Forensics True Crime

From the number one best-selling author of The Cause of Death comes an audiobook about the unlikely, extraordinary, obscure and often tragic ways humans meet their demise. A dead body without a trace of trauma; alien parasites; worms of the brain; crocodile attacks and bizarre eating disorders....In The Quick and the Dead, pathologist and self-confessed death-aficionado Dr. Cynric Temple-Camp takes listeners into a world of disease and death as he seeks answers for those who were unlucky, and those still alive to tell the tale.

A riveting true crime story that vividly recounts the birth of modern forensics. At the end of the 19th century, serial murderer Joseph Vacher, known and feared as “The Killer of Little Shepherds”, terrorized the French countryside. He eluded authorities for years - until he ran up against prosecutor Emile Fourquet and Dr. Alexandre Lacassagne, the era’s most renowned criminologist. The two men - intelligent and bold - typified the Belle Époque, a period of immense scientific achievement and fascination with science’s promise to reveal the secrets of the human condition.

On a cold winter day in 1832, Sarah Maria Cornell was found dead in a quiet farmyard in a small New England town. When her troubled past and a secret correspondence with charismatic Methodist minister Reverend Ephraim Avery was uncovered, more questions emerged. Was Sarah’s death a suicide...or something much darker? Determined to uncover the real story, Victorian writer Catharine Read Arnold Williams threw herself into the investigation as the trial was unfolding and wrote what many claim to be the first American true-crime narrative, Fall River.

An inside look at criminal investigations from a Detective's viewpoint. It looks at some humourous incidents at the beginning of the investigators career but then moves on to a close examination of actual criminal cases. These include frauds, a look at an international criminal as he moves around the world, one officers close call with an armed delusional man and finally a look at a murder committed by "The Motor Cycle Bandit". This book includes some crime scene photographs as well as documents used in evidence in court. We will see some unusual forensic evidence including bone fragments ...

What drives someone to commit an act of terrible violence? Drawing from her thirty years of experience in providing therapy to people in prisons and secure hospitals who have committed serious offenses, Dr. Gwen Adshead provides fresh and surprising insights into violence and the mind. Through a collaboration with coauthor Eileen Horne, Dr. Adshead brings her extraordinary career to life in a series of unflinching portraits.

In 1908, Hazel Drew was found floating in a pond in Sand Lake, New York, beaten to death. The unsolved murder inspired rumors, speculation, ghost stories, and, almost a century later, the phenomenon of Twin Peaks. Who killed Hazel Drew? Like Laura Palmer, she was a paradox of personalities - a young, beautiful puzzle with secrets. Perhaps the even trickier question is, Who was Hazel Drew? The investigation that followed her brutal murder was fraught with red herrings, wild-goose chases, and unreliable witnesses.

In this gripping – and sometimes terrifying – account, former South African Police Service (SAPS) head profiler Dr Gérard Labuschagne, successor to the legendary Micki Pistorius, recalls some of the 110 murder series and countless other bizarre crimes he analysed during his career. An expert on serial murder and rape cases, Labuschagne saw it all in his 14 and a half years in the SAPS.

On April 3, 1996, a team of FBI agents closed in on an isolated cabin in remote Montana, marking the end of the longest and most expensive investigation in FBI history. The cabin's lone inhabitant was a former mathematics prodigy and professor who had abandoned society decades earlier. Few people knew his name, Theodore Kaczynski, but everyone knew the mayhem and death associated with his nickname: the Unabomber.

In his 26 years in the field, Richard Taylor has worked on well over a hundred murder cases, with victims and perpetrators from all walks of life. In this fascinating memoir, Taylor draws on some of the most tragic, horrific and illuminating of these cases - as well as dark secrets from his own family's past - to explore some of the questions he grapples with every day: why do people kill? Does committing a monstrous act make someone a monster? Could any of us, in the wrong circumstances, become a killer?

When Gregory M. Cooper, former head of the FBI's Behavioral Sciences Unit, founded the Cold Case Foundation in 2013, he had high expectations, but couldn't anticipate the level of response. What started with just a half-dozen or so retired FBI agents and homicide detectives has ballooned to more than 150 women and men who volunteer their time to help families of deceased or missing loved ones bring closure to cases that have gone "cold."

Misha Glenny's groundbreaking study of global organized crime is now the inspiration for an eight-part AMC crime drama starring James Norton (War and Peace), Juliet Rylance, and David Strathairn. In this fearless and wholly authoritative investigation of the seemingly insatiable demand for illegal wares, veteran reporter Misha Glenny travels across five continents to speak with participants from every level of the global underworld. What follows is a groundbreaking, propulsive look at an unprecedented phenomenon from a savvy, street-wise guide.

When widow Frances Lacey was murdered in July 1960 on Mackinac Island, only a few meager clues were found by police, and the case soon turned cold. But more than sixty years later, will those same clues finally solve the mystery?

Body cams and dashcams have fundamentally transformed law enforcement in recent years. These innovations can help prove someone committed a crime, or didn't. Real-life footage has cleared people initially accused of wrongdoing, and in certain instances even implicated officers. But that same type of footage can also be used to clear police falsely accused of misdeeds. From allegations of harassment or bias to false arrests or even criminal conduct, these videos can prove officers did not cross a line as, sometimes, they are alleged to have done.

We accompany him on the Journey Into Darkness that marks every case he examines; every instance in which he helps police identify the unknown perpetrator of a violent series of rapes, kidnappings, or murders through his remarkable criminal personality profiling.

Federal agents never know what to expect from day to day. During his 25-year career with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, Special Agent Wayne M. Miller investigated dozens of remarkable and sometimes high-profile horrific gun, bombing, and arson cases. These accounts show true crime enthusiasts what federal investigators regularly face. All investigators could use this as a detailed textbook to see and feel the highs and lows, with the good and bad experienced by someone who has been through it.

For decades, when criminal cases of the most unprecedented nature went to trial, one woman took the stand to separate truth from fiction. Expert Witness is the extraordinary story of forensic and psychiatric pioneer Dr. Ann Burgess—inspiration for Hulu’s forthcoming docuseries Mastermind—and how she revolutionized what it means to be an expert witness in the American court system. Written through Burgess’ singular lens of compassion and lived experience, Expert Witness pulls back the curtain on some of the biggest cases in the last thirty years.

Peer inside the mind of violent child molester Nathanael Bar-Jonah. Personal coded writings, life-long behaviors and victim testimony reveal how he operated and the difficulties law enforcement experienced stopping him. Eyes of a Pedophile follows Bar-Jonah’s evolution from religious beginnings to hunting children. Extensively researched medical and psychological details explain what is known about child predators and show you how to recognize pedophile behavior and protect children. Review Dr. Kuffel’s remarkable book is both readable and informative. Her story of the life of an SVP--...

It's time to go beyond all the thoughts and prayers, misguided blame on mental illness, and dug-in disputes over the Second Amendment. Through meticulous reporting and panoramic storytelling, journalist Mark Follman chronicles the decades-long search for identifiable profiles of mass shooters and brings listeners inside a groundbreaking method for preventing devastating attacks. Eight years in the making, Trigger Points illuminates a way forward at a time when the failure to prevent mass shootings has never been more costly—and the prospects for stopping them never more promising.

Professor Patricia Wiltshire is a forensic ecologist, her days spent at crime scenes collecting samples, standing over dead bodies in a mortuary, or looking down her microscope for evidence. Working at the interface of where the criminal and natural world interact, Patricia has been involved in some of the most high-profile murder cases. Now, through a study of her most infamous, and fascinating cases—including the murder of Sarah Payne, and the Soham murders of Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman—Patricia will show us how she finds the answers to some of the worst crimes imaginable.

On June 9, 2008, the butchered body of Travis Alexander was found in his Mesa, Arizona, home. The grisly nature of his death made instant headlines: With 29 knife wounds, his throat slit, and a gunshot to the head, Travis was left to die. The prime suspect in the case was Alexander's ex-girlfriend, the attractive and soft-spoken Jodi Arias. Though Arias initially said that she was nowhere near the scene of crime, little about this case was as it seemed, and before long she had been caught lying to police. As the investigation progressed, her lies evolved multiple times before finally resting on an appalling claim: She had killed Travis in self-defense.