True Child Crime

Between 1950 and 1970, the Vatican and the American Catholic Church sent nearly four thousand Italian children to the United States for adoption into “good” Catholic homes. With the religious stigma of unwed motherhood turning families against daughters and a Church and State wanting “illegitimate” children sent abroad, mothers were lied to, given forms to sign that they didn’t understand, or even told their baby had died, all to further supply this international adoption pipeline.

On January 14, 2018, a 17-year-old girl climbed out of the window of her Perris, California home and dialed 911 with shaking fingers. Struggling to stay calm, she told the operator that she and her 12 siblings - ranging in age from two to 29 - were being abused by their parents. When the dispatcher asked for her address, the girl hesitated. "I've never been out," she stammered.

Ashley is a young single mum raising her daughter, Eden, and working hard to do the very best job she can - until one night she can't find a babysitter and makes the decision to leave Eden home alone for a couple of hours, asleep inside a wardrobe. It is an action that begins a terrible downward spiral for both of them. When Eden arrives at experienced foster carer Louise Allen's home, she has entered the care system because her mother is in prison. Eden is five years old and will not speak to any human.

When he was 10 years old, Paul Fronczak was snooping around for Christmas presents in a crawl space in his family’s Chicago home. There, he found hundreds of old newspaper clippings about the kidnapping of a one-day-old infant in a hospital in 1964. He also learned that, two years later, the boy was found and returned to his family - and that the boy was him. Nearly 50 years later, Paul, acting on long-held suspicions, took a DNA test that proved he was not the kidnapped boy. In an instant, he found himself at the center of two half-century-old mysteries.

The notion of children killing other children is one of the most disturbing realities in our society. It shatters the perception of childhood innocence, revealing the complexity and darkness that can sometimes lie beneath the surface. While such crimes are rare, their impact is devastating, leaving families, communities, and society at large searching for answers. This book delves into the troubling phenomenon of child-on-child murder, exploring the psychological, social, and environmental factors that lead children to commit such horrific acts. We will examine the motives behind these ...

By the time she was in her teens, Diamond had lived dozens of lives and lies, but as she grew older, love and trust turned to fear and violence, and her family—the only people she had in the world—began to unravel. She started to realize that her life itself might be a big con, and the people she loved, the most dangerous of all. With no way out and her identity burned so often that she had no proof she even existed, all that was left was a girl from nowhere.

Groomed and procured by a woman, raped by several men and labelled ‘one of the most abused girl in Rotherham’, now Elizabeth Harper is fighting for answers as to why so many people paid to protect our children simply turned a blind eye. Aged just 15, lonely and bullied by her peers, Elizabeth ‘El’ Harper felt like an outcast. But then a chance encounter in the street with a friendly woman suddenly brought hope to her world. A friendship between El and this benevolent stranger blossomed, and life began to feel worth living again.

Fred and Rose West are virtually unique in British criminal history: a husband and wife who loved and killed together. During their long relationship, the Wests murdered a series of young women, burying the remains of nine victims under their home at 25 Cromwell Street, Gloucester, including those of their daughter. What was left of Fred West's eight-year-old stepdaughter was dug up from under the Wests' previous Gloucester home; his first wife and nanny were buried in open country.

Run, Hide, Repeat is a memoir of a childhood steeped in unexplained fear and menace. Gripping and suspenseful, it moves from Dakin's uneasy acceptance of her family's dire situation to bewildered anger. As compelling and twisted as a thriller, Run Hide Repeat is an unforgettable portrait of a family under threat and the resilience of family bonds.

On Christmas Night 1996, six-year-old JonBenet Ramsey was murdered in her family's home in Boulder, Colorado. A ransom note was found, but it was hours before her father, John, found her body in the basement. She had been strangled with a garrote and her skull was fractured. The media sensationalized the tragic death of the "child beauty queen" and public speculation and rumors ran rampant. What followed was one of the most notorious unsolved murder investigations in American history.

Murder, Mayhem, and Moonshine relates 75 true crime stories from Macon County, Tennessee between 1879 and 1939. These stories run the gamut of crime. Some are tragic, some bizarre, some grotesque, and some are a little humorous. Although all of the alleged crimes mentioned here took place decades ago, many of them detail the types of crimes that remain common today across the United States and the world. Besides murder, there are stories about child abduction, rape, bullying, domestic violence, racial problems, drunk driving, confidence games, and others.

Based on years of investigative reporting and unprecedented fieldwork, Walking the Bowl immerses readers in the daily lives of four unforgettable characters: Lusabilo, a determined waste picker; Kapula, a burned-out brothel worker; Moonga, a former rock crusher turned beggar; and Timo, an ambitious gang leader. These children navigate the violent and poverty-stricken underworld of Lusaka, one of Africa’s fastest growing cities.

At three years old, Jodie watched her father murder a woman in a seedy hotel room. He, a true-born sociopath, strolled undetected, using religion as his disguise. A life suffocating the truth wouldn't work for Jodie. The murdered woman's spirit seemed to ignite a search for answers in Jodie's adulthood. A budding darkness around the reality of her past was coming sharply into focus.

A heart-stopping story that highlights the failure of the agencies we trust to protect the most vulnerable among us—and a truth more compelling and powerful than we could imagine. Abuse reports from neighbors draw attention to twelve-year-old Alexey who runs away to hide in the woods. The local child protection agency sends the director of the children’s home to visit Alexey and his younger sisters, Anastasia and Svetlana.

On a quiet afternoon in Arlington, Texas, nine-year-old Amber Hagerman vanished while riding her bicycle—a moment that would forever alter the nation's approach to child abduction. Her disappearance and the subsequent discovery of her body shocked the community and led to the creation of the AMBER Alert system, a legacy born from tragedy. This meticulously researched account delves deep into the events surrounding Amber's abduction and murder. Through interviews, case files, and media reports, the book reconstructs the timeline of that fateful day, the exhaustive search efforts, and the ...

For much of the twentieth century, a series of terrible events—abuse, both physical and psychological, and even deaths—took places inside orphanages. The survivors have been trying to tell their astonishing stories for a long time, but disbelief, secrecy, and trauma have kept them from breaking through. For ten years, Christine Kenneally has been on a quest to uncover the harrowing truth.

Ryan and Phil had always been inseparable. Twins born thirty-five minutes apart, Ryan was the protective one, constantly looking out for his younger brother. They can't remember how old they were when the abuse started, but they can remember their uncle very clearly. A frequent visitor to their home in Lincoln, he lavished their family with expensive treats. School holidays and weekends were spent visiting him, when he would often take the two little boys aside to play the games he liked. Trapped with him, day after day, year after year, the abuse continued until Ryan and Phil turned sixteen.

On March 26, 2018, rescue workers discovered a crumpled SUV and the bodies of two women and several children at the bottom of a cliff beside the Pacific Coast Highway. Investigators soon concluded that the crash was a murder-suicide, but there was more to the story: Jennifer and Sarah Hart, it turned out, were a white married couple who had adopted the six Black children from two different Texas families in 2006 and 2008. Behind the family's loving facade, however, was a pattern of abuse and neglect that went ignored.

Foster carer Maggie Hartley is finally enjoying a well-earned holiday from fostering, savouring time with her brand-new baby granddaughter. One night, though, the peace and quiet is interrupted by an urgent call from Social Services. A man has been stabbed, and Social Services need to find an emergency placement for his little girl. Maggie is used to children arriving on her doorstep at all times of the day and night, but nothing can prepare her for the sight of 11-year-old Nancy.

Lisa Montgomery presented her husband, Kevin, with their newborn baby girl, while a state way, police were investigating the brutal murder of 23-year-old Bobbie Jo Stinnett. She'd been found lying in a pool of blood, and investigators soon realized that someone had strangled Bobbie Jo to death, then cut the fetus from her womb. When they found Bobbie Jo's baby in Lisa's arms, they knew who was responsible for this grisly murder.