Eleven murders over a period of four years sent shockwaves through the Krugersdorp community and made headlines nationwide. Eventually these murders were connected to Cecilia Steyn and her cult, Electus per Deus (chosen by God). Members of the cult were willing to do anything for Cecilia ”“ even if it meant committing murder. The murderers are intelligent, ordinary people ”“ a teacher, a financial broker, and a teenager who ”“ despite her involvement in the murders ”“ still managed to obtain six distinctions in matric and be accepted to medical school. Their victims merely kept their appointments, not knowing that their appointments were with death. Who is Cecilia Steyn? How can one person manipulate five others to commit murder and perjury on her behalf? How did Satanism contribute to all of this? How did inexperienced criminals manage to evade capture for so long? Jana Marx answers these and other questions in this true-crime account that led to one of the most sensational murder cases in the country’s history. Through interviews with those in the inner circle, evidence given in court and police files covering a period of four years, Marx attempts to answer the public’s questions and provide a view of the inner workings of such a cult.

She is a petite, innocent-looking young woman with fantasies of skinning and flaying human skin. He is a diagnosed schizophrenic who fantasises about committing cold-blooded murder. When they meet, they will plan and execute one of the most horrific crimes ever documented in this country. In April 2011, the sleepy gold-mining town of Welkom was deeply shocked when the dismembered, decapitated body of Michael van Eck was discovered buried in a shallow grave on the outskirts of the local cemetery. Was this a muti murder, the work of a deranged madman or part of a satanic ritual? For the investigators and psychologists involved, the mystery only deepened when a seemingly unlikely arrest was made: a soft-spoken girl next door and her intelligent, devoted fiancé. Joining forces with some of the country’s most specialised experts in the occult and psychopathy, Lieutenant Ogies Nel of the Welkom Detective Unit and her colleagues in the South African Police Service unravelled one of the most brutal psychologically motivated murders ever committed in South Africa’s crime history. As they uncovered the evidence, they exposed a most heinous deed, alarmingly similar to the crimes committed by serial killer Ed Gein, who had a preference for flaying his victims’ skin. Grave Murder is the chilling account of how appearances can be very deceptive – how those who might seem innocent and harmless on the outside may hide some dark, disturbing secrets that are just waiting to be revealed.

Ray and Faye Copeland are often known as the oldest couple ever to be sentenced to death in the United States. At the ages of 76 and 69, the couple was sentenced to death in separate trials for the murders of five vagrant men that they had taken in, hired, forced to commit fraud, and then finally killed to keep quiet. While Ray's guilt in the crime was indisputable, Faye's role in the crimes is muddled as she was the victim of severe physical abuse at the hands of Ray. Was she truly involved in the crime? Or was she simply a victim herself?

Over 800 entries examine the facts, evidence, and leading theories of a variety of unsolved murders, robberies, kidnappings, serial killings, disappearances, and other crimes.

Oppressed by a strict upbringing Janie Lou Gibbs was an American serial killer from Cordele, Georgia. She would go on to kill her three sons, a grandson, and her husband, by poisoning them with rat poison in 1966 and 1967. This is her story.

For over a hundred years, the mystery of Jack the Ripper has been a source of unparalleled fascination and horror, spawning an army of obsessive theorists and endless volumes purporting to finally reveal the identity of the brutal murderer who terrorized Victorian England. But what if there was never really any mystery at all? What if the Ripper was always hiding in plain sight, deliberately leaving a trail of clues to his identity for anyone who cared to look, while cynically mocking those who were supposedly attempting to bring him to justice? In They All Love Jack, the award-winning film director and screenwriter Bruce Robinson exposes the cover-up that enabled one of history's most notorious serial killers to remain at large. More than twelve years in the writing, this is no mere radical reinterpretation of the Jack the Ripper legend and an enthralling hunt for the killer. A literary high-wire act reminiscent of Tom Wolfe or Hunter S. Thompson, it is an expressionistic journey through the cesspools of late-Victorian society, a phantasmagoria of highly placed villains, hypocrites, and institutionalized corruption. Polemic forensic investigation and panoramic portrait of an age, underpinned by deep scholarship and delivered in Robinson's inimitably vivid and scabrous prose, They All Love Jack is an absolutely riveting and unique book, demolishing the theories of generations of self-appointed experts—the so-called Ripperologists—to make clear, at last, who really did it; and, more important, how he managed to get away with it for so long.

On September 13, 2016, a call came through Ashland, Ohio's 911 system from a distressed woman, who claimed to be held captive in a home. "I've been abducted," she whispered to the dispatcher. "Please hurry." The police who arrived at the scene not only rescued the woman who had placed the call, but also discovered two dead bodies - left there by Shawn Michael Grate, a 40-year-old man who had a reputation for being a "cold-blooded charmer." Grate also brought police to a third body, located in a wooded area by a ravine in neighbouring Richland County. And, as the investigation continued, police uncovered connections to two more murders.

When James "Reggie" and Carol Sumner moved to Jacksonville, Florida for their retirement, they had visions of good health and happiness. They never thought that their overnight invitation to long-time South Carolina neighbor, Tiffany Cole, would end up the way it did; With the Sumner couple being buried alive.

It was New Year's Day in 2003 when retired pastor Julian Brandon heard a knock on his door in Blanchard, Louisiana. He opened it to find the villainous duo of Brandy Holmes and Robert Coleman who "bum rushed" the 70-year old man, forcing their way in. The couple shot the minister and began ransacking his home. His wife, Alice, tried hiding in the back bedroom but Brandy and Coleman followed her, demanding valuables before shooting her. They then stole whatever they could out of the home; cash, credit cards, and jewelry. Brandy would only be captured after she bragged to one of her neighbors that she killed an elderly couple. She would be sentenced to death but would blame being born with fetal alcohol syndrome for her behavior. By doing this, she could avoid personal responsibility, as her life was filled with murder and mayhem. "I was named after my mother's favorite drink," she said. "Brandy." Born out of a childhood of neglect and growing anger, Brandy Holmes would become one of the most vicious killers in Louisiana history.