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]
4 products
Cover image for The Nastiest Saloon in Iowa, isbn: 9781467170826
The Nastiest Saloon in Iowa
Paperback
$24.99
Cover image for Murder in Salem, Massachusetts, isbn: 9781467171298
Murder in Salem, Massachusetts
Paperback
$24.99
Cover image for The 1965 Texas Coed Murders, isbn: 9781540299383
The 1965 Texas Coed Murders
Hardcover
$34.99
Cover image for The 1965 Texas Coed Murders, isbn: 9781467171533
The 1965 Texas Coed Murders
Paperback
$24.99

Murder in Salem, Massachusetts

9781467171298

$24.99 Save Liquid error (snippets/product-template line 248): Computation results in '-Infinity'%

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.

Cover image for Murder in Salem, Massachusetts, isbn: 9781467171298

The 1965 Texas Coed Murders

9781467171533

$24.99 Save Liquid error (snippets/product-template line 248): Computation results in '-Infinity'%

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. 

Cover image for The 1965 Texas Coed Murders, isbn: 9781467171533