Audiobooks by Matt Birkbeck

A Beautiful Child: A True Story of Hope, Horror, and an Enduring Human Spirit

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 American true crime. A student at Forest Park High School near Atlanta, Georgia, popular blonde-haired Sharon Marshall was at the top of her class. Serving as a Lt. Colonel in the ROTC, she earned a full scholarship to Georgia Tech University to study aerospace engineering. She was the ultimate girl next door, sweet, generous, and well-adjusted. But Sharon had disturbing secrets so shocking and unique, they took more than a decade to unravel... This is the horrifying true story of a mysterious young woman caught in the violent web of the murderous fugitive she called her father-and a heartrending testament to the profound courage and perseverance of one woman trapped in the grip of extreme evil.

Matt Birkbeck (Author), Skye Borgman (Narrator)

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A Deadly Secret: The Bizarre and Chilling Story of Robert Durst

The recent arrest in New Orleans and the HBO documentary The Jinx have put Robert Durst back in the headlines. Here, from the first reporter to access Durst's NYPD files, is the authoritative account of a decades-long criminal odyssey-the very book found in Durst's own apartment when it was searched by police. When medical student Kathie Durst vanished in 1982, she was married to Robert Durst, son of a New York real estate magnate. Kathie's friends had reason to implicate her husband. They told police that Kathie lived in terror of Robert, and that she had uncovered incriminating financial evidence about him. But Durst's secrets went even deeper. For decades, Kathie's disappearance remained a mystery. Then in 2001, Durst, an heir to an empire valued at two billion dollars, was arrested for shoplifting in Pennsylvania. When the police brought him in, they discovered that he was a suspect in the murder of Texas drifter Morris Black, whose dismembered remains were found floating in Galveston Bay, and that Durst was also wanted for questioning in the killing of his friend, Susan Burman, in Los Angeles. Based on interviews with family, friends, and acquaintances of Durst, law enforcement, and others involved in the case, A Deadly Secret is a cross-country odyssey of stolen IDs and multiple identities that raises baffling questions about one of the country's most prominent families-and one of its most elusive suspected killers.

Matt Birkbeck (Author), David H. Lawrence, David H. Lawrence Xvii (Narrator)

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Deconstructing Sammy

Sammy Davis Jr. lived a storied life. Adored by millions over a six-decade-long career, he was considered an entertainment icon and a national treasure. But despite lifetime earnings that topped $50 million, Sammy died in 1990 near bankruptcy. His estate was declared insolvent, and there was no possibility of it ever using Sammy's name or likeness again. It was as if Sammy had never existed. Years later his wife, Altovise, a once-vivacious woman and heir to one of the greatest entertainment legacies of the twentieth century, was living in poverty, and with nowhere else to go, she turned to a former federal prosecutor, Albert "Sonny" Murray, to make one last attempt to resolve Sammy's debts, restore his estate, and revive his legacy. For seven years Sonny probed Sammy's life to understand how someone of great notoriety and wealth could have lost everything, and in the process he came to understand Sammy as a man whose complexity makes for a riveting work of celebrity biography as cultural history. Matt Birkbeck's serious work of investigative journalism unveils the extraordinary story of an international celebrity at the center of a confluence of entertainment, politics, and organized crime, and shows how even Sammy's outsized talent couldn't save him from himself.

Matt Birkbeck (Author), Peter J. Fernandez, Peter Jay Fernandez (Narrator)

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Mirror Mirror

The year is 1502, and seven-year-old Bianca de Nevada lives perched high above the rolling hills and valleys of Tuscany and Umbria at Montefiore, the farm of her beloved father, Don Vincente. But one day a noble entourage makes its way up the winding slopes to the farm'and the world comes to Montefiore. In the presence of Cesare Borgia and his sister, the lovely and vain Lucrezia'decadent children of a wicked pope'no one can claim innocence for long. When Borgia sends Don Vicente on a years-long quest to reclaim a relic of the original Tree of Knowledge, he leaves Bianca under the care'so to speak'of Lucrezia. She plots a dire fate for the young girl in the woods below the farm, but in the dark forest there can be found salvation as well . . . The eye is always caught by light, but shadows have more to say.

Gregory Maguire, Matt Birkbeck (Author), John Mcdonough, Various Artists (Narrator)

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The Quiet Don: The Untold Story of Mafia Kingpin Russell Bufalino

Matt Birkbeck chronicles Russell Bufalino's ascent from Sicilian immigrant to mob soldier to a man described by a United States Senate subcommittee in 1964 as "one of the most ruthless and powerful leaders of the Mafia in the United States." To what extent was Rosario "Russell" Bufalino involved in the disappearance of Jimmy Hoffa in 1975? In the CIA's recruitment of gangsters to assassinate Fidel Castro? In organizing the historic meeting of crime chieftains in 1957? Even in the production of The Godfather movie? Secretive—even reclusive—Russell Bufalino quietly built his organized crime empire in the decades between Prohibition and the Carter presidency. His reach extended far beyond the coal country of Scranton, Pennsylvania, and quaint Amish farms near Lancaster. Bufalino had a hand in global, national, and local politics of the largest American cities, many of its major industries, and controlled the powerful Teamsters Union. His influence also reached the highest levels of Pennsylvania government and halls of Congress, and his legacy left a culture of corruption that continues to this day. A uniquely American saga that spans six decades, The Quiet Don follows Russell Bufalino's remarkably quiet ascent from Sicilian immigrant to mob soldier to a man described by a United States Senate subcommittee in 1964 as "one of the most ruthless and powerful leaders of the Mafia in the United States."

Matt Birkbeck (Author), Michael Prichard (Narrator)

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Till Death Do Us Part: Love, Marriage, and the Mind of the Killer Spouse

Every day six people are murdered in the United States by a spouse or intimate partner. The stories of killer spouses capture the public's attention-we wonder how such normal and seemingly happy people can go over the edge. In every relationship there are "extreme moments" where scary feelings surface. But what happens when those feelings turn to action? In Till Death Do Us Part, noted psychotherapist Robi Ludwig, along with journalist Matt Birkbeck, answers these troubling questions by identifying ten killer personality types. In her practice, Ludwig has found that within nearly every relationship there are extreme moments where scary and dangerous feelings surface. These are deep feelings and disturbing thoughts we all have yet for the most part never act upon. But when that line crosses over into murder something has gone terribly wrong, and we all ask the same question: How could this have happened?

Matt Birkbeck, Robi Ludwig (Author), Ellen Archer (Narrator)

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