The Preacher's First Murder

The Preacher's First Murder
Author: K.P. Gresham
Publisher: Epiphany's Flame, L.L.C.
Total Pages: 195
Release: 2021-08-10
Genre: Fiction
ISBN:

He was a good cop until he ran into a bad one. Then, to save what was left of his family and his sanity, Michael Hogan, Jr., entered the Fed's Witness Protection Program and became Pastor Matthew Hayden. Small town Wilks, Texas, should be the perfect place for him to hide. But his new home is no paradise. It may not even be safe. When the remains of a local woman missing for years are discovered, Matt wants only to comfort his grieving congregation. Then a a parishioner with the same build and coloring as Matt is shot, right in the church. Worried that his own cover has been blown, Matt must find the killers—before they find him. He might be a man of God now, but Matt is still a man. And someone wants this man dead

Apparent Danger

Apparent Danger
Author: David Stokes
Publisher: Critical Mass Press
Total Pages: 458
Release: 2019-10-21
Genre:
ISBN: 9781947153110

APPARENT DANGER chronicles what may be the most famous story you have never heard. In the 1920's, the Reverend J. Frank Norris railed against vice and conspiracies he saw everywhere to a congregation of more than 10,000 at First Baptist Church in Fort Worth, Texas, the largest congregation in America, the first "megachurch". Norris controlled a radio station, a tabloid newspaper and a valuable tract of land in downtown Fort Worth. Constantly at odds with the oil boomtown's civic leaders, he aggressively defended his activism, observing, "John the Baptist was into politics."Following the death of William Jennings Bryan, Norris was a national figure poised to become the leading fundamentalist in America. This changed, however, in a moment of violence one sweltering Saturday in July when he shot and killed an unarmed man in his church office. Norris was indicted for murder and, if convicted, would be executed in the state of Texas' electric chair.At a time when newspaper wire services and national retailers were unifying American popular culture as never before, Norris' murder trial was front page news from coast to coast. Set during the Jazz Age, when Prohibition was the law of the land, APPARENT DANGER leads to a courtroom drama pitting some of the most powerful lawyers of the era against each other with the life of a wildly popular, and equally loathed, religious leader hanging in the balance.

The Preacher

The Preacher
Author: Camilla Läckberg
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 436
Release: 2012-02-07
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1451621779

In the sequel to "The Ice Princess, " a series of sadistic murders spanning two generations remains unsolved--and time is running out for the next victim.

Under the Banner of Heaven

Under the Banner of Heaven
Author: Jon Krakauer
Publisher: Anchor
Total Pages: 434
Release: 2004-06-08
Genre: True Crime
ISBN: 1400078997

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • From the author of Into the Wild and Into Thin Air, this extraordinary work of investigative journalism takes readers inside America’s isolated Mormon Fundamentalist communities. • Now an acclaimed FX limited series streaming on HULU. “Fantastic.... Right up there with In Cold Blood and The Executioner’s Song.” —San Francisco Chronicle 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 multi-layered, bone-chilling narrative of messianic delusion, polygamy, savage violence, and unyielding faith. Along the way he uncovers a shadowy offshoot of America’s fastest growing religion, and raises provocative questions about the nature of religious belief.

Preacher's Girl

Preacher's Girl
Author: Jim Schutze
Publisher: Open Road Media Mystery & Thri
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2023-01-10
Genre: Family & Relationships
ISBN: 9781504081993

An "excellent true-crime study" of a female serial killer given the death penalty for poisoning at least three men between 1973 and 1989 (Publishers Weekly). Widowed Blanche Taylor Moore was about to lose her second spouse to symptoms that mysteriously mirrored those that killed her first husband-as well as her previous boyfriend. When an investigation reveals arsenic poisoning, the hideous truth about the wife and mother comes to light. Did the abuse Blanche suffered as a child at the hands of her alcoholic father turn her into a murderer she became? In this riveting true crime account, critically acclaimed journalist Jim Schutze explores the harrowing motivation and chilling details of the lives, loves, and victims of North Carolina's oldest living inmate on death row. "Involving . . . chronicle of the murderous career of a Bible Belt Borgia." -Kirkus Reviews

The Pastor's Wife

The Pastor's Wife
Author: Diane Fanning
Publisher: Macmillan
Total Pages: 332
Release: 2008-11-04
Genre: True Crime
ISBN: 1429988827

When Pastor Matthew Winkler was found dead at his Fourth Street Church of Christ parsonage in Selmer, Tennessee, both police investigators and parishioners were shaken and mystified: How could evil strike this cradle of faith? Meanwhile, Mrs. Winkler and her three daughters were still missing... A frantic search for Mary Winkler and the girls ensued. Once they were found, on a beach in Alabama, Mary was charged with murdering her husband in cold blood. But why did Mary pull the trigger? What sexual and psychological abuses did she allege she had suffered? In the months that followed, the crime—and the Winkler's marriage—would be exposed by the national media; Mary herself even appeared on Oprah. Set in a world of domineering men, obedient wives, and unshakable faith, this is the true story about what happened to Matthew Winkler and THE PASTOR'S WIFE

Murder Most Texan

Murder Most Texan
Author: Bartee Haile
Publisher: Arcadia Publishing
Total Pages: 133
Release: 2014-11-11
Genre: True Crime
ISBN: 1625852622

A chronicle of sixteen ruthless killings from Lone Star history and the dirty details that have shocked and bewildered Texans for decades. Texas has long boasted of its iron fist and strict treatment of criminals. Nevertheless, a number of homicidal scoundrels and fiends have slipped through the state’s justice system despite even the best efforts of the legendary Texas Rangers. In 1877, Texas saw its first high-profile murder case with the slaying of a woman in Jefferson and the subsequent “Diamond Bessie” trial. More than a century later, state legislator Price Daniel Jr., was shot in cold blood by his wife at their home in Liberty, TX. True crime writer and historian Bartee Haile unburies these and other stories from Texas’s murderous past. With these stories and more—from senseless roadside murders to political assassinations—discover the seedy underbelly of the Lone Star State’s murderous past.

Terror by Night

Terror by Night
Author: Terry Caffey
Publisher: Tyndale House Publishers, Inc.
Total Pages: 278
Release: 2011-10-12
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1414335334

At 3:00 a.m. on March 1, 2008, Terry Caffey awoke to find his daughter’s boyfriend standing in his bedroom with a gun. An instant later the teen opened fire, killing Terry’s wife, his two sons, and wounding him 12 times, before setting the house ablaze. Terry fell into deep depression and planned to kill himself, but God intervened. Upon visiting his burned-out property, Terry noticed a scorched scrap of paper from one of his wife’s books leaning against a tree trunk. The page read: “[God,] I couldn’t understand why You would take my family and leave me behind to struggle along without them. And I guess I still don’t totally understand that part of it. But I do believe that You’re sovereign; You’re in control.” That page was like a direct message from God, and it turned Terry’s life around. Now, one year later, Terry is remarried, the adoptive father of two young sons, and working to rebuild his relationship with his 17-year-old daughter, who is currently serving two life sentences in a Texas state penitentiary for her involvement in the crimes. Terror by Night tells the compelling story of how Terry Caffey found peace after his wife and sons were brutally murdered and his teenage daughter implicated in the crime. Sharing never-before-told details about the night of the crime and subsequent murder trial, it explains how Terry was able to forgive the men who murdered his family, and how he even interceded with the prosecutors on their behalf. A powerful example of how the power of forgiveness can bring healing after tragedy and great loss, it shows how God can bring good out of even the darkest tragedies.

Furious Hours

Furious Hours
Author: Casey Cep
Publisher: Vintage
Total Pages: 336
Release: 2019-05-07
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 110194787X

This “superbly written true-crime story” (Michael Lewis, The New York Times Book Review) masterfully brings together the tales of a serial killer in 1970s Alabama and of Harper Lee, the beloved author of To Kill a Mockingbird, who tried to write his story. Reverend Willie Maxwell was a rural preacher accused of murdering five of his family members, but with the help of a savvy lawyer, he escaped justice for years until a relative assassinated him at the funeral of his last victim. Despite hundreds of witnesses, Maxwell’s murderer was acquitted—thanks to the same attorney who had previously defended the reverend himself. Sitting in the audience during the vigilante’s trial was Harper Lee, who spent a year in town reporting on the Maxwell case and many more trying to finish the book she called The Reverend. Cep brings this remarkable story to life, from the horrifying murders to the courtroom drama to the racial politics of the Deep South, while offering a deeply moving portrait of one of our most revered writers.

One Last Kiss

One Last Kiss
Author: Michael W. Cuneo
Publisher: Macmillan
Total Pages: 209
Release: 2012-07-31
Genre: True Crime
ISBN: 1250010985

FROM ADULTERY... Ex-Marine and bodyguard Chris Coleman was a family man with a secret: He wanted to leave his wife for another woman, Tara Lintz. But as head of security for the world-famous Joyce Meyer Ministries—an evangelical organization that frowns on divorce—Coleman had to make other plans. TO MURDER... On May 5, 2009, Illinois police received a call from Coleman, who claimed he was unable to contact his family. When investigators arrived at his home, they found Coleman's wife and two sons strangled in bed. Across the walls, spray-painted in red, were various obscenities—the word punished among them. TO LIFE—OR DEATH. Who could have done something so sinister? As Coleman played the part of a grieving husband, forensic evidence at the crime scene told a different story. Key testimony from Lintz afforded yet more evidence of Coleman's guilt—and soon a jury would find him guilty of three counts of murder in the first degree.