The Legs Murder Scandal

The Legs Murder Scandal
Author: Hunter Cole
Publisher: Univ. Press of Mississippi
Total Pages: 389
Release: 2010-12-01
Genre: True Crime
ISBN: 1604737239

In Laurel, Mississippi, in 1935, one daughter of a wealthy and troubled family stood accused of murdering her mother. On her testimony, authorities suspected an equally prominent and well-to-do businessman, her reputed lover, of assisting. Ouida Keeton apparently shot her mother, chopped her up, and disposed of most of her body parts down the toilet and in the fireplace, burning all but the pelvic region, the thighs, and the legs. Attempting to dispose of these remains on a narrow, one-lane, isolated road, Ouida left a trail of evidence that ended in her arrest. People had seen her driving to the road. Within hours, a hunter and his dogs found the cloth in which she had wrapped her mother’s legs. Touted as the most sensational crime in Mississippi history at the time, the Legs Murder of 1935 is almost entirely forgotten today. The controversial outcome, decided by an unsophisticated jury, has been left muddled by ambiguity. With The Legs Murder Scandal, Hunter Cole presents an intricately detailed description of the separate trials of Ouida Keeton and W. M. Carter. Having researched trial transcripts, courthouse records, medical files, and vast newspaper coverage, the author reveals new facts previously distorted by hearsay, hushed reports, and misinformation. Cole pursues many unanswered questions such as what, really, did Ouida Keeton do with the rest of her mother? The Legs Murder Scandal attempts to provide the reader with clarity in this story, which is outlandish, harrowing, and intriguing, all at once.

Murder at Green Springs

Murder at Green Springs
Author: J.K. Brandau
Publisher: Morgan James Publishing
Total Pages: 512
Release: 2007-12-01
Genre: True Crime
ISBN: 161448063X

The cautionary true crime shocker of Virginia’s Elizabeth Hall, and one of the most sensational trials of an accused murderess since Lizzie Borden. On an April morning in 1914, Victor Hall was murdered in his store at Green Springs Depot. It was only hours after his competitor’s business had been torched. The Louisa County sheriff, state investigator, and railroad detectives suspected Hall's rival, one of a dozen men with viable motives. Then gossip spread that Victor’s wife, Elizabeth, had poisoned her first husband. Coupled with more sordid rumors, the unfounded accusations became irresistibly salacious headlines, whipping the state of Virginia into a frenzy for seven months. Friends and neighbors perjured themselves to become part of the front-page story. And as Hall’s own Pinkerton detective turned against her in the same mad rush to judgment, the widow found herself trapped in a nightmare that was just beginning. A century later, J.K. Brandau, husband of Elizabeth Hall’s great-granddaughter, finally unearths the timely and tragic story in which truth didn’t stand a chance against the most public, lurid, and sensational lies.

Chocolate Cream Pie Murder

Chocolate Cream Pie Murder
Author: Joanne Fluke
Publisher: Kensington
Total Pages: 402
Release: 2020-01-28
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1496718879

The latest irresistible cozy mystery with recipes from a bestselling author that fans of Kathi Daley, Laura Childs, and Jessica Beck will eat up, crumbs and all . . . When The Cookie Jar becomes the setting of a star-studded TV special about movies filmed in Minnesota, Hannah hopes to shine the spotlight on her bakery—not the unsavory scandal swirling around her personal life. But that’s practically impossible with a disturbing visit from the shifty character she once believed was her one and only love, a group of bodyguards following her every move, and a murder victim in her bedroom. Now, swapping the crime scene in her condo for her mother Delores’s penthouse, Hannah and an old flame team up to solve a case that’s messier than an upended chocolate cream pie. As suspects emerge and secrets hit close to home, Hannah must serve a hefty helping of justice to an unnamed killer prowling around Lake Eden . . . before someone takes a slice out of her! Features Over a Dozen Cookie and Dessert Recipes from The Cookie Jar! “Hannah’s fans will relish following Hannah’s journey as she heals and becomes stronger, surrounded by the love of family and the many familiar, quirky residents of Lake Eden.” —Booklist

Scandal at the Cahill Saloon

Scandal at the Cahill Saloon
Author: Carol Arens
Publisher: Harlequin
Total Pages: 282
Release: 2012-01-01
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1459219538

Leanna Cahill: Guardian Angel or Scarlet Woman? Leanna Cahill, once the pretty, spoiled darling of Cahill Crossing, is coming home to a very different sort of welcome. As an unwed, single mother with a band of former ladies-of-the-night in tow, her reputation is in tatters! Cleve Holden, itinerant gambler and inveterate charmer, seems intent on seducing Leanna. But he has come to town for one reason and one reason only: to take back his abandoned nephew from the scarlet woman pretending to be his mother….

The Midnight Assassin

The Midnight Assassin
Author: Skip Hollandsworth
Publisher: Henry Holt and Company
Total Pages: 512
Release: 2016-04-05
Genre: History
ISBN: 0805097686

A New York Times bestseller, The Midnight Assassin is a sweeping narrative history of a terrifying serial killer--America's first--who stalked Austin, Texas in 1885. In the late 1800s, the city of Austin, Texas was on the cusp of emerging from an isolated western outpost into a truly cosmopolitan metropolis. But beginning in December 1884, Austin was terrorized by someone equally as vicious and, in some ways, far more diabolical than London's infamous Jack the Ripper. For almost exactly one year, the Midnight Assassin crisscrossed the entire city, striking on moonlit nights, using axes, knives, and long steel rods to rip apart women from every race and class. At the time the concept of a serial killer was unthinkable, but the murders continued, the killer became more brazen, and the citizens' panic reached a fever pitch. Before it was all over, at least a dozen men would be arrested in connection with the murders, and the crimes would expose what a newspaper described as "the most extensive and profound scandal ever known in Austin." And yes, when Jack the Ripper began his attacks in 1888, London police investigators did wonder if the killer from Austin had crossed the ocean to terrorize their own city. With vivid historical detail and novelistic flair, Texas Monthly journalist Skip Hollandsworth brings this terrifying saga to life.

Murder in the Crooked House

Murder in the Crooked House
Author: Soji Shimada
Publisher: Pushkin Press
Total Pages: 343
Release: 2019-01-31
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1782274642

The sequel to the acclaimed Tokyo Zodiac Murders – a fiendish locked room mystery from the Japanese master of the genre The Crooked House sits on a snowbound cliff at the remote northern tip of Japan. A curious place to build a house, but even more curious is the house itself – a maze of sloping floors and strange staircases, full of bloodcurdling masks and uncanny dolls. When a guest is found murdered in seemingly impossible circumstances, the police are called. But they are unable to solve the puzzle, and more bizarre deaths follow. Enter Kiyoshi Mitarai, the renowned sleuth. Surely if anyone can crack these cryptic murders it is him. But you have all the clues too - can you solve the mystery of the murders in The Crooked House first? Born in 1948 in Hiroshima prefecture, Soji Shimada has been dubbed the 'God of Mystery' by international audiences. A novelist, essayist and short-story writer, he made his literary debut in 1981 with The Tokyo Zodiac Murders, which was shortlisted for the Edogawa Rampo Prize. Blending classical detective fiction with grisly violence and elements of the occult, he has gone on to publish several highly acclaimed series of mystery fiction. He is the author of 100+ works in total. In 2009 Shimada received the prestigious Japan Mystery Literature Award in recognition of his life's work.

When Evil Lived in Laurel: The "White Knights" and the Murder of Vernon Dahmer

When Evil Lived in Laurel: The
Author: Curtis Wilkie
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Total Pages: 483
Release: 2021-06-15
Genre: History
ISBN: 1324005769

One of NPR's Best Books of the Year Finalist for the 2022 Edgar Award for Best Fact Crime The inside story of how a courageous FBI informant helped to bring down the KKK organization responsible for a brutal civil rights–era killing. By early 1966, the work of Vernon Dahmer was well known in south Mississippi. A light-skinned Black man, he was a farmer, grocery store owner, and two-time president of the Forrest County chapter of the NAACP. He and Medgar Evers founded a youth NAACP chapter in Hattiesburg, and for years after Evers’s assassination Dahmer was the chief advocate for voting rights in a county where Black registration was shamelessly suppressed. This put Dahmer in the crosshairs of the White Knights, with headquarters in nearby Laurel. Already known as one of the most violent sects of the KKK in the South, the group carried out his murder in a raid that burned down his home and store. A year before, Tom Landrum, a young, unassuming member of a family with deep Mississippi roots, joined the Klan to become an FBI informant. He penetrated the White Knights’ secret circles, recording almost daily journal entries. He risked his life, and the safety of his young family, to chronicle extensively the clandestine activities of the Klan. Veteran journalist Curtis Wilkie draws on his exclusive access to Landrum’s journals to re-create these events—the conversations, the incendiary nighttime meetings, the plans leading up to Dahmer’s murder and its erratic execution—culminating in the conviction and imprisonment of many of those responsible for Dahmer’s death. In riveting detail, When Evil Lived in Laurel plumbs the nature and harrowing consequences of institutional racism, and brings fresh light to this chapter in the history of civil rights in the South—one with urgent implications for today.

The Greene Murder Case

The Greene Murder Case
Author: S. S. Van Dine
Publisher: Read Books Ltd
Total Pages: 353
Release: 2016-01-18
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1473379865

This early work by S. S. Van Dine was originally published in 1928 and we are now republishing it with a brand new introduction. 'The Greene Murder Case' is one of Van Dine's novels of crime and mystery. S. S. Van Dine was born Willard Huntington Wright in Charlottesville, Virginia in 1888. He attended St. Vincent College, Pomona College and Harvard University, but failed to graduate, leaving to cultivate contacts he had made in the literary world. At the age of twenty-one, Wright began his professional writing career as literary editor of the Los Angeles Times. In 1926, Wright published his first S. S. Van Dine novel, The Benson Murder Case. Wright went on to write eleven more mysteries. The first few books about his upper-class amateur sleuth, Philo Vance, were so popular that Wright became wealthy for the first time in his life. His later books declined in popularity as the reading public's tastes in mystery fiction changed, but during the late twenties and early thirties his work was very successful.

Death on Ocean Boulevard

Death on Ocean Boulevard
Author: Caitlin Rother
Publisher: Citadel Press
Total Pages: 402
Release: 2021-04-27
Genre: True Crime
ISBN: 0806540907

“[This] is one of the great crime mysteries of modern times. It took an author of Caitlin Rother’s caliber to bring it into sharp focus. A riveting read.” —Gregg Olsen, #1 New York Times bestselling author “I got a girl, hung herself in the guest house.” The call came on the morning of July 13, 2011, from the historic Spreckels Mansion, a lavish beachfront property in Coronado, California, owned by pharmaceutical tycoon and multimillionaire Jonah Shacknai. When authorities arrived, they found the naked body of Jonah’s girlfriend, Rebecca Zahau, gagged, her ankles tied and her wrists bound behind her. Jonah’s brother, Adam, claimed to have found Rebecca hanging by a rope from the second-floor balcony. On a bedroom door in black paint were the cryptic words: SHE SAVED HIM CAN YOU SAVE HER. Was this scrawled message a suicide note or a killer’s taunt? Rebecca’s death came two days after Jonah’s six-year-old son, Max, took a devastating fall while in Rebecca’s care. Authorities deemed Rebecca’s death a suicide resulting from her guilt. But who would stage either a suicide ora murder in such a bizarre, elaborate way? Award-winning investigative journalist Caitlin Rother weaves stunning new details into a personal yet objective examination of the sensational case. She explores its many layers—including the civil suit in which a jury found Adam Shacknai responsible for Rebecca’s death, and the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department bombshell decision to reconfirm its original findings. As compelling as it is troubling, this controversial real-life mystery is a classic American tragedy that evokes the same haunting fascination as the JonBenet Ramsey and O.J. Simpson cases. “Rother’s meticulous journalism shines through in this authoritative account of the Rebecca Zahau death incident. If you think you know this case, think again. And read this book.” —Katherine Ramsland, professor of forensic psychology and author of The Psychology of Death Investigations

Verity

Verity
Author: Colleen Hoover
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Total Pages: 295
Release: 2021-10-05
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 153872474X

Whose truth is the lie? Stay up all night reading the sensational psychological thriller that has readers obsessed, from the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Too Late and It Ends With Us. #1 New York Times Bestseller · USA Today Bestseller · Globe and Mail Bestseller · Publishers Weekly Bestseller Lowen Ashleigh is a struggling writer on the brink of financial ruin when she accepts the job offer of a lifetime. Jeremy Crawford, husband of bestselling author Verity Crawford, has hired Lowen to complete the remaining books in a successful series his injured wife is unable to finish. Lowen arrives at the Crawford home, ready to sort through years of Verity’s notes and outlines, hoping to find enough material to get her started. What Lowen doesn’t expect to uncover in the chaotic office is an unfinished autobiography Verity never intended for anyone to read. Page after page of bone-chilling admissions, including Verity's recollection of the night her family was forever altered. Lowen decides to keep the manuscript hidden from Jeremy, knowing its contents could devastate the already grieving father. But as Lowen’s feelings for Jeremy begin to intensify, she recognizes all the ways she could benefit if he were to read his wife’s words. After all, no matter how devoted Jeremy is to his injured wife, a truth this horrifying would make it impossible for him to continue loving her.