Showing results for "Readers Digest" in Mystery, Thriller & Suspense

The first digital collection of true crime tales from Reader's Digest, featuring the most gripping thrillers and mind-blowing mysteries from its digitized archives.

Real-life thrillers, mysteries, and tales of cold-blooded murder from the Reader's Digest archives.

Real-life thrillers, mysteries, and tales of cold-blooded murder from the Reader's Digest archives.

Reader's Digest presents some of the most thrilling tales found in its digital library, including stories of kidnappings, art heists, and missing persons - enough to rivet thriller fans for hours.

Three years ago, a little painting caused big trouble for undercover agent Bob Wittman. Here, for the first time, he tells all.

An arsenic poisoning sends a small New England church into turmoil in April 2003.

Shortly after midnight on March 18, 1990, two men conned their way into Boston's Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum and pulled off a stunning robbery: They took a dozen works by such master artists as Rembrandt, Vermeer, Degas, and Manet, which have never been recovered.

To the amazement of those who knew Sally Mercer only as a vital, healthy housewife, the cause of her 1968 death was ruled as polio. Forty years later, new evidence may finally solve the mystery.

Justin Barber said he and his wife, April, were tipsy and amorous, having celebrated their third wedding anniversary with dinner and cocktails, as they strolled along the water's edge in Jacksonville, Florida. That's when a strange man approached them in an attempted robbery that left April dead, according to Justin's testimony. But when police took a closer look at the case, the details didn't add up.

Too much fun wasn't a problem for good-looking Brent Wilson "Wil" Hicks and his athletic girlfriend, Alex Santini. In a case that has drawn comparisons to the infamous Bonnie and Clyde, the couple robbed $500,000 from a half dozen banks then lived the high life on the lam.

Robert Durst was once on top of the world. At age 35, he was the first-in-line heir to one of New York's greatest real-estate fortunes. But by the new millennium, Durst's future was looking anything but promising after he became the target of a police investigation in connection with three grisly murders.

It was a profound "Aha!" moment for Karen Lodrick: She suddenly realized how she knew the vaguely familiar looking woman in jeans and Gucci glasses, carrying a brown suede coat and a Prada purse, standing beside her at a local Starbucks. Karen's ID had been stolen five months earlier. Her bank account had been emptied, and her life sent reeling out of control. The suede coat was the same one she'd seen in the bank surveillance tape, worn by the woman who'd stolen Karen's ID.

No one ever suspected that Dennis Rader, a seemingly ordinary man, could be a killer - let alone a cold-blooded serial killer. His infamous signature, "BTK", police would later discover, stood for "Bind, Torture, Kill".

After four members of his family were brutally murdered, Charlie Otero went from honor student to paranoid outlaw. It took 31 years to catch the killer - and for Charlie to heal himself.

I had no idea that a monster hid behind his perfect mask, but my normally affectionate dog, Toby, instantly sensed the danger - standing in front of me was a serial killer, a sadist whose days and nights were consumed by murderous obsession.

Justin Barber said that he and his wife, April, were tipsy and amorous, having celebrated their third wedding anniversary with dinner and cocktails, as they strolled along the water's edge in Jacksonville, Florida, on August 17, 2002. That's when a strange man approached the couple in an attempted robbery that left April dead, according to Justin's testimony. But when police looked deeper into the case, the details didn't add up.

Nineteen-year-old Marcus Allen Paden was high on methamphetamine as he wandered aimlessly through a San Jose residential neighborhood on a sunny autumn morning, prowling through yards and testing back doors. Eventually, one clicked open.

Helen Dean was enjoying a smooth recovery from surgery at a New Jersey hospital in August 1993 when a thin, sharp-featured male nurse entered her room and told her son, Larry, to leave. When Larry returned a few minutes later, Helen angrily announced, "He stuck me!" Larry thought that was odd, as his mother wasn't scheduled to receive any medications. Strange, too, was the location of the shot - on her inner thigh, where it was very hard to see.

At the crest of a hill in Kansas City, Missouri, in the old stone house on Grandview Road where he had been born, Donin Wright and his girlfriend, Janet Clark, held loaded rifles. Wright regularly patrolled his property with a gun slung on his hip, but today's plan called for something more extreme.

Police cited the deaths of his wife and daughter as a murder-suicide - but he knew that couldn't be.