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The Insanity Defense and the Mad Murderess of Shaker Heights
- Examining the Trial of Mariann Colby
- Narrated by: John Sipple
- Length: 4 hrs and 30 mins
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Publisher's summary
They have no witnesses. They have no case.
With this blunt observation, Mariann Colby, an attractive, church-going mother and housewife in Shaker Heights, Ohio, bet a defense psychiatrist that she would not be convicted of murder. A lack of witnesses was not the only problem that would confront the State of Ohio in 1966, which would seek to prosecute her for shooting to death Cremer Young Jr., her son’s nine-year-old playmate. Colby had also deftly cleaned up after herself by hiding the child’s body miles from her home and concealing the weapon.
Thus, this "highly intelligent" woman, as she would be described at her trial, had hedged a little on her wager. Not only were there no witnesses to the crime but also not a shred of physical evidence to pin the slaying on her. But Mariann Colby upped the ante a bit. Under intense questioning, she broke down, claiming the gun had accidentally discharged. The state thought it had its capital murder case, but Mariann Colby’s bet against it would be right on the money.
As her trial unfolds in this audiobook, the imprecision of her insanity defense confounds the judges, and psychiatrists disagree about her diagnosis. To make matters worse, the panel of judges that initially tried Colby was so confused by what they’d heard that they did not reach a decision consistent with the law of the state. This led to a second trial and more conflicting psychiatric opinions, another controversial judgment, and clashing trial outcomes.
This book is an Independent Publisher Book Award winner.
"A very compelling read." (James Jessen Badal, author of In the Wake of the Butcher)
"A meticulous and well-written account of one of Ohio's most infamous murders, second perhaps in notoriety only to the Sam Sheppard Case." (Kirkus Reviews)
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The Wrong Man
- The Final Verdict on the Dr. Sam Sheppard Murder Case
- By: James Neff
- Narrated by: Charles Constant
- Length: 15 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 41
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 39
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 39
At 5:40 a.m. on July 4, 1954, the mayor of Bay Village, a small suburb of Cleveland, Ohio, received a frantic phone call from his neighbor Dr. Sam Sheppard. The news was too terrible to comprehend: Marilyn, Sam's lovely wife, was dead, her face and torso beaten beyond recognition by an unknown assailant who had knocked Sam unconscious and escaped just before dawn. In the adjacent bedroom, Chip, the Sheppards' seven-year-old son, had slept through the entire ordeal. Almost immediately, the police began to suspect Sam Sheppard.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Outstanding! But troubling
- By Tyree on 09-26-22
By: James Neff
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The Best New True Crime Stories: Small Towns
- By: Mitzi Szereto - editor
- Narrated by: Holly Palance, Phil Thron
- Length: 8 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 54
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 49
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Story4 out of 5 stars 48
Whether in Truman Capote’s detailed murder of the Clutter family or Ted Bundy’s small-town charm, criminals have always roamed rural America and towns worldwide. Featuring murder stories, criminal case studies, and more, The Best New True Crime Stories: Small Towns contains all-new accounts from writers of true crime, crime journalism, and crime fiction. And these entries are not based on a true story - they are true stories. Edited by acclaimed author and anthologist Mitzi Szereto, the stories in this volume span the globe.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Crime in other countries is not my cup of tea.
- By Brenda on 01-03-21
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A Death in White Bear Lake
- The True Chronicle of an All-American Town
- By: Barry Siegel
- Narrated by: Charles Constant
- Length: 16 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 114
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 93
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 94
In 1962, Jerry Sherwood gave up her newborn son, Dennis, for adoption. Twenty years later, she set out to find him - only to discover he had died before his fourth birthday. Harold and Lois Jurgens, a middle-class, churchgoing couple in picturesque White Bear Lake, Minnesota, had adopted Dennis and five other foster children. To all appearances, they were a normal Midwestern family, but Jerry suspected that something sinister had happened in the Jurgens household. She demanded to know the truth about her son's death.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Really, really good book.
- By Danette on 12-23-20
By: Barry Siegel
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Our Little Secret
- The True Story of a Teenage Killer and the Silence of a Small New England Town
- By: Kevin Flynn, Rebecca Lavoie
- Narrated by: Aven Shore
- Length: 9 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 241
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 203
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 203
For 20 years Daniel Paquette's murder in New Hampshire went unsolved. It remained a secret between two high school friends until Eric Windhurst's arrest in 2005. What was revealed was a crime born of adolescent passion between Eric and Daniel's stepdaughter, Melanie - redefining the meaning of loyalty, justice, and revenge.
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5 out of 5 stars
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A
- By Diana Hart 33 on 04-28-21
By: Kevin Flynn, and others
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Legally Dead
- A Father and Son Bound by Murder
- By: Kevin Flynn, Rebecca Lavoie
- Narrated by: Aven Shore
- Length: 8 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 55
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 49
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 49
Attorney Seth Bader and his wife, Vicki, moved to New Hampshire in 1992. Three tumultuous years later, their marriage ended and left Vicki a broken woman, driven to the edge as Seth seduced their teenage son, Joey, into a violent plot to kill her in cold blood. What followed was one of the most bizarre and harrowing crime stories in New Hampshire history.
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2 out of 5 stars
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Everyone is good at something…
- By Vickijeanne on 06-06-21
By: Kevin Flynn, and others
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A Cold-Blooded Business
- Adultery, Murder, and a Killer's Path from the Bible Belt to the Boardroom
- By: Marek Fuchs
- Narrated by: Kevin T. Collins
- Length: 6 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 364
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 331
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Story4 out of 5 stars 325
In 1959, Olathe, Kansas was made famous by the murder of the Clutter family and Truman Capote's ground-breaking book on the crime, In Cold Blood. But fewer know that Olathe achieved notoriety again in 1982, when a member of Olathe's growing Evangelical Christian population, a gentle man named David Harmon, was bludgeoned to death while sleeping - the force of the blows crushing his face beyond recognition.
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5 out of 5 stars
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GOOD TRUE CRIME STORY
- By The Louligan on 08-17-14
By: Marek Fuchs
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Let the Lord Sort Them
- The Rise and Fall of the Death Penalty
- By: Maurice Chammah
- Narrated by: Kevin R. Free
- Length: 11 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 55
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 47
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 48
In 1972, the United States Supreme Court made a surprising ruling: The country’s death penalty system violated the Constitution. The backlash was swift, especially in Texas, where executions were considered part of the cultural fabric, and a dark history of lynching was masked by gauzy visions of a tough-on-crime frontier. When executions resumed, Texas quickly became the nationwide leader in carrying out the punishment.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Very Slanted
- By appreciative reader on 02-07-21
By: Maurice Chammah
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A Death in Belmont
- By: Sebastian Junger
- Narrated by: Kevin Conway
- Length: 8 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 456
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 218
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 214
In 1963, with the city of Boston already terrified by a series of savage crimes known as the Boston Stranglings, a murder occurred in Belmont, just a few blocks from the house of Sebastian Junger's family, a murder that seemed to fit exactly the pattern of the Strangler. Roy Smith, a black man who had cleaned the victim's house that day, was convicted, but the terror of the Strangler continued.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Excellent
- By Susanna on 01-13-15
By: Sebastian Junger
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Anatomy of Injustice
- A Murder Case Gone Wrong
- By: Raymond Bonner
- Narrated by: Mark Bramhall
- Length: 11 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 78
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 66
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 66
In January 1982, an elderly white widow was found brutally murdered in the small town of Greenwood, South Carolina. Police immediately arrested Edward Lee Elmore, a semiliterate, mentally retarded black man with no previous felony record. His only connection to the victim was having cleaned her gutters and windows, but barely ninety days after the victim’s body was found, he was tried, convicted, and sentenced to death. Elmore had been on death row for eleven years when a young attorney named Diana Holt first learned of his case.
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5 out of 5 stars
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A miscarriage of justice if I've ever seen it
- By Education is KEY on 10-11-17
By: Raymond Bonner
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Furious Hours
- Murder, Fraud, and the Last Trial of Harper Lee
- By: Casey Cep
- Narrated by: Hillary Huber
- Length: 11 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 1,386
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,189
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Story4 out of 5 stars 1,193
Reverend Willie Maxwell was a rural preacher accused of murdering five of his family members for insurance money in the 1970s. With the help of a savvy lawyer, he escaped justice for years until a relative shot him dead at the funeral of his last victim. Despite hundreds of witnesses, Maxwell's murderer was acquitted—thanks to the same attorney who had previously defended the reverend. Casey Cep brings this story to life, from the shocking murders to the courtroom drama to the racial politics of the Deep South.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Great book, needs a Southern narrator
- By Joseph Wu on 06-06-19
By: Casey Cep
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The Queen
- The Forgotten Life Behind an American Myth
- By: Josh Levin
- Narrated by: January LaVoy
- Length: 12 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 236
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 200
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 198
In this critically acclaimed true crime tale of "welfare queen" Linda Taylor, a Slate editor reveals a "wild, only-in-America story" of political manipulation and murder (Attica Locke, Edgar Award-winning author). Part social history, part true-crime investigation, Josh Levin's mesmerizing book, the product of six years of reporting and research, is a fascinating account of American racism, and an exposé of the "welfare queen" myth, one that fueled political debates that reverberate to this day.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Very compelling story!
- By Marilyn on 06-24-19
By: Josh Levin
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Deadly Dose
- The Untold Story of a Homicide Investigator's Crusade for Truth and Justice
- By: Amanda Lamb
- Narrated by: Chelsea Stephens
- Length: 7 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 53
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 48
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Story4 out of 5 stars 48
The death of promising young pediatric AIDS researcher Eric Miller stunned the Raleigh, North Carolina, community, largely because of the horrific way he was killed. For months, Eric was slowly tortured as arsenic consumed his body. No one thought that Eric Miller's wife, Ann - an attractive, demure, educated scientist - could be capable of such a horrible crime. No one except for veteran homicide investigator Chris Morgan, a man in the twilight of his career. But from the moment Morgan saw the 30-year-old widow in the police department interview room, he knew he was seeing pure evil.
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2 out of 5 stars
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Sleepy narration
- By bethany on 02-10-20
By: Amanda Lamb
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Illusion of Justice
- Inside Making a Murderer and America's Broken System
- By: Jerome F. Buting
- Narrated by: Sean Pratt
- Length: 10 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 193
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 181
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 181
Not since The Thin Blue Line has there been a true-crime saga as engrossing as Making a Murderer. Captivating audiences across demographic lines, it made Steven Avery a household name and thrust defense attorney Jerome F. Buting - and his fight against America's dysfunctional criminal justice system - into the spotlight. In Illusion of Justice, Buting uses the Avery case as a springboard to examine the shaky integrity of our law enforcement and legal systems, which he has witnessed firsthand for nearly four decades.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Tells it like it is . . .
- By Regan Williams on 11-26-17
By: Jerome F. Buting
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Race Against Time
- By: Jerry Mitchell
- Narrated by: Jerry Mitchell
- Length: 13 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 182
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 160
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Story5 out of 5 stars 159
In Race Against Time, Mitchell takes listeners on the twisting, pulse-racing road that led to the reopening of four of the most infamous killings from the days of the Civil Rights Movement, decades after the fact. His work played a central role in bringing killers to justice for the assassination of Medgar Evers, the firebombing of Vernon Dahmer, the 16th Street Church bombing in Birmingham, and the Mississippi Burning case. Mitchell reveals how he unearthed secret documents and found long-lost suspects and witnesses, building up evidence strong enough to take on the Klan.
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1 out of 5 stars
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Absolutely horrible reading
- By Grace O'Malley on 03-14-20
By: Jerry Mitchell
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Avery
- The Case Against Steven Avery and What Making a Murderer Gets Wrong
- By: Ken Kratz
- Narrated by: Bradley Hayes
- Length: 4 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 173
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 156
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Story4 out of 5 stars 156
The Netflix series Making a Murderer quickly became a huge hit, with over 19 million viewers in the US in the first 35 days. The series left many viewers with the opinion that Steven Avery - a man falsely imprisoned for almost 20 years on a rape charge - was railroaded into prison a second time by a corrupt police force and district attorney's office. Viewers were outraged, and hundreds of thousands demanded a pardon for Avery. The chief villain of the series: Ken Kratz, the special prosecutor who headed the investigation and prosecution.
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2 out of 5 stars
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Super Boring
- By AnnaBelle on 02-23-17
By: Ken Kratz
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The Killer's Shadow
- The FBI's Hunt for a White Supremacist Serial Killer
- By: John E. Douglas, Mark Olshaker
- Narrated by: Holt McCallany
- Length: 8 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 653
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 584
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 580
Worshippers stream out of an Midwestern synagogue after sabbath services, unaware that only a hundred yards away, an expert marksman and avowed racist, antisemite and member of the Ku Klux Klan, patiently awaits, his hunting rifle at the ready. A riveting, cautionary tale rooted in history that continues to echo today, The Killer's Shadow is a terrifying and essential exploration of the criminal personality in the vile grip of extremism and what happens when rage-filled speech evolves into deadly action and hatred of the “other" is allowed full reign.
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4 out of 5 stars
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A relevant and important read.
- By Alyson on 12-25-20
By: John E. Douglas, and others
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American Murder Houses
- A Coast-to-Coast Tour of the Most Notorious Houses of Homicide
- By: Steve Lehto
- Narrated by: Barry Press
- Length: 7 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 374
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 338
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Story4 out of 5 stars 336
From a colonial manse in New England to a small-town home in Iowa to a Beverly Hills mansion, these residences have taken on a life of their own, gaining everything from local lore and gossip to national - and even global - infamy. Here, writer Steve Lehto recounts the stories behind the houses where Lizzie Borden supposedly gave her stepmother "40 whacks", where the real Amityville Horror was first unleashed by gunfire, and where the demented acts of the Manson Family horrified a nation.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Engaging and engrossing stories.
- By Lila Fowler on 09-14-16
By: Steve Lehto
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Lust Killer
- By: Ann Rule, Andy Stack
- Narrated by: Callie Beaulieu
- Length: 7 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 801
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 709
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 706
When young women begin mysteriously disappearing in Oregon, Police Lieutenant James Stovall leads a relentless search for a killer. With little evidence available, and the public screaming for answers, he must find a remorseless, brutal killer whose identity will shock them all....
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5 out of 5 stars
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Great book on Brudos!
- By Ms.Bliss on 01-06-18
By: Ann Rule, and others