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

In March 2009, Michael Jackson stood before the world press and announced that he would be doing a series of live concerts at London's Grand Concourse stadium, beginning in July. The shows would be called "This Is It," and he referred to them as his "final curtain call.". But Michael would never make any of the dates. In June "The King of Pop" died at his Los Angeles home. In 2004, a San Diego jury convicted Richard Tuite of fatally stabbing a 12-year-old Escondido girl named Stephanie Crowe. He was originally charged with murder in the case, but jurors rejected that and lowered the conviction to voluntary manslaughter when they decided he didn't act with malice, a necessary ingredient for a murder count.  He was given a new trial and prosecuted for voluntary manslaughter, due to double jeopardy attached to the murder charge. Tuite was acquitted by a second San Diego jury. Dr. Cyril H. Wecht is an expert in Forensic Medicine. His expertise has been utilized in high profile cases involving the assassinations of both President John F. Kennedy and Senator Robert F. Kennedy, the death of Elvis Presley, the O.J. Simpson case, and the JonBenet Ramsey case. Dawna Kaufmann is an investigative journalist and co-author of 3 books with Dr. Wecht. A Question of Murder (2009) which includes chapters about the deaths of Anna Niciole Smith and the trials of Richrad Tuite and From Crime Scene to Courtroom (2011) examing the deaths of Michael Jackson, Caylee Anthony and Rolling Stone Brian Jones.  FROM CRIME SCENE TO COURTROOM and A QUESTION OF MURDER-Dawna Kaufmann and Dr. Cyril Wecht  

Descended from a notorious carny family, Grady Stiles Jr. traded on the deformity that gave his hands and feet the look of lobster claws, to achieve fame as the "Lobster Boy". In November 1992, neighbor Christopher Wyant, in a conspiracy with Stiles's wife and stepson, shot Stiles in the head, leading to one of the most bizarre trials in criminal history. LOBSTER BOY-The Bizarre life and Brutal Death of Grady Stiles Jr.-Fred RosenDescended from a notorious carny family, Grady Stiles Jr. traded on the deformity that gave his hands and feet the look of lobster claws, to achieve fame as the "Lobster Boy". In November 1992, neighbor Christopher Wyant, in a conspiracy with Stiles's wife and stepson, shot Stiles in the head, leading to one of the most bizarre trials in criminal history. LOBSTER BOY-The Bizarre life and Brutal Death of Grady Stiles Jr.-Fred Rosen

When Jerry Heimann's son arrived at his father's home in Everett, Washington, he found his grandmother, an Alzheimer's patient, alone in the house, starving and dehydrated. His father was missing. The furniture was gone. Within hours, police realised that Jerry's live-in housekeeper, Barbara Opel, had robbed him and fled. But where was Jerry?The next morning, Opel's 11-year-old son led police to Jerry's body. Soon, stunned detectives were getting confessions from a rage tag group of teens and pre-teens. At Barbara Opel's command, they had set upon Jerry Heimann with knives, fists, and baseball bats - and battered him to death.From 13-year-old Heather, who frantically stabbed Jerry after having sex with her boyfriend, to 7-year-old Tiffany, who helped clean up the blood, this is the horrifying true story of how a mother turned her children and their friends into stone cold killers - and then rewarded them for their crime...MOM SAID KILL-Burl Barer

Sexecutioner On November 30, 1989, in a lonely place off Florida's Interstate 95, 51-year-old Richard Mallory shuddered under the impact of four .22-caliber slugs being pumped into him by a naked, hard-faced blonde hooker. While he suffered a slow, agonizing death, she 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 as many weeks. Of the six of her seven male victims whose bodies were found, some were nude; all had been shot dead and robbed. "Woman With The Death-Row Eyes" In January, 1991, pawnshop records led to the arrest of Aileen Carol Wuornos, 34, aka "Lee," an abusive, alcoholic man-hater with a murderous hairtrigger temper. Wuornos began prostituting herself at age 12 for cigarettes and beer. At 15 she bore an illegitimate child, at 16 she took to the highways as a hitchhiking hooker. In 1986, with a lengthy rap sheet and prison term under her belt, she entered into a relationship with Tyria Moore, 24. Tired of turning $20 tricks, Wuornos decided to rob her customers of everything they had—including their lives. Her arrest and trial prompted a worldwide media frenzy. Ultimately Wuornos received six separate death sentences. Here 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. LETHAL INTENT-Sue Russell  

Growing up, Susan Berman's childhood was idyllic. She was Las Vegas Mob royalty, the daughter of a Mob boss who ran the Flamingo and furnished his only child with anything money could buy. But halfway through her childhood, dream exploded. Susan's father died without warning during a routine surgery. Next, Susie Berman's mother died by her own hand the next year when she overdosing on drugs. Susie was whisked away from the only home she'd ever known, parentless and living with an uncle and his family and sent away to boarding school. Fast forward to college where Susan met her soul mate, Robert Durst. They became best friends and each other's confidants. Durst went to work for his wealthy father at the Durst Organization in Manhattan while Susan became a journalist, writing about women's cultural issues for newspapers and magazines. She followed Durst to New York, where he married the beautiful Kathie McCormack. Then, Kathie disappeared and Susan stood by her best friend Robert, despite suspicions that Durst had caused the demise of his wife. Twenty years later, as police closed in on Durst and reopened the case, seeking to interview his best friends, Susan was murdered. Few clues were found. Who did it and why? Was it the Mob? A trusted friend? Murder in Beverly Hills (an updated, revised edition of Murder of a Mafia Daughter) answers those questions. Exclusive information about the investigation is included in this edition, as well as new interviews of police detectives, Susan's friends, family and colleagues, and new information about Robert Durst is revealed. MURDER IN BEVERLY HILLS-The Mob-style Execution of Susan Berman, Her Crime Boss Father, and The Deadly Secret She Took to Her Grave-Cathy Scot

When filming his TV series Race Relations, John Safran spent an uneasy couple of days with one of Mississippi's most notorious white supremacists. A year later, he heard that the man had been murdered – and what was more, the killer was black. At first the murder seemed a twist on the old Deep South race crimes. But then more news rolled in. Maybe it was a dispute over money, or most intriguingly, over sex. Could the infamous racist actually have been secretly gay, with a thing for black men? Did Safran have the last footage of him alive? Could this be the story of a lifetime? Seizing his Truman Capote moment, he jumped on a plane to cover the trial. Over six months, Safran got deeper and deeper into the South, becoming entwined in the lives of those connected with the murder – white separatists, black campaigners, lawyers, investigators, neighbours, even the killer himself. And the more he talked with them, the less simple the crime, and the world, seemed. Murder in Mississippi is a brilliantly innovative true-crime story. Taking us places only he can, Safran paints an engrossing, revealing portrait of a dead man, his murderer, the place they lived and the process of trying to find out the truth about anything. MURDER IN MISSISSIPPI-John Safran

 American Sniper is the astonishing autobiography of SEAL Chief Chris Kyle, who is the record-holder for most kills for a sniper in U.S. military history. Kyle has more than 150 officially confirmed kills (the previous American record was 109), though his remarkable career total has not been made official by the Pentagon. In this New York Times bestselling memoir, Kyle shares the true story of his extraordinary decade-long career, including his multiple combat tours in Iraq (Operation Iraqi Freedom) and elsewhere from 1999-2009. Kyle’s riveting first-person account of how he went from Texas rodeo cowboy to expert marksman and feared assassin offers a fascinating view of modern-day warfare and one of the most in-depth and illuminating looks into the secret world of Special Ops ever written. AMERICAN SNIPER-The Autobiography of the Most Lethal Sniper in U.S. Military History-Jim DeFelice

In 1945, after his capture at the end of the Second World War, Hermann Göring arrived at an American-run detention center in war-torn Luxembourg, accompanied by sixteen suitcases and a red hatbox. The suitcases contained all manner of paraphernalia: medals, gems, two cigar cutters, silk underwear, a hot water bottle, and the equivalent of $1 million in cash. Hidden in a coffee can, a set of brass vials housed glass capsules containing a clear liquid and a white precipitate: potassium cyanide. Joining Göring in the detention center were the elite of the captured Nazi regime—Grand Admiral Dönitz; armed forces commander Wilhelm Keitel and his deputy Alfred Jodl; the mentally unstable Robert Ley; the suicidal Hans Frank; the ographic propagandist Julius Streicher—fifty-two senior Nazis in all, of whom the dominant figure was Göring. To ensure that the villainous captives were fit for trial at Nuremberg, the US army sent an ambitious army psychiatrist, Captain Douglas M. Kelley, to supervise their mental well-being during their detention. Kelley realized he was being offered the professional opportunity of a lifetime: to discover a distinguishing trait among these arch-criminals that would mark them as psychologically different from the rest of humanity. So began a remarkable relationship between Kelley and his captors, told here for the first time with unique access to Kelley’s long-hidden papers and medical records. Kelley’s was a hazardous quest, dangerous because against all his expectations he began to appreciate and understand some of the Nazi captives, none more so than the former Reichsmarshall, Hermann Göring. Evil had its charms. THE NAZI AND THE PSYCHIATRIST-Jack El-Hai

Final Exams features four fascinating true crime cases from the files of Cyril H. Wecht, M.D., J.D., one of America’s most respected forensic pathologists.  Coauthored by crime writer Dawna Kaufmann, Final Exams explores both the technical and the human side of murder.  From the heartbreaking case of abducted child, Jessica Lunsford, held captive within shouting distance of her loved ones, to the peculiar story of a murder for hire with a most unlikely victim, Final Exams takes the reader behind the scenes. Secrets about the private lives of both predators and victims are revealed as the authors detail the events that turned rage to tragedy. Fans of CSI will appreciate how Wecht and Kaufmann share the real life process of solving crimes with clues left with the victim. FINAL EXAMS-Cyril Wecht and Dawna Kaufmann

On January 10, 2013, Kendrick Johnson's parents reported their 17 year-old son missing. The next day at Kendrick's school, Lowndes High School in Valdosta, Georgia, in the gym students saw what they thought was a pair of socks sticking out of a gym mat, but when they approached they told investigators they realized it was a body. According to Lowndes County Sheriff Chris Prine, Kendrick Johnson died while reaching into an upright gym mat in the old gym on Jan. 10 trying to retrieve a sneaker that had fallen inside, instead Kendrick fell in, couldn't get out and smothered to death from positional asphyxiation.   The original autopsy report ruled Johnson's death an accident, stating that the teen suffocated after getting stuck in a gym mat while reaching for a sneaker. However, Johnson's parents weren't convinced it was an accident, and they got a court order to have their son's body exhumed. The second autopsy report showed the teen's death was not an accident, stating that Johnson had sustained "non-accidental, blunt force trauma."  During an autopsy, internal organs are removed and examined before being returned for burial. But when the private pathologist who conducted the second autopsy on Johnson opened up the teen's remains, the brain, heart, lungs, liver and other viscera were missing. Every organ from the pelvis to the skull was gone and had been replaced with newspaper. Federal prosecutor Micheal Moore is reopening the case. THE KENDRICK JOHNSON MURDER-Fred Rosen and Beau Webster      

An African American soldier returns home to New York City from the Vietnam War in the late 1960s. It is a time of turbulence and change and racism is very much alive in America. Times are tough for a young black man in America, especially one who has fought for his country in an unpopular war. Rick Talley takes what he believes the only economic road open to him: drug dealing. Prisoner of Dreams presents a large cast of characters, from small time street hustlers and pimps to Hollywood and Las Vegas celebrities, to organized crime figures. In a poignant, eye-opening memoir, the author describes his life and the times, the good and the bad, in New York City and Harlem during one of the most seminal periods in American history. PRISONER OF DREAMS-Confessions of a Harlem Drug Dealer-Rick Talley

In 1992, Lois Duncan, acclaimed author of fictional suspense novels, wrote a horror story she could never have imagined writing—a true account of the murder of her own daughter, Kaitlyn Arquette. Kait, 18, was shot to death as she drove home from a friend’s house on a Sunday evening in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Police closed the unsolved case as a “random shooting,” refusing to accept information that indicated otherwise, although it had all the earmarks of a professional hit. That first book, WHO KILLED MY DAUGHTER?, was Duncan’s desperate attempt to motivate informants and prevent the facts of Kait’s story from becoming buried. It turned out to accomplish much more than that. Duncan’s new book, ONE TO THE WOLVES: ON THE TRAIL OF A KILLER, is even more horrifying than its predecessor as new information poured in, the family ran for their lives, and their original suspicions turned out to be the tip of an iceberg so immense that Kait, herself, could not have known how dangerous the information was that she had been sitting on in order to protect a now-estranged boyfriend. ONE TO THE WOLVES-On The Trail of a Killer-Lous Duncan  

On November 8, 1985, 18-year-old Tom Odle brutally murdered his parents and three siblings in the small southern Illinois town of Mount Vernon, sending shockwaves throughout the nation. It remains one of the most horrific family mass murders in U.S. history. Odle was sentenced to death and, after seventeen years on death row, expected a lethal injection to end his life.  However, Illinois governor George Ryan’s moratorium on the death penalty in 2000, and later commutation of all death sentences in 2003, changed Odle’s sentence to life. Prior to the commutation, Odle lived in denial, repressing any feelings about his family and his horrible crime. Following the commutation and the removal of the weight of eventual execution, he was confronted with an unfamiliar reality.  A future.  As a result, he realized that he needed to understand why he murdered his family.  He reached out to Dr. Robert Hanlon, a neuropsychologist who had examined him in the past. Dr. Hanlon engaged Odle in a therapeutic process which became the basis of their collaboration on this book. Hanlon tells the gripping story of Odle’s life,  the life experiences that formed his personality, and his tragic homicidal escalation to mass murder-SURVIVED BY ONE-Dr. Robert Hanlon

In 1958, 19-year-old Charlie Starkweather went on a murder spree that paralyzed Nebraska, shocked the nation, and left 11 people dead. With him when he was captured was his 14-year-old ex-girlfriend Caril Fugate. The question soon arose, was Caril a kidnapped victim, or a heartless accomplice? Appointed to her case, Attorney John McArthur initially accepted the assignment out of a sense of constitutional duty. But as he delved deeper, he found that the truth was far more complicated than anyone was letting on. Up against incredible odds, and with a strong conviction of her innocence, McArthur remained with Caril and fought for her freedom for 18 years. For this service, he took no pay, accepting the case pro bono. This book follows the long struggle of McArthur, his partner Merril Reller, and John's son James as they took on the Nebraska legal system and a public that had already determined Caril's guilt before ever hearing a word of testimony. The story continues through all it influenced, such as Stephen King, who became a horror writer because of it, Bruce Springsteen, who wrote a whole album about it, Terrence Malick, Oliver Stone, Martin Sheen, and Peter Jackson, who wrote his first major movie based on the Starkweather-Fugate incident. Pro Bono explores aspects of this incredible story that have never been revealed before, and sheds new light on these terrifying and complex events. PRO BONO-The 18-Year Defense of Caril Ann Fugate-Jeff McArthur

MURDER IN THE YOGA STORE is the true story of the brutal killing of a beautiful young woman at a chic Lululemon yoga-wear shop. The grisly murder was committed on a pleasant Friday night in upscale Bethesda, Maryland, a leafy suburb of Washington, D.C. In this riveting narrative by veteran journalist Peter Ross Range, the author for the first time brings together the tale of what really happened in the yoga store murder. He portrays the personalities of both victim and murderer, along with the strange and convoluted circumstances of the crime and its cover-up. Range meticulously exposes layer upon layer of deceit and confusion. His account builds the tension of the police investigation until the real story, so odd and creepy, takes your breath away. The drama of the murder trial is a moving emotional roller coaster built around the prosecutors, the detectives and the family of the victim. MURDER IN THE YOGA STORE-Peter Ross Range