True Murder: The Most Shocking Killers

Internationally known legal ethics professor Richard Zitrin's work as a trial lawyer placed him on the front lines of fighting systemic racism, pervasive elitism, and injustice against individuals in the legal system. In Trial Lawyer, he shares details of the most compelling cases he's encountered and exposes the dilemmas he faced throughout his one-of-a-kind career. The profound, the consequential, the shocking, the bizarre, and even the humorous, Trial Lawyer brings to life what it means to represent people against power.From his first case as a young law student on the famous and highly politicized San Quentin Six case and throughout his forty-year career, Zitrin has worked on dozens of cases that underscore the inherent biases of the legal system - towards people of color, the poor, the less educated, and those who just don't appear to fit the mold of whatever society considers "normal." His personal stories about him bring the reader inside the courtroom to experience a unique cast of characters, strange-but-true facts, brilliant trial tricks and tactics-and not-so-brilliant ones that failed miserably. Each had its own lessons: about social justice, fairness, strategy, ethics, morality, and more. TRIAL LAWYER: A Life Representing People Against Power-Richard Zitrin Follow and comment on Facebook-TRUE MURDER: The Most Shocking Killers in True Crime History   https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100064697978510Check out TRUE MURDER PODCAST @ truemurderpodcast.com

Hosted by Ash Kelley and Alaina Urquhart from the hit show Morbid.When 90-year-old Laurence Pilgeram drops dead on the sidewalk outside his condo, you might think that’s the end of his story. But, really, it’s just the beginning. Because Laurence and others like him have signed up to be frozen and brought back to life in the future. And that belief will pull multiple generations of the Pilgeram family into a cryonics soap opera filled with dead pets, gold coins, grenades, fist fights, mysterious packages, family feuds, Hall of Fame baseball legends, and frozen heads — lots of frozen heads. From Wondery, comes a story about life, death, and what comes next.Follow Frozen Head on Amazon Music or wherever you get your podcasts. Binge early and ad-free by subscribing to Wondery+ in Apple Podcasts or the Wondery App. Listen to Frozen Head: Wondery.fm/FH_TM Follow and comment on Facebook-TRUE MURDER: The Most Shocking Killers in True Crime History   https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100064697978510Check out TRUE MURDER PODCAST @ truemurderpodcast.com

No body means no crime, which makes this the perfect murder.Doug Stewart even has an ironclad alibi. He's been seen hundreds of miles away when his lovely wife, Venus, vanishes. What better plan could any murderer hope for?But Doug's forgotten one thing: the power of a mother's love.Venus' mother believes her daughter's husband lured her outside. They fought. He won. Venus' mom wants her daughter back, dead or alive.Never Forgive, Never Forget: A Shocking True Crime Story by Rod Kackley tells the true story of a woman whose fear of her husband seems to turn out to be justified. It's also the story of a mother’s quest to win the return of her child — her best friend — even if it’s only to bury her.The disappearance of Venus Stewart is a shocking true crime story that rocked southwest Michigan and eventually the nation. Hundreds of volunteers spent thousands of days searching for the mother of two young girls.The police and her mother were sure Venus’ husband killed her. But he was in Newport News, Virginia when the crime was committed in Michigan. The neighbors saw him. He used his credit cards and even paid on his account at his lawyer’s office.And it wasn’t just the day that Venus disappeared that her husband was seen in Newport News. He was spotted the next day too. How can anyone be in two places at one time?Here’s something else: no corpse. That’s right, the police don’t have a body. How can investigators even be sure Venus is dead?Her mother had to wait more than eight long years before finding out what had happened to her child.A community rose up to stand by Therese McComb and her mission to learn the truth, and after searching for Venus hundreds of times, they stood by Therese at the very end.Never Forgive, Never Forget: A Shocking True Crime Story is a hard-hitting tale of a mother’s undying devotion and love for her child; and two police officers’ refusal to give up. It's a story that you will never forget. This gripping book will also leave you with a question. If you were Venus' mother; could you ever forgive?NEVER FORGIVE, NEVER FORGET: A Shocking True Crime Story-Rod Kackley. Follow and comment on Facebook-TRUE MURDER: The Most Shocking Killers in True Crime History   https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100064697978510Check out TRUE MURDER PODCAST @ truemurderpodcast.com

On January 7, 1994, residents of the Berkshire Hills woke up to a typical snowy winter day in the majestic woods of Western Massachusetts. The quaint New England towns, the idyllic scenery and the people who lived there could have stepped out of a Norman Rockwell painting.Rocked as imaginable evil converged on them, a pall would be cast over the region and its inhabitants for years to follow.That day, a trial was beginning for a college student who celebrated his 18th birthday by purchasing an assault rifle, then opening fire on campus killing two and wounding four others. Elsewhere, two young girls were accosted in the changing room at the local pool. Another young girl narrowly escaped being abducted at gunpoint on her way to school. Her quick thinking resulting later in profound repercussions regarding the case of a young boy who vanished from a strip mall, baffling law enforcement, his body discovered three years earlier by deer hunters in a remote wooded area 200 miles away.All these events appeared unrelated, but it seemed to police agencies and local residents that the world had suddenly gone mad. After all, they told each other, “These things don’t happen here!”In chilling, dramatic narrative HIDDEN DEMONS: Evil Visits a Small New England Town, by Margery Metzger, details these events and reveals a savage serial killer who lurked in the shadows. But the bravery of a father and daughter, and the remarkable work of law enforcement officers, would turn the table. HIDDEN DEMONS: Evil Visits A Small New England Town-Margery B. MetzgerReplyForward Follow and comment on Facebook-TRUE MURDER: The Most Shocking Killers in True Crime History   https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100064697978510Check out TRUE MURDER PODCAST @ truemurderpodcast.com

The incredible story of a 1958 murder that ended with the last woman to ever be executed in California—a murder so twisted it seems ripped from a Greek tragedy.Deborah Larkin was only ten years old when the quiet calm of her California suburb was shattered. Thirty miles north, on a quiet November night in Santa Barbara, a pregnant nurse named Olga Duncan disappeared from her apartment. The mystery deepens when it is discovered that Olga’s mother in-law—a deeply manipulative and deceptive woman—had been doing everything in her power to separate Olga and her son, Frank, prior to Olga’s disappearance.From a forged annulment to multiple attempts to hire people to “get rid” of Olga, to a faked excoriation case, Elizabeth seemed psychopathically attached to her son. Yet she denied having anything to do with Olga’s disappearance with a smile.But when Olga’s brutally beaten body is found in a shallow grave, apparently buried alive, a young DA makes it his mission to see that Elizabeth Duncan is brought to justice. Adding a wrinkle to his efforts is the fact that Frank—himself a defense attorney—maintained his mother’s innocence to the end.How does a young girl process such a crime along with the fear and disbelief that rocked an entire community? Decades later, Larkin is determined to revisit the case and bring the story of Olga herself to light. Long overshadowed by the sensationalism and scandal of Elizabeth and Frank, A Lovely Girl seeks to reveal Olga as a woman in full. Someone who was more than the twisted family that would ultimately ensnare her.As we follow the heart-pounding drama of the case through Larkin's young eyes—her father was the court reporter—A Lovely Girl is by turns page-turning yet poignant, and makes the reader reexamine how we handle fear, how we regard mental illness, and how we understand family as we carve our own path in a dangerous world. A LOVELY GIRL: The Tragedy of Olga Duncan and the Trial of One of California's Most Notorious Killers-Deborah LarkinReplyForward Follow and comment on Facebook-TRUE MURDER: The Most Shocking Killers in True Crime History   https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100064697978510Check out TRUE MURDER PODCAST @ truemurderpodcast.com

Murder is the most vile crime known to man. It can be triggered by love or money or sex. Those are the three big ticket items for homicide. But people are strange. They will kill for the most obscure and ridiculous of reasons. In 30 years covering murder, Brad Hunter has discovered each one has its own flavour. Cops and friends can be stunned by the evil lurking within a seemingly ordinary man or woman. In this collection of some of the most memorable cases Brad has reported on, there are serial killers, rich kid monsters, football stars and wives in pursuit of hormone-charged hijinks… The very rich and the very poor. Successful lawyers and hotel executives. Southern belles who could melt butter with a come hither wink and a sexy drawl. Daddy’s girls with gleaming smiles, good marks and possessed by the devil.These are stories of American crimes and they stretch from coast to coast.You will find cheating husbands and wives so desperate for love that they’ll kill for it. COLD BLOODED MURDER: Shocking True Stories of Killers and Psychopaths-Brad Hunter Follow and comment on Facebook-TRUE MURDER: The Most Shocking Killers in True Crime History   https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100064697978510Check out TRUE MURDER PODCAST @ truemurderpodcast.com

The western suburbs of Chicago were being terrorized by a serial rapist and murderer in the 1970s and 1980s. Bruce Lindahl was a psychotic rapist and killer who preyed on girls and young women for almost a decade. He managed to escape detection because he did not leave his rape victims alive. But in 1980, he kidnapped and raped Debra Colliander in Aurora, Illinois. She escaped before he could murder her, and Lindahl finally was arrested. Two months later, just before he was to go on trial on charges of kidnapping, rape and deviate sexual assault, Lindahl kidnapped and murdered Miss Colliander. Lindahl disposed of her body and no one could find her. The following year, because the victim did not show up in court, the kidnapping and rape charges had to be dropped – and he could not be charged with murder without a body. Reporter Jim Ridings wrote a number of stories for The Beacon-News over several months, determined to shine a light to try to stop Lindahl from getting away with another murder. Suddenly, the public knew the truth about this monster who had been able to evade justice and public attention. Aurora police said Lindahl planned to kill Ridings once the judge finally dismissed the case. But fortunately, a few days after the charges were dropped, Lindahl accidentally killed himself while murdering another person. The story took another turn nearly 40 years after Lindahl’s death when DNA tests linked Lindahl to an unsolved cold case murder from 1976. Murder in the Fox Valley tells the story of Bruce Lindahl’s terrible crime spree and how he finally was stopped. MURDER IN THE FOX VALLEY: The True Story of Serial Killer Bruce Lindahl-Jim Ridings Follow and comment on Facebook-TRUE MURDER: The Most Shocking Killers in True Crime History   https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100064697978510Check out TRUE MURDER PODCAST @ truemurderpodcast.com

From the award-winning author of Two Crows Sorrow comes another historical true crime story about secret identities, deception, and murder.At the turn of the century, an ex-convict from Ireland arrives in the back country of rural Nova Scotia, whereupon he is accused of murdering a man and burying him in the victim’s own cellar under a pile of potatoes. Rooted in Deception follows the life of John Kavanagh and how this petty criminal deceives everyone in his path until he is eventually accused of a heinous and violent murder for which he is ultimately hanged. But how much of the tragedy was of his own doing and how much had been woven by his enemies? Told from a variety of perspectives, including that of the accused, the book creates a sympathetic case for a man who may deserve none. Using primary sources including newspaper articles, trial transcripts and actual letters from the accused, the true story of the murder of Freeman Harvey is told using creative nonfiction devices to fill in the gaps of the narrative. Rooted in Deception follows Two Crows Sorrow, which was awarded the 2020 Bronze Award for best creative nonfiction by the Miramichi Reader. ROOTED IN DECEPTION-Laura Churchill Duke Follow and comment on Facebook-TRUE MURDER: The Most Shocking Killers in True Crime History   https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100064697978510Check out TRUE MURDER PODCAST @ truemurderpodcast.com

For more than three and a half decades, the disappearance of 12-year-old Jonelle Matthews was a mystery – a riddle neither authorities nor her family members could solve. The residents of her cloistered Colorado hometown had scoured every inch of prairie. Jonelle’s face had been on milk cartons nationwide. Even the President of the United States had appealed to the public for help. Still, every lead had fizzled. Every person of interest had turned out to be a dead end. Then, in 2019, Jonelle’s remains were unearthed near the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. With the discovery came a troubling new question: Had the truth been hiding in plain sight the entire time? Was the man who couldn’t stop obsessing over Jonelle’s disappearance also the person who took her? From Campside Media and Wondery comes season two of SUSPECT. Former CNN reporter Ashley Fantz and executive producers Matthew Shaer and Eric Benson (Suspect, Over My Dead Body) dig into one of the most mind-bending cold cases in modern history, in an attempt to separate fact and fiction, compulsion from guilt, and true-crime fandom from a motive for murder. Listen to SUSPECT: Vanished in the Snow early and ad- free by subscribing to Wondery Plus in Apple Podcasts or the Wondery app.https://wondery.app.link/suspect-tm Follow and comment on Facebook-TRUE MURDER: The Most Shocking Killers in True Crime History   https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100064697978510Check out TRUE MURDER PODCAST @ truemurderpodcast.com

On a cold, windy December night in 1926, hell was unleashed on a tenant farm near Farwell, the last Texas town before the New Mexico border. Prone to the bottle and fits of rage, the burly man with the smiling blue eyes was in no mood to quarrel with his third wife over his bootleg whisky and sexual abuse of his stepdaughter. He went from room to room in the house, killing his wife and each child with primitive cutting tools and his bare hands. By the time he concluded his bloody work, he had taken the lives of nine family members ranging in age from 2 to 41, committing what one local reporter called “the blackest crime” in the history of the West Texas Panhandle. Husband, father, uncle, embezzler, serial mass murderer, philanderer, child molester, convict, and military deserter, George Jefferson Hassell was many things to many people, most of them bad. His pattern of familicide crime had begun in 1917, when he slaughtered his common-law wife and her three kids in Whittier, California. Later, in Texas, he married his brother’s wife and became stepfather to her eight children. Using Hassell’s confessions and his many interviews with reporters as well as the trial transcripts and reminiscences of those who crossed paths with him in Texas, Oklahoma, and California, Mitchel P. Roth presents the first comprehensive account of the life and crimes of one of the least known multiple murderers in Texas, let alone American, history. Roth situates Hassell’s saga within the 1920s Texas criminal justice system, including the death penalty, which Hassell ultimately received from Old Sparky, the electric chair at Huntsville. THE MAN WITH THE KILLER SMILE: The Life and Crimes of a Serial Mass Murderer-Mitchel P. Roth Follow and comment on Facebook-TRUE MURDER: The Most Shocking Killers in True Crime History   https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100064697978510Check out TRUE MURDER PODCAST @ truemurderpodcast.com