True Crime

//True Crime
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  • Alice de Janzé, glamorous American heiress,  scandalised 1920's Paris when she left her aristocratic French husband for an English lover - whom she later tried to kill in a failed murder-suicide in the Gare du Nord. Abandoning Paris for the moneyed British colonial society known as Kenya's Happy Valley, she became the lover of the handsome womaniser, Joss Hay, Lord Erroll. In 1941, Erroll was found shot in his car on an isolated road. A cuckolded husband was brought to trial and acquitted... and the crime remained tantalizingly unsolved. The author's mother was one of Alice's confidantes, and after his mother's death found a wealth of  Alice's personal letters, photographs and sketches. He began researching extensively to piece together what really happened that fateful evening and moreover, brings to life an era of unimaginable wealth and indulgence, where people changed bed partners as easily as they would order a cocktail and where jealousy and hidden passions brewed.This may be the solution of the murder of Lord Erroll.
  • In 1996 Robin Bowles, a Melbourne company director, read a newspaper report about a task force that had been set up to re-investigate the circumstances surrounding the alleged suicide of Victorian country housewife Jennifer Tanner.The reason for the renewed interest was the the discovery of human remains in a mineshaft near the property where Jenny had died. Deeply puzzled  by the mass of anomalies in the case, Robin went searching for answers.  How, for instance, could Jenny have shot herself twice in the brain- after shooting both her hands first? Since there was no note nor proof of intention, could the findings from the original post-mortem have been influenced by other parties? And was Jenny's death connected to the body in the mine? What unfolds is a bizarre tangle of police bungles, cover-ups and family intrigue.
  • Investigative journalist Kirk Wilison tackles some of the most high-profile and confusing crimes to go unpunished. The investigations of top-ranking police officers, detectives and lawyers all failed to crack the riddles these cases created: who was responsible? And why were they never brought to justice? These are the crimes that we can never stop wondering about. Cases examined in this volume: John F. Kennedy's assassination; Jimmy Hoffa, union leader and mob associate, whose body was never found; Marilyn Monroe, screen goddess, whose 'suicide' raised more questions than it answered; Lord Lucan, peer and gambling addict, who vanished ito thin air amid accusations of murder; T. Cullen Davis, born-again Christian and the richest man ever to be tried for murder; Serge Rubenstein, the virtuoso swindler whose case was clouded by the fact that thousands of people had reason to wish him dead. Claus Von Bulow, lawyer, consultant and socialite, who made two attempts on the life of his  American wife; Joan Robinson Hill may have been murdered by her husband John Hill - then it seemed that John  Hill himself was murdered on his own front doorstep - but was he? Helen Vorhees Brach, who disappeared at age 65 - the victim of a slick pure-bred horse salesman?
  • What makes a seemingly ordinary man kill his suburban neighbours, one by one? How can he come back to his house and family and act normally after battering to death a series of elderly and often frail women..and why? This is the case of John Glover, the Sydney Granny Killer: a graphic and chilling insight into the mind of a serial killer. It traces the evolution of a person capable of such violence, how the murders were incorporated into daily life - and how close family were deceived so totally and for so long. There are hitherto unknown details of his life from relatives in the United Kingdom, a construction of the police hunt for the killer; methods, techniques and the slow overlapping of forensic material with a mass of evidence, facts and details gathered from the public.  Illustrated with black and white photographs.
  • What is the most effective way to dispose of a troublesome corpse? Eat it? Dip it in a vat of acid? Feed it to the pigs - or turn it into sausages? Just pop it in a furnace, maybe...? There's more than thirty cases here: from Catherine Hayes who set a trend in dismemberment in 1726 when she hacked off her husband's head and tossed it into the Thames, to Dennis Nilson who was doing much the same to his victims in 1983; from Marcel Petiot's quicklime pits in Occupied Paris, to New York's infamous Albert 'The Cannibal' Fish. Yet however meticulous and ingenious, none of them got away with it - painstaking investigation and forensics led to the final unmasking of the sadists and psychotics who sought such bloody concealment of their crimes. With black and white photographs.
  • The true crimes that rocked Australia...Why do some people cross the threshold from rational behaviour to cold blooded murder? How can they do it? What motivates or activates that ability? Malcolm Brown and other award winning journalists examine the most cold blooded killings in modern day Australia. In this volume: The Murder of John Newman, M.P.; The Murderous Rampage of Danny Karam's Gang; The Bodies in the Barrels, Snowtown; The Murder of Margaret Tobin; Retribution in Wollongong: Paedophilia's Chain Reaction; Murder on Sydney's Northern Beaches; The Serial Infanticide of Kathleen Folbigg; The Murder of Maria Korp; The Spear-Gun Killer John Sharpe; Bumbling Matricide - The Murder of Margaret Wales-King and Paul King; Sef Gonzales - Getting Around the Problem of Poor Marks. Illustrated with black and white photographs.
  • Neighbors were unaware of what went on behind the tightly closed doors of a house in Fresno, California - the home of the imposing, 300-pound Marcus Wesson, his wife, children, nieces and grandchildren. But on March 12, 2004, gunshots were heard inside the Wesson home and police officers, responding to what they believed was a routine domestic disturbance, were horrified by the senseless carnage they discovered when they entered. This is a chilling true story of incest, abuse, madness and murder - it is one family's terrible and ultimately fatal ordeal at the hands of a powerful, manipulative man - a cultist who envisioned vengeful gods and vampires, and totally controlled those closest to him before their world came to a brutal and bloody halt. Illustrated with black and white photos.
  • This is the book the Victorian police did not want written. On 14 June 1997, a toddler is left alone in the middle of the night while the babysitter collects his mother from a party. In their absence, the windows are smashed and a severed pig's head is thrown into the room where the child was left sleeping. On their return, the pig's head is is waiting and the child has vanished. Within twenty-four hours the Homicide Squad rules out any involvement of the 'pig's head team' (the vandals who left the pig's head and smashed the windows, determined by police to be an unrelated act of revenge against Domaszewicz) or anyone else in the baby's  disappearance and settles on the babysitter as the prime suspect. The child was Jaidyn Leskie. The suspect, Greg Domaszewicz, was arrested, charged and eventually acquitted of murdering Jaidyn. Case closed - or is it?  Featuring exclusive interviews and evidence made public for the first time, this is a tightly woven building of this unsolved  mystery that builds to a conclusion that could leave the reader sleepless...Illustrated with black and white photos.
  • A revised, expanded collection of true crime by Australia's foremost  crime writers that digs beneath the polite exterior of modern Australian life to expose its chilling core. It details the exploits of criminal families and examines the gene of pure evil that drives maniacs to randomly kill; it also explores the effect on innocent victims caught in the wrong place at the wrong time. Also included is the unstinting contribution from the cops who daily put their lives on the line and the ordinary individuals who stand up and fight back. Stories in this volume include: Donald Mackay and the Australia Mafia; the Queen Street Massacre; Ivan Milat; serial killer Paul Denyer; the Anita Cobby murder; the murder of taxi driver Peter Coe by teenagers; the Crawford murders; life as an undercover cop; and much more. Illustrated with black and white photographs.
  • It can take years for love to turn to murderous hate - or it can happen overnight. What drives a woman or man to committ the ultimate betrayal - to take the life of a parent, a child, a sibling, a lover? This is a volume of unflicnhing exploration of fourteen well-known - and not so well-known - murder in the family cases and it takes the reader inside the life and mind of both the killer and victim.  The cases include: The slaying of Maureen Thompson by her husband Rory; the murders of the four Folbigg children by their mother Kathleen; the sudden explosion of murderous rage within Sef Gonzales that resulted in the destruction of those closest to him; and more.  Illustrated with black and white and colour photographs.
  • Joseph Mengele, the camp doctor at Auschwitz, was personally responsible for the murder of nearly 400,000 people and for the torture of thousands more as part of his 'scientific' experiments. Yet he evaded capture for 40 years and it is only after the discovery of his body in a Brazilian cemetery, that his full story could be told. This investigative biography traces Mengele's roots and examines the forces that made him into a mass murderer and torturer; follows Mengele the fugitive after his flight from Auschwitz and looks at the conspiracy  in Germany and Latin America that saved Mengele from justice. This is not only an exposé of Mengele as the very embodiment of evil and the system that spawned him; it is also an explanation of the many 'ordinary' people who shielded and sustained the monster to the grave and beyond. Illustrated with black and white photos.
  • On a bleak, moonless winter night in 1995 beautiful Sydney model Caroline Byrne died, her body embedded head-first into a crevice at the bottom of The Gap at the entrance to Sydney Harbor. How did she get out so far, almost 12 meters from the base of the sheer sandstone precipice? Did she jump, as so many had done before at the notorious suicide spot, or had she been thrown in a fit of rage? What began as a sad ritual of retrieving the shattered bodies of shattered lives turned into one of the nation's most extraordinary murder investigations, leading to the dark heart of a city gripped by greed, pandering to its powerful and exposing a police force whose lack of imagination and resources was surpassed only by the doggedness of its finest officers to right an unforgivable wrong. this is a journey to justice: the astonishing inside story of Caroline's father Tony Byrne's determination to find the truth of his daughter's death and in doing so, test the justice system to its limits.
  • Discover surprising answers in this true-crime treasury of 100 of the most fascinating cases of all time. More than two centuries in the development of modern forensic procedures come to vivid life as everything from handwriting analyses and voiceprints to ballistics, DNA testing and psychological profiles reveal who did it - and, in some startling cases, who didn't do it. Categories: Ballistics; Cause Of Death; Disputed Documents; DNA Typing; Explosives And Fire; Fingerprinting; Forensic Anthropology; Odontology; Psychological Profiling; Identification Of Remains; Serology; Time Of Death; Trace Evidence; Voice Printing. The cases detailed herein range from the 189os to the 1990s. Illustrated with black and white photographs.
  • In 1996 Robin Bowles, a Melbourne company director, read a newspaper report about a task force that had been set up to re-investigate the circumstances surrounding the alleged suicide of Victorian country housewife Jennifer Tanner.The reason for the renewed interest was the the discovery of human remains in a mineshaft near the property where Jenny had died. Deeply puzzled  by the mass of anomalies in the case, Robin went searching for answers.  How, for instance, could Jenny have shot herself twice in the brain- after shooting both her hands first? Since there was no note nor proof of intention, could the findings from the original post-mortem have been influenced by other parties? And was Jenny's death connected to the body in the mine? What unfolds is a bizarre tangle of police bungles, cover-ups and family intrigue.
  • On December 10, 2003 an intruder waits inside the home of Kent and Tricia Whitaker. They and their two sons, Bart and Kevin, are returning from a dinner celebrating Bart's college graduation. Four shots ring out: Tricia and Kevin are killed instantly, Kent is wounded and Bart. struggling with the gunman, is also wounded. Three days later, as investigators explore leads in the search for justice for the victims, they find Bart had been leading a double life and he becomes the chief suspect. Kent believes the police are allowing the real killer to escape while they focus on Bart but when Bart disappears in the mountains of Mexico seven months later, Kent must face the possibility his son was involved in the murder. Fifteen months later, Bart is arrested and charged with masterminding the shootings; in March 2007, he is convicted and sentenced to death. How can a father survive the anguish of his son's actions and forgive such betrayal?
  • On April 4th, 1968, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. stepped out onto the balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee, and into his killer's line of fire. One shot ended Dr. King's life and forever changed the course of American history - setting into motion a massive cover-up that has withstood a quarter-century of scrutiny. Now, after 18 years of intensive investigation, William F. Pepper tears away the veil of subterfuge that has hidden the truth of King's death - proving the innocence of convicted assassin James Earl Rayand revealing the cabal of government leaders and organised crime figures that masterminded the assassination of one of the most influential leaders of our age. The author was an associate of Dr. King and executive director of the independent political coalition that hoped to put King forward as a third party presidential candidate in 1968. After  the murder, Pepper walked away from politics. But in 1977. Reverend Ralph Abernathy asked Pepper to interview James Earl Ray. Initially sceptical, Pepper became convinced that Ray was innocent of the crime and that Ray had always claimed, he had been manipulated by a man named Raul and was the victim of a set-up. But who was behind the set-up - and why?
  • October, 2011: At first it looked like a swag, said the grader driver who found the body just off the road outside the outback town of Katherine. Police identify the dead man as Ray Nicefero,  who'd recently appeared in court for aggravated assault and breaching a domestic violence order. Three days later, three young local suspects were arrested: Christopher Malyschko; Darren 'Spider' Halfpenny; and 19-year-old indigenous Zak Grieve.  A month later, Bronwyn Buttery, Ray's former partner and Christopher's mother, is arrested. But when the accused face court in the rough justice system of the Northern Territory, it soon becomes apparent there are few certain, provable facts to be had. Depending on who was talking, a loving friend could be an abusive monster; a battered wife a conniving temptress. And a joke between mates about the best way to dispose of a body becomes a conspiracy to murder. The outcome of the case is no less murky, thanks to the NT's mandatory sentencing laws, which, the judge said, 'brings about injustice'. This is the story of murder in an outback town and the extraordinary  aftermath; and it raises important questions such as how an indigenous man  who was not present at a murder can be sentenced to jail for twenty years.
  • A chance encounter in a fish-’n’-chip shop set Brendan James Murray on the trail of a mystery. Had a gay man been secretly murdered on H.M.A.S Australia during the Second World War? The veteran he spoke to was certain. ‘I knew about it,’ he said. ‘We all did.’ But was the story true? If so, who was the dead man? And why was it so hard to find out? This book is the search for the answer, almost stone-walled by cover-up and silence. In the end, it brings us to the lies that have shrouded our understanding of war, and especially of war at sea. As one of the survivors poignantly says, ‘I want to pass it on to the next generation. What it was like. What it was really like.’