"Velez-Mitchell cracks the Jodi Arias code—peeling away the lies to reveal the disturbing truth behind this horrific crime of betrayal, deceit, and revenge." — Jim Moret, chief correspondent, Inside EditionOn 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 twenty-nine knife wounds, his throat slit, and a gunshot to the head, Travis was left...

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 twenty-nine 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...

A LIFE TAKENJeanne Dominico’s fiancé found her body on her kitchen floor. More than forty stab wounds and blows to her head with a blunt instrument had cut her life short. What monster had struck in the heart of a peaceful New England town?A TRUST BETRAYEDJeanne was a hard-working single mother. Nicole, her fourteen-year-old daughter was on the honor-roll and head over heels in love—with an eighteen-year-old man she’d known only throu...

“Phelps’s writing reads like a mystery novel.” —Suspense MagazineThe crime stunned quiet Mineral Wells, Texas: 49-year-old Bob Dow shot execution-style in his own bed, his invalid mother locked in the next room—and a cache of homemade porn starring the town’s underage girls. The two accused killers—teen lovers Bobbi Jo Smith and Jennifer Jones—were on the run, intent on going out in a cross-country blaze of glory. M. William Phelps exposes a gripping tale of sexploitation,...

The true-crime story of Edwin Snelgrove, an American serial killer who wanted to out-kill Ted Bundy, from the New York Times bestselling author.In September 2001, Carmen Rodriguez, a beautiful thirty-two-year-old Hartford mother of four, went missing. At first police were stymied . . . until a killer's crucial mistake led investigators down a long, dark road of cold, calculated murder . . .In 1987, single mother Mary Ellen Renard was strangled, rep...

Praying for a happy ending, friends and family stood by Laci’s grieving husband Scott. Four months later, Laci’s decomposed body was found in the murky waters of San Francisco Bay. The body of her child had washed ashore about a mile away, after a possible “coffin birth.” It was a sad closure to an exhaustive search, and a grim end to a marriage that by all accounts had appeared to be perfect.Scott Peterson’s behavior had cast a mysterious shadow over the death of his pregnant wife...

The harrowing true story of abduction and survival from the courageous young woman who lived it—now the subject of a Lifetime original movie, I Am Elizabeth Smart.In this memoir, Elizabeth Smart reveals how she survived and the secret to forging a new life in the wake of a brutal crime. On June 5, 2002, fourteen-year-old Elizabeth Smart, the daughter of a close-knit Mormon family, was taken from her home in the middle of the night by religious fanatic Bria...

“Anything by Phelps is always an eye-opening experience.” —Suspense MagazineSheila Davalloo was young, attractive, and successful. When she started a new job at a cutting-edge research lab in Stamford, Connecticut, she met the man of her dreams. Nelson Sessler had no idea how violently Sheila would react when he began seeing a co-worker, Anna Lisa Raymundo. Sheila eliminated her rival in a bloody knife attack—and then turned her rage on another victim she saw as an obstacl...

He had a successful career, a selfless wife, and three loving children.When high school sweethearts Karen and Richard Sharpe married, they shared an interest in medicine, a desire for family, and a dream for the future. For Karen, that dream became a nightmare. After years of abuse at the hands of her physician husband, she put an end to their twenty-six-year marriage. Fearing a crushing divorce settlement, Richard ended the marriage first by unloading a .22-calibe...

A MAN IN UNIFORMHe was a captain in the U.S. Air Force. She was a psychologist in Fayetteville, North Carolina. On the surface, Marty and Michelle Theer appeared to be the perfect married couple. But no one knew of the double life Michelle was leading. Tired of spending one too many nights apart from Marty who was often away on his flight missions, Michelle turned to the Internet to meet men and relieve her loneliness. With each encounter, Michelle became more darin...

Amanda Knox spent four years in a foreign prison for a crime she did not commit, as seen in the Netflix documentary Amanda Knox.In the fall of 2007, the 20-year-old college coed left Seattle to study abroad in Italy, but her life was shattered when her roommate was murdered in their apartment.After a controversial trial, Amanda was convicted and imprisoned. But in 2011, an appeals court overturned the decision and vacated the murder charge. Free at last, she return...

A loving father and his new wife set out to pick up his kids for a scheduled weekend visit—but never suspected they were walking into a death trap.A handwritten note instructed Alan and Terra Bates to enter the back door of his ex-wife's Alabama home. A day later their charred bodies were found hundreds of miles away, wrapped in blankets, in a burned-out car's trunk on a desolate Georgia road.At Jessica McCord’s house, law enforcement officials found windows covered in blan...