True Crime Serial Murders

Authors Chris Clark and Tim Hicks provide the fullest possible account of the crimes of Peter Sutcliffe, the Yorkshire Ripper, including those he was not charged with and has never previously been connected to. The police believed Sutcliffe was operating only in the Greater Manchester Police, South Yorkshire Police and West Yorkshire Metropolitan Police force areas, using his car. In fact, Sutcliffe was operating nationally and internationally, using his employer’s lorry to commit attacks.

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 ten of the most chilling crimes in Colorado history.

Whether you know it as the ‘succulent Chinese meal’ video, or ‘democracy manifest’, chances are you have seen the video of baritone larrikin Jack Karlson getting arrested outside a Brisbane Chinese restaurant in 1991. The Guardian called it ‘perhaps the pre-eminent Australian meme of the last 10 years’. When Karlson called crime writer Mark Dapin out of the blue, though, Dapin hadn’t heard of him. But there was enough that intrigued him about this theatrical outlaw to continue the conversation. Over the following months emerged a dark and complex past.

Have you ever wondered what is in the mind of a killer? Are you fascinated by what makes someone snap and kill, or carry out a carefully planned murder? In this second book in the series, List of Twelve, Volume 2, author Ryan Becker examines 12 individuals who did just that and became notorious as a result.

The Townhouse Bar, midtown, July 1992: The piano player seems to know every song ever written, the crowd belts out the lyrics to their favorites, and a man standing nearby is drinking a Scotch and water. The man strikes the piano player as forgettable. He looks bland and inconspicuous. Not at all what you think a serial killer looks like. But that’s what he is, and tonight, he has his sights set on a gray haired man. He will not be his first victim.

Infamous as a con artist, charming cult leader, and madman who spewed a toxic and twisted ideology, Charles Manson continues to fascinate and intrigue people to this very day. Long since the terrible moments when his followers committed their violent killing spree, Manson has been cemented in pop culture as the iconic cult leader - a man who hid his insanity behind a veil of cunning and manipulation.

In September 1973, Stephen Downing was convicted and indefinitely sentenced for the murder of Wendy Sewell, a young legal secretary in the town of Bakewell in the Peak District. Wendy was attacked in broad daylight in Bakewell Cemetery. Stephen Downing, the 17-year-old groundskeeper with learning difficulties and a reading age of 11, was the primary suspect. He was immediately arrested, questioned for nine hours, without a solicitor present, and pressured into signing a confession full of words he did not understand.

United States of True Crime: Arkansas: The Most Chilling Cases In All 50 States. 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 10 of the most chilling crimes in Arkansas history. If you’re a true crime enthusiast who enjoys hearing about some of the most depraved monsters in our country, you will love United States of True Crime.

In researching his acclaimed true-crime books, Philip Carlo interviewed some of the most infamous criminals and killers of our times in prisons and on death rows throughout the country. He was able to forge trusting relationships with his subjects, enabling him to extract the facts behind their monstrous acts and identify what motivated them to commit their horrific crimes.

London. 1910. A procession of well-attired gentlemen and ladies are clearly out of place among the stalls and pushcarts of the Whitechapel District. As the group makes its way through the crowded streets, the tour guide stops now and then to point out various places where the mutilated bodies of the women had been found. Although the murders occurred twenty-two years prior, the man leading the group seems to know every detail and aspect of each slaying. Of those things he does not know, he offers freely his own insightful conjecture.

In the early evening of June 25, 1980 in Pocahontas County, West Virginia, two middle-class outsiders named Vicki Durian, 26, and Nancy Santomero, 19, were murdered in an isolated clearing. They were hitchhiking to a festival known as the Rainbow Gathering but never arrived. For 13 years, no one was prosecuted for the "Rainbow Murders", though deep suspicion was cast on a succession of local residents in the community, depicted as poor, dangerous, and backward.

When police in Florida's Volusia County were called to investigate the murder of Richard Mallory, whose gunshot-ridden body had been found in the woods just north of Daytona Beach in December 1989, their search led them to a string of dead ends before the trail went cold six months later. During the spring and summer of 1990, the bodies of six more middle-aged white men were discovered. The police soon discovered the killings were the work of a single culprit, Aileen Wuornos, one of the first women to ever fit the profile of a serial killer.

On June 5, 1983, Henry Lee Lucas was arrested for the unauthorised possession of a handgun. The police believed that he was linked to the disappearance of two females, so they used the opportunity to apply pressure and encourage a confession. After four days in custody, Lucas confessed to killing the two women.

In 1994, after many years of movies and television portraying the evil side of the human psyche, Dr. David Canter published Criminal Shadows. Two decades on, its revolutionary descriptions of psychological profiling still helps to explain the actions of serial killers and psychopaths. These techniques can help police precisely identify and locate murderers and rapists, even those who have alluded capture for years.

What can drive a young and seemingly innocent child to kill? Murder is horrible enough when perpetrated by adults, and yet the concept takes on a whole new level of chilling morbidity when a murderer is revealed to be a young boy or girl. Is it the result of severe trauma manifesting itself in the most macabre of ways? Is it the progeny of some severe mental disorder? Or were they influenced by the actions of the people they grew up with? Most of the time, the answers to such a question are simple but no less horrific.

As a chilling listen for true crime fans and the morbidly curious alike, Israel Keyes: The True Crime Story of the Gruesome Serial Killer offers a play-by-play of his life, complete with real transcripts and interviews. This audiobook is perfect for anyone who wants to get into the distorted mind of a remorseless murderer and witness the strange inner contradictions within.

In this first-person account of becoming the FBI's top serial-killer hunter and a member of a religious order in an attempt to discern the true nature of good and evil, Roger L. Depue searches for an understanding of how evil develops. Between Good and Evil is Depue's look back at a life spent apprehending criminals, especially serial killers, first as a small-town police chief, then an FBI-SWAT team member, Behavioral Sciences Unit chief, and a developer of revolutionary law enforcement programs.

In his account of the sensational life and murder of Grady Stiles Jr., also known as the legendary carnival freak Lobster Boy, author Fred Rosen explains how Stiles' death was engineered by his wife, Mary Teresa, the carny known as the Electrified Girl. Rosen describes how Mary Teresa arranged for her husband's murder after years of physical and emotional abuse. During Mary Teresa's dramatic trial, Rosen becomes a character in his own book.

Empire of Sin re-creates the remarkable story of New Orleans' 30-years war against itself, pitting the city's elite "better half" against its powerful and long-entrenched underworld of vice, perversity, and crime. This early-20th-century battle centers on one man: Tom Anderson, the undisputed czar of the city's Storyville vice district, who fights desperately to keep his empire intact as it faces onslaughts from all sides.

Warning: these books contain disturbing stories of true-life murder. Viewer discretion is advised. Serial killers have haunted the public imagination for hundreds of years. They have struck fear and terror into the collective consciousness for their gruesome and malicious crimes against humanity. What motivates them to commit these murders?