House of Mystery True Crime History

Today you’d call Ballantyne suburban, but back then, at the start of the summer of 1966, it was country — just a cluster of houses, some of them shacks, on or near Ballantyne Road, in the Town of Chili, NY. And while June 25 started like any other day it would end in a nightmare. In The Devil at Genesee Junction, veteran crime writer, Michael Benson, returns to his formerly rural hometown to take on the double homicide of his friends Kathy Bernhard and George-Ann Formiciola that took place that night. The two girls were missing for a month and then found in the bushes horribly mutilated. The double homicide changed the author’s childhood suddenly, and drastically. He went from living in a rural playland, to being encased in fear, wondering who among them was the werewolf who cut up Kathy and George-Ann. This heinous crime was never resolved, and didn’t go away. In recent years, the author has teamed up with a victim’s mom, and a local private investigator to delve deep into the 6/66 murders, developing along the way some strong new leads and shocking details. Together they have heated up this icy cold case, and their investigation has led them in a startling new direction.

I started my professional writing career in newspapers and worked as a journalist for more than twenty years in locales as diverse as Washington, D.C. and Micronesia, as well as Florida, Oregon and, of course, Colorado. I’ve covered most everything from science to medicine to international and social issues to politics and even a smattering of sports. But I was probably best known for my writing about cops, courts and criminals. In 1998 that led to the publication of my first book MONSTER, the true crime story of a brutal killer and the bulldog of a cop who refused to let him get away with murder. MONSTER was published in October of that year, and within two weeks made the New York Times bestseller list. It was re-released in July 2013 with updated material and is now available on ebook, as well as print.

This book breaks new ground in two important areas that have yet to be linked and explored by any JFK-assassination historian. John Koerner argues that the CIA’s secret drug trade in Laos, and the president’s effort to end it, provided the primary motive that the CIA needed to assassinate the president. A lot of effort has been made to examine the president’s Vietnam policy, but precious little attention has been paid to the opium trade in Laos that was making the CIA wealthy and powerful beyond its wildest dreams. This book chronicles the president’s secret war with the CIA over Laos, a high-stakes game that cost him his life. Koerner also links the JFK assassination and the drug trade with the other three major assassinations of the 1960s: Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, and Robert F. Kennedy. We will see that all four of the assassinations are linked together, all funded and executed by the CIA to silence the four most vocal leaders who were opposed to the agency’s pro-war and pro-drug policy in Laos and Vietnam. Finally, Koerner examines the impact this has had on the course of history, and imagines a world where these men had lived.

NYPD officers Mike Dowd and Kenny Eurell knew there were two ways to get rich quick in Brooklyn's Lower East Side. You either became drug dealers, or you robbed drug dealers. They decided to do both. “I promised my wife that we would make a lot of money, and that she had nothing to worry about. I LIED!” Dowd and Eurell ran the most powerful gang in New York’s dangerous 75th Precinct, the crack cocaine capitol of 1980s America. These “ Cocaine Cops” formed a lucrative alliance with Adam Diaz, the kingpin of an ever-expanding Dominican drug cartel. Soon Mike and Ken were buying fancy cars no cop could afford, and treating their wives to levels of luxury not associated with a patrol officer's salary. They Were Daring, Dangerous and Untouchable Until ...Then “ the biggest police scandal in New York history” exploded into the headlines with the arrest of Mike, Ken, and their fellow crooked cops. Released on bail, Mike offered Ken a long shot at escape to Central America—a bizarre plan involving robbery, kidnapping, and murder—forcing Ken to choose between two forms of betrayal. “When you lie, you steal the truth. Once you have stolen the truth, you can justify stealing anything from anybody.” Adapted from Ken Eurell's shocking personal memoir, plus hundreds of hours of exclusive interviews with the major players, including former international drug lord, Adam Diaz, and Dori Eurell, revealing the truth behind what you won't see in the hit documentary THE SEVEN FIVE. Edgar Award winner Burl Barer once again teams with award-winning journalist Frank C. Girardot, Jr, and Eurell to bring you an astonishing story of greed and betrayal.

LBJ aims to prove that Vice President Johnson played an active role in the assassination of President Kennedy and that he began planning his takeover of the U.S. presidency even before being named the vice presidential nominee in 1960. Lyndon B. Johnson's flawed personality and character traits, formed as a child, grew unchecked for the rest of his life as he suffered severe bouts of manic-depressive illness. He successfully hid this disorder from the public as he bartered, stole, and finessed his way through the corridors of power on Capitol Hill, though it's recorded that some of his aides knew of his struggle with bipolar disorder. After years of researching Johnson and the JFK assassination, Phillip F. Nelson conclusively shows that LBJ had an active role in JFK's assassination, and he includes newly-uncovered photographic evidence proving that Johnson knew when and where Kennedy's assassination would take place. Nelson's careful and meticulous research has led him to uncover secrets from one of the greatest unsolved mysteries in our country's history.

Judyth Vary was once a promising science student who dreamed of finding a cure for cancer; this exposé is her account of how she strayed from a path of mainstream scholarship at the University of Florida to a life of espionage in New Orleans with Lee Harvey Oswald. In her narrative she offers extensive documentation on how she came to be a cancer expert at such a young age, the personalities who urged her to relocate to New Orleans, and what lead to her involvement in the development of a biological weapon that Oswald was to smuggle into Cuba to eliminate Fidel Castro. Details on what she knew of Kennedy’s impending assassination, her conversations with Oswald as late as two days before the killing, and her belief that Oswald was a deep-cover intelligence agent who was framed for an assassination he was actually trying to prevent, are also revealed.

The Man Who Killed Kennedy: The Case Against LBJ hit the New York Times bestseller list the week of the 50th Anniversary of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Consummate political insider Roger Stone makes a compelling case that Lyndon Baines Johnson had the motive, means, and opportunity to orchestrate the murder of JFK. Stone maps out the case that LBJ blackmailed his way on the ticket in 1960 and was being dumped in 1964 to face prosecution for corruption at the hands of his nemesis attorney Robert Kennedy. Stone uses fingerprint evidence and testimony to prove JFK was shot by a long-time LBJ hit man—not Lee Harvey Oswald. President Johnson would use power from his personal connections in Texas, from the criminal underworld, and from the United States government to escape an untimely end in politics and to seize even greater power. President Johnson, the thirty-sixth president of the United States, was the driving force behind a conspiracy to murder President Kennedy on November 22, 1963. In The Man Who Killed Kennedy, you will find out how and why he did it. Legendary political operative and strategist Roger Stone has gathered documents and uses his firsthand knowledge to construct the ultimate tome to prove that LBJ was not only involved in JFK’s assassination, but was in fact the mastermind. 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 national bestseller, we are committed to books on subjects that are sometimes overlooked and to authors whose work might not otherwise find a home.

Blood, Money, & Power exposes the secret, high-level conspiracy in Texas that led to President John F. Kennedy’s death and the succession of Lyndon B. Johnson as president in 1963. Attorney Barr McClellan, a former member of L.B.J.’s legal team, uses hundreds of newly released documents, including insider interviews, court papers, and the Warren Commission, to illuminate the maneuvers, payoffs, and power plays that revolved around the assassination of Kennedy and to expose L.B.J.’s involvement in the murder plot. In addition to revealing new information, McClellan answers common questions surrounding the assassination of our thirty-fifth president. Who had the opportunity, motive, and means to assassinate J.F.K.? Who controlled the investigation and findings of the Warren Commission? This historically significant book is proof that absolute power, money, blood, corruption, and deception were at the heart of politics in the early 1960s, and it represents the very best investigative journalism has to offer.

Sean Stone began his career by acting in his father Oliver Stone's, The Doors, JFK, and Savages, to name a few. He has since starred in and directed Greystone Park, based on his experiences with shadowmen, demons, and ghosts along the eastern seaboard. Sean is also one of the co-hosts on Jesse Ventura’s “Conspiracy Theory” television program and Currently, Stone hosts the television show, Watching the Hawks on RT America, with his co-hosts, Tyrel Ventura and Tabetha Wallace, and with guests they examine the worlds of media, politics and pop culture from different perspectives. Their online talkshow, called Buzzsaw on TheLipTV, also features this triple co-host team

There’s a certain familiarity with the sociopath one encounters after writing 30-plus books about one-off murderers and serial killers. Interviewing scores of these people, one tends to develop an almost inherent, instinctive sense for how they go about manufacturing and inventing lies, carefully orchestrating each one, and then inserting those lies into public discourse. Patricia “Pat” Olsen—the subject of “Murder in Massachusetts,” the second story in Murderers’ Row, my first collection of true-crime for WildBlue Press—is one of those people.

John George Haigh found the way to commit the perfect murder—five of them in fact—by dissolving his wealthy victims in sulfuric acid to avoid detection on a "no body, no murder" principle, before taking their property to fund his luxury lifestyle. But victim number six presented a problem. When a guest in Haigh's own hotel disappeared, the police found half dissolved body parts carelessly thrown into the yard outside his secluded workshop. But was the urbane Mr. Haigh, the man brought up by strict Plymouth Brethren parents in Yorkshire and dressed like a city stockbroker, really the monster he said he was—the killer of six innocent people with the sole motive of drinking their blood? Benefiting from unpublished archive papers, including recently released letters Haigh wrote from prison while awaiting execution, author Gordon Lowe sheds light on whether this was a cynical ploy for a ticket into Broadmoor Hospital, or if he was in fact a psychopathic vampire with a penchant for disposing of his victims in acid

On a hot night in July 1995, Janet Downing, a 42-year-old mother of four, was brutally stabbed 98 times in her home in Somerville, a city two miles northwest of Boston. Within hours, a suspect was identified: 15-year-old Eddie O’Brien, the best friend of one of Janet’s sons. But why Eddie? He had no prior history of criminal behavior. He was not mentally ill. He had neither motive nor opportunity to commit the crime. Others had both. Yet none of that mattered because powers far beyond his Somerville neighborhood decided that Eddie needed to be guilty. As laid out in THE POLITICS OF MURDER, the timing of this case did not bode well for Eddie. A movement hoping to stop the supposed rise of young “superpredators” was sweeping the nation, and juvenile offenders were the targets. Both the Massachusetts governor and an elected district attorney who personally litigated this case supported juvenile justice reform, and both aspired to higher offices. Eddie O’Brien’s case garnered both local and national publicity: He was the youthful Irish Catholic “boy next door.” His grandfather was the retired chief of the Somerville Police Department. Court TV covered the trial in adult court gavel to gavel, calling it “the altar boy murder case.” His highly publicized case changed the juvenile laws in Massachusetts. Other states began to follow suit. But did the justice system fail Eddie? That’s the contention of author-attorney Margo Nash in her explosive expose, THE POLITICS OF MURDER. Appointed Eddie’s guardian ad litem, Nash attended every court session and eventually gained access to all his files. Now after painstaking research and examination of each step of the investigation, trial transcripts and the forensic evidence, Nash makes the case that Eddie could not have committed the crime and that other viable suspects were never properly considered. The Innocence Program has recently taken on Eddie’s case. Now readers can decide if politics sent an innocent boy to adult prison for the rest of his life

In this groundbreaking book, bestselling author Jesse Ventura lays out his philosophy on marijuana, and why he’s always been in favor of legalization. Now, more than ever before, our country needs to see full legalization of medical/recreational marijuana and hemp. Any way you look at it, for whoever is using it, marijuana is a medicinal plant, in abundant supply. Every month and every year that goes by, we find out more positive things about it. Medicinal marijuana has been demonized through the years but obviously this plant has a great deal of positive attributes, and it’s also a renewable resource. Being a cash crop, marijuana is bad for the pharmaceutical industry. Is Big Pharma pressuring the government to continue to deny sick people access? If so, that’s truly a crime against American citizens. And as Ventura writes: “Our government won’t do the right thing and legalize marijuana unless we the people demand it, because there are so many people within our government on the payroll, all thanks to the War on Drugs

JM DeBord. Among his many accomplishments, he’s the author of the book Dreams 1-2-3, runs a website on dreams, and is the moderator of Reddit /r/Dreams. He’s been studying and working with dreams for 20 years. And for the past five years he’s been actively teaching dream interpretation through his book, his work on Reddit, and most recently a blog on Huffington Post “Dream work is a very personal process. There is no Rosetta Stone for interpreting dreams, no universal meaning for every dream symbol,” says reddit.com dreams forum moderator DeBord. But don’t let that scare you. With a few simple tools, you will soon be on your way to discovering just how much specific, guiding wisdom is packed into your dreams. This groundbreaking book takes you step-by-step through the process of learning the language of your dreams. It is a language like any other. It has nouns (characters and settings), verbs (actions and your reactions), and adjectives (symbols and feelings). At first you may only catch the simple words and phrases, then whole sentences and paragraphs, but soon enough you will get all the subtext, humor, irony, and slang. You will not only understand the language but speak it fluently. You’ll see that we dream to help reconcile with the past, handle the present, and step into the future. Three steps: remember, interpret, and live your dreams. It’s easier than you think

On the morning of 14 January 1975, Mrs Dorothy Whittle wakes to be faced with every mother’s worst nightmare: finding her daughter has been abducted from her room. A note has been left downstairs, demanding a ransom. Later, a recorded message comes from Lesley herself saying where to leave the money but not to tell the police or she’ll be killed. The family disobeys the instructions and informs the authorities, and together they struggle to understand and carry out their instructions in a complex cat-and-mouse game with one desperate aim: to get Lesley back alive. The recent release of Home Office papers allows author Gordon Lowe to go behind the scenes and examine how a combination of bad luck and mistakes on the part of both the police and Donald Neilson stacked the odds against a successful resolution to one of the century’s most despicable crimes. Here Lowe details what happened to Lesley as she lay naked and shackled by a steel noose at the bottom of a wet drainage shaft with a man in a black hood, the Black Panther, as her only contact with the outside world.