In November of 1982, Katherine Ann Longo's life changed forever. Her daughter disappeared. It was a mother's worst nightmare. When the authorities failed to solve the case, Kathy didn't take "we don't know" for an answer. She began her own investigation. In her opinion, she gathered strong supporting evidence that pointed to a viable suspect for the police. But even with what Kathy considered to be proof, the authorities refused to cooperate. The person she deemed responsible for her daughter's disappearance went unquestioned. Even after she supplied them with photographic evidence, she couldn't get anyone to listen to her. What she was forced to endure in the course of her own personal investigation is chilling. Kathy was jailed, fired, and threatened. She was faced with sexual blackmail by those in authority, just for trying to get them to do their jobs. Hers was a terrifying descent into a world of deceit, pornography, child trafficking, and suicide. And for her efforts, she received a trip negotiated by the FBI into a state penitentiary. Her family was threatened, her friends were harassed, and a newscaster actually lost his job for airing her story on TV. Police officials didn't appreciate the bad publicity they received and actively tried to discredit Kathy. But throughout this entire nightmarish event, the residents of Tampa, Florida, assisted Kathy in every possible way imaginable. This book is her thank-you to those people who didn't give up on her-or Jennifer.

THE NEW EDITION OF THE TRUE CRIME CLASSIC The Inside Story of Serial Killer Ted Bundy Ann Rule was a writer working on the biggest story of her life, tracking down a brutal mass-murderer. Little did she know that the young man who was her close friend was the savage slayer she was hunting . . . TED BUNDY was everyone's picture of a natural 'winner' - handsome, charming, brilliant in law school, successful with women, on the verge of a dazzling career. Fast-forward to 24 January 1989, Ted Bundy is executed. He had confessed to taking the lives of at least thirty-five young women, coast to coast. This is his story: the story of his magnetic power, his unholy compulsion, his demonic double life and his string of helpless victims. It was written by a woman who thought she knew Ted Bundy, until she began to put all the evidence together and the whole terrifying picture emerged . . . As recommended by the hosts of the podcast My Favourite Murder. Fascinating further reading for viewers of the Netflix documentary Conversations with a Killer: The Ted Bundy Tapes.

The First International Bank of Grenada will go down in history as one of the biggest banking swindles of all time. Aided and abetted by a corrupt government, Van Brink and his satraps lured hundreds of innocent investors to place their savings in a bank he claimed "had a vision." With evangelical zeal he preached the gospel of his bank, playing upon the religious and charitable aspect but also promising outlandish returns on investments.

From Oregon to Nauru, to Grenada, to Uganda, Van Brink left a trail of financial misery behind him.

"One Big Fib" is essential reading for anyone with an interest in the shady world of offshore banking.

The riveting New York Times bestseller by award-winning columnist Howie Carr--now with a stunning new afterword detailing Whitey Bulger's capture. For years their familiar story was of two siblings who took different paths out of South Boston: William "Billy" Bulger, former president of the Massachusetts State Senate; and his brother James "Whitey" Bulger, a vicious criminal who became the FBI's second most-wanted man after Osama Bin Laden. While Billy cavorted with the state's blue bloods to become a powerful political force, Whitey blazed a murderous trail to the top rung of organized crime. Now, in this compelling narrative, Carr uncovers a sinister world of FBI turncoats, alliances between various branches of organized crime, St. Patrick's Day shenanigans, political infighting, and the complex relationship between two brothers who were at one time kings. As the film Black Mass, starring Johnny Depp as Whitey Bulger, hits theaters, take a deeper dive into the story of the Bulgers, and their fifty-year reign over Boston with Howie Carr's The Brother's Bulger.

How does a privileged, eighteen year old end up in prison, convicted of one of the rarest of crimes--matricide? The literary nonfiction Stranger to the Truth explores the fatal intersection in the lives of Noura Jackson, her circle of dissolute Memphis friends, and the death of Noura's mother, Jennifer, on the eve of a popular outdoor festival. The brutal attack seemed to reflect personal and exponential rage. Tragedy stalked Noura. Her father was fatally shot when she was seventeen. A mystery never solved. A year later an auto accident claimed her best friend. Both mother and daughter were reeling from shock, grief, and confusion. The tension between them escalated until Noura's difficult teenage years yielded to something much darker. More than a whodunit, this fact-based account tells a spellbinding tale of impetuous youth and a single parent who too late assumes the role of disciplinarian, saying no to the demands of her daughter who will not listen. Weaving multiple points of view, back stories, and extensive research, Stranger to the Truth corrals a timely, complex story in an absorbing narrative. Praise for Stranger to the Truth "In Stranger to the Truth, Ms. Hickman has taken a local tragedy and, with eloquence and empathy, given it universal application. The reader will find not only a gripping story, but also a moving exploration of the shadows that dwell within us all." --Howard Bahr, author of The Black Flower, The Year of Jubilo, and The Judas Field

No reader of this book will be more surprised than was the public by the truly bizarre beliefs and benthic depths of the evil (the Supreme Court s repeated word, evil) encountered in this longest murder investigation in Pennsylvania s history thirteen years. Over fifty state troopers, eighteen FBI agents, and numerous local police departments were involved as this longest investigation began when the naked body of Susan Reinert was found, obviously sexually abused, a strap-on sexual device lying near her corpse. Her body was found stuffed in the tire well of her Plymouth Horizon and left with the liftgate open. A midthirties female, just five feet tall, round hips that resembled a glistening white soccer ball, according to witnesses that passed by the open liftgate, not knowing it was a corpse. Susan Reinert was a teacher in the English department in the elite, upper-middle class, Upper Merion Senior High School, located fifteen miles north of Philadelphia. In that same English department was William Bradfield Jr. a six-foot-three, former Haverford College wrestler from a Main Line family; his father, was the vice president of Western Electric. As the head of the teachers union, Bradfield wielded power that he was not afraid to use to protect his fellow teachers and to sexually exploit those that appealed to him. He developed a small cult of three other teachers in the English department, and an eighteen-year-old beauty, prom-queen type, high school student from one his classes. The cult was called the VAMPZ, Valaitis and Pappas, males, the other three females all three servicing Bradfield every which way a female could. Bradfield was a close friend of the famous poet Ezra Pound from whom he absorbed a weird psychological viewpoint developed by a famous Frenchman, named Remy de Gourmant. After studying corpses, de Gourmont deduced that the brain fluid was related to the semen. Ejaculation of semen produced stimulation of the brain fluid, which produced increased creativity according to de Gourmont Suffice it to say Bradfield, driven to be creative, became very promiscuous, and, with his position as teachers union president, helped many single women and men. Yes, men too, a strap-on works on both sexes. Bradfield, a strapping hunk, was able to and strapped all he could from eighteen to eighty. If they had trouble walking, he d carry them. Susan Reinert tried to stop Bradfield s promiscuity with her required marriage plan plus an inheritance of close to a million dollars, a nice bundle along with her body. He decided to do away with the body and keep Susan Reinert s inheritance, blaming the high school principal, Jay Smith, for Reinert s murder and the murder of her two children. Enter the justice people, Pennsylvania s Attorney General and Pennsylvania State Police detectives. After Susan Reinert s body was found, they also found Bradfield s sexual involvement with Susan Reinert that he tried to deny and to cover up. With all the publicity that surrounded the murders of Reinert and her two children, including New York and California, plus the sex angle and strange sex philosophy, famous cop-books author, Joseph Wambaugh, got interested and came to the King of Prussia-Valley Forge area to write the story called the Main Line Sex Murders by some, the Valley Forge Murders by others. Wambaugh met secretly with the investigators and promised them money, $50,000 plus hero parts, provided they arrested Principal Jay Smith as well as Bradfield for the murders. Without Jay Smith, there would be no story. No book. No movie. No moola. The detectives framed Smith so they could get the money and so the book would be written. The frame-up of Principal Jay Smith was hidden for twelve years. Also hidden was the secret Wambaugh Agreement involving the investigators. At a sensational hearing before the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, the details were thrashed out between Smith s attorney and the attorneys

Their crimes span the globe but one thing unites them: they are sixteen of the twentieth century's most notorious serial killers.

In this well-researched volume, find out their motives and what made them tick. Walk the path of investigators who broke cases and listen to the words spoken from the killers mouth.

All of them made their communities tremble in fear. They include:

● Johann Otto Hoch, who moved to America from Germany in the 1890s and married a string of women. Instead of being the man of their dreams, he became their worst nightmare.

● Fritz Haarmann, "The Vampire of Hanover," killed dozens of young male vagrants and prostitutes from 1919 to 1924 in Germany.

● Bla Kiss, a Hungarian serial killer, killed young women and tried pickling them in giant metal drums.

● Robert Hansen, who began killing prostitutes in Alaska around 1980. He'd let them flee in the wilderness before hunting them down with a knife and rifle.

Learn about these and other serial killers. Find out what motivated them to lead such horrible lives and how they were finally brought to justice in "Depravity: A Narrative of 16 Serial Killers."

AUTHOR BIO:
Dr. Harvey Rosenfeld is an English professor at City University of New York and Pace University. He has written several books and is the founding editor of Martyrdom and Resistance, a bimonthly that focuses on the Holocaust, which he served as editor for more than three decades.

When Lynda Lustig met Louie Milito, she was a sixteen-year-old high-school dropout with a taste for adventure and an agonizing childhood. When they were married two years later, he was not yet a "made man" in the powerful Gambino crime family. Louie was a hairdresser who dabbled in petty thievery. But Lynda was so happy to be out of her domineering mother's loveless house. And over the years, she was willing to forgive her husband for anything: his violent rages, his frequent absences, his shady associates, and the blood on his hands. For twenty-four years Lynda Milito remained loyal to this charming and dangerous criminal -- her children's father and close friend of crime boss John Gotti and underboss Sammy "the Bull" Gravano. But in 1988, Louie Milito disappeared, murdered by the very people he had always trusted to protect him.

A crime story, a family story, a love story, "Mafia Wife" is the shockingly intimate, brutally honest tale of a survivor -- and of the life she lived in the dark bosom of the underworld.

My friend Sue and I had spent so much time together we felt like sisters. We had made so many plans for our future, as young girls do. We would graduate from school, get married, have a career, children and we would be lifelong friends sharing those moments together. Part of that dream had already come true. Sue was a year older than myself. I went to her graduation and was so proud of her. She had just got an apartment with her boyfriend. I was halfway through my senior year. We went Christmas shopping at the mall. But by January 16, 1980, my friend Sue went missing. When I graduated Sue wasn't there. Then I got my first apartment, still no Sue. I would hear nothing about what happened to Sue for 15 years. Now I will try to fill in the blanks that I have learned over the years. And the surprising shocker after 33 years. Because of the sensitive nature of this book I will be using the pen name Crystal Clary. Since most of the information that I'm sharing with you was unknown to me at the time I decided to write this book in Omniscient: so you as the reader will be able to see all and know all.

The first full account of the Slenderman stabbing, a true crime narrative of mental illness, the American judicial system, the trials of adolescence, and the power of the internetOn May 31, 2014, in the Milwaukee suburb of Waukesha, Wisconsin, two twelve-year-old girls attempted to stab their classmate to death. Morgan Geyser and Anissa Weier's violence was extreme, but what seemed even more frightening was that they committed their crime under the influence of a figure born by the internet: the so-called "Slenderman." Yet the even more urgent aspect of the story, that the children involved suffered from undiagnosed mental illnesses, often went overlooked in coverage of the case.Slenderman: Online Obsession, Mental Illness, and the Violent Crime of Two Midwestern Girls tells that full story for the first time in deeply researched detail, using court transcripts, police reports, individual reporting, and exclusive interviews. Morgan and Anissa were bound together by their shared love of geeky television shows and animals, and their discovery of the user-uploaded scary stories on the Creepypasta website could have been nothing more than a brief phase. But Morgan was suffering from early-onset childhood schizophrenia. She believed that she had seen Slenderman long before discovering him online, and the only way to stop him from killing her family was to bring him a sacrifice: Morgan's best friend Payton "Bella" Leutner, whom Morgan and Anissa planned to stab to death on the night of Morgan's twelfth birthday party. Bella survived the attack, but was deeply traumatized, while Morgan and Anissa were immediately sent to jail, and the severity of their crime meant that they would be prosecuted as adults. There, as Morgan continued to suffer from worsening mental illness after being denied antipsychotics, her life became more and more surreal.Slenderman is both a page-turning true crime story and a search for justice.

First published in 1977 in the US and Britain to universal critical acclaim, Hitler's Children quickly became a world-wide best seller, translated into many other languages, including Japanese.

It tells the story of the West German terrorists who emerged out of the 'New Left' student protest movement of the late 1960s. With bombs and bullets they started killing in the name of 'peace'. Almost all of them came from prosperous, educated families. They were 'Hitler's children' not only in that they had been born in or immediately after the Nazi period - some of their parents having been members of the Nazi party - but also because they were as fiercely against individual freedom as the Nazis were. Their declared ideology was Communism. They were beneficiaries of both American aid and the West German economic miracle. Despising their immeasurable gifts of prosperity and freedom, they 'identified' themselves with Third World victims of wars, poverty and oppression, whose plight they blamed on 'Western imperialism'. In reality, their terrorist activity was for no better cause than self-expression.

Their dreams of leading a revolution were ended when one after another of them died in shoot-outs with the police, or was blown up with his own bomb, or was arrested, tried, and condemned to long terms of imprisonment. All four leaders of the Red Army Faction (dubbed 'the Baader-Meinhof gang' by journalists) committed suicide in prison.

Drawing on his experience in creating fictional bad guys, crime novelist Lawrence Block surveys the underside of American history through fifty of its most infamous characters. Some, like Jesse James, Bonnie Parker, and Joe Colombo, led a life of crime; others, like John Wilkes Booth and John White Webster, committed one notorious act. Some, like Pretty Boy Floyd or the elusive thief Railroad Bill, have become folk heroes, whether or not the real details of their lives matched the myths they inspired. Others, like Ed Gein and Ted Bundy, will be forever reviled.
Block introduces each biography with a writer's eye for character and a good story. He begins the book with a short essay that considers how Americans have defined and regarded villains through history.
The biographies, culled from the pages of the American National Biography and illustrated with archival photographs, describe each villain's background, exploits, and eventual fate--often with unexpected details. The convicted killer Nathan Leopold, for example, became the administrator of a leprosy hospital after his parole. The gangster Dutch Schultz was known not only for his bootlegging expertise but also for his cheap, ill-fitting clothes. The stagecoach bandit Black Bart fancied himself a poet (or, as he put it, "PO8"). And when outlaw Bill Doolin finally met his end, only a rusting buggy axle marked his grave.
Ideal for readers of true crime, crime fiction, and history, Gangsters, Swindlers, Killers, and Thieves brings a fresh perspective to American's fascination with crime and its perpetrators.