English True Crime

From the Pulitzer Prize-winning reporters behind the 2018 bombshell New York Times exposé of then-President Trump’s finances, an explosive investigation into the history of Donald Trump’s wealth, revealing how exactly one of the country’s biggest business failures lied his way into the White House.

London, 1949: Queenie Osbourne and her best friend Joy are walking through the bustling city streets looking forward to a bright future. The two friends have a striking beauty which draws everyone to them. Queenie dreams of making her fortune as a singer in America and Joy is engaged to wealthy bachelor Charles Gilchrist.

As the adopted son of two cult leaders, Benjamin Risha was raised to someday assume a place of leadership in the Tony and Susan Alamo Christian Foundation with the Bible, and his parents’ interpretation of it, as his guide. He believed the prophecies of his adoptive mother and father. However, when none of it happened, and the foundation slid from bucolic communal lifestyle to insufferable criminality that included absolute obedience to the Alamos, Benjamin knew he had to escape.

College student Lauren Spierer was pursuing her dreams, joining her boyfriend at a party school eight hundred miles from home. Social and gregarious, studying fashion and rooming with friends, Lauren embraced her new adventure with the zeal of a young woman who suddenly had everything she desired. But there was a dark side that she and her inner circle kept secret. And one warm June evening, after heading out with friends, she seemingly vanished.

No other event in the last fifty years is shrouded in myth like the 1993 siege of the Branch Davidians in Waco, Texas. Today, we remember this moment for the 76 people, including 20 children, who died in the fire; for its inspiration of the Oklahoma City bombing; and for the wave of anti-government militarism that followed. What we understand far less is what motivated the Davidians’ enigmatic leader, David Koresh.

Engrossed by the short lives of innocent victims, Stowers uses The Girl in the Grave...and Other True Crime Stories to tell the tales of devastated parents dealing with evil forces and unanswered questions that invaded their once normal lives, and the effect on the law enforcement officers duty-bound to involve themselves in such evil and troubling situations, investigating and seeking resolve and justice.

William Flanagan’s Like Mother, Like Son recounts the sensational true case of handsome young playboy Jed Ardito, who strangled his beautiful Brooklyn girlfriend to death in an erotic frenzy. But this true crime story gets even stranger: Seventeen years earlier, Ardito’s mother Frances Victoria Ardito had her own illicit lover murdered.

As a park ranger with the National Park Service's law enforcement team, Andrea Lankford led search and rescue missions in some of the most beautiful (and dangerous) landscapes across America, from Yosemite to the Grand Canyon. But though she had the support of the agency, Andrea grew frustrated with the service's bureaucratic idiosyncrasies, and left the force after twelve years. Two decades later, however, she stumbles across a mystery that pulls her right back where she left off: three young men have vanished from the Pacific Crest Trail.

At just 21 years of age, friends Todd Wilson and Scott McCarthy were virtually inseparable. The pair reported for duty at United Bank of Denver at 6: 00 a.m. on Father’s Day 1991—McCarthy’s first day on the job. They joined two more experienced guards and began making their rounds. By 9:30 a.m., all four were dead. The killer then descended upon the cash vault where he held six petrified tellers at gunpoint before absconding with nearly $200,000. Eighteen days later, the Denver Police Department arrested one of its own. Not only had retired sergeant James W.

The Phantom Prince chronicles Elizabeth Kendall’s intimate relationship with Ted Bundy and its eventual unraveling. As much as has been written about Bundy, it’s remarkable to hear the perspective of people who shared their daily lives with him for years. This gripping account presents a remarkable examination of a charismatic personality that masked unimaginable darkness.

The author of the bone-chilling Unsolved Serial Killers series, D.R. Werner, is back with yet another fantastic book filled with ten horrific and unsolved true crimes that were either forgotten over time or never heard of to begin with. The victims of these tragedies have not received the recognition they deserve and the offenders were never found and therefore never held accountable.

Shaun Attwood was a millionaire day trader in Phoenix, Arizona, but his hedonistic lifestyle of drugs and parties came to an abrupt end in 2002 when a SWAT team broke down his door. Attwood found himself on remand in Maricopa Jail with a $750,000 cash bond and all of his assets seized. The nightmare was only just beginning as he was submerged in a jail in which rival gangs vied for control, crystal meth was freely available, and where breaking rules could result in beatings or death.

United States of True Crime is an anthology series with books devoted to the most disturbing cases in each of the 50 states. This book focuses on twenty of the most chilling crimes in Florida history.

From the Scotiabank Giller Prize finalist, a gripping exploration of class, race, friendship, sexuality, what an author owes her subject and what it means to be a good person—all wrapped up in a riveting Canadian true crime story.

Prison buddies Billy Good and Jackie Walker made time pulling small jobs here and there. Not a bad living if you liked scraping by. The thing to worry about was the next fix. Nothing else mattered. When Billy and Jackie fell in with Kenyatta, a ghetto lord ready to take back the streets, they thought they'd hit the big time. Dealing with drug pushers and crooked cops in the name of justice sure felt good, but in a world where "kindness was the sweetest con of all", every bullet fired echoed with the sound of payback.

The public’s obsession with serial killers and weird murders is growing by the day, with more TV shows, movies and books now detailing the crimes of these human monsters. There’s no denying that we’re all fascinated by serial murder–it’s part of the human experience.

Once upon a time Rolling Stone contributing editor Erik Hedegaard became the last mainstream media journalist to interview Charles Manson. But the story he wrote for RS in 2013 didn’t begin to capture the strange and lingering effect Manson would have on his life. Now, in this Audible Original, you’ll hear about the making of that story, including audio of the phone calls Hedegaard received from Manson on a regular basis, interviews he conducted with Los Angeles District Attorney Vincent Bugliosi, as well as conversations he had with Manson Family members.

True crime, as an entertainment genre, has always prioritized clear narrative arcs: victims wronged, police detectives in pursuit, suspects apprehended, justice delivered. But what stories have been ignored? In Evidence of Things Seen, fourteen of the most innovative crime writers working today cast a light on the cases that give crucial insight into our society.

Homicidal is the story of the almost 25-year serial-murder crime spree of Lonnie Franklin Jr., who is alleged to have killed at least ten women in Los Angeles, if not more. Nicknamed by the media the Grim Sleeper, because there appeared to be a 13-year lull in the killings, Franklin met most of the women through random encounters that ended in murder. Significant blunders by the Los Angeles Police Department helped Franklin avoid arrest for years.

Shots rang out in Savannah's grandest mansion in the misty,early morning hours of May 2, 1981. Was it murder or self-defense? For nearly a decade, the shooting and its aftermath reverberated throughout this hauntingly beautiful city of moss-hung oaks and shaded squares. John Berendt's sharply observed, suspenseful, and witty narrative flows like a thoroughly engrossing novel, and yet it is a work of nonfiction.