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

On December 28, 2000, the city of Philadelphia experienced the worst mass murder in its three hundred year history. Ten people were viciously gunned down in a dilapidated crack house in the Mill Creek section of West Philly. The community was scared and outraged. City officials demanded a swift resolution. Within days and under an avalanche of pressure, the police obtained a confession and the case was cracked. Four local young men were arrested and charged with seven counts of first degree murder, attempted murder, robbery, and related offenses. The District Attorney Office vowed to seek the death penalty for what appeared to be an open and shut case. After fifteen months of preparation, when the trial was less than three months away, the case took a major turn in an adverse direction. The whole world was watching and awaiting the prosecution team s next move. Equal Verdicts chronicles the investigation of the grisly slaying from the night of the murders until the conclusion of the case. The author interviewed suspects, lawyers, judges and reporters to get a first hand account of what really occurred during the proceedings. Exclusive police interrogations of the murderers, jailhouse snitches, and correction guards are recorded which adds mystery to the already petrifying saga. Ultimately, more shocking than the murders was the motive. "Most of my life I felt violated. Everything I loved was taken away from me. My mom, grandmother, father. My mother's boyfriend got killed right in front of me so I did the same thing. I never did anything to anyone who didn't deserve it. Besides, most of the people in that house were just junkies and drug dealers anyway." -Shihean Black Convicted Killer. EQUAL VERDICTS-THE LEX STREET MURDERS-Antonne M. Jones

On October 29, 1997, hooker Andrea "Slick" Hendrix's, beaten, naked body was discovered in a roadside ditch near Stewartsville, Indiana. With no leads for police to follow, the case eventually went cold, but it wouldn't stay that way. In 2003, sadistic sexual predator Joseph W. Brown claimed to have strangled Hendrix with his favourite murder weapon: a shoelace from a woman's size-8 shoe. Ginger Gasaway, 53, met Brown at a Gambler's Anonymous meeting. She didn't know that when she took up with him, she was gambling with her life. On August 30, 2000, Brown murdered Gasaway and scattered her body parts across three Indiana counties. For this grisly crime, he would be sentenced to life in prison without parole. But it wouldn't be his first time behind bars...In 1977, Brown had been sentenced to life in prison for kidnapping and armed robbery. In 1995, he was released despite the fact that he'd beaten a fellow inmate nearly to death. Brown later confessed that during the next five years, he indulged in a seven-state rampage of torture and murder, his victims female hitchhikers and prostitutes. Now, doing time in Wabash Valley Corrections Centre, Brown maintains that he murdered no less than thirteen other women.

Jerry Mark was a Peace Corps volunteer, lawyer, 4-H leader, vice-president of his Cedar Falls High School senior class and certainly a most likely-to-succeed young man when he graduated in 1960. In 1976 he was convicted of 4 execution-style murders of his own family. How could he have done such a thing and why? Author Scott Cawelti knew Jerry Mark from high school and when on to interview him in prison, attending the trial and discovering a mind consumed with anger, revenge, jealousy and greed. Brother's Blood chronicles the killer's cross-country motorcycle ride, the landmark investigation and arrest, the circumstantial case at trial and the appeals that continued for 30 years. BROTHER'S BLOOD-A HEARTLAND CAIN AND ABEL-Scott Cawelti

Bloodstains is the startling tale of one man’s search for the truth after inheriting the personal diaries belonging to his great-great-grandfather who he discovers was America’s first and most notorious serial killer Herman Webster Mudgett. Better known by his alias H.H. Holmes, Mudgett was the mass murderer who struck terror into the nation by being the proprietor of the infamous Murder Castle and stalking the streets of Chicago during the 1893 World’s Fair. During his incarceration awaiting execution, well over a century ago, Holmes admitted killing 27 innocent victims, but the evidence the author locates indicates hundreds more likely. From his investigation, Jeff Mudgett, the direct descendant, learns that Holmes’ reign of terror was worldwide and not limited to Chicago as has been so widely believed. Based upon never before revealed historical facts, Jeff pieces together a dynamic and extraordinary puzzle, including the strong possibility that Holmes was also Jack the Ripper. BLOODSTAINS-Jeff Mudgett

Denise Amber Lee was a 21-year-old happily married mother of two little boys. She had her whole life ahead of her...until an intruder broke into her Florida home. Within a few short hours, she was savagely terrorised and murdered. Michael King, a 38-year-old out-of-work plumber, was a ticking time bomb. Incredibly, Denise managed to call 911 twice during her abduction. Eyewitnesses and her distraught husband also called, but a slow, inefficient system tragically failed her. King was sentenced to death...but for Denise and her loving family, it was too late. A KILLER'S TOUCH-Michael Benson

  He was a perfect man living a perfect life...which made him a perfect killer. Canadian Air Force Colonel Russell Williams commanded the largest Canadian Forces base in the country. He had personally piloted prime ministers, dignitaries, and members of the British royal family, and was one of the most respected and trusted soldiers in the military. He was also a rapist and a murderer. This is the disturbing true account of how one of Canada's highest- ranking military officers became one of Canada's most notorious criminals, including his ultimate capture, trial and conviction for a twisted spree of sexual deviancy and two brutal rapes and murders. CAMOUFLAGED KILLER-THE SHOCKING DOUBLE LIFE OF CANADIAN AIR FORCE COLONEL RUSSELL WILLIAMS-David A. Gibb

Seven questionable and long forgotten deaths in historical San Bernardino, California, offer clues to a shocking possibility that occult serial murder went undetected as such for nearly a century. Through an esoteric based analysis of the odd facts and unanswered questions of the case, in order to determine a possible pattern in the mind of a killer, there is revealed an unexpected yet specific connection between all the known attacks by the legendary Zodiac Killer a half century later-- presented for the first time here. With figures like Aleister Crowley and Harry Houdini moving about the periphery and through the middle of the mystery, nothing may have been what it seems, and someone appears to have wanted it that way...

"Sam, could you do me a favor?" Thus begins a story that has now become part of America’s true crime hall of fame. It is a gory, grotesque tale befitting a Stephen King novel. It is also a David and Goliath saga—the story of a young lawyer fresh from the Public Defender’s Office whose first client in private practice turns out to be the worst serial killer in our nation’s history.  Sam Amirante had just opened his first law practice when he got a phone call from his friend John Wayne Gacy, a well-known and well-liked community figure. Gacy was upset about what he called “police harassment” and asked Amirante for help. With the police following his every move in connection with the disappearance of a local teenager, Gacy eventually gives a drunken, dramatic, early morning confession—to his new lawyer. Gacy is eventually charged with murder and Amirante suddenly becomes the defense attorney for one of American’s most disturbing serial killers. It is his first case. This is a gripping narrative that reenacts the gruesome killings and the famous trial that shocked a nation. JOHN WAYNE GACY-DEFENDING A MONSTER-Judge Sam Amirante and Danny Broderick

It was a time of innocence, a time of hippies, flower children and the Age of Aquarius. A time when young people felt free to roam the countryside hitchhiking without fear. A time when law enforcement was trusted by the people they were sworn to protect and serve. That time was shattered by one of law enforcements own. His name was Gerard Schaefer. He was a former Florida Police officer who lied his way into the office of the Martin County Florida Sheriff’s Office. He used his lie to continue to perpetrate his crimes of torture and murder of young women who hitchhiked along Florida’s roads.  Schaefer not only destroyed the lives of as many as 34 young women, he kept trophies of his kills, and he lived the crimes over and over again. He believed he was doing the world and his victims a justice by ridding the world of the “whores” who hitchhiked. Gerard Schaefer was a narcissistic psychopath who wanted his fifteen minutes of fame. He believed he had earned it. SILENT SCREAM-Yvonne Mason  

  Over the years, Ron Franscell's books have earned high praise from bestselling authors such as Ann Rule and Vincent Bugliosi. He is the bestselling author of The Darkest Night. His writing has often been compared to Truman Capote. Ron grew up in Wyoming. A lifelong journalist, he worked for newspapers in Wyoming, New Mexico and California's Bay Area before hitting the road in one of American journalism's best beats, covering the evolution of the American West as a senior writer for the Denver Post. Shortly after 9/11, he was dispatched by the Post to cover the Middle East during the first few months of the Afghan war. In 2004, he became the managing editor for the Beaumont (TX) Enterprise, where he covered the devastation of Hurricane Rita.  After Ron's divorce, he feared he was the link in a long chain of estranged fathers. But when the author and his teenage son embark on a road trip to the Yukon to seek out a macabre cocktail containing an amputated human toe, they unwittingly begin a journey into their own past, present and future. The Sourtoe Cocktail Club is a true-life love story about fathers and sons, set against epic backdrops and overlooked places. It is also a road book that attempts to answer, for one father and son, a pivotal life question: Where does the road go? THE SOURTOE COCKTAIL CLUB-Ron Franscell

The sexually violent murder of twenty-one-year-old British student Meredith Kercher in Perugia, Italy, on the night of November 1, 2007, became an international sensation when one of Kercher’s housemates, twenty-year-old Seattle native Amanda Knox, as well as her Italian boyfriend and a troubled local man Knox said she “vaguely” knew, was arrested and charged with the murder. Award-winning author and journalist Nina Burleigh investigated the murder, the controversial prosecution, the conviction and twenty-six-year sentence of Knox, the machinations of Italian justice, and the underground depravity and clash of cultures in one of central -Italy’s most beloved cities.       When Perugia authorities concluded that the murder was part of a dark, twisted rite—a “sex game”—led by the American with an uncanny resemblance to Perugia’s Madonna, they unleashed a media frenzy from Rome to London to New York and Seattle. The story drew an international cult obsessed with “Foxy Knoxy,” a pretty honor student on a junior year abroad, who either woke up one morning into a nightmare of superstition and misogyny—the dark side of Italy—or participated in something unspeakable.          The Fatal Gift of Beauty is a compelling examination of an enduring mystery, an ancient, storied place, and a disquieting facet of Italian culture: an obsession with female eroticism. It is also an acute window into the minds and personalities of the accused killers and of the conservative Italian magistrate striving to make sense of an inexplicable act of evil. THE FATAL GIFT OF BEAUTY-THE TRIALS OF AMANDA KNOX-Nina Burleigh

The Rocky Mountains hold a celebrated place in the "wildest" West of both myth and reality--yet this is the first-ever travel guide to the many sites associated with Colorado and Wyoming's notorious past, complete with precise GPS coordinates of significant places. Written with the same fast-paced, gripping style of bestselling crime author Ron Franscell's widely praised earlier work, The Crime Buff's Guide to the Outlaw Rockies takes you on a time-traveling tour through the haunts of Butch Cassidy and his Wild Bunch, serial killer Ted Bundy, the Columbine massacre, and hundreds of the West's most lawless characters. It's an indispensable resource for both criminal-history enthusiasts and travelers because each site description includes a concise summary of the location's significance, historical context, maps, directions, photos ... all with exact GPS details! THE CRIME BUFF'S GUIDE TO THE OUTLAW ROCKIES-Ron Franscell

  In February, 2009, Guy Turcotte a cardiologist stabbed his two young children, Anne-Sophie, 3, and Olivier, 5, 46 times while they were lying in their beds. Turcotte admitted to the killings, but in the subsequent murder trial he claimed he could not recall carrying them out. The Guy Turcotte murder trial was one of the most closely followed in recent history in Canada — both horrifying and captivating the public. The jury deliberated for 5 days, deciding on the fate of the cardiologist charged with first-degree murder in the deaths of his children Olivier and Anne-Sophie. The trial hinged on Turcotte’s state of mind at the time of the February 2009 slayings. Was he trying to get revenge on his estranged wife, a fellow doctor, for cheating on him with a mutual friend? Or was he a sick man who had lost all reason? Turcotte’s lawyers argued he had been rendered temporarily insane over the recent breakup of his marriage with Ms. Gaston. In the July verdict, a jury found he was “not criminally responsible” for his actions. In September, Turcotte faced a five-person mental health tribunal to determine whether he should be released, or whether he should be detained for another year. As the mental health tribunal decided whether to set Guy Turcotte free, hundreds of protesters gathered in 14 Quebec cities calling for an overhaul of the justice system. Crown prosecutors are seeking a retrial for Turcotte, arguing that the judge erred in law in his instructions to the jury. NOT CRIMINALLY RESPONSIBLE-TRAVESTY OF JUSTICE-Dan Zupansky

Trails of Death is the explosive chronicle of America's only known national parks serial killer, Gary Michael Hilton. Hilton struck in Florida, Georgia and North Carolina before he was finally caught. The author explores the crimes in detail with full cooperation from the victim families and brings readers into what makes a latelife serial killer through interviews with those who know him. Readers will also hear from the lead investigator who finally tracked Hilton. TRAILS OF DEATH-Fred Rosen

Sarah Pender was an attractive, outgoing, intelligent woman with great potential. But the straight and narrow had no appeal for this depraved young woman dubbed "the female Charles Manson", who knew how to get what she wanted from men-even if it meant murder. GIRL, WANTED-THE CHASE FOR SARAH PENDER-Steve Miller