Some true crime stories are like onions. I don't really know what I've got until I've peeled back the layers. Such was the case with my true crime book ROUGH TRADE: A Shocking True Story of Prostitution, Murder and Redemption, which I wrote in 1999 and published in 2000 following the murder trial of Robert Riggan in Jefferson County, Colorado. ROUGH TRADE NOW AVAILABLE FOR eBOOK PRE-ORDER AND COMING SOON IN REPRINT AND AUDIO BOOK! At … [Read more...]
MURDER IN THE FAMILY, a New York Times Bestselling True Crime Classic by Burl Barer
The Updated eBook-only Version of Edgar Award Winning Author's Shocking Story of Murder and Brutality " ... where for the first time an FBI profiler was allowed to testify and the controversial, pre-DNA science of allotyping was presented to a jury." On March 15th, 1987 police in Anchorage, Alaska arrived at a horrific scene of carnage. In a modest downtown apartment, they found Nancy Newman's brutally beaten corpse sprawled across her … [Read more...]
New York Times Bestselling Author Steve Jackson Reflects On An Unexpected Reward From Writing SMOOTH TALKER
Writing true crime books has it's ups and downs. It can be a dark road through hell researching and writing about the terrible things human beings--if some killers can be classified as such--do to other human beings. It also has its rewards, some of them quite unexpected, as I was recently reminded. Anyone who reads my books knows that I'm not big on going into the gory details, or including the more "shocking" photographs included in … [Read more...]
True Crime Author Steve Jackson Discusses SMOOTH TALKER Picture Puzzle Pieces
I've been asked why I chose to write SMOOTH TALKER: Trail of Death, especially as I have already written about serial killer Roy Melanson in the past. In 2002, I published a book called NO STONE UNTURNED: The True Story of the World's Premier Forensic Investigators, which was about the history and some of the best early cases involving NecroSearch International. NSI is a group of scientists, as well as former and current law enforcement … [Read more...]
Monte Francis on the Cases Behind His New True Crime Book ICE AND BONE
I began reporting on crimes and murder trials as a TV reporter for the NBC affiliate in Fresno, California, KSEE in 1999. During the five years I spent in California’s Central Valley, I had the opportunity to cover a number of high-profile cases. Among them was the trial of Scott Peterson, who was ultimately convicted of murdering his pregnant wife Laci in 2004. Two years prior, I covered the trial of Cary Stayner, the hotel handyman responsible … [Read more...]
True Crime Author Steve Jackson Books Hot Topics On 48 Hours, Investigation Discovery
Author To Fight Defense Attorney's Subpoenas Holy Smokes! I'm suddenly a hot commodity with 48 Hours for two separate books I'm working on. And in the meantime, another book project about serial killer Roy Melanson will be the featured topic on the Investigation Discovery channel's new show Epic Mysteries in April. Working on a book in Oregon about a man accused of murdering his girlfriend and the mother of his child by pushing her off a … [Read more...]
My Association with Postmortem Ted Bundy
True Crime author Kevin Sullivan Reflects On His Connection To A Serial Killer This piece was previously published with a typo that mis-dated the below picture of Ted Bundy at 1984, when he would have been in prison in Florida. According to Kevin Sullivan, the picture below was taken in 1975 or 1976 in Utah. Ted Bundy was never supposed to be a part of my life. I’d first heard about the guy after his escape from Colorado, and I remember … [Read more...]
Looking for love in all the wrong places (like prison)
It was a simple plan: Help a couple killers break out of prison, persuade them to kill your husband, then run off to Vermont and live happily ever after. Maybe a cottage by the sea. Just you and two fugitive psychopaths. In New York today, prison worker Joyce Mitchell stands accused of helping two convicted murderers—Richard Matt, 48, and 35-year-old David Sweat—escape. And authorities now say the 51-year-old woman had sex with both men before … [Read more...]
Generation Y Podcast Hosts Interview True Crime Author Steve Jackson About NO STONE UNTURNED’s forensic crime fighters
True crime classic NO STONE UNTURNED: The True Story of the World's Premier Forensic Investigators was the main topic of conversation between New York Times bestselling author Steve Jackson and hosts Aaron Habel and Justin Evans on their top-ranked true crime show The Generation Y Podcast. Now available for the first time as an eBook and audiobook, NO STONE UNTURNED tells the story in dramatic narrative of forensic investigators at NecroSearch … [Read more...]
Author Kevin Sullivan Reflects On The Emotional Toll Of Writing True Crime
"You never say goodbye to a case." True crime writers share some common traits peculiar to their profession, and these particular traits are not found among writers of other genres. You could say we all belong to a club, or a fraternity, if you will, although it’s one we rarely talk about it. For in this club, there’s nothing really to smile about or enjoy. There isn’t any revelry. It’s just the unspoken emotional toll produced in those of … [Read more...]
