True Crime Kidnapping

In 1936, Bruno Richard Hauptmann was executed for the kidnapping and murder of Charles Lindbergh Jr. Almost all of America believed Hauptmann guilty; only a few magazines and tabloids published articles questioning his conviction. In the ensuing decades, many books about the Lindbergh case have been published. Some have declared Hauptmann the victim of a police conspiracy and frame-up, and one posited that Lindbergh actually killed his own son and fabricated the entire kidnapping to mask the deed.

The Momster Diaries shines the light on riveting and compelling survival stories with intimacy and candor.

Unearth the chilling truth behind a small town's secrets as a mother battles against time to save her abducted son. In the chilling aftermath of seven-year-old Derek's inexplicable disappearance, a distraught yet fiercely determined mother, Katie, refuses to stand by idly. Fueled by an unyielding love and aided by her resilient best friend Sophia, she delves into a harrowing race against the clock, plunging into a whirlpool of town secrets and personal demons that threaten to engulf her. As a looming winter storm threatens and the kidnapper skillfully covers their tracks, time is fast ...

National parks are a place for family fun, camping, and adventure. Millions of Americans and foreign tourists flock to national parks around the globe each year. But for some, they go through the entrance, never to come out again.

To solve a high-profile abduction, one former police officer must confront a dark past. A child's abduction reveals a frightening pattern within a small town where nothing is as it seems. Katy Dowry's world shatters when her son, Denny, is abducted from his school. Amidst heavy snowfall and rising tensions, Katy uncovers a web of secrets involving the disappearance of the child.

In this powerful and gripping collection of real-life cases, Meni Caroutas—a former cop turned investigative journalist—reviews old evidence, hunts new leads and recounts shocking developments surrounding the disappearance or murder of 18 people.

In the heart of Victorian France, a name once whispered with admiration and envy was Blanche Monnier. Known far and wide for her breathtaking beauty, Blanche was a vision of grace and charm, the epitome of a desirable young woman. However, beneath the glittering façade of her life lay a chilling secret, a dark tale of betrayal and unimaginable cruelty that would forever stain the annals of history.

On January 21, 1998, the night before his 38th birthday, federal prosecutor Stanley Alpert was kidnapped by a car full of gun-toting thugs. Hoping to make a large withdrawal with his ATM card, they took him, blindfolded, to a Brooklyn apartment, and improvised. All night, his captors alternately held guns to his head, threatened his family, engaged him in discussions of "gangsta" philosophy, sought his legal advice, and even offered him sexual favors from their prostitute girlfriends as a "birthday present."

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.

An Unexplained Death is an obsessive investigation into a mysterious death at the Belvedere - a once-grand hotel - and a poignant, gripping meditation on suicide and voyeurism.

Brainstorm is an amazing five-year probe into the mysterious death of beloved movie star Natalie Wood by a real-life criminal law authority who determinedly pursued the truth in the face of Los Angeles County officials hell-bent on keeping it buried forever. Brainstorm: An Investigation of the Mysterious Death of Film Star Natalie Wood is the first-person account of Sam Perroni’s probing investigation of the actress’s death.

La crónica de un secuestro real magistralmente retratado por Gabriel García Márquez. "Era, en efecto, el automóvil de Maruja. Había transcurrido por lo menos media hora desde el secuestro, y sólo quedaban los rastros: el cristal del lado del chofer destruido por un balazo, la mancha de sangre y el granizo del vidrio en el asiento, y la sombra húmeda en el asfalto, de donde acababan de llevarse al chofer todavía con vida. El resto estaba limpio y en orden."

In this meticulous and authoritative account of the trial and the times of the Lindbergh kidnapping, Robert Zorn clears away decades of ungrounded speculation surrounding the case. Inspired by his father's relationship with the actual accomplices—including the mastermind—he presents the clearest ever picture of a criminal partnership that would shake every class and culture of American society.

In Hoffa’s Shadow tells the moving story of how Goldsmith reunited with the stepfather he’d disowned and then set out to unravel one of the 20th century’s most persistent mysteries and Chuckie’s role in it. Along the way, Goldsmith explores Hoffa’s rise and fall and why the golden age of blue-collar America came to an end, while also casting new light on the century-old surveillance state, the architects of Hoffa’s disappearance, and the heartrending complexities of love and loyalty.

Twenty-one-year-old Vancouver student Elisa Lam was last heard from on January 31, 2013, after she checked into downtown LA's Cecil Hotel - a 600-room building with a nine-decade history of scandal and tragedy. The next day, Elisa vanished. A search of the hotel yielded nothing. More than a week later, complaints by guests of foul-smelling tap water led to a grim discovery: Elisa's nude body floating in a rooftop water tank, in an area extremely difficult to access without setting off alarms.

The year is 1888, and Louis Le Prince is finally testing his “taker” or “receiver” device for his family on the front lawn. The device is meant to capture 10 to 12 images per second on film, creating a reproduction of reality that can be replayed as many times as desired. In an otherwise separate and detached world, occurrences from one end of the globe could now be viewable with only a few days delay on the other side of the world. No human experience—from the most mundane to the most momentous—would need to be lost to history.

Sixteen-year-old Patricia Columbo began working for pharmacist Frank DeLuca, a married father of five, in the 1970s, and the two soon entered into a sexual relationship. Against her father's wishes, Patricia and Frank moved in together. Then, in Elk Grove Village, Illinois, Patricia's father was brutally murdered, along with her mother and 13-year-old brother. Police were suspicious of Patricia's strange behavior after the bodies were discovered, and following their investigation, they arrested both Patricia and Frank.

Chris Thomas is not yet 30 years old when he finds himself managing the immense pressure, eccentric personalities, and extenuating circumstances of an international story, where one small misstep could adversely impact the search for a missing teenager and the reputation of her family. Now, 20 years later, Thomas takes listeners behind the scenes, providing new details, perspectives, and commentary on finding Elizabeth Smart.

What exactly is this controversy about Netaji’s ‘disappearance’? Efforts by the authors led to the declassification of more than 1,300 secret files on Bose. Does new material offer new evidence on Bose’s reported death in 1945? The Bose Deception: Declassified opens a window to this and much more.

With over 55,000 disappearances annually in Australia, each story is a heart-wrenching account of unanswered questions and shattered lives. The narrative spans decades, from the 1980s to present-day mysteries, including the puzzling case of a gentle Greenpeace worker vanishing amidst inner-city Melbourne, the suspicious disappearance of a 21-year-old, and the grim discovery of scattered remains in Queensland, unravelling a harrowing tale of violence and tragedy. And then there is the perplexing case of a man who went missing over and over again.