Con Artists Memoir

In late summer of 2012, millionaire landowner Göran Lundblad went missing from his farm in Sweden. When a search yielded nothing, and all physical evidence had seemingly disappeared, authorities had little to go on - except a disturbing phone call five weeks later from Göran’s daughter Maria. She was sure that her sister, Sara, was somehow involved. At the heart of the alleged crime: Sara’s greed, her father’s land holdings, and his bitter feud with Sara’s idler boyfriend. With no body, there was no crime - and the case went as cold and dark as the forests of southern Sweden.

Thad Roberts, a fellow in a prestigious NASA program had an idea - a romantic, albeit crazy, idea. He wanted to give his girlfriend the moon. Literally. Thad convinced his girlfriend and another female accomplice, both NASA interns, to break into an impregnable laboratory at NASA - past security checkpoints, an electronically locked door with cipher security codes, and camera-lined hallways - and help him steal the most precious objects in the world: the moon rocks. But what does one do with an item so valuable that it’s illegal even to own?

Late one afternoon in the winter of 2003, art critic Richard Dorment answered a telephone call from a stranger. The caller was Joe Simon, an American film producer and art collector. He was ringing at the suggestion of David Hockney, his neighbor in Malibu. A committee of experts called the Andy Warhol Art Authentication Board had declared the two Warhols in his collection to be fake. He wanted to know why and thought Dorment could help.

In 1988, detectives from the Sacramento Police Department were called to investigate the disappearance of a man at his last known address - a boarding house for the elderly, homeless, and mentally ill. The owner, Dorothea Puente, was an adorable old lady who cared for stray cats and the rest of society’s castaways. She had a strong standing in the community and was celebrated for her selfless charitable work.

On the 24th of February 1994, police knocked on the door of an aging house in the English town of Gloucester. They'd come to serve a search warrant in the case of a missing girl - the daughter of the house's inhabitants. What they uncovered would shock the world: decades of child abuse, an underground torture chamber, and a burial ground containing the bodies of the spent victims of the torture - including that of the missing daughter.

Had fate dealt Harold Henthorn an unimaginably cruel hand? Or was he a murderer? Harold Henthorn wanted to do something special for his wife, Toni, on their 12th wedding anniversary. But the romantic hike he planned ended with her broken body lying at the bottom of a steep cliff. In the aftermath of Toni's shocking death, grief wasn't the only thing shared by her friends and family. So was suspicion. Nearly 20 years before, Harold's first wife had also died under mysterious circumstances.

Chris Bathum was a respected therapist, addiction specialist, and founder of one of the fastest-growing rehabilitation chains in America. But Bathum was a total fraud: he was a homicidal meth-head with a history of sexually abusing his patients, scamming insurance companies, and eliminating whistle-blowers. Like Rose Stahl. But this intended victim would be his last. Stahl would risk her life to bring down the monster she and so many other people in need had once trusted for their salvation.

At the height of the roaring 20s, Swedish émigré Ivar Kreuger made a fortune raising money in America and loaning it to Europe in exchange for matchstick monopolies. His enterprise was a rare success story throughout the Great Depression. Yet after Kreuger's suicide in 1932, the true nature of his empire emerged.

Dr. James Kauffman and his wife, April, were the perfect couple: a respected endocrinologist and a beautiful radio host. But under the surface lurked a world of drugs, sex, and biker gangs. A world Dr. Kauffman would kill to keep secret.

In this meticulously researched classic of the JFK conspiracy genre that Library Journal calls "sensational", Mark North argues convincingly that President John F. Kennedy died as the result of a plot masterminded by Louisiana Mafia chieftain Carlos Marcello - and, more importantly, that FBI chief J. Edgar Hoover learned early on about the plan but did nothing to stop it. Hoover warned no one - not the Dallas police, not the Secret Service. His motives, North suggests, stemmed from a fervent hatred of Kennedy and fear that the President would eventually fire him.

Toby Dorr's memoir exemplifies a story of redemption through her recounting the events that led to aiding a convicted murderer's escape from prison. Her story is a testament to the power of transformation and personal growth in a most unexpected way.

In this 2018 New York Times Notable Book,Paige Williams "does for fossils what Susan Orlean did for orchids" (Book Riot) in her account of one Florida man's attempt to sell a dinosaur skeleton from Mongolia—a story "steeped in natural history, human nature, commerce, crime, science, and politics" (Rebecca Skloot).

It's no secret that American health care has become too costly and politicized to help everyone. So where do you turn if you can't afford doctors, or don't trust them? In this book, Matthew Hongoltz-Hetling examines the growing universe of non-traditional treatments—including some that are really non-traditional. With costs skyrocketing and anti-science sentiment spreading, the so-called "medical freedom" movement has grown. Now it faces its greatest challenge: going mainstream.

The stories in this audiobook represent humanity at its absolute worst. Pure evil. In my audiobooks, however, I don’t leave out the details. In my audiobooks, I include details not to shock, but to give the listener a deeper look into the twisted mind of the killer. In the end, it’s unlikely any of us will understand the motives of the criminals in these audiobooks, but the level of depravity will at least keep you resisting the pause button. Volume six of True Crime Case Histories features 12 new stories from the past several decades.

From former Vice journalist and executive producer of hit Netflix documentary Fyre comes an eye-opening look at the con artists, grifters, and snake-oil salesmen of the digital age - and why we can’t stop falling for them.

On December 9, 2001, Kathleen Peterson was found dead at the bottom of a staircase in her Durham, NC home. Her scalp was laced with deep incisions, and her blood was strewn from outside to inside the house. The sinister truth of that night turned her murder into North Carolina's most enigmatic criminal case, capturing media attention across the globe.

Blending years of deep reporting with distinctive, powerful prose, Scott C. Johnson’s unique true crime narrative recounts the tale of the brilliantly cunning imposter who carved a path of financial and emotional destruction across the world. Gifted with a diabolical flair for impersonation, manipulation, and deception, the Con Queen used their skill with accents and deft psychological insight to sweep through the entertainment industry.

Something unimaginable occurred from 1764 to 1767 in the remote highlands of south-central France. For three years, a real-life monster, or monsters, ravaged the region, slaughtering by some accounts more than 100 people, mostly women and children, and inflicting severe injuries upon many others.

When she was 15, Jennifer Mee developed an unrelenting case of the hiccups - hiccupping as many as 50 times a minute for months. Soon the Florida teen's strange story went viral. Dubbed the "Hiccup Girl" by the media, she gained international sympathy and appeared on a slew of popular TV shows. Eventually Jennifer's hiccups went away, and so did her fame.

The stories you are about to listen to are brutally gruesome. They represent humanity at its worst. TV crime shows and stories in the news tend to gloss over the truly horrible parts, but the True Crime Case Histories series leaves out none of the details.