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In 1928 Bill Lancaster and Chubbie Miller were international heroes after their sensational long-distance aeroplane flight from England to Australia. In 1932, Lancaster was on trial in Miami, accused of murdering Chubbie's lover, Less than a year later, Lancaster disappeared on a flight over the Sahara and it was 29 years before his body was found beside his wrecked plane. A log book, tied to the wing, contained the moving record of the last eight days of his life. Lancaster's dramatic end was in keeping with his adventurous life. The account of his search for work and his desperate efforts to retrieve his fortune, how Chubbie fell in love with American writer Haden Clarke while Bill was away and how Clarke was found shot dead in a Miami house on Bill's return all lead up to one of the most turbulent murder trials of the twentieth century. Illustrated with black and white photographs. -
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. -
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. -
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. -
Crime Scene: Esther McKay
$22.00Day after day my life was consumed by killings, distress and gruesome sites, each one adding another piece to an ever-growing mosaic that seemed to be made up of bloodied disposable gloves, plastic bags and human waste... When Esther McKay, an idealistic young constable with the NSW police, entered the tough, male-dominated world of forensic investigation, she was determined to hold her own. She soon found herself at deeply confronting crime scenes, often working alone and without supervision. After years of long, lonely, exhausting days and nights, and following a particularly harrowing high-profile case involving the disappearance of two young boys, Esther had a break-down and was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder. Esther McKay takes us inside the life of a forensic investigator, and reveals as never before the extraordinary demands and dangers of forensic work. -
When Stefanie Rabinowitz was found dead of an apparent drowning in her bathtub at home, it was at first believed to be 'one of those things that just happen'. Because she was only 29, an autopsy was ordered which revealed that Stefanie was in fact strangled before being dumped in the tub to stage a fake drowning. There was no evidence of a break-in, no history of marital trouble - and suspicion fell on her husband Craig: devoted family man, loyal husband and 'everybody's best friend'. As the investigation proceeded, the bizarre double life of Craig Rabinowitz unravelled... With exclusive interviews and black and white photographs.
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On a remote cattle station in Far North Queensland, four gold prospectors push their luck and pay the price. Venturing too close to the homestead they attract the attention of the landholders, who arrive armed and dangerous. Only three of the prospectors make it out alive. This is the story of Bruce Schuler’s murder at Palmerville Station on the 9th of July, 2012. His murderers, Stephen Struber and his wife Dianne Wilson, had for decades been a law unto themselves, terrorising all who dared cross ‘their’ land. Or as Struber saw it, playing ‘Cowboys and Indians’ and chasing them off the property. Using real bullets. Struberville is also a look at the darker side of isolation, and what happens to the civilising influence of society when nobody’s watching out there. Illustrated with colour photographs. -
The author took the unusual step of writing this book of case histories with the comments of children and young people who came before him in his capacity as a Childrens' Court magistrate. Some of the stories are horrifying and given without any 'glossing over' of the horror; some of the offences were committed by children, many against children but it is clear that everything possible was done to help the child become a member of the community again. These are stories of rape, drug addiction, perversion. incest, corruption, prostitution - and of children who deliberately committed offences to get to Court to settle their own problems. These children will haunt the reader - all innocent victims of parents, their environment, ignorance or predatory monsters. The title page contains a warning to parents... -
This is the shocking secret history of twentieth-century orphanages - which for decades hid violence, abuse, and deaths within their walls. For much of the twentieth century, a series of terrible events - abuse, both physical and psychological, and even deaths - took places inside orphanages. The survivors have been trying to tell their astonishing stories for a long time, but disbelief, secrecy, and trauma have kept them from breaking through. For ten years, Christine Kenneally has been on a quest to uncover the harrowing truth. Centering her story on St. Joseph’s, a Catholic orphanage in Vermont, Kenneally has written a stunning account of a series of crimes and abuses. But her work is not confined to one place. Following clues that take her into the darkened corners of several institutions across the globe, she finds a trail of terrifying stories and a courageous group of survivors who are seeking justice. Ghosts of the Orphanage is an incredible true crime story and a reckoning with a past that has stayed buried for too long, with tragic consequences.
