True Crime Audiobooks | Mystery, Thriller & Horror

Unheard Witness: The Life and Death of Kathy Leissner Whitman

In 1966, Kathy Leissner Whitman was a twenty-three-year-old teacher dreaming of a better future. She was an avid writer of letters, composing hundreds in the years before she was stabbed to death by her husband, Charles Whitman, who went on to commit a mass shooting from the tower at the University of Texas at Austin. Kathy's writing provides a rare glimpse of how one woman described, and sought to change, her short life with a coercive, controlling, and violent partner.

Jo Scott-Coe (Author), Tanya Eby (Narrator)

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[Spanish] - Crímenes. Siete historias de oscuridad (Crímenes 1): Incluye el crimen de la Guardia Urb

Los crímenes reales más increíbles, como jamás te los han contado. Por el creador de ¿Por qué matamos? y Crims/Crímenes ***INCLUYE EL CRIMEN DE LA GUARDIA URBANA*** Carles Porta es el narrador de crímenes más singular del panorama nacional. Sus historias son estremecedoras sin amarillismo, frías pero delicadas, apasionantes sin caer en lo morboso. En este volumen se reúnen siete crónicas narradas con ritmo experto y rigor documental, la marca del éxito de su autor. Entre ellas, destacan el crimen de la Viuda Negra de L'Hospitalet, que en los años noventa fue definida como 'la asesina en serie por envenenamiento más importante de la historia criminal española'; el caso del rico informático catalán descuartizado en Bangkok; la historia del camionero alemán que, en sus viajes por Europa, fue dejando un rastro de muerte a largo de veinte países; o el célebre caso de la Guardia Urbana, en el que las intrincadas declaraciones de los protagonistas van conformado un relato donde la realidad supera a la ficción. La crítica ha dicho: «Hoy, Porta es el capo del true crime en España». Antonio Rivera, Esquire «Periodismo en profundidad, y próximo». La Vanguardia «El rey del true crime en España». Sara Polo, El Mundo «El desafío de contar historias respetuosamente. […] Sin duda, Carles Porta se ha convertido en un maestro de la narración de crímenes reales en el mundo de los medios modernos». Laura Pérez Mariño, Qué! ...Sobre Crímenes. Pecados capitales: «El fenómeno Crímenes no tiene límites y ha convertido a Carles Porta en un icono pop: su forma de abordar un tema tan delicado como los crímenes, rigiéndose siempre por el principios de las tres erres «rigor informativo, respeto y ritmo narrativo», busca evitar el amarillismo y no generar más morbo». El Periódico ...Sobre Crímenes. Diez casos reales: «Su especialidad literaria: contarnos extraordinarias historias de crimen y trabajo policial mientras nos mantiene en vilo hasta la última línea». La Razón «La crónica negra de toda la vida, pero narrada como nunca». ABC ...Sobre La farmacéutica: «Se lee todo del tirón y uno no da crédito a que sucediera de verdad. [...] Crónica definitiva de aquel secuestro, es un libro de lectura muy dinámica». El Mundo «Este libro pone orden y claridad a los acontecimientos: Porta narra con dinamismo y rellena todos los agujeros con tal de revertir los malentendidos que circulan en la esfera pública». El País «Una especie de Fargo en la Garrotxa». Diari de Girona

Carles Porta (Author), Aleix Peña Miralles (Narrator)

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Broken

One fateful winter night, a famous racehorse mysteriously broke his leg while alone in his stall. An investigation ensued, but the real story has never been told…until now. It was a cool, quiet evening at Calumet Farm, where the most valuable racehorses—including the prolific stallion Alydar—had settled into their stalls for the evening. Alton Stone, filling in for the regular night watchman, completed his rounds at the barn. Although nothing seemed out of the ordinary, an inexplicable hunch led Stone to check on Alydar. What he found—a grievously injured horse with no discernable cause—jump-started one of the biggest mysteries to ever hit the horse racing world. One part true-crime investigation, one part evocative history of the adrenaline-filled days of horse racing’s golden age, Broken follows Alydar’s rise to fame and then dives into the sordid details of the crime and trial that came to define his legacy. Told with the taut pacing of a legal thriller, Broken investigates Alydar’s death, the $41.5 million insurance payout, and the stain it left on the sport of horse racing. Throughout, animal law attorney and author Fred M. Kray weaves together shocking testimony and key evidence from the trials, featuring dramatic photos taken the night of the incident. Drawing on interviews conducted with more than twenty-five key witnesses, Kray reveals insider-only details and, in order to discover the truth about the death of this magnificent horse, embarks on a major investigation—one that leads to an unexpected and startling conclusion

Fred M. Kray (Author), Stephan Watson (Narrator)

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Brady and Hindley: Genesis of the Moors Murders

During the early 1960s, just as Beatlemania was exploding throughout the United Kingdom, a pair of psychopathic British killers began preying on the very young, innocent, and helpless of Greater Manchester. Between 1963 and 1965, Ian Brady and his lover and partner, Myra Hindley, were responsible for the abduction, rape, torture, and murder of five young victims, ranging in age from ten to seventeen years old. The English press dubbed the grisly series of homicides 'the Moors Murders,' named for the desolate landscape where three of the corpses were eventually discovered. Based in part on the author's face-to-face prison interviews with the killers, Fred Harrison's fascinating and disturbing true crime masterwork digs deeply into Brady and Hindley's personal histories to examine the factors that led to their mutual attraction and their evolution into the UK's most notorious pair of human monsters. It was during these interviews that new details about the killers' terrible crimes surfaced, compelling the police to reopen what was arguably the most shocking and sensational homicide case in the annuls of twentieth-century British crime. With a new introduction by the author, meticulously researched and compellingly written, Brady and Hindley is the definitive account of Britain's most hated serial killers. Contains mature themes.

Fred Harrison (Author), Liam Gerrard (Narrator)

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Age of Secrets: The Conspiracy that Toppled Richard Nixon and the Hidden Death of Howard Hughes

The acclaimed non-fiction international political thriller exposing the real reason for Watergate, the hidden death of Howard Hughes, and the illicit activities of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), with the CIA’s worldwide pursuit of John Meier trying to expose it all, including revealing information on the Robert F. Kennedy Assassination and Critical Comments by New York Times bestselling author Jim Hougan. THE MAJOR MOTION PICTURE IN DEVELOPMENT ‘MEIERGATE’ IS ABOUT THE LIFE STORY OF JOHN MEIER NARRATED BY 8-TIME AUDIE AWARD WINNER ACTOR DENNIS BOUTSIKARIS (THE BOURNE LEGACY / BETTER CALL SAUL) During the Watergate hearings, one man wanted to tell a spellbound nation secrets about the Nixon White House, the CIA and Howard Hughes. He could have told them why the burglary happened but that was not what the Committee wanted to hear. To keep him from telling his secrets, he was persecuted, jailed and forced into exile in Canada. His name is John Meier; his employer was Howard Hughes; Age of Secrets is his story. Former U.S. Senate candidate John Meier had Top Secret security clearance with the U.S. Government and has been referred to in the media as the man who brought down President of the United States Richard Nixon in Watergate, the greatest political scandal in U.S. history. Meier was the right-hand man to Howard Hughes, the world’s richest individual, and Meier was the first person to expose the CIA’s connection to the Hughes Organization and the only person to call for a congressional hearing into the death of Howard Hughes. In the Afterword of the book, Meier sums up his politically motivated battle by saying “My story is one of a man devastated by a corrupt system. Our governments are increasingly disrespectful of basic human rights such that we can no longer legitimately call our nations democracies. I hope that this story will contribute to changing this course”.

Gerald Bellett (Author), Dennis Boutsikaris (Narrator)

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The Ballad of Karla Faye Tucker

On a June night in 1983, twenty-three-year-old Karla Faye Tucker and her boyfriend, fueled by a sinister cocktail of illicit drugs, broke into a Houston apartment. 'We were very wired,' Tucker later testified, 'and we was looking for something to do.' Though they later claimed they entered the premises with no murderous intent, they ended up slaughtering two people—one a sworn enemy, the other an utter stranger. The weapon: a pickax they found in the apartment. Fourteen years later, in early 1998, Tucker was facing lethal injection. But after her religious conversion in prison, Texas would be executing a different woman than the one who'd committed the murders. Her change was so dramatic that the most powerful and influential voices in American televangelism—Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell among them—were urging viewers to contact Texas's governor, George W. Bush, and plead for clemency. One follower was author Mark Beaver's father, a devout Southern Baptist deacon who asked Beaver to put his fledgling literary ambitions to work by composing a letter on his behalf to Governor Bush. Through a merger of true crime, social history, and memoir, The Ballad of Karla Faye Tucker illustrates how a seemingly distant news story triggers a national reckoning and exposes a growing divide in America's evangelical community. It's a tale of how one woman defies all conventions of death row inmates, and her saga serves as an unlikely but fascinating prism for exploring American culture and the limits of forgiveness and transformation. It's also a deeply personal reflection on how a father's request leads his son to struggle with who he was raised to be and who he imagines becoming.

Mark Beaver (Author), Mark Beaver (Narrator)

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Tough Guys in the Room

‘WEAK IS NOT WHAT YOU ARE GOING TO REMEMBER ABOUT ME.’ Al Capone. Back then, hot headed gangsters, not so gentle dames and bullet riddled corpses filled the newspaper headlines. And some of the stories below the headlines were even true. The 1920s was a period in American history when even the respectable were unwilling to stay sober. And not so fast cars carried assassins across Chicago, a city that for many captures the essence of the USA. In TOUGH GUYS IN THE ROOM, the story of Al Capone and his rivals is told in separate and stand-alone topics that cover key figures and events. The crimes and conflict are remembered, and the context that shaped those events and protagonists is explained. The police and the law abiding that made a doomed attempt to impose Prohibition also make an appearance. TOUGH GUYS IN THE ROOM offers a detached and impartial perspective on what happened between the Chicago gangs of the 1920s. There are also some surprises. TOUGH GUYS IN THE ROOM is a must for fans of gangsterdom. This account of what happened in Chicago is kept simple but that does not prevent author Howard Jackson from taking an independent line on the St Valentine’s Day massacre and the character of Al Capone.

Howard Jackson (Author), Tom Fria (Narrator)

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Down the Hill: My Descent into the Double Murder in Delphi

Former CNN/HLN anchor and veteran broadcast journalist Susan Hendricks takes an investigative deep-dive into the still-unsolved double homicide of two teens in Delphi, Indiana-and its lasting impact on the community On February 13, 2017, two teenage girls-13-year-old Abby Williams and 14-year-old Libby German-decided to enjoy a day off from school by exploring the popular hiking trails near the Monon High Bridge just a few minutes' drive from Libby's home in Delphi, Indiana. Libby's sister, Kelsi, dropped the two girls off at the head of the trail and waved to them as they walked down the path, which was the last time they'd ever be seen alive. Less than 24 hours later, their bodies were found on the north bank of Deer Creek, about a mile from where they were last seen. There were few clues and little to go on in terms of physical evidence, except for the visual and audio remnants of a strange encounter the girls had with a stranger just hours before their disappearance, an encounter unsettling enough that Libby had thought to record it on her cellphone as it unfolded. In the years since the murders were first made public, Libby's audio and video recordings have been released and two very different composite sketches of the suspect have been shown, but local law enforcement remained vague about developments for years-until finally, in October 2022, the long-awaited suspect was arrested and a trial date was set. Longtime anchor and journalist Susan Hendricks was one of the first reporters to cover the case. A broadcast veteran with decades' worth of experience under her belt, she was no stranger when it came to sharing the tragedies of the day with viewers. But there was something about this case that rattled her to her core. A year after the murders, Susan went to Delphi to interview the victims' families for an in-depth special report where Kelsi drove Susan down the same path that she drove her sister down on the last day of her life. Over the years, Susan has built close relationships with family members, and law enforcement officials and armchair detectives alike who are determined to get justice for Abby and Libby. In Down the Hill, Hendricks digs deeper in into the mystery that has captivated our nation for years, exploring the family's enduring resilience and advocacy, as well as the rippling impact the case has had on not just Delphi, but the very heart of the American heartland. As a result, this book is more than just a book about a double homicide; it's about a small town in middle America that's been haunted by an unfathomable act of violence; it's about the ways families and communities cope with grief and move forward after tragedy; it's about the limitations of local law enforcement and the rise of technology in helping to solve cases in new ways. But it's also about compassion, connection, empathy, and resilience-on a very real, very human level.

Susan Hendricks (Author), Kelsi German Siebert, Susan Hendricks (Narrator)

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Murder in a Mill Town: Sex, Faith, and the Crime That Captivated a Nation

In December 1832 a farmer found the body of a young, pregnant woman hanging near a haystack outside a New England mill town. When news spread that Methodist preacher Ephraim Avery was accused of murdering Sarah Maria Cornell, a factory worker, the case gave the public everything they found irresistible: sexually charged violence, adultery, the hypocrisy of a church leader, secrecy and mystery, and suspicions of insanity. Murder in a Mill Town tells the story of how a local crime quickly turned into a national scandal that became America's first 'trial of the century.' After her death, Cornell's choices about work, survival, and personal freedom became enmeshed in stories that Americans told themselves about their new world of industry and women's labor and the power of religion in the early republic. Ordinary people gave testimony that revealed rapidly changing times. As the controversy of Cornell's murder spread beyond the courtroom, the public eagerly devoured narratives of moral deviance, abortion, suicide, mobs, 'fake news,' and conspiracy politics. Long after the jury's verdict, the nation refused to let the scandal go. A meticulously reconstructed historical whodunit, Murder in a Mill Town exposes the troublesome workings of criminal justice in the young democracy and the rise of a sensational popular culture.

Bruce Dorsey (Author), Brandon Pollock (Narrator)

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A Lethal Legacy: A History of Ireland in 18 Murders

The Instant Top 5 Irish Times Bestseller From the creator of The Irish History Podcast comes a fascinating look at Irish history through the lens of murder. In A Lethal Legacy, Fin Dwyer charts 200 years of Irish history, opening up our past as never before, by observing the grand societal changes of our times through the intimate lens of eighteen murders and the lives and communities they altered forever. From the creator of the critically acclaimed Irish History Podcast comes a ground-breaking exploration of the past, casting its gaze beyond the chambers of power and carnage of battle, and into the lives of the everyday people that lived through those violent centuries. From the desperate retributions of the Land War of the nineteenth century, through the unprecedented tumult of the revolutionary years, to the causes that helped to shape contemporary Ireland, these previously overlooked cases of human tragedy offer a fresh perspective on a history we think we know. Astonishing, illuminating and compelling, A Lethal Legacy chronicles Ireland’s turbulent past through one of our most enduring fascinations – the act of killing – and in mapping the causes and aftermath of these cases, Dwyer offers us a fresh new understanding of the fires that forged modern Ireland.

Fin Dwyer (Author), Fin Dwyer (Narrator)

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The Schoolgirl, Her Teacher and his Wife

Teacher and former rugby league player Chris Dawson appeared to have it all - a loving family and a beautiful home in Sydney's Northern Beaches. But in the summer of 1982 his wife Lynette disappeared and not long afterwards Dawson married a much younger woman a former student. Less than a decade later this young woman escaped the marriage and went to the police to record her suspicions that Dawson had been involved in Lynette's disappearance. A homicide investigation followed but got nowhere until 1998, when Detective Sergeant Damian Loone was handed Lynette's file. For nearly two decades he made it his business to honour Lynette and to find out what had happened to her. His work led to two coronial investigations, but no charges. Around this time Rebecca Hazel was working in a women's refuge on the Northern Beaches when a colleague shared her story of enduring coercive control at the hands of Dawson, when she was his student, and then wife and she shared her suspicions about the fate of his first wife Lynette. These revelations affected Rebecca, and eventually she decided to investigate. Over years, coroners, police and journalists all shared with Rebecca their knowledge of the case, and disappointments that it remained unsolved. Until, in May 2018, Hedley Thomas launched the Teacher's Pet podcast, and in December 2018, Chris Dawson was charged with murder. He was convicted in August 2022. Rebecca Hazel has spent ten years working to ensure that the stories of two women who were misused by Chris Dawson are heard, that their perpetrator is brought to justice and that Lynette's family can properly honour their much-loved sister, aunt, cousin and mother.

Rebecca Hazel (Author), Natasha Beaumont (Narrator)

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Wicked Beyond Belief: The Hunt for the Yorkshire Ripper

Now a major TV series ‘A masterpiece that reads like a thriller’ Time Out A gripping and probing account of the biggest criminal manhunt in British history. It is over 40 years since Peter Sutcliffe was convicted of murdering 13 women and attacking 7 more. Still, he remains a killer of almost mythical proportions; his surviving victims, and their families, forever attached to his infamy. Michael Bilton’s acclaimed account is a powerful indictment of the calamitous investigation that logged over 2 million man-hours of police work – the biggest criminal manhunt in British history. With exclusive access to the detectives involved, the pathologist’s archives and declassified documents, this account reads like the most gripping of thrillers. Fully updated for this edition.

Michael Bilton (Author), Marston York (Narrator)

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True Crime Audiobooks in Mystery, Thriller & Horror