True Crime Girls

Minnesota, 1977. For the teens of one close-knit community, summer means late-night swimming parties at the quarry, the county fair, and venturing into the tunnels beneath the city. But for two best friends, it’s not all fun and games. Heather and Brenda have a secret. Something they saw in the dark. Something they can’t forget. They’ve decided to never tell a soul. But their vow is tested when their friend disappears—the second girl to vanish in a week. And yet the authorities are reluctant to investigate.

A girl uses her wits to survive a maniacal killer who wipes out her family. A woman is condemned for the "final betrayal of motherhood" for killing her children. A grieving mother becomes convinced that the man convicted of murdering her beautiful teenage daughter is innocent.

Mary "Mae" Foley was a force to be reckoned with. On one hip she held her makeup compact, on the other, her NYPD badge. When women were fighting for the vote, Mae was fighting crime in the heart of New York City—taking down rapists, bootleggers, Nazis, and serial killers. One of the first women to be sworn into the police force, Mae not only fought crime in the city that never sleeps, but also did something much bigger—challenged the patriarchal systems that continually tried to shut her and other women down.

In 1954, in a remote South American village, a four-year-old girl was abducted and then abandoned deep in the Colombian rainforest. So begins the incredible true story of Marina Chapman, who went on to spend several years alone in the jungle, her only family a troop of capuchin monkeys. Using instinct to guide her, she copied everything they did and soon learned to fend for herself. At around 10 years old, a completely feral Marina was returned to civilisation by hunters, who sold her as a slave to a brothel. Beaten daily and groomed to be a prostitute, she escaped - to live the perilous existence of a Colombian city street kid.

On May 31, 2014, in the Milwaukee suburb of Waukesha, Wisconsin, two 12-year-old girls attempted to stab their classmate to death. Morgan Geyser and Anissa Weier’s violence was extreme, but what seemed even more frightening was that they committed their crime under the influence of a figure born by the internet: the so-called “Slenderman”. Yet the even more urgent aspect of the story, that the children involved suffered from undiagnosed mental illnesses, often went overlooked in coverage of the case.

What can drive a young and seemingly innocent child to kill? Murder is horrible enough when perpetrated by adults, and yet the concept takes on a whole new level of chilling morbidity when a murderer is revealed to be a young boy or girl. Is it the result of severe trauma manifesting itself in the most macabre of ways? Is it the progeny of some severe mental disorder? Or were they influenced by the actions of the people they grew up with? Most of the time, the answers to such a question are simple but no less horrific.

Seventeen years ago, Layla Trello was murdered and her killer was never found. Enter true-crime fan Piper Gray, who is determined to reopen Layla’s case and get some answers. With the help of Jonas—who has a secret of his own—Piper starts a podcast investigating Layla’s murder. But as she digs deeper into the mysteries of the past, Piper begins receiving anonymous threats telling her to back off the investigation, or else. The killer is still out there, and Piper must uncover their identity before they silence her forever.

Chicago, 1924. There was nothing surprising about men turning up dead in the Second City. Life was cheaper than a quart of illicit gin in the gangland capital of the world. But two murders that spring were special - worthy of celebration. So believed Maurine Watkins, a wanna-be playwright and a "girl reporter" for the Chicago Tribune, the city's "hanging paper".

The facts are brutally straightforward. On December 6, 1991, the naked, bound and gagged bodies of four girls - each one shot in the head - were found in an I Can't Believe It's Yogurt! shop in Austin, Texas. Grief, shock, and horror spread out from their families and friends to overtake the city itself. Though all branches of law enforcement were brought to bear, the investigation was often misdirected, and after eight years only two men (then teenagers) were tried.

On a moonless night in the summer of 1793 a crime was committed in the back room of a New York brothel—the kind of crime that even victims usually kept secret. Instead, seventeen-year-old seamstress Lanah Sawyer did what virtually no one in US history had done before: she charged a gentleman with rape. Her accusation sparked a raw courtroom drama and a relentless struggle for vindication that threatened both Lanah’s and her assailant’s lives.

Jodie Evelyn can't think of a better place for a fresh start than the exclusive gated community of The Grove. But from the moment she passes through the wrought iron gates, she starts to suspect she's made a mistake. Despite her vow to keep apart from the other residents, Jodie can't help but feel drawn to her unnerving neighbour Norah Williams and terminally ill daughter, Lacey. Jodie knows she should stay away, but something draws her in.When a murder shocks The Grove, Jodie vows to do everything in her power to save Lacey from her mother.

Four young women were murdered in the nation’s capital between 1929 and 1935. Their deaths had no connection to each other. Each woman was different. Each murder, though violent and brutal, was unlike the other three women. Other than the fact that all four women were young and beautiful with active love lives, they had little in common until they were murdered, and their cases remained unsolved to this day.

A miracle, a vision, a premonition, and an unsolved death in Las Vegas, have hung in my memory like a broken antique for the last twenty four years of my life. I've had that long to think about the reason it all happened in the first place and why I was drawn to, and ultimately placed in the old apartment building on Riverview Avenue in Pittsburgh. If you believe that nothing happens by accident, or if you have lost your faith, this true story of fate and divine intervention will shed a bright light on all the possibilities.

Former stripper-turned-suburban-housewife Marjorie Orbin filed a missing person's report on her husband. She claimed that Jay, a successful art dealer, had left town on business after celebrating their son's birthday more than a month before. Jay loved his family more than life itself - and no one believed he would ever abandon them. Authorities suspected foul play

Susan Atkins was one of the more notorious female members of the "Manson Family" headed by Charles Manson. She was part of a gang of serial killers that terrorized Southern California in the summer of 1969. Known as "Sexy Sadie" because of her occupation as a topless dancer, Susan was involved in eight of the nine Manson killings including the gruesome Tate/Labianca Murders. She would be sentenced to death which was later commuted to life in prison. Susan would be denied parole over eighteen times in becoming the longest-incarcerated female inmate in the history of California.

The nation wept when news broke of nearly three-year-old Caylee Anthony's disappearance from her home in Florida in July 2007. The search for Caylee made front-page headlines. But Casey Anthony continued to lie to law enforcement about her daughter's whereabouts, complicating their search for the truth.

Shattered Justice, bearing the title chosen by Paul Smith (Sheriff of Mayes County, OK, from 1981 to 1985), describes Smith’s squelched efforts to get justice for three little Girl Scouts murdered deep in the woods just outside Locust Grove, OK, on June 13, 1977. Lori Farmer, 8, Doris “Denise” Milner, 10, and Michelle Gusé, 9, were bludgeoned and strangled while sharing a tent during their first night of summer camp.

By the time she was in her teens, Diamond had lived dozens of lives and lies, but as she grew older, love and trust turned to fear and violence, and her family—the only people she had in the world—began to unravel. She started to realize that her life itself might be a big con, and the people she loved, the most dangerous of all. With no way out and her identity burned so often that she had no proof she even existed, all that was left was a girl from nowhere.

In April 2014, the world awoke to the shocking news that the terrorist group Boko Haram had kidnapped nearly 300 school-aged girls and taken them deep into the forests of Nigeria. When veteran journalist Mellissa Fung travelled to Nigeria, she discovered that the scope of the kidnappings had been vastly under-reported. Hundreds—possibly thousands—more girls had been taken against their will and forced to become child brides to soldiers and leaders of Boko Haram. Some of the captives escaped and returned to their villages, many with children in tow.

Captured in the 1930s before the words psychopath and pedophile were part of common vernacular, notorious serial killer Arnold Sodeman murdered four young girls with little thought of remorse. Without guilt, the evil serial killer strangled them to death with their own clothing and left their small bodies alone in the Australian brush, earning himself a chilling position in the annals of Australian crime.