|
|
Books > Fiction > True stories > Crime
Dale Justus was a new employee of the United States Postal Service
on July 21, 1986. His new job as a rural mail carrier at the post
office in Edmond, Oklahoma, assured him great opportunities for the
future. It would be nearly a month later, on August 20, that City
Letter Carrier Patrick Henry Sherrill came to work with three guns
in his mail bag and used two of them to massacre fourteen of his
fellow workers and seriously wound six others before taking his own
life. Justus's secure future almost ended after only thirty days on
the job. There have been several accounts of what happened on that
blackest day in the history of the postal service. Some accounts
have offered incomplete portions of the truth, but most of these
were written by those with no personal knowledge of the facts. It
has taken twenty-five years for someone to write a thoughtful,
factual account about this unspeakable tragedy. Walk with Justus as
he recounts a story that begins years before that fatal day and
extends well past the actual event. Experience the terror and
unfathomable aftermath with him and the other employees who were at
the Edmond Post Office on that fateful day.
Author William Bradford Huie was one of the most celebrated figures
of twentieth-century journalism. A pioneer of ""checkbook
journalism,"" he sought the truth in controversial stories when the
truth was hard to come by. In the case of James Earl Ray, Huie paid
Ray and his original attorneys $40,000 for cooperation in
explaining his movements in the months before Martin Luther King's
assassination and up to Ray's arrest weeks later in London. Huie
became a major figure in the investigation of King's assassination
and was one of the few persons able to communicate with Ray during
that time. Huie, a friend of King, writes that he went into his
investigation of Ray believing that a conspiracy was behind King's
murder. But after retracing Ray's movements through California,
Louisiana, Mexico, Canada, Atlanta, Birmingham, Memphis, and
London, Huie came to believe that James Earl Ray was a pathetic
petty criminal who hated African Americans and sought to make a
name for himself by murdering King. He Slew the Dreamer was
originally published in 1970 soon after Ray went to prison and was
republished in 1977, but was out of print until the 1997 edition,
published with the cooperation of Huie's widow. This new edition
features an essay by scholar Riche Richardson that provides fresh
insight, and it includes the 1977 prologue, which Huie wrote
countering charges by members of Congress, the King family, and
others who claimed the FBI had aided and abetted Ray. In 1970,
1977, 1997, and now, He Slew the Dreamer offers a remarkably
detailed examination of the available evidence at the time the
murder occurred and an invaluable resource to current debates over
the King assassination.
In book two of the Epic MADE Trilogy; AC, Manny and Duck come face
to face with Sabrina's kidnappers. Nina, Denna, Loon and Big Will
have bigger shoes to fill in their new roles, while Chief Espinoza
suspicions escalates as Sin City crime rise's along with Hector's
body count. Monica's back and has plans on picking up from where
she left off. Cash flow is at an all-time high with Coop at the
helms as Crime continues to pay big for the new Sin City Boss. The
recipe of Sex, Drugs and Murder prove to be the perfect mix, as one
family falls and the next Boss is donned; King of the Devils
playground.
Richie Alsop MI6 teams up with Zarah CIA who leads Agent Blue into
to facing up to his responsibility after his pursuit through East
Side New York of the Notorious Chino Servile. Agent Blues senior
Mom, finds the location of Agent Red. Reg Carter after uncovering
the extent of his treachery. Taking the two Agents Richie, and
Zarah to a new height with a mission that leads them to a chilly
location in Switzerland. The two agents track down Carter. This
action packed thriller takes on an unexpected twist
Drawing on extensive interviews and correspondence with many of
Tann's surviving victims, Barbara Raymond shows how Tann not only
popularised adoption - which until then had been feared and
discouraged - but also commercialised and corrupted it. She tells
how Tann abducted babies or coerced women to leave their children
in her care and then sold them. To cover her kidnapping crimes she
falsified birth certificates, a practice that was approved by
legislators who believed it would spare adoptees the taint of
illegitimacy - an one that still holds today in the form of
'amended' birth certificates and closed adoption records.
Uncovering many life-shattering stories along the way, Raymond
recounts how Tann openly sold more that 5,000 children, and killed
so many through neglect that Memphis's infant mortality rate soared
to the highest in the country. She explores how Tann's operation
was able to thrive in a Tennessee governed by 'Boss' Ed Crump and
the political network that allowed her to operate with impunity.
And she portrays the lack of options available to women, affecting
not only the birth mothers she robbed, but also Tann herself, who
turned to social work after having been barred for a 'masculine
profession' - the law. Written by an adoptive mother, The Baby
Thief is part social history, part detective story, and part
expose. It is a riveting investigative narrative that explores
themes that continue to reverberate in the modern era, when baby
sellers operate overseas. It is particularly relevant at this time
in the UK, amidst heated national debate over the controversial
adoption targets that seem to provide a perverse incentive to
remove babies from birth parents.
During the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth century a growing
number of ordinary citizens had the feeling that all was not as it
should be. Men who were making money made prodigious amounts, but
this new wealth somehow passed over the heads of the common people.
As this new breed of journalists began to examine their subjects
with scrutiny, they soon discovered that those individuals were
essentially "simple men of extraordinary boldness." And it was easy
to understand how they were able to accomplish their sinister
purposes: "at first abruptly and bluntly, by asking and giving no
quarter, and later with the same old determination and ruthlessness
but with educated satellites who were glad to explain and idealize
their behavior."[i] "Nothing is lost save honor," said one infamous
buccaneer, and that was an attitude that governed the amoral
principles and extralegal actions of many audacious scoundrels.
Relying on secondary sources, magazine and newspaper articles, and
personal accounts from those involved, this volume captures some of
the sensational true stories that took place in the western United
States during the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth century. The
theme that runs through each of the stories is the general contempt
for the law that seemed to pervade the culture at the time and the
consuming desire to acquire wealth at any cost-what Geoffrey C.
Ward has called "the disposition to be rich."
------------------------------------------------------------ End
Notes Introduction [i]Louis Filler, Crusaders for American
Liberalism (Yellow Springs, OH: Antioch Press, 1964), 14.
In the digital era, the Internet has evolved into a ubiquitous
aspect of modern society. With the prominence of the Dark Web,
understanding the components of the Internet and its available
content has become increasingly imperative. The Dark Web:
Breakthroughs in Research and Practice is an innovative reference
source for the latest scholarly material on the capabilities,
trends, and developments surrounding the secrecy of the Dark Web.
Highlighting a broad range of perspectives on topics such as cyber
crime, online behavior, and hacking, this book is an ideal resource
for researchers, academics, graduate students, and professionals
interested in the Dark Web.
|
|