House of Mystery True Crime History

On January 5, 1971, Sonny Liston was found dead in his home—of an apparent heroin overdose. But no one close to Liston believed that his death was acci­dental. Digging deep into a life that Liston tried hard to hide, investigative journalist Shaun Assael treats the boxer’s death as a cold case. The result is a page-turning who­dunit that evokes a glorious and grimy era of Las Vegas. Elvis Presley was playing two shows a night at the International. Howard Hughes was running his empire from the penthouse suite of the Desert Inn. And middle America was flocking to the Strip, transforming it from an exclusive playground for the mob to a mecca for corporate dollars. But the city was also rotting from within. Heroin was pouring over the border from Mexico, and the segregated Westside was on the cusp of a race war. The cops, brutally violent, were barely holding it together. Driving through town with the top of his pink Cadillac down, Sonny Liston was the one celebrity who was unafraid to bridge the two sides of Las Vegas. Cashing in on his fading notoriety in the casinos, he was dealing drugs, working for a crime syndicate, and trying to break into Hollywood—all with a boxer’s faith that he could duck any threat, slip any punch. Heroin addiction was the only knockout blow he didn’t see coming. The Murder of Sonny Liston takes a fresh look at the legendary boxer, the town he called home, and one of America’s most enduring mysteries.

The Pharmacist of Auschwitz is the little known story of Victor Capesius, a Bayer pharmaceutical salesman from Romania who, at the age of 35, joined the Nazi SS in 1943 and quickly became the chief pharmacist at the largest death camp, Auschwitz. Based in part on previously classified documents, Patricia Posner exposes Capesius’s reign of terror at the camp, his escape from justice, fueled in part by his theft of gold ripped from the mouths of corpses, and how a handful of courageous survivors and a single brave prosecutor finally brought him to trial for murder twenty years after the end of the war. The Pharmacist of Auschwitz is much more, though, than a personal account of Capesius. It provides a spellbinding glimpse inside the devil’s pact made between the Nazis and Germany’s largest conglomerate, I.G. Farben, and its Bayer pharmaceutical subsidiary. The story is one of murder and greed with its roots in the dark heart of the Holocaust. It is told through Nazi henchmen and industrialists turned war criminals, intelligence agents and zealous prosecutors, and intrepid concentration camp survivors and Nazi hunters. Set against a backdrop ranging from Hitler’s war to conquer Europe to the Final Solution to postwar Germany’s tormented efforts to confront its dark past, Posner shows the appalling depths to which ordinary men descend when they are unrestrained by conscience or any sense of morality. The Pharmacist of Auschwitz is a moving saga that lingers long after the final page.

forensic geologist Scott Wolter for a discussion on the historical Jesus and the Jesus "Ossuary." An ossuary is a stone box made of limestone containing physical remains of someone who belonged to a particular sect in the 1st century, he explained. The family would process remains which involved treating the body, placing it on a shelf for one or two years, then returning to gather the bones and place them in the ossuary. Wolter asserted the tomb in which the ossuary was found, located only two miles from the walled city of Jerusalem, belonged to the family of the biblical Jesus. They found ten ossuaries, seven of which had names inscribed on them. Those names all reference the biblical family of Jesus: Joseph, Maria, James brother of Jesus, and Jesus son of Joseph, as well as Matthew, Judah son of Jesus, and Mariamne Mara, Wolter revealed. "When you add the James Ossuary to this list of names suddenly the odds of this not being the biblical family in Jerusalem at that time really go off the charts... from my perspective, it's them," he said. Wolter detailed the relationship between the tomb and the Knights Templar, suggesting they were Jesus' descendants. Jesus was called rabbi in the Bible and rabbis were required to be married and have a son, he noted. Wolter thinks the Templar Knights entered the tomb some 900 years ago to collect treasure and possibly the bones of Jesus to use against their enemies

A noted Pearl Harbor scholar, former FBI agent, and eldest grandson of Admiral Husband E. Kimmel, Commander of the Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor during the attack on December 7,1941, Tom Kimmel comes from a family of distinguished scholars and government servants dedicated to protecting America. Notwithstanding the preceding, his grandfather was accused from the well of the House of Representatives of failing to prevent World War II, and the Cold War. His fourth great grandfather was accused of starting the Revolutionary War, and the Whiskey Rebellion. Tom welcomes the opportunity to respond to the allegations. A graduate of the US Naval Academy, Tom served on three warships during the Vietnam War and attended John Marshall Law School prior to joining the FBI in 1973, where he continued to serve his Country as an agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation for more than 25 years.

A noted Pearl Harbor scholar, former FBI agent, and eldest grandson of Admiral Husband E. Kimmel, Commander of the Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor during the attack on December 7,1941, Tom Kimmel comes from a family of distinguished scholars and government servants dedicated to protecting America. Notwithstanding the preceding, his grandfather was accused from the well of the House of Representatives of failing to prevent World War II, and the Cold War. His fourth great grandfather was accused of starting the Revolutionary War, and the Whiskey Rebellion. Tom welcomes the opportunity to respond to the allegations. A graduate of the US Naval Academy, Tom served on three warships during the Vietnam War and attended John Marshall Law School prior to joining the FBI in 1973, where he continued to serve his Country as an agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation for more than 25 years.

The Unbreakable Miss Lovely: How the Church of Scientology tried to destroy Paulette Cooper - In 1971 Paulette Cooper wrote a scathing book about the Church of Scientology. Desperate to shut the book down, Scientology unleashed on her one of the most sinister personal campaigns the free world has ever known. The onslaught, which lasted years, ruined her life, and drove her to the brink of suicide. The story of Paulette’s terrifying ordeal is told in full for the first time in The Unbreakable Miss Lovely. It reveals the shocking details of the darkest chapter in Scientology’s checkered history, which ended with senior members in prison, and the organization permanently damaged.

The Unbreakable Miss Lovely: How the Church of Scientology tried to destroy Paulette Cooper - In 1971 Paulette Cooper wrote a scathing book about the Church of Scientology. Desperate to shut the book down, Scientology unleashed on her one of the most sinister personal campaigns the free world has ever known. The onslaught, which lasted years, ruined her life, and drove her to the brink of suicide. The story of Paulette’s terrifying ordeal is told in full for the first time in The Unbreakable Miss Lovely. It reveals the shocking details of the darkest chapter in Scientology’s checkered history, which ended with senior members in prison, and the organization permanently damaged.

J.R. Watts is a former investigator for the City and State of New York, having worked in various government agencies in his capacity as an investigator for over two decades. He has worked hand in hand with various federal agencies on joint investigations. Watts was also a code-breaker, educated in cryptology & various forms of camouflage techniques, including the camouflaging of secretive data, disguised within innocuous texts. He was trained to detect what is now commonly referred to as "information hiding." J.R. Watts is a member of the Association of Former Intelligence Officers, Pattern Recognition Society, International Association for Cryptologic Research, the American Cryptogram Association, International Association of Retired Law Enforcement Officers, the Journal of Pattern Recognition & the National Cryptologic Museum. CRYPTANALYSIS OF BIBLE FINALLY SOLVES SHROUD OF TURIN MYSTERY! In 2012; former government investigator & code-breaker J.R. Watts initiated a research project to determine if secret codes about the Shroud of Turin existed in the Bible. What he discovered was a previously unknown network of hidden permutations & sly correlations of CAMOUFLAGED word patterns, dispersed throughout the Scriptures in symbolic references; disguised metaphors & phonetic ciphers. Their common denominator was Jesus' mysterious image on the Shroud. Watts used various CODE-BREAKING methods routinely used by government intelligence agencies, as he unmasked the Shroud's presence in the New Testament. This groundbreaking exposé proves the Disciples of Christ embedded their gospels with clusters of hints & clues, revealing their undercover roles as SECRET AGENTS OF THE SHROUD. J.R. relates how the clergy missed these cryptic signals for ages, their perception blinded. His research shows how the Disciples reconfigured their gospels as part of a COVERT INFORMATION WAR to secretly document the Shroud. Amazingly, Watts also deciphers some of Paul's words as being PROPHECIES about the false carbon dating of the Shroud. Further; J.R. points to Old Testament verses that reflected the Shroud in a series of cryptograms he reverse engineered, hidden in the abstract of Scripture. Watts proves the Bible was a SECRET DATA-BASE OF SHROUD CODES, retrofitting how Christ's disciples wrote about the Shroud in words that mirrored it - in their gospels, in their lifetime, in the 1st century. J.R. used the science of cryptology to validate the Shroud's true age & origins. Watts also reveals the GOLDEN CALF HARBINGER OF EXODUS 32 when New York City was mesmerized by the New Millennium Cow Parade. This obsessive adoration of 500 cow & calf statues resulted in the 9-11 attacks & 3,000 murders in one day; the same amount of people killed in Exodus 32 (also in 1 day) for their false idolatry of a single golden calf idol.

He was born in Buenos Aires and educated in Geneva and Cuba. He was a daring WWII paratrooper who parachuted behind enemy lines on D-Day. He was a handsome, charming man who briefly worked as a Hollywood stuntman. He was also a spy who may have killed John F. Kennedy. The shocking new book Target JFK reveals page-after-page of incredible, never-before-reported evidence that a mysterious Argentinian with a stranger-than-fiction life story is the missing link in the assassination mystery that has puzzled America for half a century.

On 22 March 2011 David Elkington issued a press release stating that a hoard of ancient books made of lead and copper, together with other artefacts, probably dating from the 1st century AD, had been found in Jordan, and that they might predate the writings of St. Paul and that "leading academics" believed they might be as important as the Dead Sea Scrolls. Elkington also stated that the items were discovered 5 years previously in a cave by a Jordanian Bedouin and smuggled into Israel, where they were at risk of sale on the black market or of destruction. The BBC, the Daily Mail and other media outlets quickly picked up the story.

This epic, thrilling journey through Bible scholarship and ancient religion shows how much of Scripture is historically false--yet the ancient writings also resound with theologies that crisscrossed the primeval world and that direct us today toward a deep, inner, authentic experience of the truly sacred. From a historical perspective, the Bible is shockingly, provably wrong--a point supported by today's best archaeological and historical scholarship but not well understood by (or communicated to) the public. Yet this emphatically does not mean that the Bible isn't, in some very real measure, true, argues scholar of mysticism Richard Smoley. Smoley reviews the most authoritative historical evidence to demonstrate that figures such as Moses, Abraham, and Jesus are not only unlikely to have existed, but bear strong composite resemblances to other Near Eastern religious icons. Likewise, the geopolitical and military events of Scripture fail to mesh with the largely settled historical time line and social structures. Smoley meticulously shows how our concepts of the Hebrew and Christian God, including Christ himself, are an assemblage of ideas that were altered, argued over, and edited--until their canonization. This process, to a large degree, gave Western civilization its consensus view of God. But these conclusions are not cause for nihilism or disbelief. Rather, beneath the metaphorical figures and mythical historicism of Scripture appears an extraordinary, truly transcendent theology born from the most sacred and fully realized spiritual and human insights of the antique Eastern world. Far from being "untrue," the Bible is remarkably, extraordinarily true as it connects us to the sublime insights of our ancient ancestors and points to a unifying ethic behind many of the world's faiths.

NYPD officers Mike Dowd and Kenny Eurell knew there were two ways to get rich quick in Brooklyn's Lower East Side. You either became drug dealers, or you robbed drug dealers. They decided to do both. “I promised my wife that we would make a lot of money, and that she had nothing to worry about. I LIED!” Dowd and Eurell ran the most powerful gang in New York’s dangerous 75th Precinct, the crack cocaine capitol of 1980s America. These “ Cocaine Cops” formed a lucrative alliance with Adam Diaz, the kingpin of an ever-expanding Dominican drug cartel. Soon Mike and Ken were buying fancy cars no cop could afford, and treating their wives to levels of luxury not associated with a patrol officer's salary. They Were Daring, Dangerous and Untouchable Until ...Then “ the biggest police scandal in New York history” exploded into the headlines with the arrest of Mike, Ken, and their fellow crooked cops. Released on bail, Mike offered Ken a long shot at escape to Central America—a bizarre plan involving robbery, kidnapping, and murder—forcing Ken to choose between two forms of betrayal. “When you lie, you steal the truth. Once you have stolen the truth, you can justify stealing anything from anybody.” Adapted from Ken Eurell's shocking personal memoir, plus hundreds of hours of exclusive interviews with the major players, including former international drug lord, Adam Diaz, and Dori Eurell, revealing the truth behind what you won't see in the hit documentary THE SEVEN FIVE. Edgar Award winner Burl Barer once again teams with award-winning journalist Frank C. Girardot, Jr, and Eurell to bring you an astonishing story of greed and betrayal.

NYPD officers Mike Dowd and Kenny Eurell knew there were two ways to get rich quick in Brooklyn's Lower East Side. You either became drug dealers, or you robbed drug dealers. They decided to do both. “I promised my wife that we would make a lot of money, and that she had nothing to worry about. I LIED!” Dowd and Eurell ran the most powerful gang in New York’s dangerous 75th Precinct, the crack cocaine capitol of 1980s America. These “ Cocaine Cops” formed a lucrative alliance with Adam Diaz, the kingpin of an ever-expanding Dominican drug cartel. Soon Mike and Ken were buying fancy cars no cop could afford, and treating their wives to levels of luxury not associated with a patrol officer's salary. They Were Daring, Dangerous and Untouchable Until ...Then “ the biggest police scandal in New York history” exploded into the headlines with the arrest of Mike, Ken, and their fellow crooked cops. Released on bail, Mike offered Ken a long shot at escape to Central America—a bizarre plan involving robbery, kidnapping, and murder—forcing Ken to choose between two forms of betrayal. “When you lie, you steal the truth. Once you have stolen the truth, you can justify stealing anything from anybody.” Adapted from Ken Eurell's shocking personal memoir, plus hundreds of hours of exclusive interviews with the major players, including former international drug lord, Adam Diaz, and Dori Eurell, revealing the truth behind what you won't see in the hit documentary THE SEVEN FIVE. Edgar Award winner Burl Barer once again teams with award-winning journalist Frank C. Girardot, Jr, and Eurell to bring you an astonishing story of greed and betrayal.

RAW DEAL is the untold story of former New York City police officer Gil Valle, who in 2012 became known throughout the world as “The Cannibal Cop.” It is part the controversial saga of a man who was imprisoned for “thought crimes,” and a look into a world of dark sexuality and violence that most readers don’t know exists, except maybe in their nightmares. After Valle’s arrest, media coverage exploded in a frenzy of lurid tabloid headlines and stories about the cop charged with planning to kidnap, torture, rape ...and eat ... women, including his own wife. But here’s the fascinating part; there was no such plan in reality. Valle was simply engaging in his own private fantasies, albeit fantasies that are abhorrent and grotesque, and for that he was thrown into prison. Valle faced life in prison for his charges, and served 21 months for nothing more than having online chats about his fantasies. He was finally exonerated of all charges. RAW DEAL raises the question of when does thought become a crime? A question that goes beyond his perverse sexuality to answers society must deal with in order to meet the challenge of terrorism. It will challenge the reader’s beliefs about free speech, the right to privacy, and government’s role in watching over us.

Donald Munro has something of a problem on his hands. Just three months after taking over as governor of Greenbank – a unique therapeutic community prison, holding some of Britain’s most dangerous and notorious killers – the place is descending into chaos. An escape, then a suicide, followed by a string of murders in the prison has left in its wake fear and confusion among staff and prisoners alike. Dr Kate Crowther, the prison’s principal psychologist is called on – despite Munro’s initial cynicism – to shed some light on the case and create a profile of the killer. In the meantime, Detective Inspector Nick Knight is brought in to work with her on his investigation. The escapee, Bobby Lomas, dubbed ‘Varsity Blue’ for his string of killing young female students is considered to be at the heart of the case and Dr Crowther’s close relationship with him has not gone unnoticed. As the death toll rises, Munro becomes increasingly anxious about Lomas’ whereabouts. His daughter has just started university and he hasn’t heard from her in days… Written by the UK’s leading expert on serial killers, The Rules of Restraint is a fast-paced thriller that will keep you guessing right to the end, with plenty of action and surprises along the way.