True Crime Serial

By the time he was brought to trial in 1992, Soviet serial killer Andrei Chikatilo had killed more than fifty women and children, often sexually abusing them and leaving their bodies mutilated beyond recognition. Although he was initially arrested in 1984, the police lacked enough evidence to pin the unsolved murders on him and he was able to torture and kill dozens more before his eventual conviction.

On March 24, 1987, the Philadelphia Police Department received a phone call from a woman who stated that she had been held captive for the last four months. When police officers arrived at the pay phone from which the call was made, Josephina Rivera told them that she and three other women had been held captive in a basement by a man named Gary Heidnik. He imprisoned women in chains, in the filth and stench of a hole dug under his home.

This gang of serial killers did unthinkable crimes. It's hard to believe that their story is not a work of fiction. But it's not! Most serial killers work alone. Killing is usually a private crime, something that mass murderers are keen to keep hidden. But this is not always the case. During the 1990s, a small town in Australia witnessed first-hand how devastating, horrendous, and effective a gang of serial killers could be.

Every year, we look back in horror at the sheer evil mankind is capable of, and 2017 was no different. Across the world, but particularly in the United States, startlingly horrific crimes have almost become commonplace, causing us to double-lock our doors at night and look over our shoulders, wondering if we're safe, no matter how crowded or well-lit our location is. In this true crime release, we've compiled some of the most gripping and gruesome crime stories of 2017.

Serial Killer Couples: Bonded by Sexual Depravity, Abduction, and Murder chronicles the true crimes of sexually motivated serial killers who are intimates. In this latest true crime book from award-winning, best-selling criminologist R. Barri Flowers, nine gripping tales examine killer couples from America, England, and Canada whose murderous reigns of terror knows no end till they were brought to justice.

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 lush, green hills that mark the border of North and South Carolina are home to a close-knit community. When the savaged remains of high-spirited Heather Catterton and sweet-natured Randi Saldana were found and a local man was linked to their murders, residents were forced to face an evil in their midst. The killer was one of their own….

Given up for adoption by his mother at only a few weeks old, Robert Black is placed with physically abusive foster parents, setting the tone for who, and what, he'd become - a pedophile and serial killer. Starting at the age of five, he recalls being sexually curious and began placing items in his anus at the age of eight. He'd sexually assault hundreds of little girls before committing his first murder.

July 22, 2011, was the darkest day in Norway's history since Nazi Germany's invasion. It was 189 minutes of terror - from the moment the bomb exploded outside a government building until Anders Behring Breivik was apprehended by the police at Utoya Island. Breivik murdered 77 people, most of them teenagers and young adults, and wounded hundreds more. Breivik is a "lone wolf killer", often overlooked until they commit their crime. Breivik is also unique as he is the only lone wolf killer in recent history to still be alive and in captivity.

Three spine chilling true crime stories in one collection from the best-selling author Robert Brown. This collection contains the first three of Robert Browns best-selling true crime novels. Includes: Bonfire Bodies, The Candy Man, and The Acid Alchemist.

In September 1998, young reporter Claudia Rowe was working as a stringer for The New York Times in Poughkeepsie, New York, when local police discovered the bodies of eight women stashed in the attic and basement of the small colonial home that Kendall Francois, a painfully polite 27-year-old community college student, shared with his parents and sister. Growing up amid the safe, bourgeois affluence of New York City, Rowe had always been secretly fascinated by the darkness and soon became obsessed with the story and with Francois.

Empire of Sin re-creates the remarkable story of New Orleans' 30-years war against itself, pitting the city's elite "better half" against its powerful and long-entrenched underworld of vice, perversity, and crime. This early-20th-century battle centers on one man: Tom Anderson, the undisputed czar of the city's Storyville vice district, who fights desperately to keep his empire intact as it faces onslaughts from all sides.

La nuit venue, Richard Ramirez, mieux connu sous le nom de Nightstalker, le prédateur nocturne, arpente les rues à la recherche de sang frais, massacrant au hasard de ses rencontres hommes et femmes jusque dans leurs propres maisons. Le tueur est totalement imprévisible. Ses crimes vont du simple cambriolage, au viol avec violence et au meurtre. Tandis qu'un État tout entier est sous le coup de la peur, un tueur en série hante la Californie, pénétrant dans les maisons de ses victimes la nuit pendant leur sommeil.

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 20 May 1999, the South Australian Police were called to investigate a disused bank in the unassuming town of Snowtown, in connection to the disappearance of multiple missing people. The police were not prepared for the chilling scene that awaited them. The officers found six barrels within the abandoned bank vault, each filled with acid and the remains of eight individuals. The smell from inside the vault was so stifling that the police required breathing equipment.

Charles Sobhraj remains one of the world's great con men and as a serial killer, the story of his life and capture endures as legend. First published in 1979, but updated here to include new material, On the Trail of the Serpent draws its listeners into the story of Sobhraj's life as told exclusively to journalists Richard Neville and Julie Clarke. Blurring the boundaries between true crime and novelisation, this remains the definitive book about Sobhraj - a riveting tale of sex, drugs, adventure and murder.

In September 1973, Stephen Downing was convicted and indefinitely sentenced for the murder of Wendy Sewell, a young legal secretary in the town of Bakewell in the Peak District. Wendy was attacked in broad daylight in Bakewell Cemetery. Stephen Downing, the 17-year-old groundskeeper with learning difficulties and a reading age of 11, was the primary suspect. He was immediately arrested, questioned for nine hours, without a solicitor present, and pressured into signing a confession full of words he did not understand.

As the Nazi war machine caused death and destruction throughout Europe, one man in the Fatherland began his own reign of terror. This is the true story of the pursuit and capture of a serial killer in the heart of the Third Reich. For all appearances, Paul Ogorzow was a model German. An employed family man, party member, and sergeant in the infamous Brownshirts, he had worked his way up in the Berlin railroad from a manual laborer laying track to assistant signalman. But he also had a secret need to harass and frighten women.

Peter Manuel killed repeatedly, both random and targeted victims, including men, women, and children, because he enjoyed the rush. As a lifelong criminal, Manuel mainly committed property crime. That all changed when his heart was broken. The woman he'd been engaged to called off the wedding and left him, causing Peter to snap. His violence escalated then, and Peter terrorized various communities for almost two years. His cockiness had no end, and he went as far as giving a police inspector a ride.

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.