True Crime Mental Illness

My name is Cindy and my deepest desire, since I was a child, was to do something fulfilling with my life. This desire came from all the devastation I witnessed. Then, I came across a Zen proverb, “May we exist like the lotus at ease in muddy water.” My childhood was like slopping through mud but where was my lotus? The more I remembered of my youth the more horrified I became. I was waking up from a terrifying nightmare. I knew I needed help but what or who could help me? In my fervor, I recognized that I was being as hard on myself as those who had harmed me. How could I exist at ease ...

In the tradition of The Glass Castle, Educated, and Heartland, Neal Wooten traces five decades of his dirt-poor, Alabama mountain family as the years and secrets coalesce.

From the author of the #1 Amazon Bestseller, Letters from the Looney Bin Molly Cross believes she’s a princess in The Land of Pretty—a place where dolls speak, unicorns laugh, and bad people can’t reach her. But when her dark alter ego, Pen, takes control, even her therapist isn’t safe. When Molly’s life ends in tragedy, Dr. Lindy Wellbrook is left replaying every recorded session—searching for the truth that slipped through her fingers. What she uncovers in those tapes is darker than anything she ever imagined. The Little Girl: The Case of Molly Cross, is a chilling descent ...

Since the 1950s, psychiatry has controlled both the definitions, theories, diagnoses, and suggested remedies for mental illness. Many intelligent, well-educated, and well-meaning people have blindly accepted the secular construct of mental illness without investigating the underlying theories or answering foundational questions necessary to form a construct of mental illness. Some have chosen to refrain from conversations out of ignorance or fear of hurting and distancing themselves from friends or family who are labeled as mentally ill. Still others have taken dogmatic positions often ...

This New York Times bestselling memoir examines an NFL player's rise and fall from the Patriots to prison, recounting the first-degree murder conviction that led to his untimely death—and shocking posthumous CTE diagnosis. Aaron Hernandez was a college All-American who became the youngest...

On May 31, 2014, in the Milwaukee suburb of Waukesha, Wisconsin, two 12-year-old girls attempted to stab their classmate to death. Morgan Geyser and Anissa Weier’s violence was extreme, but what seemed even more frightening was that they committed their crime under the influence of a figure born by the internet: the so-called “Slenderman”. Yet the even more urgent aspect of the story, that the children involved suffered from undiagnosed mental illnesses, often went overlooked in coverage of the case.

THE INSPIRATION FOR THE NETFLIX DOCUMENTARY GIRL IN THE PICTURE Sharon Marshall was a brilliant and beautiful student whose future was filled with promise—until her murderous, fugitive father drew her into a lifetime of deception that became one of the most baffling cases in the annals of...

From 1977 to 1981, Ruth Finley, an ordinary wife and mother from Kansas, was tormented by an elusive maniac known as The Poet. The police, already on edge from BTK’s reign of terror, spent years searching for the stalker. Meanwhile, his cryptic letters in rhymed verse grew more disturbing and violent, spilling into deeds like stabbing and kidnapping.

While her husband Rusty, a NASA engineer, was at work, Andrea Yates filled the family bathtub with water and systematically drowned their children, ages six months to seven years.

Grief, mental illness, and the bonds of family are movingly explored in this extraordinary memoir “suffused with emotional depth and intellectual inquiry” (Rachel Louise Snyder, author of No Visible Bruises) as a writer delves into the tragedy of his mother’s violent death at the hands of...

At the heart of countless crimes lie the mysteries of the human mind. In this eye-opening book, Dr. Cheryl Paradis draws back the curtain on the fascinating world of forensic psychology, and revisits the most notorious and puzzling cases she has handled in her multifaceted career. Her riveting, sometimes shocking stories reveal the crucial and often surprising role forensic psychology plays in the pursuit of justice - in which the accused may truly believe their own bizarre lies, creating a world that pushes them into committing horrific, violent crimes.

“Binged Making a Murderer? Try . . . [this] riveting portrait of a tragic, preventable crime.” —Entertainment Weekly Finalist for the Edgar Award for Best Fact Crime Finalist for the Dayton Literary Peace Prize A Pulitzer Prize–winning reporter’s gripping account of one young man’s...

From the bestselling author of If You Knew Her comes this harrowing tale of suspense—a story ripped from today’s headlines—of a tight-knit English community, who’s rocked by the murder of a mother and the mysterious disappearance of her daughter, and the secrets that lie concealed...

Discover the fascinating intersections of history, medicine, and the human experience in "Illness and Infamy." This captivating book delves into the lives of historical figures and notorious criminals, examining how their medical conditions influenced their actions and shaped the course of history. From the impact of pandemics on world events to the personal struggles of leaders and the chilling stories of killers, each chapter reveals the complex relationships between health, power, and infamy. Explore the captivating stories of Franklin D. Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, Adolf Hitler, and ...

Marjorie Diehl-Armstrong, as one judge described her, as "a coldly calculated criminal recidivist and serial killer." She had experienced a lifetime of murder, mayhem, and mental illness. She killed two boyfriends, including one whose body was stuffed in a freezer. And she was convicted in one of the Federal Bureau of Investigation's strangest cases: the Pizza Bomber case, in which a pizza deliveryman died when a bomb locked to his neck exploded after he robbed a bank in 2003 near Erie, Pennsylvania, Diehl-Armstrong's hometown.