True Crime Serial Murders

Born on a dying farm and soon abandoned by his father, Carl Panzram's life was bleak from the start. While other children played and went to school, he toiled away on his family's land, the threat of brutal punishment always looming over his head. Yet, instead of shaping him into the meek, obedient boy his family wanted, Panzram grew meaner with each passing year. His first arrest happened before he had even turned 10.

The best of this year's true crime writing from master true crime authors RJ Parker, Peter Vronsky, JJ Slate, Sylvia Perrini, and Michael Newton, who give us nine new shocking case accounts of serial killers.

In September 1998, young reporter Claudia Rowe was working as a stringer for The New York Times in Poughkeepsie, New York, when local police discovered the bodies of eight women stashed in the attic and basement of the small colonial home that Kendall Francois, a painfully polite 27-year-old community college student, shared with his parents and sister. Growing up amid the safe, bourgeois affluence of New York City, Rowe had always been secretly fascinated by the darkness and soon became obsessed with the story and with Francois.

In the world of American serial killers, few can beat Donald Henry "Peewee" Gaskins when it comes to depravity, cunning, and quite possibly the sheer number of murders. In this true crime book about an infamous serial killer, you will delve into the mind of a truly twisted man who claimed scores of victims from the 1950s until 1982, which made him the most prolific serial killer in South Carolina history and quite possibly in all of American history!

In the pantheon of serial killers, Belle Gunness stands alone. She was the rarest of female psychopaths, a woman who engaged in wholesale slaughter, partly out of greed but mostly for the sheer joy of it. Between 1902 and 1908, she lured a succession of unsuspecting victims to her Indiana “murder farm". Some were hired hands. Others were well-to-do bachelors. All of them vanished without a trace.

The Zodiac serial killer claimed the lives of at least five young victims between 1966 and 1974, and mocked the police with telephone calls, taunting letters, and encrypted messages. Thousands of men have been accused; nearly 2,500 have been investigated. Yet the Zodiac has never been identified. This painstakingly researched and meticulously detailed compendium to the Zodiac serial killer case by true crime author Mark Hewitt presents the crimes and their effect on a community.

Eighteen baffling true-crime cold cases—solved.

Between December 1968 and October 1969, a hooded serial killer called Zodiac terrorized San Francisco. Claiming responsibility for 37 murders, he manipulated the media with warnings, dares, and bizarre cryptograms that baffled FBI code-breakers. Then, as suddenly as the murders began, Zodiac disappeared into the Bay Area fog. After painstaking investigation and more than 30 years of research, Robert Graysmith finally exposes Zodiac's true identity.

Everybody knew Velma Barfield as the perfect wife and a loving grandmother. But there was something about her that nobody knew.... Velma Barfield had a secret life and a sick urge to kill.

In the late 1800s, the city of Austin, Texas, was on the cusp of emerging from an isolated western outpost into a truly cosmopolitan metropolis. But beginning in December 1884, Austin was terrorized by someone equally as vicious and, in some ways, far more diabolical than London's infamous Jack the Ripper. For almost exactly one year, the Midnight Assassin crisscrossed the entire city, striking on moonlit nights, using axes, knives, and long steel rods to rip apart women from every race and class.

When veteran LAPD homicide detective Steve Hodel discovered that his own late father, Dr. George Hill Hodel, was the killer in the infamous Black Dahlia murder case, he wrote the best seller Black Dahlia Avenger, a book that convinced even the L.A. County Deputy District Attorney that George Hodel was responsible for Elizabeth Short's gruesome death.

Lindsey always knew she wanted to be a detective. Her inspiration came after reading about the murders committed by Ted Bundy, who grew up in her hometown of Tacoma, Washington. Also seared into her memory was the 1986 murder of a young girl who'd been out for a bike ride when she went missing. The teen was later found murdered, but the case was never solved. The senseless killing of an innocent young girl would leave a black cloud over Tacoma for three decades.

In the summer of 1998, FBI agent Bob Hilland reluctantly picked up the phone to call the famous psychic John Edward. Bob didn’t expect much from the call, but he was working on an unsolvable cold case and had nowhere else to turn. What Bob never imagined was that the call would lead to a shattering of all his preconceived notions, a huge break in the cold case, and an unlikely crime-solving partnership that spanned twenty-five years.

The year 1969: The hippie scene is vibrant in Provincetown, Massachusetts. Long-haired teenagers roam the streets, strumming guitars and preaching about peace and love...and Tony Costa is at the center of it all. To a certain group of smitten young women, he is known as Sire—the leader of their counterculture movement, the charming man who speaks eloquently and hands out hallucinogenic drugs like candy. But beneath his benign persona lies a twisted and uncontrollable rage that threatens to break loose at any moment. Tony Costa is the most dangerous man on Cape Cod.

One morning in July 1974, Anita Andrews, the owner and bartender at Fagiani's Cocktail Lounge in Napa, California was found dead in her bar - raped, beaten, and stabbed to death in a bloody frenzy. She'd last been seen alive the night before talking to a drifter who sat at the end of the bar, playing cards and flirting with her. But the stranger, along with Anita's Cadillac, had disappeared. Unable to locate a suspect, police investigators sadly watched the case grow cold over the years.

Eleven murders over a period of four years sent shockwaves through the Krugersdorp community and made headlines nationwide. Eventually these murders were connected to Cecilia Steyn and her cult, Electus per Deus (chosen by God). Members of the cult were willing to do anything for Cecilia - even if it meant committing murder.

From suicide attempts to claiming her mother cursed her, to miscarriages, and losing 10 of her 14 children, Leonarda’s life wasn’t easy. Protecting her four surviving children became something of an obsession for the woman. Perhaps tragedy loosened her grip on reality, or maybe the fear of losing her oldest to war caused a mental break. Whatever the cause, Leonarda’s chilling deeds will raise the hair on the back of your neck and leave you wondering if those around you are capable of the same evil.

Twelve true crime stories of murder and mayhem. The stories included in this audiobook are truly depraved and shocking. They are not for the squeamish. My intention is not to shock, but to provide a clear and accurate description of some of the most evil minds of the world. Though the stories are brief, I do my best to include enough detail so that the listener can get a better look into the demented mind of the killer. This volume features 12 of the most incomprehensible stories of the last 60 years.

Portland author Trevor Church dives into one of the most shocking crimes in Oregon history - the disappearance and murder of one of his former schoolmates and her friend. Ashley Pond left for school early one morning, running a few minutes late as always, she hurried up the hill outside of her apartments to the school bus. She was never seen again. News crews gathered at the bus stop, outside of the apartments, and the school. For weeks they interviewed everyone on camera, alongside the private interviews conducted by investigators. One of the girls interviewed on the morning news at the ...

In 1963, with the city of Boston already terrified by a series of savage crimes known as the Boston Stranglings, a murder occurred in Belmont, just a few blocks from the house of Sebastian Junger's family, a murder that seemed to fit exactly the pattern of the Strangler. Roy Smith, a black man who had cleaned the victim's house that day, was convicted, but the terror of the Strangler continued.