Showing titles in Abductions, Kidnapping & Missing Persons

Whether in Truman Capote’s detailed murder of the Clutter family or Ted Bundy’s small-town charm, criminals have always roamed rural America and towns worldwide. Featuring murder stories, criminal case studies, and more, The Best New True Crime Stories: Small Towns contains all-new accounts from writers of true crime, crime journalism, and crime fiction. And these entries are not based on a true story - they are true stories. Edited by acclaimed author and anthologist Mitzi Szereto, the stories in this volume span the globe.

"I just want to make sure I've got this right. You hanged all three of them?" That's how it began, a case where the cops are crooks and the crooks are cops, a kidnapping where the victim is the bad guy, and the good guys must cross some lines to get him back. Welcome to the upside down and backward world of the undercover agent, where nothing is as it seems, and people may not be what they appear. Going Under by former undercover agent John Madinger takes you into that world, and closer to the truth of the undercover experience than any other law enforcement memoir has ever gone.

In his early thirties Justin Alexander Shetler quit his job at a tech startup and set out on a global journey: across the United States by motorcycle, then down to South America, and on to the Philippines, Thailand, and Nepal, in search of authentic experiences and meaningful encounters, while also documenting his travels on Instagram. His enigmatic character and magnetic personality gained him a devoted following who lived vicariously through his adventures.

Chris Thomas is not yet 30 years old when he finds himself managing the immense pressure, eccentric personalities, and extenuating circumstances of an international story, where one small misstep could adversely impact the search for a missing teenager and the reputation of her family. Now, 20 years later, Thomas takes listeners behind the scenes, providing new details, perspectives, and commentary on finding Elizabeth Smart.

The year 1969: The hippie scene is vibrant in Provincetown, Massachusetts. Long-haired teenagers roam the streets, strumming guitars and preaching about peace and love...and Tony Costa is at the center of it all. To a certain group of smitten young women, he is known as Sire—the leader of their counterculture movement, the charming man who speaks eloquently and hands out hallucinogenic drugs like candy. But beneath his benign persona lies a twisted and uncontrollable rage that threatens to break loose at any moment. Tony Costa is the most dangerous man on Cape Cod.

Situated in Northern California, Yuba County boasts vast wilderness, rugged terrain, and close-knit communities. However, the families of five local individuals were left to grapple with the heart-wrenching mystery of their sudden disappearance on a cold winter night in 1978. Even now, the mystery remains unsolved. On the night they went missing, Bill Sterling, Jack Madruga, Jack Huett, Ted Weiher, and Gary Mathias were affectionately known as "the boys."

350,000: the number of missing person reports opened in the UK every year. But how do we find the missing? Charlie Hedges is a pioneer in the field of missing persons over a career spanning nearly four decades. During his work in the police force, then at the Missing Persons Bureau and the Child Exploitation and Online Protection centre, Charlie has been involved in some of the most high-profile cases of recent years. From abductions and trafficking to accidents and the vulnerable, Charlie has seen into the dark shadows of life.

From the 1940s through the 1960s, young pregnant women entered the front door of a clinic in a small North Georgia town. Sometimes their babies exited out the back, sold to Northern couples who were desperate to hold a newborn in their arms. But these weren't adoptions - they were transactions. And one unethical doctor was exploiting other people's tragedies. Jane Blasio was one of those babies.

In January 1959, 10 experienced young skiers set out to travel to a mountain named Mount Otorten in the far north of Russia. During the trip, one of the skiers fell ill and returned. The remaining nine lost their way and ended up on another mountain slope known as Kholat Syakhl, or "Mountain of the Dead".

It was a cold and foggy February night in 1983 when a group of armed thieves crept onto Ballymany Stud, near The Curragh in County Kildare, Ireland, to steal Shergar, one of the thoroughbred industry's most renowned stallions. The thieves demanded a hefty ransom for the safe return of one of the most valuable Thoroughbreds in the world, but the ransom was never paid and Shergar's remains have never been found.

Expertly told with gritty realism and authentic detail drawn from eye-witness testimony, news reports, and the latest speculation, this gripping serial killer collection paints a morbidly fascinating picture of three infamous and heinous killers who baffled law enforcement, ruined lives, and sent whole cities into panic.

In his international best seller A Beautiful Child, award-winning investigative journalist Matt Birkbeck told the heartbreaking story of a brilliant and beautiful young woman known as Sharon Marshall. Caught in the murderous web of the monster she called her father, Sharon wasn’t her real name. But her horrifying story captured the hearts of people everywhere and lead to a 10-year search to resolve two great mysteries - what was her true identity and what became of her young son Michael, who was kidnapped from his first grade classroom and never seen again.

Casper, Wyoming: 1973. Eleven-year-old Amy Burridge rides with her 18-year-old sister, Becky, to the grocery store. When they finish their shopping, Becky's car gets a flat tire. Two men politely offer them a ride home. Yet they were anything but good Samaritans. The girls would suffer unspeakable crimes at the hands of these men before being thrown from a bridge into the North Platte River. One miraculously survived; the other did not.

The house was like something out of a Jane Austen novel, but the truth of what lay in the shadows was more terrifying than any fictional imagining. Shane Dunphy recalls the experience of his darkest nightmares: a young girl describing missing children as playthings at house parties, but no one was listening; a malevolent, threatening presence looming in the residence they called the Bad Place, and Shane was forced to flee. And now, 20 years later, a mother pleads with him to find her son who vanished at age five.   

On December 30th, 1999, in rural Oklahoma, 16-year-old Ashley Freeman and her best friend, Lauria Bible, were having a sleepover. The next morning, the Freeman family trailer was in flames and both girls were missing. While rumours of drug debts, revenge killings and police corruption abounded in the years that followed, the case remained unsolved and the girls were never found. In 2016, crime writer Jax Miller travelled to Oklahoma to discover what really happened.

A masterly and agenda-setting inquest into how the deaths of two teenage girls shone a light into the darkest corners of a nation. Katra Sadatgani. A tiny village in western Uttar Pradesh. A community bounded by tradition and custom; where young women are watched closely, and know what is expected of them. It was an ordinary night when two girls, Padma and Lalli, went missing. The next day, their bodies were found - hanging in the orchard, their clothes muddied.

The Great Depression was a time of desperation in America - parents struggled to feed their children and unemployment was at a record high. Adding to the lawlessness of the decade, thugs with guns and corrupt law-enforcement officers ran rampant. But amidst this panic, there was one surefire way to make money, one used by criminals and resourceful civilians alike: kidnapping. The Kidnap Years is a thoughtfully reported pause-resister that chronicles the sweep of abductions that afflicted all corners of the country as desperate people were pushed to do the unthinkable.

In 1935, nine-year-old George Weyerhaeuser, heir to one of the wealthiest families in America, is snatched off the streets two blocks from his home. The boy is kept manacled in a pit, chained to a tree, and locked in a closet. The perps - a career bank robber, a petty thief, and his 19-year-old never-been-in-trouble Mormon wife - quickly become the targets of the biggest manhunt in Northwest history. The caper plays out like a Hollywood thriller with countless twists and improbable developments. Perhaps the most astonishing thing of all, though, is how it all ends.

Drowning in debt and facing almost certain bankruptcy, John Darwin did the unthinkable—he paddled out to sea in his red canoe and disappeared. After a massive search and rescue operation failed to find his body, he was assumed dead, lost in the bleak North Sea. But everything was far from what it seemed. Nearly six years later, after John miraculously returned from the dead with a strange tale of 'amnesia' and sporting a suspicious golden tan, the police and the press were desperate to discover the truth behind his remarkable resurrection.

Gaia Cooper is just 14 years old when she is groomed by a criminal gang and forced to commit organised credit card fraud. Despite being placed in care – somewhere Gaia should feel safe – she is left even more vulnerable, and is horrifically abused and exploited by the men manipulating her. Will the authorities save Gaia – or will she have to save herself?