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Explore a true crime mystery from the Tube City.

Local socialite La Roux Soles’ hometown of McKeesport spoke her name in whispers. She and her husband Bob, a charming war hero and successful businessman, lived it up with boozy prohibition parties in their mansion perched high above the National Tube Works, the industrial heart of the gritty town. Behind the façade, Bob harbored secrets that shattered them both, drove her mad, and pushed her to commit the ultimate act of desperation—or was it murder? Like grime from the steel mill cloaking their mansion windows, the real story of that warm June night in 1933 was obscured. The mysterious events left a scar upon McKeesport that never quite healed and soon captured the nation’s attention.

Local author and historian Lisa Speranza exhumes the heart of the scandal, unraveling an almost century-old story that time nearly forgot.

Explore the true story of a famous crime that inspired Anatomy of a Murder

Just after midnight on July 31, 1952, Army Lieutenant Coleman A. Petersen walked into the Lumberjack Tavern in Big Bay, Michigan, and shot Mike Chenoweth in retaliation for an assault on his wife. This revenge killing rocked the small lumber town in the Upper Peninsula, and the trial that followed inspired a best-selling novel and an Academy Award–nominated motion picture, Anatomy of a Murder.

Using the testimony taken from trial transcripts, the police investigator, and the killer, author Patrick J. Baker shares the real story of a sensational murder trial that captivated the Midwest and the aftermath that drew the eyes of the nation.

The infamous 1892 murders of Andrew and Abby Borden have captivated New Englanders for over one hundred years. But the story doesn’t end in Fall River. Far beyond the locked doors of the Borden household there is a wider web of people, places, and histories connected to the case. From the investigators who shaped the trial and the reporters who sensationalized it, to the key locations that marked Lizzie Borden’s life and lingering legacy, there is a multifaceted history behind one of America's most enduring true crime stories. There are the lives of other remarkable—and often overlooked—figures linked to the Borden bloodline. Among them are Innocent Borden, the recently discovered daughter of Thomas Cornell, a man who was executed in 1673 for the alleged murder of his mother in colonial Rhode Island. And then there’s Sarah Maria Cornell, a mill worker and distant cousin of Lizzie, whose mysterious death sparked scandal when a prominent Methodist minister was accused of her murder. By weaving these parallel tales of crime, gender, and societal upheaval into the central narrative, local author Sam Baltrusis takes a deep dive into the ultimate whodunit—placing Lizzie’s story within a broader historical and cultural context of rumors, power, and the shifting expectations of women in American society.

Politics and power in Gold Rush California

At the north end of a quiet neighborhood in Daly City lies a historical marker noting the site of California's most infamous—and deadly—duel. The San Francisco of 1859 had grown rapidly, with treasure seekers from all corners of the globe converging to find their own fortune, either through prospecting or, more lucratively, catering to the needs of those prospectors. 

Out of the muddy streets and the chaos, two leaders emerged whose actions would have an outsized influence on the course of American politics for decades. David S. Terry, the chief justice of the California Supreme Court, and U.S. Senator David Broderick were both determined to steer the fate of the new state, but in very different directions. At the heart of their rivalry lay the fight against slavery, with Senator Broderick advocating for California to remain a free state. 

On September 13, 1859, their arguments came to a head in a duel that ended with Senator Broderick shot and mortally wounded. He died three days later, but the outcome would haunt David Terry for another thirty years. 

Author William E. Hammonds explores the twists and turns of the duel for the future of Gold Rush California.

One Deadly Time in the Old Dominion

Violence and lawlessness plagued late nineteenth-and early twentieth-century Virginia, and with no bureau of investigation or state police force, the Old Dominion relied on the Baldwin-Felts Detective Agency to solve a multitude of crimes.

Formed by William G. Baldwin and Thomas L. Felts, the agency, headquartered in Roanoke, was charged with investigating some of the state’s most sensational murder cases. Among these were the brutal killing of Fannie McCue, wife of the former mayor of Charlottesville; the slaughter of a mountain family in Buchanan County; the shotgunning of Louise Beattie, the young wife of a wealthy Richmond playboy; and the unprecedented shootout in the Carroll County courthouse that left five dead.

Author and historian Phillip Andrew Gibbs recounts how the Agency’s detectives who worked these cases succeeded in bringing some of the state’s most heinous criminals to justice.

Flung down a well. Buried alive in the backwoods. Gunned down in broad daylight.

Not what you’d expect from a place flocked to by influencers for its cozy aesthetic and iconic fall foliage. 

Whether the crimes were intricately plotted or born of passion, Vermont’s history is filled with lawlessness, depravity, and murder. 

Some culprits struck just once, some went on a spree, while others using opportunism and cunning menaced entire regions for years. 

From the place Vermont calls “The Kingdom” to its “Marble City,” Thea Lewis, author of True Crime Stories of Burlington, Vermont, offers up more than a century of mayhem, with double lives, serial killers, and a plot to slay a beloved pop star with a global fan base. 

Join her as she peels back the region’s reputation for wholesomeness and rural charm to show you the darker side of the Green Mountain State.  

Explore a true crime mystery from the Tube City.

Local socialite La Roux Soles’s hometown of McKeesport, Pennsylvania, spoke her name in whispers. She and her husband, Bob, a charming war hero and successful businessman, lived it up with boozy Prohibition-era parties in their mansion perched high above the National Tube Works, the industrial heart of the gritty town. Behind the facade, Bob harbored secrets that shattered them both, drove her mad, and pushed her to commit the ultimate act of desperation—or was it murder? Like grime from the steel mill cloaking their mansion's windows, the real story of that warm June night in 1933 was obscured. The mysterious events left a scar on McKeesport that never quite healed and soon captured the nation’s attention.

Local author and historian Lisa Speranza exhumes the heart of the scandal, unraveling an almost century-old story that time nearly forgot.

On a cold February morning in 1990, a commuter driving Georgia Highway 190 near Pine Mountain made a discovery that would haunt Harris and Meriwether Counties for years: a young man, barely alive, abandoned on the roadside with brutal injuries that didn’t match any “accident.” What first looked like a hit-and-run quickly unraveled into something darker—an organized act of violence tied to the cocaine trade, barroom power, and a crew that believed fear was currency. Follow the death of Paul McKeen Jr. from the first 911 call through the long, grinding years of false stories, intimidation, and silence. As investigators dug past staged explanations, witnesses began to crack: ex-girlfriends, ex-wives, frightened associates, and reluctant insiders finally admitted what they heard, what they saw, and what the men involved bragged about afterward. The case became a test of whether justice can survive when physical evidence is thin—but human truth keeps surfacing. Author Clay Bryant traces the path from roadside mystery to indictments, pretrial strategy, and a high-stakes trial built on testimony, pattern, and motive.

Explore the true story of a famous crime that inspired Anatomy of a Murder

Just after midnight on July 31, 1952, U.S. Army Lieutenant Coleman A. Peterson walked into the Lumberjack Tavern in Big Bay, Michigan, and shot Mike Chenoweth in retaliation for an assault on his wife. This revenge killing rocked the small lumber town in the Upper Peninsula, and the trial that followed inspired a best-selling novel and an Academy Award–nominated motion picture, Anatomy of a Murder.

Using the testimony taken from trial transcripts, the police investigator, and the killer, author Patrick J. Baker shares the real story of a sensational murder trial that captivated the Midwest and the aftermath that drew the eyes of the nation.

The infamous 1892 murders of Andrew and Abby Borden have captivated New Englanders for more than one hundred years. But the story doesn’t end in Fall River. Far beyond the locked doors of the Borden household, there is a wider web of people, places, and histories connected to the case. From the investigators who shaped the trial and the reporters who sensationalized it to the key locations that marked Lizzie Borden’s life and lingering legacy, there is a multifaceted history behind one of America's most enduring true crime stories. There are the lives of other remarkable—and often overlooked—figures linked to the Borden bloodline. Among them are Innocent Borden, the recently discovered daughter of Thomas Cornell, a man who was executed in 1673 for the alleged murder of his mother in colonial Rhode Island. And then there’s Sarah Maria Cornell, a millworker and distant cousin of Lizzie, whose mysterious death sparked scandal when a prominent Methodist minister was accused of her murder. By weaving these parallel tales of crime, gender, and societal upheaval into the central narrative, local author Sam Baltrusis takes a deep dive into the ultimate whodunit—placing Lizzie’s story within a broader historical and cultural context of rumors, power, and the shifting expectations of women in American society.

Evil on the Edge of the Edwards Plateau

Darkness lurks in the shadows of the seemingly unspoiled country around Devils River. A sadistic murder of a Mexican American teenager in 1953 and the demented slaughter of a Mexican American family in 1968 have remained unsolved for decades. Both vicious slayings were linked by geography, prejudice, and perversity. Both atrocities were committed at the intersection of race, class, and entitlement. The community and key law enforcement personnel avoided accountability and looked the other way. As a result, the victims’ memories and the identities of the depraved perpetrators were confined to whispers.

A reckoning is long overdue, and award-winning author E.R. Bills's investigative efforts deliver the impetus. The devils were simply in the details.

Dark history lives beneath Georgia’s southern charm. In this gripping work of Georgia true crime history, veteran journalist Neely Young investigates the Peach State’s most chilling stories of crime, corruption, racial violence, and injustice. Blending narrative journalism with deep historical research, this book reveals the hidden side of Georgia history—where power, prejudice, and profit often collided with law and conscience.

Travel to July 11, 1964, when U.S. Army reservist Colonel Lemuel Penn became the victim of a shocking Ku Klux Klan murder on the Broad River Bridge, an act of civil rights era racial terror that helped galvanize national outrage. Step back to 1873 and the violent world of Reconstruction-era Georgia, where a young Doc Holliday was linked to deadly clashes long before becoming the legendary gunfighter of Tombstone fame. Through stories of mob vigilantism, political corruption, backroom deals, lawmen, outlaws, and unsolved crimes, Young uncovers the events that shaped the state’s darker legacy.

Perfect for fans of Southern true crime, American crime history, and historical crime nonfiction, this book offers a compelling look at real crimes that influenced culture, justice, and memory. Readers interested in civil rights history, historical murders, and true crime books about the American South will find a powerful blend of investigative storytelling and historical insight.

From hidden archives to notorious crime scenes, these unforgettable accounts show how the echoes of Georgia’s violent past still resonate today.

From the author of Murder in Victorian Western Michigan and Victorian Southwest Michigan True Crime comes more thrilling stories from the Wolverine State's past.

As the Michigan Central Railroad company became a juggernaut, the nineteenth-century rail line also devolved into a bastion for crime as morality was often set aside for profit. In 1850, a grand jury indicted fifty men in Jackson County for conspiracy to commit arson after a freight depot in Detroit was set ablaze. When two Grand Trunk locomotives collided in Battle Creek in 1893 killing twenty-seven people, a conductor and an engineer each accused the other, avoiding conviction. A Mineral Ridge train robbery of $70,000 in payroll money destined for miners on the Keweenaw Peninsula was exposed by a former railroad worker involved in the heist, allowing him to escape prosecution and sending four others to prison.

Author Michael Delaware unfolds dark stories of corruption and crime from Michigan’s Victorian age.

Read about the crime The Post-Tribune of Northwest Indiana called "the most reckless holdup and murder ever committed within the boundaries of Lake County.”

It all started with a haphazard robbery in a popular roadhouse halfway between Cedar Lake and Crown Point. Close to midnight, a hardened crew of bootleggers from the South Side of Chicago stalked into the crowded barroom. Fifteen terrifying minutes later, bullet holes cratered the walls, patrons were left bloody and dazed, and a prominent Lake County attorney lay dying. The mayhem would spark a furious and desperate police response, an unprecedented trial, and even more brutal murder.

Author James Haniford takes readers back to Prohibition-era Indiana for a front-row seat to the unbelievable true story of big-city crime in a small resort town.

November 13, 1925, marked the third miserably cold and dreary day on the campus of Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts. Early that morning the girls at Park House made a horrible discovery. A senior girl, Jeanne Robeson, lay dead on the floor of her kitchenette, the apparent victim of gas asphyxiation.

Later that afternoon, a second tragedy loomed as the girls at Clark House became aware that one of their housemates was missing. Alice Corbett of Utica, New York, walked away from Clark House and simply vanished. Her disappearance was front-page news in every paper in the northeast. 

With the death of one girl on campus and the disappearance of another, the press at first speculated that the two cases were somehow connected. The police, on the other hand, had other theories to investigate: was the Alice Corbett case a suicide, a runaway or an elopement? Did she suffer a nervous breakdown due to academic difficulties, or was her personal life dealt a staggering blow by a onetime boyfriend? 

Join author James M. Greiner as he unravels the details behind this cold case. 

Burbank is known as a haven from the craziness of nearby Hollywood, but the city has a dark underbelly.

Nellie May Madison shot her husband to death at their home in 1934 and became the first woman to be condemned to death in California. The brutal 1953 murder of Mable Monohan inspired an Oscar-winning movie, but that didn’t save Barbara Graham and her killer collaborators from the gallows. In the decades that followed, infamous and violent offenders such as the “Dating Game Killer,” the “Toolbox Killers,” and “Night Stalker” Richard Ramirez hunted for victims in the area, while slayings of detectives, private eyes, bookies, and secret gamblers piled up in the cold case files of the police department.

Award-winning author and journalist James T. Bartlett explores the sinister side of Burbank history.

Historic Crimes from the Hawkeye State 

The 1895 death of Price V. Evans, the brand-new Osage High School principal, sparked a two-month “Was it suicide? Was it murder?” debate in Iowa. The Cedar Rapids Evening Gazette proclaimed, “There has not been another tragedy in the history of Iowa that has called forth such bitter sentiment and been the cause of so much unseemly and wordy strife.” Osage authorities ruled it a suicide—despite being shot three times—while his hometown of Williamsburg declared murder. The Evans case, still unsolved today, leads this deep dive into not just one but four murders that rocked small-town Iowa over the course of a decade. Author Deb Nicklay explores the heart-wrenching rural cases that gripped an entire state.

Discover the rambunctious early history of Roanoke, a Wild West town in Virginia’s Blue Ridge.

During the 1880s, the new city of Roanoke attracted a large and diverse workforce and a multitude of merchants and investors. But like the Western cow towns and mining camps of the same period, the city also attracted sex workers, professional gamblers, charlatans, and common thieves. By the early 1900s, Roanoke had become well known for its brothels, saloons, gambling halls, and rampant lawlessness.

Despite a campaign to clean up the city, Roanoke was unable to shake its unsavory image. This was particularly true after Virginia went dry in 1916. With easy access to the moonshine whiskey that had long been produced in the surrounding mountains, bootleg kingpins boldly transported illegal liquor into the city and used violence to protect their operations.

Author Phillip Andrew Gibbs explores Roanoke’s early criminal underworld and how civic leaders and law enforcement struggled to free the city from its wild, wicked, and unrepentant reputation.

Go behind bars in the Wolverine State.

Almost every Michigan county had a jail, and if those walls could talk, they would speak of colorful sheriffs, vigilant turnkeys, and the motley population of prisoners housed in these county-run inns. St. Joseph County's “big house on the hill” nabbed headlines as the jail that held alleged Capone triggerman Fred “Killer” Burke, known as the most dangerous man alive at the time. Teenage robber Ray Rusch slipped away from the Genesee County Jail using a handful of pepper, and Ingham County Jail suffered from numerous infamous escapes in its day. Illegal hangings perpetrated by bloodthirsty mobs stained the pages of local history in Menominee, St. Clair, Shiawassee, and numerous other counties.

Author and crime historian Tobin T. Buhk leads an unforgettable tour of Michigan’s historic jails.

The murders that shocked Michigan

In the early morning of Tuesday, August 11, 1931, a Washtenaw County farmer found the smoldering remains of a car. Inside were the bodies of four teens, burned almost beyond recognition. Police immediately began an investigation, even tapping Harry Bennett, head of the Ford Motor Company Service Department, for assistance. Three killers stood trial two days later as a mob gathered outside the Ann Arbor Courthouse clamoring for a lynching. With the mob held back by the Michigan National Guard, Bennett delivered the killers to Jackson Prison by midnight Thursday. At the time, the so-called Torch Murders were deemed the most gruesome act of homicide in Michigan’s history—and perhaps the nation’s.

Peeling away myth from truth, author James Mann tells the story in full for the first time ever.

A Baffling and Brutal Case

Sunday, July 18, 1965, started out like any other hot summer day in Texas. Shirley Ann Stark and Susan Rigsby, Chi Omega sorority sisters at the University of Texas at Austin, left their Dallas homes early and drove together in Shirley’s Corvair to Austin. Little did they know the fate that awaited them later that afternoon as they visited the apartment of a friend and fellow UT student. The following day, the women were reported missing. A twelve-day nationwide search ensued, ending with the discovery of their bodies in a north Austin field. As one Associated Press reporter would later write, “The story held all the elements of a classic murder case: Campus beauties, youth, mystery, terror, and social standing.’’ Author Alan Burton revisits the forgotten, gruesome, and tragic double homicide that shook the Lone Star State. 

The state of Michigan is home to Great Lakes and greater mysteries.

What made Paige Renkoski abandon her running car on the side of the freeway in broad daylight? Who murdered Eddie Hollman while he slept at his parents’ home? Greg McRoberts died in a hit-and-run accident. Will a mysterious letter writer with knowledge of the crime ever come forward? Ten-year-old Valerie Bishop was murdered after visiting the corner store. Could untested evidence reveal the identity of her killer? Why did Connie Royce walk away from a busy nightclub never to be seen again?

Nina Innsted, host of the Already Gone podcast, leads a journey through the missing, the mysterious, and the unsolved in a quest for answers and justice.

Lovers of true crime and Ohio history will find themselves riveted by these crimes of passion.

There is a thin line between love and hate, and when intense passion threatens that border, blood will flow. Northern Ohio has had its share of people who felt that line snap. In Canton, the Phantom-Flapper Killer shot down her lover in cold blood after he threatened to expose her infidelity to the world. In Toledo, Dorothy Brown’s married boyfriend brutally attacked her when he learned that she was expecting. Max Amerman of Medina was willing to kill for the girl of his dreams, and when Cleveland’s Matilda Waldman believed that her husband was cursed by a witch, she took out the she-devil by way of a pistol.

Author Wendy Koile examines these relationships once bound by love, unraveled by lies, and cut off by murder.

Without reservation, she opened the door. Without hesitation, she hopped into the car, adjusting the skirt of her summer-weight navy blue suit to keep it unwrinkled as she sat down.

And just like that, 19-year-old Frances Cochran jumped into the void. 

On July 17, 1941, in Lynn, Massachusetts, attractive nineteen-year-old Frances Cochran stepped off a commuter bus and into a mysterious black automobile. Three days later, police discovered her mutilated body in a Salem lovers' lane.

Her murder made national headlines on the eve of World War II. Investigators checked twelve thousand cars and interviewed almost two thousand witnesses. They scrutinized a “Peeping Tom” men’s club. Despite leads that spanned the continent, decades passed and the killer was never caught. Like a poisonous vine, the death of Frances Cochran is tangled with other unsolved murders, including the 1947 Los Angeles Black Dahlia case.

As local author Rob Fitzgibbon reveals, it is also a story shrouded in the "Salem Factor,” the odd and inexplicable coincidences that occur in an area notorious for witchcraft and hauntings.

"Wickedest place in the wickedest section of Des Moines” —Des Moines Register

In the first decades of the twentieth century, saloon proprietor Erastus Wallace Scott of Des Moines—with his cousins in the infamous Carter Gang—operated a campaign of murder, fraud, corruption, and prostitution from his bar on East Court Avenue. In 1908, the local paper denounced the neighborhood as “given up almost entirely to houses of prostitution. At one end stands a notorious saloon, the scene of many crimes, even murders, and for years a harbor for criminals and a plotting place for the evil minded."

That reviled enterprise was none other than Scott’s seedy shack of sin. Initially, Scott gained the most notoriety, due to a slaying, numerous assaults, and sex trade associated with his establishment. But a subsequent murder brought cousin Will to the forefront. A land fraud scheme involving all three Carter brothers followed, including grand theft and even more deaths.

Authors David and Rose Donovan recount the long-forgotten story of a crime family’s nefarious reach beyond the red-light district.

A Baffling and Brutal Case

Sunday, July 18, 1965, started out like any other hot summer day in Texas. Shirley Ann Stark and Susan Rigsby, Chi Omega sorority sisters at the University of Texas at Austin, left their Dallas homes early and drove together in Shirley’s Corvair to Austin. Little did they know the fate that awaited them later that afternoon as they visited the apartment of a friend and fellow UT student. The following day, the women were reported missing. A twelve-day nationwide search ensued, ending with the discovery of their bodies in a north Austin field. As one Associated Press reporter would later write, “The story held all the elements of a classic murder case: Campus beauties, youth, mystery, terror, and social standing.’’ Author Alan Burton revisits the forgotten, gruesome, and tragic double homicide that shook the Lone Star State. 

A True Crime Mystery Four Decades in the Making

On the cold night of January 27, 1976, twenty-two-year-old college student Kyle Clinkscales vanished after leaving his bartending shift at the Moose Club in LaGrange, Georgia. His disappearance baffled investigators and devastated his parents, John and Louise, who spent decades chasing rumors, suspects, and false leads in one of the South’s most haunting cold cases.

For years, Kyle’s story became a staple in true crime circles, a case that blended small-town secrets, whispers of foul play, and the agony of parents who refused to give up. Then, in 2021, a shocking discovery was made: Kyle’s car submerged in an Alabama creek, with his remains inside. Suddenly, the case once thought frozen in time was thrust back into the spotlight.

Was Kyle’s tragic end the result of a simple accident? Or was it a carefully staged cover-up, concealing a brutal murder that eluded justice for nearly half a century? With modern forensic analysis and renewed investigative efforts, this chilling mystery raises more questions than answers.

Dive deep inside the twists and turns of Kyle Clinkscales’s disappearance and discovery—exploring law enforcement missteps, local rumors, and the enduring fight of a family unwilling to surrender hope. More than just a Southern true crime story, Kyle’s case helped inspire legislative reform for families of the missing, proving that even decades-old mysteries can change lives.

Author James B Longshore details the forty-plus-year ordeal. 

When the police caught up with Johann Hoch, he’d already proposed to what they believed would have been wife number fifty-five.

For a decade, he traveled the country, marrying and deserting desperate women—and five of his wives were lying in their graves. He married Marie Walcker in Chicago in 1904, and when Marie died five weeks later, he proposed to her sister while the corpse lay on the bed. The sister agreed, only to be swindled out of her savings. Adam Selzer trails jovial, big-talking Hoch through a twisting tale of Chicago journalism, Chicago justice and the coming together of some of most daring and corrupt characters the city had to offer.

The murder that still haunts a Pennsylvania city

On the morning of August 8, 1975, sixteen-year-old Debbie Gama disappeared after leaving her home in Erie, only to be found dead days later in a creek nearly thirty miles from her home. What followed was an investigation that lacked suspects or even evidence pointing to a viable suspect. That is, until a private investigator named Dan Barber uncovered evidence leading directly to her killer: her English teacher, Raymond Payne. After Payne’s arrest, Debbie’s mother, Betty Ferguson, embarked on her own quest for justice, which unexpectedly led her on an incredible journey of forgiveness.

Utilizing newspaper articles, court documents and investigative files never before revealed, Justin Dombrowski presents a gripping narrative of one investigator’s pursuit of justice and a mother’s search for the truth.

Discover the South's Most Notorious Murders, Mysteries, and Criminal Masterminds

Journey from Texas to Virginia in this gripping collection of haunting criminal cases. Follow a relentless serial killer as he leaves a bloody trail across Louisiana and beyond, witness a cunning lonely-hearts swindler terrorize Texas, and uncover Arkansas's bizarre wave of strychnine poisonings that baffled investigators. Experience the supernatural when a West Virginia murder is revealed through dreams and meet a one-armed conjure-man whose murder-for-hire schemes shocked North Carolina.

Watch forensic science evolve as crimefighters expand their arsenal of detection tools in this compelling tour of the South's most notorious crimes, where fact proves stranger than fiction.

Crime writer Cathy Pickens brings a novelist’s eye to the sinister South and its defining—and quirky—crime stories.

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.

Authors Cary O’Dell and Richard L. Sprehe lead a literary investigation of a brutal cold-case murder. 

In May 1975, in the small Southern Illinois town of Centralia, the body of one of its best-known residents, John Shakespeare, was found nearly nude, bound, and shot, execution-style, in the basement of his home. Shakespeare, sixty-nine, was a wealthy bachelor, an eccentric, an heir to the Shakespeare fishing fortune, a world-renowned collector of vintage cars, and, maybe, a possessor of a few secrets.

Despite the victim being well liked in the community, state and local police, and eventually even the FBI and Interpol, found a plethora of suspects while investigating the crime. Could it have been his longtime business associate? Or the mysterious hitchhiker seen in town just days before his body was found? Or a long-ago name from his past?

One chill January night in 1867, a Virginia City prostitute was strangled to death in her bed.

The murderer was caught and hanged in front of a crowd of thousands, and the citizens of the Comstock considered the matter closed. More than 150 years later, the murder of Julia Bulette has become a local legend.

The man accused, John Millain, was suspected of killing before, but there would be no justice for those victims. Reduced to vague mentions in newspaper articles, little was left to tie their unsolved murders to that of Julia’s. Did John Millain leave a trail of tragedy that stretched from San Francisco’s Tenderloin neighborhood to Julia’s untimely end in Virginia City?

Author and award-winning journalist Robin Flinchum searches for the truth behind a string of murders in two of the richest cities in the early American West.

More than a century later, a grisly Ohio cold case murder gets new life.

The night before Easter 1905, Miranda Bricker left her sister’s house and made her way through the darkness. Her destination was her living quarters and place of employment, the Maplehurst mansion, the home of Mount Vernon, Ohio’s leading industrialist. Within sight of her destination, an attacker emerged from the darkness, rushing her from behind. Their battle cut across the Maplehurst lawn, ending in Bricker’s death before witnesses could be sure what was happening. The killer melted away into the night. The hasty investigation that followed almost resulted in an innocent Black man’s lynching before the case went cold and was forgotten.

Mark Sebastian Jordan has uncovered the roots and ripples of a story that crosses the continent and points out the possibility of a suspect 120 years later.

The state of Michigan is home to Great Lakes and greater mysteries.

What made Paige Renkoski abandon her running car on the side of the freeway in broad daylight? Who murdered Eddie Hollman while he slept at his parents’ home? Greg McRoberts died in a hit-and-run accident. Will a mysterious letter writer with knowledge of the crime ever come forward? Ten-year-old Valerie Bishop was murdered after visiting the corner store. Could untested evidence reveal the identity of her killer? Why did Connie Royce walk away from a busy nightclub never to be seen again?

Nina Innsted, host of the Already Gone podcast, leads a journey through the missing, the mysterious, and the unsolved in a quest for answers and justice.

Lovers of true crime and Ohio history will find themselves riveted by these crimes of passion.

There is a thin line between love and hate, and when intense passion threatens that border, blood will flow. Northern Ohio has had its share of people who felt that line snap. In Canton, the Phantom-Flapper Killer shot down her lover in cold blood after he threatened to expose her infidelity to the world. In Toledo, Dorothy Brown’s married boyfriend brutally attacked her when he learned that she was expecting. Max Amerman of Medina was willing to kill for the girl of his dreams, and when Cleveland’s Matilda Waldman believed that her husband was cursed by a witch, she took out the she-devil by way of a pistol.

Author Wendy Koile examines these relationships once bound by love, unraveled by lies, and cut off by murder.

A Notorious Double Murder Revisited

Οn May 5, 1931, Callie Wiggins rose from her bed, dressed, and—as she had done many times before—headed to 323 Wagner Street in Water Valley to the home of her employers, W.B. and Mamie Wagner. She was planning to cook them a hearty breakfast, but when she entered the house, she found the usually pristine interior in shambles. The smell of blood hung heavy in the air. Then she saw the hardwood floors streaked with gore. When police arrived, they ventured into the carnage to find bloody footprints, signs of an attempted cleanup, and, in the dining room, an axe covered in blood, hair, and bone. Author Mark Neaves revisits the notorious and grisly murders of the richest and most influential couple in a small Mississippi town.

Revel at the tales of these locals boys from Southwestern Pennsylvania going west to seek their Sin City dreams.

As turmoil rocked New Castle in the 1970s, a group of young men completed their military service and came home to a bleak future. Without college degrees or marketable skills, they found few options in Western Pennsylvania. Looking for a better life, they turned their eyes west.

Las Vegas promised women, gambling, excitement, and the chance to make a buck. Over their decades on the floors of Sin City’s casinos, they would rub shoulders with gangsters and stars and keep a sharp eye out for opportunity—and for card counters.

Based on hours of exclusive interviews, author Dale Perelman unfolds this cavalier group’s frolicking adventures as they navigated their way from the belly of the downtown Golden Gate to some of the Strip’s premier casinos, all while teetering along the right side of the law.

Authors Cary O’Dell and Richard L. Sprehe lead a literary investigation of a brutal cold-case murder. 

In May 1975, in the small Southern Illinois town of Centralia, the body of one of its best-known residents, John Shakespeare, was found nearly nude, bound, and shot, execution-style, in the basement of his home. Shakespeare, sixty-nine, was a wealthy bachelor, an eccentric, an heir to the Shakespeare fishing fortune, a world-renowned collector of vintage cars, and, maybe, a possessor of a few secrets.

Despite the victim being well liked in the community, state and local police, and eventually even the FBI and Interpol, found a plethora of suspects while investigating the crime. Could it have been his longtime business associate? Or the mysterious hitchhiker seen in town just days before his body was found? Or a long-ago name from his past?

Before Butch Cassidy, there was Patrick Coughlin.

It began with the theft of some strawberries from a street peddler in Park City, Utah Territory, in 1895. By the time it was over, two lawmen were dead, and Patrick Coughlin was facing a firing squad. The young gunslinger, in a desperate bid to escape the punishment for his initial crime, caused one of the most thrilling manhunts in the state’s history. The outlaw and his sidekick went on a crime spree, escalating from stealing horses to gunfights, all with the posse tailing them, ending in a shootout at a remote cabin. When Patrick Coughlin was finally recaptured and tried, he would become the first prisoner sentenced to death in the state.

Join author and lawyer Brian Craig as he recounts the thrilling story of Patrick Coughlin, Utah’s original desperado.

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.

The murders that shocked Michigan

In the early morning of Tuesday, August 11, 1931, a Washtenaw County farmer found the smoldering remains of a car. Inside were the bodies of four teens, burned almost beyond recognition. Police immediately began an investigation, even tapping Harry Bennett, head of the Ford Motor Company Service Department, for assistance. Three killers stood trial two days later as a mob gathered outside the Ann Arbor Courthouse clamoring for a lynching. With the mob held back by the Michigan National Guard, Bennett delivered the killers to Jackson Prison by midnight Thursday. At the time, the so-called Torch Murders were deemed the most gruesome act of homicide in Michigan’s history—and perhaps the nation’s.

Peeling away myth from truth, author James Mann tells the story in full for the first time ever.

The Shady Side of the Lowcountry    

South Carolina’s Lowcountry is a picturesque location for vacations and fun, but it comes with a sinister side. Bootleggers in Hell Hole Swamp supplied illegal liquor to Al Capone, while a local man became one of the FBI’s most famous crimefighters. A murder mystery was solved on a gravestone. Tales feature a spree killer, serial killers, poisoners (and a man who could cure poisoning), love triangles gone wrong and a swamp creature called Lizard Man. Crime writer Cathy Pickens brings a novelist’s eye to the crime stories that define the sinister—and quirky—side of the Lowcountry.

The murder that still haunts a Pennsylvania city

On the morning of August 8, 1975, sixteen-year-old Debbie Gama disappeared after leaving her home in Erie, only to be found dead days later in a creek nearly thirty miles from her home. What followed was an investigation that lacked suspects or even evidence pointing to a viable suspect. That is, until a private investigator named Dan Barber uncovered evidence leading directly to her killer: her English teacher, Raymond Payne. After Payne’s arrest, Debbie’s mother, Betty Ferguson, embarked on her own quest for justice, which unexpectedly led her on an incredible journey of forgiveness.

Utilizing newspaper articles, court documents and investigative files never before revealed, Justin Dombrowski presents a gripping narrative of one investigator’s pursuit of justice and a mother’s search for the truth.

When the police caught up with Johann Hoch, he’d already proposed to what they believed would have been wife number fifty-five.

For a decade, he traveled the country, marrying and deserting desperate women—and five of his wives were lying in their graves. He married Marie Walcker in Chicago in 1904, and when Marie died five weeks later, he proposed to her sister while the corpse lay on the bed. The sister agreed, only to be swindled out of her savings. Adam Selzer trails jovial, big-talking Hoch through a twisting tale of Chicago journalism, Chicago justice and the coming together of some of most daring and corrupt characters the city had to offer.

In the early hours on a rainy autumn night in 1955, on a lavish country estate in Oyster Bay Cove, esteemed New York socialite Ann Woodward fired both barrels of her custom-made shotgun into the head of her husband, multimillionaire William J. “Billy” Woodward Jr., killing him. She mistook him for a notorious prowler who preyed on the privileged class. At least that was what the official reports stated. The police focused on catching the prowler, as they cast an impenetrable dragnet around the “Playhouse” for the elusive intruder. However, as with many other aspects of Billy and Ann’s social circle, things were not always as they appeared. Local author and retired detective Jerry Aylward uncovers the uncomfortable truths behind one of the Gold Coast’s most notorious murders.

In Yaphank, New York, hid the greatest threat to the United States war effort during World War II: the American Nazi.

Building on racial and ethnic biases, lack of trust in government and a dose of conspiracies, the German American Bund was able to contribute to a growing American fascist movement. Fueled partially by Nazi Germany’s financing of propaganda, thousands of New Yorkers embraced the ideals of an American Reich through retreats such as Yaphank’s Camp Siegfried, which groomed Nazi sympathizers to be ready for the fascist overthrow of the American republic. In opposition to Nazism, multiple local citizen groups fought to combat the Bund’s organized efforts to undermine America. Author Christopher Verga brings to life the often-overlooked history of New York’s World War II era through a story of Nazi sedition, espionage and citizen resistance to preserve the American republic.

Murder, mystery and misdemeanors in Solano County’s seat.

From the very beginning, Fairfield hosted its fair share of criminal activity. City founder Robert Waterman, a famed sea captain accused of beating his own crew during the “hellship trials,” walked away a free man, but the fallout paved the way for seamen’s rights. A spree killer set the state mass murder record in the 1920s, and several decades later, Fairfield was chosen as the location for serial killer Juan Corona’s trial. Mass murders, missing children, political scandals and even a case involving an Armijo High School graduate turned Russian spy all have their roots in this California town.

Author and accidental historian Tony Wade shines a light on the dark past of Fairfield, California.

A captivating tale of corruption and crime

In need of cash to finance the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln turned to the nation’s leading counterfeiters, including a band of enterprising criminals based in Monroe, Wisconsin. Operating under the nose of Allan Pinkerton, the Bonelatta Gang worked alongside the Kentucky Colony, who formed Chicago’s corrupt Democratic Machine and nurtured the Levee Lords all the way down to Al Capone. Even Salmon P. Chase helped this ring of Monroe crooks, but this did not stop the Secret Service from throwing them under the bus when Republican scandals became too hot for President Grant to handle.

Historian and Monroe native Andrea Nolen reveals this fascinating and little-known story of an obscure gang in rural Wisconsin that helped birth not only the Chicago mob but also the Ziegfeld Follies and the New Age movement.

GREAT MIDWEST BOOK FESTIVAL'S 2026 HISTORY CATEGORY WINNER

In the nineteenth century, heinous, bloody crimes shocked Michigan’s emerging western frontier.

A farmer, intent on marriage, disappeared after leaving a Leonidas tavern in 1853, culminating in the conviction of three men even though the body was undiscovered. A shooter fatally wounded a beloved sheriff during an 1867 Kalamazoo midnight jailbreak attempt, sparking a nationwide manhunt. The 1897 shooting of a couple in their Van Buren County home famously remains unsolved today. A brutal murder opposite the iconic train depot mortified Niles in 1892, and in 1894, an Okemos woman went mad after losing her husband, poisoned her son and tossed his body down a well.

Author Michael Delaware unfolds these and other true crime stories and mysteries from Victorian western Michigan.

On July 26, 1981, eight-year-old Cheryl Ziemba and her four-year-old brother, Christopher, disappeared from their backyard in Old Forge, Pennsylvania.

Within hours, hundreds of neighbors, police and firefighters were engaged in a frantic search, praying that they were not a town “snakebitten,” or cursed to misfortune. Two days later, all hope was lost when firefighters discovered the bodies of the children in an abandoned strip-mining pit. Pennsylvania State Police arrested their fifteen-year-old neighbor, Joey Aulisio, who was tried as an adult and sentenced to death by electric chair. Forty-three years later, Joey Aulisio still sits in prison.

Author Brian W. Kincaid presents a definitive account of one of the most infamous crimes and sensational trials in the commonwealth of Pennsylvania.

On November 5, 1976, twenty-seven-year-old Dorothy Milliken left her rural home in Sabattus, Maine, to go to an all-night laundromat. The following morning, her body was found slumped against the outside wall.

Despite various leads, there were no arrests for her murder. Dorothy Milliken became a name typed on an index card filed at state police headquarters, her crime scene displayed in grainy black-and-white photos in the evening newspapers. Nearly five decades later, author Sharon Kitchens examines the cold case, interviewing more than forty people, including Dorothy’s family, friends, former neighbors, law enforcement and forensic specialists. Who was Dorothy? Why has her killer never been found? Did she know her murderer, or was her death due to a random, frenzied attack?

A portion of the profits from the sale of the book are being donated to the Forensic Anthropology Identification and Recovery (FAIR) Lab at the University of New Hampshire. The FAIR Lab trains students to excavate, recover and identify human remains.

Capturing Montana’s Most Elusive Fugitive

During an intense spring blizzard in 1951, affable Clarence Pellett picked up a teenaged hitchhiker along Montana’s Hi-Line. Soon, blood from seven bullet holes in Pellett’s back stained the snow-covered prairie. Following a brief manhunt and confession, a heated debate ensued over capital punishment as Communist attorneys swooped in “to save this poor friendless boy.” Frank Dryman, twice sentenced to hang, escaped the noose when a sympathetic Montana Supreme Court stayed each execution. The “permanently insane and mentally deficient” killer was paroled into the custody of his brother in California after serving thirteen years of a life sentence. Eighteen months later, he vanished. Using a series of aliases, Dryman hid in plain sight for forty years despite state and federal warrants. Clem Pellett recounts the enthralling twists and turns of his hunt for his grandfather’s absconded murderer—the longest in state history.

The Saga of a Brutal Murder

Janet Siclari, a beautiful 35-year-old visitor to the Outer Banks, was found raped and fatally stabbed on the early morning of August 28, 1993, behind the iconic Carolinian hotel at Nags Head. After a long and intriguing probe, two investigators ultimately charged a suspect, thanks to advances in DNA testing. Defense attorneys, trying to save that defendant’s life, argued another suspect could have killed Janet. In this moving narrative, based on exclusive interviews with case insiders, investigative author John Railey reveals for the first time all the twists and turns that led to the killer’s conviction.

“Ninety percent of [what] was written about me is bullshit”

Isadore Blumenfeld, aka Kid Cann, came to Minnesota as a toddler when his family emigrated from Romania. In Prohibition-era Minneapolis, a city of vast wealth inequality and vicious antisemitism, young Isadore rose from impoverished newsboy to millionaire. Kid Cann’s ruthless determination, growing organized crime network and willingness to commit wanton violence ignited his meteoric ascent. He got away with innumerable crimes over four decades before a series of relatively minor offenses brought him down. Although ravaged by stress and stripped of his social stature, the infamous gangster earned a place in the folklore of Minnesota. Historian Ron de Beaulieu recounts the saga of the state’s most notorious crime boss.

Taming a Tumultuous Territory

Hollywood westerns of the twentieth century brought a history of raucous frontier justice to life, but 1800s Colorado was anything but fiction. Bandits held up the Denver and Rio Grande train at Unaweep Switch, while another gang stole $50,000 from the express car at Cotopaxi. “The Bloody Espinosas,” who left mutilated bodies along lonely mountain trails, terrorized southern Colorado. The Reynolds Gang held up South Park stagecoaches, while Tom McCarty and Matt Warner robbed banks. These unruly times demanded a society where the law prevailed. Dave Cook started the Rocky Mountain Detective Association and improved crime fighting methods. Tom Tobin tracked down two serial killers using his wilderness skills. Doc Shores, who always got his man, earned his nickname, “the Bloodhound.” Author Nancy K. Williams hunts down the good, the bad and the ugly characters who color Colorado’s past.

A sad and shocking story of love betrayed

The murder of Bessie Little and the trial of her murderer rocked Victorian Dayton. Believing herself pregnant and desperate to save her reputation, young Bessie tried to force her boyfriend, Albert Frantz, to marry her quickly. Instead, he took her out for a buggy ride, shot her twice in the head and dumped her body in the river. When she was discovered, he tried to convince everyone that she committed suicide. The dramatic trial brought to light details of Bessie and Albert’s secret trysts, and Albert’s sanity became a point of contention.

In her third historical book about Dayton, Sara Kaushal delves into a tale of scandal and betrayal to discover the truth.

Cold Case Clues

On May 21, 1932, Arthur Oker, a mild-mannered Finnish tailor, was brutally murdered in his shop in the small seaside town of Rockport, Massachusetts.

While this unsolved crime terrified local residents, their fears increased after another horrifying murder, that of Swedish immigrant and fellow churchgoer Augusta Johnson in her home on Halloween night in 1933. Following the crimes, authorities searched every house and building in Rockport, and some 2,500 households were interviewed. A reward was posted, a mystic volunteered her services and local children wearing badges provided by a breakfast cereal company joined in the search. However, the crimes went unsolved. Local authors Robert Fitzgibbon and Wayne Soini reveal long-lost details about the crime, the investigation and a surprise suspect from the state police archives.

One candy heiress, two bullets and three suspects.

The small Southern California island of Coronado rarely makes news for violent crime. But in the spring of 1975, World War II widow and retired librarian Ruth Quinn was murdered, execution-style, in her cottage. Her death sent a shock wave through the community. The granddaughter of Jujubes and Jujyfruits creator Henry Heide, Ruth was found fully clothed with her shoes on, in her bed, dead from two gunshot wounds. To this day, her murder has never been solved, but whispers about her brother, her son and even a local petty thief still swirl.

Author Taylor Baldwin Kiland sifts through the dirt for the facts about Ruth’s life and her untimely end in Coronado.

Dr. Ann Webster Bunch delves into the enigmatic disappearance of William Morgan, a 19th-century figure whose threat to expose Masonic secrets led to his mysterious vanishing, igniting political turmoil and leaving a case that remains unresolved nearly 200 years later.

William Morgan was last seen in Batavia, New York, in September 1826, down on his luck and haunting the local pubs. An elusive local citizen, he had recently threatened to publish purported Masonic secrets. He was later arrested that same month in Canandaigua for petty theft and eventually transported and held in Fort Niagara. From there Morgan seems to have disappeared forever. The local Freemasons were accused of his demise. State Assemblyman and newspaper editor Thurlow Weed fanned the political flames to great effect. Yet Morgan was to return, this time in stone, atop a monument erected at Old Cemetery, Batavia, in 1882. Enigmatically, no body lies there. Thus, the case of Mr. Morgan technically remains that of a missing person almost two hundred years after his disappearance. Dr. Ann Webster Bunch takes an investigative science approach to this extremely cold case to demystify and highlight ways to resolve the fate of this highly polarizing historical figure.

Bloody discoveries, potential serial killers & dramatic court cases.

Washington, D.C., saw its share of grim murders in the mid-twentieth century. From a love triangle gone wrong to an unknown killer on the loose, there was no shortage of sensationalized headlines keeping residents up to date. Reports of a respected businessman found in a hotel room with the body of his longtime mistress shocked locals, while the murder of eleven-year-old Carol Bardwell in Rock Creek Park sparked a manhunt for her killer. The racially charged case of Catherine Reardon’s murder in the National Cathedral’s library would even end up in front of the U.S. Supreme Court.

Join author Zachary G. Ford as he uncovers the capital region’s dark past.

Some say it was the biggest theft in American history. Maybe it was.

The multimillion-dollar burglary at eccentric gambler LaVere Redfield’s Reno mansion was an endless comedy of errors. A target who hides from cameras and gets embarrassed for his dog. A failed songwriter “mastermind” who can’t keep her mouth shut. A safecracker who can’t pick a lock. And a convicted killer who allows his ill-gotten gains to be stolen while his pants are down. In almost every way, the 1952 Reno Heist is a study in how not to commit a crime, which is likely why the case lives on in infamy.

Historian Gavin Schmitt unfolds the notorious misadventures of bumbling crooks, shady casino owners and femme fatales.

How Long Beach caused the death of John A. Lamb.

Immediately after his 1914 election as mayor of Long Beach, Louis Napoleon Whealton fired the chief of police and raided the city treasury. To replenish the funds, Mayor Whealton concocted a scheme to collect fines from any male “who made advances toward other men.” Two special police officers entrapped and arrested thirty-one men, dragging them before a judge to pay up or risk a public trial. When one victim refused to play along, newspapers were quick to publish the names of everyone accused, including local pharmacist and popular churchman John A. Lamb. His suicide made headlines, but the city continued to target gay men well into this century.

Author and historian Gerrie Schipske uncovers the story of a tragic death with far-reaching consequences in Long Beach.

A Thrilling Lost Chapter of Mob Rule

Western Pennsylvania’s New Kensington was in the grips of Mafia control throughout the 1950s, with a bevy of bookie joints, gambling casinos and brothels. An outgrowth of the Pittsburgh mob, New Kensington’s Costa Nostra ordered a group of Mafiosi to break into a National Guard station in Ohio and steal a shipment of weapons. The guns were destined for Fidel Castro, who was waging guerrilla war in Cuba. The Pittsburgh Mafia was hoping to get on Castro’s good side if he won the war to secure the reopening of gambling casinos. From a daring heist in Canada to Swiss bank accounts and CIA informants, this infamous gunrunning scheme was a high-speed saga of international intrigue. Join author Richard Gazarik as he presents a harrowing historical narrative of the criminal underworld of Western Pennsylvania.

The story of the intersection between vigilantism and law enforcement

In frontier Indiana, vigilantism was a grim necessity. Beginning with the vigilance committees of the 1860s that lynched the Reno Gang and the Knights of the Golden Circle, who plotted to assassinate Governor Morton, the Hoosier State was a hotbed for citizens taking the law into their own hands. Later groups such as the White Caps enforced their own moral code, while the state legislature sanctioned the Horse Thief Detective Association and the Banking Vigilantes.

Chronicling the vigilante groups that operated in Indiana, author Robert Bowling explores the evolution of law enforcement from the lone marshal on the frontier to the birth of the modern police department and the Indiana State Police.

Crime writer Cathy Pickens brings a novelist’s eye to the stories that define the sinister—and quirky—side of the Triad.

The Triad region ranks high in national murder statistics, but crime stories are always more interesting than numbers. Crimes in North Carolina’s Piedmont happen in small towns, rural farmhouses and elegant mansions, carried out by criminals who were just visiting, some who were born in the Triad but moved elsewhere, and plenty who stayed close to home. Delve into the tale of Nannie Doss, the giggling grandma who lived in Lexington long enough to poison one of her husbands. The now-famous Alford plea was first used in Winston-Salem. Learn the real story of the Reynolds tobacco heir whose Lindbergh-inspired flight ambitions ended with a single gunshot.

“Cold Case” Clay Bryant unravels a 20-year old cold-case murder. After a daring escape from certain death in a North Vietnamese prison, followed by years in a refugee camp in Thailand, Savang Phovixay and his family sought safety and a better life in the United States. That dream was shattered when their daughter Vieng disappeared in October 1987. In spite of substantial leads, she remained missing until 1989 when her skeletonized remains were found bound to a tree in rural West Georgia. The crime remained an unsolved tragedy for nearly two decades until Bryant took on the case in search of justice for Vieng and her family. 

Local author Rena Glover Goss unfolds the intricacies of the murder that rocked Jefferson County.

In 1899, the Cramblett and Gosnell families lived on Perrin Run. Quincy Cramblett, romantically involved first with Elva Gosnell and later with her sister Cora, frequently proposed marriage. Both girls declined because of their father’s objections to the young man. Growing desperate, Quincy proposed that he and Cora commit suicide. She refused. Weeks later, their father, James Gosnell, was fatally shot. Immediately suspected, Quincy was indicted for murder after a brief hearing. Over the course of two trials in 1900, local critics differed vehemently about his guilt or innocence, and crowds packed the courtroom to witness the drama. Qunicy was acquitted, but none one else was ever questioned or indicted for James Gosnell’s murder.

The Ponzi scheme that devastated Napa Valley.

In 1988, a daring San Francisco drug bust led investigators straight to a massive financial fraud scheme in the Napa Valley. Hundreds of residents, many of them elderly, had entrusted their life savings to respected businessman David Hanson only to lose everything as his scheme unraveled. The destruction spread like ripples in a pond, with victims losing retirement savings, houses, and more. Multiple arrests were made, and every trial revealed another twist.

Join author and retired Napa Superior Court judge Raymond A. Guadagni as he tells the story of the pursuit of justice for the citizens of Napa.

An Agatha Nominee for Best Non-Fiction

On a bitter November night in 1945, a widow shot her young boarder, a WWII veteran, and left him to die on the floor of his room.

Helen Clark tossed the gun under the neighbor’s porch and then took a taxi to join her teen daughters at a movie in Bristol. When the body was found, after several conflicting statements, she settled on the claim that he shot himself–four times, twice in the back. The Commonwealth of Virginia called it murder in a jealous rage. The trial enthralled the nation.

Local author Greg Lilly uses newspaper coverage of the murder, the investigation and the trial to reveal the facts of the Abingdon boardinghouse murder.

Erie's Shocking Turn of the Century Extortion Scandal

On February 8, 1911, the Scott Mausoleum, a symbol of wealth for the Scott and Strong families in Erie, Pennsylvania, was desecrated by unknown vandals, coined by nationwide papers as ghouls. With the inside of the mausoleum heavily damaged - and a body missing - the crime set off shockwaves throughout the country during a time in which grave robbery, extortion and murder reigned supreme. 

Hundreds of reporters and newspaper correspondents throughout the country and world descend upon the Great Lakes port city. Private Detectives from the Perkins Detective Agency in Pittsburgh took charge of the case, pitted against rival detectives from the famous Burns Detective Agency. The case took a sinister turn when a series of letters were sent to wealthy local philanthropist Charles Hamot Strong, threatening to blow up his mausoleum and murder his granddaughter.

Author Justin Dombrowski presents the twists and turns of a historic and shocking crime and coverup in Erie, Pennsylvania.

Stacey Stanton, a beloved resident of Manteo, was found stabbed to death in her apartment on the afternoon of February 3, 1990.

The slaying was the most horrendous crime the town had seen in years. With tourist season coming on and Manteo in the midst of a revitalization, a rushed investigation followed. Overlooked leads and racial tension led to the conviction of an innocent man. This riveting narrative, built on access to the state’s investigative file and multiple interviews with case insiders, delves into the truth behind the murder.

Investigative journalist John Railey explores the mistakes made and finally arrives at the long-hidden truth of what happened to Stacey.

On July 27, 1903, spurred into action by inmate Richard ‘Red’ Gordon, thirteen men attacked their jailers and made a run for freedom.Folsom Prison had only been open for 20 years and was already one of the toughest and most brutal prisons in the country. It had one major flaw—no walls. A statewide manhunt ensued, following a deadly trail of attacks, kidnappings, and murder. Among the escapees were Joseph Theron and Frank Case, both sentenced to life in prison for robbery, and Joseph Murphy, burglar and poet. Sightings were reported from San Franciso to Reno and in the end, five of the prisoners were never found.Join author Josh Morgan as he recounts the violence and heroism of Folsom Prison’s biggest breakout.

Discover the South's Most Notorious Murders, Mysteries, and Criminal Masterminds

Journey from Texas to Virginia in this gripping collection of haunting criminal cases. Follow a relentless serial killer as he leaves a bloody trail across Louisiana and beyond, witness a cunning lonely-hearts swindler terrorize Texas, and uncover Arkansas's bizarre wave of strychnine poisonings that baffled investigators. Experience the supernatural when a West Virginia murder is revealed through dreams and meet a one-armed conjure-man whose murder-for-hire schemes shocked North Carolina.

Watch forensic science evolve as crimefighters expand their arsenal of detection tools in this compelling tour of the South's most notorious crimes, where fact proves stranger than fiction.

Crime writer Cathy Pickens brings a novelist’s eye to the sinister South and its defining—and quirky—crime stories.

Discover crimes that made headlines across northern Virginia in the 1950s and 60s. As the suburbs of Washington, D.C. expanded in the mid-twentieth century, growth inevitably led to increasing crime, and grisly murders began to shock local communities. Learn the story of the killer and his victim who are buried only a few yards apart. The truth behind the tale of the murderous toddler and the sad story of the death of an agent at National Airport belie the picture perfect image of those decades. Fairfax, Arlington, Alexandria, Falls Church and Prince William witnessed atrocities that grabbed headlines in their day but have since faded from collective memory. Local author Zachary Ford uses detailed research drawn from contemporary accounts to bring these stories to life.

Murder and mystery haunt the shadowy corners of the Victorian Era in Southwest Michigan.

Decades after his supposed death in 1846, a litigious bachelor was discovered to have been buried alive. In 1865, a Battle Creek woman, yearning for her lover, used Spiritualism to conceal poisoning her three children. An 1883 unsolved quadruple homicide near Jackson caused two suicides, one attempted suicide and two assassination attempts. In 1891, a ten-year-old girl adopted from the State School in Coldwater one morning was found dead in an icy river two counties away that same afternoon.

Researcher and author Michael Delaware unfurls these and other stories that shocked Michigan and the nation over a century ago.

A history of betting on the East Side. Making it as a professional gambler in the first part of the twentieth century was a long shot, but wagering on the wide open scene of East St. Louis could help even the odds. Folks who were feeling lucky enough might grab a copy of Louis Cella’s racing form, or get the inside scoop from turf men like Barney Schreiber. Students of the art of bookmaking had plentiful mentors in local legends like Adam “Mulepole” Fritz. But even then, a hot streak could attract the attention of a representative of the Chicago Outfit such as Frank “Buster” Wortman. The nephew of Vic and Jim Doyle, who built the Ringside Casino into the Midwest's largest casino, author James Doyle connects the dice rolls of bygone St. Louis Kingpins to high stakes players in New York and New Orleans.

Haunting cold cases from the Heart of It All/

Northern Ohio is best known for its stunning lake views and bustling cities, but even a region as gorgeous and prosperous as this has seen its measure of tragedy. Judy Martins was a beautiful Kent State University coed who disappeared after a dorm party. Frank Noch was a mathematical genius and valuable employee at the General Motors plant in Cleveland. Someone broke into his home and killed him. Hinckley Police Chief Mel Wiley had a secret. Maybe that is why he disappeared. DNA helped Sandusky Police identify a Jane Doe forty-three years to the day she washed up on the shores of Lake Erie. Now, detectives are hoping to find out who put Patricia Greenwood in the water and why.

Award-winning author Jane Ann Turzillo unfolds these unsolved cases and eight more from the north of the Buckey State.

Dive into this riveting tale and discover just how deadly a pen and paper can be when wielded by a master manipulator.

In the 1930s, in the sleepy town of Quiet Dell, West Virginia lonely, wealthy women began to disappear. Under the guise of charming love letters, con man Harry F. Powers lured them into a sinister web of deceit. When correspondence evolved into promises of romance, and then face-to-face meetings, these women would mysteriously vanish. As the number of missing women grew, the authorities finally took notice. Investigators unearthed a murder garage with a custom-made concealed dungeon, revealing the appalling evidence of multiple murders. The horror of Powers’ crimes gained statewide notoriety, and shook the community to its core.

Local author Angela Fielder tells a riveting tale of one of history’s most cunning serial killers.

They used arsenic to obtain chemical divorces and strychnine to settle scores. They bludgeoned husbands to make way for lovers. They flattened love triangles with blunt objects. They murdered for money, for revenge, for pleasure./

Meet the heiress who just could not take “no” for an answer from her mechanic lover; meet the two nursing home workers whose deadly game ended after the murders of six residents; meet the three sirens who lured a wealthy banker to the strip poker game of death. And many, many other Michigan mistresses of mayhem in this collection of true crime tales.

Haunting mysteries from America’s Heartland/

Indiana rightly prides itself as a safe place to live. Nevertheless, the Hoosier State has experienced its share of unexplained deaths and unsolved disappearances. The state’s oldest missing child case, the disappearance of four-year-old Richmond Byers from Seelyville in 1904, may never be solved. The 1998 attempted bombing of the Tippecanoe County Courthouse remains one of the only unsolved instances of domestic terrorism in the United States. The identities of Bedford’s so-called Carnival Babies will likely forever be unknown. The 1929 murder of Elizabeth Miller may have been the result of the community’s belief that she was a witch, but the true culprit has never been brought to light./

Author of Unsolved Indiana/ Autumn Bones explores some of Indiana’s least known unsolved mysteries.

The Derby City's Dark Side

Louisville has a long history of violence and murder. Editor Godfrey Pope shot Leonard Bliss over a political joke. A hanged man was allegedly revived with electricity. Josephine Lawrence was a sex worker bent on revenge with unfortunate bad aim. Two locals engaged in a feud that resulted in one man’s death and the other’s marriage to the dead man’s widow. A United States president had a direct descendant arrested for committing a murder near the city. Author Keven McQueen details twenty-four little known homicides that rocked the city from the 1840s to the 1920s.

A True Story of Murderous Greed.

The John R. Kizer story is a riveting tale of deception, murder and anxiety in rural Arkansas. Kizer was a doctor who used his knowledge to drive his lustful greed and his standing in the community to evade detection. He would spend hours caring for a sick farm animal but could also poison a dog with no emotion. And he acted the same with humans. Kizer used his wealth, position and social standing to evade detection while committing gruesome crimes, allowing him to recoup much of his ruined finances following the great stock market crash of 1929. His dreams of wealth and social acceptance drove him to murderous heights. Historian Rodney Harris offers the true story of Kizer's life.

Mischief and Mayhem in the Midlands.

A thrilling account of dramatic and menacing crimes that shaped the central region of the state. Crimes that captured the attention of residents in the area and statewide over the years from gamblers with too much debt to insurance fraud and a famous cat burglar. A well-known televangelist had a run in with arson, and a murderer made his presence felt all the way in California. This collection of headlining stories features notorious serial killers, families divided, vicious politics and marital strife. Author Cathy Pickens brings her eye for a great story to Columbia and recounts with a novelist's detail the infamous crimes that rocked a region.

The Memphis Underworld King  

Diggs Nolen’s name was the byword for crime in 1920s Memphis. As a child, he dreamed of becoming a swashbuckling outlaw. He turned his back on a promising career, his family and consorted with the worst elements of society. Under the tutelage of train robber Frank Holloway, Nolen became a notorious con artist. Later, he and his gun-slinging wife built an empire out of selling narcotics and trafficking stolen goods. Law enforcement caught Nolen, but they could not hold him. Nolen escaped from Leavenworth Prison, led the largest jailbreak in Memphis history and confounded prosecutors with legal wranglings. Author Patrick O’Daniel details Nolen’s quixotic quest for criminal fame that earned him the title King of the Memphis Underworld.

Burlington has long been known as the shining jewel in Vermont's crown, but a current of darkness flows beneath this charming port on Lake Champlain.

There is a sordid side to the city that top-ten lists routinely call one of the country's most livable cities,” with stories of dirty cops, notorious ladies of the night, knife wielding psychopaths, lovers off the deep end and famous serial killers.

Author and tour guide Thea Lewis showcases the cunning culprits who would go to any lengths to get what they wanted, and finally got what was coming to them.

Pittsburgh’s small but lucrative Cosa Nostra mafia family was on the rise in 1985 with a newly crowned Don...

The men who came to dominate the rackets in western Pennsylvania, eastern Ohio, and West Virginia opened the family to massive profits from drug trafficking and a street tax on other criminal activities. At the same time, the Youngstown, OH faction of the family launched a brutal mob war against the weakening Cleveland mafia and the Altoona, PA crew violently clamped down on their city.

Discover gritty stories of a made member who controlled who a local police department hired, an informant who betrayed his own mafia grandfather and father, numerous unsolved murders and a mob mole in the Pittsburgh office of the FBI.

This is the tale of a mafia family at the pinnacle of its power, willing to do anything to hold on to that power and its downfall in the criminal underworld.

The coldest cases from Middletown, USA/

With dozens of unsolved murders spanning decades, Muncie and surrounding Delaware County might have more killings without justice than any American community like it. In 1962, Maggie Mae Fleming was shot to death as she sat in her living room. Paula Garrett was bludgeoned in her home in 1979, and her son, who survived the attack, wants justice. Garth Rector, killed in 2008, could have been murdered by any number of people he knew—or dated./ 

Journalists and award-winning true crime authors Douglas Walker and Keith Roysdon shine a spotlight on the victims, and on their loved ones and the investigators still hoping for resolution to long-cold murders./ 

Surveying the sensational newspaper accounts as events unfolded, author and historian Chris Flook recounts this grisly tale of political intrigue and conspiracy .

In the fall of 1902, Indianapolis police uncovered a prolific graverobbing ring operating across the city. At the time, cemeteries across central Indiana were relieved of their dead by ghouls, as they were called, seeking fresh corpses desperately needed by the city’s medical colleges. The ring was also accused of multiple murders. In Hamilton County, a former Confederate soldier named Wade West delivered stolen corpses by floating them down the White River. His counterpart in Indianapolis, Rufus Cantrell, an itinerant preacher and full-time graverobber known as the “King of the Ghouls,” ransacked Indy’s cemeteries for years before being caught./

Warren township in the southern portion of Herkimer County has been the scene of more than one gruesome event.

In January 1885, locals reeled in horror when disgruntled wife Roxalana Druse shot her husband and dismembered his corpse to incinerate it in a farm house stove. Her trial and hanging was followed up in May of 1901 with two murders in yet another farm house kitchen.

John C. Wallis had allowed his ex-wife Arvilla to return home, one year after running off with hired farm hand Ben Hoyt. Wallis then rehired Hoyt and within months both Ben Hoyt and Arvilla Wallis were dead. Did Ben Hoyt murder Arvilla in cold blood or did John C. Wallis kill both of them?

Author James M. Greiner investigates a mysterious case of marriage, infidelity and multiple murders in turn of the century Herkimer County.

Author John E. O’Rourke recounts the crime that rocked a sleepy community and brought the nation’s eyes to North Jersey.

On a spring morning in Morristown in 1992, authorities discovered a car idling in a driveway with the door open and the driver missing. After they learned the driver was Sidney Reso, the president of Exxon International, the FBI joined the investigation. Over the next two months, law enforcement received cryptic communications that led to a cat-and-mouse chase for those responsible. Retired cop Arthur Seale and his wife, Irene, demanded one of the largest ransoms in U.S. history, and authorities struggled to solve the case.

Extreme wealth could buy a mansion in Millionaires' Row but not immunity from unsavory business dealings or shameful behavior.

May Hanna gave her millionaire ex-husband's hired Pinkerton detectives the slip to sneak out of the country. To escape financial embarrassment, James Potter, the manager of a prominent Euclid Avenue apartment building, gave his family cough medicine laced with poison, killing his entire family including himself. Married to a Millionaires' Row doctor, the infamous con woman Cassie Chadwick posed as Andrew Carnegie's illegitimate daughter and forged a fake $5 million check. Author Alan Dutka delves into sixteen tales of anguish and deceit that offer a startling perspective on Cleveland's super-rich.

An immigrant woman and her son are accused of murder and witchcraft in this powerful true crime story of corruption in 1930s Detroit.

In 1931, the tensions of the Great Depression took hold of Detroit at every level—even spilling over into the investigation of a mysterious murder at the Delray boardinghouse. Amid accusations of witchcraft, Hungarian immigrant Rose Veres and her son Bill were convicted of the brutal killing and suspected in a dozen more. Their cries of innocence went unheeded—until one lawyer, determined to seek justice, took on the case.

Following the twists and turns of this shocking story, The Witch of Delray explores the tumultuous 1930s in a city notorious for corruption and reveals the truth of Detroit’s own Hex Woman.

This WWII true crime history reveals a shocking story of murder inside an Arizona POW camp—and the U.S. military’s controversial response.

Though Arizona was far from any theater of battle during World War II, the grim realities of combat were brought home with the construction of POW camps. Located outside Phoenix, Camp Papago Park became famous for its prisoners’ attempted escape through the Faustball Tunnel, but it also had a dark reputation of violence among its prisoners.

One casualty was Werner Drechsler, a prisoner who supplied German secrets to U.S. Navy authorities. Nazis held at Papago Park labeled him a traitor and hanged him from a bathroom rafter. Controversy erupted over whether the killing was an act of war or murder. Some also questioned the lack of protection Drechsler received for aiding in espionage. Ultimately, seven POWs were hanged for the crime.

Author Jane Eppinga examines the tangled details and implications of America’s last mass execution.

In this intimate true crime biography, the author recounts his great grandfather’s journey from local grocer to Prohibition-era crime boss.

Sicilian immigrant “Big George” Niotta did exceptionally well for a grocery wholesaler. That’s because his biggest clients were bootleggers. He delivered hundreds of pounds of sugar to illegal liquor operations across California, supplying an essential ingredient and making sweet profits. But his criminal operations didn’t end there.

Niotta rose to prominence thanks to his magnetic charm, collaborating with infamous bootlegger Frank Borgia and influential gambling baron Jack Dragna. Dogged by the IRS, Niotta expanded his enterprise into ringer horses, a multimillion-dollar lottery, and a notorious gambling parlor. Through extensive research and interviews with family members, J. Michael Niotta explores three decades of L.A. crime, including a rare insider's look at the Eagle Brewing Company and other survivors of Prohibition.

Defined by a tangled web of deception for more than a century, Northwest Indiana's political culture involved secret handshakes, tapped phone calls, backroom deals and murder.

Found submerged in his car with a rock on the gas pedal, city official Babe Lopez's execution-style murder rocked East Chicago. Shot and killed at a political fundraiser, power broker Jay Given's murder occurred while four hundred guests mingled in a neighboring room. Former Lake Station mayor Keith Soderquist stole thousands of dollars from his reelection campaign and the city's food pantry account to gamble at local casinos. Author Jerry Davich explores the hidden political scandals and highly publicized court cases of public servants once sworn to serve and protect.

“The true case of Lydia ‘Lida’ Beecher, a school teacher, being killed by one of her former students . . . The book flows seamlessly” (Observer Dispatch).

In 1914, Poland, New York, was a picturesque slice of small-town America. That innocence was shattered with the shocking murder of beloved schoolteacher Lida Beecher at the hands of her former student Jean Gianini.

At twenty-one years old, Lida wasn't much older than her students. The son of a successful furniture dealer, Jean had all the advantages in life, but he had been labeled as different by all who encountered him. The shocking murder brought the world’s best alienists to the packed Herkimer County Courthouse to try to prove that the teenager’s mental development precluded his guilt.

Author Dennis Webster utilizes unprecedented access to court documents to reveal details of the sensational crime never before made known to the public.