A former United Church minister massacres his family. What led to this act of femicide, and why were his victims forgotten?On May 2, 1963, Robert Killins, a former United Church minister, slaughtered every woman in his family but one. She (and her brother) lived to tell the story of what motivated a talented man who had been widely admired, a scholar and graduate from Queen’s University, to stalk and terrorize the women in his family for almost twenty years and then murder them.Through extensive oral histories, Cook and Carson painstakingly trace the causes of a femicide in which four women and two unborn babies were murdered over the course of one bloody evening. While they situate this murderous rampage in the literature on domestic abuse and mass murders, they also explore how the two traumatized child survivors found their way back to health and happiness. Told through vivid first-person accounts, this family memoir explores how a murderer was created. THE CASTLETON MASSACRE: Survivors' Stories of the Killins Femicide-Sharon Anne Cook and Margaret Carson
It was a brisk April morning in 1990 when a woman walking her dog stopped cold in her tracks. She reeled back from something strange and disturbing blocking the drainage tile: a human skull. Forensic examination showed that it was the remains of Joan Webster, the 25-year-old Harvard graduate student whose disappearance had rattled the community and stumped investigators for the past eight and a half years. The prosecutors had a suspect, Leonard Paradiso, who was tried and convicted for the murder of another local woman. The only similarity between the entangled crimes was that both victims had long dark hair. Assistant District Attorney Tim Burke was obsessed with proving Paradiso guilty of both murders. However, between the lack of evidence and ever-changing stories, the circumstances of Joan Webster’s death remains a mystery to this day.Hope is not lost as Joan’s sister-in-law, Eve Carson, continues to fight for justice. Simple, Safe & Secret divulges the diabolical details and dysfunctional system that has denied and obstructed justice in solving Joan Webster’s murder case. The messy truth of the botched investigation and a wrongful conviction may be darker than the story of Joan’s murder itself. SIMPLE, SAFE & SECRET: The 1981 Murder of Joan L. Webster-Eve Carson
Before Charles Manson, there was Tony Costa—the serial killer of Cape Cod1969: The hippie scene is vibrant in Provincetown, Massachusetts. Long-haired teenagers roam the streets, strumming guitars and preaching about peace and love... and Tony Costa is at the center of it all. To a certain group of smitten young women, he is known as Sire—the leader of their counter-culture movement, the charming man who speaks eloquently and hands out hallucinogenic drugs like candy. But beneath his benign persona lies a twisted and uncontrollable rage that threatens to break loose at any moment. Tony Costa is the most dangerous man on Cape Cod, and no one who crosses his path is safe.When young women begin to disappear, Costa's natural charisma and good looks initially protect him from suspicion. But as the bodies are discovered, the police close in on him as the key suspect. Meanwhile, local writers Kurt Vonnegut and Norman Mailer are locked in a desperate race to secure their legacies as great literary icons—and they both set their sights on Tony Costa and the drug-soaked hippie culture that he embodies as their next promising subject, launching independent investigations that stoke the competitive fires between two of the greatest American writers.Immersive, unflinching, and shocking, Helltown is a landmark true crime narrative that transports us back to the turbulent late 1960s, reveals the secrets of a notorious serial killer, and unspools the threads connecting Costa, Vonnegut, and Mailer in the seaside city that played host to horrors unlike any ever seen before. HELLTOWN: The Untold Story of a Serial Killer on Cape Cod-Casey Sherman
In 1944 Brooklyn, newborn Michael J. Hardy is rejected by his mother so she can run with gangster Bugsy Siegel, Hardy's godfather. Shirley Rook quickly rose to the top of the criminal ranks. As the Queen of New York City crime, she laundered Mob money, ran the city's largest bookmaking operation, and handed payouts to dirty cops, politicians, and judges.To win his mother's love and respect, Hardy became a fearless gangster. Throughout his career as a criminal, he robbed banks and drug dealers alike, ran a finger of an international stolen car ring, kidnapped drug lords, and even became a hired gun. At his lowest, he ended up doing time for his mother's counterfeiting operation in Mexico's most dangerous prison.Hardy's criminal code of conduct combines elements of tough Ukrainian Jew and warm Southern Baptist, whether dealing with family and friends or fellow inmates during a combined twenty-six years spent in prisons and jails. He maintained this characteristic gregarious strength t...
For Tony Reid, this case began as a claim of innocence in the murder of Donna Jo Richmond in 1975. While the errors in the original investigation and a flawed trial resulted in a guilty verdict, the reassessment confirmed that the defendant was framed but the question became: by whom? Working with a new team of investigators, which included two of the original detectives, the probe uncovered a startling new possibility: Was the real culprit a serial offender?Turning to the public for information, Mr. Reid created the 12/26/75 podcast. Based on primary evidence and new interviews surrounding the murder of Donna Jo on that date in Exeter, California, the team re-examined every possibility. The investigators soon found something more than a terribly failed verdict. They discovered connections to the unsolved murders of Jennifer Armour and Claude Snelling—and links to The East Area Rapist. They uncovered shocking corruption by the original lead investigator who illegally destroyed trial evidence and looked into the unexplained death of the original defense attorney. This pursuit led them right back to Exeter, where a new suspect in these murders emerged: Joseph DeAngelo, who was then a full-time sergeant with the local police department, the officer in charge of violent crimes and burglary investigations.This book is more than an adaptation of the 12/26/75 podcast. It shares new insight formed during the investigation and provides a first-hand look at the Tulare crimes, as well as exposing the faulty evidence used to obtain and maintain the false conviction. More than anything else, 12/26/75 demonstrates the enormous consequences of letting a serial killer go free, made worse when combined with the painful mistakes, in-fighting, and finger-pointing by certain jurisdictions. The catastrophic results are undeniable. Now that the mystery of how it all unfolded is revealed, we can also begin to examine the reforms necessary to prevent this tragedy from happening again. 12/26/75-Tony Reid
Under a Cold Moon is the extraordinary true story of a man that devastated two worlds. A killer that used the chump card as his cover for two brutal murders. His first victim lay under the rocks for fifteen nights. His second lay under the dirt for sixty-one. Two women. Two murders. One spurned slayer.In this cold tale, the author exposes the dark secrets of a man that stalked older women. Latham weaves this story from an insider’s window. A writer that was in the thick of things and interviewed the man behind these two cataclysmic homicides. UNDER A COLD MOON: A Chronicle of an Unrequited Killer-Tony H. Latham
WHEN THE MOON TURNS TO BLOOD examines the culture of end times paranoia and a trail of mysterious deaths surrounding former beauty queen Lori Vallow and her husband, grave digger turned doomsday novelist, Chad Daybell.When police in Rexburg, Idaho perform a wellness check on seven J.J. Vallow and his sister, sixteen-year-old Tylee Ryan, both children are nowhere to be found. Their mother, Lori Vallow, gives a phony explanation, and when officers return the following day with a search warrant, she, too, is gone. As the police begin to close in, a larger web of mystery, murder, fanaticism and deceit begins to unravel.Vallow’s case is sinuously complex. As investigators prod further, they find the accused Black Widow has an unusual number of bodies piling up around her. WHEN THE MOON TURNS TO BLOOD tells a gripping story of extreme beliefs, snake oil prophets, and explores the question: if it feels like the world is ending, how are people supposed to act? WHEN THE MOON TURNS TO BLOOD: Lori Vallow, Chad Daybell, and a story of Murder, Wild faith, and End Times-Leah Sottile
On May 4, 2001, Bonny Lee Bakley was found fatally shot in a car on a dark North Hollywood street. The prime suspect was her husband, famed actor Robert Blake. But Bonny, a longtime con artist, had plenty of enemies. She left behind a trail of men she’d scammed, and she had a volatile relationship with Christian Brando, the troubled son of movie star Marlon Brando. Not since the O.J. Simpson case had the eyes of the nation been so fixated on a homicide. The search for Bonny’s killer took detectives on an eleven-month odyssey across the country and through Hollywood's underbelly of hustlers, drug addicts, and would-be hitmen. It would be the most expensive murder investigation in LAPD history to date. This is the story of Robert and Bonny’s toxic relationship, her shocking murder, and his chaotic trial. Did actor Robert Blake kill his wife? Or was the murder someone else's vendetta?From Wondery, and the team behind the hit series Hollywood & Crime (The Dating Game Killer, The Wond...
Due to Sullivan’s extensive writing about Ted Bundy (which has produced six books), he’s become a sort of magnet over the years, drawing out many people who were part of the Bundy story, but have otherwise kept a low profile over the decades; and these first-person contacts continue to this day. As such, this is the first book in a new series of books, whose aim is to bring new revelations to the public about Bundy, the victims, the murders, and the almost murders that failed Bundy for one reason or another.This first offering, Ted Bundy: The Yearly Journal Volume One, contains a great deal of never before published information from a number of women who barely escaped his grasp. It also reveals Bundy’s geographic hunting pattern after his arrival in Salt Lake City, Utah in September 1974; a surprising discovery the author never expected to make, but did, and it all came about through the valid testimonies of the women who encountered him during this period.The book also delves into what the author believes is perhaps an accurate, albeit it conservative estimate, of how many women or young girls Bundy approached but failed to abduct during his years of murder. Each new volume will focus on particular aspects of the case where further investigation is warranted. There are still “unknowns” out there, and as the author has experienced, where unknowns exist, the possibility of discovery awaits. TED BUNDY: The Yearly Journal-Kevin M. Sullivan
Summertime in Florida. Tourists flock to the subtropical paradise for its beautiful beaches, abundant sunshine, and the magical allure of Disney World. For one Midwestern mother and her two teenaged daughters, a trip to the Sunshine State seemed like a dream vacation. But the promise of a sunset cruise by a friendly stranger turned that dream into a deadly nightmare. This is the true story of that tragic encounter and the hunt for the Sunset Killer, a modern American Monster. AMERICAN MONSTER: The Search for the Sunset Killer-J.T. Hunter