Serial Killers True Crime

From 1926 to 1928, Gordon Stewart Northcott committed at least 20 murders on a chicken ranch outside of Los Angeles. His nephew, Sanford Clark, was held captive there from the age of 13 to 15, and was the sole surviving victim of the killing spree. Here, acclaimed crime writer Anthony Flacco - using never-before-heard information from Sanford’s son Jerry Clark - tells the real story behind the case that riveted the nation.

In 1994, after many years of movies and television portraying the evil side of the human psyche, Dr. David Canter published Criminal Shadows. Two decades on, its revolutionary descriptions of psychological profiling still helps to explain the actions of serial killers and psychopaths. These techniques can help police precisely identify and locate murderers and rapists, even those who have alluded capture for years.

On a chilly November afternoon in 1998, a tearful 36-year-old man walked into the Humboldt County Sheriff's Department in Eureka, California, and confessed to something horrible. "I hurt some people," he said. Inside his pocket was the ghastly proof of his statement. But there was more to Wayne Adam Ford than the trail of mangled victims he left behind. More, even, than the twisted predator inside, which drove him to increasingly perverse sexual appetites.

Infamous as a con artist, charming cult leader, and madman who spewed a toxic and twisted ideology, Charles Manson continues to fascinate and intrigue people to this very day. Long since the terrible moments when his followers committed their violent killing spree, Manson has been cemented in pop culture as the iconic cult leader - a man who hid his insanity behind a veil of cunning and manipulation.

For twelve years the Golden State Killer terrorized California, stalking victims and killing without remorse. Then he simply disappeared, for the next forty-four years, until an amateur DNA sleuth opened her laptop. In I Know Who You Are, Barbara Rae-Venter reveals how she went from researching her family history as a retiree to hunting for a notorious serial killer—and how she became the nation’s leading authority on investigative genetic genealogy, the most dazzling new crime-fighting weapon to appear in decades.

Retracing the morbidly fascinating true story of a cunning serial killer who evaded police for over 40 years, this chilling biography unravels the twisted and tragic life of Gary Ridgway, the murderer who prowled the night on the hunt for vulnerable women.

Three decades ago, Jackie Schut was considered one of the most prolific "baby sellers" in the country. She traveled all over the US, murdered women who had just borne babies, and then stole their infants. She is still imprisoned in the South. A lovely, vibrant woman in San Antonio was found dead in a vacant lot. Her mother, a popular local realtor, never stopped looking for her killer. Just months ago, a truly unlikely suspect was found many states away.

Dozens of theories have attempted to resolve the mystery of the identity of Jack the Ripper, the world's most famous serial killer. Ripperologist Robert House contends that we may have known the answer all along. The head of Scotland Yard's Criminal Investigation Department at the time of the murders thought Aaron Kozminski was guilty, but he lacked the legal proof to convict him. By exploring Kozminski's life, Robert House here builds a strong circumstantial case against him.

Jack the Ripper. Jeffrey Dahmer. John Wayne Gacy. Locusta of Gaul. If that last name doesn’t seem to fit with the others, it’s likely because our modern society largely believes that serial killers are a recent phenomenon. Not so, argues Debbie Feltonin fact, there’s ample evidence to show that serial killers stalked the ancient world just as they do the modern one.

In the pantheon of serial killers, Belle Gunness stands alone. She was the rarest of female psychopaths, a woman who engaged in wholesale slaughter, partly out of greed but mostly for the sheer joy of it. Between 1902 and 1908, she lured a succession of unsuspecting victims to her Indiana “murder farm". Some were hired hands. Others were well-to-do bachelors. All of them vanished without a trace.

In May 2005, authorities discovered the Groene family murdered in their Idaho home. The family’s youngest members—eight-year-old Shasta and her brother, nine-year-old Dylan—were nowhere to be found. As a community prayed for their return, Shasta and Dylan were already miles away in the woods of Montana at the hands of serial killer Joseph Edward Duncan. After a harrowing forty-eight day ordeal, Shasta was rescued. In many ways, her survival story was only beginning.

This gripping book gives you an inside look into 13 of the most frightening serial killer stories of the 1980s. Learning about the lives of these 13 serial killers - along with the lives they took - is a roller-coaster of emotions. It’s scary, shocking, heartbreaking, and enraging all at the same time. This book will leave you feeling almost too scared to leave your house and stunned at how one human could do these things to another.

H.H. Holmes was a doctor, real estate speculator, pharmacist, bigamist, swindler, and America's first media superstar serial killer. As he awaited trial, he put out a series of autobiographical documents, press releases, and interviews that revealed his sociopathic tendencies and lies about his crimes. The infamous killer of the Chicago World's Fair published a memoir and a confession, both of which conceal more than they reveal of the truth.

On July 15, 1997, Gianni Versace was shot and killed on the steps of his Miami Beach mansion by serial killer Andrew Cunanan. But months before Versace’s murder, award-winning journalist Maureen Orth was already investigating a major story on Cunanan for Vanity Fair. Culled from interviews with more than four hundred people and insights gleaned from thousands of pages of police reports, Vulgar Favors tells the complete story of Andrew Cunanan, his unwitting victims, and the moneyed world in which they lived . . . and died.

Ten-year-old Krystal Surles watched as her best friend was murdered before the intruder slashed her throat with a 12-inch boning knife. Despite the odds, she survived and led authorities to 35-year-old Tommy Lynn Sells, a former truck driver, carnival worker, and drifter. Through the Window includes his confession to the murder of 10-year-old Joel Kirkpatrick, playing a pivotal role in obtaining justice for wrongfully convicted Julie Rea.

Eighteen baffling true-crime cold cases—solved.

This is the first truly comprehensive book examining the life and career of the murderer who has become one of America's great supervillains. It reveals not only the true story but how the legend evolved, taking advantage of hundreds of primary sources that have never been examined before, including legal documents, letters, articles, and records that have been buried in archives for more than a century.

Ted Bundy is one of America’s most notorious serial killers. Between the mid- and late 1970s, Bundy admitted to the murders of more than 30 young women and girls across the American states of Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Utah, and Colorado.

In researching his acclaimed true-crime books, Philip Carlo interviewed some of the most infamous criminals and killers of our times in prisons and on death rows throughout the country. He was able to forge trusting relationships with his subjects, enabling him to extract the facts behind their monstrous acts and identify what motivated them to commit their horrific crimes.

On first impressions, Ted Bundy seemed like the perfect all-American boy. He was good-looking, fun, and very charming; many women found him irresistible...But deep inside he was an evil monster who used his insider knowledge of law enforcement to evade detection as he terrorized large areas of America, murdering white females, mostly college students aged between 15 and 25. This is the story of a chameleon-like psychopath and necrophile who lured innocent victims to a horrible end.