Showing results by author "R. Barri Flowers" in All Categories

Spanning murder cases from the beginning of the 20th century to today, this is a must-hear for fans of true crime and will also be compelling to mystery and thriller listeners. The contributors include Harold Schechter, Katherine Ramsland, Carol Anne Davis, Burl Barer, and other leading writers in this genre. Each of the 17 contributors draws on his or her own strengths, backgrounds, interests, and research skills to describe, in a vivid narrative, not only the facts of each notorious case but also the terrible emotions and macabre circumstances surrounding the crimes.

A marriage made in hell.... Barely five feet tall, sweet and innocent looking, Charlene Gallego used all of her charms to beguile pretty teenage girls and young women into the back of a van, where her lethal husband, Gerald, lay waiting. A killer couple bound together by secrets, lies, and sex slave fantasies... Married multiple times and still in his early 30s, Gerald Gallego found the perfect companion in Charlene. Over a grisly period of twenty-six months, their bloody and brutal rampage of kidnapping, rape, and murder spanned three states and claimed 11 lives.

Thirteen-year-old Mary Phagan arrived at the National Pencil Factory in Atlanta, Georgia, where she worked, to pick up her paycheck. The next day, Mary’s bloody, battered, and bruised dead body was found in the basement of the pencil factory, the victim of foul play. The Jewish-American factory superintendent Leo Frank was arrested, tried, and convicted for the murder in a controversial trial. Frank himself became the victim of a lynch mob, when they broke him out of prison and hung him from a tree.

In the late 1970s, a serial killer prowled the campus of Michigan State University, terrorizing students and faculty alike. Donald Miller was a graduate of MSU's renowned School of Criminal Justice, but somehow went awry and turned into a monster, targeting pretty coeds for sexual assault and murder. Miller's victims included his ex-fiancée. Only after the killer was brought to justice could the campus return to normal, as a place for education and enjoyment. Donald Miller's path from promising criminal justice grad to deadly criminal is chronicled in this riveting short.

On April 3, 1961, 38-year-old former vocalist Ella Mae Cooley was beaten to death in her home in Willow Springs, an unincorporated area located in Kern County, California. The cruelty of the crime was shocking to local residents in the normally idyllic community. A greater shock was that the murder was committed by the victim's 50-year-old husband, Donnell Clyde Cooley, a well-known big-band leader, musician, actor, host of a television variety show, and businessman. See how this tragic story of celebrity, suspicion, and homicidal rage unfolds in the historical crime of passion.

In this gripping tale of sex, jealousy, con artists, and murder, the author gets to the root of the violent crimes perpetrated by 1940s serial killers Fernandez and Beck, who preyed on lonely women through personal ads, stealing from them, and murdering them before the ultimate justice was served on the killer lovers.

Ph.D in Murder is a cozy mystery short by best-selling author R. Barri Flowers. A doctoral student's independent study reenactment of the well-known and still unsolved murder of Marilyn Sheppard ends with a modern day murder and killer on the loose. Also includes a bonus mystery suspense short, "Kill and Say Goodbye". A woman discovers a dead woman on the beach that bears a striking resemblance to herself.

Serial Killer Couples: Bonded by Sexual Depravity, Abduction, and Murder chronicles the true crimes of sexually motivated serial killers who are intimates. In this latest true crime book from award-winning, best-selling criminologist R. Barri Flowers, nine gripping tales examine killer couples from America, England, and Canada whose murderous reigns of terror knows no end till they were brought to justice.

Leonard Lake and Charles Ng left their dark mark on society as two of America's worst and most appalling serial killers. Between 1984 and 1985, the unlikely homicidal pair perpetrated their sex-motivated crimes at a secluded cabin and adjacent custom-made bunker of horrors in an unincorporated area in Calaveras County, California, where they brought abducted victims, sexually assaulted, tortured, and murdered, often videotaping their heinous crimes for their sick pleasure.

In the wee hours of the morning on November 13, 1974, shots rang out in the upscale home at 112 Ocean Avenue in Amityville, New York, a village within the town of Babylon. The house belonged to forty-three year old Ronald DeFeo, Sr. and his forty-two year old wife, Louise, who lived there with their five children, ranging in age for nine to twenty-three. The DeFeos and four of their children were shot to death, execution style, while in bed.

Prostitution in the Digital Age: Selling Sex From the Suite to the Street explores the sex trade in modern times. For those without direct experience with the seamy, real-life world of prostitution, it can be easy to accept the glamorized depictions of the sex-for-sale industry as it is often portrayed in fiction and Hollywood or sensationalized in the media. In reality, the business of sexual exploitation such as prostitution, sex trafficking, pornography, and sex tourism is far from attractive and, in many instances, can be dangerous, if not deadly.

From award winning criminologist R. Barri Flowers and the best-selling author of The Sex Slave Murders 1 & 2, Serial Killer Couples, and Murder of the Banker's Daughter comes Murder Chronicles, a gripping collection of true crime tales. Includes ten compelling stories of murder, madness, and mayhem that span nearly a century of American history and homicidal criminality that will keep you reading from beginning to end, while staying with long after.

Billy the Kid's Wife is a time-travel romance short by best-selling novelist R. Barri Flowers. When a modern-day historical romance writer rents a cabin in Sky Creek, Colorado, to complete her next novel, a strange dog shows up, along with a handsome man and young boy. She soon comes to realize that the man is the onetime outlaw known as Billy the Kid, and that the corridors of time have merged, offering her two very different lives. She has an important decision to make in following her destiny.

In this frightening tale of dark fantasies, pornography, rape, and murder, British serial killers Ian Brady and Myra Hindley targeted children in the early 1960s - killing five and burying most of them in the Saddleworth Moor in Northern England - before being brought to justice. Included as a bonus is a complete true crime short, The Sunset Strip Killers, about serial killers Douglas Clark and Carol Mary Bundy, who targeted runaways and prostitutes in Hollywood, California in 1980 for rape, torture and murder.

One case that stood out to Flowers for its sheer brutality as well as shocking aftermath was that of Karla Faye Tucker and Daniel Garrett, who used a pickaxe to hack to death two people. It began in the wee hours of June 13, 1983, in Houston, Texas, as lovers Tucker and Garrett broke into the apartment of Jerry Lynn Dean. By the time the couple left, Dean and his companion, Deborah Thornton, were dead following a vicious attack with a pickaxe and hammer.

Maui County homicide detective and composite sketch artist Leila Kahana is the protagonist. A Hawaiian native, Leila follows in the footsteps of her grandfather who was the County of Maui police chief. Leila's partner is Detective Sergeant Blake Seymour, separated from his wife and pushing to make lieutenant. Leila and Seymour investigate the execution-style murder of two prominent doctors in an upscale condominium.

Private investigator Eddie Naku is hired by attractive divorcee Kathryn Higuchi on Maui to investigate the murder of her sister, Suzette Higuchi Bordeau, wife of a well-known criminal defense attorney. She was gunned down in a shopping center in the Upcountry region of Pukalani. What seems like a routine case for the ex-police detective turns into a complex murder mystery as Naku uncovers a web of lies, deceit, arms trafficking, infidelity, seduction, betrayal, and more murders as he tries to solve a deadly crime.

The gripping tale chronicles the lives of Britain's most infamous husband and wife serial killers couple. Over the course of two decades, Fred and Rosemary West murdered more than a dozen young females. Most of the murders were sexually motivated and took place at the couple's house of horrors on 25 Cromwell Street in Gloucester, in South West England. Only when the killers were brought to justice did their murderous reign of rape, torture, bondage, and terror come to an end.

The Runaway Rabbit Named Robbie is a fun children's adventure story about a rabbit who, along with his pet frog, Pepper, decide to run away from home. Children will enjoy the charming tale of Robbie Rabbit and his various encounters in the forest as he and Pepper find themselves lost on their journey.

Street Kids: The Lives of Runaway and Thrownaway Teens, Second Edition, by award-winning and best-selling criminologist R. Barri Flowers, is an audiobook that examines the pathway from home to homeless for runaways and thrownaways, including precursors to life on the street. Street Kids will be a useful source for child welfare advocates, academics, professionals, sociologists, criminologists, researchers, laypersons, and others with an interest in the plight and mistreatment of children living on the streets or away from a safe home environment.