Religious True Crime

“You want to read this book. It is chilling and compelling at the same time.” – Dr. Phil McGraw. “I can think of no more important book at this moment in our history than Profiling Evil: An Investigative Memoir of the Zion Society Cult. Mike King has made a superb and vitally important contribution by exposing the abuse of women and children in that heinous cult. And this still happens far too often in the multitude of harmful groups around the world. If you want to understand coercive influence and control, then read this book.” -Janja Lalich, Ph.D., Professor “This book has it...

In one evening, Terry Caffey lost everything. His wife, Penny, and his sons, Matthew and Tyler, were brutally murdered; his home was burned to the ground, and his 16-year-old daughter, Erin, was in jail, charged with thiree counts of capital murder.

When Lizzy Hershberger turns fourteen, her schooling ends at eighth grade, and she has no choice but to leave home to work as an unpaid maid for another family. To avoid being rejected by her ultra-conservative Swartzentruber Amish family and community, Lizzy is forced to abandon her dreams because they are “too worldly.” After being raped by an Amish deacon over two dozen times, Lizzy makes her first attempt at “jumping the fence” to pursue a non-Amish lifestyle. But without any modern life experience or education, Lizzy must decide whether the risks of this unpredictable and ...

Think No Evil is the first insider account of the tragic events, the personal victories and the daily Amish life in Nickel Mines, written by a native of the Amish community who still lives and works where most of his relatives are Old Order Amish. Against the rich and fascinating backdrop of Amish culture, Beiler reveals the best of the human spirit in the midst of the worst, and leaves us all drawn heavenward, the richer for it.

Human sacrifice still goes on uncomfortably close to home - cases have been found in the U.S., Europe, and the United Kingdom. In other parts of the world, such as South America, ritual killing is almost commonplace. Human Sacrifice investigates the terrifying current spate of human sacrifices and ritual killings. Jimmy Lee Shreeve draws on police reports and interviews with the victims' families to paint a horrifying picture of ritual sacrifice at home and abroad.

A mother. A doomsday prophet. Two dead children. A trail of bodies across two states. Lori Vallow Daybell was once a beauty queen, devoted mother, and lifelong member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. By 2025, she had been convicted by multiple juries in two states for crimes connected to the deaths of her children, Tylee Ryan and Joshua “JJ” Vallow, the death of her husband Charles Vallow, the death of Tammy Daybell, and the attempted murder of Brandon Boudreaux. This carefully researched true-crime account reconstructs the case from the public record: police ...

“Impressively researched and written with storytelling verve” (The Wall Street Journal), this is the definitive account of the disastrous siege at the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas, featuring never-before-seen documents, photographs, and interviews, from former investigative...

Explore the hidden and often shocking history of cults in the United States in Cults in America: A Deep Dive into the Dark History of U.S. Cults and Their Lasting Impact. From 19th-century utopian experiments to the devastating events at Jonestown and Waco, this comprehensive guide reveals how cults have shaped American society, politics, and culture across the centuries. Discover the psychological tactics that cults use to control followers, the warning signs of recruitment, and the rise of digital-age movements like QAnon and NXIVM. This compelling and informative book balances historical...

Nearly a century and a half of murder, cover-up, and unanswered questions — told through the landscape that made them possible. Ontario and Quebec are sold to the world as cottage country: loon calls, granite shoreline, canoe silhouettes on a postcard. Blood in the Timber reconstructs fifteen of the region's most consequential true crime cases and asks a harder question — what happens when the nearest police cruiser is forty minutes away, the nearest courthouse is over the horizon, and an entire township decides, together, what the official record will say? Drawn from Ontario Provincial...

She Was Still There: The Life, Exorcism and Death of Anneliese Michel tells the haunting true story behind one of the most controversial exorcism cases of the twentieth century. Anneliese Michel was a deeply religious young woman from Bavaria whose life changed after she began suffering seizures, disturbing visions, depression, and frightening experiences that neither medicine nor faith seemed able to resolve. As her condition worsened, Anneliese and those closest to her became convinced that something more than illness was responsible. After repeated requests to the Catholic Church, ...

What makes ordinary people surrender everything to dangerous leaders? Why do intelligent followers remain loyal even when abuse, manipulation, and fear become impossible to ignore? And why do cults continue emerging in the modern world despite decades of public warnings and infamous tragedies? Dangerous Cult Leaders explores the chilling true stories behind some of history’s most manipulative and destructive movements. From apocalyptic prophets and extremist communes to modern online influence networks and psychological control systems, this gripping nonfiction book examines how ...

These gruesome stories have peppered the pages of newspapers and history books over the centuries. Some are well-known. Some aren’t. They rest in that murky place between true crime and horror. All will make your blood run cold.

EDITORIAL REVIEW A chilling and deeply emotional account of faith, medicine, and responsibility, this Documented Terror entry transforms a real historical tragedy into an unforgettable reading experience. Blending procedural realism with heartbreaking human drama, the story delivers relentless tension while honoring the documented facts behind one of the most controversial cases in modern history. Powerful, unsettling, and impossible to forget, this is prestige horror at its most human — a story that lingers long after the final page. THE LAST EXORCISM A True Documented Terror — The ...

This raw, untold memoir reveals the real story not covered in Netflix's Orgasm Inc. The story shows how intelligent people get trapped in high-control groups. How the same methods used to help people can be weaponized to control them. How trauma and transformation can be impossible to separate.

A mother. A camera. A family brand. A closed door. Ruby Franke built an audience by turning motherhood into content. As the face of the family YouTube channel 8 Passengers, she presented a home defined by faith, discipline, order, and moral certainty. Millions watched. Some admired her. Some worried. Few could see what was happening once the cameras moved away. In 2023, Ruby Franke and Jodi Hildebrandt were arrested after one of Ruby’s children escaped Hildebrandt’s Utah home and sought help from a neighbour. The criminal case that followed exposed severe abuse, a controlling belief ...

Four years after his father died a hero's death fighting a fire, Tim Ginocchetti was behind bars for killing his mother. How one tragedy led to another is a true story that puts a horrifying twist on the familiar one of bullied gay teens. In this case, the bully was the teen's own mother, and instead of harming himself he killed her in a momentary but irreversible explosion of rage.

While Waco remains notorious more for the federal agents’ siege of David Koresh’s compound and the deaths of the Branch Davidians, it was followed a few years later by a mass suicide carried out by one of the most notorious doomsday cults in American history. On paper, the extraordinarily unorthodox ideology spouted by Heaven's Gate ranks near the top of the list of most outlandish end-of-the-world prophecies, and it was built on a blend of Christian, Gnostic, supernatural, New Age, and extraterrestrial lore.

Most twelve-year-old boys are preoccupied with comics and playing with their friends. Twelve-year-old Frank Heeney, however, is about to start three years of hell at Ireland’s notorious St. Joseph’s Industrial School in Letterfrack County Galway. St. Joseph’s is an inferno of physical, emotional, and sexual abuse at the hands of the administrators. Many children, some as young as four, die from such conditions and are secretly disposed of in the surrounding wilderness. As Frank spends three years at St. Joseph’s Letterfrack and two years at St. Patrick’s children’s prison, he is...

Through vivid storytelling, this historical account reveals the disturbing influences and grim motives that possessed Alessandro Serenelli, St. Maria Goretti’s murderer. Yet it is much more than a chilling tale; this true narrative is a testament of transformation and redemption — God’s mercy shining forth through the most seemingly hopeless of situations. Just as great literature and spiritual writing have the power to transform the soul and spur it on to heroic deeds, the force of immoral prose can corrupt and even drive the soul to unspeakable deeds.

Bishop Juan Gerardi, Guatemala's leading human rights activist, was bludgeoned to death in his garage on a Sunday night in 1998, two days after the presentation of a groundbreaking church-sponsored report implicating the military in the murders and disappearances of some 200,000 civilians.