True Crime Serial

On 20 May 1999, the South Australian Police were called to investigate a disused bank in the unassuming town of Snowtown, in connection to the disappearance of multiple missing people. The police were not prepared for the chilling scene that awaited them. The officers found six barrels within the abandoned bank vault, each filled with acid and the remains of eight individuals. The smell from inside the vault was so stifling that the police required breathing equipment.

Plainfield, Wisconsin was a place of silence—where everyone knew everyone, and secrets stayed buried. But when police entered the Gein farmhouse in 1957, they stepped into a waking nightmare: masks made of human skin, furniture stitched from corpses, body parts preserved like trophies. The friendly handyman with the soft voice and shy smile had been hiding hell in his home.

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.

Edmund Emil Kemper III (born December 18, 1948) is an American serial killer convicted of murdering seven women and one girl between May 1972 and April 1973. Years earlier, at the age of 15, Kemper had murdered his paternal grandparents. Nicknamed the "Co-ed Killer," as most of his non-familial victims were female college students hitchhiking in the vicinity of Santa Cruz County, California, Kemper's murders often included necrophilia, decapitation, dismemberment, and possibly cannibalism.

During the early 1960s, just as Beatlemania was exploding throughout the United Kingdom, a pair of psychopathic British killers began preying on the very young, innocent, and helpless of Greater Manchester. Between 1963 and 1965, Ian Brady and his lover and partner, Myra Hindley, were responsible for the abduction, rape, torture, and murder of five young victims, ranging in age from ten to seventeen years old. The English press dubbed the grisly series of homicides "the Moors Murders," named for the desolate landscape where three of the corpses were eventually discovered.

Outside the dining hall of the Alpine Manor nursing home, there is a sign that reads, "This is Grand Rapids, Michigan", a reminder for those who can no longer trust their own minds. For months, Cathy Wood has fed these residents, bathed them, and even moistened their eyes with artificial tears. To her, they live in a state worse than death - and she has decided to relieve them of their pain. Wood and her lover, Gwen Graham, make a pact to kill those whom they were hired to care for.

12/14/2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School Newtown, Connecticut We remember the numbers: 20 children and 6 adults, murdered in a place of nurture and trust. We remember the names: Teachers like Victoria Soto, who lost her life protecting her students. A shooter named Adam Lanza. And we remember the questions: Outraged conjecture instantly monopolized the worldwide response to the tragedy, while the truth went missing. Here is the definitive journalistic account of Newtown.

The true story of Jane Alexander, who spent 13 years tracking down and putting away the man who murdered her 88-year old aunt, and then went on to help solve 20 murders, igniting a national victim's rights movement.

On July 20, 2012 in Aurora, Colorado, a man in dark body armor and a gas mask entered a midnight premiere of The Dark Knight Rises with a tactical shotgun, a high-capacity assault rifle, and a sidearm. Soon twelve were dead and fifty-eight were wounded. A Dark Night in Aurora uses the twenty-three hours of unredacted interview transcripts never seen by the public and Reid’s research to bring the listener inside the mind of a mass murderer. The result is chilling, gripping study of abnormal psychology and how a lovely boy named Jimmy became a killer.

On June 14, 1962, twenty-five-year-old Juris Slesers arrived at his mother's apartment to drive her to church. But there was no answer at the door. When he pushed his way inside, Juris found Anna Slesers dead on the kitchen floor, the cord of her housecoat knotted tightly around her neck. Drawn from hundreds of hours of personal interviews, as well as police, medical, and court documentation, this is a grisly, horrifying, and meticulously researched account of Albert DeSalvo - an American serial killer on par with Jack the Ripper.

How do you defend your mind from those who exploit it without you even knowing? Serial killers, master manipulators—they don’t only happen on TV. By the time they’re part of a true crime documentary, it’s too late. Understanding the dark psychology behind them is your best defense.

This gang of serial killers did unthinkable crimes. It's hard to believe that their story is not a work of fiction. But it's not! Most serial killers work alone. Killing is usually a private crime, something that mass murderers are keen to keep hidden. But this is not always the case. During the 1990s, a small town in Australia witnessed first-hand how devastating, horrendous, and effective a gang of serial killers could be.

Cannibal. Necrophiliac. Kidnapper. Killer. The stories of serial killers often begin with terrible upbringings and sad events of trauma, but not all have such unfortunate beginnings. Some simply develop their evil on their own and become tainted without anyone realizing it. Jeffrey Dahmer was a man described by his own father as the result of a child becoming lost in the maelstrom while nobody paid attention, a child who was strange and apathetic but whom nobody bothered to ask why.

When you think of Wisconsin crimes, Ed Gein and Jeffrey Dahmer automatically come to mind. But in this richly wooded state with its long, cold winters and isolated towns, murder can happen anywhere. From the "Sweetheart Murders" to sexual predators to cannibalistic serial killers, Wisconsin's criminal history is full of surprises.

What makes someone become a serial killer? What goes through the mind of these coldblooded killers while they pretend to be normal like the rest of the world? We can't say for sure for every single one of them - but for those who were caught and told their stories, we can. Plunge yourself into the dark and chilling abyss, and peek inside the minds of the world's most dangerous monsters - the infamous and cold-blooded serial killers.

Detailing full story of the Moors Murders and the search for Ian Brady and Myra Hindley's fifth victim, Keith Bennett, whose grave has never been found, this new edition of The Lost Boy sets out the proof that the police always knew there were five victims, and that Brady and Hindley had a system—one decoded by officers at the time—by which they recorded where all their victims were buried.

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.

In March 1976, Ted Bundy was convicted of the aggravated kidnapping of a young woman near Salt Lake City, Utah. Bundy had not been accused or convicted of any violent crime except this one. No one knew then how many women Bundy had murdered, and many thought him incapable of doing so.

One of NPR's "Books We Love" New York Times Book Review's "The Best True Crime of 2022" "Rich in historical perspective and graced by novelistic touches, grips the reader from first to last.”—Wall Street Journal A suspense filled tale of murder on the American frontier—shedding new light...

Everybody knew Velma Barfield as the perfect wife and a loving grandmother. But there was something about her that nobody knew.... Velma Barfield had a secret life and a sick urge to kill.