Name: Marple's Gretchen Harrington Tragedy
Brand: Mike Mathis
SKU: 9781467171014
Price: 24.99 USD
Availability: InStock

Marple's Gretchen Harrington Tragedy

9781467171014

$24.99

In this revised and expanded edition, a harrowing new arrest in the cold case, intense trial and key developments are presented alongside the original narrative.

Friday, August 15, 1975, began as a typical summer day in the suburbs. Young children played with their friends; adults prepared for work or planned for their vacation at the Jersey Shore...

That all changed in the hours before noon, when Gretchen Harrington, the eight-year-old daughter of a Presbyterian minister and his wife, was kidnapped while walking to a Vacation Bible School less than a quarter mile from her house. Her body was found by a jogger in a state park nearly two months later. The crime forever changed the lives of the children who were about Gretchen’s age and their parents, many of whom chose to live in Marple Township because they considered it a safe refuge from the crime-ridden streets of Philadelphia.

Journalists Mike Mathis and Joanna Falcone Sullivan examine the kidnapping, murder, nearly five-decade-long investigation.

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Fox Cities Murder & Mayhem

9781467138697

$21.99 $16.49 Save 25%

The safe and sedate Fox Cities have seen their share of horrible crimes. A must-read for fans of true crime and Wisconsin history.

Cold Blooded murder, kidnapping, prostitution, organized crime and other misdeeds shocked and appalled not just the community known as the Fox Cities, but the entire state of Wisconsin. Murderer Porter Ross tried to commit suicide by eating bedsprings. Wenzel Kabat mutilated and burned a man in order to take over his farm. The Appleton Butcher left dismembered human remains on a playground for children to find.

In this volume, crime writer and leading expert on the Milwaukee Mafia Gavin Schmitt turns his magnifying glass on the dark underbelly of small-town America. Revisit these skeletons in suburban closets that will have you looking over your shoulder as you read.

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Cincinnati's Celebrity Criminal Defender

9781626199439

$21.99 $16.49 Save 25%

In fifty years in the courtroom, Cincinnati criminal defense attorney Foss Hopkins represented more than 550 clients. Never far from controversy, Foss specialized in murder and represented a wide array of colorful defendants. William Kuhlman and his gang left a trail of blood from Indiana to Kentucky after hacking up the body of Cincinnati fireman Cap Miller. Attractive and naïve Louise Sharpe pumped three bullets into her older lover and left him dying on the floor of his Walnut Hills apartment. After Marie Abbott's farmhand lover killed her husband on their Butler County farm, Marie colluded with him to stage the murder as an accident. Foss lost only two clients to Ohio's electric chair and pulled off some astounding victories. Author Janice Schulz explores the fascinating life and career of Cincinnati's celebrity criminal defense attorney.

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Rio Grande Sniper Killings, The

9781467153430

$23.99 $17.99 Save 25%

Untangle the complex conspiracy that led to the tragic deaths of Charlotte Kay Elliott and Kevin Edwin Frase on the banks of the Rio Grande. On the night of July 13, 1980, a hitman fired a high-powered rifle into the crowd at Pepe's On the River, an outdoor bar in Mission, Texas. He missed his target, a witness in the Loop 360 drug case, but killed two young bystanders. While state court prosecutions for capital murder inexplicably faltered, a federal court gave the assassin a life sentence for attempted murder of a grand jury witness. A member of the judge's staff who was present throughout the trial, author John W. Primomo revisits the dramatic twists and turns surrounding this murder on the Rio Grande.

The Murder of JoAnn Dewey in Vancouver, Washington

9781467138857

$23.99

Before midnight on March 19, 1950, several startled bystanders watched two men force a screaming young woman into a car and drive away from Saint Joseph's Hospital in Vancouver. One of them yelled out that she was his wife and was drunk. That was the last time anyone saw JoAnn Dewey alive. Her battered, naked body washed up on the banks of the Wind River seven days later. Suspicion quickly fell on two brothers, Turman and Utah Wilson, who fled town before police caught them in Sacramento. Their arrest and sensational trial captivated and divided the peaceful community. Author Pat Jollota uncovers the chilling details of this tragic story.

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Murder in Visalia

9781625859808

$21.99

One October morning in 1979, a stamp and coin dealer was gunned down in his Visalia shop. There were no witnesses. Persistent police efforts across jurisdictional lines connected it to another death. Two months earlier, the body of a Fresno coin dealer was found locked in the trunk of his car. The trail of evidence led to a most unlikely suspect. Author Ronn M. Couillard, retired judge and former Visalia district attorney, lays out the facts in this compelling case from the investigation to the court proceedings and the surprise that almost derailed the conviction.

Wicked Hampton County

9781467153409

$23.99

The Darker Side of Hampton County

Founded as a “white county” during the violence and political turmoil of Reconstruction, Hampton County’s roots are steeped in wickedness and blood. From the “Wild East” days of gunfights, train robbers, rustlers and rough-and-tumble timber towns to the shadowy era of moonshining and infamous solicitor “Buster” Murdaugh’s involvement in the “Great Whisky Conspiracy,” the county is rich with true tales of murder, crime and corruption. Meet colorful characters such as the banker who befriended a notorious bank robber and courageous heroes like the jailer’s teen daughter who saved an accused Black prisoner from death at the hands of a vigilante lynch mob. Travel this historical journey with award-winning storyteller, journalist and local author Michael M. DeWitt Jr.

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Murder & Mayhem in Herkimer County

9781467144391

$23.99

Caryl Hopson and Susan R. Perkins collect historic narratives of murder and mayhem in Herkimer County.

Herkimer County is steeped in history, from the settlement of the Mohawk Valley by Palatine German settlers to the flood of western migration with the opening of the Erie Canal. But the region also boasts an infamous history of high-profile homicides and crimes. Roxalana Druse murdered her abusive husband and became the last woman to be hanged in New York in 1887. The death of Grace Brown on scenic Big Moose Lake became one of the most famous cases in the country in 1906, inspiring author Theodore Dreiser’s novel An American Tragedy. Psychological tests of intelligence were admitted into court for the first time in an acquittal of sixteen-year-old Jean Gianini in 1914.

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Murder in Lexington

9781609498962

$24.99

In 1853 Lexington, Virginia, Mary Evelyn Anderson, one of the most beautiful women in the Commonwealth, spurned the advances of a young law student named Charles Burks Christian. Humiliated and heartbroken, Christian confronted, stabbed and killed the man he believed responsible for Anderson's decision. The man was her cousin, Thomas Blackburn, a VMI cadet and student of Stonewall Jackson. What followed was a circus of inept and brilliant lawyers dragging members of the most prominent families in antebellum Virginia through and all-too-public discussion of seduction, courtship, honor and self-defense. Author and historian Daniel S. Morrow chronicles the history of the events that led to Blackburn's death, the trials that followed and the impact on Lexington, its two colleges and the men and women who would soon find themselves engaged in a great Civil War.

Murder & Mayhem on Ohio's Rails

9781626192607

$23.99

Ride Ohio's rails with some of the bravest trainmen and most vicious killers and robbers to ever roll down the tracks.

The West may have had Jesse James and Butch Cassidy, but Ohio had its own brand of train robbers. Discover how Alvin Karpis knocked off an Erie Railroad train and escaped with $34,000. Learn about the first peacetime train holdup that took place in North Bend when thieves derailed the Kate Jackson, robbed its passengers and blew the Adam's Express safe. Make no mistake--railroading was a dangerous job in bygone days.

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Charlotte

9781596294905

$21.99

Today's Charlotte is a fast-growing and well-respected city. but the Charlotte of yesteryear is rife with tales of the macabre, tragic and simply unexplainable.

Prepare to be surprised and unnerved as the dark side of Charlotte is brought to life by native and long-time writer David Aaron Moore. Learn about Nellie Freeman, who nearly decapitated her husband with a straight razor in 1926. Discover how the ghosts of Camp Green infantrymen, the doughboys of World War I, still scream in the Southern night. Read about the seventy-one passengers who lost their lives as Eastern Airlines Flight 212 fell to the earth one foggy night in 1974. Come along and experience the grisly past of the City of Churches.

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Central Florida's Most Notorious Gangsters

9781596294141

$21.99

Blazing gun battles, bank heists and high-speed escapes: this is the story of Alva Hunt and Hugh Gant--central Florida's own Dillinger and Capone.

Alva Hunt and Hugh Gant began their infamous "careers" fencing automobile parts as the Florida land boom became a bust. After doing hard time in state jails, they emerged as bank robbers and embarked on a crime spree across the Deep South. In the end they were captured and served time in Leavenworth, Alcatraz and other penitentiaries. Their reign was one of terror for Florida and many Southern states. Their story reflects an intriguing period in Florida's own history--the Depression era and the desperate days when Southern gangsters were armed, notorious and deadly.

Central Florida's Most Notorious Gangsters

Charleston's Trial

9781596295766

$21.99

June 1910, Charleston, South Carolina. A Jewish merchant, Max Lubelsky, lay murdered in his clothing store on Upper King Street. The black man eventually convicted of the crime was arrested several weeks later as an angry mob called for his lynching. What followed became the story of one man's quiet protestations of innocence in the face of overwhelming condemnation by the white community. Drawing on local historical records and detailed court transcripts, Charleston historians Danny Crooks and Doug Bostick give an intimate account of the proceedings, as well as provide the historical background on the vices, violence and victims of the Holy City during the Jim Crow era. Join them as they reveal the tale of a man whom justice passed by in the hot Southern summer.

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Wicked Western Slope

9781609495701

$21.99

Early promoters of Colorado's Western Slope would have had settlers believe the area was one of proper behavior and upstanding morality. But this was not the case. Hot tempers led to quick trigger fingers and Main Street shootouts. Drinking, gambling and thieving were popular pursuits, and law breaking of all kinds thrived in this wild land. From Charles Graham, whose jealous rampage in Grand Junction is still talked about today, and the mysterious Friday the thirteenth murder of Jeanette Morris to Abe C. Ong, the mischievous pioneer bootlegger of De Beque, and Riverside's Mrs. Barnes and her foul crime, "History Sleuth" D.A. Brockett reveals some of the most outrageous and remarkable crimes in Western Slope history.

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Winston & Salem

9781596292512

$21.99

A young man charged with murder is marched through the streets of Winston and Salem and hanged on the outskirts of town… A tragic event carries several citizens into a raging river and to their deaths… An eccentric with a fascination for chemicals blows himself up at the Salem Hotel… Through the use of primary documents, these and other fascinating stories of Winston and Salem's past are vividly brought to life. Jennifer Bean Bower, associate curator of photographic collections at Old Salem Museums & Gardens, has spent many years collecting accounts of the extraordinary historic events that have occurred in her hometown of Winston-Salem. Winston & Salem: Tales of Murder, Mystery and Mayhem covers 118 years of history and introduces readers to real-life characters and stories not soon to be forgotten.

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Injustice on the Eastern Shore

9781626199422

$23.99

Lynching rumors simmered as journalists descended on the small town of Millington, Maryland, in the spring of 1892. The frenzy focused on nine African American men and boys—some as young as fifteen—accused of murdering Dr. James Heighe Hill, who was white. Prosecutors portrayed this as retribution for the Christmas Eve slaying of Thomas Campbell, an African American, for which no one faced criminal charges. Hill's alleged assailants were tried as a group before three white judges. Although some were clearly bystanders, all but one were convicted and sentenced. Four were executed by hanging, and the rest died in prison. Using court records, contemporary accounts and newspapers, author G. Kevin Hemstock narrates the tragic and compelling story of justice denied on Maryland's Eastern Shore.

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Justice in the Midlands

9781467145428

$24.99

The murder of Ron "Little Red'? Beasley is one of the most bizarre murder cases in Midlands history solved after 30 years. Beasley's murder was originally ruled a suicide, but his family and his friend Herman Young refused to believe. This mystery, with a background of macabre events and colorful characters, remained unsolved since 1967. Beasley's murder was originally ruled a suicide, but his family and his friend Herman Young refused to believe. And when Beasley's wife was convicted of murdering her second husband, they grew even more suspicious. Young went on to become sheriff of Fairfield County and made it his mission to find the truth. Join author Lou Sahadi as he details the gruesome details of a murder, two dramatic court trials and the untiring work of a lawman to find justice for his friend.

The Hanging and Redemption of John Gordon: The True Story of Rhode Island's Last Execution

9781609498689

$21.99

On a frigid day in 1843, Amasa Sprague, a wealthy Yankee mill owner, left his mansion to check on his cattle. On the way, he was accosted and beaten beyond recognition, and his body was left facedown in the snow. What followed was a trial marked by judicial bias, witness perjury and societal bigotry that resulted in the conviction of twenty-nine-year-old Irish-Catholic John Gordon. He was sentenced to hang. Despite overwhelming evidence that the trial was flawed and newly discovered evidence that clearly exonerated him, an anti-Irish Catholic establishment refused him a new trial. On February 14, 1845, John Gordon became the last victim of capital punishment in Rhode Island. Local historian Paul F. Caranci brings this case to life, graphically describing the murder and exposing a corrupt judicial system, a biased newspaper and a bigoted society responsible for the unjust death of an innocent man.

The Hanging and Redemption of John Gordon: The True Story of Rhode Island's Last Execution

Hanging the Peachtree Bandit

9781626194168

$21.99

On December 15, 1921, gunshots echoed across Atlanta's famous Peachtree Street moments before a handsome young man darted away from Kaiser's Jewelers. Frank DuPre left in his wake a dead Pinkerton guard and a missing ring. As Christmas shoppers looked on in panic, he raced through the Kimball House Hotel and shot another victim. The brazen events terrified a crime-filled city already on edge. A manhunt captured the nineteen-year-old, unemployed DuPre, who faced a quick conviction and a hanging sentence. Months of appeals pitted a prosecutor demanding some good old-fashioned rope against maudlin sentimentalists and sob sisters. Author Tom Hughes recounts the true harrowing story behind the legend of one of the last men hanged in Atlanta.

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Murder in Marple

9781467117944

$21.99

Benjamin D'Amore abused his wife for the last time on November 29, 1949. That night, his sons John and Nicholas exacted revenge and executed Benjamin with a shotgun and deer rifle. The trial that followed was unlike many before it. Two psychiatrists diagnosed the brothers with catathymic crisis, which inhibited their judgment during the crime. But despite the defendants' guilty plea, an all-female jury acquitted them. Thomas Deitman and Dawn D'Amore Yankanich unravel the horrific events and conspiracies regarding the shocking patricide case.

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Murder and Mayhem in the Napa Valley

9781609495442

$21.99

The picturesque vineyards of California's Napa Valley, one of the world's premier tourist destinations, disguise a tangled history of lawlessness, depravity and frontier justice. Some crimes were committed over debts, some for retribution and others in the name of love. Famed photographer Eadweard Muybridge killed a man for seducing his wife but was acquitted. Other criminals were not so lucky and met the gallows, like murderer William Roe, the state's final public execution. From the Pomo massacre--the first criminal case heard by the California Supreme Court--to the cold cases that continue to haunt the region, Napa Police Detective Todd Shulman decants the crimes of the Napa Valley, memorializing the victims and honoring the efforts of local law enforcement.

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Murder and Mayhem in the Holy City

9781596291621

$21.99

Perhaps Charlestonian James Louis Petigru said it best when he declared in 1861 that "South Carolina is too small for a republic, but too large for an insane asylum." South Carolina has consistently been one of the most violent places in American history, and Charleston has served as much a hotbed of criminal mayhem as a "holy" city. While many books explore the illustrious past of this national treasure, few delve into this darker and equally fascinating side of its past. With this new book, historian Pat Hendrix takes a look at the history of crime in the Holy City. Starting with a war that nearly extinguished the fledgling city, he moves through the centuries, bringing to light such sordid tales as the Six Mile House murders, the Dutartre family cult, the murder of newspaper publisher Frank Dawson and the horrific discovery of South Carolina's first serial killer. Murder and Mayhem in the Holy City is an eye-opening foray into Charleston's underworld that calls into question the sanitized, celebrated history often told today and offers an enjoyable romp through more than three centuries of human drama.