The True Crime File

The True Crime File
Author: Workman Publishing
Publisher: Workman Publishing
Total Pages: 401
Release: 2022-05-10
Genre: True Crime
ISBN: 1523514116

"Perfect for newcomers and hardened crime junkies alike, The True Crime File is an impulse gift book designed to deliver the mixed pleasures of true crime across more than 200 stories of mayhem, madness, and survival. Adapted from the perennially popular A Year of True Crime Page-A-Day® Calendar, here is a full celebration of the genre, more than 400 pages packed with tales of slashers and serial killers, grifters and con men, dogged investigators and miraculous survivors, and of course the story behind the immortal New York Post headline "Headless Body in Topless Bar," and so very much more. Compulsively readable, illustrated throughout, and animated with the frisson that comes with discovering there are real monsters under the bed, The True Crime File is a little book that delivers big to true crime fans of all stripes"--

Fatal Friends, Deadly Neighbors

Fatal Friends, Deadly Neighbors
Author: Ann Rule
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 480
Release: 2021-08-31
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1982178655

In July 2011, billionaire Jonah Shacknai's Coronado, California, mansion was the setting for two horrifying deaths only days apart--his young son's plunge from a balcony and his girlfriend's ghastly hanging. What really happened? Baffling questions remain unanswered. Rule looks at the closed cases through the eyes of a relentless crime reporter. The second probe began in Utah when Susan Powell vanished in a 2009 blizzard. Her controlling husband, Josh, proved capable of a blind rage that was heartbreakingly fatal to his innocent young sons almost three years later in a tragedy that shocked America as the details unfolded. If anyone had detected the depth of depravity within Josh Powell, perhaps the family that loved and trusted him would have been saved. In these and seven other riveting cases, Ann Rule exposes the twisted truth behind headlined and little-known homicides and speaks for vulnerable victims who relied on the wrong people.

Weird N. J.

Weird N. J.
Author: Mark Moran
Publisher: Sterling Publishing Company, Inc.
Total Pages: 276
Release: 2009-05
Genre: History
ISBN: 9781402766855

Explores haunted places, local legends, crazy characters, and unusual roadside attractions found in New Jersey.

Empty Promises

Empty Promises
Author: Ann Rule
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 545
Release: 2001-03-09
Genre: True Crime
ISBN: 0743424050

MORE THAN 20 MILLION COPIES OFANN RULE'S BOOKS IN PRINT! In this unnerving collection drawn from her personal crime files, "America's best true-crime writer" (Kirkus Reviews) Ann Rule brilliantly dissects the convoluted love affairs that all too often end in violence. Expertly analyzing a shocking, headline-making case, Rule unmasks the deadly motives inside a seemingly idyllic marriage: a beautiful young wife, a rising star in America's top-ranked computer corporation, and a prosperous husband, the scion of a family building business. With an adorable son and a gorgeous home, the couple seemed to have it all. But a furtive evil permeated their days and nights, dragging them into a murky world of drugs, sordid sex, and con operations. In this realm, one of them would prove to be a virtual innocent, the other a manipulator with no conscience. Sudden, violent death brought their charade of a fairy-tale romance to a tragic end -- with a brutal crime that might never have come to light were it not for the stubborn detectives and prosecutors whose fight for justice spanned an entire decade. Empty Promises recounts several other cases where the search for love brought only lies and betrayal -- a cautionary primer, perhaps, for those who trust too much too soon. Powerful because they strike so close to home, the cases in Empty Promises will leave readers shaken by the realities of love gone terribly -- and fatally -- wrong.

A Rage To Kill And Other True Cases:

A Rage To Kill And Other True Cases:
Author: Ann Rule
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 401
Release: 2001-01-18
Genre: True Crime
ISBN: 0743424042

New York Times bestselling author Ann Rule brings several riveting accounts of seemingly normal men and women who are compelled by a murderous rage to suddenly lash out in this installment of her Crime Files. Ann Rule dives into one of Seattle’s most infamous crimes: a city bus ride that turned into mayhem and murder at the hands of a gunman. With her signature “devastatingly accurate insight” (The New York Times Book Review), she unmasks the forces that drove quiet, clean-cut Silas Cool to shoot the driver, causing the bus to plunge off the Aurora Bridge into an apartment building. Included here are nine other cases that illuminate Rule’s unique and authoritative view of the human psyche gone temporarily berserk. In A Rage to Kill, Ann Rule frighteningly shows that none of us are truly protected from the flashes of irrational violence that can erupt from the killers among us.

The Lazarus Files

The Lazarus Files
Author: Matthew McGough
Publisher: Henry Holt and Company
Total Pages: 609
Release: 2019-04-30
Genre: True Crime
ISBN: 0805095594

A deeply-reported, riveting account of a cold case murder in Los Angeles, unsolved until DNA evidence implicated a shocking suspect – a female detective within the LAPD’s own ranks. On February 24, 1986, 29-year-old newlywed Sherri Rasmussen was murdered in the home she shared with her husband, John. The crime scene suggested a ferocious struggle, and police initially assumed it was a burglary gone awry. Before her death, Sherri had confided to her parents that an ex-girlfriend of John’s, a Los Angeles police officer, had threatened her. The Rasmussens urged the LAPD to investigate the ex-girlfriend, but the original detectives only pursued burglary suspects, and the case went cold. DNA analysis did not exist when Sherri was murdered. Decades later, a swab from a bite mark on Sherri’s arm revealed her killer was in fact female, not male. A DNA match led to the arrest and conviction of veteran LAPD Detective Stephanie Lazarus, John’s onetime girlfriend. The Lazarus Files delivers the visceral experience of being inside a real-life murder mystery. McGough reconstructs the lives of Sherri, John and Stephanie; the love triangle that led to Sherri’s murder; and the homicide investigation that followed. Was Stephanie protected by her fellow officers? What did the LAPD know, and when did they know it? Are there other LAPD cold cases with a police connection that remain unsolved?

A Fever In The Heart

A Fever In The Heart
Author: Ann Rule
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 476
Release: 1996-10
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 0671793551

Ann Rule dissects a case centered around an alluring young wife and the two men desperate for her love.

Smoke, Mirrors And Murder

Smoke, Mirrors And Murder
Author: Ann Rule
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 335
Release: 2008-12-09
Genre: True Crime
ISBN: 1847397352

An ideal family is targeted for death by the least likely enemy, who plotted their demise from behind bars.... A sexual predator hides behind multiple fake identities, eluding police for years while his past victims live in fear that he will hunt them down.... A modest preacher's wife confesses to shooting her husband after an argument -- but there's more to her shattering story than meets the eye. These and other true cases are analyzed with stunning clarity in a page-turning collection you won't be able to put down. Included in this volume are stories of a victim burned beyond recognition - spontaneous human combustion? - impossible - and yet no one else seemed to enter or exit; a man who was a woman who was a man, whose con games in a small community led to murder; a "counterfeit priest" who wasn't a priest at all; a lifetime rapist; and the strangest case ever to hit Montana.

The Serial Killer Files

The Serial Killer Files
Author: Harold Schechter
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Total Pages: 434
Release: 2003-12-30
Genre: True Crime
ISBN: 0345472004

THE DEFINITIVE DOSSIER ON HISTORY’S MOST HEINOUS! Hollywood’s make-believe maniacs like Jason, Freddy, and Hannibal Lecter can’t hold a candle to real life monsters like John Wayne Gacy, Ted Bundy, Jeffrey Dahmer, and scores of others who have terrorized, tortured, and terminated their way across civilization throughout the ages. Now, from the much-acclaimed author of Deviant, Deranged, and Depraved, comes the ultimate resource on the serial killer phenomenon. Rigorously researched and packed with the most terrifying, up-to-date information, this innovative and highly compelling compendium covers every aspect of multiple murderers–from psychology to cinema, fetishism to fan clubs, “trophies” to trading cards. Discover: WHO THEY ARE: Those featured include Ed Gein, the homicidal mama’s boy who inspired fiction’s most famous Psycho, Norman Bates; Angelo Buono and Kenneth Bianchi, sex-crazed killer cousins better known as the Hillside Stranglers; and the Beanes, a fifteenth-century cave-dwelling clan with an insatiable appetite for human flesh HOW THEY KILL: They shoot, stab, and strangle. Butcher, bludgeon, and burn. Drown, dismember, and devour . . . and other methods of massacre too many and monstrous to mention here. WHY THEY DO IT: For pleasure and for profit. For celebrity and for “companionship.” For the devil and for dinner. For the thrill of it, for the hell of it, and because “such men are monsters, who live . . . beyond the frontiers of madness.” PLUS: in-depth case studies, classic killers’ nicknames, definitions of every kind of deviance and derangement, and much, much more. For more than one hundred profiles of lethal loners and killer couples, Bluebeards and black widows, cannibals and copycats– this is an indispensable, spine-tingling, eye-popping investigation into the dark hearts and mad minds of that twisted breed of human whose crimes are the most frightening . . . and fascinating.

Cold Cases

Cold Cases
Author: Cheyna Roth
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 180
Release: 2020-07-14
Genre: True Crime
ISBN: 1646041143

Examine the evidence in this volume of notorious true crimes that remain unsolved, from mystifying heists to shocking murders and more. Cold Cases: A True Crime Collection features case file facts, fascinating details, and chilling testimonies of the world’s most famous cold cases. Written for true crime junkies and armchair detectives, this book delves into the investigations of JonBenét Ramsey, the Black Dahlia, the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum theft, the Cleveland Torso Murders, and more. Each chapter examines the facts, while also illuminating the many theories surrounding these baffling cases: - The Zodiac Killer - The disappearance of Natalee Holloway - The murder of JonBenét Ramsey - The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum heist - The Kingsbury Run murders, aka the Cleveland Torso murders - The Black Dahlia murder - The Freeway Phantom murders - D. B. Cooper’s airplane heist - The Amber Alert case (the death of Amber Hagerman) - The Golden State Killer