Forensics True Crime

Charged with the rape and murder of a nine-year-old girl in 1984, Kirk Bloodsworth was tried, convicted, and sentenced to die in Maryland's gas chamber. Maintaining his innocence, he read everything on criminal law available in the prison library and persuaded a new lawyer to petition for the then-innovative DNA testing. After nine years in one of the harshest prisons in America, Kirk Bloodsworth became the first death row inmate exonerated by DNA evidence.

Peer inside the mind of violent child molester Nathanael Bar-Jonah. Personal coded writings, life-long behaviors and victim testimony reveal how he operated and the difficulties law enforcement experienced stopping him. Eyes of a Pedophile follows Bar-Jonah’s evolution from religious beginnings to hunting children. Extensively researched medical and psychological details explain what is known about child predators and show you how to recognize pedophile behavior and protect children. Review Dr. Kuffel’s remarkable book is both readable and informative. Her story of the life of an SVP--...

Professor Patricia Wiltshire is a forensic ecologist, her days spent at crime scenes collecting samples, standing over dead bodies in a mortuary, or looking down her microscope for evidence. Working at the interface of where the criminal and natural world interact, Patricia has been involved in some of the most high-profile murder cases. Now, through a study of her most infamous, and fascinating cases—including the murder of Sarah Payne, and the Soham murders of Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman—Patricia will show us how she finds the answers to some of the worst crimes imaginable.

In the early hours of January 29, 2022, Boston police officer John O’Keefe was found dead beneath a blanket of snow outside a fellow officer’s home. His girlfriend, Karen Read, a respected analyst and educator, soon found herself accused of backing her car into him and leaving him to die. But was it a crime of passion—or a cover-up? "Snowfall and Lies: The Karen Read Mystery That Shook Massachusetts" dives deep into one of the most sensational and controversial trials in recent Massachusetts history. From suspicious police behavior and missing surveillance footage to shocking autopsy ...

After a wealthy woman was brutally murdered in her Glasgow home in 1908, the police found a convenient suspect in Oscar Slater, an immigrant Jewish cardsharp. Though he was known to be innocent, Slater was tried, convicted, and consigned to life at hard labor. Outraged by this injustice, Arthur Conan Doyle, already world famous as the creator of Sherlock Holmes, used the methods of his most famous character to reinvestigate the case, ultimately winning Slater’s freedom.

Los Angeles is a town of dreamers, and of those who prey on them. The scene of innumerable bizarre crimes, it is also home to a unique police unit called Homicide Special, whose mandate is to take on the toughest, most controversial, and highest-profile cases. Now, acclaimed writer Miles Corwin uses his unprecedented access to this legendary unit to portray six of its cases, and capture its newest generation at work.

Locard’s Exchange Principle underpins all forensic science and holds that the perpetrator of a crime will bring something to the crime scene and leave with something from it. Forensic experts use this principle daily to catch murderers and assailants. In Risking Life for Death, South African forensic pathologist Ryan Blumenthal offers a master class in this singular forensic technique based on real-life case studies.

Despite advances in DNA evidence and forensic analysis, almost half of murder cases in Canada and the US remain unsolved. By 2016, the solved rate had dropped so significantly in the United States that it was the lowest in recorded history, with one in two killers never even identified, much less arrested and successfully prosecuted. And the statistics are just as bad in Canada.

BKA-Rechtsmediziner Dr. Fred Abel arbeitet unter Hochdruck an einem großen Fall: Ein winziger Einstich in der Kniekehle eines Toten verrät ihm, dass einer der gefährlichsten Killer der letzten Zeit weiterhin sein Unwesen treibt. Doch bevor Abel ihn stoppen kann, wird er in heikler Mission in den osteuropäischen Pseudostaat Transnistrien geschickt. Dort soll er zwei Mordopfer identifizieren, die in Kalkfässern gelagert wurden und fast vollständig zersetzt sind.

Bailey worked on hundreds of cases and grew to become a subject matter expert in the field. It was the most challenging and fulfilling work she could have imagined, and she never thought of leaving. But her life changed when she became the target of sexual discrimination and harassment. She was stunned when FBI management protected the abusers and retaliated with threats, slander, and an arsenal of lawyers. Trapped in an increasingly hostile work environment, and infuriated at the hypocrisy of the FBI's tactics, Bailey decided to fight back.

Marjorie Diehl-Armstrong, as one judge described her, as "a coldly calculated criminal recidivist and serial killer." She had experienced a lifetime of murder, mayhem, and mental illness. She killed two boyfriends, including one whose body was stuffed in a freezer. And she was convicted in one of the Federal Bureau of Investigation's strangest cases: the Pizza Bomber case, in which a pizza deliveryman died when a bomb locked to his neck exploded after he robbed a bank in 2003 near Erie, Pennsylvania, Diehl-Armstrong's hometown.

More than 200 stories of killers, con artists, master thieves, and brazen kidnappers—and strong survivors, detectives, forensic breakthroughs, and legal minds on all sides of the action. In other words, a mini-encyclopedia perfect for newcomers and hard-core crime fans alike. Here are the big names—Bundy, Manson, Berkowitz, Borden, and the Black Dahlia. The lingering mysteries—like JonBenet Ramsey and Natalie Wood. The disturbing puzzle of the Zodiac Killer. The true story behind the most lurid headline ever: “Headless Body in the Topless Bar.” And more.

No-Body Homicides examines how police and prosecutors have become more successful in obtaining convictions for homicide when the remains of the victim are unavailable as evidence. Based on an examination of over 600 cases in the United States and Canada, this book shows the length some killers will go to avoid punishment and the determination of police and prosecutors to bring them to justice.

Marie Cassidy was Ireland's state pathologist from 2004 until 2018. During that time, she was involved in many high-profile cases, including the Stardust exhumation and the deaths of Siobhan Kearney, Rachel O'Reilly, Robert Holohan and Tom O'Gorman. In Beyond the Tape, she invites us into the world of forensic pathology and shares her remarkable personal journey, from working-class Glasgow to becoming Ireland's head pathologist.

Former FBI profiler James Fitzgerald talks about his work on the Unabom Task Force that ultimately helped lead to the arrest of Ted Kaczynski on April 3. 1996. Fitzgerald also discusses how his story was turned into the character portrayed so convincingly by actor Sam Worthington throughout the eight episodes of Discovery Channel’s original scripted series, Manhunt: Unabomber.

Helena Greenwood, a doctor with a Ph.D. in chemical pathology, was working in biotechnology when she was the victim of sexual assault. She survived and was scheduled to testify against her attacker until she was found brutally murdered in her garden. Everyone believed the killer was her past attacker; but there was not enough evidence to convict him, until ten years later when a local District Attorney working the "cold cases" used Helena's own DNA research to finally bring her killer to justice.

Absolute Madness tells the disturbing true story of Joseph Christopher, a white serial killer who targeted black males and struck fear into the residents of Buffalo and New York City in the 1980s. Dubbed both the .22-Caliber Killer and the Midtown Slasher, Christopher allegedly claimed eighteen victims during a savage four-month spree across the state.

In 1975, after Manson Family member Lynette “Squeaky” Fromme’s attempt to kill President Gerald Ford, the FBI found a cache of letters in the would-be assassin’s Sacramento apartment. The return address belonged to future forensic psychologist Jeffrey Smalldon, then a young undergraduate. A decade later, after the shocking murders of two co-workers, Smalldon’s quest to understand the twisted minds and motivations of killers became personal in a way it never had been before.

Blood, Powder, and Residue goes inside a metropolitan crime laboratory to shed light on the complex social forces that underlie the analysis of forensic evidence. Blood, Powder, and Residue offers a vivid and sometimes harrowing picture of the lives of highly trained experts tasked with translating their knowledge for others who depend on it to deliver justice.

Seattle attorney and media legal analyst Anne Bremner takes us inside some of the biggest cases of recent times and offers her expert insights and analysis as our legal system faces unprecedented forces fighting to tip the scales of justice their way. Justice in the Age of Judgement is Bremner’s unparalleled and unflinching look at the captivating cases tried on Twitter and TV, where the burden of proof and fundamental legal tenet of “innocent until proven guilty” is under assault from the court of public opinion.