True Murder: The Most Shocking Killers

Investigators and Central Florida residents were horrified when 16-year-old vampire cult leader Rod Ferrell was arrested and charged with bludgeoning a cult member's parents. When they realized the slain couple's 15-year-old daughter was missing, they feared she was a victim, too.Detectives and journalists swarming over three states soon uncovered a web of blood-drinking occult rituals, illicit sex, wildly dysfunctional families and spiritual warfare. Then, when police officers captured the teens, they discovered that the murdered couple's daughter was among them. But was she a victim or a participant?Ferrell faced the death penalty, sparking Constitutional battles over the ultimate punishment, juveniles in the court system, free press versus a defendant's right to a fair trial, and psychologists who worked to save him and prosecutors who wanted him dead. COLD BLOODED: A True Crime Story of a Murderous Teenage Vampire Cult-Frank StanfieldMore than 20 years later, the battles continue with new court rulings. Is he a changed man deserving freedom? Or is he still gaming the system, as prosecutors and his victims' family members believe?Decide for yourself after reading COLD BLOODED by veteran newspaper reporter Frank Stanfield, who has covered the case from the beginning in November 1996, and sheds new light on one of the darkest killers in modern history. COLD BLOODED: A True Crime Story of a Murderous Teenage Vampire Cult-Frank StanfieldMagicSpoon.com/TrueMurder

Long before the era of young people committing mass murder became a too-common event, sixteen-year-old Harry Hebard made world news when he killed all five members of his family in Kennedy-era Green Bay, Wisconsin. Harry appeared to be a relatively normal teenager. A member of the high school track team, Harry harbored a deep resentment that would make its ugly appearance on a cold winter’s day in 1963. In systematically executing his family, Harry became the first documented teenage mass murderer in Wisconsin history. Criminal profile veteran Steve Daniels details Harry’s case and provides insight into what makes Harry and other mass murderers tick. HARRY: A Study of Teenage Mass Murderers-Steve Daniels

Denville in the 1950s was an idyllic place to live, yet a dark chapter in the era's history has remained uncovered. During the summer of 1953, a wealthy traveler with a secret rap sheet as a convicted sex offender arrived in town to continue his misdeeds. A group of thirteen local boys ranging in age from fourteen to twenty-two took it upon themselves to teach the man a lesson and drive him out of town. What resulted was his brutal death and the largest number of people ever indicted for murder in the nation at the time. The harrowing trial and its aftermath revealed a town forced to grapple with how to protect its youth and come to terms with the gruesome incident. Local historian Peter Zablocki covers the crime and a small town's path to redemption. THE DENVILLE 13: Murder, Redemption & Forgiveness in Small Town New Jersey-Peter Zablocki.MURDER21#fabfitfunpartner

I got a girl, hung herself in the guest house."The call came on the morning of July 13, 2011, from the historic Spreckels Mansion, a lavish beachfront property in Coronado, California, owned by pharmaceutical tycoon and multimillionaire Jonah Shacknai. When authorities arrived, they found the naked body of Jonah's girlfriend, Rebecca Zahau, gagged, her ankles tied and her wrists bound behind her. Jonah's brother, Adam, claimed to have found Rebecca hanging by a rope from the second-floor balcony. On a bedroom door in black paint were the cryptic words: SHE SAVED HIM CAN YOU SAVE HER.Was this scrawled message a suicide note or a killer's taunt? Rebecca's death came two days after Jonah's six-year-old son, Max, took a devastating fall while in Rebecca's care. Authorities deemed Rebecca's death a suicide resulting from her guilt. But who would stage either a suicide or a murder in such a bizarre, elaborate way?Award-winning investigative journalist Caitlin Rother weaves stunning new details into a personal yet objective examination of the sensational case. She explores its many layers--including the civil suit in which a jury found Adam Shacknai responsible for Rebecca's death, and the San Diego County Sheriff's Department bombshell decision to reconfirm its original findings. As compelling as it is troubling, this controversial real-life mystery is a classic American tragedy that evokes the same haunting fascination as the JonBenet Ramsey and O.J. Simpson cases. DEATH ON OCEAN BOULEVARD: Inside the Coronado Mansion Case-Caitlin RotherMURDER21#fabfitfunpartner

Dubbed by The New York Times as one of the "most vexing and unexplained" mysteries in aviation history, the crash of Pan American World Airways Flight 7 in November 1957 resulted in 44 deaths and remains officially unsolved to this day. But Ken H. Fortenberry, an award-winning journalist whose father was the copilot and navigator aboard the ill-fated plane, has devoted nearly sixty years of his life to unraveling this cold-case mystery, and has come to a staggering conclusion: that the victims of the crash were murdered. A remarkably researched book packed with information and emotion, Flight 7 Is Missing: The Search for My Father's Killer is a gripping page-turner that reads like a fast-paced murder mystery. Join Fortenberry on his crusade as he tirelessly tracks down every possible lead and eventually exposes the person he believes responsible for this tragic crime. FLIGHT 7 IS MISSING: The Search For My Father's Killer-Ken H. Fortenberry

Interest in the Menendez brothers’ case has exploded in the last few months. Over 770 million views on TikTok. The groundswell began in 2017 with the TV premieres of several documentaries and NBC’s eight-episode limited series Law & Order True Crime: The Menendez Murders.Social media users were overwhelmingly sympathetic to the brothers during the NBC show, which debuted during the early days of the #MeToo and #MenToo era.Investigative journalist and author Robert Rand's 2018 book The Menendez Murders provided the primary source material for NBC series Plug, streaming on Amazon, YouTube, and Google Play.The NBC series was a 180-degree flip from the general perception that the brothers were just greedy rich kids who killed Ozzie and Harriet on a quiet Sunday night in Beverly Hills. There was little internet or social media when the brothers went on trial in 1993.Earlier this year, the current explosion of passionate Menendez advocates caught the attention of the New York Times with an article, The New Menendez Defenders: Young people are making impassioned arguments for the release of Lyle and Erik Menendez. Why now?April 2, 2021, ABC’s 20/20 aired a two-hour special about the international movement of new Menendez supporters. Robert Rand continues to actively repost on the case. Some of the research included in his book The Menedez Murders could become significant new evidence when the brothers file an appeal. New evidence has. surfaced leading to an appeal court filing later this year, and the possibility of a 3rd trial for Lyle and Erik. THE NEW MENENDEZ DEFENDERS: The International Movement of Supporters Who Want Lyle and Erik Set Free-Robert Rand

The year is 1917. Less than two decades into the new century and already the Great War is occurring in the muddy fields of France. Soon there will be the Spanish Influenza which will kill many more millions. An inauspicious start to a new millennium, to be sure. In one of Canada’s largest cities, Toronto, there has been a murder. A cab driver is found dead in west-end Toronto, stabbed multiple times. The cabbie’s name is Carmine Lapello (AKA Tony Lapello, Tony Ross), an Italian Canadian. Inquests occur, but the murderer is never found.Now, we take a leap forward to the year 1964 when a ten-year-old Joe Lapello is going through some cardboard boxes in his parent’s basement. He finds an old photo of a handsome young man. He takes the picture to his father and is told that the picture is of Joe’s great uncle, Carmine Lapello. Joe’s father was only seven years old at the time of the murder.Become entwined in a story of a young man’s undying love for a woman, which would drive him to participate in illegal alcohol smuggling during the prohibition era. Carmine was a self employed taxicab driver who became caught up with notorious people, in a small immigrant community of Toronto, known as “The Ward”. Circumstances would change for the worse, turning this young man from a secretive life of crime, to that of a police informant, and eventually, paying the ultimate price. In the early morning hours of July 20, 1917, Carmine would be found brutally murdered in the street. Follow Joseph, through his discovery of this mystery, as he unravels the unsolved murder of his Great Uncle, Carmine Lapello. MURDER LOST TO TIME: The True Story of One of Canada's Oldest Unsolved Murders-Joseph A. Lapello

A woman named Becki is lounging by the pool at the Fontainebleau Hotel when she decides to proposition a strapping pool attendant. Go on a date with her...and her husband. What begins as an unconventional proposition will soon throw them all into the international spotlight. And that’s because the couple is none other than Jerry Falwell Jr. and his wife Becki, two of the most powerful figures in Evangelical America. Wondery presents In God We Lust, hosted by Brooke Siffrin and Aricia Skidmore-Williams of Even the Rich. A story of an alluring sex scandal, power, money and a very public fall from grace. When word of their affair fell into the wrong hands it led to political extortion and a public outing that brought Jerry Falwell Jr.’s empire crashing down. Listen at: wondery.fm/IGWL_TrueMurder

In 1974, the brutal murder of Anita Fagiani Andrews, a fifty-one-year-old former beauty queen and mother of two, shook the small working-class town of Napa. Detectives, criminalists and forensic experts raced to identify who'd struck Anita down in her own bar, but despite their efforts, the case went cold. Decades passed, during which the town grew into a world-renowned wine region and tourist destination, but the case remained an open question. After thirty-seven years, thanks to DNA evidence, the killer--imprisoned for a different murder--was finally found and brought to justice. Join author and retired judge Raymond A. Guadagni as he tells the story of the shocking murder, the investigation and the subsequent trial over which he presided in 2011. THE NAPA MURDER OF ANITA FAGIANI ANDREWS: A Cold Case That Caught a Serial Killer-Raymond A. Guadagni

Wealthy, beautiful, and brilliant, Shele Danishefsky had fulfillment at her fingertips. Having conquered Wall Street, she was eager to build a family with her much younger husband, promising Ivy League graduate Rod Covlin. But when his hidden vices surfaced, marital harmony gave way to a merciless divorce. Rod had long depended on Shele's income to fund his tastes for high stakes backgammon and infidelity--and she finally vowed to sever him from her will. In late December 2009, Shele made an appointment with her lawyer to block him from her millions. She would never make it to that meeting.Two days later, on New Year’s Eve, Shele was found dead in the bathtub of her Upper West Side apartment. Police ruled it an accident, and Shele’s deeply Orthodox Jewish family quickly buried her without an autopsy on religious grounds. Rod had a clear path to his ex-wife's fortune, but suspicions about her death lingered. As the two families warred over custody of Shele’s children―and their inheritance― Rod concocted a series of increasingly demented schemes, even plotting to kill his own parents, to secure the treasure. And as investigators closed in, Rod committed a final, desperate act to frame his own daughter for her mother’s death.Journalists Rebecca Rosenberg and Selim Algar reconstruct the ten years that passed between the day Shele was found dead and the day her killer faced justice in this riveting account of how one man’s irrepressible greed devolved into obsession, manipulation, and murder. AT ANY COST: A Father's Betrayal, A Wife's Murder, and a Ten-Year War for Justice-Selim AlgarMURDER #fabfitfunpartner

Law enforcement professionals and criminologists long have been challenged to arrive at a consensus over the most accurate ways to classify serial killers. With predators as diverse as the lesser-known William Zamastil to slick con artists such as Ted Bundy, one description certainly does not fit all when it comes to grouping the depraved minds that comprise America’s most prolific murderers.Veteran criminal profiler Steve Daniels takes a detailed look into the behavioral intricacies that separate contract killers from sexual deviants, highly organized planners from low-functioning opportunists. Daniels advances the notion that current classification models fall short of the reality faced by law enforcement and prosecutors, offering an additional profiling tool in the battle against violent crime. GAZING INTO THE ABYSS: Serial Killer William Zamastil, The Victims, and Other Killers-Steve Daniels

Nina Gilden Seavey was twelve on May 5, 1970, the day an Air Force building in St. Louis burned to the ground. Her dad represented a young man accused of the crime: Howard Mechanic. Facing serious federal time, Howard went on the run and became one of the longest-running fugitives in U.S. history. As an adult, Nina picked up the trail. What ever happened to Howard Mechanic?This eight-part series is the tangled story of her search for answers. Hundreds of Freedom of Information requests. Hundreds of thousands of pages of documents. FBI surveillance and confidential informants. Cold War spies, conspiracy theories and the murder of a civil rights icon. And the sacrifices America makes in the name of national security. Introducing: MY FUGITIVE

If you want a view into the world that lies behind the Ted Bundy murders, this last work in a series of six books on Bundy, is definitely for you. For within these pages you’ll read of the many questions still surrounding this fascinating and intricate case, as well as the answers that are only now being provided here. There’s so much more to learn, and new information is still surfacing about Bundy, his victims and his potential victims. As such, there is new testimony included from those who had a brush with the killer, and others who played their own roles in this multi-state case.In this book, Bundy case detectives Jerry Thompson of Salt Lake City, Utah, and Don Patchen of Tallahassee, Florida, talk about their personal experiences with Bundy. So does Ron Holmes, the Louisville criminologist who worked with the killer towards the end of his life. Also included are official reports that have rarely been viewed outside of the archives, along with the author's commentary to guide readers through them. And last but not least, is Bundy's final confession to Utah detective Dennis Couch just hours prior to Bundy's execution. In it, Bundy reveals startling facts and sparks additional questions. A must-read for those true crime readers fascinated by America's most enigmatic and infamous serial killer. THE ENIGMA OF TED BUNDY: The Questions and Controversies Surrounding America's Most Infamous Serial Killer-Kevin Sullivan

A charismatic Russian woman arrives in the US on a mission to improve relations between the two countries, and she soon makes some powerful friends. But who is Maria Butina? And who is she working for? As Maria gets closer to the rich and connected she also attracts the attention of the FBI. In the politically charged world of US-Russia relations, everyone has secrets and almost nothing is what it seems. From Wondery, the makers of The Shrink Next Door and Dr. Death comes SPY AFFAIR a story about deception, appearances and betrayal. Hosted by Celia Aniskovich.Listen today at: wondery.fm/SATrueMurder

The Gospel of Blood is the autobiography of Nico Claux, a French morgue attendant whose morbid obsessions led him to grave robbery, cannibalism and murder in the early 1990s. It is a bone-chilling chronicle of a real-life vampire who prowled the Gothic cemeteries of Paris, unearthing coffins and mutilating the bodies inside. A practicing Satanist, Claux escalated to murder after working for a year in several morgues, receiving orders to kill from the corpses he had autopsied.The Gospel of Blood provides a rare insight into a killer’s tortured mind, as he relates the graphic details of his crimes, including never-before revealed confessions. It is a fascinating look inside the thoughts of a psychotic murderer who has found redemption in prison through art. THE GOSPEL OF BLOOD: The Crimes and Trial of the Vampire of Paris in His Own Words-Nico Claux