True Crime

//True Crime
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  • On November 25, 1996, in their home in the lakeside community of Eustis, Florida, Rick and Ruth Wendorf were savagely beaten to death with a tire iron. The Wendorfs' new Ford Explorer was stolen, but this was no routine robbery gone bad. This was a crime carried out by one Roderick Ferrell, a sixteen-year-old self-avowed Antichrist. His human sacrifice was a testament to the unique and sinister bond of four brainwashed teens. Heather Wendorf was a straight "A" student, a petite blonde with wide-set brown eyes. Yet she had been heard to wish her parents "off the face of the planet." Heather never dreamed that when she joined her friends for a joyride one fall evening, her wish had already come true. Including exclusive interviews with every living character involved in the case.
  • Like the Beaumont children and the Azaria Chamberlain cases before it, the backpacker murder case in Belanglo State Forest has entered Australian criminal folklore. Seven young people, most of them foreigners backpacking around Australia, brutally murdered, their remains uncovered in 1992 and 1993. It would take scores of police over three years, countless hours of forensic investigation, thousands of false leads and a few precious clues to charge and convict Ivan Milat for their horrific deaths. This is the definitive work on Ivan Milat, his family and the murders. Almost four years in the making, informed by exclusive interviews with members of the Milat family, key police investigators and Crown lawyers, this book reveals a family culture so bizarre it would lead inexorably to murder. It also scrutinises the police investigation – its remarkable success and failures, the dramatic turning point and the backbiting and bitterness that followed Milat's arrest. Thought-provoking, totally unsalacious and an exploration of the darker side of Australian life as a whole.  Photographic illustrations.
  • Just where is justice in Australia hiding? This brilliant new collection of true crime stories takes us into the Australian courts of the 1980s and '90s, back in time to the goldfields of the 1860s, and out to the island nation of Nauru in 2006 to explore how the scales of justice are unbalanced. This is a world in which the innocent still get locked up and the guilty too often go free. This collection is a must for all lovers of true crime. It will shock, outrage and intrigue. Features: Robin Bowles charts a mysterious case of sudden death; Lindy Cameron on the random shooting of Dr Andrew Taylor; Kathryn Deans on Heather Osland and how 13 years of torture was just the start of her ordeal; Liz Filleul on the disappearance of Elisabeth Membrey; Kerry Greenwood examines the role that crime writers have played in redressing miscarriages of justice; PD Martin on the Innocence Project, and Andrew Mallard; Susan Metcalfe on the tragedy of two Iraqis left behind on Nauru; Leigh Redhead asks how a man who secretly filmed his flatmates got away with it; Shelley Robertson, a modern forensic pathologist, questions the 'whole truth' of expert testimony; and Lucy Sussex on the unfortunate author Mary Fortune.
  • The name of Gary Heidnik will live on in infamy, and his home at 3520 North Marshall Street in Philadelphia, is a house tainted with the memory of unbelievable horrors. What police found there was an incredible nightmare made real. Four young women had been held captive - some for months - half-naked and chained. They had been tortured, starved, and repeatedly raped. But more grotesque discoveries lay in the kitchen: human limbs frozen, a torso burned to cinders, an empty pot suspiciously scorched...This is not a story for the faint-hearted; this is a shocking true account of the self-proclaimed minister with a long history of mental illness, who preyed upon the susceptible and the retarded in a bizarre plan to create his own "baby factory." It is a macabre web spun around money, power and religion, tangled with courtroom drama and lawyers' tactics, sure to send a chill into your very soul. Illustrated with black and white photographs.
  • The heartbreaking stories of the murders of four girls - and a groundbreaking account of how the girls' grieving parents brought about changes in the law to ease the unbearable burden for themselves - and for the families of other homicide victims. Author Helen Reade gives the reader an intimate insight into the thoughts and actions of the victims' families as they recall the events leading up to - including - and after the appalling events. These include: the stabbing murder of 5-year-old Nicole Hanns in 1974; the sexual assault and murder of 9-year-old Ebony Simpson in 1992; and the rape and murders of Bega schoolgirls, 14-year-old Lauren Barry and her friend 16-year-old Nichole Collins in 1997. Illustrated with black and white photographs.
  • Two wives, two violent murders and a fight for justice...the story of one of the more bizarre murder investigations in Australia’s history. Two wives die in suspicious co-incidence or, as husband Thomas Keir describes it, ‘bad luck’? Three years after Thomas Keir alleged his first wife Jean deserted him and her young son for another man, his second wife Rosalina, Jean’s cousin, lay scorched and strangled on her bed. Arriving on the scene, Detective Peter Seymour realised he was dealing with the world’s unluckiest husband or a serial wife killer.While Keir was remarkably found ‘not guilty’ of Rosalina’s murder - despite a clear cut case - her death unlocked the mystery of Jean’s disappearance. A subsequent police investigation lead to the discovery of seven small fragments of Jean’s bones - fingers, knuckles and toes - buried deep under the same house in which Rosalina died. Keir’s ‘grieving husband’ act was suddenly in question. The investigation revealed Thomas Keir was a man so jealous he hated even his own baby son touching his wife, Jean. A man so possessive he threatened he would cut her up and feed her to the dogs if she ever left him. A man who thought he could commit the perfect crime and publicly taunted the police through the media. This is Detective Peter Seymour's relentless pursuit of justice and his own family sacrifices, through the drama of the police investigation into Jean’s death, and the three trials, convictions, and appeals that would take fifteen years to reach their final conclusion. Photograph illustrations.
  • What made them do it? What were they thinking? Was it nature or nurture, that is, were they born evil or were they the products of their environment? And why are we so fascinated with crime? Journalists Helen Goltz and Chris Adams have been spoilt for choice selecting stories for the first Grave Tales: True Crime volume. These are some of the terrible crimes that took away the public innocence, crimes destined never to be solved that live on in Australian history… crimes that are confounding with their cruelty, staggering in their brilliance and amazing in their sheer audacity. In this volume: Edward Leonski; Norman 'Chops' Lee; Linda Agostini, the 'pyjama girl'; The Battle Of Broken Hill; Martha Needle; John T.W. Smith; Bertha and Mary Schippan; Creswell and Orton; Frderick Bailey Deeming; Betty Shanks; Robert Francis Burns; The Clarke Brothers; Chrissie Venn; Eugenia Falleni; The Somerton Man. Illustrated with maps, photographs and includes all references and grave locations.
  • The author, the chief crime reporter for the Yorkshire Post worked on the sensational 'Yorkshire Ripper' case from the very beginning and was afforded the full co-operation and confidence of the Yorkshire Police. He delved deeply into every aspect of the case, interviewing, questioning and researching both Peter Sutcliffe's background, the strategies used and the problems encountered by the the police force assigned to catch him. Illustrated with black and white photographs.
  • Until the release of this book, no-one had ever revealed the truth about the Krays. Gossip and rumour have been rife, fact has blended into fiction. Only one man knew everything about the  fearsome twins, but the law of the streets dictated that he kept it all a secret. Before his death. Charlie Kray revealed everything to his co-writer Colin Fry. He wanted to set the record straight once and for all. He made his deathbed confessions, revealing the in credible truth about the Kray Firm. Mixing their peculiar blend of glamour and terrifying violence, this is the final great story of the Krays - told by the man who knew them best. Illustrated with black and white photographs. https://cosmiccauldronbooks.com.au/p/frances-kray-tragic-bride-jacky-hyams/