Books in the True Crime series

Violent mobs, racial unrest, attacks on the press--it's the fall of 1835 and the streets of Boston are filled with bankers, merchants and other gentlemen of property and standing angered by an emergent antislavery movement. They break up a women's abolitionist meeting and seize newspaper publisher William Lloyd Garrison. While city leaders stand by silently, a small group of women had the courage to speak out. Author Josh Cutler tells the story of the Gentlemen's Mob through the eyes of four key participants: antislavery reformer Maria Chapman; pioneering schoolteacher Susan Paul; the city's establishment mayor, Theodore Lyman; and Wendell Phillips, a young attorney who wanders out of his office to watch the spectacle. The day's events forever changed the course of the abolitionist movement.

On a sultry August morning in 1970, the battered body of a young woman was hoisted from a dry well just outside Hogansville, Georgia. Author and investigator Clay Bryant was there, witnessing the macabre scene. Then fifteen, Bryant was tagging along with his father, Buddy Bryant, Hogansville chief of police. The victim, Gwendolyn Moore, had been in a violent marriage. That was no secret. But her husband had connections to a political machine that held sway over the Troup County Sheriff''s Office overseeing the case. To the dismay and bafflement of many, no charges were brought. That is, until Bryant followed his father''s footsteps into law enforcement and a voice cried out from the well three decades later.

The words of a murderer. In 1936, Helen Clevenger''s uncle discovered her bloodied body crumpled on the floor of her small room in Asheville''s grand Battery Park Hotel. She had been shot through the chest. Buncombe County sheriff Laurence Brown, up for reelection, desperately searched for the white teenager''s killer as the public clamored for answers. Even after Sheriff Brown secured a confession from a young Black man, many southerners feared that the crime had not been solved. Author Anne Chesky Smith weaves together varying accounts of the murder and investigation to expose a complex and disturbing chapter in Asheville''s history.

In the summer of 1936, fourteen-year-old Maxwell Breeze was playing in the waters of the Erie Canal in Brockport when a dog jumped into the canal and climbed his back, and the boy drowned. The owner of the dog was served notice to appear at a hearing, at which time a trial was set to determine if the dog should be put down. The unusual case captivated the nation as newspapers from coast to coast covered the story, Paramount Pictures dispatched The Eyes and Ears of the World to film the events and a media circus descended on the quiet village. During the trial, more than thirty witnesses were called, including a national expert brought in to evaluate the canine defendant, which journalists referred to as the most talked-of dog on earth. Authors Bill Hullfish and Laurie Fortune Verbridge reveal the bizarre incident, trial and spectacle that came to Brockport.

From the duel on Bloody Island to the Missouri Miracle kidnapping and recovery of Shawn Hornbeck, Missouri has seen its share of notorious crimes. It was home to the first western gunfight on the town square between Wild Bill Hickok and Dave Tutt. The three trials of the alleged murderer of Colonel Thomas Swope, the founder of Kansas City's Swope Park, enveloped the state. Residents also saw the killings within a few blocks of each other that inspired the songs Stagger Lee and Frankie and Johnny. Vicki Berger Erwin and James W. Erwin explore crimes, criminals and victims from the violent history of the last two hundred years in the Show Me State.

Ohio history overflows with tales of enterprising thieves. Vault teller Ted Conrad walked out of Society National Bank carrying a paper sack containing a fifth of Canadian Club, a carton of Marlboros and $215,000 cash. He was never seen again. Known as one of the most successful jewel thieves in the world, Bill Mason stole comedian Phyllis Diller's precious gems not once, but twice. He also stole $100,000 from the Cleveland mob. Mild-mannered Kenyon College library employee David Breithaupt walked off with $50,000 worth of rare books and documents from the college. John Dillinger hit banks all over Ohio, and Alvin Karpis robbed a train in Garrettsville and a mail truck in Warren. Jane Ann Turzillo writes of these and other notable heists and perpetrators.

In the summer of 1957, a young Holmes County farmer was gunned down in cold blood. There was little to distinguish this slaying from hundreds of others throughout the United States that year except for one detail: Paul Coblentz was Amish. A committed pacifist, Coblentz would not raise a hand against his killers. As sensational crimes often do, the "Amish murder" opened a window into the private lives of the young man, his family and his community--a community that in some respects remains as enigmatic today as it was more than half a century ago. Authors of 'Wicked Columbus,' 'Ohio's Black Hand Syndicate' and others, David Meyers and Elise Meyers Walker unravel the intricacies surrounding one of Ohio's most intriguing murder cases.--Back cove

Founded in 1798, Hamtramck shrank in size even as it grew in population. Stuffing tens of thousands of people in 2.1 square miles is bound to breed conflict, and many of those conflicts boiled over into murder. Sunday, September 7, 1884, was supposed to be a day of joy for Fritz Krum, whose child was being christened. Instead, it ended in a fatal stabbing. The 1930 killing of police officer Barney Roth in a reputed mob hit drew national attention. The murder of Hamtramck teen Bernice Onisko remains an open case today, more than eighty years after it occurred. Gathering cases from the late nineteenth century to more recent times, prolific local historian Greg Kowalski takes readers on a journey through Hamtramck homicide.

For decades, evidence of the 1978 murder of Gwendolyn Elaine Fogle lay in the evidence room at the Walterboro Police Department. Investigators periodically revisited the case over the years, but it remained the department's top cold case for thirty-seven years. Special Agent Lieutenant Rita Shuler worked on the case shortly after she joined the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division (SLED), and she couldn't let it go, not even after her retirement in 2001. In May 2015, Lieutenant Shuler teamed up with new investigator Corporal Gean Johnson, and together they uncovered key evidence that had been overlooked. With new advancements in DNA and fingerprint technology, they brought the case to its end in just four months. Join Shuler as she details the gruesome history of this finally solved case.

To most Hoosiers, John Dillinger is the very picture of an Indiana fugitive, but the state has seen many fascinating criminal characters on the run. In Tippecanoe County, two Lafayette youths murdered the sheriff's deputies transporting them to prison. The gun-toting Elwood gun girl walked from the headlines into legend. One fugitive passed himself off as a small-town cop while on the run, and a well-spoken Indiana killer became the first fugitive captured as a direct result of the TV show America's Most Wanted. Veteran true crime author Andrew E. Stoner examines not only the trail of destruction criminals have left in their wake but also their lives on the run.

Faulkner County native Red Hall was a serial killer who confessed to murdering at least twenty-four people. Most of his victims were motorists who picked him up as he hitchhiked around the United States. In the closing months of World War II, he beat his wife to death and went on a killing spree across the state. His signature smile lured his victims to their doom, and even after his capture, he maintained a friendly manner, being described by one lawman as a pleasant conversationalist. Author Janie Nesbitt Jones chronicles his life for the first time and explores reasons why he became Arkansas's Hitchhike Killer.

Denville in the 1950s was an idyllic place to live, yet a dark chapter in the era's history has remained uncovered. During the summer of 1953, a wealthy traveler with a secret rap sheet as a convicted sex offender arrived in town to continue his misdeeds. A group of thirteen local boys ranging in age from fourteen to twenty-two took it upon themselves to teach the man a lesson and drive him out of town. What resulted was his brutal death and the largest number of people ever indicted for murder in the nation at the time. The harrowing trial and its aftermath revealed a town forced to grapple with how to protect its youth and come to terms with the gruesome incident. Local historian Peter Zablocki covers the crime and a small town's path to redemption.

On a warm night in September 1985, teenagers Kimberly Dowell and Ethan Dixon were brutally murdered in Westside Park in Muncie, Indiana. Their killer has never been charged. Early on, police focused on a family member of one of the teens as a primary suspect. The investigation even ruled out fantastic scenarios, including a theory that the perpetrator was a Dungeons & Dragons devotee. The case grew cold. Only decades later did a dogged police investigator narrow the scope to a suspect whose name has never been publicly revealed until now. Keith Roysdon and Douglas Walker, authors of Wicked Muncie and Muncie Murder & Mayhem, have followed the investigation into the Westside Park murders for decades and, for the first time, report the complete and untold story.

In 1974, the brutal murder of Anita Fagiani Andrews, a fifty-one-year-old former beauty queen and mother of two, shook the small working-class town of Napa. Detectives, criminalists and forensic experts raced to identify who'd struck Anita down in her own bar, but despite their efforts, the case went cold. Decades passed, during which the town grew into a world-renowned wine region and tourist destination, but the case remained an open question. After thirty-seven years, thanks to DNA evidence, the killer--imprisoned for a different murder--was finally found and brought to justice. Join author and retired judge Raymond A. Guadagni as he tells the story of the shocking murder, the investigation and the subsequent trial over which he presided in 2011.

On Christmas Eve 1881, a horrible crime shook the small town of Ashland, Kentucky, and captivated the entire nation. Three children were brutally murdered and their house set ablaze. Nothing in the small town's past had prepared it for what followed. Three men were convicted of the crimes, and two were sentenced to death. But the murderers were protected by the governor's untrained militia, which would eventually turn their guns on Ashland's innocent citizens. Join author H.E. Joe Castle as he adds to the work of J.M. Huff and discover this incredible, captivating true story of one of the darkest chapters in the history of Kentucky.

Het boek 'Seriemoordenaars en kannibalen' beschrijft zes verschillende verhalen over enkele van de gevaarlijkste seriemoordenaars uit de geschiedenis. Het bevat gedetailleerde beschrijvingen van onder andere de 'Zodiac Killer', die verstoppertje speelde met de politie, de pers en de bange inwoners van Californië. De sadistische en bloeddorstige moordenaar Ted Bundy wordt ook in het boek geportretteerd, evenals de 'Killer Clown' die jongens verkrachtte, martelde en vermoordde en jarenlang aan de politie ontsnapte.

In het midden van de 19e eeuw is Sicilië een arm eiland dat wordt gekenmerkt door totale wetteloosheid. Temidden van anarchie ontstaat een geheime broederschap van voormalige boeren en arbeiders. Deze ontwikkelen zich uiteindelijk tot het gevreesde misdaadsyndicaat Cosa Nostra. Een paar jaar later stroomden duizenden Italiaanse immigranten naar New York - en met hen kwam de Siciliaanse maffia.

Sommige misdaden zijn zo onvoorstelbaar dat iedereen met open mond staat te kijken naar wat er net is gebeurd. Maar de politie moet snel en correct optreden om de daders te pakken te krijgen. In 'Politieoperaties en criminele jacht' krijgt de lezer een uniek inzicht in het werk van de politie na enkele van 's werelds meest schokkende moorden en misdaden - de moord op John F. Kennedy, de moord op Olof Palme, de moord op Martin Luther King en de vervolging van de grote crimineel Jacques Mesrine, die erin slaagde om uit de superveilige La Santé gevangenis in Frankrijk te ontsnappen.

"De hemel is blauw en de lucht fris als twee vliegtuigen zich kort na elkaar in de Twin Towers van het World Trade Center in New York boren. Terwijl miljoenen mensen machteloos toekijken, begint een overlevingsstrijd van 102 minuten voor de mensen die nog opgesloten zitten."'Bloedbaden en terreur' geeft enkele van de gruwelijkste momenten uit de geschiedenis weer. Het beschrijft de aanslag op de Twin Towers van het World Trade Center in New York, het bloedbad van München in 1972, de terroristische aanslag in Mekka in 1979, het leven van Osama bin Laden en Mohamed Atta, en de man die twee decennia lang de meest gevreesde terrorist ter wereld was - Carlos.

Martin C. (1962) wordt beschouwd als een van de gevaarlijkste misdadigers van Nederland. Begin jaren ’90 maakt hij als serieverkrachter Amsterdam onveilig. Twee maanden na het uitzitten van een lange celstraf ontvoert en doodt Martin C. de 13-jarige scholiere Sybine Jansons. Door zijn sluwheid en fouten bij het onderzoek blijft C. nog maanden op vrije voeten en verkracht hij opnieuw enkele vrouwen. Voor de doodslag op Sybine en twee verkrachtingen kreeg de Amsterdammer zeventieneneenhalf jaar cel en tbs met dwangverpleging. Tijdens zijn behandeling in een tbs-kliniek legde Martin C. via een datingsite voor delinquenten opnieuw contact met vrouwen. In De Vrouwenjager brengt auteur Cees Koring de levens samen van Martin C., enkele van zijn slachtoffers, onder wie het schoolmeisje Sybine en rechercheur en co-auteur Marcel Tiehuis. Met indringende interviews en exclusief onderzoeksmateriaal reconstrueert Koring een serie huiveringwekkende misdrijven. Cees Koring werkte bijna 40 jaar bij dagblad De Telegraaf, waarvan de helft als misdaadverslaggever. Van zijn hand verschenen honderden artikelen die landelijk en ook internationaal aandacht trokken, zoals de kindermoorden van Michel Stocks, de Zaanse paskamermoord en de ontvoeringen van Gerrit Jan Heijn en Maup Caransa. Het werk van Koring was in vele opzichten riskant. De journalist werd in 1990 in zijn woning in Amsterdam door criminelen overvallen en zwaar mishandeld. Cees Koring schreef enkele bestsellers. Co-auteur Marcel Tiehuis onderzocht in zijn lange carrière als rechercheur tientallen zware misdrijven en moordzaken.

De plaats van het misdrijf is een spannend geschreven en goed gedocumenteerde reeks verhalen over moord en doodslag in Nederland. Auteur Cees Koring beschrijft en bezocht locaties waar mensen stierven en lang vergeten zijn. Wie weet bijvoorbeeld waar en waarom de boer Keesje Schreurs uit Zeeland in een beerput verdween? En welke gruwelijke geheimen behielden een villa in Baarn en een huis aan de Kramatweg in Amsterdam? In De plaats van het misdrijf beschrijft de auteur ook hoe een moordenaar sliep met de doden die hij maakte, hoe Amsterdam reageerde op de eerste dood door racistisch geweld in 1983 en hoe een bewaker van Bijlmerbajes werd ontmaskerd als een coole moordenaar.Duik in dit boek in enkele van de meest aansprekende Nederlandse strafzaken.Cees Koring werkte bijna 40 jaar bij dagblad De Telegraaf, waarvan de helft als misdaadverslaggever. Van zijn hand verschenen honderden artikelen die landelijk en ook internationaal aandacht trokken, zoals de kindermoorden van Michel Stocks, de Zaanse paskamermoord en de ontvoeringen van Gerrit Jan Heijn en Maup Caransa. Het werk van Koring was in vele opzichten riskant. De journalist werd in 1990 in zijn woning in Amsterdam door criminelen overvallen en zwaar mishandeld.