"Sam, could you do me a favor?" Thus begins a story that has now become part of America’s true crime hall of fame. It is a gory, grotesque tale befitting a Stephen King novel. It is also a David and Goliath saga-the story of a young lawyer fresh from the Public Defender’s Office whose first client in private practice turns out to be the worst serial killer in our nation’s history.Sam Amirante had just opened his first law practice when he got a phone call from his friend J...

New York Times Bestseller: From the journalists who covered the story, the shocking crimes of Gary Ridgway, America's most prolific serial murderer.In the 1980s and 1990s, forty-nine women in the Seattle area were brutally murdered, their bodies dumped along the Green River and Pacific Highway South in Washington State. Despite an exhaustive investigation—even serial killer Ted Bundy was consulted to assist with psychological profiling—the...

A New York Times–bestselling journalist traces a string of unsolved murders—and the botched investigation that let the New Bedford Highway Killer walk away.Over the course of seven months in 1988, eleven women disappeared off the streets of New Bedford, Massachusetts, a gloomy, drug-addled coastal town that was once the whaling capital of the world. Nine turned up dead. Two were never found. And the perpetrator remains unknown to this day.How could ...

The story behind the attack that shocked a nation and opened a new chapter in the history of American crime.On July 14th, 1966, Richard Franklin Speck swept through several student nurses’ townhouse like a summer tornado and changed the landscape of American crime. He broke in as his helpless victims slept, bound them one by one, and then stabbed, assaulted, and strangled all eight in a sadistic sexual frenzy. By morning, only one young nurse had miraculously survived. The killer w...

**A Washington Post bestseller!A chilling and compassionate look at how close an innocent man was to being put death with a foreword by Sister Helen Prejean, author of Dead Man Walking.**What is worse than having a client on Death Row in Texas? Having a client on Death Row in Texas who is innocent and not knowing if you will be able to stop his execution in time.Grace and Justice on Death Row: A Race Against Time to Free an Innocent Man te...

The horrific true story of serial kidnapper, rapist, and killer Robert Hansen's reign of terrorAs oil-boom money poured into Anchorage, Alaska the city quickly became a prime destination for the seedier elements of society: prostitutes, pimps, con men, and criminals of all breeds looking to cash in. However, something even worse lurked in their midst.To all who knew him, Robert Hansen was a typical hardworking businessman, husband, and father. But hidden ben...

A shocking exploration of America’s preferred method of capital punishment.In early 2013, Robert Gleason became the latest victim of the electric chair, a peculiarly American execution method. Shouting Póg mo thóin (Kiss my ass” in Gaelic), he grinned as electricity shot through his system. When the current was switched off, his body slumped against the leather restraints, and Gleeson, who had strangled two fellow inmates to ensure his execution was not p...

On the night of July 18, 1969, a black Oldsmobile plunged off a narrow one-lane bridge on Chappaquiddick Island, Massachusetts. By morning, the car had been found submerged. Inside was the body of Mary Jo Kopechne, twenty-eight years old, a former campaign worker for Robert Kennedy. The next morning, Senator Ted Kennedy walked into the Edgartown police station and identified himself as the driver.What happened in those hours has never been fully explained. Kennedy himself said his ...

Three true crime classics of love, murder, and the mob by a Pulitzer Prize finalist who writes with "honest and gritty realism" ( Phoenix Gazette ) .Award-winning author Joan Barthel uncovers the dark secrets behind some of the strangest cases in the history of American crime in these three captivating works of "first-class journalism" ( The New York Times).A Death in California: W...

The Hanging Judge of California (formerly titled Perfect Justice) probes outrageous decisions by the US Federal 9th Circuit Court in overturning death penalties. California Judge Donald A. McCartin, who sent nine men to death row, speaks out in fury when convicted child-killer Rodney Alcala’s verdict was overturned after twenty-three years. The book chronicles Alcala’s crimes and trials as well as the horrific murders committed by eight other killers who were sentenced by McCartin. The jud...

New Update!New York Times Bestseller!The police in Jersey County, Illinois accepted Paula Sims's story of a masked kidnapper who snatched her baby girl Lorelei from her bassinet. Three years later her second newborn daughter suffered an identical fate and this time the police were unable to stop searching until they had discovered the whole, horrifying truth.This is the full terrifying story of twisted sexuality and hate seething below the surface of a seemingly nor...

To amend Clausewitz on war, one might say that the trial in a courtroom is the pursuit of battle by other means. And, short of the horror on the battlefield, to be on trial is perhaps the most traumatic of all life experiences. Yet in the great trials of history much more than individual destinies are at stake. Fundamental issues of morality, political expediency, justice and social change are being engaged. How does one balance freedom of conscience against the public good? How does one c...