Voices of True Crime

Los Angeles in the 1950s drew young women with promises of work, independence, and a chance at something bigger. Harvey Glatman saw an opportunity of another kind.Posing as a photographer and using lonely-hearts clubs and modeling agencies to find victims, Glatman abducted and murdered Judith Dull, Ruth Mercado, and Shirley Bridgeford, leaving their bodies in the Southern California desert. For months, their disappearances remained disconnected and unexplained.Then Glatman targeted Lorraine Vigil. She fought back, survived, and helped expose the man behind a horrifying series of crimes. Investigators soon uncovered photographs of bound women and evidence linking Glatman to the missing victims.A killer had been hiding in plain sight. Drawing on court records, contemporary newspapers, archival material, and original research, Bound to Die: The Young Victims of A Serial Killer and Rapist follows Harvey Glatman’s trail from the streets of Los Angeles into the desolate Southern California desert, where three young women met their deaths. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Gripping, suspenseful, and layered with insight, this is the first full account of the infamous disappearance of Amy Lynn Bradley while onboard a cruise ship in the Caribbean—from the acclaimed author of True Crime Addict.In March 1998, the Bradley family—Ron, Iva, and their children, Amy and Brad—boarded the Rhapsody of the Seas for a week-long Caribbean cruise. The trip was a chance to celebrate Ron’s success at work and Amy’s college graduation.In the early hours of March 24, Amy Bradley—a pretty, athletic 23-year-old—returned to the family’s stateroom with Brad after dancing at the ship’s nightclub. Amy grabbed a blanket and went out to sleep on the balcony. A few hours later, her father awoke to find her gone. What happened to her remains a mystery.Did Amy fall or jump into the water? Did she leave the boat voluntarily when it docked at Curaçao that morning? Was she smuggled off against her will and trafficked in one of the island’s brothels? In a baffling case filled with false leads, rumors, and conflicting witness reports, the only certainty is that, nearly three decades later, the Bradleys are still looking for Amy.Now, acclaimed investigative journalist James Renner provides the first definitive account of Amy’s disappearance, enriched with his own personal narrative that explores themes of identity, loss, and the deeply human need to find meaning in tragedy.With empathy and a keen eye, Renner interviews witnesses who speak on record for the first time, offering fascinating new theories, and explores a little-known side of Amy’s life that may explain everything about her fate. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Texas Deputy Kent McGowen shot and killed Susan White after she pulled a gun on him. It seemed like an open-and-shut case of an officer acting in self-defense. But before his first court date, the Houston region was inundated with rumor, innuendo and speculation about the case. Many believed those fabrications and half-truths to be fact. And an unsubstantiated-but-persistent story of how McGowen allegedly set up White as a murder victim because they had a relationship, or that she refused to have one, sealed his fate. McGowen was found guilty, Twice. He's already done his years in prison, but his case is worth examining for all the ways criminal courts can be manipulated by media, fast-talking lawyers and dubious witnesses. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Texas Deputy Kent McGowen shot and killed Susan White after she pulled a gun on him. It seemed like an open-and-shut case of an officer acting in self-defense. But before his first court date, the Houston region was inundated with rumor, innuendo and speculation about the case. Many believed those fabrications and half-truths to be fact. And an unsubstantiated-but-persistent story of how McGowen allegedly set up White as a murder victim because they had a relationship, or that she refused to have one, sealed his fate. McGowen was found guilty, Twice. He's already done his years in prison, but his case is worth examining for all the ways criminal courts can be manipulated by media, fast-talking lawyers and dubious witnesses. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In the gray hues of Seattle, two men, Steven and Scott, are locked in a perilous journey beyond the law's reach. Entangled in a world of bank heists and fleeting loyalties, they chase redemption in a society relentless in pursuit. Amid adrenaline-fueled escapades and moral dilemmas, their kinship deepens, culminating in an unexpected bond. The tale traces their odyssey against the unforgiving backdrop of the law, culminating in the tragic end of Hollywood, a man who lived and died on his own terms, leaving a legacy entwined with the lives he touched. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The brutal murder of Elizabeth Short—better known as the Black Dahlia—in 1947 has been in the public consciousness for nearly eighty years, yet no serious study of the crime has ever been published.Short has been mischaracterized as a wayward sex worker or vagabond, and—like the seductive femme fatales of film noir—responsible for and perhaps deserving of her fate. William J. Mann, however, is interested in the truth. His extensive research reveals her as a young woman with curiosity and drive, who leveraged what little agency postwar society gave her to explore the world, defying draconian postwar gender expectations to settle down, marry, and have children. It’s time to reexamine the woman who became known as the Black Dahlia.Using a 21st-century lens, Mann connects Short’s story to the anxious era after World War II, when the nation was grappling with new ideas, new demographics, new technologies, and old fears dressed up as new ones. Only by situating the Black Dahlia case within this changing world can we understand the tragedy of this young woman, whose life and death offer surprising mirrors on today.Mann has strong opinions on who might’ve killed her, and even stronger ones on who did not. He spent five years sifting through the evidence and has found unknown connections by cross-referencing police reports, District Attorney investigations, FBI files, court documents, military records, and more, using the deep, intense research skills that have become his trademark. He also spoke with the families of the original detectives, of Short’s friends, and even of suspects, and relied on advice from experienced physicians and homicide detectives.Mann deftly sifts through the sensationalized journalism, preconceived notions, myths, and misunderstandings surrounding the case to uncover the truth about Elizabeth Short like no book before. The Black Dahlia promises to be the definitive study about the most famous unsolved case in American history. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

As shots rang out on March 30, 1981 outside the Hilton Hotel in Washington, D.C., President Ronald Reagan and three others lie seriously wounded. Just two months after Reagan was sworn in as the 40th president, John Hinckley Jr. shocked the world because of his movie star obsession.What followed was chaos. America learned of the deep psychosis that led to Hinckley’s obsession with actress Jodie Foster, and how, in his mind, he did it all for her. His trial gripped the nation. Many expected a guilty verdict, but his acquittal on grounds of insanity sparked outrage and forever changed how the law viewed mental illness.Now, for the first time, Hinckley tells his own story. He takes us through an early life of unfulfilled dreams, a music career and college degree that slipped away, and the descent into a mind overcome by delusion. He recounts the years spent in confinement at St. Elizabeth’s Hospital, the slow climb toward recovery, and the people who helped him find his way back.A life defined by a single, horrific act becomes something more: a story of mental illness, redemption, and the long road to understanding the man behind one of America’s most infamous moments Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In The People vs. the Golden State Killer, Thien Ho, the current District Attorney of Sacramento, recounts his harrowing and exhilarating experience as the lead prosecutor responsible for capturing and prosecuting Joseph DeAngelo. Referred to at various times by law enforcement and the media as the Visalia Ransacker, the East Bay Rapist, the Original Nightstalker, and finally the Golden State Killer, DeAngelo, a former policeman, is widely considered “one of the most notorious serial predators in American history.”Ho’s book is the first official account of how the Golden State Killer was apprehended and put behind bars for life. Ho led an elite team of law enforcement from six California prosecutor's offices, using a newly developed tool known as “investigative genetic genealogy” to connect DeAngelo to multiple cold cases stretching back nearly a half century.Many previous narratives about DeAngelo, including two bestselling books and multiple documentaries, focused largely on the killer and his heinous crimes. This book not only provides hundreds of facts and details never revealed to the public about the Golden State Killer’s crimes, it also presents the real-life story of the people who worked tirelessly to bring DeAngelo to justice. It also offers the unprecedented authorized perspective of three survivors of DeAngelo's crimes who courageously turned their pain into empowerment and activism. A portion of the book’s proceeds will be donated both by the author and Third State Books to Phyllis’s Garden, a nonprofit advocating for victims’ rights begun in honor of a GSK survivor.The People vs. the Golden State Killer also recounts Ho’s fascinating personal journey, from escaping communist Vietnam with his family as a child to working his way up from an internship to an elite homicide division and eventually becoming one of only ten Asian American district attorneys out of 2,400 nationwide. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Who killed the Black Dahlia? In this eye-opening shocker, an award-winning producer, true-crime researcher, and Hollywood insider finally solves the greatest - and most gruesome - murder mystery of the twentieth century just before its 80th anniversary.In January 1947, the bisected body of Elizabeth Short, completely drained of blood, was discovered in an undeveloped lot in Los Angeles. Its gruesome mutilations led to a firestorm of publicity, city-wide panic, and an unprecedented number of investigative paths led by the LAPD—all dead ends. The Black Dahlia murder remained an unsolved mystery for over seventy years.Six years earlier and sixteen hundred miles away, another woman’s life had ended in a similarly horrific manner. Leila Welsh was an ambitious, educated, popular, and socially connected beauty. Though raised modestly on a prairie farm, she was heiress to her Kansas City family’s status and wealth. On a winter morning in 1941, Leila’s butchered body was found in her bedroom bearing the marks of unspeakable trauma.One victim faded into obscurity. The other became notorious. Both had in common a killer whose sadistic mind was a labyrinth of dark secrets.Eli Frankel reveals for the first time a key fact about the Black Dahlia crime scene, never before shared with the public, that leads inexorably to the stunning identification of a criminal who was at the same time amateurish and fiendish, skilled and lucky, sophisticated and brutish. Drawing on newly discovered documents, law enforcement files, interviews with the last surviving participants, the victims’ own letters, trial transcripts, military records, and more, this epic true-crime saga puts together the missing pieces of a legendary puzzle.In Sisters in Death, the Black Dahlia cold case is finally closed. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Criminal profiling—the delicate art of collecting and deciphering the psychological “fingerprints” of the monsters among us—holds an almost mythological status in pop culture. But what exactly is it, does it work, and why is the American public so entranced by it? What do we gain, and endanger, from studying why people commit murder? In The Monsters We Make, author Rachel Corbett explores how criminal profiling became one of society’s most seductive and quixotic undertakings through five significant moments in its historCorbett follows Arthur Conan Doyle through the London alleyways where Jack the Ripper butchered his victims, depicts the tailgate outside of Ted Bundy’s execution, and visits the remote Montana cabin where Ted Kaczynski assembled his antiestablishment bombs. Along the way emerge the people who studied and unraveled these cases. We meet self-taught psychologist Henry Murray, who profiled Adolf Hitler at the request of the U.S. government and later profiled his own students—including the future Unabomber—by subjecting them to cruel humiliation experiments. We also meet the prominent Yale psychiatrist Dorothy Lewis, who ended up testifying that Bundy was too sick to stand trial. Finally, Corbett takes the story into our own time, explaining the rise of modern “predictive policing” policies through a study of one Florida family that the analytics targeted—to devastating effects.With narrative intrigue and deft research, Corbett delves deep into the mythology and reality of criminal profilers, revealing how thin the line can be separating those who do harm and those who claim to stop it. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.