True Crime Serial

H.H. Holmes was a doctor, real estate speculator, pharmacist, bigamist, swindler, and America's first media superstar serial killer. As he awaited trial, he put out a series of autobiographical documents, press releases, and interviews that revealed his sociopathic tendencies and lies about his crimes. The infamous killer of the Chicago World's Fair published a memoir and a confession, both of which conceal more than they reveal of the truth.

Charles Manson is instantly recognizable as the deranged cult leader who was responsible for the deaths of nine people in the late 1960s. Manson was a career criminal who got his education in the US prison system and learned at an early age that only those who have power over others will survive. In less than three years, Manson transformed his followers from a group of freedom-loving, LSD-dropping hippies into a pack of blood-thirsty murderers who carried out acts of astounding brutality at his request.

H. H. Holmes’ story has become one of legend. Holmes committed his crimes during a time in history where the idea of murdering on a mass scale was being introduced to the world through the actions of Jack the Ripper. Unlike Jack the Ripper, Holmes’ motives were clear; he killed out of greed, convenience, and curiosity.

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.

In May 1996, two skilled backcountry leaders, Lollie Winans and Julie Williams, entered Virginia’s Shenandoah National Park for a week-long backcountry camping trip. The free-spirited and remarkable young couple had met and fallen in love the previous summer while working at a world-renowned outdoor program for women. During their final days in the park, they descended the narrow remnants of a trail and pitched their tent in a hidden spot. After the pair didn’t return home as planned, park rangers found a scene of horror at their campsite.

Serial killers are big business. From the endless books, films, and television programs to the fascination of the 24-hour news networks, there is something about these mass murderers that catches the eye and catches the attention. While many people are familiar with the better known killers like John Wayne Gacy or Jack the Ripper, this is not the end of the story. There are so many examples of serial killers from around the world that many of them have simply been forgotten about.

He has hunted some of the most notorious and sadistic criminals of our time: The Trailside Killer in San Francisco, the Atlanta Child murderer. He has confronted, interviewed and researched dozens of serial killers and assassins -- including Charles Manson, Richard Speck, John Wayne Gacy, and James Earl Ray -- for a landmark study to understand their motives. To get inside their minds.

On September 13, 2016, in the small town of Ashland, Ohio, emergency dispatchers received a 911 call from a terrified woman who claimed to be kidnapped. The man holding her hostage was Shawn Grate, a serial killer whom the press later dubbed “The Ladykiller.” A key to his conviction and death sentence were Grate’s extensive recorded confessions—all extracted by one woman: Detective Kim Mager.

Delve into a chilling darkness of the serial killer world and explore it through the eyes of victims, detectives, witnesses, and other people who were involved and experience the whole new dimension of true-crime storytelling. Described as "a sadistic sociopath who took pleasure from another human's pain and the control he had over his victims, to the point of death, and even after", Ted Bundy was a nightmare in disguise.

The Whitechapel Murders of 1888 have remained unsolved for over 130 years and hundreds of theories have been suggested as to the killer's identity. Despite numerous books claiming to unmask the infamous Victorian villain, none have come close…until now. The authors of this book are all members of H Division Crime Club, the world's largest body of experts on the Jack the Ripper murders. They have all come together for the first time in history to deliver their own personal research into each suspect and to finally nail down the identity of the man known as Jack the Ripper.

Between December 1968 and October 1969, a hooded serial killer called Zodiac terrorized San Francisco. Claiming responsibility for 37 murders, he manipulated the media with warnings, dares, and bizarre cryptograms that baffled FBI code-breakers. Then, as suddenly as the murders began, Zodiac disappeared into the Bay Area fog. After painstaking investigation and more than 30 years of research, Robert Graysmith finally exposes Zodiac's true identity.

A master of deception, he was a rapist, arsonist, bank robber, and a new breed of serial killer, one who studied other killers to perfect his craft. In multiple states, he methodically buried kill-kits containing his tools of murder years before returning and putting them to use. Viewing the entire country as his hunting grounds, he often flew to distant locations where he rented cars and randomly selected his victims. Such were the methods and madness of serial killer Israel Keyes. Such were the demands of the “Devil in the Darkness.”

In Sons of Cain - a book that fills the gap between dry academic studies and sensationalized true crime - investigative historian Peter Vronsky examines our understanding of serial killing from its prehistoric anthropological evolutionary dimensions in the pre-civilization era (c. 15,000 BC) to today. Delving further back into human history and deeper into the human psyche than Serial Killers - Vronsky's 2004 book, which has been called "the definitive history of the phenomenon of serial murder" - he focuses strictly on sexual serial killers.

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.

From award-winning journalist David Kushner, Alligator Candy is a reported memoir about family, survival, and the unwavering power of love. David Kushner grew up in the early 1970s in the Florida suburbs. It was when kids still ran free, riding bikes and disappearing into the nearby woods for hours at a time. One morning in 1973, however, everything changed. David’s older brother, Jon, biked through the forest to the convenience store for candy, and never returned.

Dr. Al Carlisle, PhD, evaluated Ted Bundy for the Utah court in 1976. Ever since, Carlisle has painstakingly reconstructed Ted’s history through conversations with Bundy's friends, lovers, neighbors, investigators—and through Bundy's own words. The only book of its kind, I'm Not Guilty gives a thorough analysis of the facts of Bundy's life and crimes based on Carlisle's research. Then Carlisle enhances what is known about Bundy’s victims, the origins of the Entity, and Bundy's need to kill. This book helps to explain how a good person can become a serial killer.

The Co-Ed Killer, Son of Sam, Hillside Strangler, and Dating Game Killer—in many ways, terrifying serial killers were as synonymous with the 1970s as Watergate, disco, and the oil crisis. This fascinating collection of profiles presents the most notorious as well as lesser-known serial murderers of that decade. Beyond Ted Bundy and David Berkowitz, it includes more obscure killers like Coral Eugene Watts, known as “The Sunday Morning Slasher,” who killed 80 women; Edmund Kemper, the "Co-Ed Killer"; and Rodney Alcala, who is believed to have killed between 50 and 130 people between 1971-1979.

In Talking with Serial Killers: World's Most Evil, bestselling author and criminologist Christopher Berry-Dee delves deeper into the gloomy underworld of killers and their crimes. He examines, with shocking detail and clarity, the lives and lies of people who have killed and shines a light on the motives behind their horrific crimes. Through interviews with the killers, the police, and key members of the prosecution, alongside careful analysis of the cases themselves, the listener is given unprecedented insight into the most diabolical minds that humanity has to offer.

In 1990, a young woman was strangled on a jogging path near the home of Pat Brown and her family. Brown suspected the young man who was renting a room in her house, and quickly uncovered strong evidence that pointed to him - but the police dismissed her as merely a housewife with an overactive imagination. It would be six years before her former boarder would be brought in for questioning, but the night Brown took action to solve the murder was the beginning of her life's work.

The idea of Scotland Yard is steeped in atmospheric stories of foggy London streets, murder by lamplight, and fiendish killers pursued by gentleman detectives. From its establishment in 1829 through the eve of World War II, Scotland Yard—the world’s first modern, professional, and centrally organized police force—set new standards for policing and investigating. Based on official case files, contemporary newspaper reporting, trial transcripts, and the first-hand accounts of the detectives on the beat, Scotland Yard tells the tales of some of history’s most notorious murders.