Ron Franscell

Vincent DiMaio

In this clear-eyed, gritty, and enthralling narrative, Dr. Vincent Di Maio and veteran crime writer Ron Franscell guide us behind the morgue doors to tell a fascinating life story through the cases that have made Di Maio famous-from the exhumation of assassin Lee Harvey Oswald to the complex issues in the shooting of Florida teenager Trayvon Martin. Beginning with his street-smart Italian origins in Brooklyn, the book spans 40 years of work and more than 9,000 autopsies, and Di Maio's eventual rise into the pantheon of forensic scientists. One of the country's most methodical and intuitive criminal pathologists will dissect himself, maintaining a nearly continuous flow of suspenseful stories, revealing anecdotes, and enough macabre insider details to rivet the most fervent crime fans.

A Life in Death

Morgue

"Mindhunter crossed with American Gothic. This chilling story has the ghostly unease of a nightmare."—Michael Cannell, author of Incendiary: The Psychiatrist, the Mad Bomber and the Invention of Criminal Profiling The pulse-pounding account of the first time in history that the FBI’s Behavioral Science Unit created a psychological profile to catch a serial killer On June 25, 1973, a seven-year-old girl went missing from the Montana campground where her family was vacationing. Somebody had slit open the back of their tent and snatched her from under their noses. None of them saw or heard anything. Susie Jaeger had vanished into thin air, plucked by a shadow. The largest manhunt in Montana’s history ensued, led by the FBI. As days stretched into weeks, and weeks into months, Special Agent Pete Dunbar attended a workshop at FBI Headquarters in Quantico, Virgina, led by two agents who had hatched a radical new idea: What if criminals left a psychological trail that would lead us to them? Patrick Mullany, a trained psychologist, and Howard Teten, a veteran criminologist, had created the Behavioral Science Unit to explore this new "voodoo" they called “criminal profiling.” At Dunbar’s request, Mullany and Teten built the FBI’s first profile of an unknown subject: the UnSub who had snatched Susie Jaeger and, a few months later, a nineteen-year-old waitress. When a suspect was finally arrested, the profile fit him to a T...

An Elusive Psycho Killer and the Birth of FBI Profiling

ShadowMan

"The pulse-pounding story of the first time in history that the FBI Behavioral Unit created a profile to catch a serial killer. On June 25, 1973, a seven-year-old girl went missing from the Montana campground where her family was vacationing. Somebody had slit open the back of her tent and snatched her from under their noses. None of them saw or heard anything. Susie Jaeger had vanished into thin air, plucked by a shadow. The largest manhunt in Montana's history ensued, led by the FBI. As days stretched into weeks, and weeks into months, Special Agent Pete Dunbar attended a workshop at FBI headquarters in Quantico led by two agents who had hatched a radical new idea: What if criminals left a psychological trail that would lead us to them? Patrick Mullany, a trained psychologist, and Howard Teten, a veteran criminologist, had created the Behavioral Science Unit to explore this new voodoo they called "criminal profiling." At Dunbar's request, Mullany and Teten built the FBI's first profile of an unknown subject: the UnSub who had snatched Susie Jaeger and, a few months later, a 19-year-old waitress. They deduced that he was a white twentysomething who'd grown up without a father; an intelligent, local loner who had served in the military. They predicted he would contact Susie's parents on the anniversary of her murder, and when caught would attempt suicide. When David Meirhofer was arrested fifteen months after Susie's abduction, and confessed to four murders, the profile fit him to a T"--

Traces the events of the night in 1973 when two men kidnapped eleven-year-old Amy Burridge and her eighteen-year-old sister Becky, raped Becky, and threw both sisters over a bridge into a river near Casper, Wyoming, and discusses the trials of the men and the aftermath of the case.

Two Sisters, a Brutal Murder, and the Loss of Innocence in a Small Town

The Darkest Night

A 12-year-old boy cowers in his closet while a lunatic killer slaughters his family . . . a nursing student unwittingly opens her home to the serial killer on her front porch . . . an 11-year-old girl drifts alone at sea on a flimsy cork raft for almost four days after a mass murderer kills her vacationing family aboard a chartered yacht . . . a brave firefighter suddenly finds himself in the crosshairs of a racist sniper almost nine stories above the ground . . . And, astonishingly, they all survived. From Howard Unruh’s 1949 shooting rampage through a quiet New Jersey neighborhood to Louisiana serial killer Derrick Todd Lee’s reign of terror in 2002, the corpses piled up and few lived to tell the horror. Now, award-winning journalist Ron Franscell explores the wounded hearts and minds of the ordinary people these monsters couldn’t kill. His mesmerizing accounts crackle with gritty details that put the reader in the midst of the carnage—and offer a front-row seat on the complex, painful process of surviving the rest of their haunted lives. In intimate, gripping prose, Franscell takes the reader on a pulse-pounding dash through the murky intersection of pure evil and the potency of the human spirit. This journey into the darkest corners of the American crime-scape is a penetrating work of literary journalism by a writer hailed as one of the most powerful new voices in true crime.

True Stories of Ordinary People Who Faced Monstrous Mass Killers and Survived

Delivered from Evil

A retired detective investigates a cold case of child murder in Colorado in this “darkly engrossing” mystery thriller (New York Times–bestselling author Anne Hillerman). Former detective Woodrow Bell left his big-city homicide beat for a quiet life in a small Colorado mountain town. Having failed in so many ways—as a father, husband, friend, and cop—all he wants out of retirement is to fade away. But when he stumbles across a long-forgotten child murder, he can’t just let it go. Suspecting that the killer may still be near, Woodrow is drawn into the macabre cold case. With local cops taking no interest, Bell must rely on the end-of-the-road codgers he meets for coffee every morning—a club of old guys with unique skills who call themselves Deaf Row. Soon, this motley crew finds itself on a collision course with a serial butcher.

A Mystery

Deaf Row

Vincent Di Maio

Ölümün Icinde Yasam

Morg

M. William Phelps

Gregg Olsen

Katherine Ramsland

Kevin M. Sullivan

Rebecca Morris

Dangerous Dozen

Would you kill for love? True-crime master Ron Franscell tells the grisly story of Alice and Gerald Uden, a loving couple who murdered at least four people, and live happily ever after--while cops try for decades to piece together a petrifying tale of murder and secrets. The appalling details are made even more vivid by the author's familiarity with the Wyoming times and places that formed the backdrop of his national bestseller The Darkest Night. In 1974, Alice, a desperate young mother in a gritty Wyoming boomtown, kills her husband and dumps his body where it will never be found, then slips away and starts a new life. But when her new man's ex-wife and two kids start demanding more of him, Alice delivers an ultimatum: Fix the problem or lose her forever. With Alice's help, Gerald "fixes" the problem in an extraordinarily ghastly way . . . and they live happily ever after. That is, until 2013, almost forty years later, when somebody finds a dead man's skeleton in a place where Alice thought he'd never be found. This page-turner by bestselling true-crime author Ron Franscell revisits a shocking cold case that was finally solved just when the murderers thought they'd never be caught.

A Homicidal Love Story

Alice & Gerald

A fascinating journey through the Rockies’ unruly past—with maps, photos, and more.

Crime Buff's Guide to the Outlaw Rockies

“[A] meticulously researched guide book into the baddest of the bad in LaLa Land.”—Steve Hodel, New York Times-bestselling author of Black Dahlia Avenger Los Angeles is where America’s dreams and nightmares got all tangled up. In this otherworldly place of seemingly everlasting life, death could have an otherworldly quality, too. In a city where anything was possible, even the ghastly could happen. Where else does a list of a city’s top five most recognized citizens include a mass murderer? Stand in the footsteps of Manson, the Hillside Strangler, the Night Stalker, the Black Dahlia’s killer, and the Onion Field slayers. Visit crime scenes where Hollywood’s weird history took fatal turns for O.J. Simpson, John Belushi, Ramon Novarro, Phil Hartman, Dorothy Stratten, Sal Mineo, and so many others. This book provides a sunset cruise through a place where ordinary inhumanities are entertainment—with GPS coordinates, photos and more. It continues the series that critics, true-crime fans, historians, and travelers have hailed as “thorough and unflinching” and “the best damn crime travel series ever published!” Dozens of fascinating stories are told in the same fast-paced, enthralling voice that’s made Ron Franscell one of America’s most beloved crime writers—and the Crime Buff’s Guides a three-time winner of TrueCrimeZine.com’s Book of the Year.

Crime Buff's Guide to Outlaw Los Angeles

Colin Campbell

Caitlin Rother

Three gritty novels of crime and investigation by acclaimed authors, in one volume . . . Ranging from the California coast to small-town Wyoming to the north of England, this three-in-one collection of crime thrillers includes: Naked Addiction by New York Times–bestselling author Caitlin Rother Tired of working undercover narcotics, police detective Ken Goode wants a transfer to homicide. After finding the body of a beautiful woman in an alley, he’s assigned to head a team of relief detectives with the hopes of proving he is homicide-worthy—and is plunged into the underbelly of the affluent coastal enclave of La Jolla, California. “With a journalist’s eye for the telling details of life, Caitlin Rother is a keen architect of the most important part of storytelling: character.” —Michael Connelly The Deadline by USA Today–bestselling author Ron Franscell A dying convict’s last request thrusts Jefferson Morgan, a newspaperman in Wyoming, into a deadly maelstrom as he explores a fifty-year-old child murder, a wound this small town still isn’t ready to re-open. Under the most important deadline of his life, Morgan digs deep into the town’s past and unveils a killer who managed to remain hidden for fifty years. “An impressive debut that will keep you on the edge of your seat.” —San Francisco Chronicle Northern Ex by Colin Campbell In Northern England, ex-vice squad cop Vince McNulty copes with life outside the force by visiting the massage parlors he used to police. But now several girls have gone missing, and when one turns up dead, everything points to a regular customer. And McNulty is top of the list . . . “Full of white-knuckle suspense, shocking violence, and unexpected twists. A fine choice for fans of gritty, realistic cop dramas.” —Booklist

Naked Addiction, The Deadline, and Northern Ex

Murder Loves Company Volume One

Dr. Vincent Di Maio

In this clear-eyed, gritty, and enthralling narrative, Dr. Vincent DiMaio and veteran crime writer Ron Franscell guide us behind the morgue doors to tell a fascinating life story through the cases that have made DiMaio famous-from the exhumation of assassin Lee Harvey Oswald to the complex issues in the shooting of Florida teenager Trayvon Martin. Beginning with his street-smart Italian origins in Brooklyn, the book spans 40 years of work and more than 9,000 autopsies, and DiMaio's eventual rise into the pantheon of forensic scientists. One of the country's most methodical and intuitive criminal pathologists will dissect himself, maintaining a nearly continuous flow of suspenseful stories, revealing anecdotes, and enough macabre insider details to rivet the most fervent crime fans.

Twenty-four years after war correspondent Daniel McLeod is killed in Vietnam, his only brother Cassidy is drawn by a mysterious phone call to their Wyoming hometown, where he must confront a lifetime of his own ghosts

A Novel

Angel Fire

Twenty-four years after war correspondent Daniel McLeod is killed in Vietnam, his only brother Cassidy is drawn by a mysterious phone call to their Wyoming hometown, where he must confront a lifetime of his own ghosts. A first novel. Reprint.

A corpse sends a simple scientist into a dark world of conspiracy and murder in this crime thriller by the USA Today–bestselling author The Deadline. When a world-renowned forensic anthropologist journeys to Winchester, Wyoming, to examine the long-dead remains of a woman who claimed to be Etta Place—the Old West’s most mysterious and legendary female outlaw—he’s not expecting to find a man’s headless corpse in her crypt. The grisly discovery plunges him and Jefferson Morgan—the editor of the weekly Winchester Bullet—into a shadowy and deadly world of satellite-savvy highway pirates, rural meth labs, computer hackers and old-fashioned corruption. And they might not survive the fall…. “Gorgeously written, complex and satisfying—a damn near perfect mystery.”—John Lescroart, New York Times–bestselling author “A great job with a fresh, original idea. The Obituary weaves elements of the best forensics writers at work today, as well as the best detective writers—a great mix.”—Michael Palmer, New York Times–bestselling author

The Obituary

A father-and-son love story set against epic backdrops and overlooked places

The Yukon Odyssey of a Father and Son in Search of a Mummified Human Toe ... and Everything Else

Sourtoe Cocktail Club

Karen Valentine

DIVThe Crime Buff's Guide to Outlaw Pennsylvania is the ultimate guidebook to the crime, injustice, and seedy history of the Keystone State. With photographs, maps, directions, and sites to visit, this collection of outlaw tales serves as both a travel guide and an entertaining and informational read. It is a one-of-a-kind exploration into well-known and more obsure sites in Pennsylvania that retain memories of bandits and their scandalous deeds./divDIV /divDIVThe Crime Buff series offers indispensable guidebooks for criminal-history enthusiasts and travelers. Each site description includes a brief summary of the spot’s significance, historical context, maps, directions, and photos. Appealing to both residents and visitors, the books reveal the exploits of famous and less famous outlaws in an irresistable and informational manner. Readers will be shocked, unsettled, and captivated by the true stories and secrets illuminated in the Outlaw collection. /div

Crime Buff's Guide to Outlaw Pennsylvania

A fascinating journey through the Lone Star State's unruly past— with maps, photos, and more Texas rightfully claims a celebrated place in the “wildest” West of both myth and reality—which makes it truly stranger than fiction that The Crime Buff's Guide to Outlaw Texas is the first-ever travel guide to the many sites related to the Lone Star State's renowned rambunctious past, complete with GPS coordinates that put you at the scene of the action. From outlaws like Sam Bass and John Wesley Hardin to Bonnie & Clyde and Houston's notorious Candy Man killer, Texas has dozens of places where true-crime buffs can actually stand close to history. For many readers, the attraction to these sites—some well-known, some obscured by time—is irresistible. Written with the same fast-paced, gripping style that marked the author's widely praised earlier work, The Crime Buff's Guide to Outlaw Texas is an indispensable resource for both criminal-history enthusiasts and travelers. Each site description includes a concise summary of the location's significance, historical context, maps, directions, and photos. Praise for a previous book by the same author, The Darkest Night “Heartbreaking . . . Not unlike Truman Capote's In Cold Blood.” —Chicago Sun-Times “This uncommon story has every chilling component of human terror, drama, and suspense that readers of true crime look for.” —Vincent Bugliosi, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Helter Skelter “A very, very, good book . . . written by a very, very, good writer.” —Ann Rule, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Stranger Beside Me

Ron Franscell

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