True Murder: The Most Shocking Killers in True Crime History

Wealthy, beautiful, and brilliant, Shele Danishefsky had fulfillment at her fingertips. Having conquered Wall Street, she was eager to build a family with her much younger husband, promising Ivy League graduate Rod Covlin. But when his hidden vices surfaced, marital harmony gave way to a merciless divorce. Rod had long depended on Shele's income to fund his tastes for high stakes backgammon and infidelity--and she finally vowed to sever him from her will. In late December 2009, Shele made an appointment with her lawyer to block him from her millions. She would never make it to that meeting.Two days later, on New Year’s Eve, Shele was found dead in the bathtub of her Upper West Side apartment. Police ruled it an accident, and Shele’s deeply Orthodox Jewish family quickly buried her without an autopsy on religious grounds. Rod had a clear path to his ex-wife's fortune, but suspicions about her death lingered. As the two families warred over custody of Shele’s children―and their inheritance― Rod concocted a series of increasingly demented schemes, even plotting to kill his own parents, to secure the treasure. And as investigators closed in, Rod committed a final, desperate act to frame his own daughter for her mother’s death.Journalists Rebecca Rosenberg and Selim Algar reconstruct the ten years that passed between the day Shele was found dead and the day her killer faced justice in this riveting account of how one man’s irrepressible greed devolved into obsession, manipulation, and murder. AT ANY COST: A Father's Betrayal, A Wife's Murder, and a Ten-Year War for Justice-Selim AlgarMURDER #fabfitfunpartner 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

Law enforcement professionals and criminologists long have been challenged to arrive at a consensus over the most accurate ways to classify serial killers. With predators as diverse as the lesser-known William Zamastil to slick con artists such as Ted Bundy, one description certainly does not fit all when it comes to grouping the depraved minds that comprise America’s most prolific murderers.Veteran criminal profiler Steve Daniels takes a detailed look into the behavioral intricacies that separate contract killers from sexual deviants, highly organized planners from low-functioning opportunists. Daniels advances the notion that current classification models fall short of the reality faced by law enforcement and prosecutors, offering an additional profiling tool in the battle against violent crime. GAZING INTO THE ABYSS: Serial Killer William Zamastil, The Victims, and Other Killers-Steve Daniels 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

If you want a view into the world that lies behind the Ted Bundy murders, this last work in a series of six books on Bundy, is definitely for you. For within these pages you’ll read of the many questions still surrounding this fascinating and intricate case, as well as the answers that are only now being provided here. There’s so much more to learn, and new information is still surfacing about Bundy, his victims and his potential victims. As such, there is new testimony included from those who had a brush with the killer, and others who played their own roles in this multi-state case.In this book, Bundy case detectives Jerry Thompson of Salt Lake City, Utah, and Don Patchen of Tallahassee, Florida, talk about their personal experiences with Bundy. So does Ron Holmes, the Louisville criminologist who worked with the killer towards the end of his life. Also included are official reports that have rarely been viewed outside of the archives, along with the author's commentary to guide readers through them. And last but not least, is Bundy's final confession to Utah detective Dennis Couch just hours prior to Bundy's execution. In it, Bundy reveals startling facts and sparks additional questions. A must-read for those true crime readers fascinated by America's most enigmatic and infamous serial killer. THE ENIGMA OF TED BUNDY: The Questions and Controversies Surrounding America's Most Infamous Serial Killer-Kevin Sullivan 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 Gospel of Blood is the autobiography of Nico Claux, a French morgue attendant whose morbid obsessions led him to grave robbery, cannibalism and murder in the early 1990s. It is a bone-chilling chronicle of a real-life vampire who prowled the Gothic cemeteries of Paris, unearthing coffins and mutilating the bodies inside. A practicing Satanist, Claux escalated to murder after working for a year in several morgues, receiving orders to kill from the corpses he had autopsied.The Gospel of Blood provides a rare insight into a killer’s tortured mind, as he relates the graphic details of his crimes, including never-before revealed confessions. It is a fascinating look inside the thoughts of a psychotic murderer who has found redemption in prison through art. THE GOSPEL OF BLOOD: The Crimes and Trial of the Vampire of Paris in His Own Words-Nico Claux 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

Faulkner County native Red Hall was a serial killer who confessed to murdering at least twenty-four people. Most of his victims were motorists who picked him up as he hitchhiked around the United States. In the closing months of World War II, he beat his wife to death and went on a killing spree across the state. His signature smile lured his victims to their doom, and even after his capture, he maintained a friendly manner, being described by one lawman as "a pleasant conversationalist." Author Janie Nesbitt Jones chronicles his life for the first time and explores reasons why he became Arkansas's Hitchhike Killer. THE ARKANSAS HITCHHIKE KILLER: James Waybern "Red" Hall-Janie Nesbitt Jones 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

In 1976, a killer who called himself ‘The Son of Sam’ shot and killed a half dozen people and wounded as many more in New York City. During his crime spree, the madman left bizarre letters mocking the police and promising more deaths.After months of terrorizing the city while garnering front-page headlines and international attention, a man named David Berkowitz was arrested. He confessed to the shootings, claiming to be obeying a demon that resided in a dog that belonged to his neighbor “Sam.”Among the alleged victims was Carl Denaro. On the night he was shot, Denaro was hanging out with some friends at a bar when he met up with a woman named Rosemary Keenan. The couple left the bar and went to Keenan’s car for some privacy. However, a few minutes later, the windows of the car exploded as Denaro was shot in the head by an unseen assailant. Miraculously, Denaro survived the attack.When Berkowitz was arrested, he was charged with trying to kill Denaro. However, there was a twist. Although he confessed to the other shootings, after his conviction Berkowitz denied attacking Denaro.Now, after years of research, Denaro is convinced that Berkowitz was telling the truth, and that someone else tried to kill him. "THE SON OF SAM" AND ME: The Truth About Why I wasn't Shot by David Berkowitz-Carl DenaroMURDER #fabfitfunpartner 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

Harold Schechter, Amazon Charts bestselling author of Hell’s Princess, unearths a nearly forgotten true crime of obsession and revenge, and one of the first—and worst—mass murders in American history.In 1927, while the majority of the township of Bath, Michigan, was celebrating a new primary school—one of the most modern in the Midwest—Andrew P. Kehoe had other plans. The local farmer and school board treasurer was educated, respected, and an accommodating neighbor and friend. But behind his ordinary demeanor was a narcissistic sadist seething with rage, resentment, and paranoia. On May 18 he detonated a set of rigged explosives with the sole purpose of destroying the school and everyone in it. Thirty-eight children and six adults were murdered that morning, culminating in the deadliest school massacre in US history.Maniac is Harold Schechter’s gripping, definitive, exhaustively researched chronicle of a town forced to comprehend unprecedented carnage and the triggering of a “human time bomb” whose act of apocalyptic violence would foreshadow the terrors of the current age. MANIAC: The Bath School Disaster and the Birth of the Modern Mass Killer-Harold Schechter 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

Growing up on Cape Cod in the 1960s, Liza Rodman was a lonely little girl. During the summers, while her mother worked days in a local motel and danced most nights in the Provincetown bars, her babysitter—the kind, handsome handyman at the motel where her mother worked—took her and her sister on adventures in his truck. He bought them popsicles and together, they visited his “secret garden” in the Truro woods. To Liza, he was one of the few kind and understanding adults in her life. Everyone thought he was just a “great guy.”But there was one thing she didn’t know; their babysitter was a serial killer.Some of his victims were buried—in pieces—right there, in his garden in the woods. Though Tony Costa’s gruesome case made screaming headlines in 1969 and beyond, Liza never made the connection between her friendly babysitter and the infamous killer of numerous women, including four in Massachusetts, until decades later.Haunted by nightmares and horrified by what she learned, Liza became obsessed with the case. Now, she and cowriter Jennifer Jordan reveal the chilling and unforgettable true story of a charming but brutal psychopath through the eyes of a young girl who once called him her friend. THE BABYSITTER: My Summers with a Serial Killer-Liza Rodman and Jennifer Jordan 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

Cold Case Story is based on the brutal murder of a housewife in the Denver suburbs in 1973. A college student back then, Stephanie Kane was more than a witness to this terrible crime. For nearly thirty years, she remained silent. Then, in 2001, she tried to exorcise the crime by fictionalizing it in a mystery novel called Quiet Time. But instead of laying the murder to rest, Quiet Time brought it roaring back to life.Cold Case Story is about a family that fractured along the fault lines of a murder. It's about fiction colliding with a cold hard crime, and the very personal story of how it feels to ping-pong between participant and observer, novelist and witness to one's own uneasy set of facts. In the end, all are punished--even the guilty. COLD CASE STORY-Stephanie Kane 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

There was a time when New York City was dying a fast death. The slums were warzones, the government bankrupt and sputtering. Mobsters disassembled one another nightly and dropped hefty bags of mixed parts off the Canarsie pier. Gangs rumbled in the city’s playgrounds and ghost towns, each battle busted up by the sound of gunfire or a police siren. Co-eds were raped and sent home shattered. Wide swaths of real estate, former ghettos, were abandoned and left to the squatters. Times Square, once seemingly the center of the universe, had sunk into an odiferous septic tank, a choice of porn loops in a booth or somnambulant live sex shows continuous.New York had crumbled into a city of ancient ruins where city-tough blades of sharp grass poked through each crack in the pavement, a city undergoing a so-called fiscal crisis but more a crisis of the soul, a city of routine muggings, vacant lots turned dumpsite, pocked and abandoned roads to nowhere, a city that President Gerald Ford told to drop dead, a city in which four murders a night was the norm, a city of scary shadows, vacant lots, sewer gas from a cracked manhole, a stinging rain of rust from tenement fire escapes, where pedestrians routinely dodged bell-bottomed angel-dust timebombs, where young savage baby boomers washed down black beauties with Rheingold out of a can, where each glance into the shadows was an assault upon civilized sensibilities, a derelict Big Apple, rotten at the core, with no signs of hope. In the South Bronx, ten square blocks per year, 5,000 housing units, were lost to arson—owners abandoned properties rather than pay the tax, often torching them at night to collect insurance—leaving block after block of charred hulks. “Fort Apache” they called it after the old western movie—where it looked like the bomb had gone off, nothing left but steamy brick streets and smoldering rubble. It was a ghosttown inhabited only by clownishly uniformed soldiers of vague cause who moved like insects, who fought for worthless turf and pride and dignity through the smoke of despair.And for a year, scariest of all, it was the city of Son of Sam, a terrifying specter of sadism and ritualistic blood sacrifice. THE WICKED KING WICKER: The Son of Sam Siege Upon New York-Michael Benson 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