M. William Phelps

A true-crime collection culled from the crime files of the New York Times best-selling series, Notorious USA....

In the weeks that followed Mary's death, the grief-stricken family received startling news from the medical examiner: Mary had been deliberately poisoned with colchicine....

In the summer of 2003, the Houston suburb of Clear Lake, Texas, was devastated when four young residents were viciously slain. But when a killer came knocking....

Attractive, manipulative, and violent, mother of four Kim Cargill had a wealth of dirty secrets she'd do anything to keep hidden....

Sandee Rozzo's big mistake was being kind to Timothy "Tracey" Humphrey. After Rozzo refused the 'roided-up ex-con's advances, she described how he imprisoned, raped, and brutalized her for two days. When the courageous woman pledged to testify against him, Humphrey knew he had to silence her....

Debra Newell is nothing if not a survivor. By the time she met John Michael Meehan online, she lived through a near-fatal childhood illness, an attempted rape in her 20s, four failed marriages, and a litany of dating disasters....

In September 2011, M. William Phelps made a bold decision that would change the landscape of reality-based television - and his own life....

Iowa housewife Tracey Pittman Roberts seemed to have it all, but beneath the happy facade was a woman who used lies, manipulation, sex, blackmail, and even murder to serve her own selfish ends....

In September 2001, Carmen Rodriguez, a beautiful 32-year-old Hartford mother of four, went missing....

The crime stunned quiet Mineral Wells, Texas: 49-year-old Bob Dow shot execution-style in his own bed, his invalid mother locked in the next room....

A loving father and his new wife set out to pick up his kids for a scheduled weekend visit-but never suspected they were walking into a death trap....

In May 2003 an Arizona man who'd bought dozens of sealed boxes at an auction of unclaimed property made a horrifying discovery: the bodies of three plastic-wrapped infants....

Amy Archer-Gilligan operated the Archer Home for Elderly People and Chronic Invalids in Windsor, Connecticut....

When she was 15, Jennifer Mee developed an unrelenting case of the hiccups - hiccupping as many as 50 times a minute for months....

A real-estate lawyer in Connecticut's moneyed seaside communities, Beth Ann Carpenter, 30, had beauty, brains, and success. But she wanted more....

In October 2014, after Chris Regan failed to arrive at his new job, his ex-girlfriend filed a missing-person report. Something was off. It was not like Chris, a devoted father, avid hiker, and all-around great guy, not to show up....

In December 1989, in upstate New York, Gary C. Evans, 35, a master of disguise and career criminal, began weaving a web of deadly lies....

When Vonlee "Nicole" Titlow and her aunt, Billie Jean Rogers, came home from a night of gambling in a casino near Detroit, they told police they found Billie's husband unconscious on the floor....

Jeanne Dominico's fiancé found her body on her kitchen floor. More than 40 stab wounds and blows to her head with a blunt instrument had cut her life short....

When her missing boyfriend is found murdered, his body encased in cement inside a watering trough and dumped in a cattle field, a local sheriff's deputy is arrested and charged with his murder....