Jeffrey MacDonald was the quintessential American golden boy: a young Princeton-educated doctor and Green Beret who married his high school sweetheart and had two adorable daughters. But then, in 1970, someone viciously murdered MacDonald's wife and children, stabbing them many times. MacDonald...  more

Jeffrey MacDonald was the quintessential American golden boy: a young Princeton-educated doctor and Green Beret who married his high school sweetheart and had two adorable daughters. But then, in 1970, someone viciously murdered MacDonald's wife and children, stabbing them many times. MacDonald maintained that the murders had been committed by demented hippies, Manson-like intruders who had broken into his home and, after tangling briefly with MacDonald himself, had moved on to the rest of the family. Various investigators and laypeople felt differently, but the evidence was inconclusive and it took years of court battles to bring MacDonald to justice. Joe McGuinness combines meticulous forensic analysis with a riveting narrative of the crime, investigation, and trial. He also paints a subtle psychological portrait of MacDonald, which unfolds over the course of the book to create a harrowingly plausible answer to the question: how could a man like Jeffrey MacDonald slaughter his entire family in cold blood?

A national bestseller—7 million copies sold. Prosecuting attorney in the Manson trial, Vincent Bugliosi held a unique insider's position in one of the most baffling and horrifying cases of the twentieth century: the cold-blooded Tate-LaBianca murders carried out by Charles Manson and four...  more

A national bestseller—7 million copies sold. Prosecuting attorney in the Manson trial, Vincent Bugliosi held a unique insider's position in one of the most baffling and horrifying cases of the twentieth century: the cold-blooded Tate-LaBianca murders carried out by Charles Manson and four of his followers. What motivated Manson in his seemingly mindless selection of victims, and what was his hold over the young women who obeyed his orders? Here is the gripping story of this famous and haunting crime. 50 pages of b/w photographs. Both Helter Skelter and Vincent Bugliosi's subsequent Till Death Us Do Part won Edgar Allan Poe Awards for best true-crime book of the year. Bugliosi is also the author of Outrage: The Five Reasons Why O. J. Simpson Got Away with Murder (Norton, 1996) and other books. Curt Gentry, an Edgar winner, is the author of J. Edgar Hoover: The Man and the Secrets (available in Norton paperback) and Frame-Up: The Incredible Case of Tom Mooney and Warren Billings.

On April 20, 1999, two boys left an indelible stamp on the American psyche. Their goal was simple: to blow up their school, Oklahoma-City style, and to leave "a lasting impression on the world." Their bombs failed, but the ensuing shooting defined a new era of school violence --...  more

On April 20, 1999, two boys left an indelible stamp on the American psyche. Their goal was simple: to blow up their school, Oklahoma-City style, and to leave "a lasting impression on the world." Their bombs failed, but the ensuing shooting defined a new era of school violence -- irrevocably branding every subsequent shooting "another Columbine." When we think of Columbine, we think of the Trench Coat Mafia; we think of Cassie Bernall, the girl we thought professed her faith before she was shot; and we think of the boy pulling himself out of a school window -- the whole world was watching him. Now, in a riveting piece of journalism nearly ten years in the making, comes the story none of us knew. In this revelatory book, Dave Cullen has delivered a profile of teenage killers that goes to the heart of psychopathology. He lays bare the callous brutality of mastermind Eric Harris, and the quavering, suicidal Dylan Klebold, who went to prom three days earlier and obsessed about love in his journal. The result is an astonishing account of two good students with lots of friends, who came to stockpile a basement cache of weapons, to record their raging hatred, and to manipulate every adult who got in their way. They left signs everywhere, described by Cullen with a keen investigative eye and psychological acumen. Drawing on hundreds of interviews, thousands of pages of police files, FBI psychologists, and the boy's tapes and diaries, he gives the first complete account of the Columbine tragedy.  

On November 15, 1959, in the small town of Holcomb, Kansas, four members of the Clutter family were savagely murdered by blasts from a shotgun held a few inches from their faces. There was no apparent motive for the crime, and there were almost no clues.Five years, four months and twenty-nine...  more

On November 15, 1959, in the small town of Holcomb, Kansas, four members of the Clutter family were savagely murdered by blasts from a shotgun held a few inches from their faces. There was no apparent motive for the crime, and there were almost no clues.Five years, four months and twenty-nine days later, on April 14, 1965, Richard Eugene Hickock, aged thirty-three, and Perry Edward Smith, aged thirty-six, were hanged from the crime on a gallows in a warehouse in the Kansas State Penitentiary in Lansing, Kansa.In Cold Blood is the story of the lives and deaths of these six people. It has already been hailed as a masterpiece.

When my parents packed my brother, sister and me into the family van and drove us to Missouri for Spring Break, we brought our entirely imagined city-hardness with us. The hard truth that we were about to learn was that, in fact, we weren't tough kids at all. Our life in the city had not...  more

When my parents packed my brother, sister and me into the family van and drove us to Missouri for Spring Break, we brought our entirely imagined city-hardness with us. The hard truth that we were about to learn was that, in fact, we weren't tough kids at all. Our life in the city had not prepared us for anything. Nothing could prepare us for this. A Rip in Heaven is Jeanine Cummins's story of a night in April 1991, when her two cousins, Julie and Robin Kerry, and her brother, Tom, were assaulted on the Chain of Rocks Bridge that spans the Mississippi River just outside of St. Louis. When, after a harrowing ordeal, Tom managed to escape the attackers and flag down help, he thought the nightmare would soon be over. He couldn't have been more wrong. Tom, his sister Jeanine, and their entire family were just at the beginning of a horrific odyssey through the aftermath of a violent crime, a world of shocking betrayal, endless heartbreak, and utter disillusionment. It was a trial by fire from which no one would emerge unscathed. This is one family's intimate, immediate, and unforgettable story of what victims can suffer long after they should be safe.

Sharon Marshall was a brilliant and beautiful student whose future was filled with promise. But her murderous, fugitive father had drawn her into a lifetime of deception that became one of the most baffling cases in the annals of American crime.

On Easter Monday of 1982, Margaret Barbera, an accountant, was shot to death in a parking lot on a Manhattan pier; three technicians from the nearby CBS-TV studios who went to her rescue also were killed. Hammer here recreates the crime and the police work that led to the killer, Donald Nash, a...  more

On Easter Monday of 1982, Margaret Barbera, an accountant, was shot to death in a parking lot on a Manhattan pier; three technicians from the nearby CBS-TV studios who went to her rescue also were killed. Hammer here recreates the crime and the police work that led to the killer, Donald Nash, a handyman hired by a jewelry manufacturer named Irwin Margolies. Margolies, only a marginally successful entrepreneur, had hatched a plot with the aid of a lawyer to defraud a factoring firm owned by a New York bank. The scheme, which netted millions thanks in part to creative bookkeeping by Barbera, began to unravel, and Margolies determined that the safest course was to eliminate her.

Ann Rule's shocking and powerful account of the destructive forces that drove Diane Downs, a beautiful young mother, to shoot her three young children in cold blood."Vivid....Extraordinary...a page-turner."--New York Times Book Review"Superb...[a] riveting detective story."--Indianapolis Star"A...  more

Ann Rule's shocking and powerful account of the destructive forces that drove Diane Downs, a beautiful young mother, to shoot her three young children in cold blood."Vivid....Extraordinary...a page-turner."--New York Times Book Review"Superb...[a] riveting detective story."--Indianapolis Star"A harrowing pathological portrait....A work of resonance and revelation with breath-stopping tension to the end." --Kirkus Reviews"Fascinating...grisly...un-putdownable." --New York Daily News"Excellent....One of the most detailed studies of a sociopath to dignify the true-crime circuit." --The San Francisco Chronicle"A raw docudrama of almost unbelievable intensity." --Booklist* Also by Ann Rule (in Signet's newly repackaged editions): The Stranger Beside Me (4/99), The I-5 Killer (6/99), The Want-Ad Killer (8/99), The Lust Killer (10/99)

On a freezing January in 1992, five teenage girls crowded into a car. By the end of the night, only four of them were alive. The fifth had been tortured and mutilated nearly beyond recognition. Her name was Shanda Sharer; her age - twelve. When the people of Madison, Indiana heard that a brutal...  more

On a freezing January in 1992, five teenage girls crowded into a car. By the end of the night, only four of them were alive. The fifth had been tortured and mutilated nearly beyond recognition. Her name was Shanda Sharer; her age - twelve. When the people of Madison, Indiana heard that a brutal murder had been committed in their midst, they were stunned. Then the story became even more bizarre. The four accused murderers were all girls under the age of eighteen: Melinda Loveless, Laurie Tackett, Hope Rippey, and Toni Lawrence. Here, for the first time, veteran true crime journalist Aphrodite Jones reveals the shocking truth behind the most savage crime in Indiana history - a tragic story of twisted love and insane jealousy, lesbianism, brutal child abuse, and sadistic ritual killing in small-town America...and of the young innocent who paid the ultimate price.

The gripping account of a heinous crime--and a mystery that has never been solved. When Kathryn Eastburn and her children were found stabbed to death, the brutal crime scene in Fort Bragg, N.C., seemed all too familiar. A suspect was arrested and convicted, but acquitted after spending three...  more

The gripping account of a heinous crime--and a mystery that has never been solved. When Kathryn Eastburn and her children were found stabbed to death, the brutal crime scene in Fort Bragg, N.C., seemed all too familiar. A suspect was arrested and convicted, but acquitted after spending three years on Death Row. Were the murders inspired by the infamous Fatal Vision case? Photos.

Ann Rule was a writer working on the biggest story of her life, tracking down a brutal mass-murderer. Little did she know that Ted Bundy, her close friend, was the savage slayer she was hunting.The most fascinating killer in modern American history...Ann Rule has an extraordinary angle that...  more

Ann Rule was a writer working on the biggest story of her life, tracking down a brutal mass-murderer. Little did she know that Ted Bundy, her close friend, was the savage slayer she was hunting.The most fascinating killer in modern American history...Ann Rule has an extraordinary angle that makes The Stranger Beside Me as dramatic and chilling as a bedroom window shattering at midnight. (The New York Times)Overwhelming. (The Houston Post)A shattering story...carefully investigated, written with compassion but also with professional objectivity. (Seattle Times)

Here is a gripping, behind-the-scenes true story of how a brutal murder is solved through the extraordinary use of forensic science and superb courtroom techniques. Blonde, beautiful, sweet and sexy -- Karla Brown is everyone's American dream girl. But her dream of living happily ever after...  more

Here is a gripping, behind-the-scenes true story of how a brutal murder is solved through the extraordinary use of forensic science and superb courtroom techniques. Blonde, beautiful, sweet and sexy -- Karla Brown is everyone's American dream girl. But her dream of living happily ever after with her fiance in the small town of Wood River, Illinois, ends with her murder. Karla's body is discovered in her basement, naked from the waist down, hideously brutalized. At first, the police suspect Karla's fiance, then her stepfather and an ex-suitor. But all have alibis. Obsessed investigators comb the country, refusing to let the trail grow cold. Then, forensic experts discover startling new evidence. While they analyze bite marks and psychological profile charts of the killer's personality, detectives develop a plan to lure the murderer into revealing himself. Finally, a prosecutor's brilliant courtroom strategies convict a young man with a vicious hatred of women.

For pretty Ohioan Joan Rogers and her two teenaged daughters, a Florida sunset cruise was a dream come true. And even though all three were desperately afaid of the water, they were so taken with friendly boat owner Oba Chandler that they gladly accepted a ride with him on beautiful Tampa...  more

For pretty Ohioan Joan Rogers and her two teenaged daughters, a Florida sunset cruise was a dream come true. And even though all three were desperately afaid of the water, they were so taken with friendly boat owner Oba Chandler that they gladly accepted a ride with him on beautiful Tampa Bay.Little did naive mom and two daughters know that behind Chandler's mask of a gracious host lurked a daring and ruthless ex-con, a thief and a liar, a seductive Don Juan who used and discarded wives and children. As they sun serenely sank below the Gulf of Mexico, Chandler suddenly shut down the engines, dropped anchor...and turned into a sadistic torturer.Hog-tying and brutally raping all three, Chandler tossed them overboard -- alive -- with 40-pound cement blocks tied to their necks. With cruel laughter, he spoke his last words to them: "Swim for it." But the dark green waters of Tampa Bay refused to hold his monstrous secret, and after only three days, the bodies of his victims surfaced.If it hadn't been for a dedicated team of detectives and the clues provided by Chandler's neighbors, a depraved killer might have gotten away with his ghastly crime. Instead, he now paces the floors of a Florida prision awaiting his rendezvous with the electric chair.

They Knew He Was Out There He took his time. He watched his victims and chose carefully. Then he struck -- each attack more brutal than the last. By the time detectives arrived, all they found were gruesome crime scenes of bloodied, brutalized bodies... They Knew He Would Strike...  more

They Knew He Was Out There He took his time. He watched his victims and chose carefully. Then he struck -- each attack more brutal than the last. By the time detectives arrived, all they found were gruesome crime scenes of bloodied, brutalized bodies... They Knew He Would Strike Again For more than ten years in South Louisiana the killings went on. Task forces were formed. The killer even spent time in jail. But that wouldn't stop the bloodshed. One victim was stabbed with a screwdriver 83 times... But They Couldn't Stop Him -- Until Was Too Late He was a father. A husband. A co-worker. And a killer. Derrick Todd Lee was ultimately convicted of two savage murders and tied to at least seven more. From the slender trace of DNA that finally nabbed him to the courageous prosecutors who took him down in court, this is the shocking story of a homicidal maniac hiding in plain sight -- and an evil that could never be washed away. Includes 16 pages of shocking photographs Previously published as I've Been Watching You

In 1998 a troubled young man and his flamboyant mother were arrested for murdering a wealthy widow in her New York City mansion. Suddenly, America was transfixed by a pair of real-life film noir characters, an Oedipal team of scam artists who left a trail of blood, lies, and larceny from coast...  more

In 1998 a troubled young man and his flamboyant mother were arrested for murdering a wealthy widow in her New York City mansion. Suddenly, America was transfixed by a pair of real-life film noir characters, an Oedipal team of scam artists who left a trail of blood, lies, and larceny from coast to coast. The media couldn't get enough of the twisted relationship between Sante Kimes and her twenty-three-year-old son Kenny.But the most chilling story of all was never told -- until now. Kent Walker, Sante's elder son, reveals how he survived forty years of "the Dragon Lady's" very special brand of motherly love and still managed to get away.As a child Kent watched his mother destroy his hardworking father, Ed Walker, and then -- with Kent's painful collusion -- snare what Sante called "my millionaire." When she married seemingly respectable real-estate developer Ken Kimes, it was a match made in hell.For the next two decades Kent's mother and stepfather indulged in a globetrotting orgy of criminal behavior, laying waste to each other and anyone who got in the way. Kent, their would-be recruit, was privvy to the family business -- torching houses, defrauding friends, crashing White House parties, "shopping" for trunkloads of fur coats -- and Sante's self-serving style of adultery. When Kent's half-brother, Kenny was born, Kent was twelve years old -- old enough to know that he was his younger sibling's only protector. Kent tried desperately to save Kenny from his mother's sinister bidding. His failure haunts him to this day.Here, with shocking and sometimes brutal frankness, Kent explodes the romantic Hollywood image of the grifter as antihero and exposes the truth about Sante Kimes behind the headlines. Sone of a Grifter poignantly chronicles what it means to love somebody despite your better instincts, your worst fears, and even your most forbidden hopes.

A headline-making new book from the bestselling author of Black Dahlia Avenger When veteran LAPD homicide detective Steve Hodel discovered that his own late father, Dr. George Hill Hodel, was the killer in the infamous Black Dahlia murder case, he wrote the bestseller Black Dahlia Avenger,...  more

A headline-making new book from the bestselling author of Black Dahlia Avenger When veteran LAPD homicide detective Steve Hodel discovered that his own late father, Dr. George Hill Hodel, was the killer in the infamous Black Dahlia murder case, he wrote the bestseller Black Dahlia Avenger, a book that convinced even the Los Angeles County deputy district attorney that George Hodel was responsible for Elizabeth Short's gruesome death. As a veteran police investigator, Steve Hodel's instinctively knew that if his father was capable of that level of cruelty, it probably didn't begin or end with the Black Dahlia. Steve Hodel has devoted his life to examining the evidence of his father's fascinating and mysterious life, and the shocking new revelations that have come to light in the last five years are the subject of Most Evil. If Steve Hodel's research is correct, Dr. George Hill Hodel was among the most prolific serial killers in history, beginning as a young man and continuing to kill throughout his long life of ninety-one years. Among his crimes are dozens of unsolved murder cases stretching back sixty years. Most Evil compiles an astonishing amount of never-before-seen visual, circumstantial, and forensic evidence to prove Hodel's case. This relentless, compelling, and persuasive investigation will revolutionize the way we think about some of the most intriguing, brutal, unsolved, and previously unconnected murders in American history -- and it may change our understanding of serial killers altogether.

Richard and Victoria Tinyes feared the worst when their thirteen-year-old daughter Kelly Ann vanished from their quiet suburban community of Valley Stream, New York, on March 3, 1999. But the nightmare to come was worse than they could ever imagine; Only five doors away, in the home of John and...  more

Richard and Victoria Tinyes feared the worst when their thirteen-year-old daughter Kelly Ann vanished from their quiet suburban community of Valley Stream, New York, on March 3, 1999. But the nightmare to come was worse than they could ever imagine; Only five doors away, in the home of John and Elizabeth Golub, police found Kelly Ann's body stuffed in a plastic garbage bag. She'd been brutally beaten, stabbed, strangled, and mutilated. After weeks of intense investigation, police arrested the Golub's twenty-one-year-old son, Robert -- a reclusive young man obsessed with bodybuilding and given to fits of rage. The sensational trial and subsequent conviction of Robert Golub shocked the nation and tore the once-peaceful community apart. Neighbours took sides. So did the media. And no one who lived on Horton Road would ever be the same.