True Crime Serial Murders

The public’s obsession with serial killers and weird murders is growing by the day, with more TV shows, movies and books now detailing the crimes of these human monsters. There’s no denying that we’re all fascinated by serial murder–it’s part of the human experience.

Monster stories aren’t just meant to entertain. They’re meant to inform, even educate. Above all, they ask us to question our own humanity. Nowhere is this truer than in stories of serial killers. What are the origins of this monstrous archetype? Why are we so fascinated with such gruesome terror? What do they reveal about our fears and anxieties? Explore these and other questions in Serial Killers: Real and Imagined, where public scholar Emily Zarka looks at the serial-killer trope across history, from murky 17th-century legends to 21st-century true-crime obsessions.

Dulcie Bodsworth was the unlikeliest serial killer. She was loved everywhere she went, and the townsfolk of Wilcannia, which she called home in the late 1950s, thought of her as kind and caring. The officers at the local police station found Dulcie witty and charming, and looked forward to the scones and cakes she generously baked and delivered for their morning tea. That was one side of her. Only her daughter Hazel saw the real Dulcie. And what she saw terrified her.

American serial killer Edmund Kemper III stalked co-eds in California at the height of the era of peace and free love, dismembering his victims and tossing their body parts in remote areas around Santa Cruz. As pieces of young women began washing up on shore and turning up alongside rural highways, female residents - especially college students - were decidedly on edge. A lust killer who savored the act of decapitating his victims - and often used their severed heads for sexual pleasure - Kemper's story is particularly twisted among historical serial killers.

Ted Bundy is the most darkly fascinating and widely analyzed serial killer of the past century, possibly ever. No sex criminal, from Jack the Ripper to Zodiac to the Green River Killer, inhabits the popular mind as does Bundy. Now, the two men who know Bundy’s criminal nature best - Dr. Robert Keppel and author Stephen Michaud - have teamed to write the definitive narrative of Bundy’s bloody career, as well as the inside story of how Keppel tracked the elusive killer for 15 years.

As with the two prior volumes of True Crime Case Histories, I want to start with a quick word of warning. Most news articles and television true crime shows skim over the sticky details of truly gruesome crimes. In my books I don't gloss over the facts, regardless of how horrible they may be. I try to give my listeners a clear and accurate description on just how demented the killers really were. I do my best not to leave anything out. The stories included in these books are not for the squeamish.

This incredible story shows how John Douglas tracked and participated in the hunt for one of the most notorious serial killers in US history. For 31 years a man who called himself BTK (Bind, Torture, Kill) terrorized the city of Wichita, Kansas, sexually assaulting and strangling a series of women, taunting the police with frequent communications, and bragging about his crimes to local newspapers and TV stations.

In some murder cases, the truth behind the most tragic of crimes crystallizes with relative ease. Not so with these fascinating accounts drawn from the personal files of Ann Rule. What happens when the case itself becomes an intractable puzzle, when clues are shrouded in smoke and mirrors, and when criminals skillfully evade law enforcement in a maddening cat-and-mouse chase? Even the most devoted true-crime listener won't predict the outcome of these truly baffling cases until the conclusions revealed in Ann Rule's marvelously insightful narrative.

The stories in this audiobook represent humanity at its absolute worst. Pure evil. In my audiobooks, however, I don’t leave out the details. In my audiobooks, I include details not to shock, but to give the listener a deeper look into the twisted mind of the killer. In the end, it’s unlikely any of us will understand the motives of the criminals in these audiobooks, but the level of depravity will at least keep you resisting the pause button. Volume six of True Crime Case Histories features 12 new stories from the past several decades.

Five book collection: first five states in the United States of True Crime series. Sixty chilling true crime cases of murders, kidnappings, and serial killers from across the United States!

This Ultimate True Crime Case Collection contains disturbing accounts of some of the most brutal and bizarre true crime stories in history. Told from the killer’s perspective, Green’s riveting narratives draw the listener into the real-live horror experienced by the victims with all the elements of a classic thriller.

Best-selling author Bryan Burrough recently made a shocking discovery: The small town of Temple, Texas, where he had grown up, had harbored a dark secret. One of his high school classmates, Danny Corwin, was a vicious serial killer. In this chilling tale, Burrough raises important questions of whether serial killers can be recognized before they kill or rehabilitated after they do. It is also a story of Texas politics and power that led the good citizens of the town of Temple to enable a demon who was their worst nightmare.

In 1984, John Thompson was convicted and sentenced to death for the murder of a prominent white man in New Orleans, Louisiana. He was sent to Angola Prison and confined to his cell for 23 hours a day. However, Thompson adamantly proclaimed his innocence and just needed lawyers who believed that his trial had been mishandled and would step up to the plate against the powerful DA’s office. But who would fight for Thompson’s innocence when he didn’t have an alibi for the night of the murder and there were two key witnesses to confirm his guilt?

In 2019, Adrian Langenscheid's debut book, True Crime Deutschland, was published and rose from nowhere to the top of the winner's podium in the genre-relevant categories. Almost 2 years and 6 books later, Langenscheid is one of the best-known true crime authors in Germany. For the seventh work in his successful series, the bestselling author once again researched some of the most spectacular German criminal cases of recent decades.

“Sam, could you do me a favor?” Thus begins a story that has now become part of America's true-crime hall of fame. It is a gory, grotesque tale befitting a Stephen King novel. It is also a David and Goliath saga - the story of a young lawyer fresh from the public defender's office whose first client in private practice turns out to be the worst serial killer in our nation's history. This is a gripping true crime narrative that reenacts the gruesome killings and the famous trial that shocked a nation.

Each story in this gripping volume will captivate you with its harrowing details and shocking revelations. With meticulous research and keen insights, you'll gain a deeper understanding of society's dark underbelly and the tragic consequences of evil deeds.

Actual true crime is not like watching an episode of CSI. Even television true crime documentaries can skim over the sticky details. Real true crime can be unsettling for many people. However, I do my best not to leave out any details in my audiobooks. My intention isn’t to shock but rather to give the listener a glimpse into the killer’s mind. I don’t begin to think that I can understand the mind of a diabolical monster, but I can guarantee that curiosity will keep us listening and endlessly searching for answers.

There are reasons why some of the most famous serial killers in the world have names that stick in our memories, send shivers up our spines, make us double-check to make sure the doors are locked at night, and maybe peek under the bed to be sure nothing is lurking there before we turn off the lights.

Paul Bernado and Karla Homolka were so perfectly iconic as a newlywed couple that they were dubbed "Ken and Barbie". But their marriage had a dark side involving sex, death, and videotape. The "perfect couple" first raped and murdered Karla's little sister then kidnapped teenage schoolgirls whom they enslaved, raped, tortured, and killed while gleefully recording themselves on video doing it.

He was a model citizen. A hospital volunteer. And one of the most sadistic serial killers of all time. But few people could see the cruel monster beneath the colorful clown makeup that John Gacy wore to entertain children in his Chicago suburb. Few could imagine what lay buried beneath his house of horrors—until a teenage boy disappeared before Christmas in 1978, leading prosecutor Terry Sullivan on the greatest manhunt of his career.