House of Mystery True Crime History

​Wayne H. Sanderson, a private forensic genealogist and history detective, retired from the New Jersey Department of Corrections after over 25 years of service as a uniformed correctional officer, a commanding officer, and as a Major at New Jersey State Prison. Wayne is a volunteer historian and archival consultant for the NJDOC. He researches and writes about historical law enforcement and criminal events, forgotten crimes, scandals and curious events and mysteries.

The Case of Serial Killer Henry Louis Wallace-Wallace, needing money for his drug addiction, choked to death Vanessa Mack, a mother of two. He got no money from her. Wallace then murdered three women, Betty Baucom, 24, Brandi Henderson, 18, and Debra Slaughter, 35, in three days, March 8, 9 and 10. The usually careful Wallace had inadvertently left one fingerprint on Baucom’s car after wiping it down. Police and detectives were closing in. They cross-referenced the victims’ families, friends and locations. The city was pressing for a resolution to the murders. On March 12, Wallace was arrested. He confessed on tape, saying he “couldn’t stop.” Given nine death sentences, Wallace is currently on death row in Central Prison in Raleigh, North Carolina. Wallace married nurse Rebecca Torrijas, a woman 23 years his senior, on June 5, 1998. The public defender from his trial, Isabel Day, performed the ceremony, which was not consummated. Wallace has not acknowledged repeated attempts by this writer for a face-to-face visit. To date, he has not granted any interviews. Henry Louis Wallace is still pursuing appeals- Karen D. Scioscia is an author, freelance writer and corporate executive speechwriter. A journalist, her column appears in The Charlotte Observer. She was a contributing writer for Serial Killers Quarterly, Mob Candy Magazine and Yahoo.com. She is working on her second book. Her book, Kidnapped by the Cartel, is inspired by the true story of a family member who was kidnapped by international drug smugglers and human traffickers. Visit her at www.KarenDScioscia.com or www.KidnappedbytheCartel.com

With this book, Stephen Singular’s career began to evolve, his role shiftingfrom that of a journalistic observer to being a direct participant in the “Caseof the Century.” In the early hours of June 13, 1994, while investigating the murders of Nicole BrownSimpson and Ron Goldman, LAPD Homicide Detective Mark Fuhrman uncovered evidencedestined to become the cornerstone of the prosecution’s case in the trialof O.J. Simpson. As the legal epic unfolded, Fuhrman himself — his character, professionalconduct, and racial attitudes — took center stage. What emerged from Fuhrman inthe trial was an appalling LAPD history of manufactured evidence, beating up suspects,and vicious bigotry acted out from behind the safety of a badge. The very same neo-Nazibehavior Singular had written about in Talked to Death now emerged as a darkunderbelly of the LAPD. White supremacist attitudes and actions had moved from outsidethe legal system to being alive and at work inside a major metropolitan police force.But that was just the start of this story.

Assassinations often change the course of history. Here is an intriguing look at dozens of notable assassinations and attempts throughout history, including complete details about the assassin, the victim, the circumstances of the attack, and the outcome. In the Crosshairs also features photos of many of the victims or would-be victims, and rare archival material, including excerpts from original police reports. High-profile celebrities, political figures, religious leaders, and many others have fallen prey to assassins, and many have survived. In the Crosshairs is arranged in alphabetical order, by last name, and includes such details as: On November 8, 1939, Adolf Hitler narrowly escaped an assassination attempt – 12 minutes after he left a room where he was making a speech, a bomb went off. Egyptian President Anwar el-Sadat would probably have survived the assassin’s bullet on October 6, 1981, if he hadn’t taken off his bulletproof vest – but he didn’t like the way it made his suit bulge. Robert John Bardo, the murderer of young actress Rebecca Schaeffer, carried with him to the crime scene a copy of J. D, Sallinger’s The Catcher in the Rye, just like Mark David Chapman did when he murdered John Lennon nearly nine years earlier. From notable murders (Abraham Lincoln, Gianni Versace, and Indira Gandhi) to little-known attempts (George W. Bush, Wild Bill Hickock, and Andy Warhol) here is a surprising, informative, and intriguing book that deserves to be on every history buff’s bookshelf. Skyhorse Publishing, as well as our Arcade imprint, are proud to publish a broad range of books for readers interested in history--books about World War II, the Third Reich, Hitler and his henchmen, the JFK assassination, conspiracies, the American Civil War, the American Revolution, gladiators, Vikings, ancient Rome, medieval times, the old West, and much more. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller or a national bestseller, we are committed to books on subjects that are sometimes overlooked and to authors whose work might not otherwise find a home.

Darren Kavinoky is the co-creator and host of the hit TV show Deadly Sins on Investigation Discovery. He is also the co-host of Did He Do It? and the featured “criminal interventionist” on Breaking Point, also on the ID network. Darren is also a certified interventionist, attorney and legal analyst, and “misbehavior” expert who appears constantly on the Today show, The View, Entertainment Tonight, The Insider, Dr. Phil, Dr. Drew, CNN, HLN, Fox News, and countless other TV and radio shows. He is the founder of 1.800.NoCuffs–The Kavinoky Law Firm and is known as an award-winning criminal defense attorney. The American Trial Lawyers Association has named him one of the “Top 100 Trial Lawyers in California” each year since 2007. Los Angeles magazine has identified Darren as a “SuperLawyer” every year since 2010. Darren received an “AV Preeminent Rating” by Martindale-Hubbell (a peer review ranking that signals the highest level of professional excellence and ethics); a perfect 10.0 Rating by Avvo.com (an independent attorney ranking site), and many other accolades. Darren has also authored three legal textbooks for major legal publishers in the field of criminal law.

Authors Fred Rosen and Hank Garfield - Shortly after being elected president of the United States, James Garfield was shot by Charles Guiteau. But contrary to what is written in most history books, Garfield didn’t linger and die. He survived. Alexander Graham Bell raced against time to invent the world’s first metal detector to locate the bullet in Garfield’s body so that doctors could safely operate. Despite Bell’s efforts to save Garfield, however, and as never before fully revealed, the interventions of Garfield’s friend and doctor, Dr. D. W. Bliss, brought about the demise of the nation’s twentieth president. But why would a medical doctor engage in such monstrous behavior? Did politics, petty jealousy, or failed aspirations spark the fire inside Bliss that led him down the path of homicide? Rosen proves how depraved indifference to human life—second-degree murder—rather than ineptitude led to Garfield’s drawn-out and painful death. Now, more than one hundred years later, historian and homicide investigator Fred Rosen reveals through newly accessed documents and Bell’s own correspondence the long list of Bliss’s criminal acts and malevolent motives that led to his murder of the president.

David Videcette is a former Scotland Yard investigator with the Metropolitan Police who has worked on a wealth of infamous cases. With twenty years of police experience, including counter-terrorist operations and organised crime, David was a detective in the Anti-Terrorist Branch during the 7/7 London bombings in July 2005. David has entered and searched thousands of properties, placed bugs on cars, chased suspects up train tracks and vehicles down motorways. Today he uses that experience in his writing, as the author of a series of detective novels starring DI Jake Flannagan. The Theseus Paradox is the first novel in the series. David currently consults on security operations for high-net-worth individuals and is a key media commentator on crime and terrorism. As David says, 'I can't tell you the truth, but I can tell you a story...' Find out more about him by visiting his website at: www.davidvidecette.com

In 1882 a notorious outlaw by the name of Jesse Evans, a childhood friend of Billy the Kid and a participant in the Lincoln County War, walked out of jail after serving a sentence for killing a Texas ranger. Jesse walked out of prison a free man and disappeared, never to be heard from again. Never, that is, until 1949 when Jesse came out of hiding after almost 60 years to claim an inheritance left to him by his brother. In the course of proving his identity to a court Jesse told some amazing stories of his time when he was an outlaw but his biggest revelation of all was that his good friend Billy the Kid was still alive. Jesse led a young lawyer named William Morrison to an old man named not William H. Bonney but William H. Roberts who after some consideration finally agreed to come forward and reveal himself as Billy the Kid. He agreed to this on one condition. This condition was that the lawyer help him obtain the pardon he was promised by the Governor but never received so he could die a free man. You see, Billy the Kid was still wanted for murder and was condemned to hang. To come forward and reveal himself was to risk being arrested and put to death. This was a risk that William H. Roberts was willing to take. He sat down with Mr. Morrison and told his story. This book contains that story. It is the one true autobiography of Billy the Kid. A story that aside from some definite highlights and adventures that one would expect from the Kid, was remarkable normal and focused on his skill breaking horses as much or as more as his skill as a gunslinger. Billy the Kid was, in fact, just a gifted young cowhand who found himself juxtaposed against corrupt officials and lawmen at what became a key moment in American History. Before one dismisses Mr. Roberts it should be considered that 5 living acquaintances of Billy the Kid, aside from Mr. Evans who revealed him, were willing to sign legal affidavits that Mr. Roberts was the man they knew as Billy the Kid. Further, new photographic evidences shows beyond a shadow of a doubt that they were the same man. Mr. Roberts' story became the inspiration for the opening scene in hit movie "Young Guns II" starring Emilio Estevez as Billy the Kid. Also Consider that Pat Garrett was denied his reward for killing the kid for many months, and that only a special act of the legislature allowed him to finally receive it. Consider further that a contemporary newspaper reported, after seeing the body of the kid, that the Kid had tanned his skin and grown a beard to disguise himself as a Mexican which fits perfectly the local history that Pat Garrett killed the wrong man. All of this and more is contained in this book. Thanks to Mr. Morrison each of us can now pull up a chair, sit down across from Billy the Kid, and listen as he shares his story.

Despite the rising number of confirmed false confession cases, most people have a hard time grasping why someone would confess to a crime they did not commit, or even why a guilty person would admit to something that could put them in jail for life. How the Police Generate False Confessions takes you inside the interrogation room, exposing the tactics that law enforcement uses to make confessions happen. James L. Trainum reveals how innocent people can become suspects and then confessed criminals even when they have not committed a crime. Using real stories, he looks at the inherent coerciveness of the interrogation process and why so many false confessions contain so many of the details that only the true perpetrator would know. More disturbingly, the book examines how these same processes corrupt witness and victim statements, create lying informants and cooperators, and induce innocent people to plead guilty. Trainum also offers recommendations for change in the U.S. by looking at how other countries are changing the process to prevent such miscarriages of justice. The reasons that people falsely confess can be complex and varied; throughout How the Police Generate False Confessions Trainum encourages readers to critically evaluate confessions on their own by gaining a better understanding of the interrogation process

Multi-tasking as a producer, director, writer, editor and sometimes cameraman, Stone has over the last 25 years developed a steady international reputation with a range of unique and critically acclaimed feature-documentaries about American history, pop-culture, the mass media and the environment. His work has earned him an Academy Award nomination for Best Feature Documentary and two PrimeTime Emmy nominations for Outstanding Achievement in Non-Fiction Filmmaking – among many other awards. Four of his films have had their world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival and seven of his films have been aired on the acclaimed PBS history series American Experience With Oswald’s Ghost, director Robert Stone offers an unprecedented deconstruction of the mythologies and controversy surrounding what is perhaps the most tangled and far-reaching murder mystery of all time. Featuring interviews with authors Norman Mailer and Edward J. Epstein, politician Gary Hart, activist Tom Hayden, attorney Mark Lane, and others, the 90-minute film probes the deep psychic wounds inflicted by the Kennedy assassination on American politics and culture, the scars of which remain evident to this day. Using a wealth of archival material, much of it never before publicly seen or heard, Stone chronicles America’s forty-year obsession with the pivotal event of a generation. Quietly implicit throughout the film is a haunting parallel to 9/11 and its aftermath Guerrilla is an unprecedented account of the Symbionese Liberation Army, arguably the most notorious and flamboyant domestic terrorist group in American history. Dedicated to the rights of black prisoners and the working class, the SLA set forth in 1973 to incite the violent overthrow of the U.S. Government. Their audacious kidnapping of teenage newspaper heiress Patty Hearst – who eventually joined them – inspired a media frenzy. Every detail of their descent into the surreal outer limits of political extremism was played out in public, a spectacle foreshadowing some of the worst excesses of modern TV journalism. Thirty years later, the SLA’s extraordinary two-year crime spree resonates as a timely parable of political ideology run amok, the role of the media in America – mouthpiece? messenger? truth-seeker? – and the romantic fantasies that define modern political terrorism

Joe is an Associate Professor in the Political Science Department, College of Arts & Sciences at University of Miami. We are living in an age of conspiracy theories, whether it's enduring, widely held beliefs such as government involvement in the Kennedy assassination or alien activity at Roswell, fears of a powerful infiltrating group such as the Illuminati, Jews, Catholics, or communists, or modern fringe movements of varying popularity such as birtherism and trutherism. What is it in American culture that makes conspiracy theories proliferate? Who is targeted, and why? Are we in the heyday of the conspiracy theory, or is it in decline? Though there is significant scholarly literature on the topic in psychology, sociology, philosophy, and more, American Conspiracy Theories is the first to use broad, long-term empirical data to analyze this popular American tendency. Joseph E. Uscinski and Joseph M. Parent draw on three sources of original data: 120,000 letters to the editor of the New York Times and Chicago Tribune from between 1890 and 2010; a two-wave survey from before and after the 2012 presidential election; and discussions of conspiracy theories culled from online news sources, blogs, and other Web sites, also from before and after the election. Through these sources, they are able to address crucial questions, such as similarities and differences in the nature of conspiracy theories over time, the role of the Internet and communications technologies in spreading modern conspiracy theories, and whether politics, economics, media, war, or other factors are most important in popularizing conspiratorial beliefs. Ultimately, they conclude that power asymmetries, both foreign and domestic, are the main drivers behind conspiracy theories, and that those at the bottom of power hierarchies have a strategic interest in blaming those at the top-in other words, "conspiracy theories are for losers." But these "losers" can end up having tremendous influence on the course of history, and American Conspiracy Theories is an unprecedented examination of one of the defining features of American political life.

Revolution's End fully explains the most famous kidnapping in US history, detailing Patty Hearst's relationship with Donald DeFreeze, known as Cinque, head of the Symbionese Liberation Army. Not only did the heiress have a sexual relationship with DeFreeze while he was imprisoned; she didn't know he was an informant and a victim of prison behavior modification. Neither Hearst nor the white radicals who followed DeFreeze realized that he was molded by a CIA officer and allowed to escape, thanks to collusion with the California Department of Corrections. DeFreeze's secret mission: infiltrate and discredit Bay Area anti-war radicals and the Black Panther Party, the nexus of seventies activism. When the murder of the first black Oakland schools superintendent failed to create an insurrection, DeFreeze was alienated from his controllers and decided to become a revolutionary, since his life was in jeopardy. Revolution's End finally elucidates the complex relationship of Hearst and DeFreeze and proves that one of the largest shootouts in US history, which killed six members of the SLA in South Central Los Angeles, ended when the LAPD set fire to the house and incinerated those six radicals on live television, nationwide, as a warning to American leftists.

In 1974, Dennis Lynn Rader stalked and murdered a family of four in Wichita, Kansas. Since adolescence, he had read about serial killers and imagined becoming one. Soon after killing the family, he murdered a young woman and then another, until he had ten victims. He named himself “B.T.K.” (bind, torture, kill) and wrote notes that terrorized the city. He remained on the loose for thirty years. No one who knew him guessed his dark secret. He nearly got away with his crimes, but in 2004, he began to play risky games with the police. He made a mistake. When he was arrested, Rader’s family, friends, and coworkers were shocked to discover that B.T.K. had been among them, going to work, raising his children, and acting normal. This case stands out both for the brutal treatment of victims and for the ordinary public face that Rader, a church council president, had shown to the outside world. Through jailhouse visits, telephone calls, and written correspondence, Katherine Ramsland worked with Rader himself to analyze the layers of his psyche. Using his drawings, letters, interviews, and Rader’s unique codes, she presents in meticulous detail the childhood roots and development of one man’s motivation to stalk, torture, and kill. She reveals aspects of the dark motivations of this most famous of living serial killers that have never before been revealed. In this book Katherine Ramsland presents an intelligent, original, and rare glimpse into the making of a serial killer and the potential darkness that lives next door.

No outlaw typifies America’s mythic Wild West more than Billy the Kid. To Hell on a Fast Horse by Mark Lee Gardner is the riveting true tale of Sheriff Pat Garrett’s thrilling, break-neck chase in pursuit of the notorious bandit. David Dary calls To Hell on a Fast Horse, “A masterpiece,” and Robert M. Utley calls it, “Superb narrative history.” This is spellbinding historical adventure at its very best, recalling James Swanson’s New York Times bestseller Manhunt—about the search for Lincoln’s assassin, John Wilkes Booth—as it fills in with fascinating detail the story director Sam Peckinpah brought to the screen in his classic film Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid.

John Dillinger is an adrenaline-fueled narrative that reignites America's fascination with the suave and deadly desperado who became the FBI's first Public Enemy, whose story—until now—has been riddled with rumors and fiction. Dillinger and his bank-robbing gang cut a criminal swath never to be equaled, thrilling a nation in the throes of the Great Depression. When caught, Dillinger staged one of the most harrowing prison escapes imaginable—only to finally be betrayed by the infamous "Lady in Red." John Dillinger brings to light bank robberies never before reported; detailed plans for major crimes that Dillinger nearly implemented; the revelation that the Lady in Red was actually a police plant; and the startling motives behind John Dillinger's execution by rogue FBI agents. With access to the thousands of sources collected in the world's foremost Dillinger archives—including dozens of photographs—New York Times bestselling author Matera describes every robbery, shoot-out, and prison escape as though he had choreographed them himself.