The story behind the attack that shocked a nation and opened a new chapter in the history of American crime.On July 14th, 1966, Richard Franklin Speck swept through several student nurses’ townhouse like a summer tornado and changed the landscape of American crime. He broke in as his helpless victims slept, bound them one by one, and then stabbed, assaulted, and strangled all eight in a sadistic sexual frenzy. By morning, only one young nurse had miraculously survived. The killer w...

A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER! THIS NEW AND UPDATED EDITION FINALLY PROVES THE SHOCKING IDENTITY OF THE BLACK DAHLIA KILLER—AND THE POLICE CORRUPTION THAT CONCEALED IT FOR SO LONGIn 1947, the brutal, sadistic murder of a beautiful young woman named Elizabeth Short led to the largest manhunt in LA history. The killer teased and taunted the police and public for weeks, but his identity stayed a mystery, and the murder remained the most tantalizing unsolved case of the ...

In the summer of 1937, with the Depression deep and World War II looming, a California triple murder stunned an already grim nation. After a frantic week-long manhunt for the killer, a suspect emerged, and his sensational trial captivated audiences from coast to coast. Justice was swift, and the condemned man was buried away with the horrifying story.But decades later, Pamela Everett, a lawyer and former journalist, starts digging, following up a cryptic comment her father once mad...

The chilling true story of romantic obsession and murder by cancer from the New York Times–bestselling author of The Search for the Green River Killer.Omaha, Nebraska, 1978. Sandy Johnson was in shock. Her husband, Duane, and young daughter, Sherrie, were violently ill when word arrived that her infant nephew just died of mysterious causes. Days earlier, the entire family was happy, healthy, and living the American dream. Now they were at ...

“He promised to kill me when he got out. I believed him. If I wanted justice, I had to fight both him and the courts...maybe kill him first. If I didn’t do something, I was going to die.”This is not a manufactured dialogue from a thriller but the words of attorney Sharon Muse. They came after she survived an attempted kidnapping, rape, and murder at the hands of Larry Morrison, a former client. On April 7, 2006, Muse miraculously escaped from the sociopathic Morris...

James Holmes killed or wounded seventy people in a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado. Only one man was allowed to record extensive interviews with the shooter. This is what he found.On July 20, 2012 in Aurora, Colorado, a man in dark body armor and a gas mask entered a midnight premiere of The Dark Knight Rises with a tactical shotgun, a high-capacity assault rifle, and a sidearm. He threw a canister of tear gas into the crowd and began firing. Soon twelve...

A gripping and shocking story of a serial killer mother, and the brave daughter who brought her to justice.Dulcie Bodsworth was the unlikeliest serial killer. She was loved everywhere she went, and the townsfolk of Wilcannia, which she called home in the late 1950s, thought of her as kindand caring. The officers at the local police station found Dulcie witty and charming, and looked forward to the scones and cakes she generously baked and delivered for their morning tea.

A New York Times–bestselling journalist traces a string of unsolved murders—and the botched investigation that let the New Bedford Highway Killer walk away.Over the course of seven months in 1988, eleven women disappeared off the streets of New Bedford, Massachusetts, a gloomy, drug-addled coastal town that was once the whaling capital of the world. Nine turned up dead. Two were never found. And the perpetrator remains unknown to this day.How could ...

From the bestselling author of The Search for the Green River Killer: A chilling true account of the dream husband who was every woman's nightmare.Randy Roth was handsome, hardworking, kind, and in top physical shape. But for all his charm and good looks, he was seemingly cursed with the ladies. His first marriage ended in divorce before the couple's fifth anniversary; his second wife plunged to her death during a hike; and his third wife left him after les...

New York Times Bestseller: From the journalists who covered the story, the shocking crimes of Gary Ridgway, America's most prolific serial murderer.In the 1980s and 1990s, forty-nine women in the Seattle area were brutally murdered, their bodies dumped along the Green River and Pacific Highway South in Washington State. Despite an exhaustive investigation—even serial killer Ted Bundy was consulted to assist with psychological profiling—the...

New York Times Bestseller: The "astonishing" true crime story of a notorious black widow who preyed on her husband and daughter and faked her own death ( The Washington Post Book World ).Pretty, smart, and pampered, Audrey Marie Hilley grew up in a small Alabama town believing she was entitled to the best of everything. But marriage to her high school sweetheart, a cushy secretarial job, and moth...

The twelve-year rampage of "Missoula Mauler" Wayne Nance—and the shocking end to his murder spreeTo 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 ...