True Crime Women

Indiana-born Vivian Gordon fluttered to New York in 1920 looking for fame and fortune. Before long, the flame-haired chorus girl parlayed her youth, beauty, and ambition into more profitable means as a tough and glamorous symbol of Prohibition-era excess. She was a speakeasy owner, blackmailer, high-end escort, extortionist, racketeer, and con woman. But given her dangerously intimate associations, Vivian was also a woman who knew too much and who rightfully feared for her life.

Frieda "Fritizie" Mann had several identities during her brief life, and the mysterious circumstances of her death raise as many questions as they do answers. She was born in 1903 near the present border between Poland and Ukraine. And in the last year of her life, Mann became locally famous. She had reinvented herself as a flapper and "Oriental" dancer. She claimed to have friends in Hollywood and a movie contract. On the night of her murder, she said she was going to a party to meet her Hollywood friends; instead she traveled to an isolated roadside hotel where she met her death.

Robin Hood, Dick Turpin, Ronnie Biggs, the Krays.... All have become folk heroes, glamorised and romanticised, even when they killed. But where are their female equivalents? Where are the street robbers, gang leaders, diamond thieves, gold smugglers and bank robbers? Queens of the Underworld reveals the incredible story of female crooks from the 17th century to the present.

As the second installment in the acclaimed Shadows of the Past series, The Silent Witness combines meticulous research with a captivating narrative style. Listeners will gain new insights into Mary’s life, the public’s obsession with her death, and how her story influenced the literary world, including Poe’s classic The Mystery of Marie Rogêt.

In 1910, Dorothy Arnold, a vibrant socialite and aspiring writer, stepped out for a shopping trip and was never seen again. Her disappearance gripped the nation, sparking a media frenzy and one of the most confounding unsolved mysteries in American history. Was it a tragic accident? A calculated escape? Or something far more sinister? The Vanishing Heiress dives deep into the heart of this century-old enigma, unraveling the circumstances surrounding Dorothy’s disappearance and the ripple effects it had on her wealthy family, the media, and society at large.

Mary "Mae" Foley was a force to be reckoned with. On one hip she held her makeup compact, on the other, her NYPD badge. When women were fighting for the vote, Mae was fighting crime in the heart of New York City—taking down rapists, bootleggers, Nazis, and serial killers. One of the first women to be sworn into the police force, Mae not only fought crime in the city that never sleeps, but also did something much bigger—challenged the patriarchal systems that continually tried to shut her and other women down.

Kim Wall was a thirty-year-old Swedish freelance journalist with a rising career. Then, in the summer of 2017, she followed a story that led to an eccentric inventor in Copenhagen. Instead of writing the next days headline, she'd become one. As the bizarre events of Kim's murder unfolded, the world watched in shocked disbelief. For Kim's distraught parents, Ingrid and Joachim, it was a devastating personal struggle. In the ensuing months, day by grueling day, they had to come to terms with their loss, process the global media attention, and endure the investigation and trial.

Dangerous Odds - a true crime thriller memoir - is the explosive, never-been-told, behind-the-scenes look into the world of illegal sports betting, revealed by an insider. Marisa Lankester, a young beauty with a privileged New York upbringing, stumbles into the back door of the largest illegal sports betting organization in the US, run by Ron (The Cigar) Sacco. Marisa, a thrill-seeker, maneuvers herself into this mob-run men-only bookmaking operation and becomes a trusted insider.

True crime icon Ann Rule presents a “must-read” (People) New York Times bestseller—and inspiration behind the Lifetime movie A House on Fire—following a woman whose apparent perfect life hides a harrowing and deadly madness. Debora Green, a doctor and mother in a picturesque and...

This book is for listeners of true crime podcasts and audiences of both fiction and true-crime nonfiction. It's the true story of first-generation Irish-American nurse Jane Toppan, born as Honora Kelley. Jane Toppan was absolutely a monster, but she did not start out that way. When Jane was a young child, her father abandoned her and her sister to the Boston Female Asylum. From there, Jane was indentured to a wealthy family who changed her name, never adopted her, and wrote her out of the will.

With access to Atlantis' email and social media accounts, Bonner attempts to decipher and construct a narrative around the circumstances surrounding her probable death: Frantic and unintelligible notes on Facebook, alarming images of Atlantis with a handgun tucked in the waistband of her pants, Craigslist companionship ads, DEA agent testimony, video surveillance, police reports, and various phone calls and moments-in-the-flesh conjured from memory.

Cassie Chadwick, one of history's most successful con artists, was a master of the trade. She swept from town to town, assuming new identities and running new swindles at each railroad stop. In the dusk of the Gilded Age, years after the robber barons had amassed their fortunes, she was amassing her own. Using her wits and a series of forged documents, Cassie convinced prominent men from Cleveland to New York City that she was Andrew Carnegie's illegitimate daughter. The con made her impossibly rich.

When cancer threatened to claim her life, Lokita's fierce battle against the disease was only the beginning of her harrowing journey. As she fought to survive, her world shattered in a shocking act of violence that took the life of her beloved husband and renowned Tantra instructor, Steve Carter. Set against the backdrop of serene, affluent Marin County in Northern California, Lokita's life took an unexpected turn. On a tranquil early evening, Steve walked their dog, Coco, on a popular hiking trail.

In 1966, Kathy Leissner Whitman was a twenty-three-year-old teacher dreaming of a better future. She was an avid writer of letters, composing hundreds in the years before she was stabbed to death by her husband, Charles Whitman, who went on to commit a mass shooting from the tower at the University of Texas at Austin. Kathy's writing provides a rare glimpse of how one woman described, and sought to change, her short life with a coercive, controlling, and violent partner.

As the saying goes, "Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned." The phrase is never more true for the women covered in this audiobook, all of whom harbor a lust for blood and the willingness to kill. While female killers may be considered rare, when they do strike, their cunning and callousness make their crimes all the more shocking. Psychopathy and violence are categories often reserved for men, but as this audiobook will show you, women can be just as evil as their male counterparts.

A real-estate lawyer in Connecticut's moneyed seaside communities, Beth Ann Carpenter, 30, had beauty, brains, and success. But she wanted more - namely guardianship of her two-year-old niece, Rebecca, daughter of Beth's estranged sister, Kim.

Francesca Alinovi, Alberica Filo della Torre, Meredith Kercher: tre donne diversissime tra loro eppure unite da un tragico destino. Tre donne protagoniste loro malgrado di tre casi di cronaca nera tra i più discussi e intricati degli ultimi anni e che, dopo tutto questo tempo, continuano a far discutere. Tre storie di ordinaria violenza sulle donne che, ancora una volta, sono costrette ad interpretare l’odioso ruolo delle vittime. I carnefici sono sempre loro: gli uomini.

Psychology student Olivia Eriksen’s family is notorious among true-crime buffs. Faced with a legacy of psychopathy that spans generations, Olivia has spent much of her academic life trying to answer one chilling question: Nature or nurture? Although she’s kept a safe distance from her blood relatives for years, Olivia agrees to attend a weekend reunion. After all, her fiancé is eager to meet his future in-laws, and the gathering may give her a chance to interview her elusive grandfather about the family traits.

Three suburban girls meet at a boarding school for troubled teens. Eight years later, they were dead. Bustle editor Samantha Leach and her childhood best friend, Elissa, met as infants in the suburbs of Providence, Rhode Island, where they attended nursery, elementary school, and temple together...

1979. Sixteen-year-old Carolyn Russell grows increasingly infatuated with her school mathematics teacher who is also giving her private lessons. Then she disappears. 2014. Struggling journalist Stephanie Brett creates a true-crime podcast focused on the disappearance of Carolyn Russell. By digging deep into this mysterious cold case, her confidence and flagging career are boosted. But after she confronts the suspects—and talks to a potential witness—the leads dry up. Nevertheless, she refuses to let the story rest.