder story will disturb you, but at the same time you will find it difficult to put this serial killer biography down because you will be drawn in by the FBI's hunt to capture the elusive criminal."

Trifles

Trifles
Author: Susan Glaspell
Publisher:
Total Pages: 40
Release: 1916
Genre: One-act plays
ISBN:

Dean Corll

Dean Corll
Author: Jack Rosewood
Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2015-09-10
Genre: Serial murderers
ISBN: 9781517485009

In an area of Houston known as the Heights, boys had been going missing for years, but it was the peace-and-love 1970s, so police just called them runaways, even if they'd left with little more than a swimsuit and some change. When the truth was uncovered, and police - and the rest of Houston - realized the boys had become victims of notorious American serial killer Dean Corll, Houston recoiled in horrified shock. Residents realized that they had not only become the site of the most grisly mass murder in Texas history, but the worst mass murder in all of U.S. history. The word serial killer had not yet been coined, and as body after decomposing body was uncovered from the dirt floor of the boat shed where Corll and his two young accomplishes had buried most of the victims, there were hardly words for what this sadistic lust killer had done. The depraved evil that Corll and his accomplices - two teen boys themselves who were promised money but eventually developed a thrill for the kill - was revealed as one of the cohorts, Wayne Henley, calmly, affably, told the stories of how after Corll sexually assaulting them and tortured them in unimaginable fashion, they would kill them and take the boys' bodies away to bury them beneath the dirt. This serial killer's biography will haunt you, especially as you learn more about the sadistic torture methods lust killer Corll used on his young victims, all lured to his various apartments by people they believed were their friends. While Corll is dead, killed by Henley during the lust killer's last night of depravity, the case remains entwined in Houston history, and unforgettable for the families of those who lived it.

Patrick Kearney

Patrick Kearney
Author: Jack Rosewood
Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
Total Pages: 122
Release: 2016-06-28
Genre:
ISBN: 9781535044639

Patrick Wayne Kearney had a grudge. The American serial killer had been small and scrawny as a kid, and his classmates bullied him mercilessly. As a result, Kearney took his rage out on young men who either made the mistake of hitching a ride with him or catching his eye at a gay bar or bathhouse. In the process, he became one of the most prolific serial killers in California history. This serial killer biography goes behind the scenes, exploring the background that led to Kearney's horrific acts as well as the swath of death that the man who would become known as the Trash Bag Killer would carve across California. In the world of true crime murder, Kearney was a monster who preyed upon unsuspected boys and young men, and after they were dead, he used their bodies for sexual satisfaction before dismembering them and bagging them neatly up in industrial-size garbage bags. With the innocent looks of an accountant, Kearney seemed like a normal guy, if you didn't hear the gunshots - or happen to look out your window while the serial killer was taking out the trash. In the 1970s, this serial killer had California on edge. Today, Kearney's true crime story will have you on the edge of your seat, wondering how one man could so easily conjure up the devil and bring him so dreadfully to life.