Terror Town Usa

The veteran true crime author chronicles the terrifying murders, surprising arrest and dramatic trial of Illinois serial killer Milton Johnson. In the summer of 1983, an elusive serial killer stalked the blue-collar industrial city of Joliet, Illinois. One overnight killing spree took five victims, including members of the Will County Sheriff’s Office. The following month brought a quadruple murder inside a shop known for its pottery classes. The plague of violence sparked the controversial New York City-based Guardian Angels to descend on Joliet, generating more unwanted media attention for the community. The National Enquirer labeled Joliet “Terror Town, U.S.A.” With an arrest that seemed to come out of nowhere, authorities linked their suspect to a chilling fourteen homicides, plus three women who miraculously survived their agonizing encounters. But with multiple murder trials on the horizon, it remained anyone’s guess whether Milton Johnson was guilty of mass murder and if so, would he die by means of lethal injection at the Illinois Department of Corrections?

Carl Zwick is an aging Chicago Cubs baseball player. Sometimes he feels like he's spent his life hitting into double plays, but he's finally gotten onto the right track. Then tragedy strikes him out. Anita Mills is a pretty single black mother just trying to get by. A random act of brutality in one of Chicago's rougher neighborhoods permanently ends her struggle. Richard Allen Smith walks the streets of ChiTown saying God has sent him. He has an unusual, rather nasty way of getting converts to see the light. What do these people have in common? Nothing, it would seem, except they are all part of Detective Abe Lieberman's very long day. Lieberman, a sad, baggy-eyed spaniel of a man with the patience of Job and the wisdom of Solomon is trying his best to make his beloved Chicago a better place. But when Lieberman and his partner, Bill Hanrahan, encounter these three very different situations they are find that there are ties that bind and ties that can cut a man's heart out. Abe Lieberman faces a Gordian knot that he must somehow untangle—and if he makes a mistake, someone very near to him could die. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Los Angeles is a very busy place. When youre a third-generation mortician like Robert Thompson, it can be overwhelming at times. Sometimes you want to sweep your wife off her feet and fly across the country. October in New England is outstanding. You might want to just relax and take long walks or maybe have a picnic. Thats what Robert and Marsha Thompson thought. They had no idea that their choice of bed and breakfast was located in the belly of the Beast. They had no idea that they were driving headfirst into murder and mayhem. Ride along with them if you dare. Next stop . . . Terror Town.

A grizzly arson case leads an Indianapolis prosecutor to an infant’s coldblooded killer in this chilling true crime by the author of Inconvenience Gone. On the morning of March 6, 1993, an intense fire broke out in a tiny nursery. Sixteen minutes later, firefighters had extinguished the blaze. The room was burned so severely, that virtually nothing was recognizable . . . but they were told to look for a baby. What they discovered was almost too gruesome for words. Not only the baby’s charred remains, but an unsettling fact: the child’s parents were home at the time the fire broke out. The arson squad declared the fire suspicious and investigators determined it was arson. But if it truly was arson, what was the motive? Along with the tenacious and determined Detective Leslie Van Buskirk, Marion County Prosecutor Diane Marger Moore persisted for more than two years to get justice for Baby Matthew Wise. In 16 Minutes, she recounts the incredible story—and the shocking revelations she made.

Updated 5th Anniversary Edition Including Exclusive Interview with Steve Avery In 2016-17, while working for the USA TODAY NETWORK's Wisconsin Investigative Team, author John Ferak wrote dozens of articles examining the murder case against Steven Avery, who had already beaten one wrongful conviction only to be charged again with the murder of Teresa Halbach in 2005. This case captured global attention through the Netflix documentary "Making A Murderer." In this anniversary edition of WRECKING CREW: Demolishing the Case Against Steven Avery, Ferak not only lays out in meticulous detail the post-conviction strategy of Kathleen Zellner, the high-profile, high-octane lawyer fighting to free Avery but also includes a new "Five Years Later" section. This update provides fresh insights and developments in Avery's ongoing legal battle. Additionally, this special edition features an exclusive epilogue: a November 2023 interview with Steven Avery. For this book, Zellner, arguably America's most successful wrongful conviction attorney, granted Ferak unprecedented access to the exhaustive pro bono efforts she and her small suburban Chicago law firm have invested in a man she believes to be wrongfully ensnared by Manitowoc County's unscrupulous justice system. This anniversary edition offers new revelations and a comprehensive look at a case that continues to stir public debate and demand justice.

“A fascinating and frightening book” (Los Angeles Times)—the bestselling true story about a house possessed by evil spirits, haunted by psychic phenomena almost too terrible to describe. In December 1975, the Lutz family moved into their new home on suburban Long Island. George and Kathleen Lutz knew that, one year earlier, Ronald DeFeo had murdered his parents, brothers, and sisters in the house, but the property—complete with boathouse and swimming pool—and the price had been too good to pass up. Twenty-eight days later, the entire Lutz family fled in terror. This is the spellbinding, shocking true story that gripped the nation about an American dream that turned into a nightmare beyond imagining—“this book will scare the hell out of you” (Kansas City Star).

This true crime history examines the surprising connection between an infamous small-town murder and the bestselling novel it inspired. Born and raised in Manchester, New Hampshire, Grace Metalious shocked the nation in 1956 with Peyton Place, her sexually charged debut novel about murder in a small town. It spawned a series of novels, two Hollywood movies, and a long-running television series on ABC. It also made Metalious a pariah in her hometown, where she became tabloid fodder until her untimely death at the age of thirty-nine. Unknown to most readers, the fictional story was inspired by a real crime known as “The Sheep Pen Murder,” which took place in Gilmanton, New Hampshire, in the late 1940s. Now historian Renee Mallett skillfully weaves together the lives of Metalious and Barbara Roberts, the confessed killer behind The Sheep Pen Murder. In The “Peyton Place” Murder, Mallett explores what happens when true crime and literature meet.