Sande fortællinger: seriemordere og drabsmænd

What makes a racketeer? What drives men to operate outside the confines of a society that pretends to abhor racketeers yet pays homage to the individuals who flaunt society's conventions? Rise and Fall of a Racketeer, soars above the mundane and not only lets you peek inside the persona of one individual, but a multitude of other interesting men and women who make up the world of gangsterism. It takes the reader backstage to the way things really work; how power is used, and why. Travel to cities, steeped in romanticism and raucous nights, Miami, Bermuda, Las Vegas, Palm Beach, Myrtle Beach, and other places, inspired stirrings of culture and history-Charleston, and stoic, no nonsense cities, such as Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Los Angeles, and Youngstown, Ohio.

On June 9, 2008, the butchered body of Travis Alexander was found in his Arizona home with twenty-nine knife wounds, his throat slit, and a gunshot to the head. The prime suspect was Alexander's ex-girlfriend, Jodi Arias, who lied for years about her involvement before finally resting on an appalling claim: she had killed Travis in self-defense. Soon, graphic stories about the Mormon couple's relationship and their lurid sexual encounters emerged, launching a trial filled with sex and deception and raising substantial questions about Arias's deceit-filled world.Now, with unbridled access to the case, award-winning broadcast journalist Jane Velez-Mitchell unearths Jodi's history to illustrate the disturbing pattern of a murderer in the making. Using insider accounts from those closest to Travis and Jodi, she separates fact from fiction, reporting on the bizarre and explicit stories that have shocked and fascinated the American public. Complete with photos and Velez-Mitchell's fresh insights, Exposed takes readers behind closed bedroom doors to uncover the truth behind the secret life of Jodi Arias.

A man of God . . . driven by the devilTo his parishioners, minister Matt Baker seemed a pious and good man. To his wife, Kari, he was a devoted husband and caring father. Always sunny and vivacious, Kari never questioned their frequent relocations from one small Texas Baptist church to another. Even when tragedy struck, Kari remained strong?until one day, inexplicably, she took her own life.To friends and family, Kari's suicide made no sense?and they struggled with questions they couldn't answer. Why couldn't Matt hold a job with any one church? Why did he cut off all contact with Kari's devastated parents soon after her death? And who was the blond companion he began appearing with just days after the funeral? But it would take a team of investigators and dogged determination to bring Matt Baker's dark secrets to light?revealing a shocking history of lies, infidelity, cruelty, and sexual obsession that may have led a serial predator cloaked in God's word to commit murder.

Les Standifords account of the decades-long attempt to solve the murder of Adam Walsh is chilling, heartbreaking, hopeful, and as relentlessly suspenseful as anything Ive ever read. A triumph in every way.Dennis Lehane, author of Mystic RiverThe most significant missing child case since the Lindberghs.A taut, compelling and often touching book about a long march to justice.Scott Turow, author of Presumed InnocentThe abduction that changed America forever, the 1981 kidnapping and murder of six-year-old Adam Walshson of John Walsh, host of the Fox TV series Americas Most Wantedin Hollywood, Florida, was a crime that went unsolved for a quarter of a century. Bringing Adam Home by author Les Standiford is a harrowing account of the terrible crime and its dramatic consequences, the emotional story of a father and mothers efforts to seek justice and resolve the loss of their child, and a compelling portrait of Miami Beach Homicide Detective Joe Matthews, whose unwavering dedication brought the Adam Walsh case to its resolution.

Born into a powerful mob family, Salvatore ?Bill? Bonanno was privy to a private world that existed just outside the law for decades in America?a world ruled by the tenets of loyalty, secrecy, brotherhood, and survival at any cost: the Mafia.The son of Joe Bonanno?the Godfather-like head of one of the original five New york Crime Families?Bill Bonanno came of age in the Golden Age of the Mafia. In this fascinating final testament he ushers readers into that cloistered world, from its origins in medieval Sicilian and Italian history to its rise, tumultuous peak, and precipitous fall in America. Told from the inside?and complete with rare unpublished photographs of candid moments, major players, rituals, and ceremonies?The Last Testament of Bill Bonanno is the ultimate insider's final word on one of the most secretive and misunderstood phenomena of our time.

"In the 1920s, the richest people per capita in the world were members of the Osage Nation in Oklahoma. After oil was discovered beneath their land, the Osage rode in chauffeured automobiles, built mansions, and sent their children to study in Europe. Then, one by one, the Osage began to be killed off. The family of an Osage woman, Mollie Burkhart, became a prime target. One of her relatives was shot. Another was poisoned. And it was just the beginning, as more and more Osage were dying under mysterious circumstances, and many of those who dared to investigate the killings were themselves murdered. As the death toll rose, the newly created FBI took up the case, and the young director, J. Edgar Hoover, turned to a former Texas Ranger named Tom White to try to unravel the mystery. White put together an undercover team, including a Native American agent who infiltrated the region, and together with the Osage began to expose one of the most chilling conspiracies in American history." --

Killer Queens is a new series of historical fiction books based on true stories. The series explores the world of murder in the gay community, whether the victims or the killers themselves and sometimes both, are homosexual.Book 2 of the series focuses on the serial killer of at least 27 young men and boys in Germany in the post-World War 1 era. At the center of this murder case were Fritz Haarmann and Hans Grans, who were lovers while committing these murders. It wasn't until the skulls and bones started washing ashore from the Leine River in Hanover that Germany realized they had a cold-blooded serial killer in their country.Unlike Leopold and Loeb murder case covered in Book 1, where the dominance shifted from one to the other, Fritz Haarmann was the dominant partner in this case. He carried out each of the murders and dismemberment of the bodies himself, even though he claimed that Grans chose who was to be murdered in court.As you read the exploration of the case in this book, ask yourself, did Haarmann murder each victim to keep his lover Hans Grans to stay with him? Did Grans decide who it was that was to be murdered? The evidence on this case will keep you on the edge of your seat, trying to determine who was really behind these gruesome murders.

The Line between Lawmen and LawlessOn December 26, 1910, Oscar Chitwood lay lifeless on the courthouse lawn in Hot Springs, his wrists shackled together, and his body torn by bullets. The deputies on the scene claimed that masked men had lynched their prisoner and that the lawmen were innocent bystanders to the carnage. Newspapers everywhere proclaimed this killing another example of vigilantism run rampant. Within days, however, the official story fell apart, and these deputies were charged with cold-blooded murder. Authors Guy Lancaster and Christopher Thrasher tell the little-known story of accused outlaw Oscar Chitwood, the authorities he dared defy, and the mysterious resort town of Hot Springs, a place where the Wild West met the epitome of civilization, and where the boundaries between lawman and outlaw were never all that clear.

A silent killer stalks the city, targeting those home alone at night killing without pity or remorse. As panic spreads, D.I. Helen Grace leads the investigation, but is herself a hunted woman, her every step dogged by a ruthless killer bent on revenge. As she tracks the murderer, Grace begins to suspect there is a truly shocking home truth that connects these brutal crimes.

The unvarnished true story of the tragic life and death of Aaron Hernandez, the college All-American and New England Patriots star convicted of murder, told by one of the few people who knew him best, his brother. To football fans, Aaron Hernandez was a superstar in the making. A standout at the University of Florida, he helped the Gators win the national title in 2008. Drafted by the New England Patriots, in his second full season with the team he and fellow Patriots' tight end Rob Gronkowski set records for touchdowns and yardage, and with Tom Brady, led New England to Super Bowl XLVI in 2012. But Aaron's NFL career ended as quickly as it began. On June 26, 2013, he was arrested at his North Attleboro home, charged with the murder of Odin Lloyd, and released by the Patriots. Convicted of first-degree murder, Aaron was sentenced to life in prison without parole. On May 15, 2014, while on trial for Lloyd's murder, Aaron was indicted for two more murders. Five days after being acquitted for those double murders, he committed suicide in his jail cell. Aaron Hernandez was twenty-seven years old. In this clear-eyed, emotionally devastating biography?a family memoir combining football and true crime?Jonathan (formerly known by his nickname DJ) Hernandez speaks out fully for the first time about the brother he knew. Jonathan draws on his own recollections as well as thousands of pages of prison letters and other sources to give us a full portrait of a star athlete and troubled young man who would become a murderer, and the darkness that consumed him. Jonathan does not portray Aaron as a victim; he does not lay the blame for his crimes on his illness. He speaks openly about Aaron's talent, his sexuality, his crimes and incarceration, and the CTE that ravaged him?scientists found that upon his death, Aaron had the brain of a sixty-seven-year old suffering from the same condition. Filled with headline-making revelations, The Truth About Aaron is a shocking and moving account of promise, tragedy, and loss?of one man's descent into rage and violence, as told by the person who knew him more closely than anyone else.

This fascinating and gripping portrayal is the only book-length account ever written about criminal mastermind Clarence Ray Allen, the last man to be executed in the state of CaliforniaEven hardened detectives were shaken by the scene at Fran's Market in rural Fresno County that night in 1980: four young people lay on the market's concrete floor, bloodily murdered by a killer without mercy or remorse. Then a grim investigation became even grimmer when the evidence led to the prime suspect--a convicted murderer already behind the stone walls of Folsom. A true crime story that reads like an intricately woven mystery, the book depicts the chilling scenes of murder, a dogged investigation, and the true story behind the Fran's Market murders and their psychopathic mastermind. Written by former prosecutor James Ardaiz, who was one of the first investigators on the scene at Fran's Market, Hands Through Stone provides an insider's view of the tortuous, multiyear investigation that brought a killer to justice.

"The pieces in this work originally appeared in a slightly different form in The New Yorker"--Copyright page.

Deeply researched and vividly written, Montana Murders describes 30 of the state's most shocking killings from the Vigilantes to today.

A penetrating look into the controversy that enshrouds one of the most complex criminal cases in US history: a former Green Beret's murder of his wife.It was a dreary winter afternoon in Ayer, Massachusetts, a quintessential New England town, the type which is romanticized in Robert Frost's poems. But on January 30, 1979, a woman's scream was heard piercing the northeast tempest wind.In an unassuming apartment building on Washington Street, Elaine Tyree, a mother, wife, and US Army soldier, had her life brutally ripped from her. Her husband, William Tyree, a Special Forces soldier, was convicted of this heinous murder, which he has always vehemently denied.Some elements of this case seem to be chilling echoes of the Jeffrey MacDonald case, made famous in the book and film Fatal Vision. A military doctor and US Army Captain, MacDonald was convicted of murdering his pregnant wife and two daughters but always maintained his innocence. As in the MacDonald case, the case against William Tyree raises questions as to whether the government and military suppressed evidence that could prove his innocence.The Tyree case sent a shockwave through the idyllic community of Ayer, the United States Army, and the judicial system of Massachusetts. This case provoked suspicions of judicial misconduct, government cover-up, clandestine Black Ops by the military, and various conspiracy theories ultimately implicating "e;Deep State"e; involvement.The events that took place that fateful day, the subsequent courtroom showdown, and the ongoing legal battles raise provocative questions that continue to revolve around this case to this day.