True Crime Audiobooks | Non-Fiction

Murder in the Bayou: Who Killed the Women Known as the Jeff Davis 8?

An explosive, true-life southern gothic story, Murder in the Bayou chronicles the twists and turns of a high-stakes investigation into the murders of eight women in a troubled Louisiana parish. Between 2005 and 2009, the bodies of eight women were discovered around the murky canals and crawfish ponds of Jennings, Louisiana, a bayou town of 10,000 in the heart of the Jefferson Davis parish. Local law enforcement officials were quick to pursue a serial killer theory, opening a floodgate of media coverage, from CNN to the New York Times. Collectively the victims became known as the "Jeff Davis 8," and their lives, their deaths, and the ongoing investigation reveals a small southern community's most closely guarded secrets. As Ethan Brown suggests, these homicides were not the work of a single serial killer, but the violent fallout of Jennings' brutal sex and drug trade, a backwoods underworld hidden in plain sight. Mixing muckraking research and immersive journalism over the course of a five-year investigation, Ethan Brown reviewed thousands of pages of previously unseen homicide files to determine what happened during each victim's final hours. Epic in scope and intensely suspenseful, Murder in the Bayou is the story of an American town buckling under the dark forces of poverty, race, and class division-and a lightning rod for justice for the daughters it lost. "Ethan Brown's daring and dangerous exposé uncovers a murky inferno of violence and corruption in south Louisiana, where it's hard to tell the good guys from the bad, and the brutal murders of eight prostitutes go unpunished, though not necessarily unsolved."-John Berendt, New York Times bestselling author

Ethan Brown (Author), Traber Burns (Narrator)

Audiobook

Dead Reckoning

Happy and retired, Tom and Jackie Hawks lived a charmed life in sunny Southern California. They were delighted when former child star Skylar Deleon and his pregnant wife, Jennifer, offered cash to purchase their fifty-five-foot yacht, the Well Deserved . . . But a trial voyage turned into a nightmare. Out at sea, the Hawkses begged for their lives as they were forced to sign everything over to Skylar. In return, they were tied to the ship's anchor and thrown overboard-alive. Skylar and Jennifer's twisted story became even more shocking when Skylar's unusual sexual motivations were revealed in court. After killing a man while out of jail on work furlough, he reportedly tried to hire hits from prison on four witnesses, including his father. For this former child actor, the answer to "Where are they now?" is Death Row.

Caitlin Rother (Author), Julie McKay (Narrator)

Audiobook

Body Count

By day, Robert Lee Yates, Jr., was a respected father of five, a skilled helicopter pilot who served in Desert Storm and the National Guard, and a man no one suspected of a deadly hidden life. By night he prowled the streets where prostitutes gathered, gaining their trust before betraying them with a bullet to the head. On August 26, 1997, the decomposed bodies of two young women were discovered in Spokane, Washington. Within months, four more women were added to the mounting death toll. In 2000, Yates pleaded guilty to 13 murders to avoid the death penalty. But in 2001, he was convicted of two more murders and is now on death row in Washington State, waiting for the day when he will die by lethal injection. Updated with the latest disturbing developments, award-winning author Burl Barer's real-life thriller is a shocking portrait of one man's depravity.

Burl Barer (Author), Paul McClain (Narrator)

Audiobook

Robert Berdella: The True Story of The Kansas City Butcher

When Chris Bryson was discovered nude and severely beaten stumbling down Charlotte Street in Kansas City in 1988, Police had no idea they were about to discover the den of one of the most sadistic American serial killers in recent history. This is the true historical story of Robert Berdella, nicknamed by the media the Kansas City Butcher, who from between 1984 and 1988 brutally raped, tortured and ultimately dismembered 6 young male prostitutes in his unassuming home on a quiet street in Kansas City. Based on the actual 720 page detailed confession provided by Berdella to investigators, it represents one of the most gruesome true crime stories of all time and is unique in the fact that it details each grizzly murder as told by the killer himself. From how he captured each man, to the terrifying methods he used in his torture chamber, to ultimately how he disposed of their corpses - rarely has there ever been a case where a convicted serial killer confessed to police in his own words his crimes in such disturbing detail. Horrific, shocking and rarely equaled in the realms of sadistic torture – Berdella was a sexually driven lust killer and one of the most sadistic sex criminals ever captured. Not for the faint of heart, this is the tale of Robert “Bob“ Berdella, the worst serial killer in Kansas City History and for those that are fans of historical serial killers, is a true must read.

Jack Rosewood (Author), Gaius M. Thynne (Narrator)

Audiobook

Murder in the Family

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 bed. In other rooms were the bodies of her eight-year-old daughter, Melissa, and her three-year-old, Angie, whose throat was slit from ear to ear. Both Nancy and Melissa had been sexually assaulted. After an intense investigation, the police narrowed the principal suspect down to 23-year-old Kirby Anthoney, a troubled drifter who had turned to his uncle, Nancy's husband John, for help and a place to stay. Little did John know that the nephew he took in was a murderous sociopath capable of slaughtering his beloved family. This true story, shocking and tragic, stunned Anchorage's residents and motivated the Major Crimes Unit of the Anchorage Police Department to do everything right in their investigation. Feeling the heat as the police built their case, Kirby bolted for the Canadian border. But the cops were on to him. First they hunted him down; then the cops and a tenacious prosecutor began their long, bitter battle to convict him against an equally tough defense lawyer, as well as the egomaniacal defendant himself. This shocking tale reached its climax in a controversial trial 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. But justice would not be served until after the psychopathic Kirby Anthoney took the stand in his own defense, and showed the world the monster he truly was.

Burl Barer (Author), James Edward Thomas (Narrator)

Audiobook

Possessed: The Infamous Texas Stiletto Murder

The officer responding to a 911 call at one of Houston's hippest high-rises expected the worst. After all, domestic violence situations can be unpredictable. But nothing could've prepared him for what he found: a beautiful woman drenched in blood, an older man lying dead on the floor, and a cobalt blue suede stiletto with tufts of white hair stuck to its five-and-a-half-inch heel. With her stunning looks, magnetic personality, and erratic behavior, Ana Trujillo had a notorious reputation on the downtown Houston scene. She spoke often of occult powers, though few knew how deeply she believed such boasts. Stefan Andersson was a gentle soul, a Swedish transplant with a good career and trusted friends, who was desperate to find someone special. Theirs is a story of obsession, madness, and tragedy. Because once Stefan fell head over heels for Ana, he was under her control-and he didn't have a chance in hell.

Kathryn Casey (Author), Heather Auden (Narrator)

Audiobook

American Murder Houses: A Coast-to-Coast Tour of the Most Notorious Houses of Homicide

There are places in the United States of America where violent acts of bloodshed have occurred. Years may pass-even centuries-but the mark of death remains. They are known as Murder Houses. From a colonial manse in New England to a small-town home in Iowa to a Beverly Hills mansion, these residences have taken on a life of their own, gaining everything from local lore and gossip to national-and even global-infamy. Here, writer Steve Lehto recounts the stories behind the houses where Lizzie Borden supposedly gave her stepmother "forty whacks," where the real Amityville Horror was first unleashed by gunfire, and where the demented acts of the Manson Family horrified a nation-as well some lesser-known sites of murder that were no less ghastly. Exploring the past and present of more than twenty-five renowned homicide scenes, American Murder Houses is a tour through the real estate of some of the most grisly and fascinating crimes in American history.

Steve Lehto (Author), Barry Press (Narrator)

Audiobook

Undisclosed Files of the Police: Cases from the Archives of the NYPD from 1831 to the Present

More than 175 years of true crimes culled from the city's police blotter, told through startling, rarely seen images and insightful text by two NYPD officers and a NYC crime reporter. From atrocities that occurred before the establishment of New York's police force in 1845 through the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center in 2001 to the present day, this visual history is an insider's look at more than 80 real-life crimes that shocked the nation, from arson to gangland murders, robberies, serial killers, bombings, and kidnappings, including: Architect Stanford White's fatal shooting at Madison Square Garden over his deflowering of a teenage chorus girl. The anarchist bombing of Wall Street in 1920, which killed 39 people and injured hundreds more with flying shrapnel. The 1928 hit at the Park Sheraton Hotel on mobster Arnold Rothstein, who died refusing to name his shooter. Kitty Genovese's 1964 senseless stabbing, famously witnessed by dozen of bystanders who did not intervene. Son of Sam, a serial killer who eluded police for months while terrorizing the city, was finally apprehended through a simple parking ticket. Perfect for crime buffs, urban historians, and fans of Serial and Making of a Murderer, this riveting collection details New York's most startling and unsettling crimes through behind-the-scenes analysis of investigations and more than 500 revealing photographs.

Bernard Whalen, Philip Messing, Robert Mladinich (Author), Peter Ganim (Narrator)

Audiobook

Die Spur des Geldes: Menschenschmuggler

Eine internationale Bande schafft Afrikaner übers Mittelmeer - Tausende sterben dabei. Die Drahtzieher im Millionengeschäft werden gejagt. Eine Fährtensuche von Tripolis über Palermo bis Frankfurt. Der SPIEGEL hat monatelang in Libyen und Italien, im Frankfurter Bahnhofs- und im Berliner Regierungsviertel recherchiert. Mehr als tausend Seiten italienischer Ermittlungsakten wurden ausgewertet, vertrauliche Dossiers geprüft, überlebende Bootsflüchtlinge befragt. Die Fakten fügen sich zum Porträt einer Gattung zynischer Menschenhändler, die den Tod Tausender in Kauf nehmen; die Flüchtlinge einsperren, foltern, wie Vieh verkaufen. Dies ist die Vertonung eines Artikels aus der SPIEGEL-Ausgabe 39/2016. Sie entstand in Zusammenarbeit mit der Deutschen Blindenstudienanstalt e.V.

Der Spiegel (Author), Deutsche Blindenstudienanstalt E.V. (Narrator)

Audiobook

Indefensible

After serving eighteen years for a crime he didn't commit, Steven Avery was freed-and filed a thirty-six-million-dollar lawsuit against Manitowoc County, Wisconsin. But before the suit could be settled, Avery was arrested again-this time for the brutal murder of Teresa Halbach-and, through the office of a special prosecutor, convicted once more. When the saga exploded onto the public consciousness with the airing of Making a Murderer, Michael Griesbach, a prosecutor and member of Wisconsin's Innocence Project who had been instrumental in Avery's 2003 exoneration, was targeted on social media, threatened-and plagued by doubt. Now, in this suspenseful, thorough narrative, he recounts his own re-examination of the evidence in light of the whirlwind of controversy stirred up by the blockbuster true-crime series. As Griesbach carefully reviews allegations of tampering and planted evidence, the confession by Avery's developmentally disabled nephew, statements by Avery's former girlfriend, previously sealed documents deemed inadmissible at trial, and a little-known theory of a plausible alternate suspect, he shows how the filmmakers' agenda, the accused man's dramatic backstory, and sensational media coverage have clouded the truth about Steven Avery. Now as Avery's defense counsel files an appeal and prepares to do battle in the courtroom once more, Griesbach fights to set the record straight, determined that evidence should be followed where it leads and justice should be served-for as surely as our legal system should not send an innocent man to prison, neither should it let a guilty man walk free.

Michael Griesbach (Author), James Foster (Narrator)

Audiobook

The Want-Ad Killer

After his first grisly crime, Harvey Louis Carignan beat a death sentence and continued to manipulate, rape, and bludgeon women to death-using want ads to lure his young female victims. And time after time, justice was thwarted by a killer whose twisted legal genius was matched only by his sick savagery. Here, complete with the testimony of women who suffered his unspeakable sexual abuses and barely escaped with their lives, and of the police who at last put him behind bars, is one of the most shattering and thought-provoking true-crime stories of our time.

Ann Rule (Author), Paul Boehmer (Narrator)

Audiobook

Adnan's Story: The Search for Truth and Justice After Serial

"The first letter I received after being arrested in 1999 was from Rabia. Since that time until now, she has believed in my innocence and been committed to my exoneration. . . . [T]here is no one better to help tell my story, and no one that I trust more to tell it, than Rabia. Adnan Syed On February 28, 2000, Adnan Syed was convicted and sentenced to life plus thirty years for the murder of his ex-girlfriend Hae Min Lee, a high school senior in Baltimore, Maryland. From the moment of his arrest, Syed has consistently maintained his innocence. Rabia Chaudry, a family friend, always believed him and has never given up the hope that he might someday be released. By 2013, however, after almost all appeals had been exhausted, things looked bleak. That's when Rabia contacted Sarah Koenig, a producer at This American Life, in the hopes of finding a journalist who would bring greater attention to Adnan's story and might shed new light on the case. Koenig's investigation turned into Serial, an international phenomenon and Peabody Award-winning podcast. Adnan's Story will reexamine the investigation that led to Adnan Syed's arrest, share his life in prison, cover new evidence and possibilities that have since come to light, and review the recent court successes -including a ruling this week by a Maryland judge to reopen Syed's case. Woven with personal reflections from Adnan himself, including new never-before-seen letters he penned from prison, the story of his family, community, and public advocate Chaudry, the book offers new insight into the story that captivated the attention of millions as his legal team and investigatory team, along with countless others who have crowd-sourced an investigation like never before, seek to exonerate him and find out the truth of what really happened on that day in 1999. What has captivated the public about Adnan's story are the layers of contradictions, fascinating characters, cultural dissonance, and fog of ambiguity around what really happened to Hae Min Lee. But this is not just a personal story, it is a testament to a thoroughly broken system that convicts tens of thousands of innocent people, and how the power of the media and public can move rigid institutions to bring about justice.

Rabia Chaudry (Author), Rabia Chaudry (Narrator)

Audiobook

True Crime Audiobooks in Non-Fiction