True Crime

Including never-before-seen photos and handwritten letters from Bundy, Dark Tide's message is as gut-wrenching as it is clear, asking the question: how well do we know those we trust most?

Edna's world turned upside down when her close cousin, Ted Bundy, was linked to the gruesome murders that had plagued her hometown of Seattle. Both devastating and dangerous, she reveals her journey of discovering the truth about her cousin who was more like a sibling, a man she loved, admired, and thought she knew so well. Edna delves into the unbelievable and chilling episodes she experienced, from confronting Ted and discovering a side of him she never suspected to waking to the FBI at her door after he escaped jail.

Whether searching memories for signs she'd missed or detailing scenes of life under the radar in a world still fixated on her cousin, Edna's account tells the Ted Bundy story from a critical, new perspective: someone who called him family.

On October 22, 1989, in the small town of St. Joseph, Minnesota, eleven-year-old Jacob Wetterling was kidnapped at gunpoint. Twenty-seven years later, on September 2, 2016, Danny Heinrich led authorities to the boy's remains.

What lies between is the riveting story of the search for Jacob Wetterling, told by his mother, Patty. With down-to-earth candor, she details the investigation as it unfolds, discusses her family's struggles, and shows how she maintained her energy and optimism.

For her own survival, Patty chose to focus on hope. She became a speaker, trainer, and national advocate for missing children. Her lobbying work took her to Washington, DC, where in 1994 Congress passed the Jacob Wetterling Act, establishing a national sex offender registry.

In 2013 the Wetterlings were joined on their quest for answers by two unlikely allies: local blogger Joy Baker and plumber Jared Scheierl. Baker convinced Scheierl to come forward and share his story about being kidnapped from a nearby town and sexually assaulted the same year as Jacob. Together, Baker and Scheierl uncovered a string of similar assaults that had never been fully investigated. The combined efforts of this foursome led to the breakthrough that solved the case.

Jacob's kidnapping forever changed the way parents raised their children. Dear Jacob offers not only a behind-the-scenes account of one of America's most notorious crimes but also a historical account of what has been done in the years since Jacob's kidnapping to combat the problem of missing and exploited children.

In this powerful memoir--written with Joy Baker, the local blogger--Patty Wetterling finally tells readers what happened and shows how, in searching for Jacob, she found her purpose.

"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.

Power, privilege, and blood--this is the true story of Alex Murdaugh's violent downfall, from a veteran Wall Street Journal reporter who has become an authority on the case.

Alex Murdaugh was a benevolent dictator--the president of the South Carolina trial lawyers' association, a political boss, a part-time prosecutor, and a partner in his family's law firm. He was always ready with a favor, a drink, and an invitation to Moselle, his family's 1,700-acre hunting estate. The Murdaugh name ignited respect--and fear--for a hundred miles.

When he murdered his wife, Maggie, and son Paul at Moselle on a dark summer night, the fragile façade of Alex's world could no longer hold. His forefathers had covered up a midnight suicide at a remote railroad crossing, a bootlegging ring run from a courthouse, and the attempted murder of a pregnant lover. Alex, too, almost walked away from his unspeakable crimes with his reputation intact, but his downfall was secured by a twist of fate, some stray mistakes, and a fateful decision by an old friend who'd finally seen enough.

Why would a man who had everything kill his wife and grown son? To unwind the roots of Alex's ruin, award-winning journalist Valerie Bauerlein reported not just from the courthouse every day but also along the backroads and through the tidal marshes of South Carolina's Lowcountry. When the jurors made their pilgrimage to the crime scene, trying to envision Maggie and Paul's last moments, she walked right behind them, sensing the ghosts that haunt the Murdaughs' now-shattered legacy.

Through masterful research and cinematic writing, The Devil at His Elbow is a transporting journey through Alex's life, the night of the murders, and the investigation that culminated in a trial that held tens of millions spellbound. With her stunning insights and fearless instinct for the truth, Bauerlein uncovers layers of the Murdaugh murder case that have not been told.

This suspenseful true story of a drug cartel hitman who got away with murder after murder in California's Central Valley over three decades reveals how the criminal justice system fails our most vulnerable immigrant communities.

On the surface, fifty-eight-year-old Jose Martinez didn't seem evil or even that remarkable--just a regular neighbor, good with cars and devoted to his family. But in between taking his children to Disneyland and visiting his mom, Martinez was also one of the most skilled professional killers police had ever seen.

He tracked one victim to one of the wealthiest corners of America, a horse ranch in Santa Barbara, and shot him dead in the morning sunlight, setting off a decades-long manhunt. He shot another man, a farmworker, right in front of his young wife as they drove to work in the fields. The widow would wait decades for justice. Those were murders for hire. Others he killed for vengeance.

How did Martinez manage to evade law enforcement for so long with little more than a slap on the wrist? Because he understood a dark truth about the criminal justice system: if you kill the "right people"--people who are poor, who aren't white, and who don't have anyone to speak up for them--you can get away with it.

Melding the pacing and suspense of a true crime thriller with the rigor of top-notch investigative journalism, The Devil's Harvest follows award-winning reporter Jessica Garrison's relentless search for the truth as she traces the life of this assassin, the cops who were always a few steps behind him, and the families of his many victims. Drawing upon decades of case files, interrogation transcripts, on-the-ground reporting, and Martinez's chilling handwritten journals, The Devil's Harvest uses a gripping and often shocking narrative to dig into one of the most important moral questions haunting our politically divided nation today: Why do some deaths--and some lives--matter more than others?

"Meticulously researched and tightly woven, The Devil's Harvest is an important story because it tells us that if [this] can happen in one place, then it can happen in any place. And that's damn scary." --Michael Connelly, New York Times bestselling author of The Closers, The Lincoln Lawyer, and The Night Fire

In 1898, a group of schoolboys in Bridgeport, Connecticut discovered gruesome packages under a bridge holding the dismembered remains of a young woman.

Finding that the dead woman had just undergone an abortion, prosecutors raced to establish her identity and fix blame for her death. Suspicion fell on Nancy Guilford, half of a married pair of "doctors" well known to police throughout New England.

A fascinated public followed the suspect's flight from justice, as many rooted for the fugitive. The Disquieting Death of Emma Gill takes a close look not only at the Guilfords, but also at the cultural shifts and social compacts that allowed their practice to flourish while abortion was both illegal and unregulated.

Focusing on the women at the heart of the story--both victim and perpetrator--Biederman reexamines this slice of history through a feminist lens and reminds us of the very real lives at stake when a woman's body and choices are controlled by others.

A tangled web of family dysfunction, fatal attraction, and greed wends its way from the elegant Southern mansions of old Montgomery, Alabama, to the New Age salons of Boulder and rural, windswept Wyoming in Drifting Into Darkness, a true saga of bloodshed and betrayal.

Two grisly murders--a brutal double parricide--a suicide, and a fourth death under suspicious circumstances. Drifting Into Darkness is a tangled tale of family dysfunction, fatal attraction, and greed, a saga that wends its way from the elegant Southern mansions of Montgomery, Alabama, to the New Age salons of Boulder, Colorado, to rural, windswept Wyoming.

On Thanksgiving weekend in 2004, philanthropists Charlotte and Brent Springford Sr.?a wealthy, socially prominent Montgomery couple?were brutally beaten to death with an ax handle, echoing the infamous case of Lizzie Borden. Suspicion quickly fell on the Springfords' gifted but troubled son Brent Jr., who would be tried and sentenced to life without parole. But a mystery remained: Who was the mysterious, elusive woman who claimed to be a Native American shaman that investigators believed manipulated Brent into this murder?

Journalists solving murders is a time-tested trope in movies, mysteries, and on television. But cops and cop reporters know that rarely happens in real life. Except when it does. Veteran crime reporter Mark I. Pinsky, who covered the sensational cases of serial killer Ted Bundy and Green Beret Dr. Jeffrey MacDonald, broke the cardinal rule of journalism by involving himself in the story. Pinsky's extensive research prompted investigators to invite him to join their dogged pursuit of justice. His access to unique and heart-breaking behind-the-scenes material enables him to take readers with him into the troubled, tortured minds of the case's main players.

In 2012, a Mexican doctor announced that he had revived a forgotten indigenous ritual: smoking the secretions of the Sonoran Desert toad, which releases a potent psychedelic substance known as "the God molecule." The drug, which often induced states of ego death and the sensation of being directly connected with the divine, had remarkable effects on those suffering from PTSD, depression, and drug addiction. As the doctor's fame grew, however, stories emerged of extreme dosing, abusive behavior, and even dramatic deaths.

In this gripping and deeply reported book, Kimon de Greef explores the promise and the peril of "toad medicine" and captures the defining tensions of this new era of psychedelics. As the notoriety of this powerful drug rose, psychonauts, spiritual seekers, and sufferers of innumerable conditions flocked to Sonora, giving rise to a bourgeoning economy of psychedelic tourism. Many of the Seri people, who had once lent their imprimatur to the doctor's narrative of indigenous tradition, conspicuously avoided using the substance at all, and evidence of ancestral use appeared questionable. Impoverished toad collectors chased after the animals in drug cartel territory and risked their lives in the process. And pharmaceutical companies raced against one another to harness the therapeutic potential of the toad's chemical wonders and develop a world-altering breakthrough in mental illness treatment--a drug that could rival Prozac in its impact on psychopharmacology.

Part true crime, part cult story, part cultural history, The Ego Trip is a chronicle of the rise and fall of a messianic figure, but it is also an investigation into a larger truth about our age of spiritual desolation. As this story forcefully demonstrates, no matter the lengths we go to in attaining a more cosmic understanding, we will always be firmly rooted in the real world, bound by our limitations and inescapably human.