First True Crime

Terrifying things are happening to Kay Weden, a 40-something single mom and high school teacher in Salisbury, North Carolina. Despite having no known enemies, Kay's home, car, and peace of mind are under attack throughout 1993. Most chilling of all are the senseless attacks on her only son and the shot fired in the night through a wall of her house, which narrowly misses his head as he sleeps.

Sandy Johnson was in shock. Her husband, Duane, and young daughter, Sherrie, were violently ill when word arrived that her infant nephew just died of mysterious causes. Days earlier, the entire family was happy, healthy, and living the American dream. Now they were at the center of a terrifying medical crisis. Duane soon died in a condition unlike anything the doctors had ever seen. As they raced to discover what disease or toxin could have done so much damage so quickly, Lt. Foster Burchard of the Omaha police began to suspect foul play.

Mix in murderous maids, bumbling burglars, and unflinching local heroes and you have True Crime Philadelphia.

Mark Dapin was still in school when he met his first murderer—a boy called Ian. In reporting the murder Ian eventually committed, newspapers used the cliché that it ‘shocked even those who knew him best.’ But it didn’t shock Dapin, because he knew Ian in real life, not in clichés. The First Murderer I Ever Met is the truest true crime—it’s what actually happened.

Listen as five criminals tell their stories. Jay Jay found trouble young, very young. Serving time at age 12 is not the beginning of Jay Jay’s descent into criminality. Cjay has been in nearly as many prisons as she has fingers, yet nothing in her upbringing predestined her for crime. Lawrence, a child raised in American ghetto circumstances, became the epitome of extreme violence while at the same time holding tight an inner secret of female identity. Brian was a young man with a twinkle in his eye and a propensity for getting caught.

Jack the Ripper was probably the first serial killer to appear in a large metropolis at a time when the general populace was literate and the press was a force for social change. The press was also partly responsible for creating many myths surrounding the Ripper. Robin Odell's Ripperology is the first study to present a sequential history of literary investigations of Jack the Ripper's crimes and to address the seven principal phases of Ripper speculations....

With a history marred by wild speculation, media sensationalism, and mysteries that have puzzled historians and true-crime fans for generations, the legendary con artist and killer H. H. Holmes has a strange and sinister story to tell. From tales of a gruesome “Murder Castle”, where he would trap his victims to the string of confessions that only served to muddy the waters, Holmes’ life seems to leave us with more questions than answers. Now, this gripping true-crime novel cuts through the hype and speculation, transporting listeners back in time.