On May 31, 2014, in the Milwaukee suburb of Waukesha, Wisconsin, two 12-year-old girls attempted to stab their classmate to death. Morgan Geyser and Anissa Weier’s violence was extreme, but what seemed even more frightening was that they committed their crime under the influence of a figure born by the internet: the so-called “Slenderman”. Yet the even more urgent aspect of the story, that the children involved suffered from undiagnosed mental illnesses, often went overlooked in coverage of the case.

One late spring evening in 2010, Shannan Gilbert - after running through the oceanfront community of Oak Beach screaming for her life - went missing. No one who had heard of her disappearance thought much about what had happened to the 24-year-old: She was a Craigslist escort who had been fleeing a scene - of what, no one could be sure. The Suffolk County police, too, seemed to have paid little attention - until seven months later, when an unexpected discovery in a bramble alongside a nearby highway turned up four bodies, all evenly spaced, all wrapped in burlap.

In September of 1990, in the Cleveland suburb of Shaker Heights, sixteen-year-old Lisa Pruett was on her way to a midnight tryst with her boyfriend when she was viciously stabbed to death only thirty feet from the boy's home. The murder cast a palpable gloom over the upscale community and sparked accusations, theories, and rumors among Lisa's friends and peers. With a fresh perspective and painstaking research, James Renner reconstructs the events leading up to and following that heartbreaking night. What emerges is a portrait of a community seething with dark undercurrents.

John Edward Robinson was a 56-year-old grandfather from rural Kansas. An entrepreneur and Eagle Scout, he was even honored as "Man of the Year" at a Kansas City charity. To some of the women he met on the internet, he was known as Slavemaster - a sexual deviate with a taste for sadomasochistic rituals of extreme domination and torture...even killing.

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.

Two days after Christmas, 2011, Russel Faria returned to his Troy, Missouri, home to find his wife, Betsy, dead, a knife still lodged in her neck. She had been stabbed 55 times in a brutal murder that would set off a chain of events leading to one man's wrongful conviction and imprisonment, another man's death, the revelation of a diabolical scheme, and an astounding miscarriage of justice left unresolved for another 10 years.

The definitive book on the hunt to find the most ruthless serial killer in Los Angeles' history, told by the fearless reporter who broke the story. In 2008, Christine Pelisek broke the story of a terrifying serial killer who went unchecked in Los Angeles for decades, killing the most vulnerable women in one South Central neighborhood.

At first, the residents of Kauai Beach Resort took little notice of their new neighbors. The glamorous blonde and her tall husband fit the image of the ritzy gated community. The couple seemed to keep to themselves - until the police knocked on their door with a search warrant. Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell had fled to Hawaii in the midst of being investigated for the disappearance of Lori's children back in Idaho - Tylee and JJ - who hadn't been seen alive in five months.

When Inspector Belin set out to catch the elusive Henri Landru for embezzlement and fraud, he wasn't prepared for the complex web of secrets that would unravel.

Joyce Aparo seemed to be the perfect single mother. She doted on her sixteen-year-old daughter, Karin, encouraging her musical ability and lavishing affection on her. But behind closed doors, Joyce was a terror. For thirteen years, she beat Karin savagely and demeaned her relentlessly. When Karin met the troubled yet brilliant Dennis Coleman, the two fell head-over-heels. But Joyce disapproved—so she had to die.

Verteran investigative journalist Stevie Cameron first began following the story of missing women in 1998, when the odd newspaper piece appeared chronicling the disappearances of drug-addicted sex trade workers from Vancouver's notorious Downtown Eastside. It was not until February 2002 that pig farmer Robert William Pickton would be arrested, and 2008 before he was found guilty, on six counts of second-degree murder. These counts were appealed and in 2010, the Supreme Court of Canada rendered its conclusion.

For years, Eddie Lee Sexton ruled his large family like Charles Manson. The depraved patriarch dominated his ragged brood of twelve children mentally, physically, and sexually, and enforced every cruelty imaginable, from vicious beatings to raping his daughters and fathering their children. Finally, in 1992, Sexton's eighteen-year-old daughter Machelle, seeking refuge in a women's shelter, revealed the shocking, sordid details of her father's abuse to authorities. As the law attempted to catch up to Eddie Lee Sexton, he moved his family to a mobile home in western Florida.

When 11-year-old James Renner fell in love with Amy Mihaljevic, the missing girl seen on posters all over his neighborhood, it was the beginning of a lifelong obsession with true crime. That obsession led James to a successful career as an investigative journalist. It also gave him PTSD. In 2011 James began researching the strange disappearance of Maura Murray, a UMass student who went missing after wrecking her car in rural New Hampshire in 2004.

Updated with dramatic developments and new murder charges, filed in the coldest of cold cases, to keep a serial baby-killer behind bars. This tale is every parent's worst nightmare: the horrifying account of a Texas nurse who killed children under her care, and the hospital that covered it up.

To his neighbors, Wayne Nance, a furniture mover from Missoula, Montana, appeared to be an affable, considerate, and trustworthy guy. No one knew that Nance was the "Missoula Mauler," a psychopath responsible for a series of sadistic sex slayings that rocked the idyllic town between 1974 and 1986. Nance's only requirement for murder was accessibility - a preacher's wife, a teenage runaway, a female acquaintance, a married couple. Putting on a friendly façade, he could easily gain his victims' trust. Then, one September night, thirty-year-old Nance pushed his luck.

The lush, green hills that mark the border of North and South Carolina are home to a close-knit community. When the savaged remains of high-spirited Heather Catterton and sweet-natured Randi Saldana were found and a local man was linked to their murders, residents were forced to face an evil in their midst. The killer was one of their own….

The missing-persons case of Heather Strong, a young, beautiful suburban mother, baffled Florida detectives. When the file was handed to a veteran investigator, he knew Heather was dead. The challenge was to find her body - and whoever killed her. Soon a sordid triangle of sex, jealousy, and rage came to light. The killers were cunning, manipulative, depraved - and they were as close to Heather as a man and a woman could possibly be.

Dr. Helen Morrison has profiled more than 80 serial killers around the world. What she has learned about them will shatter every assumption you've ever had about the most notorious killers known to man.

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.

In 1978, Rodney Alcala was a contestant on the The Dating Game, one of America's most popular television shows at the time. Handsome, successful, and romantic, he was embraced by the audience - and chosen as the winner by the beautiful bachelorette. To viewers across the country, Rodney seemed like the answer to every woman's dreams. Until they learned the truth about his once and future crimes.

Early on the morning of February 17, 1970, in Fort Bragg, North Carolina, a Green Beret doctor named Jeffrey MacDonald called the police for help. When the officers arrived at his home they found the bloody and battered bodies of MacDonald's pregnant wife and two young daughters. The word "pig" was written in blood on the headboard in the master bedroom. As MacDonald was being loaded into the ambulance, he accused a band of drug-crazed hippies of the crime.

This number-one New York Times best seller is an unflinching look at what the television cameras could not show: behind-the-scenes meetings, the deteriorating relationships between the defense and prosecution teams, the taunting, baiting, and pushing matches between Darden and Simpson, the intimate relationship between Darden and Marcia Clark, and the candid factors behind Darden's controversial decision for Simpson to try on the infamous glove, and much more.

Prosecuting attorney in the Manson trial Vincent Bugliosi held a unique insider's position in one of the most baffling and horrifying cases of the 20th century: the cold-blooded Tate-LaBianca murders carried out by Charles Manson and four of his followers. What motivated Manson in his seemingly mindless selection of victims, and what was his hold over the young women who obeyed his orders? Now available for the first time in unabridged audio, the gripping story of this famous and haunting crime is brought to life by acclaimed narrator Scott Brick.

Rachel Newhouse disappeared on the night of November 12, 1998. Only months later, in the same town, Aundria Crawford lost her life in an act of unimaginable violence. As authorities worked to find clues, parole officer David Zaragoza paid a routine visit to one of his charges - Rex Allan Krebs, a violent serial rapist who'd served only 10 years of a 20-year sentence. After sending Krebs back to jail for violating his parole, Zaragoza found a key chain belonging to one of the victims. An intensive search led to the gruesome discovery of buried remains near Krebs' secluded cabin.

“Free the West Memphis Three!” - maybe you’ve heard the phrase, but do you know why their story is so alarming? Do you know the facts? The guilty verdicts handed out to three Arkansas teens in a horrific capital murder case were popular in their home state - even upheld on appeal. But after two HBO documentaries called attention to the witch-hunt atmosphere at the trials, artists and other supporters raised concerns about the accompanying lack of evidence.

From New York Times best-selling author Pete Earley: the strange but true story of a man who suffers a traumatic brain injury and as a result is given the ability to converse with the world's most terrifying criminals.

Ann Rule presents her 8th collection of crime stories drawn from her private files - and featuring the riveting case of a fraudulent doctor whose lifelong deceptions had deadly consequences. Dr. Anthony Pignataro was a cosmetic surgeon and a famed medical researcher whose flashy red Lamborghini and flamboyant lifestyle in western New York State suggested a highly successful career. But no one was safe if they got in his way. With scalpel, drugs, and arsenic, he betrayed every oath a physician makes - until his own schemes backfired.

Thirty-year-old Barbara Weaver was content to live as the Amish have for centuries - without modern convenience - but her husband, Eli, wanted a life beyond horses and buggies. Soon he gave in to the temptation of technology and found ways to go Online and meet women. When Barbara was found dead, shot in the chest at close range, all eyes were on Eli... and his mistress, a conservative Mennonite named Barb Raber. Barb drove Eli to appointments in her car. She gave him everything he asked for: a laptop, rides to his favorite fishing and hunting spots, and sex.

Ann Rule, who shared her own nerve-jangling account of unknowingly befriending sadistic sociopath Ted Bundy in The Stranger Beside Me, chronicles other fateful encounters with the hidden predators among us in this riveting collection, fifteenth in the best-selling series drawn from her personal files. First in line is a stunning case that spanned thirty years and took a determined detective to four states - ending, finally, in Alaska - where he unraveled not one but two murders.

It was the trial that stunned America, the verdict that shocked us all. On July 5, 2011, nearly three years after her initial arrest, Casey Anthony walked away, virtually scot-free, from one of the most sensational murder trials of all time. She'd been accused of killing her daughter, Caylee, but the trial only left behind more questions: Was she actually innocent? What really happened to Caylee? Was this what justice really looked like?