On the bloodstained floor lay an array of butcher’s tools and a body without a throat, torn out by Fritz’s “love bite”…
Deemed psychologically unfit to stand trial for child abuse, Fritz Haarmann was locked up in a mental asylum until a new diagnosis as “morally inferior” allowed him to walk free. His insights into the criminal underworld convinced the police to overlook his “activities” and trust him as an informant.
What harm could it do?
When the dismembered and ravaged remains of young men began to wash up on the banks of the river, a war-torn nation cowered under the threat of the man known as the Butcher, Vampire, and Wolf Man.
The hunt for the killer was on, and he was hiding in plain sight.
Butcher, Biter, Spy is a chilling retelling of one of the most brutal killing sprees in German history. Ryan Green’s riveting narrative draws the listener into the real-live horror experienced by the victims and has all the elements of a classic thriller.
In March 1944, as the Nazis occupied Paris, the French Police and Fire Brigade were called to investigate a vile-smelling black smoke that had been pouring from the chimney of 21 Rue Le Sueur for days. Inside the house, they were confronted with a scene from a nightmare.
The thick black smoke was rising from a series of wood-burning stoves throughout the property that were stocked with human remains. In the basement, they discovered a furnace with larger body parts and a pit filled with quicklime and decay. There were suitcases full of the deceased’s belongings, and in the other rooms, they came upon something like a factory line of bodies. This was not mere murder – it was methodical processing of corpses.
The homeowner was Dr. Marcel Petiot, an admired and charismatic physician. When questioned, Dr. Petiot claimed that he was a part of the Resistance and the bodies they discovered belonged to Nazi collaborators that he killed for the cause. The French police, resentful of Nazi occupation and confused by a rational alternative, allowed him to leave.
Was the respected doctor a clandestine hero fighting for national liberty or a deviant using dire domestic circumstances to his advantage? One thing is for certain: The police and the Nazis both wanted to get their hands on Dr. Marcel Petiot to find out the truth.
Doctor Satan is a chilling account of Dr. Marcel Petiot and one of the most disturbing true crime stories in French history. Ryan Green’s riveting narrative draws the listener into the real-live horror experienced by the victims and has all the elements of a classic thriller.
CAUTION: This book contains descriptive accounts of torture, abuse, and violence. If you are especially sensitive to this material, it might be advisable not to listen any further.
Four chilling true crime stories in one collection.
Best-selling true crime author, Ryan Green, has complied four fascinating stories in one collection. Volume five contains some of Green’s most intriguing accounts of violence, abuse, deception and murder. Within this collection, you’ll receive:
The Texas Tower Sniper: The Terrifying True Story of Charles Whitman Growing up under the brutal rule of his father took its toll on Charles Whitman Jr. He could not live up to the impossible expectations or accept the failures. His life started to unravel. He wasn’t going to slide into mediocrity or go silently into suicide. The world needed to know his name and what he was truly capable of, for the rest of time.
The Kentucky Cannibal: The True Story of an Outlaw, Murderer and Man-Eater In 1850, Boone Helm headed “Out West” to chase the Californian Gold Rush. During his travels, Helm killed and consumed the flesh of his enemies and travelling companions, earning him the nickname “The Kentucky Cannibal”. In California, where violence was the law of the land, Helm’s savage set of skills could finally be recognised and rewarded.
Vampire Killer: A Terrifying True Story of Psychosis, Mutilation and Murder In 1978, Richard Chase was influenced by constant commanding delusions that had devastating consequences on the City of Sacramento. The crime scenes were so disturbing that the police were not equipped to deal with them. Within the space of a month, six victims were found mutilated, disembowelled, abused and missing vast quantities of blood.
Gorilla Killer: A True Story of Betrayal, Brutality and Butchery Before Bundy and BTK, there was Earle Nelson. Serial Killers were unknown to the American public in the 1920s but the local authorities and press were fast becoming aware of the devastating and horrific reality that unfolded before their eyes. The roaming “Gorilla Killer” became the first real ‘superstar criminal’ who everyone talked about and feared.
The Ryan Green True Crime Collection contains chilling accounts of some of the most brutal and bizarre true crime stories in history. Green’s riveting narrative draws the listener into the real-life horror experienced by the victims and has all the elements of a classic thriller.
My review
I received an email from Ryan Green about a month ago, the day this audiobook was published on Audible and received a code for a free copy in return for an honest review.
Three of these books were new to me; I’ve listened to The Kentucky Killer before, so that one was not a surprise to me, and I’ve heard of the Gorilla Killer from a podcast. I’ve heard of Richard Chase but not the details, and I hadn’t heard of Charles Whitman at all.
The narratives of each of these men is told in an easy to understand and easy to digest. Some of the material is very graphic so it should be approached with caution. The lives of the murderers is told in chronological order from birth to death. Some of the possible origins for their behaviour and their self-justification are explored.
Steve White is a very good narrator and he does the material justice.
It is a little known fact that one immigrant Italian family ran London’s thriving vice trade unchecked from the mid-1930s for some twenty years.
The five Messina brothers imported prostitutes from the Continent on an industrial scale, acquiring the women British citizenship by phoney marriages. Demanding 80% of earnings, the Messina became fabulously wealthy, purchasing expensive properties, cars and influence.
As this revealing and absorbing account describes, the brothers ruled with a ruthless combination of charm, blackmail and all too credible threats of disfigurement and death.
It took a sensational Sunday newspaper exposé to get the authorities to act. A series of dramatic arrests and trials followed and one by one the brothers were imprisoned and deported for crimes including immoral earnings, attempted bribery and firearms offences.
Such was their fortune that numerous potential beneficiaries came forward, most recently in 2012.
The author, a much published former Metropolitan police officer, has researched the remarkable criminal careers of the five Messina’s and the result is a riveting and shocking read.
On the evening of July 13, 1966, an intoxicated Richard Speck broke into a townhouse at 2319 East 100th Street in Chicago to rob a group of student nurses. Speck woke the residents and ordered them into a room, calmly requesting money in exchange for their safety. The young women obliged. They believed that he was just going to take the money and leave, but Speck had other plans.
He tied them all up with strips of bed linen and led one of the girls into a separate room to “talk alone”. The situation took a turn for the worse when two more resident nurses burst into the townhouse, surprising Speck in the act. What transpired in the following hours would grip the nation with fear and forever change the perception of society.
The Townhouse Massacre is a chilling and gripping account of one of the most brutal and gruesome true crime stories in American history. Ryan Green’s riveting narrative draws the listener into the real-life horror experienced by the victims and has all the elements of a classic thriller.
Caution: This audiobook contains descriptive accounts of abuse and violence. If you are especially sensitive to this material, it might be advisable not to listen to this book.
I have so many Pen & Sword books to review (because they keep releasing so many that I want to read!) that I’m doing multiple reviews in a single post. Today I’m writing reviews for the true crime books I’ve read recently.
My Review
I had not heard of this case before, and I was intrigued because I thought I’d heard of most of the major serial killers in Britain in the last fifty years, There has been a lot of speculation and sensationalisation about Kieran Kelly, much of it encouraged by former Police Officer Geoff Platt, alleging that Kieran Kelly had murdered 31 people, 12 on the tube. He wrote a couple of books about it and apparently does cruises. He also says the crimes were covered up by the government for some reason.
Robert Mulhern does an excellent job of chasing down as much of the truth as possible after so long. The only certainty is that Kelly killed his cell-mate William Boyd in August 1983 and Hector Fisher on Clapham Common in 1975. He may have also killed five or six other homeless people, but the police weren’t able to prove anything and his own solicitor called Kelly a ‘fantasist’.
As much an investigation in to the life of Kieran Kelly and an investigation into the claims that were making headlines and their author. Mulhern travels from London to Ireland and back, trying to check the details and speaking to people who knew Kelly as Ken.
Mulhern spoke to a lot of other people, including more police officers involved with the Kelly case in 1983/1984, and Geoff Platt himself. Among those Mulhern spoke to was ‘Officer A’, who had access to a lot of the paperwork and the new Inquiry, and retired D.I., Ian Brown, a detective on the Boyd case, who objects to being called a liar.
The evidence suggests Kelly murdered five or six homeless people during drunken rages, but had nothing to do with any deaths on the Underground. It also suggests that Platt is making hay from his minor part in an unusual case of murder in a police station. There’s some really good investigative work in this book, with multiple interviews from the people who were there.
My Review
Patrick Mackay is a bit of a sad sack, who took out his own insecurities first on his mother and sisters, and then on local kids, before moving on to murder people who tried to help him. Usually elderly women. I’ve heard about him before so I couldn’t understand the title of this book. And then I got to the last chapter.
Patrick Mackay’s crimes were sensational at the time – priests found hacked to death in their baths will cause a fuss – but over the years he’s been forgotten. Murderers with higher body counts have pushed him into the background. He’s changed his name and now lives in an open prison. Brady or Sutcliffe would never have been allowed to do that.
The author sets out a biography of Patrick Mackay and his potential involvement in other unsolved crimes that match the crimes he was convicted for. If you’ve never heard of this particular serial killer, this book is a good place to start.
My Review
This book covers thirteen murders from 1857 – 1957, some quite well-known and some less so. The author gives the details then discusses the possible killers, as far as he is able to after so long. Each chapter is detailed and the photographs and images provided are helpful. It’s a fairly easy to read book that you can pick up to read a chapter or two then go back to later.
A good place to start if you’re interested in unsolved murders.
My Review
Well, this one was different. Since the network of canals around England were first dug in the early years of the Industrial Revolution to the modern use of them for pleasure, crime has taken place. Murder, mugging, coal theft.
I found this book sludgy going at times, although at others it was really fascinating.
When you think of serial killers throughout history, the names that come to mind are ones like Jack the Ripper and Ted Bundy. But what about Tillie Klimek, Moulay Hassan, Kate Bender? The narrative we’re comfortable with is the one where women are the victims of violent crime, not the perpetrators. In fact, serial killers are thought to be so universally, overwhelmingly male that in 1998, FBI profiler Roy Hazelwood infamously declared in a homicide conference, ‘There are no female serial killers’.
Lady Killers, based on the popular online series that appeared on Jezebel and The Hairpin, disputes that claim and offers fourteen gruesome examples as evidence. Though largely forgotten by history, female serial killers such as Erzsebet Bathory, Nannie Doss, Mary Ann Cotton, and Darya Nikolayevna Saltykova rival their male counterparts in cunning, cruelty, and appetite for destruction.
Each chapter explores the crimes and history of a different subject, and then proceeds to unpack her legacy and her portrayal in the media, as well as the stereotypes and sexist cliches that inevitably surround her. The first book to examine female serial killers through a feminist lens with a witty and dryly humorous tone, Lady Killers dismisses easy explanations (she was hormonal, she did it for love, a man made her do it) and tired tropes (she was a femme fatale, a black widow, a witch), delving into the complex reality of female aggression and predation. Featuring 14 illustrations from Dame Darcy, Lady Killers is a bloodcurdling, insightful, and irresistible journey into the heart of darkness.
In 1919, when a shopkeeper and her dog were found dead in Hitchin, Hertfordshire with brutal head injuries, there followed an extraordinary catalogue of events and a local police investigation which concluded that both had died as a result of a tragic accident. A second investigation by Scotland Yard led to the arrest of an Irish war veteran, but the outcome was far from conclusive.
Written from the perspective of the main characters involved and drawing on original and newly-discovered material, this book exposes the frailties of county policing just after the First World War and how it led to fundamental changes in methods of murder investigations.
Offering a unique balance of story-telling and analysis, the book raises a number of unanswered questions. These are dealt with in the final chapter by the author’s commentary drawing upon his expertise.
Whatever happened in the past, the story wrote right over it. The story became the truth. What you see in Ricky killing Jeremy, I have come to believe , depends as much on who you are and the life you’ve had as on what he did. But the legal narrative erases that step. It erases where it came from.
Page 310/91%
Published by: Pan Macmillan
Publication Date: 3rd May 2018
Format: ebook
I.S.B.N.: 9781509805648
Price: £8.99
Blurb
When law student Alexandria Marzano-Lesnevich is asked to work on a death-row hearing for convicted murderer and child molester Ricky Langley, she finds herself thrust into the tangled story of his childhood. As she digs deeper and deeper into the case she realizes that, despite their vastly different circumstances, something in his story is unsettlingly, uncannily familiar. The Fact of a Body is both an enthralling memoir and a groundbreaking, heart-stopping investigation into how the law is personal, composed of individual stories, and proof that arriving at the truth is more complicated, and powerful, than we could ever imagine.