QUICK STORY: Pulitzer Prize-winning author and journalist Edward Humes writes stories about criminal justice, social justice, and the environment. His latest book is the nonfiction thriller, THE FOREVER WITNESS: How DNA and Genealogy Solved a Cold Case Double Murder. His other works include the bestseller MISSISSIPPI MUD: Southern Justice and the Dixie Mafia, GARBOLOGY: Our Dirty Love Affair With Trash, BURNED, which helped free a woman imprisoned for life because of flawed forensic science, and the PEN Award-winning NO MATTER HOW LOUD I SHOUT: A Year In the Life of Juvenile Court.

Robert David Crane is the co-author of numerous books and interviews and articles for magazines and newspapers. He wrote for Playboy Magazine for twenty years. Crane co-produced the short films "Mirage" with Richard Decker and "She'll Never Make it to the Olympics" with Kari Hildebrand.

On June 29, 1978, Bob Crane, known to Hogan's Heroes fans as Colonel Hogan, was discovered brutally murdered in his Scottsdale, Arizona, apartment. His eldest son, Robert Crane, was called to the crime scene. In this poignant memoir, Robert Crane discusses that terrible day and how he has lived with the unsolved murder of his father. But this storyline is just one thread in his tale of growing up in Los Angeles, his struggles to reconcile the good and sordid sides of his celebrity father, and his own fascinating life.

On a cold, windy December night in 1926, hell was unleashed on a tenant farm near Farwell, the last Texas town before the New Mexico border. Prone to the bottle and fits of rage, the burly man with the smiling blue eyes was in no mood to quarrel with his third wife over his bootleg whisky and sexual abuse of his stepdaughter. He went from room to room in the house, killing his wife and each child with primitive cutting tools and his bare hands. By the time he concluded his bloody work, he had taken the lives of nine family members ranging in age from 2 to 41, committing what one local reporter called “the blackest crime” in the history of the West Texas Panhandle.

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Jerry Falwell Jr. is a prominent figure in the evangelical world whose support for presidential candidate Donald J. Trump helped secure Trump's Republican nomination in 2016. He captured headlines when it was revealed that he and his wife Becki had participated in a years-long bizarre sexual relationship with a pool attendant they met at the Fountainbleu Hotel in Miami Beach. As Falwell Jr. began to deny this relationship, even more damaging news came out, ultimately forcing him to resign as president of Liberty University, which many consider to be the largest evangelical Christian university in the world. 

Giancarlo Granda is now ready to share the story of his years on an "only in America" rollercoaster ride through the monied corridors of power and profound hypocrisy

Neal Wooten grew up on a pig farm on Sand Mountain in the northeast corner of Alabama before being dragged kicking and screaming to the snow-infested plains of the American Midwest. After living in other parts of the country for 35 years, he's now back in northeast Alabama.

He is the Managing Editor for Mirror Publishing, a contributor to the Huffington Post, columnist for The Mountain Valley News, curator of the Fort Payne Depot Museum, creator of the popular FB comic strip “Brad’s Pit,” artist, and standup comedian.

Alvin Esau, B.A. (Alberta.); G. Dip. C.S. (Regent): J.D. (Alberta); LL.M. (Harvard) taught law for more than 30 years at the University of Manitoba. At various times he was the Head of the University of Manitoba Legal Research Institute, Director of Graduate Legal Studies, Bencher of the Law Society of Manitoba, and Chancellor of the Diocese of Keewatin. He has also been a visiting professor at U.B.C Law School, St. John’s College, and the University of Victoria.

He is one of the Canadian pioneers in the development of the mandatory teaching of professional ethics at law school using a more critical approach that focuses on lawyer’s lives and professional community contexts. He delivered the first Murray Fraser Lecture on Professional Responsibility at the University of Victoria on “Conscientious Objection in the Practice of Law.”

Discover the real-life inspirations behind history’s most infamous serial killers: John Wayne Gacy, Jeffrey Dahmer, Charles Manson, and so many more.
Gothic media moguls Kelly Florence and Meg Hafdahl, authors of The Science of Monsters, The Science of Women in Horror, and The Science of Stephen King, and co-hosts of the Horror Rewind podcast called “the best horror film podcast out there” by Film Daddy, present a guide to the serial killers who inspired the movies and media we all know and love. Delve into the brutal truth behind horror’s secret: many monsters portrayed on the silver screen are based on true murderers. Uncover the truth behind the real monsters of horror, answering such questions as: 

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Ruth Markel’s tenacious fight for justice on behalf of the murder of her son, Dan Markel, and the struggle to be legally reunited with her grandchildren. Ruth Markel is the mother of the late Dan Markel, a noted law professor who was murdered in Tallahassee, Florida in 2014.
In The Unveiling, she describes her experiences since the day of Dan’s death from several distinct perspectives:​

My name is George Jared, and I'm an author and investigative journalist that has written two, true-crime books, “Witches in West Memphis … and another false confession,” and “The Creek Side Bones … reality is more horrifying than fiction.”

Witches chronicles the West Memphis Three case and another murder case involving a false confession in Gosnell. I've written more news stories about WM3 than any journalist in the world. I was cited in the Academy Award nominated documentary about the case, “Paradise Lost Three: Purgatory” and I was also cited in Damien Echols' New York Times best-selling autobiography, “Life After Death.” I interviewed him while he was still on Arkansas' Death Row, and I broke the story when he and his cohorts were released from prison in 2011.

For over 40 years Mr. Ronald E. Bowers has been a prosecutor with the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office. During his long career, he has been involved in some of the most fascinating criminal cases as a trial attorney, administrator and trial consultant. After his retirement he was asked to provide insight as to how the Criminal Justice System really functions. He has done this by writing True Crime books about some of the most interesting cases he personally had to work on. His books take the reader behind the scenes to understand how these murder cases were solved and tried in the courtroom.

Based on the popular podcast Vanished, "Rabbit Hole: The Vanishing of Amelia Earhart & Fred Noonan" is a collaborative effort featuring a guest list of almost 50 experts across all realms and theories in the Earhart case. Cohosts Chris Williamson & Jennifer Taylor take you through a comprehensive study of the life, legacy, lore and disappearance of Amelia Earhart & Fred Noonan. Featuring twists and turns you'll never expect, throughout this incredible story, readers are asked to 'swear in' as Chris & Jen present four major theories in a trial by jury where the reader becomes part of the story. What evidence will convince you?

Gus Garcia-Roberts was an investigative reporter at the Los Angeles Times until June 2018. Previously a reporter at Newsday in Long Island, N.Y., he was a part of the investigative team whose series on hidden police misconduct was a finalist for the 2014 Pulitzer Prize Gold Medal for Public Service. Also a former staff writer for the alt-weeklies Cleveland Scene and Miami New Times, he is the co-author of “Blood Sport: Alex Rodriguez, Biogenesis and the Quest to End Baseball’s Steroid Era.”

Fans of Edgar-nominated true-crime author Ron Franscell can now get an early look at his newest crime tale SHADOWMAN by pre-ordering at Amazon. Published by Berkley/Penguin-Random House, it is "a pulse-pounding account of the first time in history that the FBI’s Behavioral Science Unit created a psychological profile to help catch a serial killer."

Ron's writing has been compared to Truman Capote, Charles Frazier and Robert Olen Butler--diverse, poetic, evocative and muscular. His widely acclaimed 2016 true crime, MORGUE: A LIFE IN DEATH (co-authored with renowned medical examiner Dr. Vincent Di Maio) was nominated for an Edgar in 2017. This lifelong newspaperman burst onto the literary scene in 1998 with his first novel ANGEL FIRE, a poignant, mythic tale of two brothers wrestling with personal ghosts in the small town where they grew up. ANGEL FIRE was subsequently named among the San Francisco Chronicle's 100 Best Novels of the 20th Century West.

Robert Kerbeck is the founder of the Malibu Writers Circle and a three-time Pushcart Prize nominee. His first person account of the Woolsey Fire was read by over a million people as an Op-Ed for the Los Angeles Times. Based on that essay, his debut book, Malibu Burning: The Real Story Behind LA's Most Devastating Wildfire, won the 2020 IPPY Award as the Silver Medalist in Creative Nonfiction, the Readers’ Favorite Award as the Silver Medalist in Nonfiction Drama and the Best of LA award. Malibu Burning was also a Finalist for Foreword Book of the Year and the National Indie Excellence Awards.

Robert's essays and short stories have been featured in numerous magazines and literary journals, including Narratively, Cimarron Review, Los Angeles Magazine, Shondaland, and The Normal School. One of his stories was adapted into the award-winning film, Reconnected, which has appeared at film festivals worldwide. A lifetime member of The Actors Studio, Robert has worked extensively in theater, film, and television, appearing in lead roles in major shows and earning several awards. His forthcoming memoir, RU$E: Lying the American Dream from Hollywood to Wall Street (Steerforth Press, Spring 2022), is a thrilling look into his career as a secret corporate spy. A graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, Robert resides in Malibu. Learn more about him and his work at RobertKerbeck.com.

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On December 27th, 2011, Russell Faria returned to his Troy, Missouri, home after his weekly game night with friends to an unthinkable, grisly scene: His wife, Betsy, lay dead, a knife still lodged in her neck. She’d been stabbed fifty-five times.
First responders concluded that Betsy was dead for hours when Russ discovered her. No blood was found implicating Russ, and surveillance video, receipts, and friends’ testimony all supported his alibi. Yet incredibly, police and the prosecuting attorney ignored the evidence. In their minds, Russ was guilty. But prominent defense attorney Joel J. Schwartz quickly recognized the real killer.
The motive was clear. Days before her murder, the terminally ill Betsy replaced her husband with her friend, Pamela Hupp, as her life insurance beneficiary. Still, despite the prosecution’s flimsy case and Hupp’s transparent lies, Russ was convicted—leaving Hupp free to kill again.
 

Advanced Creative Nonfiction: A Writers' Guide and Anthology offers expert instruction on writing creative nonfiction in any form-including memoir, lyric essay, travel writing, and more-while taking an expansive approach to fit a rapidly evolving literary art form. From a history of creative nonfiction, related ethical concerns, and new approaches to revision and publishing, this book offers innovative strategies and ideas beyond what's traditionally covered. Advanced Creative Nonfiction: A Writers' Guide and Anthology also includes:

· An anthology of contemporary creative nonfiction by some of today's most inventive and celebrated writers

· Advanced explorations into the craft of creative nonfiction across forms

· In-depth discussion of truth, ethics, and memory

· Practical advice on revision, editing, research, and publishing

· Writing prompts and exercises throughout the textbook

A companion website is also available for the book at http://www.bloomsburyonlineresources.com/advanced-creative-nonfiction

Birkbeck's latest book, FINDING SHARON (Summerville 2018) is the sequel to his international bestseller "A BEAUTIFUL CHILD" (Berkley/Penguin 2004), which tells the remarkable, tragic story of Sharon Marshall, a brilliant young woman who was kidnapped as a toddler by Franklin Delano Floyd, a convicted felon, fugitive, and pedophile who raised her as his daughter while traveling the country using stolen identities. Birkbeck spent six hours in a Florida prison in 2003 interviewing Floyd, who had just been sentenced to death for torturing and murdering a Tampa woman. In FINDING SHARON, he tells the final chapters, including the discovery of Sharon's true identity.

Caught in the murderous web of the monster she called her father, Sharon wasn’t her real name. But her horrifying story captured the hearts of readers everywhere and lead to a ten-year search to resolve two great mysteries – what was her true identity, and what became of her young son Michael, who was kidnapped from his first grade classroom and never seen again.

The worldwide interest in Sharon’s story prompted the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children to open a new case file enlisting the FBI – and with A Beautiful Child as a roadmap, two FBI agents set their sights on death row interviews with Sharon’s tormentor to learn the shocking truth.

Equal parts memoir and narrative journalism, Finding Sharon picks up where A Beautiful Child left off and brings to a close one of the greatest mysteries in the annals of law enforcement – and a miraculous ending that will leave you in tears.

In the small city of Binghamton in upstate New York, 23-year-old Veronica Taft, a single mother with four small children, all under the age of five, was convicted of Murder and Manslaughter for the brutal murder of her two-year-old son Lyric. She was sentenced to 25-years-to-life in state prison, with her surviving children taken away and placed in foster care.
After more than five years in prison, Taft was set free after a bombshell Appellate Court decision found the verdict was against the weight of the evidence. The court overturned the theory and evidence used by authorities, including time-of-death, Taft’s alibi, and controversial testimony of a desperate jail-house snitch.
Working on behalf of Taft, Defense Investigator, David M. Beers conducted an independent investigation. In his account, Immunity for Murder, he’ll guide you through the ill-fated police investigation and the shameful prosecution that, contrary to the evidence, quickly turned the tides towards Veronica and away from the real killer. This book will look closely at the suspect, bizarre events, and disturbing facts never before revealed. Furthermore, it’ll show how the evidence proves Taft’s innocence, which is why he considers her story a tragic miscarriage of justice.

I am a native of Miami, Florida and left to attend law school in California. I have practiced law in California since 2005 and currently live in San Jose. Having an interest in true crime and unsolved mysteries for decades, I wrote my first book, "The Flat Tire Murders: Unsolved Crimes of a South Florida Serial Killer," published in 2021 by McFarland & Company. The book explores a series of unsolved murders in South Florida in 1975-1976 known as the "Canal Murders" and "The Flat Tire Murders." It is my hope in writing this book that public interest will encourage law enforcement to solve these crimes and bring justice to the victims and their families

On June 18, 2010, police discover a body buried in the wine cellar of a Victorian mansion in Old Louisville. James Carroll, shot and stabbed the year before, has lain for 7 months in a plastic storage bin—his temporary coffin. Homeowner Jeffrey Mundt and his boyfriend, Joseph Banis, point the finger at each other in what locals dub The Pink Triangle Murder.
On the surface, this killing appears to be a crime of passion, a sordid love tryst gone wrong in a creepy old house. But as author David Dominé sits in on the trials, a deeper story emerges: the struggle between hope for a better future on the one hand and the privilege and power of the status quo on the other.  
As the court testimony devolves into he-said/he-said contradictions, David draws on the confidences of neighbors, drag queens, and other acquaintances within the city's vibrant LGBTQ community to piece together the details of the case. While uncovering the many past lives of the mansion itself, he enters a murky underworld of gossip, neighborhood scandal, and intrigue

Kathy Stearman is a retired FBI Special Agent and author of forthcoming memoir, It's Not About the Gun: Lessons from My Global Career as a Female FBI Agent, which focuses on her time overseas as head of FBI offices in south-central Asia and China.

Kathy also writes narrative non-fiction and essays related to international travel, the current political and social climate, and growing up on a remote farm in central Kentucky. She is currently researching topics for her next book.

When not writing, Kathy and her husband, Keith, continue to explore the world.

To learn more about Kathy and her upcoming memoir, and to sign up for her newsletter, take a look at her website, KathyStearman.com

Glenn Stout is the author, editor or ghostwriter of nearly 100 books, including the upcoming TIGER GIRL AND THE CANDY KID: AMERICA'S ORIGINAL GANGSTER COUPLE, NY Times bestseller The Pats: An Illustrated History of the New England Patriots, The Selling of the Babe, the groundbreaking Boston Globe bestsellers Fenway 1912 and Red Sox Century, Yankees Century, and the critically acclaimed Nine Months at Ground Zero, and Young Woman and The Sea: How Trudy Ederle Conquered the English Channel and Inspired the World, now in development as a major motion picture. He has served as Series Editor for The Best American Sports Writing since its inception. He has been awarded both the Seymour Medal and Ritter Award by the Society for American Baseball Research and "Yes, She Can!" was named on the 2012 Amelia Bloomer list for feminist content.
Glenn also teaches and consults on all aspects of writing, including proposals, manuscripts and longform narrative journalism

HOW COULD SUCH A DARK SECRET
HAVE BEEN KEPT FOR SO MANY YEARS?
Police Chief Greg Adams was out on patrol. Christmas was coming to Saxonburg, Pennsylvania—a quaint borough of just 1,300—in three short weeks. The winter air was crisp. Colored lights sparkled on houses. He was only a block and a half from the Police Department, and this was just an average traffic stop.
Until it wasn’t.
The devoted husband and father of two little boys was about to meet any law enforcement officer’s nightmare. Moments later, he would lay dying in a pool of his own blood on that white winter snow, while his killer vanished like an apparition into thin air.
Despite his many aliases, the true identity of the murderer was quickly found. The killer himself, was not. As State Police and FBI investigators peeled back the twisted layers of low-level mobster Donald Webb’s life, the path to the killer would wind through decades … toward a shocking conclusion. After all, secrets can only be kept for so long.

The Son of Sam case grew into a lifelong obsession for journalist Maury Terry, who became convinced that the murders were linked to a satanic cult. Author Maury Terry becomes convinced that serial killer David Berkowitz did not act alone and tries to prove that the web of darkness behind the Son of Sam murders goes deeper than anyone imagined -- and his investigation costs him everything.

The hunt for the "Son of Sam" captivated the world in the late 1970s, but the story behind one of America's most notorious serial murderers is all but forgotten -- until now. While the arrest and conviction of David Berkowitz brought the nightmare to an end for many New Yorkers, for journalist and Ultimate Evil author Maury Terry, the real mystery was just beginning. Terry, convinced Berkowitz had not acted alone, would go on to spend decades attempting to prove that the web of darkness behind the murders went deeper than anyone imagined -- and his pursuit of that elusive truth would eventually cost him everything. Filmmaker Joshua Zeman (CROPSEY, MURDER MOUNTAIN) draws on archival news footage, conversations with the people closest to the investigation, and Terry's own words and case files to tell a cautionary tale of a man who went down a rabbit hole and never came out. But was Maury Terry just chasing ghosts -- or are the true Sons of Sam still out there..

New York Times bestselling author Caitlin Rother has written or co-authored 14 books.
Rother's latest book, to be released on April 27, 2021, is "DEATH ON OCEAN BOULEVARD: Inside the Coronado Mansion Case," about the mysterious death of Rebecca Zahau at the Spreckels Mansion in Coronado, which was deemed a suicide by authorities, but as a murder by a civil jury and the Zahau family.

The call came on the morning of July 13, 2011, from the historic Spreckels Mansion, a lavish beachfront property in Coronado, California, owned by pharmaceutical tycoon and multimillionaire Jonah Shacknai. When authorities arrived, they found the naked body of Jonah’s girlfriend, Rebecca Zahau, gagged, her ankles tied and her wrists bound behind her. Jonah’s brother, Adam, claimed to have found Rebecca hanging by a rope from the second-floor balcony. On a bedroom door in black paint were the cryptic words:
SHE SAVED HIM CAN YOU SAVE HER.
Was this scrawled message a suicide note or a killer’s taunt? Rebecca’s death came two days after Jonah’s six-year-old son, Max, took a devastating fall while in Rebecca’s care. Authorities deemed Rebecca’s death a suicide resulting from her guilt. But who would stage either a suicide ora murder in such a bizarre, elaborate way?

Amy Over is the host of Confronting: Columbine and was a senior at Columbine High School in 1999. On April 20, 1999, Amy was eating lunch in the cafeteria with friends when her school was violently attacked by two fellow students. She hid under a table fearing the worst when her basketball coach indicated that the kids in the cafeteria needed to run. As Amy ran toward the exit, the killers shot into the crowd of students Amy was in. Amy narrowly escaped with her life. She remembers fleeing past slain bodies of her classmates. Amy ran a half mile to a stranger’s home and took shelter there to catch her breath and call her mother. She has been dealing with the trauma of that day ever since.

Part of her healing has been helping other survivors of mass trauma as the Director of Fundraising and Project Journey Coordinator for The Rebels Project since 2015.

Amy has a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice and has completed level one trauma assistance training through Colorado Victims Assistance academy. Amy is a regular at kickboxing. She currently lives in Parker, Colorado with her husband of 18 years, her two beautiful children and her adored niece and nephew.

This is the story of an ambitious Colombian refugee who migrated to the United Kingdom and set up a sophisticated drug trafficking organization that the British Security Service MI-5 said made more than a billion pounds over a ten-year period, making him Britain's first billion-dollar cocaine dealer. Ruiz Henao’s impact on the British economy was such that the price of cocaine increased 50 percent for several months after his arrest, earning Ruiz Henao the infamous title, as British law enforcement described him, of being “ the Pablo Escobar of British drug trafficking.”

Born in 1960, Jesus Ruiz Henao grew up poor, but wanted to be rich like the drug dealers he saw growing up in the cocaine-producing region of Colombia’s Valle of the Cauca. To realize his ambition, Ruiz Henao moved to London, United Kingdom, in 1985. He and his wife settled in the quiet suburb of Hendon, where he held down mundane but respectable cleaning and bus driving jobs

Jeff McArthur grew up in Lincoln, Nebraska where he wrote stories, worked in the theater, and made small films. He went to film school at New York University, then moved to LA to work in the movie industry. Fifteen years later, he returned to his roots to write a book about his grandfather, a lawyer who represented Caril Fugate in one of the most infamous cases in American history. The book is called Pro Bono. McArthur has also worked on a number of other books, such as The Table of Truth, and the Relic Worlds series. Born in Italy and raised in Brooklyn, Vincenzo Capone left home when he was a teenager. He traveled with a wild-west show and fought in Europe during the Great War where he earned a medal for sharp-shooting. Upon his return, he settled in Nebraska where he went by the name Richard Hart. He married, had children, and worked closely with the local Indian communities. He dressed like the type of cowboy he had seen in silent movies, rode a horse, and
wielded two six-shooters at his side, which earned him the name “Two Gun” Hart.

When the Volstead Act made alcohol production illegal, Richard joined the ranks of law enforcement and became one of the most successful Prohibition officers in the country. He chased down criminals, busted alcohol stills, and protected the Indian reservations he served, all under an assumed name.

But his past caught up with him when his younger brother, Al Capone, became one of the most infamous criminals in the country. They were two siblings on opposite sides of the law, both ambitious and skillful, and both of the same family.

In 1976, a killer who called himself ‘The Son of Sam’ shot and killed a half dozen people and wounded as many more in New York City. During his crime spree, the madman left bizarre letters mocking the police and promising more deaths.

After months of terrorizing the city while garnering front-page headlines and international attention, a man named David Berkowitz was arrested. He confessed to the shootings, claiming to be obeying a demon that resided in a dog that belonged to his neighbor “Sam.”

Among the alleged victims was Carl Denaro. On the night he was shot, Denaro was hanging out with some friends at a bar when he met up with a woman named Rosemary Keenan. The couple left the bar and went to Keenan’s car to make out. However, a few minutes later, the windows of the car exploded as Denaro was shot in the head by an unseen assailant. Miraculously, Denaro survived the attack.

In 'THE SON OF SAM’ AND ME: The Truth About Why I Wasn’t Shot By David Berkowitz, author Carl Denaro with co-author Brian Whitney (THE “SUPREME GENTLEMAN” KILLER, WildBlue Press) reveals his search for the truth and his shocking conclusion regarding the identity of the real shooter. In the book, Denaro also writes about his friendship and investigative partnership with Maury Terry, the author of THE ULTIMATE EVIL, which is considered the definitive case study on the theory that Berkowitz did not act alone

George Jared, is an author and investigative journalist that has written two, true-crime books, "Witches in West Memphis ... and another false confession," and "The Creek Side Bones ... reality is more horrifying than fiction."
Witches chronicles the West Memphis Three case and another murder case involving a false confession in Gosnell. I've written more news stories about WM3 than any journalist in the world. I was cited in the Academy Award nominated documentary about the case, "Paradise Lost Three: Purgatory" and I was also cited in Damien Echols' New York Times best-selling autobiography, "Life After Death." I interviewed him while he was still on Arkansas' Death Row, and I broke the story when he and his cohorts were released from prison in 2011.

Peter Vronsky is an author, filmmaker and investigative historian. He is the author of three definitive bestselling books on the history and psychopathology of serial homicide and its investigation: Serial Killers: The Method and Madness of Monsters (2004), Female Serial Killers: How and Why Women Become Monsters (2007) and Sons of Cain: A History of Serial Killers from the Stone Age to the Present (2018).

Hello my name is Bruce. I was born in August 1989. I'm engaged with 3 wonderful kids.
Podcast Co-Host: Killer's Crawlspace
Killerscrawlspace.wordpress.com

This book is about serial killer Phillip Jablonski. The book includes his story along with letters, artwork and other things from the killer.

Albin Ludwig was furious. He had caught his wife, Cecilia, with other men before; now, after secretly following Cecilia one evening in 1906, Albin was overcome with suspicion. Albin and Cecilia quarreled that night and again the next day. Prosecutors later claimed that the final quarrel ended when Albin knocked Cecilia unconscious with a wooden potato masher, doused her with a flammable liquid, lit her on fire, and left her to burn to death. Albin claimed self-defense, but he was convicted of second-degree murder.For several generations, the families of both Cecilia and Albin would be silent about the crime—until Cecilia’s great-grandson, award-winning journalist Gary Sosniecki, uncovered the family’s dark secret. As he discovered, wife beating was commonplace in the early 20th century (before the gender-neutral term of “domestic violence” was adopted), and “wife murder” was so common that newspapers described virtually every case by that term. At long last, The Potato Masher Murder: Death at the Hands of a Jealous Husband unearths the full story of two immigrant families united by love and torn apart by domestic violence.

Author of America's First Female Serial Killer: Jane Toppan and the Making of a Monster (May 19, 2020)

I am a contributing editor for Book Riot, where I co-host the literary fiction podcast, Novel Gazing, and I write their weekly horror newsletter, The Fright Stuff. If you want to hear my country mouse voice, you can also listen to the podcast I co-founded, in which we analyze horror movies, Everything Trying to Kill You.

Kelvin Pierce was raised to be a hardcore racist. His father, Dr. William Luther Pierce III, was the founder and leader of the National Alliance, one of the most well-known White Supremacist organizations in the world. In 1978, William Pierce wrote The Turner Diaries, which has been labeled “the bible of the racist right” to this day. All the while, Pierce indoctrinated his son with tenets of White Supremacy, interspersed with physical and psychological abuse. By the time the author left home, he was a seething morass of hate and suffering. Read about his eventual recovery and transformation. 

Imagine spending years behind bars — or even facing the death penalty — for a crime you didn’t commit. Now go one step further and imagine that the evidence that put you there is your own words.

False confessions are more common than most might imagine. Whether through psychological persuasion, prolonged isolation, or even outright lying, threats or promises, coercive interrogation techniques have played a decisive role in sending innocent people — including minors and intellectually-impaired persons — to prison. 

On October 5, 2020, Season Two of the podcast Wrongful Conviction: False Confessions launches, examining this true crime phenomenon through the eyes of two of the globe’s leading experts on interrogations. Hosts Laura Nirider and Steve Drizin — renowned attorneys, co-directors of Northwestern University’s Center on Wrongful Convictions, and recognized figures from the hit Netflix docuseries Making a Murderer — have dedicated their lives to understanding and solving the problem of false confessions.

In the Name of the Children gives an unflinching look at what it's like to fight a never-ending battle against an enemy far more insidious than terrorists: the predators, lurking amongst us, who seek to harm our children.

During his 30-year career with the FBI, Jeff Rinek worked hundreds of investigations involving crimes against children: from stranger abduction to serial homicide to ritualized sexual abuse. Those who do this kind of work are required to plumb the depths of human depravity, to see things no one should ever have to see—and once seen can never forget. There is no more important—or more brutal—job in law enforcement and few have been more successful than Rinek at solving these sort of cases.

Most famously, Rinek got Cary Stayner to confess to all four of the killings known as the Yosemite Park Murders, an accomplishment made more extraordinary by the fact that the FBI nearly pinned the crimes on the wrong suspects. Rinek's recounting of the confession and what he learned about Stayner provides perhaps the most revelatory look ever inside the psyche of a serial killer and a privileged glimpse into the art of interrogation.