True Crime

The True Crime American history book series dispels the shadows surrounding the insidious true crime stories that have gripped local communities. Cut through the myths and mistakes that plagued Brenda Joyce Holland’s murder case. Join the excavation of the mass grave of fifty-five railroad workers at Duffy’s Cut. Meet the infamous gangsters of Buffalo, New York, the outlaws of Western Pennsylvania, and the morally bankrupt moguls of Cleveland’s Millionaires’ Row. Featuring evidence from law enforcement, newspaper archives, and eyewitness accounts, these true crime books will force readers to look at their towns in a new light. [View all True Crime books]
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Cover image for The Murder of JoAnn Dewey in Vancouver, Washington, isbn: 9781467138857
The Murder of JoAnn Dewey in Vancouver, Washington
Paperback
$23.99
Cover collage for Jailhouse Stories from Early Pacific County with vintage photos and bold title.
Jailhouse Stories from Early Pacific County
Paperback
$24.99
Cover image for Tragedy at Southern Oregon Tunnel 13, isbn: 9781626193468
Tragedy at Southern Oregon Tunnel 13
Paperback
$24.99
Murder and Scandal in Prohibition Portland cover with a man tipping his hat beside a storefront and police in the background
Murder & Scandal in Prohibition Portland:
Paperback
$21.99

The Murder of JoAnn Dewey in Vancouver, Washington

9781467138857

$23.99 Save Liquid error (snippets/product-template line 248): Computation results in '-Infinity'%
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.
Cover image for The Murder of JoAnn Dewey in Vancouver, Washington, isbn: 9781467138857

Jailhouse Stories from Early Pacific County

9781467135290

$24.99 Save Liquid error (snippets/product-template line 248): Computation results in '-Infinity'%
Hangings, lynchings and jail breaks are long forgotten in Pacific County, where tourists flock to quaint attractions every season. But back in the early days, when the first jailhouse was built, this was a rough, rustic setting. Popular cannery worker Lum You was hanged here in 1902--the only legal execution in county history. Industrious smugglers and creative entrepreneurs outwitted state-sanctioned prohibition measures, though some still did time in the jailhouse. Historian Sydney Stevens presents a collection of tales culled from a forgotten prison record book. Opium fiends, thieves, military deserters and even wayward girls jailed for incorrigible acts are brought out of the shadows of a wilderness long gone.
Cover collage for Jailhouse Stories from Early Pacific County with vintage photos and bold title.

Tragedy at Southern Oregon Tunnel 13

9781626193468

$24.99 Save Liquid error (snippets/product-template line 248): Computation results in '-Infinity'%
The DeAutremont brothers were looking for a big score. They brought dynamite, guns and a getaway car. On October 11, 1923, at the summit of the Siskiyou Mountains in southern Oregon, the three young men held up a passenger train, with disastrous consequences. Their rash actions resulted in the tragic deaths of three Southern Pacific trainmen and one U.S. Mail clerk, unleashing a public outcry that still rings through Oregon's history. In this riveting account, rail historian Scott Mangold draws on interviews, in-depth research and previously unpublished maps and photographs to document the events at Tunnel 13. Join Mangold as he chronicles the resulting four-year manhunt and eventual conviction of the DeAutremonts and provides insight into the lives derailed by the robbery's bitter legacy.
Cover image for Tragedy at Southern Oregon Tunnel 13, isbn: 9781626193468

Murder & Scandal in Prohibition Portland:

9781467119535

$21.99 Save Liquid error (snippets/product-template line 248): Computation results in '-Infinity'%
The 1917 election of Mayor George Luis Baker ushered a long era of unscrupulous greed into Portland government. While supposedly enforcing prohibition laws, Baker ordered police chief Leon Jenkins to control and profit from the bootlegging market. Baker filled city coffers and his friends' pockets with booze-soaked cash while sensational headlines like the 1929 affair between policeman Bill Breuning and informant Anna Schrader scandalized the city. Maligned in the press, Schrader executed a bitter campaign to recall the mayor. In 1933, a hired gunman murdered special investigator to the governor Frank Aiken a day before he would have filed a report on corruption in the city government. Authors JD Chandler and Theresa Griffin Kennedy unearth the salacious details of Baker's crooked administration in a revelatory account of prohibition in the Rose City.
Murder and Scandal in Prohibition Portland cover with a man tipping his hat beside a storefront and police in the background