True Crime Women

In June of 1968, Irene Izak, a young French teacher from Scranton, Pennsylvania, was pulling an all-nighter on the road toward the promise of a new life in Quebec. The last time she was seen alive was at 2:09 a.m. by a toll collector at Thousand Island Bridge, who claimed Irene was visibly afraid. Less than a half-hour later, Irene was found bludgeoned to death in a ravine bordering DeWolf Point State Park. There were no signs of robbery or sexual assault. For reasons unknown, Irene had been compelled to pull off the interstate and abandon her car, only to be brutally murdered.

Deutschlands profilierteste psychiatrische Gutachterin berichtet von ihren Erfahrungen mit Frauen und dem Bösen. Wie kann es sein, dass eine Frau ihren eigenen Mann umbringt? Dass sie ihr Kind nicht vor einem gewalttätigen Partner schützt? Oder dass sie ihr Baby sogar selbst tötet? Solche Gewalttaten lösen häufig große Erschütterung aus, denn Frauen gelten als empathisch, warmherzig und friedfertig. Doch diese Attribute führen dazu, dass die Gefährlichkeit von Frauen unterschätzt wird.

In July 1970, 18-year-old Paula Oberbroeckling left her house in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and never returned. A cold case for 50 years, Paula’s story had been largely forgotten when Katherine Dykstra began looking for answers. A woman was dead. Why had no one been held responsible? How could a community give up and move on? Could there ever be justice for Paula?

Sedan vid födseln är Sarita Skagnes en besvikelse. Hon blir den tredje dottern i familjen, men hennes pappa hade sett fram emot att få en son. I sin frustration försöker han att döda henne. Sarita lämnas bort och istället adopterar föräldrarna en pojke. Familjen flyttar därefter från Indien till Norge - utan Sarita. Hon lämnas kvar för att arbeta som tjänare hos släktingar i hemlandet. I praktiken blir Sarita en slav. Som 16-åring återförenas hon med sin familj i Norge. Miljöombytet förändrar inget, hon fortsätter att vara ett offer i ett mansdominerat hem.

Praised as "a shining example of what autobiography can be: harrowing, illuminating and thoughtful" ( USA Today), Aminatta Forna's intensely personal history is a passionate and vivid account of an idyllic childhood which became the stuff of nightmare. As a child she witnessed the upheavals of post-colonial Africa, danger, flight, the bitterness of exile in Britain, and the terrible consequences of her dissident father's stand against tyranny.

The police force can be a tough place for a woman, but Detective Superintendent Deborah Wallace rose to the top with grace, humour and an iconic sense of style. In her incredible 36-year career with NSW Police, Wallace took on murderers and drug suppliers and dismantled the state's most nefarious gangs. Tenacious, perceptive and sharp, Wallace commanded a range of police crime squads, bringing order to the Wild West of 1990s Cabramatta and busting criminal bikie gangs with Strike Force Raptor until her retirement in late 2019.

Sonia Orchard was in her forties when she told a therapist about the boyfriend she had when she was fifteen. Sure, he had been a decade older than her, but it was consensual ... wasn't it? To her surprise, Sonia broke down in tears, then began to shake uncontrollably–an unmistakable expression of trauma that lasted for days. She was clearly not okay, but could the relationship she'd thought was love really have been abuse? Had she been groomed?

Once upon a time, there was a beautiful, naive young woman with fairy-tale dreams. Instead of happily ever after, Beauty became the obsession of a beast. One who only found true pleasure in the vicious acts he committed. Caught within his web of cruelty, her merciless dance for survival begins. Will Beauty be able to outmaneuver the Beast? Or, will he take the ultimate sadistic prize?

When the winter ice melted in April 1850, residents of Saco, Maine, made a gruesome discovery: the body of a young girl submerged in a stream. Thanks to evidence left at the scene, a local physician was arrested and tried for the death of Mary Bean, the name given to the unidentified young girl; the cause of death was failed abortion. Garnering extensive newspaper coverage, the trial revealed many secrets: a poorly trained doctor, connections to an unsolved murder in New Hampshire, and the true identity of "Mary Bean" - a young Canadian mill worker named Berengera Caswell, missing since the previous winter. The Murder of Mary Bean and Other Stories examines the series of events that led Caswell to become Mary Bean and the intense curiosity and anxiety stimulated by this heavily watched trial.

On October 24, 1890, a woman's mutilated and lifeless body was discovered on a pile of rubbish in Hampstead, North London. Her arms were lacerated, her face crushed and bloodied, and her head almost completely severed from her body. A mile away a blood-soaked stroller was found leaning against a residential gate. The dead baby's body, hidden beneath a nettle bush, was not located until the following morning. So began the incredible story of the Hampstead Tragedy.

At last, Juliette is able to join Senator Mike McBride in their new Arlington, VA apartment. After time off for a joyous homecoming, Mike goes to work in his Senate office while Juli unpacks and takes the train downtown for lunch with an old friend, Fran Whittaker, who tells Juli of her suspicions. Soon this dangerous knowledge leads to Fran's disappearance and Juliette's investigative reporter's nose getting her in a whole lot of trouble.

At first glance, the 1932 Easter morning murder of Salvatore "Sam" Antonio had all the trademarks of a gang-related murder. But when William H. Flubacher of the New York State Police began questioning the victim’s wife, Anna Antonio, the vague details she offered, coupled with her utter lack of shock or grief upon hearing of her husband’s brutal murder, convinced Flubacher that something was amiss. Soon, as James M. Greiner tells us in this absorbing audiobook, Anna was accused of hiring two drug dealers, Vincent Saetta and Sam Feraci, to kill her husband.

On the morning of July 1, 1800, a surveyor and mapmaker named Cayetano Diaz opened the window of his study in Guatemala City to find a horrific sight: a pair of severed breasts. Offering a meticulously researched and evocative account of the quest to find the perpetrator and understand the motives behind such a brutal act, this volume pinpoints the sensational crime as a watershed moment in Guatemalan history that radically changed the nature of justice and the established social order.

A gripping memoir of friendship with a tragic twist—two childhood best friends diverge as young adults, one woman is brutally murdered and the other is determined to uncover the truth about her wild and seductive friend.

From Pulitzer Prize winner Teresa Carpenter comes the captivating true-crime story of a Mafia moll - “the female counterpart of the pseudonymous Henry Hill, the star of Wiseguy.... An insider’s view of mob life that is by turns comic and chilling” (Los Angeles Times).

President Gerald Ford suffered two attempts on his life during his term in office: one by a young woman in Charles Manson's Family, Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme, and the other by a far more unlikely candidate—an average middle-aged mother of five—Sara Jane Moore. After thirty years in contact with Moore in prison, journalist Geri Spieler deconstructs her life in Housewife Assassin, tracing the path from Moore's small-town upbringing in West Virginia to that fateful moment when she tried to assassinate the president.

Evil has a way of finding itself. How else could you explain the bond between Alvin and Judith Ann Neelley, who consecrated their marriage in blood? Before the killings started, they restricted themselves to simple mischief: prank calls, vandalism, firing guns at strangers' houses. Gradually their ambition grew, until one day at the Riverbend Mall in Rome, Georgia, they spotted Lisa Ann Millican.

Piper Kerman lebt glücklich mit ihrem Verlobten in Manhattan, als ihr eine Jugendsünde zum Verhängnis wird. Das Gericht verurteilt sie zu einer 15-monatigen Haftstrafe. Über die Zeit im Frauengefängnis, über Schikanen, bösartige Attacken, aber auch über Freundschaften und vor allem ihre toughen und warmherzigen Mitgefangenen schreibt sie ohne Selbstmitleid, humorvoll und sehr unterhaltsam.

On Thursday, December 15, 1994, Joann Katrinak and her three-month-old son, Alex, went missing from their Catasauqua, Pennsylvania, home. In what would become Pennsylvania's first use of mitochondrial DNA in a criminal case, Patricia Rorrer - a young mother who had never met either victim - was quickly tried, convicted, and sentenced to life in prison without parole. But did the jury make the right decision?

On the evening of November 1, 1843, a young household servant named Amelia Norman attacked Henry Ballard, a prosperous merchant, on the steps of the new and luxurious Astor House hotel. Agitated and distraught, Norman followed Ballard down Broadway before confronting him at the door to the Astor House. Taking out a folding knife, she stabbed him, just missing his heart.