Child Murders True Crime

Fred and Rose West are virtually unique in British criminal history: a husband and wife who loved and killed together. During their long relationship, the Wests murdered a series of young women, burying the remains of nine victims under their home at 25 Cromwell Street, Gloucester, including those of their daughter. What was left of Fred West's eight-year-old stepdaughter was dug up from under the Wests' previous Gloucester home; his first wife and nanny were buried in open country.

Paced like a thriller and full of insider information, this book embeds readers in one of the most famous true-crime stories of our generation—the kidnapping of Polly Klaas. On October 1, 1993, a 12-year-old girl was kidnapped at knifepoint from her bedroom in Petaluma, California, during a...

In September of 1990, in the Cleveland suburb of Shaker Heights, sixteen-year-old Lisa Pruett was on her way to a midnight tryst with her boyfriend when she was viciously stabbed to death only thirty feet from the boy's home. The murder cast a palpable gloom over the upscale community and sparked accusations, theories, and rumors among Lisa's friends and peers. With a fresh perspective and painstaking research, James Renner reconstructs the events leading up to and following that heartbreaking night. What emerges is a portrait of a community seething with dark undercurrents.

Read by the author, Sandra Brown. ‘Completely gripping . . . Sandra Brown found evil in the person of her own father; and she confronted it as few could have done . . . Everyone will want to read this amazing story’ – Andrew O’Hagan, author of Caledonian Road Sandra Brown was eight when...

Spouse-killers, child-killers, and mindlessly brutal murderers all have their abhorrent crimes laid out in this book. You’ll read about Blake Leibel, who mercilessly tortured his girlfriend before killing her and draining her of her blood. I’ll tell you about the murder of Junko Furuta, which saw the teenage girl held hostage by her peers and tortured beyond belief before she succumbed to her injuries and died. The outcome of that case is as unbelievable as it is unjust.

After surviving the horrors of the Holocaust - in ghettos, on death marches, and in concentration camps - a young couple seeks refuge in Canada. They settle into a new life, certain that the terrors of their past are behind them. They build themselves a cozy little cottage on a lake in Muskoka, a cottage that becomes emblematic of their victory over the Nazis. The charming retreat is a safe haven, a refuge from haunted memories. That is, until a single act of unspeakable violence defiles their sanctuary.

Four children were abducted and murdered outside of Detroit during the winters of 1976 and 1977; their bodies eventually dumped in snow banks around the city. J. Reuben Appelman was six years old at the time the murders began and had evaded an abduction attempt during that same period, fueling a lifelong obsession with what became known as the Oakland County Child Killings. There were few credible leads and equally few credible suspects. That's what the cops had passed down to the press, and that's what the city of Detroit and J. Reuben Appelman had come to believe.

Grief, mental illness, and the bonds of family are movingly explored in this extraordinary memoir “suffused with emotional depth and intellectual inquiry” (Rachel Louise Snyder, author of No Visible Bruises) as a writer delves into the tragedy of his mother’s violent death at the hands of...

A chilling true crime investigation that will leave you breathless. Between 1979 and 1981, Atlanta became a city under siege. Dozens of Black children, teenagers, and young adults vanished—many found murdered, their cases left unsolved. Fear spread like wildfire, and the community demanded justice. But when Wayne Williams was arrested and convicted, the questions didn’t end… they only deepened.

On Australia day, 26 January 1966, Jane, Arnna, and Grant Beaumont were abducted from Colley Reserve, Glenelg, South Australia, and never seen again, leading to one of Australia's most extensive police investigations and manhunts. Five decades later, no trace of the children has ever been found.

The killing of six-year-old beauty queen JonBenét Ramsey—found in the basement of her family home in Boulder, Colorado, with a smashed skull and a garrote placed around her neck—remains one of America’s most shameful unsolved crimes. A flawed investigation, fraught with police, prosecutorial misconduct, and widespread evidence tampering, means that the little girl’s killer remains at large after more than two decades.

A blonde beauty queen, missing children, six suspicious deaths, and the twisted Mormon doomsday writings of her fifth husband are only the beginning of a tragic crime saga that gripped Americans and instigated frantic searches all over the country. It all started when Lori Vallow met Chad Daybell at a doomsday prepper event. Their story grew like a wildfire that creates its own weather, and what happened next will shock even the most experienced true crime listener.

Don’t miss the next captivating page-turner from Sunday Times bestseller Susan Lewis! Book 3 in the Cristy Ward series A dead husband. A missing wife. Will they find her in time? Romy Kaplan has vanished from her home. Or has she? When Romy begins posting on her social media accounts asking...

Criminologist Christopher Berry-Dee goes behind bars to get the last word from some of the worst criminals in the world. They speak of their violence and shocking deeds in their own words, from within some of the hardest prisons on earth. These interviews have been collated into this disturbing and unflinching analysis of the criminal mind. Here is what happens when you meet the people most of us know only from our nightmares and newspaper headlines.

Ted Bundy killed at least 35 girls and women, and possibly hundreds. Was his first victim eight-year-old Ann Marie Burr who disappeared from their Tacoma, Washington neighborhood in 1961? Her body was never found and there were no clues, just two tenacious detectives who spent the rest of their lives trying to solve the case.

In 1988 a troubled young man and his flamboyant mother were arrested for murdering a wealthy widow in her New York City mansion. Suddenly America was transfixed by a pair of real-life film noir characters. The media couldn't get enough of the twisted relationship between Sante Kimes and her 23-year-old son Kenny. But the most chilling story of all was never told - until now. Kent Walker, Sante's elder son, reveals how he survived 40 years of "the Dragon Lady's" very special brand of motherly love and still managed to get away.

Lost Innocence pulls back the curtain on the chaos, fear, and institutional failure that plagued a city in crisis. With meticulous research and powerful storytelling, Marissa Grant revisits the lives stolen, the families shattered, and the controversial investigation that left more questions than answers.

When you think about the evil in the world, you conjure up images of those who prey on children, serial murderers, and criminals who carry out sickening and violent acts toward the weak, vulnerable, and undeserving. Names like Bundy, Gacy, and Gein come to mind, alongside the many other murderous people out there who've gained notoriety because of their evil. When you're envisioning the unthinkable and heinous acts that are carried out in this world, it's unlikely you imagine a youngster as being a perpetrator of evil.

In 1981, just nine years old, Jennifer Cardy was abducted and murdered, her bicycle found standing where she had left it. There followed dark days for the Cardy family, days of searching for their missing daughter, grieving her death, wrestling with the questions. It would be thirty years before they would find any answers; thirty years before her killer, Robert Black, would face any kind of justice.

There have been monsters among us lurking in the darkest corners of America, preying on children since the first settlers arrived on our shores. They have always been with us, stalking the innocent, from the days of the original colonies, to the Gilded Age, the Depression, and beyond. These monsters are not the stuff of fiction. They are bloodcurdlingly real, and they still walk among us, always looking for their next victim.