Serial Killers True Crime

Soon after his birthmother contacted him for the first time at the age of thirty-nine, adoptee Gary L. Stewart decided to search for his biological father. His quest would lead him to a horrifying truth and force him to reconsider everything he thought he knew about himself and his world. Written with award-winning author and journalist Susan Mustafa, The Most Dangerous Animal of All tells the story of Stewart’s decade-long hunt. While combing through government records and news reports and tracking down relatives and friends, Stewart turns up a host of clues—including forensic evidence—that conclusively identify his father as the Zodiac Killer, one of the most notorious and elusive serial murderers in history.

In 1981, detective Kay Schucker was the lead investigator in the high-profile missing persons case of Old Dominion University student Janice Starr. The beautiful co-ed disappeared without a trace from ODU's Norfolk, Virginia campus. Among the only leads was Janice's diary, which included detailed journal entries about her daily activities. As Kay studied the diary—going several years back—she learned that Janice, a US Army veteran, had faced the same challenges in the military that Kay did in law enforcement. They were both women trying to succeed in a man's world.

Stalking the streets of 1960s and 1970s California, the case of the elusive Zodiac Killer has puzzled America’s best law enforcement for decades. With no confirmed identity and only a few sparse eye-witness accounts, America’s most well-known serial killer is also its most confusing. Who really was the Zodiac Killer? And why did he vanish as suddenly as he appeared?

In the fall of 1999, a 22-year-old woman was discovered naked and bleeding on the streets of a small New Mexico town south of Albuquerque. She was chained to a padlocked metal collar. The tale she told authorities - of being beaten, raped, and tortured with electric shock - was unthinkable. Until she led them to 59-year-old David Ray Parker, his 39-year-old fiancee Cindy Hendy, and the lakeside trailer they called their "toy box." What the FBI uncovered was unprecedented in the annals of serial crime.

To all appearances, Dennis Rader was a model citizen in the small town of Park City, Kansas, where he had lived with his family almost his entire life. He was a town compliance officer, a former Boy Scout leader, the president of his church congregation, and a seemingly ordinary father and husband. But Rader's average life belied the existence of his dark, sadistic other self: he was the BTK serial killer.

Reverend Willie Maxwell was a rural preacher accused of murdering five of his family members for insurance money in the 1970s. With the help of a savvy lawyer, he escaped justice for years until a relative shot him dead at the funeral of his last victim. Despite hundreds of witnesses, Maxwell's murderer was acquitted—thanks to the same attorney who had previously defended the reverend. Casey Cep brings this story to life, from the shocking murders to the courtroom drama to the racial politics of the Deep South.

In 1968 young girls went missing in California and New York, massive searches started and soon bodies became to turn up! This is the story of Rodney Alcala, the charming, good looking photographer that was in NYU studying under Roman Polanski, and even once had won on the popular TV game show Dating Game, but now he is wanted for rape, torture, and murder of several young girls! He would make the girls suffer until they passed out, rape them, and when they came to, he would beat them again before killing them! Alan R. Warren takes you through each step of the story in shocking detail.

A chilling genre-busting memoir by a major American essayist. Late in 2004, Maggie Nelson was looking forward to the publication of her book, Jane: A Murder, a narrative in verse about the life and death of her aunt, who had been murdered 35 years before. The case remained unsolved, but Jane was assumed to have been the victim of an infamous serial killer in Michigan in 1969.

In March 1976, Ted Bundy was convicted of the aggravated kidnapping of a young woman near Salt Lake City, Utah. Bundy had not been accused or convicted of any violent crime except this one. No one knew then how many women Bundy had murdered, and many thought him incapable of doing so.

Moira Martingale’s comprehensive study, Cannibal Killers: The Impossible Monsters, was originally written in 1993, when the Internet was in its infancy, when few homes had computers and when the character Hannibal Lecter from the book and movie The Silence of the Lambs was regarded as an entirely fictional character, with no real-world counterparts or inspirations. The book demonstrated that this was an erroneous assumption.

In 1850, following a divorce and a number of encounters with the law, Boone Helm headed "Out West" to chase the Californian Gold Rush with his cousin. When his cousin pulled out at the last minute, Helm was incensed, and brutally stabbed him to death. Helm was detained in an asylum for the mentally disturbed but managed to escape. Helm continued his journey west with renewed vigour, where he opportunistically killed and consumed the flesh of adversaries and travelling companions, earning him the nickname "The Kentucky Cannibal"....

Outback Outlaw is an unflinching and uncompromising account of a man forever cemented in the annals of Australian true crime. Ryan Green’s riveting narrative draws the listeners into the real-life horror experienced by the victim, and has all the elements of a classic thriller.

John Wayne Gacy raped, tortured, and murdered 33 boys and young men, burying most of them in the crawlspace under his Chicago home. Karen Conti was in high school at the time watching the bodies being removed on the television news. Fourteen years pass. Through a twist of fate, Conti, now a young and inexperienced attorney, is called upon to handle Gacy’s final death row appeals. The serial killer soon becomes her most famous, difficult, and haunting client.

If you want a view into the world that lies behind the Ted Bundy murders, this last work in a series of six books on Bundy is definitely for you. For within this audiobook, you will find many questions still surrounding this fascinating and intricate case, as well as the answers that are only now being provided here. There’s so much more to learn, and new information is still surfacing about Bundy, his victims, and his potential victims. As such, there is new testimony included from those who had a brush with the killer, and others who played their own roles in this multistate case.

The idea of Scotland Yard is steeped in atmospheric stories of foggy London streets, murder by lamplight, and fiendish killers pursued by gentleman detectives. From its establishment in 1829 through the eve of World War II, Scotland Yard—the world’s first modern, professional, and centrally organized police force—set new standards for policing and investigating. Based on official case files, contemporary newspaper reporting, trial transcripts, and the first-hand accounts of the detectives on the beat, Scotland Yard tells the tales of some of history’s most notorious murders.

Eighteen baffling true-crime cold cases—solved.

We accompany him on the Journey Into Darkness that marks every case he examines; every instance in which he helps police identify the unknown perpetrator of a violent series of rapes, kidnappings, or murders through his remarkable criminal personality profiling.

While other profilers tend to conceal the clear facts behind complex technical language and psychobabble, investigator Pat Brown actually tells it like it is. With the same dark wit that gets people who work with the criminally insane through their workday, Brown speaks frankly about the monsters among us who kill for sport. In Killing for Sport, Brown provides an honest portrayal of the predator-next-door, how he hunts for him victims, why he likes to torture them, where he tends to stash their bodies, and more.

In this chilling audiobook, you will meet Wayne Adam Ford, who walked into a California police station in 1998 with a severed woman's breast in his pocket; Bobby Joe Long, who assaulted and murdered at least ten women; Gary Ray Bowles, killer of six; truck driver Keith Hunter Jespersen, who travelled from state leaving a trail of bodies in his wake; and Robin Gecht, one of the members of the terrifying Ripper Crew.

Ever wondered who murdered JonBenét Ramsey, or who terrorized San Francisco as the Zodiac Killer? Puzzled over the notorious Black Dahlia murder, or the shooting of TV presenter Jill Dando? This true crime audiobook makes you the detective, investigating some of the most infamous unsolved cases of the 20th and 21st centuries. Crime scenes, crucial evidence, witnesses, and persons of interest are clearly and concisely presented, along with essential details and clues, so you can judge for yourself: Who could have done it?