True Child Crime

I start all of my true crime books with a quick word of warning. Most news articles and television true crime shows skim over the vile details of truly horrible crimes. In my books, I don’t gloss over the facts, regardless of how disgusting they may be. I try to give my listeners a clear and accurate description on just how demented the killers really were. I do my best not to leave anything out. The stories included in these books are not for the squeamish.

Eight true crime stories of murder and mayhem. In my first audiobook as a true crime author I've started with a few of the stories that have haunted me for some time. Some of these stories are unbelievable in their brutality while others are astounding in the stupidity of the killers. This collection of stories are from all around the globe and have no common thread between them other than that they are both thought provoking and disturbing. The stories included in this anthology are dark and creepy and will leave you with a new understanding of just how fragile the human mind can be.

An estimated 800,000 children are reported missing each year in the United States. Only one in 10,000 are found dead. Yet unsolved child murders are almost a daily occurrence - of nearly 52,000 juvenile homicides between 1980 and 2008, more than 20 percent remain open. Drawing on FBI reports, police and court records, and interviews with victims’ families, this book provides details and evidence for 18 unsolved cases from 1956 to 1998.

Twelve true crime stories of murder and mayhem. Fifth audiobook of the True Crime Case Histories Series (2020). When researching these stories, I commonly use actual police reports, court documents, and first-hand descriptions. Some of the details can be disconcerting. I do my best to not leave out any of the details in my audiobooks, no matter how depraved they may be. My intent is not to shock, but to show precisely how twisted the mind of a killer can be. The stories in this volume are shocking and disturbing, but they’re also true. These things really do happen in the world.

In this volume, you’ll hear some stories that take place as recently as a few years ago, while others date back as far as the 1930s. There’s the story of a young Russian immigrant who came to the United States seeking the exciting lifestyle he’d seen on television, only to be stabbed, set on fire, and left to die in the desert by his own friends. There’s also the story of a brawny railway worker who couldn’t control his steroid-fueled rage. There’s one of a brawny railway worker who couldn’t control his steroid-fueled rage. And more.

In a small town near Port Arthur in Tasmania in the mid-90s, Kate Byrne is having an affair with the father of her most gifted student. As the young teacher's sexual life is awakened by the father in scenes of escalating eroticism, the guilt she feels towards the son is compounded. Meanwhile, Veronica, her lover's wife, has just published Murder at Black Swan Point, a true crime book about the brutal slaying of a young adulteress some years before, set in a nearby town.

Sharon Marshall was a brilliant and beautiful student whose future was filled with promise—until her murderous, fugitive father drew her into a lifetime of deception that became one of the most baffling cases in the annals of American true crime.

It’s a freezing winter’s night in 1954. A baby boy, a few hours old, is left by his mother, wrapped in nothing but two sheets of newspaper and hidden amongst the undergrowth by a canal bank. An hour later, a late-shift postman is walking wearily home when he hears a faint cry. He finds the newspaper parcel and discovers the newborn, white-cold and whimpering, inside. After being rushed to hospital and against all odds, the baby survives. He’s baptised by the hospital chaplain as Richard.

Cassie was only 13 when her mother died of a degenerative illness, leaving her vulnerable to sexual predators in the Halifax area who had been grooming her since the age of 11. She fell through the net of the care system and reached out for friendship, only to be consumed by an escalating spiral of abuse. This harrowing and truly shocking story captures in vivid detail how gangs of men were able to ply a child with drink and drugs, then rape her and pass her around their associates with no one seemingly able to step in and prevent it.

This is the second volume of true, heinous child-abuse stories.

Criminologist Christopher Berry-Dee goes behind bars to get the last word from some of the worst criminals in the world. They speak of their violence and shocking deeds in their own words, from within some of the hardest prisons on earth. These interviews have been collated into this disturbing and unflinching analysis of the criminal mind. Here is what happens when you meet the people most of us know only from our nightmares and newspaper headlines.

Sammy Woodhouse was just 14 when she met Arshid Hussain. Ten years older, he promised to take care of her. Sammy thought she was in love, but in reality she was being groomed by a ringleader of Britain's most notorious child sex ring. Just A Child tells the heartbreaking story of how a young girl from Rotherham was abused by her drug-dealing 'boyfriend', eventually giving birth to his baby, right under the nose of the very authorities who were meant to protect her. When reality dawned, Sammy realised she was one of countless vulnerable child victims - many of whom were trafficked around the north of England.

Trish Hinde, 35, was sexually abused by her father, Gerard King, from the age of six. Alone and scared, she internalised her trauma and began suffering from violent seizures. Her father took responsibility for her epilepsy care, even abusing her on hospital visits. Trish and her five siblings were neglected, often relying on neighbours for food and watching helplessly as bailiffs carried away their possessions. In her early teens, Trish was recklessly promiscuous and became a victim of child sexual exploitation, often finding herself in danger.

What possesses a mum to kidnap her own child? That's what Maggie asks herself when she's asked to foster 13-year-old Saskia, the subject of a bitter custody battle between her parents. When Saskia's mum Rosa fears the courts are going to favour her ex-husband, James, she takes matters into her own hands. With Rosa facing criminal charges, and Saskia refusing to live with her dad, her future looks uncertain. Will Maggie be able to step in and discover the bombshell that will tear this family apart?

The crime of sextortion has reached epidemic proportions, fuelled by both sex offenders and organised scammers targeting our most vulnerable online. Children are some of the internet's most prolific and most naive users, and increasing numbers are finding themselves caught in an evil web of networked manipulators. Saving Our Kids highlights the dangers lurking in every child's smartphone, web browser and computer game.

Police found the body of 16-year-old Calyx on her bed under a white blanket. They found her 13-year-old brother Beau in the family car covered up the same way. Both had two gunshots to the head. Both had been dead for hours. The only other person who had been in the home was their mother, Julie Schenecker. She told law enforcement that she could no longer tolerate her kids talking back to her. Was this a case of premeditated murder? Or a horrible tragedy fueled by a mental illness that had spun out of control?

It was a warm summer morning on January 26, 1966, when the three Beaumont children left their suburban home to celebrate Australia Day at the beach. The children regularly made the trip by themselves, so their mother felt at ease providing them with bus fare and sending them on their way while she visited and had lunch with a close friend. However, she would return home that afternoon to find that the children had still not returned. That morning would end up being the last time she saw her three children.

Lisa Montgomery presented her husband, Kevin, with their newborn baby girl, while a state way, police were investigating the brutal murder of 23-year-old Bobbie Jo Stinnett. She'd been found lying in a pool of blood, and investigators soon realized that someone had strangled Bobbie Jo to death, then cut the fetus from her womb. When they found Bobbie Jo's baby in Lisa's arms, they knew who was responsible for this grisly murder.

At three years old, Jodie watched her father murder a woman in a seedy hotel room. He, a true-born sociopath, strolled undetected, using religion as his disguise. A life suffocating the truth wouldn't work for Jodie. The murdered woman's spirit seemed to ignite a search for answers in Jodie's adulthood. A budding darkness around the reality of her past was coming sharply into focus.

By the time she was in her teens, Diamond had lived dozens of lives and lies, but as she grew older, love and trust turned to fear and violence, and her family—the only people she had in the world—began to unravel. She started to realize that her life itself might be a big con, and the people she loved, the most dangerous of all. With no way out and her identity burned so often that she had no proof she even existed, all that was left was a girl from nowhere.