Real True Crime

It was a bleak November in 2012 when Cari Lea Farver vanished from Omaha, Nebraska. Cari, 37, was a devoted mother, reliable employee, and loyal friend - not the type to shirk responsibilities, abandon her son, and run off on an adventure while her dying father took his last breaths. Yet, the many texts from her phone indicated she had done just that. While Cari's boyfriend, Dave Kroupa, and her supervisor were bewildered by her abrupt disappearance, they accepted the texts at face value. Her mother, Nancy Raney, however, was alarmed and reported Cari missing.

We may not always see what truly hides within the minds and hearts of certain people, and where we believe is a good, pure individual, lays a terrible murderer capable of the most horrible acts. Robert Berdella was one such man, a helpful and friendly individual who - in a spree separated by a few years - managed to capture and horrifically torture seven young men, murdering six along the way. Control and dominance were his tools, pain was his method.

Among members of the outlaw motorcycle clubs, Caesar Campbell is a legend. Former sergeant-at-arms and chief enforcer for the Comancheros, Caesar became the founding member and sergeant-at-arms of the Australian chapter of the Bandidos. He epitomised bikie culture - unbeatable in a fight, brutal in the extreme, fearing no one and nothing, and loyal until death. This is Caesar's story, from his recruitment into the Comancheros, to the savage split within the club that led to the foundation of the Bandidos and the bloody massacre at Milperra that resulted from it.

Polygamy. Incest. Vampires. Murder. There are words you might expect to read together in the plot of a gothic horror novel, but not so long ago, in the usually quiet town of Fresno, California, those words were the headlines. What do they have to do with each other? The answer to that question is one man: Marcus Wesson. Chances are you have heard of cults, such as the Manson Family, and Jonestown, but this might be your first time hearing the story of a vampire cult led by Marcus Wesson. The members of this cult were members of Wesson’s own family.

The Mexican drug trade has inspired prejudiced narratives of a war between north and south, White and Brown; between noble cops and vicious kingpins, corrupt politicians and powerful cartels. In this first comprehensive history of the trade, historian Benjamin T. Smith tells the real story of how and why this one-peaceful industry turned violent. He uncovers its origins and explains how this illicit business essentially built modern Mexico, affecting everything from agriculture to medicine to economics - and the country’s all-important relationship with the United States.

Cannibal. Necrophiliac. Kidnapper. Killer. The stories of serial killers often begin with terrible upbringings and sad events of trauma, but not all have such unfortunate beginnings. Some simply develop their evil on their own and become tainted without anyone realizing it. Jeffrey Dahmer was a man described by his own father as the result of a child becoming lost in the maelstrom while nobody paid attention, a child who was strange and apathetic but whom nobody bothered to ask why.

Ted Bundy was a handsome, charming, and ambitious man who carried his hatred deeper and more hidden than any other murderers do. He was able to lead a life that included normal friendships and relationships, and he even got far as both a student and a politician. But the hatred was there.... It was always there.... Bundy ended the lives of more than 30 young women, ensuring their final moments were ugly and violent. His torture methods were cruel, and there was no mercy shown to each female as he bludgeoned, strangled, or cut them.

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.

On a cold winter day in 1832, Sarah Maria Cornell was found dead in a quiet farmyard in a small New England town. When her troubled past and a secret correspondence with charismatic Methodist minister Reverend Ephraim Avery was uncovered, more questions emerged. Was Sarah’s death a suicide...or something much darker? Determined to uncover the real story, Victorian writer Catharine Read Arnold Williams threw herself into the investigation as the trial was unfolding and wrote what many claim to be the first American true-crime narrative, Fall River.

Imagine getting out of the bath and finding blood in four of your six rooms. That’s not the plot of a B-movie. That’s real life. There’s a reason you’re drawn to horror films, and they’re not as far-fetched as you thought. FBI data shows that four out of 10 homicides and six out of 10 rapes go unsolved, and this isn’t just down to shoddy police work or a failing system. Sometimes, there just is no rational explanation. Strange things happen every day, and many of them are never reported. But then, many of them don’t end in horror.

Petrifying. Bone-chilling. Depraved. Their acts made headlines. Their names live in infamy in the darkest recesses of the internet, but for those who are left behind, these heartless monsters are always there, looming over their every move. This true crime four-book set exposes their inner secrets, details their heinous crimes, and pulls the curtain on the long, hard-fought investigations.

La comunidad unida de San Miguel de Allende, México, se vio afectada por una serie de sofisticados secuestros durante casi una década. Cuando la policía finalmente realizó un arresto, los habitantes del pueblo se sorprendieron al saber quién estaba acusado de ser el cerebro de la organización criminal. Se trata del vecino favorito de todos y un pilar de la comunidad, Ramón Guerra. Excepto que Ramón no es quien dice ser.

Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita is one of the most beloved and notorious novels of all time, selling over 60 million copies worldwide to date. Yet very few of its readers know that the subject of the novel was derived from a real-life case: the 1948 abduction of 11-year-old Sally Horner. Weaving together suspenseful crime narrative, cultural and social history, and literary investigation, The Real Lolita tells Sally Horner's full story for the very first time.

The Real Top Boys reveals the lives of the street gangs who have taken over, and now rule, dozens of corners of the UK's capital. Best-selling true crime author Wensley Clarkson takes us on a tour of the housing estates and volatile neighbourhoods where pride, rivalry and revenge are the codes people live and die by.

This graphic account of convicted killers Paul Bernardo and Karla Homolka shows that in some relationships, neither party is the “better half”. Both halves of this Canadian couple add up to one evil story.

Frank W. Abagnale, alias Frank Williams, Robert Conrad, Frank Adams, and Robert Monjo, was one of the most daring con men, forgers, imposters, and escape artists in history. In his brief but notorious criminal career, Abagnale donned a pilot's uniform and copiloted a Pan Am jet, masqueraded as the supervising resident of a hospital, practiced law without a license, passed himself off as a college sociology professor, and cashed over $2.5 million in forged checks, all before he was twenty-one.

The Netflix hit Don’t F**k with Cats was based on the 2012 Montreal murder of thirty-three-year-old Lin Jun by his porn-star boyfriend, Luka Magnotta. Previously Magnotta had anonymously posted videos of himself killing kittens. This spurred horrified Facebook sleuths into working tirelessly to uncover his identity and location. Sometimes citizen sleuthing goes wrong, though, with innocent people being targeted, or accused of crimes they haven’t committed, with tragic results.

From the 1920s to 1950, Georgia Tann ran a black-market baby business at the Tennessee Children’s Home Society in Memphis. The publication of Lisa Wingate’s novel Before We Were Yours brought new awareness of Tann’s lucrative career in child trafficking. Adoptees who knew little about their pasts gained insight into the startling facts behind their family histories. Encouraged by their contact with Wingate and award-winning journalist Judy Christie, who documented the stories of 15 adoptees in this book, many determined Tann survivors set out to trace their roots.

In his own words, real life American Gangster Frank Lucas recounts his life as the former heroin dealer and organized crime boss who ran Harlem during the late 1960s and early 1970s. Determined to break the Italian mafia’s monopoly over drug smuggling in New York, Frank cut out middlemen and began smuggling heroin into the United States directly from his source in Vietnam using the coffins of dead American soldiers.

Before Alex Marzano-Lesnevich begins a summer job at a law firm in Louisiana, working to help defend men accused of murder, they think their position is clear. The child of two lawyers, Alex is staunchly anti-death penalty. But the moment convicted murderer Ricky Langley’s face flashes on the screen as Alex reviews old tapes—the moment they hear him speak of his crimes—they are overcome with the feeling of wanting him to die. Shocked by their reaction, Alex digs deeper and deeper into the case.