True Crime Memoir

United States of True Crime is an anthology series with books devoted to the most disturbing cases in each of the 50 states. This book focuses on ten of the most chilling crimes in Arizona history. True crime junkies may recognize some of the highly publicized cases, but I’ve made sure to include lesser-known, equally unsettling crimes. If you’re a true crime enthusiast who enjoys listening about some of the most depraved monsters in our country, you will love United States of True Crime.

In June 1990, Ronald Baker, a straight-A UCLA student, was found repeatedly stabbed to death in a tunnel near Spahn Ranch, where Charles Manson and his followers once lived. Shortly thereafter, Detective Rick Jackson and his partner, Frank Garcia, were assigned the case. Yet the facts made no sense. Who would have a motive to kill Ron Baker in such a grisly manner? Was the proximity to the Manson ranch related to the murder? And what about the pentagram pendant Ron wore around his neck? Jackson and Garcia soon focused their investigation on Baker’s two male roommates, one Black, and one white.

Packed with jaw-dropping stories of public violence and personal vengeance, vivid insights into the Mafia's way of life, and shocking portraits of America's most wanted crime families, Red Hook is a must-listen for anyone fascinated by the history of organized crime in America.

In 1901, Buffalo, New York, the eighth biggest city in America, wanted to launch the new century with the Pan American Exposition. It would showcase the Western hemisphere and bring millions of people to Western New York. With Niagara Falls as a drawing card, and with stunning colors and electric lights, promoters believed it would be bigger, better, and - literally - more brilliant than Chicago's White City of 1893.

El Narco is not a gang; it is a movement and an industry drawing in hundreds of thousands, from bullet-riddled barrios to marijuana-covered mountains. The conflict spawned by El Narco has given rise to paramilitary death squads battling from Guatemala to the Texas border (and sometimes beyond). In this "propulsive ... high-octane" book (Publishers Weekly), Ioan Grillo draws the first definitive portrait of Mexico's cartels and how they have radically transformed.

In February 1990, Oregon State Police arrested John Sosnovke and Laverne Pavlinac for the vicious rape and murder of Taunja Bennet. Pavlinac had come forth and confessed, implicating her boyfriend and producing physical evidence that linked them to the crime. Authorities closed the case. There was just one problem. They had the wrong people. And the real killer wasn't about to let anyone take credit for his kill.

Despite what Scarface might lead one to believe, violence was not the dominant characteristic of the cocaine business. It was corruption: the dirty cops, agents, lawyers, judges, and politicians who made the drug world go round. And no one managed that carousel of dangerous players better than Willy Falcon.

At 5:40 a.m. on July 4, 1954, the mayor of Bay Village, a small suburb of Cleveland, Ohio, received a frantic phone call from his neighbor Dr. Sam Sheppard. The news was too terrible to comprehend: Marilyn, Sam's lovely wife, was dead, her face and torso beaten beyond recognition by an unknown assailant who had knocked Sam unconscious and escaped just before dawn. In the adjacent bedroom, Chip, the Sheppards' seven-year-old son, had slept through the entire ordeal. Almost immediately, the police began to suspect Sam Sheppard.

Two men, each handsome and unusually adept at his chosen work, embodied an element of the great dynamic that characterized America’s rush toward the twentieth century. The architect was Daniel Hudson Burnham, the fair’s brilliant director of works and the builder of many of the country’s most important structures, including the Flatiron Building in New York and Union Station in Washington, D.C. The murderer was Henry H. Holmes, a young doctor who, in a malign parody of the White City, built his “World’s Fair Hotel” just west of the fairgrounds.

In this fascinating account, Ann Rule delivers a tour de force: a whirlwind of misguided love, denial, guilt, and passions out of control; a series of brilliantly manipulated crimes; the bizarre and horrifying tale of two families brought to ruin; and, at the center of it all, the heartless, supremely selfish sociopath whose evil hid behind soft words and gentle manners, but who destroyed—without mercy—those who loved her.

Aspiring model Sandee Rozzo's big mistake was being kind to Timothy "Tracey" Humphrey. After Rozzo refused the 'roided-up ex-con's advances, she described how he imprisoned, raped, and brutalized her for two days. When the courageous woman pledged to testify against him, Humphrey knew he had to silence her. That's when he turned to 19-year-old Ashley Laney. She had fallen in love with Humphrey, her personal trainer, and would do anything for him. On their wedding night, he made a strange request - one that would end with eight gunshot wounds and a dead body.

An arsenic poisoning sends a small New England church into turmoil in April 2003.

Whistleblower is the chilling true story of what happens when someone with a lifelong habit of going along to get along is confronted with criminal activity that can't be ignored. Amy Block Joy - scientist, faculty member, and educator - was happy conducting research while administering a $14 million program for poor families. Certainly, nothing that she had previously experienced prepared her for the resistance, collusion, and retaliation she encountered when she discovered embezzlement at the University where she had worked for more than 30 years. What seemed like a simple path to justice...

STORM OF SUSPICION: The Karen Read Murder Trials is both an electrifying, real-time courtroom thriller and the gripping personal account of author Kevin Lenihan’s detailed examination of the evidence—both known and what he’s discovered—as well as the dark rumors, courtroom bombshells, and conspiracy theories that are at the heart of two of the most explosive and controversial murder trials of the decade.

This haunting and propulsive debut follows a journalist's years-long investigation into his father's old classmate: former high school valedictorian Paul Volkman, who seemed destined for greatness after earning his MD and PhD from the prestigious University of Chicago, but is now serving four consecutive life sentences at a federal prison in Arizona.

In 1981, Peter Sutcliffe, the "Yorkshire Ripper", was convicted of 13 murders and seven attempted murders. All his proven victims were women; most were prostitutes. There is a still-secret story of how Sutcliffe's terrible reign of terror claimed at least 22 more lives and left five other victims with terrible injuries. Police and prosecution authorities have long known that Sutcliffe's reign of terror was far longer and far more widespread than the public has been led to believe. But the evidence has been locked away in the files and archives.

Submersed begins with an investigation into the beguiling subculture of DIY submersible obsessives: men and women—but mostly men—who are so compelled to sink into the deep sea that they become amateur backyard submarine-builders. Matthew Gavin Frank explores the origins of the human compulsion to sink to depth, from the diving bells of Aristotle and Alexander the Great to the Confederate H. L. Hunley, which became the first submersible to sink an enemy warship before itself being sunk during the Civil War.

On 29 August 2016, devastating news hit the headlines that an entire family was found dead in a rural community. For Jacqueline Connolly, this was a deeply personal and life-shattering tragedy, as she discovered her sister Clodagh, along with her nephews Liam, Niall and Ryan, were killed by their husband and father Alan Hawe. Here, Jacqueline discloses the circumstances leading up to these tragic events, including Hawe's manipulation and coercive control of her unsuspecting sister.

Juan Martinez, the fiery prosecutor who convicted notorious murderess Jodi Arias for the disturbing killing of Travis Alexander, speaks for the first time about the shocking investigation and sensational trial that captivated the nation. Through two trials, America watched with bated breath as Juan Martinez fought relentlessly to convict Jodi Arias of murder one for viciously stabbing her ex-boyfriend, Travis Alexander, to death.

Martin Corona, a US citizen, fell into the outlaw life at 12 and worked for a crew run by the Arellano brothers, founders of the Tijuana drug cartel that dominated the Southern California drug trade and much bloody gang warfare for decades. Corona's crew would cross into the United States from their luxurious hideout in Mexico, kill whomever needed to be killed north of the border, and return home in the afternoon. Martin Corona played a key role in the downfall of the cartel when he turned state's evidence.