Download or read book The Handyman Homicide written by Libby Howard and published by Libby Howard. This book was released on 2024-05-19 with total page 195 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The new campground comes with a body. Sassy Letouroux is not normally an impulsive woman, but when the campground that held so many childhood memories comes up for sale, she throws caution to the wind and buys it—sight unseen. Arriving with her 85 year old mother and her bloodhound, Elvis, Sassy realizes there’s a lot to do before the campground will be ready for the spring rush of guests. And first on the to-do list is find out who murdered her handyman.

Download or read book The Homicidal Handyman of Oak Park Morris Solomon Jr written by Tony Ray Harvey and published by AuthorHouse. This book was released on 2012-07 with total page 383 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: AS FAR AS FITTING the STEREOTYPES bestowed to infamous chain-link murderers that exist outside African American culture, there was a time when black serial killers were recognized, to some extent, implausible by purported experts who probably cared not to explore the primary nature of the slayers' transgressions. Nevertheless, the obscured story of handyman Morris Solomon Jr. has to be one of the most interesting tales untold as it is one of the most horrific yarns in the annals of American crime. the handyman's misdeeds, when briefly brought to the public's attention, virtually reminded society that killers continuously come in all colors, shapes, and sizes. Solomon was convicted of killing six young women, ages 16 to 29, in the Sacramento, California, neighborhood of Oak Park between 1986 and 1987. the handyman's grisly method of murder left detectives and medical examiners mystified. the identification process of his victims' remains was distinctly a laborious assignment, too. the victims --drug addicts, prostitutes, and devout mothers -- were stuffed in closets, hidden under debris, and arguably, one court judge strongly considers, buried alive. In retrospect, the handyman was first accused of murder in the mid-1970s; and authorities suspect him to be linked to four more homicides in Sacramento. Solomon -- once declared as a "Mentally Disordered Sex Offender"-- is now on death row in Northern California's San Quentin State Prison awaiting execution. the unassuming handyman's 18-year reign of terror includes a record of sexual assaults, attempted kidnappings, and separate despicable sex acts performed strictly for humiliation. In the Homicidal Handyman of Oak Park: Morris Solomon Jr., author and journalist Tony Ray Harvey recounts the black serial killer's dysfunctional upbringing, atrocious crimes, and hardly noticeable court trial. Harvey's book also provides explicit crime scene photos, the history of the death penalty system in the state of California, the city of Sacramento's drug culture in the mid-1980s, and exclusive prison interviews of the mild-mannered handyman.

Download or read book The Handyman written by Christopher Watson and published by . This book was released on 2014 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This skillful mystery introducesthe redneck who speaks for the dead. John Wright is a tattooed, pickup-drivin', beer-drinkin' son of the South. He swaggers when he walks, twangs when he talks, and doesn't care what anyone thinks. And lately, he's found he can see ghosts and talk to the dead, which is a little unsettling especially when one ghost in particular won't let him be until he unmasks the person who murdered her.Just ayear ago, John was a new husband and father, a cocky young construction contractor in Charleston, working hard to build a future. Then came the terrible accident that killed his wife and infant daughter, shredding John's sanity. Nowhe barely makes ends meet as a handyman, struggling with posttraumatic stress, drowning his guilt in bourbon every night, planning the way he'll end his suffering permanently.When he meets an Old Charleston blueblood who suspects her daughter's apparent suicide was actually murder, the victim herself calls to John to avenge her betrayal and death. Either John's going mad or he truly can speak to the dead; and the only way he's going to find out which is to put aside his own pain and listen to the ghostly voice that will lead him to a murderer."

Download or read book Mortar and Murder written by Jennie Bentley and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2011-01-04 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A designer and a handsome handyman hammer out the details of a cold case, in this must-read for lovers of HGTV’s home renovation shows. Avery Baker was once a New York textile designer, but inheriting her aunt's old Maine cottage has led her down a new career path-home renovation. Finding a property's hidden potential has rewards and challenges-especially when a mystery surfaces from behind the walls of a centuries-old house on an island that has more than its share of deadly secrets.

Download or read book Wicked Fix written by Sarah Graves and published by Bantam. This book was released on 2009-09-09 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Do-it-yourself killer fixes small-town thug . . . For ex-Wall Streeter Jacobia Tiptree and her teenaged son, Sam, September promises tranquil days winter-proofing their rambling handyman's special of a home in Eastport, Maine. But there's nothing idyllic about this Down East autumn. For starters, the return of truly vicious native son Reuben Tate stirs up the town. And when somebody slits Reuben's throat and hangs his corpse on the cemetery gate, the police trace a bloodied scalpel to surgeon Victor Tiptree—Jacobia's former husband. Yet Jake knows her troublesome, trouble-prone ex is capable of just about anything except murder. Proving that, though, is another matter. Eastport is packed with tourists and former residents for the annual Salmon Festival—and Jake soon realizes any Eastporter, past or present, has motive for Tate's murder. To nail the real killer, Jake and her best friend, Ellie White, must probe a past as rotten as crumbling clapboard, while a secret hatred builds toward a series of murders even more brutal than Reuben Tate himself. . . .

Download or read book Anatomy of Injustice written by Raymond Bonner and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2013-01-08 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From Pulitzer Prize winner Raymond Bonner, the gripping story of a grievously mishandled murder case that put a twenty-three-year-old man on death row. In January 1982, an elderly white widow was found brutally murdered in the small town of Greenwood, South Carolina. Police immediately arrested Edward Lee Elmore, a semiliterate, mentally retarded black man with no previous felony record. His only connection to the victim was having cleaned her gutters and windows, but barely ninety days after the victim's body was found, he was tried, convicted, and sentenced to death. Elmore had been on death row for eleven years when a young attorney named Diana Holt first learned of his case. With the exemplary moral commitment and tenacious investigation that have distinguished his reporting career, Bonner follows Holt's battle to save Elmore's life and shows us how his case is a textbook example of what can go wrong in the American justice system. Moving, enraging, suspenseful, and enlightening, Anatomy of Injustice is a vital contribution to our nation's ongoing, increasingly important debate about inequality and the death penalty.

Download or read book The Homicidal Handyman of Oak Park Morris Solomon Jr written by Tony Ray Harvey and published by AuthorHouse. This book was released on 2012-08-02 with total page 381 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: AS FAR AS FITTING THE STEREOTYPES bestowed to infamous chain-link murderers that exist outside African American culture, there was a time when black serial killers were recognized, to some extent, implausible by purported experts who probably cared not to explore the primary nature of the slayers transgressions. Nevertheless, the obscured story of handyman Morris Solomon Jr. has to be one of the most interesting tales untold as it is one of the most horrific yarns in the annals of American crime. The handymans misdeeds, when briefly brought to the publics attention, virtually reminded society that killers continuously come in all colors, shapes, and sizes. Solomon was convicted of killing six young women, ages 16 to 29, in the Sacramento, California, neighborhood of Oak Park between 1986 and 1987. The handymans grisly method of murder left detectives and medical examiners mystified. The identification process of his victims remains was distinctly a laborious assignment, too. The victims drug addicts, prostitutes, and devout mothers were stuffed in closets, hidden under debris, and arguably, one court judge strongly considers, buried alive. In retrospect, the handyman was first accused of murder in the mid-1970s; and authorities suspect him to be linked to four more homicides in Sacramento. Solomon once declared as a Mentally Disordered Sex Offender is now on death row in Northern Californias San Quentin State Prison awaiting execution. The unassuming handymans 18-year reign of terror includes a record of sexual assaults, attempted kidnappings, and separate despicable sex acts performed strictly for humiliation. In The Homicidal Handyman of Oak Park: Morris Solomon Jr., author and journalist Tony Ray Harvey recounts the black serial killers dysfunctional upbringing, atrocious crimes, and hardly noticeable court trial. Harveys book also provides explicit crime scene photos, the history of the death penalty system in the state of California, the city of Sacramentos drug culture in the mid-1980s, and exclusive prison interviews of the mild-mannered handyman.

Download or read book Murder at Yosemite written by Carlton Smith and published by Macmillan + ORM. This book was released on 2014-11-11 with total page 213 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: ***Please note: This ebook edition does not contain the photos found in the print edition.*** Amidst the breathtaking natural beauty of Yosemite National Park, four terrifying killings took place. For months, law enforcement officials were stumped by the deaths of three tourists: Carole Sund, her teenaged daughter Juli, and a family friend, Silvina Pelosso. But when they found the decapitated body and head of 26-year-old naturalist Joie Ruth Armstrong, they were led to one man: 37-year-old handyman Cary Stayner. Stayner was arrested at a California nudist colony and soon admitted to all four killings, claiming he'd had urges to kill women for thirty years. And Cary's twisted impulses were not the only tragedy of the Stayner family. At the age of seven, his younger brother Steven was abducted by a pedophile and forced to live with the man for seven years, until he escaped. His story was told in a TV movie called "I Know My First Name is Steven." Steven would ultimately die in a motorcycle crash at twenty-four. What are the odds of one family suffering such astounding tragedies? What would compel a seemingly pleasant, clean-cut man to brutally attack and gruesomely kill four innocent women? Did he act alone? Or was his a false confession? Bestselling true crime author Carlton Smith searches for the shocking answers in Murder at Yosemite, this fascinating account of murder and madness.

Download or read book A Good Month For Murder written by Del Quentin Wilber and published by Pan Macmillan. This book was released on 2016-06-30 with total page 286 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'Superb - one of the best real-life copy books ever written.' Lee Child In a true crime cross between James Ellroy and David Simon's The Wire, A Good Month for Murder follows twelve homicides, three police-involved shootings and the furious hunt for an especially brutal killer in Washington D.C. After gaining unparalleled access to the homicide unit in Prince George's County, which borders the nation's capital, bestselling author Del Quentin Wilber begins shadowing the talented, often quirky detectives who get the call when a body falls. After a quiet couple of months, all hell breaks loose: suddenly every detective in the squad is scrambling to solve one shooting and stabbing after another. Meanwhile, the entire unit is obsessed with a stone-cold 'red ball', a high-profile case involving a seventeen-year-old honour student attacked by a gunman who kicked down the door to her house and shot her in her bed. This is the inside story of how a team of detectives carry out their almost impossible job. Murder is the police investigator's ultimate crucible: to solve a killing, a detective must speak for the dead. A Good Month for Murder is a compelling true crime account which shows what it takes to succeed when the stakes couldn't possibly be higher.

Download or read book The Handyman s Secret written by and published by . This book was released on 2016-12-06 with total page 435 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: His father was an investigator who was murdered. Matthias Jones became an athlete and coach, but he solved his father's murder. Hamilton College on the coast of New Hampshire hired him to coach sports, but getting into murder investigations remains his passion. He knows the cops and the district attorney Herbert Lane hates his guts. He's best buds with Cocoa Stefani a major under world character and a good friend of parish priest, Father Jim Gallagher. Jones's persistence gains him the upper hand over the cops and the DA-and the murderer.A collision of Lark Larsen's new boat with "the Maintenance Free" in Hamilton Bay leads to the murder of local handyman Webster Howard. Lark hires an intelligence operative, Detective Clyde Hooper whose antics annoy and frustrate Matthias Jones's investigation of the murder. Cocoa Stefani falls in love with a beautiful but innocent brunette, Janet Boudreaux, but J.B. soon becomes a Jones suspect. Trooper Banastre O'Connell appears to have been romantically involved with the overspending Mabel Howard, Webster's wife. In the middle of the investigation is Reverend John Paul Bricker and" his church." From a bar on Cape Cod Jones and Cocoa track the killer, while shadowed by Clyde Hooper and his helper, the ever-bumbling Bucky Driscoll.

Download or read book A Death in Belmont written by Sebastian Junger and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2006-04-17 with total page 278 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A fatal collision of three lives in the most intriguing and original crime story since In Cold Blood. In the spring of 1963, the quiet suburb of Belmont, Massachusetts, is rocked by a shocking sex murder that exactly fits the pattern of the Boston Strangler. Sensing a break in the case that has paralyzed the city of Boston, the police track down a black man, Roy Smith, who cleaned the victim's house that day and left a receipt with his name on the kitchen counter. Smith is hastily convicted of the Belmont murder, but the terror of the Strangler continues. On the day of the murder, Albert DeSalvo—the man who would eventually confess in lurid detail to the Strangler's crimes—is also in Belmont, working as a carpenter at the Jungers' home. In this spare, powerful narrative, Sebastian Junger chronicles three lives that collide—and ultimately are destroyed—in the vortex of one of the first and most controversial serial murder cases in America.

Download or read book Crawlspace written by Sarah Graves and published by Bantam. This book was released on 2011-04-05 with total page 370 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When a bestselling true-crime author arrives in Eastport, Maine, to research the infamous Dodd murders for a new book, she finds herself about as welcome as a spoiled clam. But surely no one in the quaint seaside town would harm the crime writer—or would they? Suddenly the unsolved and not-quite-forgotten slayings of the wealthy Dodd women go from cold case to hot topic, while just as quickly, onetime Wall Streeter Jacobia “Jake” Tiptree turns from probing the mysteries of old-house insulation to an investigation that’s reopened old wounds and unearthed a string of deadly secrets. Jake would have preferred to insulate herself and her family from danger, but someone with a taste for terror has already crept closer than she dares to imagine.

Download or read book No Body Homicides written by Mark Stobbe and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2023-05-05 with total page 205 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: No-Body Homicides: The Evolution of Investigation and Prosecution examines how police and prosecutors have become more successful in obtaining convictions for homicide when the remains of the victim are unavailable as evidence. Based on an examination of over 600 cases in the United States and Canada, this book shows the length some killers will go to avoid punishment and the determination of police and prosecutors to bring them to justice. For over 300 years, murderers in the United States and Canada could avoid prosecution by successfully disposing of the body of their victim. No-Body Homicides provides the reader with a historical overview of prosecutions in which a killer destroyed or hid the body of the victim. It explains why prosecutions were once extremely rare, and how legal, attitudinal, and technical changes have made them more common. The book also explores how the logic of no-body homicide prosecutions differs from body-present homicides. It allows police and prosecutors to draw on the accumulated experience of hundreds of prosecutions. For criminology students, it provides fascinating insights into the process of investigating and prosecuting homicides – as well as a glimpse into the motivations and practices of killers who are so determined to avoid punishment that they remove the bodies of their victims. No-Body Homicides will be of practical interest to police or prosecutors confronted with a missing person’s case that could be sinister. It is also written to be appropriate as a supplementary text in an undergraduate criminology class or for an aficionado of “True Crime.”

Download or read book Tool Die written by Sarah Graves and published by Bantam. This book was released on 2005-10-25 with total page 354 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Jacobia “Jake” Tiptree traded her power-broker life for a run-down dream house in peaceful Eastport, Maine. But the do-it-yourself enthusiast is learning that no matter how carefully you build your home, murder has a way of slipping in through the cracks…. It’s a bright June afternoon and old-house-fixer-upper Jake Tiptree is driving through downeast Maine on an unusual errand. She’s getting ready to interview a large, angry man with a criminal history. Jim Diamond may or may not be harassing his ex-wife with life-threatening letters, but Jake promised her new housekeeper, Bella Diamond, she’d look into the matter. An ex-con and a deadbeat, Jim Diamond doesn’t have a history of violence…that is, not until Jake arrives at his apartment and discovers that a killer has been there first. Suddenly Jake and her best friend, Ellie White, find themselves at the center of a murder with too many suspects and too few clues. And as if that’s not enough, Jake is now saddled with the manic Bella, whose certainty that she’ll be the next victim is fueling a supercompulsive neatness–one that threatens to clean Jake and her long-suffering husband, Wade, out of house and home. Add to that a moose in her kitchen, a rebellious son with a habit of dumping Miss Right for Miss Wrong, and a troublesome ex of her own, and Jake is already at wit’s end. Then she gets word that a horde of her dad’s long-lost relatives mean to descend on Eastport, intending to be put up at her far-from-fixed-up fixer-upper. When the killer does strike again, it’s not where Jake expects…and the victim couldn’t be more of a surprise. For this is a case bigger than the usual angry—ex-spouse variety, and now that Jake and Ellie have gotten themselves involved, they’ve each won a special place in a ruthless murderer’s master plan of greed, deception, and death. And the prize? A pair of eternally private rooms–six feet under!

Download or read book Fatal Fixer Upper written by Jennie Bentley and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2008-11-04 with total page 340 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: First in a series about a designer—and a handsome handyman--tackling fixer upper homes and mysterious murders. A must-read for lovers of HGTV’s home renovation shows. To Avery Baker, the idea of preparing her aunt's crumbling and cluttered home for sale is overwhelming. So when someone offers to buy the place as is, Avery's relieved. Until she learns it's worth more than she thought--that is, with a few repairs here and there... With help from hunky handyman Derek Ellis, Avery starts learning the ABC's of DIY. But when a designer-turned-renovator finds clues that lead to a missing local professor and then her own life is threatened, Avery wonders if she can finish the house—without getting finished off in the process.

Download or read book Deacon of Death written by Fred Rosen and published by Open Road Media. This book was released on 2015-07-01 with total page 268 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Baptist deacon, family man, pillar of his Florida community . . . and serial killer of prostitutes: chilling true crime from the author of Lobster Boy. By day, Sam Smithers was the deacon of his Baptist church in Plant City, Florida, a respected neighbor to many, and a devoted husband and father. But after the sun set, he became something else: a violent attacker—and killer—of prostitutes. Smithers’s twisted double life came to light when a local woman who had hired him to take care of her property found him in her garage, cleaning an ax—and then discovered a puddle of blood. Through exclusive interviews with Smithers’s wife, who described her spouse as nothing but a doting husband and father, author Fred Rosen learned why this man of God, raised in an intensely religious Tennessee home, was the last person anyone would suspect of committing these savage crimes. Rosen reveals the details behind the deaths of Christy Cowan and Denise Roach after Smithers picked them up in Tampa—and the fate of a man who seemed holier than thou, but was actually guilty as sin.

Download or read book Unhinged written by Sarah Graves and published by Bantam. This book was released on 2003-01-01 with total page 267 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Once a Wall Street hotshot, Jacobia “Jake” Tiptree chucked it all for a charmingly dilapidated fixer-upper in the tiny town of Eastport, Maine. She was certain she’d left the dangers of city life behind--until she discovered that no place, no matter how idyllic and peaceful it may appear, is safe from murder. Unhinged It began with the mysterious disappearance of Harriet Hollingsworth--Eastport’s snoopiest resident. Everyone is convinced the old busybody bolted out of town to escape her creditor--everyone except Jake and her best friend Ellie who know Harriet would never leave home without her most prized possession. But before Jake and Ellie can persuade police chief Bob Arnold to open an investigation, they’ll need to come up with proof more sinister than a pair of abandoned binoculars. Just as Jake starts poking around for clues, things suddenly take a troubling turn for the worse. A suspicious accident nearly kills her teenaged son, Sam, and her husband, Wade, just misses getting his head blown off. Jake is prepared to attribute these incidents to a spate of bad luck--until another “accident” leaves a visitor to Eastport unmistakably dead. Most perplexing, all this mayhem coincides with the unexpected arrival of a man from Jake’s past: a former New York City cop. Harry Markle claims he has unintentionally brought an unwelcome guest into Eastport: a crook determined to knock off everyone with ties to Harry. Twenty-four hours ago, Jake’s only worry was fixing her broken-down gutters and downspouts before the big storm swept into town. Now, everything seems to be falling apart all around her. Jake knows from experience that the truth is usually as messy and complicated as do-it-yourself remodeling. As it becomes chillingly clear that appearances in this quaint community are more misleading than ever, she’ll have to find a way to lure a homicidal maniac into the light--before he nails another victim.