True Crime Audiobooks | Mystery, Thriller & Horror

Ted Bundy: Conversations with a Killer Audiobook

Presented for the first time in audio format, the chilling transcript of Stephen G Michaud and Hugh Aynesworth's interviews with notorious serial killer Ted Bundy, as seen on the hit Netflix documentary series Conversation with a Killer: The Ted Bundy Tapes—based on their New York Times bestselling book. Handsome and educated, Ted Bundy killed scores of women during the 1970s, eventually confessing to thirty murders committed over seven states between 1974 and 1978. In 1979, much to the surprise of the nation, Bundy made the bold decision to represent himself in the Chi Omega murder case, thinking that his intelligence and enigmatic charm could best the prosecution. He was convicted, however, and was incarcerated on death row in Florida State Prison. After he exhausted all appeals, Bundy spoke to detectives, confessing to other homicides he committed across several states. He had already spoken frankly about himself, his victims, and his crimes to famed journalists Stephen G. Michaud and Hugh Aynesworth. Thirty years later, thanks to the combination of an unlikely killer, a sensational murder trial (featuring Bundy acting as his own attorney), and a series of Death Row interviews that represented the dynamics of any extraordinary psychological profile, this prolific serial killer continues to intrigue and haunt the American popular imagination. Yet as Netflix’s sensational show reveals, an old case is never as preserved as it may seem. Presented in audio format for the first time, Ted Bundy: Conversations with a Killer provides shocking insights into the killer's 11th-hour confessions before his death in a Florida electric chair in January 1989. Drawn from more than 150 hours of exclusive tape-recorded interviews with Bundy in 1980 by Michaud and Aynesworth—in which the veteran journalist used a psychological tactic to get Bundy talking in the third person-this audiobook, voiced by a cast of narrators, is a harrowing portrait of a serial killer’s final reckoning and the two journalists trying to understand the psychology behind the darkness.

Hugh Aynesworth, Stephen G. Michaud (Author), Graham Halstead, Jason Culp, Keith Sellon-Wright (Narrator)

Audiobook

And the Sea Will Tell

Alone with her new husband on a tiny Pacific atoll, a young woman, combing the beach, finds an odd aluminum container washed up out of the lagoon, and beside it on the sand something glitters: a gold tooth in a scorched human skull. The investigation that follows uncovers an extraordinarily complex and puzzling true-crime story. Only Vincent Bugliosi, who recounted his successful prosecution of mass murderer Charles Manson in the bestseller Helter Skelter, was able to draw together the hundreds of conflicting details of the mystery and reconstruct what really happened when four people found hell in a tropical paradise. And the Sea Will Tell reconstructs the events and subsequent trial of a riveting true murder mystery, and probes into the dark heart of a serpentine scenario of death.

Vincent Bugliosi (Author), David Colacci (Narrator)

Audiobook

Three Sisters in Black: The Bizarre True Case of the Bathtub Tragedy

In 1909, a bathtub drowning became one of the most famous and bizarre criminal cases in American history. On November 29, 1909, police were called to a ramshackle home in East Orange, New Jersey, where they found the emaciated body of twenty-four-year-old Oceana "Ocey" Snead facedown in the bathtub-dead of an apparent suicide by drowning. There was even a note left behind. But it would not take authorities long to discover that Ocey's death was no suicide. And Ocey's own mother and two aunts were far from the sorrowful caretakers they appeared to be. In fact, behind the veils of their strange black mourning clothes, they were monsters, having tormented Ocey almost since birth in a sick pattern of both physical and mental abuse, after a lifetime of which the women planned to cash in on poor Ocey's sad and inevitable death. An Edgar Award finalist, Three Sisters in Black is the true story of a gothic, gaslight nightmare that fascinated, shocked, and baffled the nation-and the disturbed women who almost got away with murder.

Norman Zierold (Author), Gabrielle De Cuir (Narrator)

Audiobook

Blonde Rattlesnake: Burmah Adams, Tom White, and the 1933 Crime Spree that Terrorized Los Angeles

Nineteen-year-old Burmah Adams, a hairdresser and former Santa Ana High School student, spent her honeymoon on a crime spree. She and her husband of less than one week, White, an ex-con, robbed at least twenty people in and around downtown L.A. at gunpoint over an eight-week period. But the worst of their crimes was the shooting of a popular elementary school teacher, Cora Withington, and a former publisher, Crombie Allen, who was teaching her how to drive his new car. A few days later, a watchful pair of patrolmen in a Westlake neighborhood called their detective colleagues at the Los Angeles Police Department; they had spotted a car that looked like one the duo had stolen days before. Two of these detectives dressed as mechanics and kept an eye on the apartment building until Burmah and Thomas appeared one afternoon. As police swarmed the building, Burmah tried to hurl herself out of a third-story window, while Thomas shot at officers and was immediately gunned down and killed. Blond Rattlesnake reveals the events that brought Adams and White together and details the crime spree they committed in the sweltering hot days and nights of Los Angeles in the height of the Great Depression.

Julia Bricklin (Author), Callie Beaulieu (Narrator)

Audiobook

The Murder in the Graveyard: A Brutal Murder. A Wrongful Conviction. A 27-Year Fight for Justice.

'An Extraordinary story of innocence and persecution, determination and grit ... it had me rattling through the pages' SOPHIE DRAPER A gripping true crime investigation into the longest miscarriage of justice in British legal history. In September 1973, Stephen Downing was convicted and indefinitely sentenced for the murder of Wendy Sewell, a young legal secretary in the town of Bakewell in the Peak District. Wendy was attacked in broad daylight in Bakewell Cemetery. Stephen Downing, the 17-year-old groundskeeper with learning difficulties and a reading age of 11, was the primary suspect. He was immediately arrested, questioned for nine hours, without a solicitor present, and pressured into signing a confession full of words he did not understand. 21 years later, local newspaper editor Don Hale was thrust into the case. Determined to take it to appeal, as he investigated the details, he found himself inextricably linked to the narrative. He faced obstacles at every turn, and suffered several attempts on his life. All of this merely strengthened his resolve: why should anyone threaten him if Downing had committed the crime? In 2002, Stephen Downing was finally acquitted, having served 27 years in prison. Immerse yourself in this masterful account of Hale's long, dedicated and often dangerous campaign to rescue a long-forgotten victim of the British legal system; the longest miscarriage of justice in British history

Don Hale (Author), Don Hale (Narrator)

Audiobook

Betrayal in Blood: The Murder of Tabatha Bryant

'Mommy . . . won't be with us anymore.' That's what attorney Kevin C. Bryant, forty-five, told his two young sons in the spring of 2003. At the time, blond, pretty, twenty-six-year-old Tabatha Bryant was alive and well in an upscale suburb of Rochester, New York. But that was about to change-because Bryant knew his wife was cheating, and he intended to end the affair by ending her life. On June 14, 2003, he called 9-1-1 to report Tabatha slain by an unknown intruder who'd shot her in the eye with a .22 and repeatedly stabbed her in the neck and upper body. Soon, a drug bust led to Cassidy Green's confession that she'd driven the getaway car. She fingered boyfriend Cyril Winebrenner as the killer. Winebrenner and Kevin Bryant were buddies who'd regularly gone on cocaine-fueled sex binges with hookers. Astoundingly, Winebrenner was also the victim's half-brother-but Bryant's offer of $5,000 had convinced him that money is thicker than blood. In a trial that shook 'Country Club Row,' prosecutors would present evidence and testimonies that revealed even more sordid details, bringing the lawyer who tried to get away with murder to justice.

Michael Benson (Author), Charles Constant (Narrator)

Audiobook

Chaos: Charles Manson, the CIA and the Secret History of the Sixties

Penguin presents the audiobook edition of Chaos written by Tom O'Neill with Dan Piepenbring, read by Kevin Stillwell. A journalist's twenty-year obsession with the Manson murders leads to shocking new conspiracy theories about the FBI's involvement in this fascinating re-evaluation of one of the most infamous cases in American history. In 1999, when Tom O'Neill was assigned a magazine piece about the thirtieth anniversary of the Manson murders, he worried there was nothing new to say. Weren't the facts indisputable? Charles Manson had ordered his teenage followers to commit seven brutal murders, and in his thrall, they'd gladly complied. But when O'Neill began reporting the story, he kept finding holes in the prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi's narrative, long enshrined in the bestselling Helter Skelter. Before long, O'Neill had questions about everything from the motive to the manhunt. Though he'd never considered himself a conspiracy theorist, the Manson murders swallowed the next two decades of his career. He was obsessed. Searching but never speculative, CHAOS follows O'Neill's twenty-year effort to rebut the 'official' story behind Manson. Who were his real friends in Hollywood, and how far would they go to hide their ties? Why didn't law enforcement act on their many chances to stop him? And how did he turn a group of peaceful hippies into remorseless killers? O'Neill's hunt for answers leads him from reclusive celebrities to seasoned spies, from the Summer of Love to the shadowy sites of the CIA's mind-control experiments, on a trail rife with cover-ups and coincidences. Featuring hundreds of new interviews and dozens of never-before-seen documents from the LAPD, the FBI and the CIA, CHAOS mounts an argument that could be, according to Los Angeles Deputy District Attorney Stephen Kay, strong enough to overturn the verdicts on the Manson murders. In those two dark nights in Los Angeles, O'Neill finds the story of California in the sixties: when charlatans mixed with prodigies, free love was as possible as brainwashing, and utopia-or dystopia-was just an acid trip away. 'Riveting ... Sensational revelations ... True crime fans will be enthralled.' PUBLISHERS WEEKLY '[Full of] scandalous findings ... to me it seems only too plausible. O'Neill's intricately sinister 'secret history' often sounds incredible; that doesn't mean that it's not all true.' OBSERVER

Dan Piepenbring, Tom O'neill, Tom O’neill (Author), Kevin Stillwell (Narrator)

Audiobook

Conviction: The Murder Trial That Powered Thurgood Marshall's Fight for Civil Rights

On New Year's Eve, 1939, a horrific triple murder occurred in rural Oklahoma. Within a matter of days, investigators identified several suspects: convicts who had been at a craps game with one of the victims the night before. Also at the craps game was a young black farmer named W. D. Lyons. As anger at authorities grew, political pressure mounted to find a villain. The governor's representative settled on Lyons, who was arrested, tortured into signing a confession, and tried for the murder. The NAACP's new Legal Defense and Education Fund sent its young chief counsel, Thurgood Marshall, to take part in the trial. The NAACP desperately needed money, and Marshall was convinced that the Lyons case could be a fundraising boon for both the state and national organizations. It was. The case went on to the US Supreme Court, and the NAACP raised much-needed money from the publicity. Conviction is the story of Lyons v. Oklahoma, the oft-forgotten case that set Marshall and the NAACP on the path that led ultimately to victory in Brown v. Board of Education and the accompanying social revolution in the United States.

Denver Nicks, John Nicks (Author), Ron Butler (Narrator)

Audiobook

They Walk Among Us: New true crime cases from the No.1 podcast

Penguin presents the audiobook edition of They Walk Among Us written by Benjamin and Rosanna Fitton, read by Benjamin Fitton. A Chilling Casebook of Horrifying Hometown Crimes How well do you really know your friends? Neighbours, friends, doctors and colleagues. We see them every day. We trust them implicitly. But what about the British army sergeant who sabotaged his wife's parachute? Or the lodger who took his landlady on a picnic from which she never returned? From dentists to PAs, these normal-seeming people were quietly wrecking lives, and nobody suspected a thing. In this first book from the addictive award-winning podcast They Walk Among Us, Benjamin and Rosanna serve up small-town stories in gripping detail. They've hooked millions of listeners with their intricate and disturbing cases, and now they dig into ten more tales, to provide an unforgettably sinister true-crime experience, scarily close to home. It could happen to you.

Benjamin And Rosanna Fitton (Author), Benjamin Fitton (Narrator)

Audiobook

The Killer Across the Table: From the authors of Mindhunter

'John Douglas is the FBI's pioneer and master of investigative profiling, and one of the most exciting figures in law enforcement I've had the privilege of knowing' Patricia Cornwell 'John Douglas knows more about serial killers than anybody in the world' Jonathan Demme, Director of The Silence of the Lambs In The Killer Across the Table, legendary FBI criminal profiler and number one bestselling author John Douglas delves deep into the lives and crimes of four of the most disturbing and complex predatory killers he's encountered, offering never-before-revealed details about his profiling process and divulging the strategies used to crack some of his most challenging cases. Former Special Agent John Douglas has sat across the table from many of the world's most notorious killers - including Charles Manson, Jeffrey Dahmer, 'Coed Killer' Edmund Kemper, 'Son of Sam Killer' David Berkowitz and 'BTK Strangler' Dennis Rader, and has also been instrumental in the exoneration of Amanda Knox and the West Memphis Three. He has gone on to become a legend in the world of criminal investigative analysis, and his work has inspired TV shows and films such as Mindhunter, Criminal Minds and The Silence of the Lambs. In this riveting work of true crime, Douglas spotlights four very different criminals he's confronted over the course of his career, and explains how they helped him to put together the puzzle of how psychopaths and predators think. Taking us inside the interrogation room and demonstrating the unique techniques he uses to understand the workings of the most terrifying and incomprehensible minds, The Killer Across the Table is an unputdownable journey into the darkest reaches of criminal profiling and behavioural science from a man who knows serial killers better than anyone else. As Douglas says: 'If you want to understand the artist, look at his art.' If you want to understand what makes a murderer, start here.

John E. Douglas, Mark Olshaker (Author), Jonathan Groff (Narrator)

Audiobook

No Handcuffs: The Final Word on My War with The Krays

Eddie Richardson is the last brand-name gangster. Say the name and the world of violent criminality grabs you by the throat. The Richardson brothers, Eddie and Charlie, and their infamous 'Torture Gang', made money while their rivals Ronnie and Reggie Kray made fatal mischief. They fought each other, but now, in 2018, Eddie Richardson says: 'They tell me blood is thicker than water, but with Charlie it wasn't so. He was evil.' With his brother dead, Eddie Richardson feels free to detail the story of a vicious family feud that provoked extravagant acrimony. No Handcuffs unravels the mysteries of decades of crime and political incident. The story of a turbulent era, it rivals the most imaginative fiction in its portrayal of gangland life with all its chanciness and rawness and careless disregard for any obstacle on the way to its target, the big money. In an inspired collaboration with bestselling author Douglas Thompson, the mature Eddie Richardson is given a voice to reflect on his journey from the scrapyards of South London to the glitz and glamour of the West End nightclubs, to the flesh and tease of Soho, down Downing Street and through the door of Number 10 to the perils of espionage and international intrigue, and his elevation to demigod status in hard-men territory - and finally as a high-security inmate at Her Majesty's pleasure, but with a personal fridge kept well stocked with gourmet food. No Handcuffs resonates today for, if anything, greed and corruption are more perverse, more rampant. As Eddie Richardson points out: 'We wrote the handbook for them.'

Eddie Richardson (Author), Eddie Richardson, Karl Jenkinson (Narrator)

Audiobook

The Mechanism: A Crime Network So Deep it Brought Down a Nation

Random House presents the audiobook edition of The Mechanism by Vladimir Netto, read by Robert G. Slade. INTRODUCTION BY MISHA GLENNY, author of McMafia A gripping narrative of power, corruption and greed, The Mechanism is the true story of how a simple investigation into money laundering uncovered the biggest corruption scandal in human history. When a small team of investigators discovered that a black market currency dealer was operating out of a Brazilian petrol station, they could never have imagined that their work would destroy the government and lead to the impeachment of two presidents. As the trail leads further and further into the centre of power, the search for the truth and pursuit of justice become ever more crucial. Taut and riveting, with more plot twists than the most compelling political thriller, The Mechanism is an essential work of non-fiction that exposes the rottenness caused when politicians and big businesses believe they are above the law.

Vladimir Netto (Author), Robert G. Slade (Narrator)

Audiobook

True Crime Audiobooks in Mystery, Thriller & Horror