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  Women Who Kill

  Anna Jones

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  This landmark study offers a rogues’ gallery of women—from the Colonial Era to the 20th century—who answered abuse and oppression with murder: “A classic” (Gloria Steinem).   Women rarely resort to murder. But when they do, they are likely to kill their intimates: husbands, lovers, or children. In Women Who Kill, journalist Ann Jones explores these homicidal patters and what they reflect about women and our culture. She considers notorious cases such as axe-murderer Lizzie Borden, acquitted of killing her parents; Belle Gunness, the Indiana housewife turned serial killer; Ruth Snyder, the “adulteress” electrocuted for murdering her husband; and Jean Harris, convicted of shooting her lover, the famous “Scarsdale Diet doctor.”   Looking beyond sensationalized figures, Jones uncovers different trends of female criminality through American history—trends that reveal the evolving forms of oppression and abuse in our culture. From the prevalence of infanticide in colonial days to the poisoning of husbands in the nineteenth century and the battered wives who fight back today, Jones recounts the tales of dozens of women whose stories, and reasons, would otherwise be lost to history.   First published in 1980, Women Who Kill is a “provocative book” that “reminds us again that women are entitled to their rage.” This 30th anniversary edition from Feminist Press includes a new introduction by the author (New York Times Book Review).

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  Darkest Hour: John Alite -...

  S.C. Pike

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  The true life story of notorious Mafia hitman for the Gotti & Gambino crime family.Have you ever wondered what goes through the mind of a hit-man? Let alone trying to figure out the influencing factors that led John Alite to live a life of crime. John offers an honest, first-hand, street level, no-holds-bar of his life, starting from a young boy, and then how he moved into organized crime with the Gotti and Gambino crime families. 
  SC Pike brings John Alite's story to life in such a way, the reader will feel as if they are walking in his very shoes!A college baseball scholarship was his way out of the inner city, but his dreams of going pro were crushed by an arm injury. John Alite was forced to return home to the only life he knew, where having to live on the streets of New York meant one thing—learning how to survive. He was driven. He was extreme. He was feared. But most of all, he was loyal.From a young age, he found himself influenced by the wrong crowd. Enticed by the wealth, power, and prestige of the mafia, he immersed himself in a world that was foreign to most. A society where policies were enforced by instilling fear. Honor and loyalty were merely a misnomer. The cold, bitter truth was, he was expendable, and his sworn allegiance was rewarded with betrayal.On the run and unable to trust anyone, John was finally forced to confront his own demon—himself. Facing the harsh realities of who he was and what he had done wasn't pretty, and he had some serious, life-altering decisions to make. Ones that would come with a price.Through a life of heartache, betrayal, and loss comes a story of grace, healing, and redemption.

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  The Last Good Heist - The Inside...

  Wayne Worcester, Randall...

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  On August 14, 1975, eight daring thieves ransacked 148 massive safe-deposit boxes at a secret bank used by organized crime, La Cosa Nostra, and its associates in Providence, Rhode Island. The crooks fled with duffel bags crammed full of cash, gold, silver, stamps, coins, jewels, and high-end jewelry. The true value of the loot has always been kept secret, partly because it was ill-gotten to begin with, and partly because there was plenty of incentive to keep its true worth out of the limelight. It's one thing for authorities to admit that they didn't find a trace of goods estimated to be worth between $3 million and $4 million, and entirely another when what was at stake was more accurately valued at about $30 million, the equivalent of $120 million today. It was the biggest single payday in the criminal history of the Northeast. Nobody came close, not the infamous James "Whitey" Bulger, not John "The Dapper Don" Gotti, not even the Brinks or Wells Fargo robbers. The heist was bold enough and big enough to rock the underworld to its core, and it left La Cosa Nostra in the region awash in turmoil. The Last Good Heist is the inside story of the robbery and its aftermath.

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  The Crime of Bathsheba Spooner -...

  Morton Fine, David Friedkin

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  The tale of the first woman tried for murder in the United States...and what she did for love.Hosted by: David Warner.

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  The Combat Zone - Murder Race...

  Jan Brogan

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  At the end of the 1976 football season, more than forty Harvard athletes went to Boston's Combat Zone to celebrate. In the city's adult entertainment district, drugs and prostitution ran rampant, violent crime was commonplace, and corrupt police turned the other way. At the end of the night, Italian American star athlete Andy Puopolo, raised in the city's North End, was murdered in a stabbing. Three African American men were accused of the crime. His murder made national news and led to the eventual demise of the city's red-light district.Starting with this brutal murder, The Combat Zone tells the story of the Puopolo family's struggle with both a devastating loss and a criminal justice system that produced two trials with opposing verdicts, all within the context of a racially divided Boston. Brogan traces the contentious relationship between Boston's segregated neighborhoods during the busing crisis; shines a light on a court system that allowed lawyers to strike potential jurors based purely on their racial or ethnic identity; and lays bare the deep-seated corruption within the police department and throughout the Combat Zone. What emerges is a fascinating snapshot of the city at a transitional moment in its recent past.

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  The Unspeakable Crimes of Dr Petiot

  Thomas Maeder

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  The chilling true story of a serial killer who preyed on men, women, and children desperate to escape Nazi-occupied Paris.   On March 11, 1944, police were called to investigate foul-smelling smoke pouring from the chimney of an elegant private house near the Arc de Triomphe. In the basement of 21 rue Le Sueur, they made the first of many gruesome discoveries: a human hand dangling from the open door of a coal-burning stove.   Proceeding to the rear of the home, detectives found rib cages, skulls, and internal organs strewn across the floor and large piles of quicklime mixed with fragments of bone and flesh. The Gestapo had two offices in the neighborhood—were Hitler’s henchmen responsible for the carnage? Or was it the work of French Resistance fighters purging Paris of traitors and German spies?   As the investigation unfolded, a more sinister possibility emerged. The building’s owner, Dr. Marcel Petiot, was a handsome and charismatic physician whose past was littered with bizarre behavior and criminal activity. When he was finally captured eight months later, Dr. Petiot claimed he was a loyal member of the Resistance who helped kill Nazi collaborators. Prosecutors charged that he was a sadistic mass murderer who lured at least twenty-seven innocent people to their deaths with promises of escape. Estimates of the actual number of his victims ran as high as 150 men, women, and children.   From the first stages of the investigation to the sensational trial in which Dr. Petiot’s superior intelligence and perverse wit were on full display, author Thomas Maeder meticulously reconstructs one of the twentieth century’s most fascinating and lurid murder cases. Drawing on classified police files and interviews with surviving participants, The Unspeakable Crimes of Dr. Petiot is a riveting true crime saga that that “reads like a shocking psychological thriller” (Newsweek).  

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