True Child Crime

I start all of my true crime books with a quick word of warning. Most news articles and television true crime shows skim over the vile details of truly horrible crimes. In my books, I don’t gloss over the facts, regardless of how disgusting they may be. I try to give my listeners a clear and accurate description on just how demented the killers really were. I do my best not to leave anything out. The stories included in these books are not for the squeamish.

An estimated 800,000 children are reported missing each year in the United States. Only one in 10,000 are found dead. Yet unsolved child murders are almost a daily occurrence - of nearly 52,000 juvenile homicides between 1980 and 2008, more than 20 percent remain open. Drawing on FBI reports, police and court records, and interviews with victims’ families, this book provides details and evidence for 18 unsolved cases from 1956 to 1998.

In a small town near Port Arthur in Tasmania in the mid-90s, Kate Byrne is having an affair with the father of her most gifted student. As the young teacher's sexual life is awakened by the father in scenes of escalating eroticism, the guilt she feels towards the son is compounded. Meanwhile, Veronica, her lover's wife, has just published Murder at Black Swan Point, a true crime book about the brutal slaying of a young adulteress some years before, set in a nearby town.

Criminologist Christopher Berry-Dee goes behind bars to get the last word from some of the worst criminals in the world. They speak of their violence and shocking deeds in their own words, from within some of the hardest prisons on earth. These interviews have been collated into this disturbing and unflinching analysis of the criminal mind. Here is what happens when you meet the people most of us know only from our nightmares and newspaper headlines.

THE INSPIRATION FOR THE NETFLIX DOCUMENTARY GIRL IN THE PICTURE Sharon Marshall was a brilliant and beautiful student whose future was filled with promise—until her murderous, fugitive father drew her into a lifetime of deception that became one of the most baffling cases in the annals of...

The gripping new Cristy Ward thriller from Sunday Times bestseller Susan Lewis! Book 4 in the Cristy Ward series A terrible crime. A shocking confession. Do you believe her? Twenty years ago, Nicole’s twins disappeared without a trace. No bodies. No witnesses. Despite her pleas of innocence...

Ellen Boehm, a single mom from St. Louis, Missouri, appeared devoted to her children. But in reality, she was unequipped for motherhood, financially strapped, and desperate. Within a year of each other, her sons, ages two and four, died mysteriously, and Boehm's eight-year-old daughter then suffered a near-fatal mishap when a hair dryer fell into the girl's bath. While neighbors wondered how Boehm remained so calm through it all, Det. Sgt. Joseph Burgoon of St. Louis Homicide had darker suspicions.

Read by the author, Sandra Brown. ‘Completely gripping . . . Sandra Brown found evil in the person of her own father; and she confronted it as few could have done . . . Everyone will want to read this amazing story’ – Andrew O’Hagan, author of Caledonian Road Sandra Brown was eight when...

When detective Maggie Oliver first discovered that children as young as 10 were being groomed, abused and trafficked for sex by gangs of men in the Rochdale area, she felt like a lonely voice calling for people to act. Banging on closed doors, it seemed that nobody was able or willing to help her save these vulnerable girls, but she couldn't just sit back while countless lives were being destroyed forever in plain sight. Instead, she launched a one-woman campaign to bring down these sickening gangs.

Don’t miss the next Cristy Ward thriller from Sunday Times bestseller Susan Lewis! A dead husband. A missing wife. Will they find her in time? Romy Kaplan has vanished from her home. Or has she? When Romy begins posting on her social media accounts asking everyone to stop looking for her, the...

Descubre las memorias apasionantes de Flako, un famoso ladrón que se reconvirtió después del nacimiento de su hijo. Un audiolibro de confesiones lleno de rabia, de ternura, de atención por el detalle, de metáforas y de honestidad.

Don’t miss the instant Sunday Times bestseller starring true crime podcast host Cristy Ward from the author of Nothing to See Here! Book 2 in the Cristy Ward series They raised her. Nurtured her. And lied about everything. They told Sadie she was adopted. They gave her a home and showered her...

One cold November night, in Cheyenne, Wyoming, fifteen-year-old Richard Jahnke Jr., ROTC leader and former Boy Scout, waited for his parents to return from celebrating the twentieth anniversary of the night they met. When his father got out of the car, the boy blasted him through the heart with a twelve-gauge pump-action shotgun. Richard's seventeen-year-old sister, Deborah, was sitting on the living room couch with a high-powered rifle - just in case her brother missed.

Fourteen-year-old Adrianna arrives on Casey’s doorstep with no possessions, no English, and no explanation. It will be a few weeks before Casey starts getting the shocking answers to her questions…. Brought to Casey as a short-term emergency placement, fourteen-year-old Adrianna arrives with...

When Zoe was taken into care at the age of 13, she thought she was finally going to escape from the cruel abuse she had suffered throughout her childhood. Then social services placed her in a residential unit known to be 'a target for prostitution', and suddenly Zoe's life was worse than it had...

Stephen Smith is the boy who did not exist. Born out of wedlock in the early 1960s, Steve's parents - both devout Catholics - had felt so 'shamed' by their son's illegitimate birth that they hid him away from the world by locking him in the cellar...for 13 years. Apart from a few admissions to hospital as a result of his 'imprisonment', Steve remained in the coal cellar of the family home where he was deprived of daylight, his childhood, school and human contact until he'd reached his teenage years.

In the archives of the national library, a young researcher named Linda sees a nine-year-old girl's face in the pages of a yellowed newspaper, and the seed of an obsession is planted in her mind. Birgitta Sivander was brutally murdered on a warm May night in 1948. The murderer was never found. Linda feels a deep connection to Birgitta, and in the months that follow she compulsively researches the case. All the while, a life is taking root inside Linda; she is to have a daughter of her own. As she grapples with the terror and wonder of motherhood, she gradually pieces together Birgitta's story.

Thomas and Jackie Hawks had big plans. The couple wanted to sell their retirement home - a hard-earned 55-foot yacht named Well Deserved - and move onto land to spend more time with family. So when a baby-faced buyer, Skylar Deleon, wanted to test drive the yacht, the Hawks were overjoyed. However, Skylar had an even more troubling future planned. But as the Hawks set sail with Skylar and two of his friends, not everyone will return. A compelling true crime, Vanished at Sea is a murder mystery that starts as a missing persons' case and quickly evolves into homicide.

Charlene Downes was 14 years old when she went missing in the seedy underbelly of Blackpool. Once a happy-go-lucky schoolgirl, she had turned into a truant. Though Charlene was hanging out with a new crowd by takeaway shops and the pier, her mum, Karen, always knew her typical teenage daughter would come home. But one day she didn't.

Sammy Woodhouse was just 14 when she met Arshid Hussain. Ten years older, he promised to take care of her. Sammy thought she was in love, but in reality she was being groomed by a ringleader of Britain's most notorious child sex ring. Just A Child tells the heartbreaking story of how a young girl from Rotherham was abused by her drug-dealing 'boyfriend', eventually giving birth to his baby, right under the nose of the very authorities who were meant to protect her. When reality dawned, Sammy realised she was one of countless vulnerable child victims - many of whom were trafficked around the north of England.