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"The rich history of the Wolverine State has a serious dark side. In the Detroit area, the Black Legion outdid the Ku Klux Klan in hate, but remained secret until one of its leaders was implicated in a murder. John Harvey Kellogg of Battle Creek was equal parts physician and quack. Then there were the state's two self-proclaimed kings--James Jesse Strang, the leader of a Mormon group on Beaver Island, and Albert Molitor, the reputed illegitimate son of German royalty who established his own kingdom on Presque Isle. Michigan author and historian Norma Lewis present a gallery of the state's most despicable criminals, crooks, conmen and more"--Back cover.

When romance was met with murder...Arthur Jordan and Elvira Corder were young and unafraid, but their love was doomed. He was black, she was white, and this was Virginia in 1880. When Elvira became pregnant, the couple fled Fauquier County to live in Maryland. But her father found them and recruited neighbors to help kidnap them. Four nights later, a mob dragged Arthur from the county jail in Warrenton and lynched him. Elvira, taken to a hotel in Williamsport, Maryland, was never heard from again. Stories of lynching are all too common in the postbellum South, but this one tells a unique tale of a couple who were willing to sacrifice everything to be together--and did.Author Jim Hall tells a classic tale of forbidden love, one of hope crushed by hate.

"A roving, shiftless fellow..." That's how the newspapers described Jesse C. Walker, who in 1908 was served with an arrest warrant by Brunswick County sheriff Jackson Stanland, with tragic results. Little did Walker know that he was about to set off on twenty-five years of headline-grabbing exploits. Two murders, two wives, three prison escapes, and thousands of miles of travel across eight states are only the surface of the adventures of this North Carolina desperado. Local author Mark W. Koenig relates the untold saga of a man who rocketed to notoriety in the first years of the twentieth century and found atonement decades later.

The murder rate in Chicago from 1965 to 1995 reached 827 murders in 1995. In July 1995, Chicago experienced a 100-year heatwave with 739 deaths, mostly elderly, due to a lack of air conditioners and the fear of leaving their homes.Crime wreaked havoc throughout Chicago in the nineties and gave rise to D'Quandree Jones, who rose through the ranks to form a frightful group of gangbangers who specialized in drugs, burglary, and murder.Jones was always one step ahead of the law until he was on trial for the murder of Attorney General Alphonse Ferguson. He bragged he was not going to rot in jail.Could his slick attorney, Clarence Huffington, get him off the hook again? Could Charlotte Steele, forewoman for the Ferguson trial, cement a verdict of guilty?

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.

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.

"What happens when true believers go too far? Thousands of religious, political and self-improvement cults are active around the world, and an estimated 2 to 5 million Americans have been involved in a cult at some point. Not all cults are destructive, but members' unwavering faith in an absolute leader and an intense devotion to a cause often lay the groundwork for criminal acts to take place--even murder and mass suicides."--Provided by publisher.

Take a deep dive into the rise and fall of some of the most notorious serial killers of the ‘80s, including Jeffrey Dahmer, Joseph James DeAngelo, Dennis Lynn Rader, and the Night Stalker.Neon leg warmers, big hair, rock band T-shirts, and mix tapes — 1980s’ nostalgia at its finest. But just below that saccharine facade lurked a seedy underbelly of inconceivable human monsters like no decade before had ever seen. The Golden Age of the Serial Killer brought a sharp increase in violent crime, panic, and terror, which in turn sparked a chaotic race between serial murderers and law enforcement officers tasked with both stopping the killings and delivering justice to victims and their loved ones. The Big Book of 1980s Serial Killers is for the true crime fanatic who wants to investigate these cases and discover the ins and outs of how crimes like these are solved. Drawing from meticulous research, contemporary journalistic accounts, and trial transcripts, this book traces the various ways in which law enforcement cracked some of the most challenging serial killer cases in history. Serial killers included: Doug Clark and Carol Bundy (Sunset Strip Killers) Jeffrey Dahmer Joseph James DeAngelo (The Golden State Killer) Larry Eyler (The Interstate Killer) Lonnie David Franklin, Jr. (The Grim Sleeper) Samuel Little Gary Leon Ridgway (The Green River Killer) Dennis Rader (The BTK Killer) Richard Ramirez (The Night Stalker) Tommy Lynn Sells Arthur Shawcross (The Genesee River Killer) Aileen Wournos Are you ready to hunt the worst serial killers of the 1980s?

Homicidal sleepwalking, also known as homicidal somnambulism or sleepwalking murder, is the act of killing someone during an episode of sleepwalking. It is a rare crime, with few cases, but this book explores the cases of sleepwalking killer that have been reported, and the verdicts of the cases. Includes the famous cases of Matthew Phelps, Scott Falater, and Kenneth Parks.

Fetal abduction, or womb raiding, is defined as the kidnapping of an unborn child by forcing a pregnant mother to comply with an early delivery, sometimes using forceps or sometimes reaching into the womb and then taking the fetus directly from the mother. If the mother does not survive, then it is a case of Murder-Abduction. With fetal abduction without murder, it is considered a child kidnapping and violates the law and subject to federal penalties. This book explores these cases and looks at the people who commit these heinous crimes.

From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Stranger Beside Me comes a true crime story of a serial killer who was sentenced to die-yet lived to murder again....and again.... After committing his first grisly crime, Harvey Louis Carignan beat a death sentence and continued to manipulate, rape, and bludgeon women to death, using want ads to lure his young female victims. And time after time, justice was thwarted by a killer whose twisted legal genius was matched only by his sick savagery. Complete with the testimony of the officers who put him behind bars and the women who barely escaped with their lives, The Want-Ad Killer is one of the most shattering and thought-provoking true-crime stories of our time.

Violent mobs, racial unrest, attacks on the press--it's the fall of 1835 and the streets of Boston are filled with bankers, merchants and other gentlemen of property and standing angered by an emergent antislavery movement. They break up a women's abolitionist meeting and seize newspaper publisher William Lloyd Garrison. While city leaders stand by silently, a small group of women had the courage to speak out. Author Josh Cutler tells the story of the Gentlemen's Mob through the eyes of four key participants: antislavery reformer Maria Chapman; pioneering schoolteacher Susan Paul; the city's establishment mayor, Theodore Lyman; and Wendell Phillips, a young attorney who wanders out of his office to watch the spectacle. The day's events forever changed the course of the abolitionist movement.

On a sultry August morning in 1970, the battered body of a young woman was hoisted from a dry well just outside Hogansville, Georgia. Author and investigator Clay Bryant was there, witnessing the macabre scene. Then fifteen, Bryant was tagging along with his father, Buddy Bryant, Hogansville chief of police. The victim, Gwendolyn Moore, had been in a violent marriage. That was no secret. But her husband had connections to a political machine that held sway over the Troup County Sheriff''s Office overseeing the case. To the dismay and bafflement of many, no charges were brought. That is, until Bryant followed his father''s footsteps into law enforcement and a voice cried out from the well three decades later.

The words of a murderer. In 1936, Helen Clevenger''s uncle discovered her bloodied body crumpled on the floor of her small room in Asheville''s grand Battery Park Hotel. She had been shot through the chest. Buncombe County sheriff Laurence Brown, up for reelection, desperately searched for the white teenager''s killer as the public clamored for answers. Even after Sheriff Brown secured a confession from a young Black man, many southerners feared that the crime had not been solved. Author Anne Chesky Smith weaves together varying accounts of the murder and investigation to expose a complex and disturbing chapter in Asheville''s history.

In the summer of 1936, fourteen-year-old Maxwell Breeze was playing in the waters of the Erie Canal in Brockport when a dog jumped into the canal and climbed his back, and the boy drowned. The owner of the dog was served notice to appear at a hearing, at which time a trial was set to determine if the dog should be put down. The unusual case captivated the nation as newspapers from coast to coast covered the story, Paramount Pictures dispatched The Eyes and Ears of the World to film the events and a media circus descended on the quiet village. During the trial, more than thirty witnesses were called, including a national expert brought in to evaluate the canine defendant, which journalists referred to as the most talked-of dog on earth. Authors Bill Hullfish and Laurie Fortune Verbridge reveal the bizarre incident, trial and spectacle that came to Brockport.

From the duel on Bloody Island to the Missouri Miracle kidnapping and recovery of Shawn Hornbeck, Missouri has seen its share of notorious crimes. It was home to the first western gunfight on the town square between Wild Bill Hickok and Dave Tutt. The three trials of the alleged murderer of Colonel Thomas Swope, the founder of Kansas City's Swope Park, enveloped the state. Residents also saw the killings within a few blocks of each other that inspired the songs Stagger Lee and Frankie and Johnny. Vicki Berger Erwin and James W. Erwin explore crimes, criminals and victims from the violent history of the last two hundred years in the Show Me State.

Ohio history overflows with tales of enterprising thieves. Vault teller Ted Conrad walked out of Society National Bank carrying a paper sack containing a fifth of Canadian Club, a carton of Marlboros and $215,000 cash. He was never seen again. Known as one of the most successful jewel thieves in the world, Bill Mason stole comedian Phyllis Diller's precious gems not once, but twice. He also stole $100,000 from the Cleveland mob. Mild-mannered Kenyon College library employee David Breithaupt walked off with $50,000 worth of rare books and documents from the college. John Dillinger hit banks all over Ohio, and Alvin Karpis robbed a train in Garrettsville and a mail truck in Warren. Jane Ann Turzillo writes of these and other notable heists and perpetrators.

In the summer of 1957, a young Holmes County farmer was gunned down in cold blood. There was little to distinguish this slaying from hundreds of others throughout the United States that year except for one detail: Paul Coblentz was Amish. A committed pacifist, Coblentz would not raise a hand against his killers. As sensational crimes often do, the "Amish murder" opened a window into the private lives of the young man, his family and his community--a community that in some respects remains as enigmatic today as it was more than half a century ago. Authors of 'Wicked Columbus,' 'Ohio's Black Hand Syndicate' and others, David Meyers and Elise Meyers Walker unravel the intricacies surrounding one of Ohio's most intriguing murder cases.--Back cove

Founded in 1798, Hamtramck shrank in size even as it grew in population. Stuffing tens of thousands of people in 2.1 square miles is bound to breed conflict, and many of those conflicts boiled over into murder. Sunday, September 7, 1884, was supposed to be a day of joy for Fritz Krum, whose child was being christened. Instead, it ended in a fatal stabbing. The 1930 killing of police officer Barney Roth in a reputed mob hit drew national attention. The murder of Hamtramck teen Bernice Onisko remains an open case today, more than eighty years after it occurred. Gathering cases from the late nineteenth century to more recent times, prolific local historian Greg Kowalski takes readers on a journey through Hamtramck homicide.