True Crime Serial

On September 6, 1949, 28-year-old Howard Barton Unruh shot 13 people, in less than 12 minutes, on his block in East Camden, New Jersey. The shocking, true story of the first recorded mass-shooting in America has never been told, until now. Through the eyes of the young boy who visited Howard regularly to listen to his war stories, and the mother trying to piece together the disturbing inner-workings of her son’s mind, Ellen Green uncovers the chilling true story of Howard Unruh - the quiet oddball who meticulously plotted his revenge on the neighbors who shunned him.

The Colonial Parkway Murders - the name given eight murders that took place in the Tidewater region in the late 1980s, two of which were on the historic Colonial Parkway, the nation’s narrowest National Park. Young people in the prime of their lives were the targets. But the pattern that stitched this special kind of evil together was more like a spider web of theory, intrigue, and mathematics. Then, mysteriously, the killing spree stopped. Now, father-daughter true crime authors Blaine Pardoe and Victoria Hester blow the dust off of these cases.

There are many myths about serial killers: that they are all dysfunctional loners; all white males; only motivated by sex; that they all travel and operate across a wide area; cannot stop killing; are all insane, or evil geniuses; and that they all want to get caught. Of course, there are some serial killers who fit into these categories, but the married Green River Killer was not a dysfunctional loner; there are plenty of female and non-Caucasian serial killers, Dr Harold Shipman was certainly not motivated by sex; and many serial killings (such as the Ipswich prostitute murders carried out by Steve Wright) happen within a confined area.

It is often difficult to comprehend what makes a person kill. But when they kill and then commit further acts of depravity on their victim, it gives a whole new meaning to wrongdoing. In volume three of the True Crime Stories, we examine murderers who have all displayed the same gut-churning, wicked twist - each of them ate their victims. Each of these violent killers is examined in detail, including their backgrounds, the crimes they committed, and how they were brought to justice.

Les meurtres de femmes de Ciudad Juarez désignent une série d'assassinats commis depuis 1993 dans la ville frontière de Ciudad Juarez au nord du Mexique. Beaucoup de ces meurtres n'ont jamais été élucidés. Selon Amnesty International, plus de 1653 cadavres ont été trouvés jusqu'en juin 2008 et plus de 2000 femmes sont considérées comme disparues.

When this killer was on the loose, citizens were vigilant, yet scared. Children were not allowed outside to play without adult supervision. But then he was captured, tried, convicted, and put away for life in prison. The community could finally breathe again. They were out of danger. Until the day the convicted killer escaped prison and reigned terror upon anyone and everyone in his way. The manhunt pursued, the killer killed, and earned the title of a serial killer. This is the story of Allan Legere - a monster.

Dennis Nilsen was jailed for life in 1983 after the murders of 12 men and the attempted murders of many more. Seven years after his conviction, Nilsen began to write his autobiography, and over a period of 18 years, he typed 6,000 pages of introspection, reflection, comment, and explanation. History of a Drowning Boy - taken exclusively from these astonishing writings - uncovers, for the first time, the motives behind the murders, and delivers a clear understanding of how such horrific events could have happened, tracing the origins back to early childhood.

Paul John Knowles, nicknamed the Casanova Killer, went on a four-month killing spree in 1974. He still remains one of the lesser known serial killers of his generation. Learn all about this psychopath who wanted fame before his life ended.

The shocking murders carried out by an unknown serial killer in London's East End during the autumn of 1888, haunted the public imagination at the time and have continued to exert a baleful influence ever since. But what was it like to live through those terrifying weeks? This audiobook looks at the crimes of Jack the Ripper through the eyes of Londoners, including the rumors that swept through the capital city, the alarms, the riots, the persecutions, the suspicions, and the sheer naked terror of the awful autumn when a killer stalked the streets.

Bestselling true crime writer and criminologist Christopher Berry-Dee turns his attention to a new kind of victim: the wives and partners of serial murderers who remained unaware of exactly who they had fallen for until after their other half's arrest or, in some cases, conviction. When finding out the truth, these innocents have to face the grim reality of betrayal and deceit and often experience guilt for not having recognized the killer in their home.

This true-crime police procedural is the riveting story of the racially-motivated serial killings that terrorized San Francisco from 1973 to 1974 and how they were solved. Code named the Zebra Murders, the case involved a series of random violent attacks by African-American men against whites, resulting in fifteen deaths.

John Wayne Gacy: The Killer Clown, was a prolific American serial killer who murdered 33 boys between 1972 and 1976, burying most of them in the crawlspace under his house in Norridge, Cook County, Illinois. He was a businessman, politician, and registered clown who used his charm and trickery to lure his victims to his house, where he unleashed his sexual sadism and depravity on them before he strangled them to death with his “rope trick”.

On Halloween night, 1828, in the West Port district of Edinburgh, Scotland, a woman sometimes known as Madgy Docherty was last seen in the company of William Burke and William Hare. Days later, police discovered her remains in the surgery of the prominent anatomist Dr. Robert Knox. Docherty was the final victim of the most atrocious murder spree of the century. Together with their accomplices, Burke and Hare would be accused of killing 16 people over the course of 12 months in order to sell the corpses as "subjects" for dissection.

A lot of people have hobbies - most of the time, that hobby is directed by their penchant for a certain thing; sometimes travel and exploration, sometimes food, and in other cases, crafts. However, there are people whose hobbies consist of sinister things: some of them desire to kill women, both young and old, children, or homosexuals.

It is plausible that Donald Henry Gaskins was born a psychopath; it may also be said that his life experiences helped turn him into a sociopath. The Meanest Man in America earned the title of the most prolific serial killer in South Carolina’s history. Although it was never confirmed, Gaskins claimed to have murdered more than 100 people, with some reports as high as 181.

It's still difficult for people today to conceive of someone being born bad, even as more and more studies are coming out each year that point to the significant effects of DNA on human behavior. But of course, it is also rare that a child born to parents carrying the genes for mental illness or antisocial behavior grows up in a happy, stable home where the parents are equipped to provide a living, nurturing life.

In the mid-1920s, young children began to vanish from neighborhoods around New York City. It took the police a decade to find their abductor, an unassuming 64-year-old handyman named Albert Fish. Fish had committed crimes of unspeakable horror: He had not only abducted and murdered the children, but also tortured and, in some cases, eaten them. During Fish's trial, some of the country's most prominent psychiatrists debated the exact nature of Fish's crimes. Was he evil or insane? Who had the power to determine where one ended and the other began?

On July 24, 1964, 24-year-old Matthew Kerry Smith disguised himself with a mask and a Beatle wig, hoisted a semi-automatic rifle, then held up a bank in North York, Ontario. The intelligent but troubled son of a businessman and mentally ill mother, Smith was a navy veteran with a young Indigenous wife and a hazy plan for violent revolution.

Back in her natural habitat, Dr Nell Ward heads to a woodland pond to survey local newt populations. She's shocked to discover a car submerged in the water - with the driver dead behind the wheel. Nell recognises the dead man as professional racing driver, and tabloid love rat, Jack Rafferty, whose performance on (and off) Finchmere's racetrack had earned him enemies. Suspecting this isn't the tragic accident it appears DI James Clark calls upon Nell and her ecological skills to help find the murderer.

Dr Nell Ward is delighted when her childhood friend Percy announces she's engaged to handsome businessman Hawke McAnstruther - and rashly offers to host the wedding at Finchmere, her family's estate. But she hadn't anticipated Percy's parents' fiery disapproval of the groom. The ceremony is barely over before Hawke's shady personal and professional life starts to unravel, and tension ripples through the assembled guests.