The Bayou Strangler

The Bayou Strangler

Fred Rosen

History / True Crime

The true story of Louisiana serial killer Ronald Dominique's ten-year murder spree, the men he slayed, and the detectives who hunted him down. In 1997, the bodies of young African American men began turning up in the cane fields of the quiet suburbs of New Orleans. The victims—many of them transient street hustlers—had been brutally raped and strangled, but police had no leads on the killer's identity. The murders continued, leaving southeast Louisiana's gay community rattled and the police desperate for a break in the case. Detectives Dennis Thornton and Dawn Bergeron came together as task force partners, and they were indefatigable in their decade-long effort to track down the killer. In 2006, DNA evidence finally linked the murders to a suspect: the unassuming Ronald Joseph Dominique, who had lived under the radar for years, working as a pizza deliveryman and meter reader. Who was Ronald Dominique and what led him to commit such heinous...
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Blood Crimes

Blood Crimes

Fred Rosen

History / True Crime

From Allentown, Pennsylvania, to Brooklyn Heights, New York, Fred Rosen investigates the horrifying true story of 2 brothers who murdered their family—and the legacy of dysfunction behind their crimes Raised as Jehovah's Witnesses and frustrated with their parents' repressive rules, Bryan and David Freeman rebelled as teenagers. Encouraged by an acquaintance he met while institutionalized at a reform school, Bryan became a neo-Nazi. Bryan then indoctrinated David, and their flare for defiance took a dark turn. After callously murdering their father, mother, and younger brother, the skinhead brothers took flight across America, with police from 3 states in hot pursuit. They were eventually captured in Michigan and returned to Pennsylvania for trial. During the trial, author Fred Rosen uncovered evidence that 1 of the brothers might not have been as culpable as authorities claimed, and divulged the history of a family torn apart by stringent...
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Gang Mom

Gang Mom

Fred Rosen

History / True Crime

In one of the biggest cons to shake Eugene, Oregon, an anti-gang activist secretly ran her own murderous mob Aaron Iturra was just 18-years-old when he was found dead in the bedroom of the Eugene, Oregon, home he shared with his mother and sister. Investigating the crime, Detective Jim Michaud found evidence pointing to an unlikely suspect: Mary Louise Thompson, also known as Gang Mom. Once a biker chick and police informer, she had become a locally famous anti-gang activist. Michaud soon learned Thompson was a modern-day Fagin who was running her own gang of juveniles—including her own son, Beau—which preyed on the unsuspecting city, dealing dope and burglarizing homes. When Thompson had found out Iturra planned to testify against Beau in a felony case, she put out a hit on him.
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Lobster Boy

Lobster Boy

Fred Rosen

History / True Crime

Fred Rosen researches the shocking true story behind the murder of Lobster Boy—and finds his own life at risk In his account of the sensational life and murder of Grady Stiles Jr., also known as the legendary carnival "freak" Lobster Boy, author Fred Rosen explains how Stiles's death was engineered by his wife, Mary Teresa, the carny known as the Electrified Girl. Rosen describes how Mary Teresa arranged for her husband's murder after years of physical and emotional abuse. The narrative is full of appearances from the couple's colorful acquaintances, including the World's Only Living Half Girl, Midget Man, and the Human Blockhead. During Mary Teresa's dramatic trial, Rosen becomes a character in his own book. When both he and the prosecution are threatened by Mary Teresa's daughter, who Rosen believes was a co-conspirator although she was never indicted, the writer risks his life in pursuit of the truth and the evidence that leads to Mary...
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Body Dump

Body Dump

Fred Rosen

History / True Crime

In the late 1990s in Poughkeepsie, NY, the bodies of prostitutes were piling up. Lt. Bill Siegrist knew a serial killer was preying on the women. Determined to stop any further killing, Siegrist followed a trail that led him to Kendall Francois, a middle school monitor with the nickname Stinky, because of his slovenly hygiene. When Francois was finally arrested for his crimes, police found seven bodies in the attic and crawl space of his house, with one woman still missing.
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Gold!

Gold!

Fred Rosen

History / True Crime

A riveting true account of gold rush fever in mid-nineteenth-century America, rich with the thrilling exploits of daring fortune seekers and dangerous outlaws America was never the same after January 24, 1848. It was on that day that a carpenter named James Marshall discovered a tiny nugget of gold while building a sawmill at Sutter's Fort, just east of Sacramento, California. Marshall's find ignited a fever the nation had never known before, drawing people from all over the country to the West Coast with high hopes of getting rich quick. Over the next six years, three hundred thousand prospectors raced to the California gold fields to make their fortunes, leaving their lands and families behind in order to chase a dream of easy wealth, but all too often encountering a reality of lawlessness, disease, cruelty, and death. A former columnist for the New York Times, author Fred Rosen takes readers back to the seminal moment when the American dream...
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The Mad Chopper

The Mad Chopper

Fred Rosen

History / True Crime

Fred Rosen follows a killer's trail back in time 2 decades to discover how a monster slipped through the legal system When police in Tampa, Florida, arrested Larry Singleton in 1997 for brutally murdering prostitute Roxanne Hayes, they soon realized it wasn't the man's first violent attack. Back in 1978 he had gained notoriety as "the Mad Chopper" for raping and cutting off the arms of 15-year-old Mary Vincent on a patch of desolate, sun-scorched land 5 miles off the highway near Modesto, California. When Singleton was let out of prison on supervised parole after serving only 8 years for his crimes, no community in California would accept him. He eventually moved back to his home in Florida, where he killed Hayes nearly 20 years after his original crime. But his first victim, Vincent, had survived, walking nearly a mile to get help after the assault, and testified against him at his trial for murdering Hayes.
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