House of Mystery True Crime History

Young girl’s panties started to go missing; sexual assaults began to occur, and then female bodies were found! Soon this quiet town of Tweed, Ontario, was in panic. What's even more shocking was when an upstanding resident stood accused of the assaults. This was not just any man, but a pillar of the community; a decorated military pilot who had flown Canadian Forces VIP aircraft for dignitaries such as the Queen of England, Prince Philip, the Governor General and Prime Minister of Canada. This is the story of serial killer Russell Williams, the elite pilot of Canada’s Air Force One, and the innocent victims he murdered. Unlike other serial killers, Williams seemed very unaffected about his crimes and leading two different lives. Alan R. Warren describes the secret life including the abductions, rape and murders that were unleashed on an unsuspecting community. Included are letters written to the victims by Williams and descriptions of the assaults and rapes as seen on videos and photos taken by Williams during the attacks.

The Spider and the Fly - In this superb work of literary true crime—a spellbinding combination of memoir and psychological suspense—a female journalist chronicles her unusual connection with a convicted serial killer and her search to understand the darkness inside us. "Well, well, Claudia. Can I call you Claudia? I’ll have to give it to you, when confronted at least you’re honest, as honest as any reporter. . . . You want to go into the depths of my mind and into my past. I want a peek into yours. It is only fair, isn’t it?"—Kendall Francois In September 1998, young reporter Claudia Rowe was working as a stringer for the New York Times in Poughkeepsie, New York, when local police discovered the bodies of eight women stashed in the attic and basement of the small colonial home that Kendall Francois, a painfully polite twenty-seven-year-old community college student, shared with his parents and sister. Growing up amid the safe, bourgeois affluence of New York City, Rowe had always been secretly fascinated by the darkness, and soon became obsessed with the story and with Francois. She was consumed with the desire to understand just how a man could abduct and strangle eight women—and how a family could live for two years, seemingly unaware, in a house with the victims’ rotting corpses. She also hoped to uncover what humanity, if any, a murderer could maintain in the wake of such monstrous evil. Reaching out after Francois was arrested, Rowe and the serial killer began a dizzying four-year conversation about cruelty, compassion, and control; an unusual and provocative relationship that would eventually lead her to the abyss, forcing her to clearly see herself and her own past—and why she was drawn to danger.

Rick DeLano has worked as a producer, executive producer, and financial consultant in the music and film industries for more than 20 years. His fascination with the question of our place in the cosmos began with a $1,000 Internet challenge to provide direct scientific proof of the universally assumed motion of the Earth around the sun. When he found that he (nor anyone else for that matter) couldn’t collect, he was astonished to realize no one had ever made a documentary film examining the Copernican Principle—the foundational idea of modernity itself and how it came to be perhaps the most widely believed metaphysical assumption in the history of the human race. THE PRINCIPLE, which Rick wrote and produced, is the first documentary examination of this cosmological principle. Needless to say, it has generated a bit of controversy, which is fine with Rick.

Rick DeLano has worked as a producer, executive producer, and financial consultant in the music and film industries for more than 20 years. His fascination with the question of our place in the cosmos began with a $1,000 Internet challenge to provide direct scientific proof of the universally assumed motion of the Earth around the sun. When he found that he (nor anyone else for that matter) couldn’t collect, he was astonished to realize no one had ever made a documentary film examining the Copernican Principle—the foundational idea of modernity itself and how it came to be perhaps the most widely believed metaphysical assumption in the history of the human race. THE PRINCIPLE, which Rick wrote and produced, is the first documentary examination of this cosmological principle. Needless to say, it has generated a bit of controversy, which is fine with Rick.

Two families, mysteriously murdered under similar circumstances, just a month apart. One was memorialized in Truman Capote’s classic novel, In Cold Blood. The other was all but forgotten. Dick Hickock and Perry Smith confessed to the first: the November 15, 1959 murder of a family of four in Holcomb, Kansas. Despite remarkable coincidences between the two crimes, they denied committing the second: the December 19 murder of a family of four in Osprey, Florida. Over half a century later, a determined Florida detective undertakes exceptional efforts to try to bring closure to the long-cold case.

Perhaps no president has a more ambiguous reputation than LBJ. A brilliant tactician, he maneuvered colleagues and turned bills into law better than anyone. But he was trailed by a legacy of underhanded dealings, from his “stolen” Senate election in 1948 to kickbacks he artfully concealed from deals engineered with Texas wheeler-dealer Billie Sol Estes and defense contractors like his longtime supporter Brown & Root. On the verge of investigation, Johnson was reprieved when he became president upon JFK’s assassination. Among the remaining mysteries has been LBJ’s relationship to Mac Wallace who, in 1951, shot a Texas man having an affair with LBJ’s loose-cannon sister Josefa, also Wallace’s lover. When arrested, Wallace cooly said "I work for Johnson . . . I need to get back to Washington." Charged with murder, he was overnight defended by LBJ’s powerful lawyer John Cofer, and though convicted, amazingly received a suspended sentence. He then got high-security clearance from LBJ friend and defense contractor D.H. Byrd, which the Office of Naval Intelligence tried to revoke for 11 years without success. Using crucial Life magazine and Naval Intelligence files and the unredacted FBI files on Mac Wallace, never before utilized by others, investigative writer Joan Mellen skillfully connects these two disparate Texas lives and lends stark credence to the dark side of Lyndon Johnson that has largely gone unsubstantiated.

MICHAEL STREED Sergeant (Ret.) Michael W. Streed is an internationally-recognized police sketch artist based in Southern California. He is the author of SketchCop: Drawing A Line Against Crime and Creating Digital Faces for Law Enforcement. During his career, he has successfully developed police sketches for many high-profile cases such as: the Samantha Runnion murder, the Anthony Martinez murder, the Baton Rouge serial killer, and Orange County’s Fortune Teller murder. He created SketchCop FACETTE Face Design System and Frontalis Facial Composite System, innovative software programs that helps law enforcement create high-quality digital composite images.

L. KIRK NURMI Kirk is most commonly known as the attorney who represented the infamous Jodi Arias, but this is not where his legal career began.  Prior to the Arias trial Kirk had worked as a criminal attorney for over a decade defending the constitutional rights of those accused of major felony offenses, including capital defendants. After saving the life of his infamous client, cancer forced him to fight to save his own. Since becoming a cancer survivor, Kirk decided that he no longer wished to practice law and considers himself a recovering attorney who is “happily disbarred.”  He now puts what he learned during his legal career into his various professional endeavors, which primarily include speaking and writing. To date, Kirk has published two books on weight loss as well as Trapped with Ms. Arias, a controversial book about the case.

The Netflix series Making a Murderer was a runaway hit, with over 19 million US viewers in the first 35 days. The series left many with the opinion that Steven Avery, a man falsely imprisoned for almost 20 years on a previous, unrelated assault charge, had been framed by a corrupt police force and district attorney’s office for the murder of a young photographer. Viewers were outraged, and hundreds of thousands demanded a pardon for Avery. The chief villain of the series? Ken Kratz, the special prosecutor who headed the investigation and trial. Kratz’s later misdeeds—prescription drug abuse and sexual harassment—only cemented belief in his corruption. This book tells you what Making a Murderer didn’t. While indignation at the injustice of his first imprisonment makes it tempting to believe in his innocence, Avery: The Case Against Steven Avery and What Making a Murderer Gets Wrong and the evidence shared inside—examined thoroughly and dispassionately—prove that, in this case, the criminal justice system worked just as it should. With Avery, Ken Kratz puts doubts about Steven Avery’s guilt to rest. In this exclu- sive insider’s look into the controversial case, Kratz lets the evidence tell the story, sharing details and insights unknown to the public. He reveals the facts Making a Murderer conveniently left out and then candidly addresses the aftermath—openly discussing, for the first time, his own struggle with addiction that led him to lose everything. Avery systematically erases the uncertainties introduced by the Netflix series, confirming, once and for all, that Steven Avery is guilty of the murder of Teresa Halbach.

Living as a man, twenty-one-year-old Teena Brandon hit the dust bowl town of Falls City, Nebraska, on the run from her family in Lincoln - and from the law for forging checks. Handsome and sophisticated, Brandon was an instant success, with young women hanging all over him. But when Brandon started to date the beautiful blonde Lana Tisdel, her luck ran out. In a terrifying incident on Christmas Eve, Brandon's true sexual identity was unmasked. On New Year's eve, Brandon, her roommate, and a friend were found shot to death in an isolated farmhouse. Writing with the exclusive cooperation of Brandon's ex-girlfriends and family, the accused murderers, and numerous other sources, "New York Times" bestselling author Aphrodite Jones explores the extravagant life and violent death of Teena Brandon, as well as the investigation and murder trial. Jones lays bare an America where many young people boldly experiment with gender identity, challenging our ideas of male and female, gay and straight - and where Teena Brandon and her friends paid a terrible price for sexual freedom.

The 1978 murder of actor and American icon Bob Crane remains one of the most high-profile unsolved celebrity murders of all time. Thirty-eight years after his brutal murder in Scottsdale, Arizona, millions around the world still want answers. Was John Carpenter the killer? Or did police arrest an innocent man? For nearly 40 years, police remained convinced of Carpenter’s guilt. Early DNA testing, decades ago, was unable to positively link Carpenter to the crime. The two friends lived on the edge, sharing a dark obsession—videotaping women during their sexual encounters. In an unprecedented investigation, reporter John Hook retests the original blood evidence using modern DNA science in a final search for answers. Scientists believe this is the last chance to test DNA from the crime scene— the final close-up—in identifying Bob Crane’s killer. Hook has exhausted all remaining avenues to unearth answers in this intriguing and haunting cold case. Will he close the book on the Crane murder once and for all? Who Killed Bob Crane? is Hook’s first-hand account of a two-year investigation and search for the truth. It’s seen though the eyes of the people who were there—witnesses, detectives, prosecutors, jurors, and family members. John Hook takes readers on an incredible reporter’s journey for an inside look at the sensational physical evidence in a final attempt to learn the truth in Who Killed Bob Crane?

Marcus Allen is the British distributor and publisher of the UK edition of Nexus Magazine. Nexus deals with news and information that is overlooked, unreported or ignored by the mainstream media. Subjects covered include hidden history, future science, alternative health issues, conspiracies and UFOs. Like many others, Marcus watched the Apollo Moon Landings live on television, and at the time applauded the evident success of those missions. After attending a lecture 10 years ago which questioned the validity of the Moon Landings, he decided to carry out his own research. Having worked as a photographer in London in the 1960s, Marcus was able to examine the well known photographs issued by NASA from a professional viewpoint. He has also researched many other aspects of Apollo. He has given many public presentations on this subject during which he always asks for someone to prove him wrong. To date no one has! He has reluctantly come to the conclusion that it is beyond reasonable doubt some manipulation of the Apollo record has taken place.

On the afternoon of February 12, 2010, faculty and staff of UAHuntsville's Biology Department met for a routine staff meeting. Just before 4:00 p.m., faculty member Amy Bishop stood up, and without saying a word, began shooting her co-workers with precision and control. As details of her violent past began to emerge, including the shooting death of her brother, people asked why this Harvard-educated woman was still walking the streets. The players in this case, as well as the surprise ending, provided unimaginable twists and turns. Written by author Jacquelyn Procter Reeves, author of Murder in the Heart of Dixie, a true-crime story about 13 capital murder cases in Madison County. Wicked North Alabama, and Hidden History of North Alabama are among the other books she has written.

Was What’s My Line TV Star, media icon, and crack investigative reporter and journalist Dorothy Kilgallen murdered for writing a tell-all book about the JFK assassination? If so, is the main suspect in her death still at large? These questions and more are answered in former CNN, ESPN, and USA Today legal analyst Mark Shaw’s 25th book, The Reporter Who Knew Too Much. Through discovery of never-before-seen videotaped eyewitness interviews with those closest to Kilgallen and secret government documents, Shaw unfolds a “whodunit” murder mystery featuring suspects including Frank Sinatra, J. Edgar Hoover, Mafia Don Carlos Marcello and a "Mystery Man" who may have silenced Kilgallen. All while by presenting through Kilgallen's eyes the most compelling evidence about the JFK assassinations since the House Select Committee on Assassination’s investigation in the 1970s

Trophy Kill: the Shall We Dance Murder. The Trial and Revelations of a Psychopathic Killer On July 1st, 2003 Susan Sarandon called police from the set of the Miramax movie Shall We Dance to report the theft of some of her jewelry, including a gold necklace. The next day Sidney Teerhuis calmly walked into a police station to report waking from a drunken blackout to find his acquantance dead in the bathtub. At the rented room police found the victim dismembered, beheaded, sawn in half, disemboweled and castrated with the chest sliced open and all of the internal organs gone! One eye had been removed and the body posed, crudely reassembled. Susan Sarandon's stolen gold necklace was found a few feet away from the murder-horror spectacle. Obsessed with celebrity, his role models-serial killers, with Susan Sarandon's stolen jewelry, Sidney hatches a diabolical plan to achieve his ultimate fantasy...