True Criminal

On May 31, 1985, two days before her high school graduation, Shari Smith was abducted from the driveway of her family home in South Carolina. Based on the crime scene and the abductor’s repeated and taunting calls to the family, law enforcement quickly realized they were dealing with a sophisticated and highly dangerous criminal.

LEGENDARY CON ARTISTS: Tales of Deceit, Scams, and Fraud beckons you to a mesmerizing exploration of history's craftiest deceivers. In this book, each narrative reveals the clever and often astonishing stories of the world's most infamous fraudsters. Picture a scenario where Victor Lustig sells the Eiffel Tower not just once, but twice, to naive purchasers. Step into the world of Charles Ponzi, a name now synonymous with deceptive financial schemes. These narratives are far more than historical anecdotes; they are complex tales brimming with boldness and ingenuity. Journey to the lawless ...

A profile of bloodthirsty Colombian drug dealer Griselda Blanco, known as the "Black Widow" due to her penchant for killing off her lovers, recounts Blanco's vicious crime spree and the ten-year struggle to bring her to justice.

Fans of true crime shows like CSI, NCIS, Criminal Minds, and Law and Order know that when it comes to “getting the bad guy” behind bars, your best chance of success boils down to the strength of your evidence—and the forensic science used to obtain it. Beyond the silver screen, forensic science has been used for decades to help solve even the most tough-to-crack cases.

On June 25, 1973, a seven-year-old girl went missing from the Montana campground where her family was vacationing. Somebody had slit open the back of their tent and snatched her from under their noses. None of them saw or heard anything. Susie Jaeger had vanished into thin air, plucked by a shadow. As days stretched into weeks, and weeks into months, Special Agent Pete Dunbar attended a workshop at FBI Headquarters in Quantico, Virgina, led by two agents who had hatched a radical new idea: What if criminals left a psychological trail that would lead us to them?

Behind the whitewashed walls of a quiet Sacramento boarding house, an elderly woman served homemade meals, offered warm smiles—and buried bodies in her garden. Dorothea Puente appeared to be the perfect landlord: nurturing, soft-spoken, and devoted to caring for the elderly and disabled. But behind her grandmotherly façade lurked a manipulative killer who preyed on society’s most vulnerable for money, power, and control. For years, she murdered her tenants, forged their signatures, and continued cashing their Social Security checks—all while the system turned a blind eye. Death House...

In March 2015, Denise Huskins and her boyfriend Aaron Quinn awoke from a sound sleep into a nightmare. Armed men bound and drugged them, then abducted Denise. Warned not to call the police or Denise would be killed, Aaron agonized about what to do. Finally he put his trust in law enforcement and dialed 911. But instead of searching for Denise, the police accused Aaron of her murder. His story, they told him, was just unbelievable. When Denise was released alive, the police turned their fire on her, dubbing her the “real-life ‘Gone Girl’” who had faked her own kidnapping.

On a cold winter day in 1832, Sarah Maria Cornell was found dead in a quiet farmyard in a small New England town. When her troubled past and a secret correspondence with charismatic Methodist minister Reverend Ephraim Avery was uncovered, more questions emerged. Was Sarah’s death a suicide...or something much darker? Determined to uncover the real story, Victorian writer Catharine Read Arnold Williams threw herself into the investigation as the trial was unfolding and wrote what many claim to be the first American true-crime narrative, Fall River.

On October 20, 1973, in San Francisco, a White couple strolling down Telegraph Hill was set upon and butchered by four young Black men. Thus began a reign of terror that lasted six months and left 15 Whites dead and the entire city in a state of panic. The perpetrators wanted nothing less than a race war.

OVER 300 PAGES OF TRUE STORIES TOLD BY THE POLICE WHO EXPERIENCED THEM. Welcome to 10-33: True Tales From the Thin Blue Line, a vivid anthology curated by Vic Stevens, a retired officer from the bustling streets of Philadelphia. Spanning a remarkable 21 years of service, Vic has witnessed the spectrum of humanity, from its most courageous moments to its most challenging. Now, residing peacefully in Blue Bell, Pennsylvania with his wife, he has turned his experiences, along with contributions from fellow officers nationwide, into powerful narratives. In these pages, you will find a ...

In The Innocent Killer, Michael Griesbach tells the story of one of the nation's most notorious wrongful convictions, that of Steven Avery, a Wisconsin man who spent 18 years in prison for a crime he did not commit. But two years after he was exonerated of that crime and poised to reap millions in his wrongful conviction lawsuit, Steven Avery was arrested for the exceptionally brutal murder of Teresa Halbach, a freelance photographer who had gone missing several days earlier.

Based off Hannah Maguire and Suruthi Bala's popular podcast of the same name, RedHanded explores real-life true-crime cases to help answer once and for all if a killer is born or made.

True Stories: Mysteries of Crime and Punishment Every story in this book is true - except one. Some tell of crimes that have gone unpunished by the law. Some are crimes against laws that are unwritten. And some are crimes that exist only in the mind. This collection of short stories covers a multitude of sins. Getting away with murder is easy if you know how - even easier if you’re a high-flying City trader like Terry Hills and have the help of someone who has been Yakuza trained. Most of us have wanted Peace and quiet at some time in our lives. Simon and Petra found the perfect spot in ...

Misha Glenny's groundbreaking study of global organized crime is now the inspiration for an eight-part AMC crime drama starring James Norton (War and Peace), Juliet Rylance, and David Strathairn. In this fearless and wholly authoritative investigation of the seemingly insatiable demand for illegal wares, veteran reporter Misha Glenny travels across five continents to speak with participants from every level of the global underworld. What follows is a groundbreaking, propulsive look at an unprecedented phenomenon from a savvy, street-wise guide.

NEARLY FORGOTTEN TRUE CRIMES - VOLUME 2 tells the story of 7 crimes, and the events around them, which took place in the USA in the early 1900s and captured the attention of the American press and public at the time. *MURDER IN DUPLICATE Deep in the wilderness of the Washington timberlands the mutilated body of Ralph Allinson lay for months before it was accidentally discovered by a local lumberjack. A short time later police came across another decomposing body in dense undergrowth. With almost no clues to go on, only dilligent detective work and overwhelming circumstantial evidence led to...

Drawing on a trove of sealed files and previously classified material, Whitey digs deep into the mind of James J. "Whitey" Bulger, the crime boss and killer who brought the FBI to its knees. He is an American original - a psychopath who fostered a following with a frightening mix of terror, deadly intimidation, and the deft touch of a politician who often helped a family in need meet their monthly rent. But the history shows that despite the early false myths portraying him as a Robin Hood figure, Whitey was a supreme narcissist, and everything was always about him.

In November 1987, a young couple on an overnight trip to Seattle vanished without a trace. A week later, the bodies of Tanya Van Cuylenborg and her boyfriend Jay Cook were found in rural Washington. It was a brutal crime, and it was the perfect crime: With few clues and no witnesses, an international manhunt turned up empty, and the sensational case that shocked the Pacific Northwest gradually slipped from the headlines.

Drawn from historical records and current news headlines, A Taste for Poison weaves together the tales of spurned lovers, shady scientists, medical professionals, and political assassins to show how the precise systems of the body can be impaired to lethal effect through the use of poison. From the deadly origins of the gin and tonic cocktail to the arsenic-laced wallpaper in Napoleon’s bedroom, A Taste for Poison leads listeners on a fascinating tour of the intricate, complex systems that keep us alive - or don’t.

On June 9, 2008, the butchered body of Travis Alexander was found in his Mesa, Arizona, home. The grisly nature of his death made instant headlines: With 29 knife wounds, his throat slit, and a gunshot to the head, Travis was left to die. The prime suspect in the case was Alexander's ex-girlfriend, the attractive and soft-spoken Jodi Arias. Though Arias initially said that she was nowhere near the scene of crime, little about this case was as it seemed, and before long she had been caught lying to police. As the investigation progressed, her lies evolved multiple times before finally resting on an appalling claim: She had killed Travis in self-defense.

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.