In 1951, George Simkins, Jr., of Greensboro, and Anna Oleona Atkins of Winston-Salem were married. Their elegant wedding not only brought together the black elite of North Carolina's Piedmont Triad, but more significantly, it merged two families who, arguably, did more to advance civil rights in the Carolinas than any other. George C. Simkins, Jr. hailed from an old line of South Carolina high achievers—the descendant of men who founded and settled communities, served as governors and memb...

The true crime story of murdered Florida lottery winner Abraham Shakespeare.Poor man. Rich man. Dead man.It sounded like a fairy tale: A homeless man named Abraham Shakespeare spent his last dollars on a Florida State lottery ticket—and miraculously won $31 million.Unprepared for his new found fortune, Abraham hired Dorice “Dee Dee” Moore to help manage his winnings and field the numerous requests for loans and assistance that he received. ...

From the co-author of I Would Find a Girl Walking and an award-winning true-crime television reporter comes the shocking story of Debbie Flores, a Las Vegas showgirl whose dreams of a dazzling career ended in a nightmare…Vivacious Debbie Flores was a college educated Washington Redskins cheerleader when she headed for “Sin City.” It was a smart move for the aspiring showgirl who’d soon be making her star-making solo debut at the legendary Luxor. But after ...

Edgar Award Finalist: A true-crime account of a vicious massacre and the legal battles that followed.It was not a clever killing. On May 5, 1973, three men escaped from a Maryland prison and disappeared. Joined by a fifteen-year-old brother, they surfaced in Georgia, where they were spotted joyriding in a stolen car. Within a week, the four young men were arrested on suspicion of committing one of the most horrific murders in American history.Jerry Alday an...

We walked in on a surreal scene. There are few words, if any, to accurately describe the abject horror...What Jeannie and Kevin McDonough saw was a wanted, multi-state serial killer about to take his next victim-their own daughter. What happened next was a thrilling true-crime story of a fight for justice and the harrowing struggle with the unexpected nightmare of "survivor guilt".

Heather Barnett's mutilated body was discovered by her son and daughter on their return home from school in Bournemouth one November afternoon. The police quickly ascertained that the murder was premeditated and meticulously planned down to the last macabre detail: the killer had not left one single piece of DNA evidence -- even the bloody footprints from a distinct pair of trainers did not lead out of the house but ended in the front room, without any further trace. As a bizarre and sicke...

A Storm Of ViolencePaul St. Pierre was an alcoholic driven by an urge to kill all the time. He bullied his younger brother, Chris, into committing unspeakable acts. His childhood friend, Andrew Webb, took drugs, talked to skulls, and dreamed about eating human flesh. It was only a matter of time before the trio terrorized a quiet neighborhood near Tacoma, Washington, with the brutal murders of innocent victims caught in a storm of senseless rage. Then the twisted t...

Beautiful, beloved college sophomore Brianna Denison was home for the holidays in Reno, Nevada. After a long night out, she crashed on a friend's couch. It would be the last time the child psychology major was seen alive. Her strangled body was found in a field nearly a month later.But Brianna was not the first victim of a murderer with a disturbing fetish, and the patience to search for his favorite prey--petite, vulnerable brunettes. In unflinching detail Gary C. King recounts th...

"I KILLED MY PARENTS."Seventeen-year-old Tyler Hadley posted an invitation on Facebook: party at my crib tonight. But this was no ordinary house party in the Florida suburbs; it was a grisly crime scene. Later that night, Tyler revealed to his best friend, Michael, that he'd bludgeoned his parents to death with a hammer. Michael didn't believe him…until he entered the master bedroom and saw the bodies of Tyler's parents on the floor—murdered, beyond the sha...

He Seemed So Normal . . .By day, Robert Lee Yates, Jr., was a respected father of five, a skilled helicopter pilot who served in Desert Storm and the National Guard, and a man no one suspected of a deadly hidden life. By night he prowled the streets where prostitutes gathered, gaining their trust before betraying them with a bullet to the head.On August 26, 1997, the decomposed bodies of two young women were discovered in Spokane, Washington. Within months ...

The true-crime story of a Florida woman's violent downfall from viral fame, by the New York Times bestselling author of She Survived: Jane.When she was fifteenn, Jennifer Mee developed an unrelenting case of the hiccups—hiccupping as many as fifty times a minute for months. Soon the Florida teen's strange story went viral. Dubbed the “Hiccup Girl” by the media, she gained international sympathy and appeared on a slew of popular TV shows. Eventuall...

"Grips you by the throat from beginning to end."—Cleveland Plain DealerALONE WITH HER NEW HUSBAND on a tiny Pacific atoll, a young woman, combing the beach, finds an odd aluminum container washed up out of the lagoon, and beside it on the sand something glitters: a gold tooth in a scorched human skull. The investigation that follows uncovers an extraordinarily complex and puzzling true-crime story. Only Vincent Bugliosi, who recounted his successful prosecution of mass mur...