True Murder: The Most Shocking Killers in True Crime History and the Authors That Have Written About Them

In April 2006, a twelve-year-old girl named JR committed a brutal crime that terrified parents everywhere: after weeks of plotting, she and her twenty-three-year-old boyfriend stabbed to death her mom, dad, and little brother in the family's home in Medicine Hat, Alberta, making her the youngest multiple killer in Canadian history. JR was a quiet honour-roll student living in the small Prairie town of Medicine Hat, Alberta. But her middle-class existence concealed an ominous alter ego: Runaway Devil. Her Internet persona professed a fondess for a darker world of death metal music, the goth subculture, and her love for the much older Jeremy Steinke, a high-school droupout living in a trailer park with his mother. When JR got involved with Jeremy, her concerned parents tried all the tough love strategies to restrain her and interrupt the relationship-to no avail. Was JR simply growing up too fast and under the spell of a Svengali-like Steinke? Or was she really the puppet master who manipulated her boyfriend to do her bidding? Based on the trials and exclusive interviews with the prosecutors, police, family and friends of the victim and murderers, RUNAWAY DEVIL gives the truth behind the shocking tragedy. Authors Robert Remington and Sherri Zickefoose

Beside New Mexico's Elephant Butte Lake stood a windowless trailer which owner David Parker Ray, 59, and his girlfriend Cynthia Hendy, 39, called The Toybox. A $100,000 homemade torture chamber, it was equipped with whips, chains, pulleys, straps, clamps, leg spreader bars, and surgical blades and saws. A camcorder stood next to the leather-padded torture table-set up to make 'snuff' videos-while a ceiling-mounted video monitor allowed female victims to see every excruciating detail of the agonies inflicted on them by their captors. "Never trust a chained captive", was one of the rules David Ray kept posted as a reminder to himself and his followers. It's truth was proven on March 22, 1999 when, after surviving a three-day torture orgy, Cyndi Vigil, 22, stabbed Hendy with an ice pick and escaped, clad only in a slave collar and padlocked chains. She told police that she'd been kidnapped, raped and tortured by Ray and Hendy. A second victim, Angie Montano, 27, came forward to describe how she'd survived a similar ordeal less than a month before. Satanist Ray was the center of a web of satanism, sex slavery and murder. His disciple, drifter Roy Yancy, confessed to strangling to death Marie Parker, 22, while Ray took photos. Ray's daughter Jesse, 31, was convicted of helping her father kidnap and torture Kelli Van Cleve, 22. Cynthia Hendy told authorities that Ray had killed 14 women. Police believe that he may have slain more than 60. SLOW DEATH-Author Jim Fielder

Clara and David Harris were married on Valentine's Day. Young and in love, they developed a thriving dental business, built a half-million-dollar mansion, and raised the perfect family. Then whispers of an affair between David and his beautiful office assistant drifted through their exclusive Houston social circle. A private detective confirmed the rumors. When Clara saw David with his mistriss, she attacked the woman, then climbed behind the wheel of her luxurious car and put an end to her charmed life with her husband-by crushing him to death underneath the wheels of her silver Mercedes-Benz. Clara Harris had the perfect explanation for police: "It was an accident." What the headline-making trial ultimately revealed a high profile marriage running on empty, marital infidelity, a woman's deadly passion, and the private hell behind a public life of the rich and privileged. OUT OF CONTROL-author Steven Long

To the people of Olney, Texas, 39 year-old Faryion Wardrip was an upright citizen-a happily married man, a valued employee, and a respected Sunday school teacher. In January, 1999, investigators reviewing the files of 3 unsolved murders dating back 15 years came across information linking Wardrip to the female victims-Terry Sims who was bound, raped and stabbed to death. Toni Gibbs slashed and sexually assaulted and left in a bus shelter and Ellen Blau who disappeared after a workshift and her decomposing body found a month later. Clever police snared a DNA sample from Wardrip which matched the DNA found with Terry Sims. Wardrip then confessed to the three murders and 1 more-Debra Taylor. Wardrip is also a suspect in 10 other murders but it was Sim's murder that made him eligible for the death penalty. Before the BTK Killer, another deadly predator BODY HUNTER- Author Patricia Springer

Rhode Island detectives knew they had a serial killer in their midst. But the victims were women who lived and worked in a sexual underground-and whose bodies were never found. Then, prostitutes began to talk about a man who played rough. Police arrested Jeffrey Mailhot, a seemingly law-abiding ordinary citizen and an incredible duel of wits began. A brilliant police interrogation led to a chilling confession. This story is an insider's account of a modern-day Jack-the Ripper, which includes the killer's own words, telling police how he killed women with his bare hands, cut them into pieces-and then went off to kill again. RIPPER by Linda Rosencrance

From the time he was a teenager, Jeremy Bryan Jones had let his violent passions run wild: attacking, raping, and mutilating. Then, in Mobile County, Alabama, Jones' rampage was stopped. But no one knew how many bodies were in his past. Convicted and sentenced to die for the brutal murder of Lisa Nichols, an Alabama mother of two children, Jones shocked authorities with the story of his life - and his claims of snuffing out over a dozen victims in thirteen years. But was he telling the truth, or was he simply taunting his captors? Detectives from across the South scrambled to prove Jones' claims. At every turn, the man dubbed "the redneck Ted Bundy" made a mockery of the police, the courts, and the media, and investigations into the horrifying crimes attributed to him still continue. Now, for the first time, the definitive story is told about a psychopath who enjoyed confessing almost as much as he enjoyed killing...

On the eve of the release of Trophy Kill: The Shall We Dance Murder-The Trial and Revelations of a Psychopathic Killer, True Murder host Dan Zupansky opens the phone lines for questions about the book. Discussed in the hour includes the explanation behind the incredible role that Susan Sarandon's stolen gold necklace had in the shocking motive for one of the most horrifying murders of all time.

36-year-old Wayne Adam Ford walked into the Humboldt County Sheriff's Office in Northern California with a woman's severed breast in his pocket. He ended up convicted of the grisly torture and murder of 4 women, confessing to police because he couldn't stop himself. Based on previously sealed testimony and interviews with the key players in the case, BODY PARTS is a frighteningly intimate look into a twisted man overcome by the horror of what he had become-powerless to resist the ever-increasing perverse sexual amd murderous desires within him. With unprecendented access my guest author Caitlin Rother reveals what exactly drove a troubled man to commit such unspeakable murders. BODY PARTS-author Caitlin Rother

On August 26, 1997, the half-naked body of prostitute Heather Hernandez, 20 was found in an empty lot in Spokane Washington. The same day, the decomposed corpse of prostitute Jennifer Joseph, 16, was discovered in an alfalfa field. Both women had been shot in the head. The day after Christmas, four more women were found with plastic bags tied over their heads, the gruesome signature of a killer who had sexually violated each one of them, after they had died. Police had only one good lead, a driver in a white Corvette who picked up prostitutes on the street. When the killer is finally arrested he turns out to be a devoted husband, a father of five, a National Guard helicopter pilot and a Desert Storm veteran. Not since the Green River Killer had the Pacific Northwest been so terrorized by so savage a serial killer. Robert Lee Yates Jr. is charged for 13 murders. Edgar Award-Winning Author Burl Barer discusses BODY COUNT: The Terrifying True Story of the Spokane Serial Killer.

For half a year, the man who came to be known as the Abbotsford killer terrorized the valley community. On Friday, Oct. 13, 1995, two teenage girls - Tanya Smith, 16, and Misty Cockerill, 15 - were attacked by Terry Driver in the heart of the city. Smith's body was found near the Vedder Canal. Driver had clubbed Cockerill seven times in the head with a baseball bat, but she managed to get to the nearby hospital to tell her story. The case was a bizarre cat and mouse game; the murderer taunted the public and the police by dumping a gravestone on a vehicle at a local radio station. The killer would call the station and police from local phone booths, saying he would kill again. People, women and girls in particular, deserted the streets at dusk, too afraid to be out on their own. Dozens of Abbotsford Police officers worked with the RCMP, tracking down the suspect. The case broke when two things happened: investigators found a complete fingerprint on an envelope that was with an item Driver had thrown into a window. The second was when Driver's own mother recognized his voice on tapes the police made public. Rod Gehl, a retired Abbotsford police inspector who took the first call from Driver back in 1995, will discuss his book on the case, called, Through the Valley of the Shadow: The Search for the Abbotsford Killer.

On November 30th, 1989,in Florida a man was shot 4 times by a naked, hard-faced blonde prostitute. He suffered a slow, agonizing death while the woman stripped him of his valuables and drove his Cadillac back to the motel where her lesbian lover was waiting. In 1990 her killing spree kicked into high gear, with three men slain in 3 weeks. Six of the seven male victims whose bodies were found, some were nude, all had been shot dead and robbed. In January 1991, pawnshop records led to the arrest of Aileen Carol Wournos, aka 'Lee' an abusive, alcoholic man-hater with a murderous hairtrigger temper. Tired of turning 20 dollar tricks and often being abused Wournos decided to rob her customers of everything they had-including their lives. Her arrest and trial prompted a world-wide media frenzy. In the end Wournos recieved 6 seperate death sentences. Lethal Intent is the definitive account of a killer who confounded the profiling experts, forever changing their concepts of the crimes of which a woman is capable. Guest author and journalist Sue Russell

UNHOLY MESSENGER: THE LIFE AND CRIMES OF THE BTK SERIAL KILLER To all appearances, Dennis Rader was a model citizen, and a seemingly ordinary father and husband. But Rader's average life belied the existence of his dark, sadistic other self: he was the BTK serial killer. For 31 years, BTK as he called himself, which stood for bind, torture, kill terrorized Wichita Kansas, not only with his brutal, sexually motivated murders, but also through his taunting communications with the media and law enforcement. Author Stephen Singular recounts the year prior to Rader's arrest drawing from extensive interviews with Rader's pastor and congregation, detectives, and psychologists who worked the case, and from his unnerving detailed 32 hour confession. UNHOLY MESSENGER delves into the disturbing life and crimes of BTK to explore fully-for the first time-the most dangerous and complex serial killer of our generation and the man who embodied at once, astonishing extremes of normality and abnormality. A chilling story of a man considerd a spirtual leader by his pastor and congregation, but turned out to be the devil next door.

The NIGHT STALKER-THE LIFE AND CRIMES OF RICHARD RAMIREZ by PHILIP CARLO This True Crime classic is based on Carlo's meticulous research and extensive interviews with Ramirez, the Night Stalker which revealed the killer and his horrifying crimes to be even more shocking than anyone could have imagined. From watching his cousin commit murder at age 11, to his 19 death sentences to the juror that fell in love with him and the numerous female groupies he attracted, the story of Ramirez is a bizarre and spellbinding descent into the very heart of human evil. An interview with Philip Carlo about The NIGHT STALKER, with new exclusive death row interview!

These are no ordinary killers. They are monsters who murder, mutilate and carry out the most gruesome, unimaginable act of all....eating the flesh of their victims. CANNIBAL KILLERS - Includes the world's most evil psychopaths JEFFREY DAHMER. ED GEIN AND ANDREI CHIKATILO. A chilling look at history's most repugnant criminals. CANNIBAL KILLERS is a horrifying story too shocking to believe-except that it's true! Author Moira Martingale guest.

DESCENT INTO HELL-The True Story of an Altar Boy, a Cheerleader and a Twisted Texas Murder. University of Texas college student Colton Pitonyak and his friend ex-cheerleader Jennifer Cave lived in Austin. Bright, attractive and from a good family, Colton a former altar boy became involved in the underworld of drugs and guns. When Jennifer didn't show up for work her mother suspected the worst and her and other family members found at his apartment a scene worthy of the grisliest horror movie and Colton was nowhere to be found. A gripping story of the brutal slaying and the wild 'Bonnie and Clyde' flight from justice of a cold-blooded killer and his would-be girlfriend. A DESCENT INTO HELL BY KATHRYN CASEY