True Con Artist

Dominque Dunne appeared in several films and television series from 1979 to 1982, but was best known for portraying the oldest daughter in the 1982 horror film Poltergeist. She seemed destined for stardom until tragedy struck on October 30, 1982. Dominique was strangled by her ex-boyfriend, John Thomas Sweeney, in the driveway of her West Hollywood home and went into a coma. She never regained consciousness and died five days later. This is her story.

He was a cunning Berkeley Law grad who lost his job and hatched a con. Then he got rich and ran fast on an outlandish Adderall-fueled rush of stolen cash, multiple identities, and a euphoric fantasy of success. A Ponzi scheme was exposed, and a prominent Manhattan hedge fund imploded. Enterprising intern and financial wizard-in-training Gerti Muho saw it as an opportunity. He had insider knowledge and a knack for fraud, embezzlement, and identity theft. His steady supply of falsified prescriptions helped. Muho was on a luxury high. His luck seemed bottomless.

Of the millions who go missing every year around the world, there are those who simply vanish and are never seen again. The sheer volume of people who disappear each and every year are, when examined in detail, terrifying. In this audiobook, we will touch upon some of the most terrifying, touching, strange, and worrying stories. In this audiobook, we hope to examine the sheer range of cases which have enthralled the interested, and distressed those involved for many years. Some of these cases became national stories, while others remain private tragedies.

A firsthand, never-before-told account of the creation of OceanGate, the heartbreaking Titan tragedy, and the supposed villain behind it all, Stockton Rush, as told by the only person who can: his cofounder and friend.

Marilyn Sheppard, four months pregnant and mother of a toddler son, was bludgeoned to death in her Bay Village, Ohio, home in the early morning of July fourth, 1954. The cause of death was 27 blows to the head with a heavy instrument. Who took her life so brutally has been the subject of much controversy and debate for nearly half a century.

Crimes fueled by emotions. When it comes to the emotions, people can react in strange and unexpected ways. Whether it's a heart hurt by unrequited love, or a lover so passionate they'll stop at nothing to get their way - even the most mild-mannered soul can suddenly flip, becoming a vengeful spirit with dark intentions. From the ancient Greek myth of Jason and Medea to Shakespeare's Othello, themes dealing with deeply felt emotions have persisted. But unlike mythology or fiction, The Best New True Crime Stories contains stories from real life.

Cannibal. Necrophiliac. Kidnapper. Killer. The stories of serial killers often begin with terrible upbringings and sad events of trauma, but not all have such unfortunate beginnings. Some simply develop their evil on their own and become tainted without anyone realizing it. Jeffrey Dahmer was a man described by his own father as the result of a child becoming lost in the maelstrom while nobody paid attention, a child who was strange and apathetic but whom nobody bothered to ask why.

A Widow’s Journey Through Online Scammers: A Story of Love, Loss, and Laughter in the Face of Deception. After the devastating loss of her beloved husband and son, Nella found herself navigating the unpredictable and often deceptive world of online dating. What began as a search for companionship quickly turned into an eye-opening journey through romance scams, military scam awareness, and the dark underworld of online relationship fraud.

Like many aspiring writers, David Breithaupt had money problems. But what he also had was unsupervised access to one of the finest special collections libraries in the country. In October 1990, Kenyon College hired David Breithaupt as its library's part-time evening supervisor. In April 2000 he was fired after a Georgia librarian discovered him selling a letter by Flannery O'Connor on eBay, but that was only the tip of the iceberg. Breithaupt had been browsing the collection, taking from it whatever rare books, manuscripts, and documents caught his eye.

The Afterlife Confessional follows Bill's journey for answers as he looks through the dizzying kaleidoscope of his clients' lives - the widower who escaped an aged-care trap to take her husband's ashes on the road trip of a lifetime; the man who spent his life paying it forward to try to make up for one shameful act; the closet dominatrix who quietly confronts her husband's infidelity by comforting those truly in need; the devoted couple who insist on going hand-in-hand into the afterlife.

For over half a century, Banco Popular was one of the most profitable banks in the world—until one day in 2017, when the Spanish bank suddenly collapsed overnight. When investigative journalist Gareth Gore was dispatched to report on the story, he expected to find yet another case of unbridled capitalist ambition gone wrong. Instead, he uncovered decades of deception that hid one of the most brazen cases of corporate pillaging in history, perpetrated by a group of men sworn to celibacy and self-flagellation who had secretly controlled Popular.

When Ghana declared independence from Britain in 1957, it immediately became a target for opportunists determined to lay hold of whatever assets colonialism hadn’t already stripped. The military ousted the new nation’s first president, Kwame Nkrumah, then falsely accused him of stealing the country’s gold and hiding it overseas. Into this story stepped one of history’s most charismatic scammers, John Ackah Blay-Miezah – a con man to rival the trickster god Anansi. Born into poverty, Blay-Miezah declared himself the custodian of an alleged Nkrumah trust fund worth billions.

The first of a trilogy, this collection features 16 of the world's most outrageous scams and hoaxes. They all really happened and were taken from firsthand accounts, newspaper reports, or historical documents found in public libraries. They date as far back as the late 1800s, but most are more recent. However, you won't find any defrauded widows or orphans in these stories. The victims are institutions or corporations quite capable of defending themselves, and the crooks who match wits with them are just as savvy. You could almost call it a fair fight!

There has never been a con-man trickster in American history as devious, or as likeable, as Randolph "Soapy" Smith. He was a sociopath with a smile that could melt the hardest heart. He was a man without a conscience, a natural criminal quite willing to steal from the hapless poor and the greedy rich with an equally shameless eagerness. Soapy’s only measure of man was the wallet he could empty from the day he learned how to cheat at cards, hide the pea in a shell game, or invent a scam.

King is the story of how Kirkland Gaynes rose to become "Top Pimp" in Chicago's seedy underworld. It's an unapologetic account of what is known as the "Pimp Game". King shows that dreams can come true. But the flip side to a dream is nightmarish.

It’s a chilling reality that homicide investigators know all too well: the last face most murder victims see is not that of a stranger, but of someone familiar. Whether only an acquaintance or a trusted intimate, such killers share a common trait that triggers the downward spiral toward death for someone close to them: they are masters at hiding who they really are. Their clever masks let them appear safe, kind, and truthful. They are anything but - and almost no one can detect the murderous impulses buried deep in their psyches.

Vier erschütternde wahre Kriminalgeschichten in einem Band von bestsellerautor Ryan Green.

Chrissy was an attractive, recently divorced 40-year-old, living with her three children in their family home in Cheltenham, when in 2003, she met 44-year-old ‘Alex’ in a local coffee shop. He claimed to be an international financier, Alexander Marc d’Ariken de Rothschild-Hatton, the illegitimate son of multi-millionaire heir, Edmund de Rothschild. Charming and smooth-talking, it wasn’t long before he gained Chrissy’s love and trust, with marriage on the cards and a new baby on the way.

Edgar Laplante was a small-time grifter, an erstwhile vaudeville performer, and an unabashed charmer. But after years of playing thankless gigs and traveling with medicine shows, he decided to undertake the most demanding and bravura performance of his life. In the fall of 1917, Laplante reinvented himself as Chief White Elk: war hero, sports star, civil rights campaigner, Cherokee nation leader - and total fraud.

It’s no secret that hundreds of companies have been slashing pensions and health coverage earned by millions of retirees. Employers blame an aging workforce, stock market losses, and spiraling costs - a perfect storm of external forces that has forced them to take drastic measures. But this so-called retirement crisis is no accident. Award-winning investigative reporter Ellen E. Schultz reveals how large companies and the retirement industry - benefits consultants, insurance companies, and banks - have all played a huge, hidden role in the death spiral of American pensions and benefits.