Dig up the men who tried to dig up Lincoln. Mull over the Mad Gasser of Mattoon and the 1977 thunderbird infestation, from a safe distance. Watch in horror as one of the greatest maritime disasters in U.S. history occurs twenty feet from the banks of the Chicago River or follow the course of the blimp crash that convinced a downtown bank employee that it was raining hell. Try not to blink as towns washed away by floods and shrines covered over by condominiums are dragged back from the marg...

The town of Whittier is isolated in Alaska and the people all live within towers once used by the military. The tourist season is over and winter is on the way. Then a body washes up on shore. A body that says it's from the government facility across the sound at Esther Island. With a storm coming, the citizens of Whittier have to deal with this on their own. They put the body in the basement of the towers, but their doctor wants to find out what killed this man. Was it a disease? How dang...

His name might not have the same notoriety that belonged to Al Capone or John Wayne Gacy, but Silas Jayne's life carved a similarly brutal arc through the Windy City's history. Even the mob was reluctant to compete with a man who burned his own horses alive for insurance money and ordered the assassination of his own brother in the same unhesitating fashion that he reportedly axed a flock of geese when he was six. Protected by bribery and intimidation, Jayne preyed on the innocence of the ...

The full story of the infamous double murder featured on Discovery's FBI Files—includes photos.In this book, former South Carolina Law Enforcement Division (SLED) forensic photographer Lt. Rita Y. Shuler recounts twenty-eight days of terror and shocking developments in one of the most notorious double murders and manhunts in South Carolina history.Shuler shares her own personal interactions with some of the key players in this famous manhunt and in...

One brutal murder. Two possible suspects. And a "fascinating . . . puzzling case" that divided a Michigan community ( Lansing State Journal).In the summer of 1982, the body of twenty-year-old Maggie Hume was found under a pile of blankets in the closet of her apartment. A Catholic school girl and daughter of a local football coach, Maggie had been raped and strangled. It was the only active murder investigation in Battle Creek, Michigan, suggesting the cas...

The true crime story of a notorious arsonist and murderer who kept a Cape Cod town in fear thanks to crooked cops.The Cape Cod beach town of Falmouth seemed like a lovely place to visit. But those who lived there year-round knew its other, darker side… Local businessman and infamous bully Melvin Reine had started setting the homes of his so-called enemies on fire. Few of his victims—or even the police—ever dared to implicate him. Because those who did would pay the...

A beautiful nurse. A lethal injection. A gruesomely charred corpse. Nothing could have shocked the sleepy community of Morgantown, West Virginia, more than the lurid details that surfaced after a house fire claimed the life of Shelly Michael's husband Jimmy. Local authorities suspected possible arson. Then they discovered that Jimmy had been dead before the fire even started—paralyzed by a fatal dose of muscle relaxant…Did Shelly Michael, a respected nurse and mother, kill her seco...

The true story of a deadly love triangle in a small Pennsylvania town—from the New York Times –bestselling author and prize-winning crime reporter.Dr. John Yelenic was a successful dentist in Blairsville, Pennsylvania. When he met Michele Kamler, he thought he'd finally found the woman of his dreams. She was beautiful, intelligent, and seemed to want all the same things out of life as he did.Michele married Yeleni...

Notorious Rhode Island, Massachusetts, and ConnecticutNew England is best known for its covered bridges, immaculate town greens and Revolutionary War history. Yet an evil presence has hidden behind the 17th-century stone walls and clap-boarded homes of CT, Mass. and Rhode Island for centuries. New York Times bestselling author M. William Phelps takes a look at some of the most terrifyingly true stories in New England history.

In this "true story that reads like a novel," the #1 New York Times–bestselling author reveals the facts behind a notorious Southern murder case ( Library Journal).When North Carolina farmer Stuart Taylor died after a sudden illness, his forty-six-year-old fiancée, Velma Barfield, was overcome with grief. Taylor's family grieved with her—until the autopsy revealed traces of arsenic poisoning. Turned over to the authorities by her own son, Velma st...

Ronald Reagan's personal attorney Roy Miller was a California success story. The Miller family's friends could never have imagined the horror and darkness that were to follow as Michael, the Miller's youngest son killed and raped his own mother.