The True Crime File Serial Killers, Famous Kidnappings, Great Cons, Survivors Their Stories, Forensics, Oddities

401 Pages·2022·11.838 MB·English

by  Kim Daly

TRue CrImE FiLe
The

TRue

The
Cr I m E
Fi Le

SSeerriiaall KKiilllleerrss..FFaammoouuss KKiiddnnaappppiinnggss..
GGrreeaatt CCoonnss..SSuurrvviivvoorrss && TThheeiirr SSttoorriieess..
FFoorreennssiiccss..OOddddiittiieess && AAbbssuurrddiittiieess..
QQuuootteess && QQuuiizzzzeess
Kim Daly
CCOOMMPPIILLEEDD BBYY
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WORKMAN PUBLISHING - NEW YORK
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Copyright © 2022 Workman Publishing Co., Inc.
All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced—mechanically,
electronically, or by any other means, including photocopying—without written
permission of the publisher.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Daly, Kimberly E.- editor.
Title: The true crime file : serial killings, famous kidnappings, great cons,
survivors & their stories, forensics, and more / compiled by Kim Daly.
Description: New York, NY : Workman Publishing, [2022] | Identifiers: LCCN
2021040980 | ISBN 9781523514113 (paperback)
Subjects: LCSH: Crime—Case studies. | Criminals—Case studies.
Classification: LCC HV6233 .T78 2022 | DDC 364—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021040980
Text by Kim Daly, Sam O’Brien, and Steven Buscok
Design by Galen Smith
Photo research by Sophia Rieth
Cover credit (fingerprints): artemiya/Shutterstock
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Printed in the USA on responsibly sourced paper.
First printing March 2022
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
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CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xii
KILLERS:
Charles Manson and His “Family”: To Helter Skelter and Back. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1
Dee Dee Blanchard: Munchausen to Murder . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
A Bombing in Birmingham. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .20
Ted Bundy: Escapee (and Serial Killer) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
The Murder of Stanford White .......................................................39
Jeffrey Dahmer: The Milwaukee Cannibal ............................................45
The Women of Juárez: Missing and Murdered ........................................70
Richard Ramirez: The Night Stalker .................................................. 71
Belle Gunness: Mistress of Murder Farm ............................................. 77
The Bitch of Buchenwald ............................................................82
Joseph DeAngelo: The Golden State Killer ............................................96
Ed Kemper: Matricidal Monster .....................................................105
John List and the Annihilation of the List Family .................................... 110
Terri Hoffman: Conscious Development’s Trail of Death ............................ 114
John Wayne Gacy: The Killer Clown .................................................120
The Real Amityville Horror Murders .................................................124
David Berkowitz: Son of Sam ........................................................129
Tillie Klimek: The Psychic Serial Killer ...............................................133
H. H. Holmes and the Murder Castle ................................................. 141
Dean Corll: The Houston Candy Man ................................................146
Michael and Suzan Bear Carson: The San Francisco Witch Killers ....................153
Gary Ridgway: The Green River Killer ................................................162
Ed Gein: The Butcher of Plainfield ................................................... 172
Nannie Doss: The Giggling Granny .................................................. 176
Pedro Alonso López: The Monster of the Andes ......................................184
John Hinckley Jr.: Gunning for the Gipper ...........................................188
The Bear Brook Murders ............................................................ 191
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Betty Broderick: Love Triangle Turned Deadly .......................................194
The Zodiac Killer ................................................................... 200
Roch Thériault: The Ant Hill Kids Cult ...............................................210
Alexander Pichushkin: The Chessboard Killer .......................................219
The Poisonous Blanche Taylor Moore ...............................................225
The Murder of Tupac Shakur ...................................................... 228
The Murder of Lana Clarkson .......................................................232
Robert Chambers: The Preppy Murderer ............................................237
The Real Hannibal Lector ........................................................... 241
The Murder of Kim Wall .............................................................243
The Drowning of Natalie Wood ..................................................... 250
Martin Bryant: The Port Arthur Massacre ...........................................253
Leopold and Loeb: The Übermensch Murderers .................................... 259
The Sydney River McDonald’s Murders. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 265
Albert DeSalvo: The Boston Strangler and the Green Man ..........................269
Andreas Lubitz: Murder by Pilot .....................................................278
Charles Starkweather: Mick and Maybe Mallory ....................................289
Stella Nickell: The Excedrin Murders ...............................................303
Daytime Drama: The Murder of Scott Amedure .....................................308
Oscar Pistorius and the Murder of Reeva Steenkamp ................................314
Philip Markoff: The Craigslist Killer. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 330
Gordon Cummins: The Blackout Ripper ............................................339
Edward Joseph Leonski: The Brownout Strangler ..................................340
Who Killed JonBenét? ..............................................................341
Betty Lou Beets ....................................................................353
Heavenly Creatures: The Parker-Hulme Murders ...................................356
Adam Walsh and America’s Most Wanted ...........................................376
SURVIVORS:
Jaycee Lee Dugard ..................................................................12
The Abductions of Shin Sang-ok and Choi Eun-hee ...................................32
Erica Pratt: Super Seven-Year-Old ...................................................44
Patty Hearst and the SLA ............................................................50
Mary Vincent Has Her Day in Court ..................................................74
Jackie Nink Pflug: Super Survivor ....................................................95
El Fusilado and the Firing Squad ....................................................104
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Baby Bump-Off: An Attempted Womb Snatching ....................................145
Kelly Herron: “Not Today, Motherfucker!” ...........................................175
Jennifer Morey and the False Sense of Security .....................................222
Melissa Dohme: Happily Ever After . . . ..............................................246
Elizabeth Shoaf and the Forest Bunker ..............................................273
Colleen Stan: The Girl in the Box ...................................................284
Corazon Amurao Atienza ............................................................297
Terry Jo Duperrault and the Sinking of Bluebelle ....................................307
Escaping the Toy-Box Killer .........................................................317
Natascha Kampusch ...............................................................334
Elizabeth Smart ...................................................................355
The Slender Man Attack ...........................................................364
The Vampire Attack ................................................................382
BIZARRE BRUTALITY:
Kitty Genovese and the Bystander Effect .............................................29
“Headless Body in Topless Bar” ......................................................80
Forced Sterilization ..................................................................89
The Black Dahlia Murder ............................................................132
The Astronaut Love Triangle ........................................................152
Senior Center: The Note Before the Blaze ...........................................193
The Mysterious Death of Keith Warren ..............................................216
Truly Crazy Love ....................................................................248
More Than a Punch Line: The Lorena Bobbitt Story ..................................255
A True Halloween Monster .........................................................264
Fourteen Feet in the Salish Sea ....................................................282
The Greyhound Bus Murder ........................................................298
The Tattoo Confession ..............................................................321
The Man at the ATM ...............................................................345
Wrestling with Murder .............................................................363
The Soap Maker of Correggio .......................................................372
The Bennington Triangle ............................................................373
CON ARTISTS:
Dead Man Walking . . . and Walking ...................................................65
Mummy Issues: The Case of the Persian Princess ...................................127
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The Lost Carnegie ..................................................................183
Anna Delvey: The Ersatz Heiress ....................................................275
Linda Taylor: The “Welfare Queen” ..................................................291
The Rockefeller Ringer .............................................................358
THIEVES:
The Great Feather Heist. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .28
Waddling Off with Dirk the Penguin ..................................................54
The Bank Robber and the Bail Law ...................................................93
Spumoni Gardens and the Secret Sauce ............................................119
Danger Dad: The Israeli Motorcycle Bandit ..........................................136
Rusik, the Caviar-Sniffing Cat .......................................................170
Mr. Rogers’s Car ....................................................................179
The Veggie Holdup ..................................................................214
The Great Canadian Maple Syrup Heist .............................................235
Food Fight: Culinary Crooks ........................................................236
Operation Broken Glass .............................................................312
The Theft of the Mona Lisa ..........................................................337
ANTICS & ACCIDENTS:
Escape from Alcatraz ................................................................43
The Pill-Toting Pigeon. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .64
Gender Reveal Gone Wrong: The Sawmill Fire .......................................100
Assault with a Deadly Gator .........................................................113
Knit, Purl, Spy ......................................................................187
The Watcher House ................................................................230
The Mad Gasser of Mattoon .........................................................242
The Flight Attendant Freakout ......................................................252
The Hermit of North Pond ..........................................................268
The Hollow Nickel Case ............................................................300
A Deadly Kiss ......................................................................306
Ming of Harlem .....................................................................315
The Bizarre Body Snatching of Gram Parsons ......................................368
“The Unrepentant Necrophile” ......................................................371
The Morris Worm ...................................................................379
The Dognapping of Kid Boots Ace ..................................................380
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CRIME THROUGH TIME:
The Resurrection of Anne Greene ....................................................36
The Lindbergh Baby: A Questionable Kidnapping .....................................55
The Murder of Emmett Till ...........................................................76
Chappaquiddick: Kennedy, Kopechne, and a Car Crash ...............................83
Jolly Jane and the Death Rattle .....................................................101
The Stonewall Uprising ..............................................................117
Johnny Gosch, Milk Cartons, and the Amber Alert ...................................137
The Murder of Dominique Dunne ....................................................150
Clark County John Doe .............................................................158
The Corpsewood Manor Murders ...................................................166
The Murder of Marvin Gaye .........................................................180
Whiskey and Cannibalism ..........................................................198
The Cooper Do-nuts Uprising .......................................................199
The LaLaurie Mansion ..............................................................224
Firsts: Isabella Goodwin, NYPD Detective ..........................................239
The Suspicious Death of Marsha P. Johnson .......................................286
The Chicago Tylenol Murders ......................................................302
The Osage Indian Murders ..........................................................322
The Bloody Benders ...............................................................326
The Lana Turner Affair ..............................................................331
Crime and Punishment: The Demise of Captain Cook ...............................354
Body Snatching ....................................................................366
FORENSIC FACTS:
DNA Profiling ........................................................................17
GINA and the Devious Defecator .....................................................60
Body Farms ..........................................................................87
A Purr-fect Match ..................................................................108
Familial DNA and Genetic Genealogy ................................................157
The DNA Doe Project ...............................................................159
What Body Part Helps Identify More Than 93 Percent of Remains? ..................165
Forensic Fingerprinting ............................................................203
Tattoo Analysis ....................................................................320
How Scientific Is Forensic Science? ................................................346