True Crime Deception

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.

In 2006 an oddball group of bankers, traders and brokers from some of the largest financial institutions made a startling realization: Libor - the London interbank offered rate, which determines the interest rates on trillions in loans worldwide - was set daily by a group of easily manipulated administrators, and they could reap huge profits by nudging it fractions of a percent to suit their trading portfolios. This group generated incredible riches - until it all unraveled in spectacularly vicious, backstabbing fashion.

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.

Groomed. Gaslighted. Ghosted. They thought they'd found their soulmate. They had no idea he was spying on them. These five motivated, independent women each thought they'd met their perfect partner - someone who shared their values, ambitions and goals. But after a while, in some cases years later, the men started to behave strangely. They disappeared for weeks at a time, saying they needed to go away to clear their heads. Small details about their lives didn't quite fit. Then they vanished, leaving a note saying that the relationship was over.

When Who the Hell is Hamish? hit podcast platforms in 2019, Tracy Hall quickly became known as the last victim of one of the world's most prolific con men, Hamish McLaren. At last, Tracy is sharing the full story of how she overcame financial and emotional betrayal in this fast-paced, witty and empowering true crime memoir.

It's easy to imagine Harold Shipman doting on his little grandkids, reading them stories from his lap and letting them play with his big, bushy beard. If you were told he was a doctor, I bet you'd imagine he was a good, kind and gentle one, with an easy, affable manner and deep care for his patients. Harold Frederick Shipman certainly projected all those qualities, but only so that he could hide the evil that lurked deep inside. Shipman abused his trust and used his position to kill.

What triggers activate an all-out rage that leads people to commit mass murder? What is the motive behind some of the most shocking killing sprees in US history? Enter the chilling and murderous mind of a spree killer to find out. In Volume 4 of True Crime Stories, prepare for crimes like never before, as we examine what makes people snap and commit gruesome, calculated, and disturbing crimes that will have you questioning about humanity.

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.

Murderous Minds: Stories of Real Life Murderers That Escaped the Headlines offers a look into the lives of individuals who committed heinous acts of evil but managed to avoid the media storm that usually accompanies them.

A Treasury of Deception is a tongue-in-cheek commemoration of those who attempted to pull off the greatest scams. Conmen, tricksters, charlatans, impostors, and downright liars seeking wealth, 15 minutes of fame, or the alleviation of blame rely upon the maxim that “There’s a sucker born every minute.”

Russia was not the first foreign power to influence American popular opinion from the inside. In the lead-up to America’s entry into the First World War, Germany spent the modern equivalent of one billion dollars to infiltrate American media, industry, and government in order to undermine the supply chain of the Allied forces. If not for the ceaseless activity of John Revelstoke Rathom, editor of the scrappy Providence Journal, America may have remained committed to its position of neutrality.

During 51 days in early 1993 one of the most tragic events in American crime history unfolded on the plains outside Waco, Texas. An obscure and heavily armed religious sect called the Branch Davidians was barricaded inside their commune and outside were hundreds of law enforcement angry because the former had killed four ATF agents in a botched raid. Go on an engaging and captivating ride to examine one of the most important true crime stories in recent decades.

On the Saturday morning of January 9, 1993, while Jean Claude Romand was killing his wife and children, I was with mine in a parent-teacher meeting.... With these chilling first words, acclaimed master of psychological suspense Emmanuel Carrère begins his exploration of the double life of a respectable doctor, 18 years of lies, five murders and the extremes to which ordinary people can go.

Con artists are everywhere—your new boyfriend or girlfriend, your new neighbor or coworker, your new friend—and they don’t outsmart you; they out-feel you to get their hands on your money. In Anatomy of a Con Artist, Walton lays out “the tells” based on hundreds of real-life cases he’s investigated.

In 1989 a woman fishing in Texas on a quiet stretch of the Colorado River snagged a body. Her “catch” was the corpse of Johnny Jenkins, shot in the head. His death was as dramatic as the rare book dealer’s life, which read, as the Austin American-Statesman declared, “like a best seller”. At the time of his death, Jenkins was about to be indicted by the ATF for the arson of his rare books, warehouse, and offices. Another investigation implicated Jenkins in forgeries of historical documents, including the Texas Declaration of Independence.

Serial killers are not simple monsters, as many believe. They are human beings just like us: men and women who have made the wrong choices or been turned into ugly creatures by their upbringing. Some seek to cause pain and shock - others just wish to scratch an itch that they have in their mind. All of them bring darkness in their own way.

Hoax, conspiracy, or secret society? That is the range of responses you might hear when raising the idea of the Priory of Sion. Ostensibly a clandestine order designed to disguise the truth about the children of Jesus Christ, the group have been labeled as either an elaborate concoction or the most powerful secret society in the world. Are they real? What are they hiding? Where did they come from? What impact can they have on the world around us? These are the questions this book will hope to answer.

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.

When Lt. Commander Bobby Thompson surfaced in Tampa in 1998, it was as if he had fallen from the sky, providing no hint of his past life. Eleven years later, St. Petersburg Times investigative reporter Jeff Testerman visited the rundown duplex Thompson used as his home and the epicenter of his sixty-thousand-member charity, the US Navy Veterans Association. But something was amiss. Thompson’s charity’s addresses were just maildrops, his members nonexistent, and his past a black hole.

Nina, a new graduate from fashion design in college, gladly accepts the offer to have her palm read as a graduation gift. Smiling, the palm reader tells Nina that she has a long lifeline, as she traces it on her hand. As soon as the words are uttered, the palm reader’s facial expression turns to one of fear. In broken English, she whispers, “Break – very bad break in middle of life. Maybe you die.”