Download or read book American Murder Houses written by Steve Lehto and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2015-02-03 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: There are places in the United States of America where violent acts of bloodshed have occurred. Years may pass—even centuries—but the mark of death remains. They are known as Murder Houses. From a colonial manse in New England to a small-town home in Iowa to a Beverly Hills mansion, these residences have taken on a life of their own, gaining everything from local lore and gossip to national—and even global—infamy. Writer Steve Lehto recounts the stories behind the houses where Lizzie Borden supposedly gave her stepmother “forty whacks,” where the real Amityville Horror was first unleashed by gunfire, and where the demented acts of the Manson Family horrified a nation—as well some lesser-known sites of murder that were no less ghastly. Exploring the past and present of more than twenty-five renowned homicide scenes, American Murder Houses is a tour through the real estate of some of the most grisly and fascinating crimes in American history. INCLUDES PHOTOGRAPHS

Download or read book The Stately Home Murder written by Catherine Aird and published by Rue Morgue Classic British Mys. This book was released on 2008-06 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: At a stately manor home, open for public tours, a young boy lifts the helmet on a suit of armor and finds a human face staring back at him! Detective C.D. Sloan and his wisecracking sidekick, Crosby, must figure out who stashed the body and why.

Download or read book Death s Door written by Steve Lehto and published by Momentum Books LLC. This book was released on 2006 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Uses historical documents to conclude that at a party in 1913 for the children of copper miners who were on strike, someone supporting the mine owners yelled "fire" and fled, causing a rush that left seventy-three children dead.

Download or read book Death in a Prairie House written by William R. Drennan and published by Terrace Books. This book was released on 2007-01-18 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The most pivotal and yet least understood event of Frank Lloyd Wright’s celebrated life involves the brutal murders in 1914 of seven adults and children dear to the architect and the destruction by fire of Taliesin, his landmark residence, near Spring Green, Wisconsin. Unaccountably, the details of that shocking crime have been largely ignored by Wright’s legion of biographers—a historical and cultural gap that is finally addressed in William Drennan’s exhaustively researched Death in a Prairie House: Frank Lloyd Wright and the Taliesin Murders. In response to the scandal generated by his open affair with the proto-feminist and free love advocate Mamah Borthwick Cheney, Wright had begun to build Taliesin as a refuge and "love cottage" for himself and his mistress (both married at the time to others). Conceived as the apotheosis of Wright’s prairie house style, the original Taliesin would stand in all its isolated glory for only a few months before the bloody slayings that rocked the nation and reduced the structure itself to a smoking hull. Supplying both a gripping mystery story and an authoritative portrait of the artist as a young man, Drennan wades through the myths surrounding Wright and the massacre, casting fresh light on the formulation of Wright’s architectural ideology and the cataclysmic effects that the Taliesin murders exerted on the fabled architect and on his subsequent designs. Best Books for General Audiences, selected by the American Association of School Librarians, and Outstanding Book, selected by the Public Library Association

Download or read book The Nutshell Studies of Unexplained Death written by Corinne May Botz and published by The Monacelli Press, LLC. This book was released on 2004-09-28 with total page 226 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Nutshell Studies of Unexplained Death offers readers an extraordinary glimpse into the mind of a master criminal investigator. Frances Glessner Lee, a wealthy grandmother, founded the Department of Legal Medicine at Harvard in 1936 and was later appointed captain in the New Hampshire police. In the 1940s and 1950s she built dollhouse crime scenes based on real cases in order to train detectives to assess visual evidence. Still used in forensic training today, the eighteen Nutshell dioramas, on a scale of 1:12, display an astounding level of detail: pencils write, window shades move, whistles blow, and clues to the crimes are revealed to those who study the scenes carefully. Corinne May Botz's lush color photographs lure viewers into every crevice of Frances Lee's models and breathe life into these deadly miniatures, which present the dark side of domestic life, unveiling tales of prostitution, alcoholism, and adultery. The accompanying line drawings, specially prepared for this volume, highlight the noteworthy forensic evidence in each case. Botz's introductory essay, which draws on archival research and interviews with Lee's family and police colleagues, presents a captivating portrait of Lee.

Download or read book The Man from the Train written by Bill James and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2017-09-19 with total page 480 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An Edgar Award finalist for Best Fact Crime, this “impressive…open-eyed investigative inquiry wrapped within a cultural history of rural America” (The Wall Street Journal) shows legendary statistician and baseball writer Bill James applying his analytical acumen to crack an unsolved century-old mystery surrounding one of the deadliest serial killers in American history. Between 1898 and 1912, families across the country were bludgeoned in their sleep with the blunt side of an axe. Some of these cases—like the infamous Villisca, Iowa, murders—received national attention. But most incidents went almost unnoticed outside the communities in which they occurred. Few people believed the crimes were related. And fewer still would realize that all of these families lived within walking distance to a train station. When celebrated true crime expert Bill James first learned about these horrors, he began to investigate others that might fit the same pattern. Applying the same know-how he brings to his legendary baseball analysis, he empirically determined which crimes were committed by the same person. Then after sifting through thousands of local newspapers, court transcripts, and public records, he and his daughter Rachel made an astonishing discovery: they learned the true identity of this monstrous criminal and uncovered one of the deadliest serial killers in America. “A suspenseful historical account” (Publishers Weekly, starred review), The Man from the Train paints a vivid, psychologically perceptive portrait of America at the dawn of the twentieth century, when crime was regarded as a local problem, and opportunistic private detectives exploited a dysfunctional judicial system. James shows how these cultural factors enabled such an unspeakable series of crimes to occur, and his groundbreaking approach to true crime will convince skeptics, amaze aficionados, and change the way we view criminal history. “A beautifully written and extraordinarily researched narrative…This is no pure whodunit, but rather a how-many-did-he-do” (Buffalo News).

Download or read book Devil s Rooming House written by M. William Phelps and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2011-06-01 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The gripping tale of a legendary, century-old murder spree *** A silent, simmering killer terrorized New England in1911. As a terrible heat wave killed more than 2,000 people, another silent killer began her own murderous spree. That year a reporter for the Hartford Courant noticed a sharp rise in the number of obituaries for residents of a rooming house in Windsor, Connecticut, and began to suspect who was responsible: Amy Archer-Gilligan, who’d opened the Archer Home for Elderly People and Chronic Invalids four years earlier. “Sister Amy” would be accused of murdering both of her husbands and up to sixty-six of her patients with cocktails of lemonade and arsenic; her story inspired the Broadway hit Arsenic and Old Lace. The Devil’s Rooming House is the first book about the life, times, and crimes of America’s most prolific female serial killer. In telling this fascinating story, M. William Phelps also paints a vivid portrait of early-twentieth-century New England.

Download or read book Deer Creek Drive written by Beverly Lowry and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2023-08-01 with total page 369 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The stunning true story of a murder that rocked the Mississippi Delta and forever shaped one author’s life and perception of home. “Mix together a bloody murder in a privileged white family, a false accusation against a Black man, a suspicious town, a sensational trial with colorful lawyers, and a punishment that didn’t fit the crime, and you have the best of southern gothic fiction. But the very best part is that the story is true.” —John Grisham In 1948, in the most stubbornly Dixiefied corner of the Jim Crow south, society matron Idella Thompson was viciously murdered in her own home: stabbed at least 150 times and left facedown in one of the bathrooms. Her daughter, Ruth Dickins, was the only other person in the house. She told authorities a Black man she didn’t recognize had fled the scene, but no evidence of the man's presence was uncovered. When Dickins herself was convicted and sentenced to life in prison, the community exploded. Petitions pleading for her release were drafted, signed, and circulated, and after only six years, the governor of Mississippi granted Ruth Dickins an indefinite suspension of her sentence and she was set free. In Deer Creek Drive, Beverly Lowry—who was ten at the time of the murder and lived mere miles from the Thompsons’ home—tells a story of white privilege that still has ramifications today, and reflects on the brutal crime, its aftermath, and the ways it clarified her own upbringing in Mississippi.

Download or read book Drawn to Injustice written by Timothy Masters and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2012-06-05 with total page 247 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Timothy Masters was a lonely, troubled teenager with a penchant for gory artwork when he first saw Peggy Lee Hettrick… …her dead, mutilated body nearly frozen in the early morning of Fort Collins, Colorado. Not believing it could really be a dead body, thinking he was the victim of yet another prank by his abusive classmates, the fifteen-year-old didn’t go to the police—but they came to him. So began a decade-long investigation led by a relentless detective who was sure that Masters was the killer, even without a shred of physical evidence. Against all reason, a conspiracy of silence and circumstantial evidence eventually put Masters behind bars. Only the determination of a lone investigator who believed the young man was innocent would reveal the shocking truth, and free Masters after ten years in prison. This is the compelling true story of one life ended in blood and murder, one life ruined by coincidence and prejudice, and justice long denied but finally found.

Download or read book The Amityville Horror written by Jay Anson and published by Gallery Books. This book was released on 2019-12-03 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “A fascinating and frightening book” (Los Angeles Times)—the bestselling true story about a house possessed by evil spirits, haunted by psychic phenomena almost too terrible to describe. In December 1975, the Lutz family moved into their new home on suburban Long Island. George and Kathleen Lutz knew that, one year earlier, Ronald DeFeo had murdered his parents, brothers, and sisters in the house, but the property—complete with boathouse and swimming pool—and the price had been too good to pass up. Twenty-eight days later, the entire Lutz family fled in terror. This is the spellbinding, shocking true story that gripped the nation about an American dream that turned into a nightmare beyond imagining—“this book will scare the hell out of you” (Kansas City Star).

Download or read book The Jolly Roger Social Club written by Nick Foster and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2016-07-12 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "In the remote Bocas del Toro, Panama, William Dathan Holbert, aka 'Wild Bill,' is awaiting trial for the murder of five fellow American ex-patriots. Holbert's first victims were the Brown family, who lived on a remote island in the area's Darklands. There, Holbert turned their home into the 'Jolly Roger Social Club,' using drink- and drug-fueled parties to get to know other ex-pats ... But this is not just a book about what Holbert did and the complex financial and real estate motives behind the killings; it is about why Bocas del Toro turned out to be his perfect hunting ground, and why the community tolerated--even accepted--him for a time"

Download or read book House of Evil written by John Dean and published by St. Martin's Press. This book was released on 2008-07-29 with total page 268 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: ***Please note: This ebook edition does not contain the photos found in the print edition.*** In the heart of Indianapolis in the mid 1960's, through a twist of fate and fortune, a pretty young girl came to live with a thirty-seven-year-old mother and her seven children. What began as a temporary childcare arrangement between Sylvia Likens's parents and Gertrude Baniszewski turned into a crime that would haunt cops, prosecutors, and a community for decades to come... When police found Sylvia's emaciated body, with a chilling message carved into her flesh, they knew that she had suffered tremendously before her death. Soon they would learn how many others—including some of Baniszewski's own children—participated in Sylvia's murder, and just how much torture had been inflicted in one HOUSE OF EVIL

Download or read book Darker than Night written by Tom Henderson and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2006-10-03 with total page 399 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the bitter cold of 1985, two buddies embark on a hunting trip from suburban Detroit to rural Michigan, unaware they would soon become the hunted. Darker than Night tells the chilling true story of the mystery that haunted a community and baffled the police for two decades. The eerie silence surrounding their sudden disappearance is broken after nearly two decades when a relentless investigator inspires a terrified witness to break her silence. The witness narrates a haunting scene that had unfolded years back, pointing fingers at the prime suspects–the Duvall brothers. With no bodies unearthed, the justice system is riveted by the startling revelations during an electrifying trial in 2003. The brothers, Raymond and Donald Duvall, had bragged about the murders, evocatively explaining how they dismembered their victims and fed them to pigs. Despite the shocking confession, the case holds its ground purely on a single witness's account, taking the courtroom through a labyrinth of dark secrets and sinister acts. This gripping thriller presents a vivid tale of crime that reveals the devastating power of evil.

Download or read book In Cold Blood written by Truman Capote and published by Modern Library. This book was released on 2013-02-19 with total page 417 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Selected by the Modern Library as one of the 100 best nonfiction books of all time From the Modern Library’s new set of beautifully repackaged hardcover classics by Truman Capote—also available are Breakfast at Tiffany’s and Other Voices, Other Rooms (in one volume), Portraits and Observations, and The Complete Stories Truman Capote’s masterpiece, In Cold Blood, created a sensation when it was first published, serially, in The New Yorker in 1965. The intensively researched, atmospheric narrative of the lives of the Clutter family of Holcomb, Kansas, and of the two men, Richard Eugene Hickock and Perry Edward Smith, who brutally killed them on the night of November 15, 1959, is the seminal work of the “new journalism.” Perry Smith is one of the great dark characters of American literature, full of contradictory emotions. “I thought he was a very nice gentleman,” he says of Herb Clutter. “Soft-spoken. I thought so right up to the moment I cut his throat.” Told in chapters that alternate between the Clutter household and the approach of Smith and Hickock in their black Chevrolet, then between the investigation of the case and the killers’ flight, Capote’s account is so detailed that the reader comes to feel almost like a participant in the events.

Download or read book Real Murders written by Charlaine Harris and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2007-12-04 with total page 303 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Though a small town at heart, Lawrenceton, Georgia, has its dark side-and crime buffs. One of whom is librarian Aurora "Roe" Teagarden, a member of the Real Murders Club, which meets once a month to analyze famous cases. It's a harmless pastime-until the night she finds a member killed in a manner that eerily resembles the crime the club was about to discuss. And as other brutal "copycat" killings follow, Roe will have to uncover the person behind the terrifying game, one that casts all the members of Real Murders, herself included, as prime suspects-or potential victims.

Download or read book American Horror Story Murder House Quiz Book written by Wayne Wheelwright and published by Andrews UK Limited. This book was released on 2013-05-14 with total page 19 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: American Horror Story: Murder House is the hugely popular FX show about the Harmon family who move into a new home that has a dark and disturbing history. Full of twists and turns this show had no ground where it feared to tread and kept viewers hooked on the mysteries it kept throwing up and it's engaging characters. Inside this book are over 100 questions about the show, it's characters and the history of the Murder House so dare to step inside and test yourself on this pioneering show.

Download or read book A Nightmare in Villisca written by Richard Estep and published by . This book was released on 2020-09-09 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the early morning hours of June 10, 1912, an intruder forced his way into the house of Josiah Moore and his wife, Sarah. During the nightmare that followed, everybody in the house - Mr. And Mrs. Moore, their four children, and two young girls who were visiting for the night - were murdered with an axe.The small town of Villisca, Iowa, would be scarred forever.Today, the infamous Villisca Axe Murder House has a fearsome reputation for being haunted. Each year, hundreds of fascinated people flock to the house, seeking an encounter with the paranormal. Some get more than they bargained for.Join Richard Estep of TV's Haunted Hospitals and Paranormal 911 as he and a small team of investigators lock themselves inside the Villisca Axe Murder House and delve into its deepest, darkest mysteries.