"In 1988, MIchael Hayes committed the most heinous of crimes and compounded his felony with the shamelessly blasphemous excuse that he had been on a mission from God when he murdered four people he did not know. The gullible jury accepted the opinion testimony of the defense-hired expert witnesses as being truthful and chose to excuse Hayes's atrocity. This book details what led to the fateful event and documents the chronology of the evening of 17 July 1988 ..."--P. [4] of cover.

Murder On Staunton Road is a fast-paced narrative of a sensational unsolved homicide that captured the attention of the nation in 1953-when Juliet Staunton Clark was savagely beaten to death in her home in the haute monde neighborhood of South Hills in Charleston, West Virginia. She was the owner of the Charleston Daily Mail, the capital city's prosperous afternoon newspaper. Her murder set off a flurry of investigation under the direct supervision of Charleston's flamboyant Mayor "Jumpin" John Copenhaver. Accusations and rumors flew as the investigation swept through the town. Many charged then, and some repeat the charge today, that there was manipulation to protect prominent Charlestonians who were being questioned as possible persons of interest in the Clark murder.

On January 13, 1975, the enterprising community of Elizabethtown, Kentucky (a few miles from Fort Knox and the gold vault) was rocked with the news that one of their own, Peggy Rhodes--beloved housewife, mother, and grandmother--was killed when a bomb exploded in the family barn. An hour south along I-65 lies Bowling Green, a city known for small town values, a burgeoning industrial complex, the expanding Western Kentucky University campus, and as "Home of the Corvette". However, the city was also just one generation removed from earning the nickname "Little Chicago," a regional hotbed for car thefts, bootlegging, gambling, prostitution--and worse still--bombings and horrific murders. Murder on Youngers Creek Road is the true story of a murder-for-hire gone wrong that involves a well-known automobile dealer, two hit men hired to kill him, and a pair of high-profile business partners. The product of more than two years of research and interviews and writing, this book details one of the most complex murders of the decade and how it brought together two Kentucky towns in an unflattering way. It is a "tale of two cities" mired in the muck of greed, violence and murder, and of local efforts to bring the guilty parties to justice. In the end, both the innocent and the guilty would lose their lives. In the beginning investigators were baffled. Why would anyone want to kill a 57-year-old woman, who by all appearances did her part in community activities, loved her family and enjoyed her time playing bridge with friends? Two weeks into the New Year of 1975, a horrific explosion ripped through the body of Peggy Rhodes and her pet horse, Tony. Who could possibly have wanted her dead? On a cold dark January night, a sudden blast interrupted the stillness of freshly fallen snow and with it, the lives of several Kentucky families were changed forever....

Nestled on the north shore of Long Island, the beautiful seaside village of Northport has been a getaway destination for centuries. Young John Terry, one of seven siblings in an Irish Catholic family, grew up in this charming town. Beneath its picture-perfect exterior, Northport was full of stories and scandals. See Northport through the eyes of a curious and attentive young boy, his world full of crazy relatives, wonderful family friends, scary neighbors, a midget, a spider monkey, the Catholic Church, and those damned Kennedys. But the beautiful village and town docks of Northport showed John an unexpected side of life when a horrifying murder rocked the town to its core and sent the Terry family into a tailspin. Candid and fascinating, this memoir of a life-altering tragedy is compulsively readable.

Internationally acclaimed author Batya Gur is known for her psychologically astute mysteries set in Israel and for the brooding and attractive Chief Superintendent Michael Ohayon they feature. In her latest novel, the body of a young woman is discovered in the attic of a Bethlehem Road house, in a neighborhood of Jerusalem known for its impenetrability to outsiders. Chief Superintendent Ohayon is called to the scene of the crime, where, beyond the usual horror, an old love and an unfinished romance await him. In the style that has made Batya Gur an author who is read the world over, Bethlehem Road Murder spins out a complex and fascinating murder investigation set in a Jerusalem neighborhood that encapsulates the entire Israeli experience in miniature. This closed world with rules and a logic of its own is one in which each character has a secret he or she is struggling to hide. Chief Superintendent Ohayon's criminal investigation is conducted against the backdrop of tensions between Ashkenazim and Mizrahim, hostility between Jews and Arabs, the affair of the kidnapped Yemenite children, and the al Aqsa Intifada. During the course of the investigation Michael Ohayon uncovers what is concealed beneath the surface reality, and in so doing, powerfully and dramatically reveals the subtext of Israeli society today.

When a mystery fan’s holiday in Scotland turns deadly, he begins to suspect an enigmatic fellow traveler in this M/M romantic suspense novel. Librarian Carter Matheson is determined to enjoy himself on a Scottish bus tour for fans of mystery author Dame Vanessa Rayburn. Sure, his ex-boyfriend will be on the trip with his new boyfriend. And sure, that leaves Carter sharing a room with a stranger. But he can’t pass up a chance to meet his favorite author. Carter’s roommate turns out to be John Knight, a figure as mysterious as any character from Vanessa’s books. His strange affect and nighttime wanderings make Carter suspicious. When a fellow traveler’s death sparks rumors of foul play, Carter is left wondering if there’s anyone on the tour he can trust. Drawn into the intrigue, Carter searches for answers, trying to fend off his growing attraction toward John. But as unexplained tragedies continue, the whole tour must face the fact that there may be a murderer in their midst—but who?

A brutal murder that shocked residents of Missouri—and a killer it took 25 years to bring to justice... On June 17, 1985, twenty-year-old beauty pageant winner Jackie Johns's car was found abandoned, the interior drenched in blood. Four days later, her bludgeoned, nude body was found floating in a nearby lake. Sheriff Dwight McNiel vowed to catch Jackie's killer, however long it took. His prime suspect: local rich kid Gerald Carnahan. But despite suspicions, the evidence never managed to add up, and Carnahan slipped away again and again. Throughout the next two decades, multiple other women went missing, some murdered, some never found. Fearful residents believed that a murderous bogeyman was connected to all these crimes. Carnahan's conviction on the attempted kidnapping charge of another young woman brought his name into the mix over and over again--but all of the cases remained unsolved for decades, until a highway patrol sergeant sent DNA from the Jackie Johns's murder for testing and came up with a quadrillions-to-one match to Carnahan. This is the true account of a murderer who thought he was beyond punishment, and the lawmen who would not relent until justice was finally done.

Why do serial killers gravitate towards certain kinds of occupation? Why do they pursue certain types of victim? How do they leave the radar and remain hidden? Through his wide knowledge of the topic honed at one of Britain’s leading centres for criminological studies, Adam Lynes demonstrates how theory, practice, profiling and behaviour intertwine to identify the kind of people we should fear (and especially if we are vulnerable to predators). The book also looks at those personality-types most likely to become serial killers whilst hiding in plain sight. From Britain’s serial killing studies centre of excellence. Looks in depth at eight of Britain’s serial killer drivers, dealing with some of the most notorious crimes of modern times. A fresh and uniquely interesting perspective. Demonstrates the links between mobility, transience, recognisance, predatory behaviour and acting out murderous fantasies. From the text "It is apparent that driving as a form of occupational choice is a “popular” form of employment for British serial murderers. In an effort to determine why this may be, [ the ] case studies of eight British serial murderers [ in the book ] demonstrate just how such an occupation can impact upon these offenders’ criminal behaviour…These findings may prove to be of benefit to scholars of serial murder, and to those who attempt to apprehend them."

On a long dark road in deep East Texas, James Byrd Jr. was dragged to his death behind a pickup truck one summer night in 1998. The brutal modern-day lynching stunned people across America and left everyone at a loss to explain how such a heinous crime could possibly happen in our more racially enlightened times. Many eventually found an answer in the fact that two of the three men convicted of the murder had ties to the white supremacist Confederate Knights of America. In the ex-convict ringleader, Bill King, whose body was covered in racist and satanic tattoos, people saw the ultimate monster, someone so inhuman that his crime could be easily explained as the act of a racist psychopath. Few, if any, asked or cared what long dark road of life experiences had turned Bill King into someone capable of committing such a crime. In this gripping account of the murder and its aftermath, Ricardo Ainslie builds an unprecedented psychological profile of Bill King that provides the fullest possible explanation of how a man who was not raised in a racist family, who had African American friends in childhood, could end up on death row for viciously killing a black man. Ainslie draws on exclusive in-prison interviews with King, as well as with Shawn Berry (another of the perpetrators), King's father, Jasper residents, and law enforcement and judicial officials, to lay bare the psychological and social forces—as well as mere chance—that converged in a murder on that June night. Ainslie delves into the whole of King's life to discover how his unstable family relationships and emotional vulnerability made him especially susceptible to the white supremacist ideology he adopted while in jail for lesser crimes. With its depth of insight, Long Dark Road not only answers the question of why such a racially motivated murder happened in our time, but it also offers a frightening, cautionary tale of the urgent need to intervene in troubled young lives and to reform our violent, racist-breeding prisons. As Ainslie chillingly concludes, far from being an inhuman monster whom we can simply dismiss, "Bill King may be more like the rest of us than we care to believe."

Liberty Press announces the release of Danger Road: A true crime story of murder and redemption, by criminal defense lawyer and author John P. Contini. Contini was the trial lawyer who defended Gilbert Fernandez, Jr., the former Miami-Dade police officer once named, Miamis Meanest Cop. Danger Road is the riveting courtroom drama that recreates the true crime story of three drug dealers who were brutally murdered in 1983 on a lonely stretch of dirt road - ironically named Danger Road, in the Florida Everglades. Each victim had hoped this final drug deal in Hollywood, Florida would be their big retirement score. Instead, the drug dealers allegedly found themselves at the end of a gun wielded by Metro Dade officer Gilbert Fernandez, Jr., and eventually along Danger Road in Miamis Everglades. Fernandez, formerly known as a Mr. Florida bodybuilding champion, kick boxing champion and black-belt karate instructor, was also alleged to be the muscle for the mob in South Florida. He and his crew were not there to arrest the drug dealers that night, according to police - they were there to kill them and steal their nine kilos of cocaine.