Showing results by publisher "Blackstone Publishing" in True Crime

The true crime cult classic that inspired an upcoming Netflix documentary series and companion podcast, The Ultimate Evil follows journalist Maury Terry’s terrifying investigation into the true evil behind the Son of Sam murders.

Growing up in South Boston, Sean Scott Hicks was running jobs for the Irish mob before his voice changed. Mistreated by his drug-addled mother, Hicks found sanctuary with his adoptive family of felonious uncles—known to law enforcement officials as the Winter Hill Gang. These crooks knew where all the bodies were buried—because they’d done the burying—but they also looked out for young Sean. Even the notorious gangster known worldwide as Whitey Bulger was simply “Uncle Jim” to him.

In 1974, Dennis Lynn Rader stalked and murdered a family of four in Wichita, Kansas. Since adolescence, he had read about serial killers and imagined becoming one. Soon after killing the family, he murdered a young woman and then another, until he had 10 victims. He named himself “B.T.K.” (bind, torture, kill) and wrote notes that terrorized the city. He remained on the loose for 30 years.

Ana Montes had spent seventeen years spying for the Cubans. She had been raised in a patriotic Puerto Rican household: Her father, a psychiatrist, was a former colonel in the US Army. Her sister worked as a translator for the FBI and helped break up a ring of Cuban spies in Miami. Her brother was also a loyal FBI agent. Montes impressed her bosses but in secret spent her breaks memorizing top-secret documents before sending them to the Cuban government. Retired FBI agent Peter J. Lapp explains the clues that led their team to catch one of the United States’ most dangerous spies.

Widely heralded on publication as a “must-read” (Military Review) and “important window on America’s battle with al-Qaeda” (Washington Post), Ali Soufan’s revelatory account of the war on terror as seen from its front lines changed the way we understand al-Qaeda and how the United States prosecuted the war — and led to hard questions being asked of our leaders.

Emily Craig has been a witness to history, helping to seek justice for thousands of murder victims, both famous and unknown. It’s a personal story that you won’t soon forget. Emily first became intrigued by forensics work when, as a respected medical illustrator, she was called in by the local police to create a model of a murder victim’s face. Her fascination with that case led to a dramatic midlife career change: She would go back to school to become a forensic anthropologist - and one of the most respected and best-known “bone hunters” in the nation.

Ronnie Earle was a Texas legend. During his three decades as the district attorney responsible for Austin and surrounding Travis County, he prosecuted corrupt corporate executives and state officials, including the notorious US congressman Tom DeLay. But Earle maintained that the biggest case of his career was the one involving Frank Hughey Smith, the ex-convict millionaire, alleged criminal mastermind, and Dixie Mafia figure. With the help of corrupt local authorities, Smith spent the 1970s building a criminal empire in auto salvage and bail bonds.

An estimated 800,000 children are reported missing each year in the United States. Only one in 10,000 are found dead. Yet unsolved child murders are almost a daily occurrence - of nearly 52,000 juvenile homicides between 1980 and 2008, more than 20 percent remain open. Drawing on FBI reports, police and court records, and interviews with victims’ families, this book provides details and evidence for 18 unsolved cases from 1956 to 1998.

Sidekick to SS Chief Heinrich Himmler and supervisor of Nazi rocket scientist Wernher von Braun, General Hans Kammler was responsible for the construction of Hitler's slave labor sites and concentration camps. He personally altered the design of Auschwitz to increase crowding, ensuring that epidemic diseases would complement the work of the gas chambers. Why has the world forgotten this monster? Kammler was declared dead after the war. But the aide who testified to Kammler's supposed "suicide" never produced the general's dog tags or any other proof of death.

Over 13 months in 1976­-1977, four children were abducted in the Detroit suburbs, each of them held for days before their still-warm bodies were dumped in the snow near public roadsides. The Oakland County Child Murders spawned panic across southeast Michigan, triggering the most extensive manhunt in US history. Yet after less than two years, the task force created to find the killer was shut down without naming a suspect.

Rob Sand, the youngest attorney in his office, was assigned a new case by his boss, who was days away from retirement. Inside the thin accordion binder that Sand received was meager evidence that had been gathered over the course of two years by Iowa authorities regarding a suspicious lottery ticket. No one expected the case to go anywhere. No dead body, no shots fired, and no money paid out. Why should they care?

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.

In only 90 seconds, a fire in The Station nightclub in Rhode Island left 100 people dead or dying and injured hundreds more. It would take years to find out why - and who was really at fault. Best-selling author and three-time Emmy Award-winning journalist Scott James investigates all the central figures, including the band’s manager and lead singer, the fire inspector, the maker of the acoustical foam, as well as the brothers.

The most common triggers for homicide are fear, rage, revenge, money, lust, and, more rarely, sheer madness. This isn’t an exact science, of course. Any given murder can have multiple triggers. Sex and revenge seem to be common partners in crime. This book offers my memories of homicide cases that I investigated or oversaw. In each case, I examine the trigger that led to death. I chose this theme for the book because even though the why of a murder case may not be critical in an investigation, it can sometimes lead us to the killer.

It is a moment that remains frozen in history. When the Mercedes carrying Diana, Princess of Wales, spun fatally out of control in the Pont de l’Alma tunnel in Paris in August 1997, the world was shocked by what appeared to be a terrible accident. But two decades later, the circumstances surrounding what really happened that night - and, crucially, why it happened - remain mired in suspicion, controversy, and misinformation. Until now.

A powerful collection of stories about women who murdered - for revenge, for love, and even for pleasure - rife with historical details that will have any true-crime junkie on the edge of their seat, She Kills Me tells the story of 40 women who murdered out of necessity, fear, revenge, and even for pleasure.

It was heaven on earth—and, some whispered, the devil’s garden. Thousands came by trains and carriages to see this new Eden, carved from hundreds of acres of wild woodland. They marveled at orchards bursting with fruit, thick herds of Ayrshire cattle and Cotswold sheep, and whizzing mills. They gaped at the people who lived in this place—especially the women, with their queer cropped hair and shamelessly short skirts. The men and women of this strange outpost worked and slept together—without sin, they claimed.

Step into Chicago during the 1960s and ’70s, when mobsters influence everyone from strip-club owners to Teamsters, aldermen, judges, and local police. It is a world where good men are corrupted by the irresistible lure of money and power and families are shattered by lies, violence, and tragedy.

When Deb Moerke and her husband decided to become foster parents, they never imagined how their lives would change. And never did they imagine their worst nightmare coming true: Their five-year-old foster daughter, Hannah, murdered at the hands of her birth mom, Karen. The Moerkes were overwhelmed with horror and grief. And just when they didn’t think they could bear any more, Deb received a phone call from Karen in prison. Facing a life sentence for Hannah’s murder, she was pregnant. And Karen had an incredible request: Would Deb take her unborn baby and love it as her own?

Chas Smith grew up deeply enmeshed in the evangelical Christian world that grew out of Southern California in the late 1960s. His family included famous missionaries and megachurch pastors, but his cousin Daniel Courson was Grandma’s favorite. Smith looked up to Cousin Danny. He was handsome, adventurous, and smart, earned a degree from Bible college, and settled into a family and a stable career. Needless to say, it was a big surprise when Cousin Danny started robbing banks.