Mission District Murders

In San Francisco's chaotic Mission District, women are being systematically murdered, their bodies mutilated and dumped on neighborhood doorsteps. SFPD Lieutenant Chris Spell is unable to stop the carnage.

Details the 1895 arrest and trial of a medical student for the grisly murder of two young women inside San Francisco's Emmanuel Baptist Church in what the press of the day characterized as a reenactment of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

Local mystery adds a novel twist to the quite, remote Cherry farming community of Old Mission. In 1895, Julia Curtis was found strangled, pregnant, and buried in a shallow grave near her home on Old Mission Peninsula near Traverse City. A search for the murderer led investigators to a likely suspect, Woodruff Parmelee. From these bare bones, Stephen Lewis recreates the personalities, relationships and motives for this century old murder that rocked northern Michigan way back when. Tension builds from the first chapter as Lewis weaves the Curtis family ghosts and the Parmelee family skeletons, cleverly creating characters, motives, and relationships that keep the pages turning. There are clues: an empty bottle of laudanum, the footprints, the note'all leading to the climax courtroom drama and a suspect's alibi.

In the late sixties, a serial killer calling himself the Zodiac terrorized the San Francisco Bay Area, committing brutal, random attacks, and bragging about them in letters to the San Francisco Chronicle. In Santa Rosa, fifty miles to the north, investigators Manny Bruin and Mick Millian were asked to tail potential suspect Byron Avion, an odd, portly man admittedly obsessed with the Zodiac. He had other eccentricities as well, not the least of which was his large collection of cardboard boxes, carefully stacked and tied shut with white nylon rope. But peculiar habits do not a criminal make - that is, not until the bodies of young female hitchhikers began appearing in ditches, tied up with white nylon rope. That and a dozen other connections convinced Bruin and Millian that Avion was the Highway 101 Murderer, a Zodiac-style killer who prowled the Santa Rosa area. Despite the connections, a decade-long investigation was unable to connect Avion to the crimes, or connect Zodiac to the northern murders. Bruin and Millian eventually became so frustrated that they dubbed Avion "Suspect Zero," and hoped for something to break the case open. When that break finally came, it re-wrote the book on homicide investigations and forever changed the direction of each man's life.

The 170-year history of the San Francisco Bay Area told through its crimes and how they intertwine with the city’s art, music, and politics In The Murders That Made Us, the story of the San Francisco Bay Area unfolds through its most violent and depraved acts. From its earliest days when vigilantes hung perps from downtown buildings to the Zodiac Killer and the kidnapping of Patty Hearst, murder and mayhem have shaped the city into the political and economic force that she is today. The Great 1906 Earthquake shook a city that was already teetering on the brink of a massive prostitution scandal. The Summer of Love ended with a pair of ghastly drug dealer slayings that sent Charles Manson packing for Los Angeles. The 1970s come crashing down with the double tragedy of Jonestown and the assassination of Gay icon Harvey Milk by an ex-cop. And the 21st Century rise of California Governor Gavin Newsom, Trump insider Kimberly Guilfoyle, and Vice President Kamala Harris is told through a brutal dog-mauling case and the absurdity called Fajitagate. It’s a 170-year saga of madness, corruption, and death revealed here one crime at a time.

Murder has a long and distinguished history in San Francisco. The city and its Bay Area can stand proudly with Paris, London, and New York in the splendour of its misdeeds -- murders that have suspense, horror, audacity, and flair. The homicides chronicled in Murder by the Bay have been selected because a convergence of personality, circumstance, character, and geography makes them peculiarly San Franciscan. Each of these crimes illustrates an historic importance, each has impacted its times -- either in the course or application of the law or in the manner in which the affair revealed a shortcoming in society. They range from the Montgomery Street killing of James King of William, editor of the Daily Evening Bulletin, in 1856 to the sensational trial of early movie comedian Fatty Arbuckle who was accused of killing a showgirl at a party in the St. Francis Hotel to the shocking "City Hall Murders" in which former city supervisor Dan White killed Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk. Most were solved, some were not. They are murders that fascinated the city and frequently the country, sometimes for weeks, often for years and even decades.

These days, not even a new wardrobe can keep fashionista Rita Jewel from feeling blue. Perhaps the cure is a cooking class with a celebrity chef! But her appetite is ruined when murder becomes the main course… As a salesgirl at Dolce’s, a chic boutique outfitting San Francisco’s wealthiest women, Rita has the world’s greatest job. So why does she feel like last season’s Christian Louboutin stilettos—worn and out of style? Maybe it’s because her love life needs a makeover ASAP. From carrots to caviar, Guido Torcelli is the celebrity chef du jour. Perhaps signing up for his cooking class will serve as a much-needed distraction for Rita. But when Guido’s shot to death, Rita knows she’ll soon top the list of suspects. Guido was killed at his culinary school the same night she scrawled her phone number on a menu and handed it to him. Now she’s got to find the murderer before she’s forced to take all her meals in the prison cafeteria…

Operation Devil Horns delivers a high-impact, true insider account of one of the largest federal takedowns of a criminal gang in U.S. history. The story follows a four-year investigation that begins in San Francisco and grows to include criminal networks spanning three countries’ borders. Politicians, cops, and criminals meet at center stage.