True crime is all the rage with dozens of books, podcasts, and shows and movies focused on various cases. The true crime community is always buzzing about the latest “must-watch” shows and movies especially, but they know that the shows and movies don’t cover it all.
The most voracious true crime fans seek out other points of view and other accounts to get ALL the details. For those most dedicated fans, we put together a list of true crime books to supplement your favorite shows and movies.
THE ENIGMA OF TED BUNDY by Kevin Sullivan (Ted Bundy: Falling for a Killer; Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil And Vile; Conversations with a Killer: The Ted Bundy Tapes)
If you want a view into the world that lies behind the Ted Bundy murders, this last work in a series of six books on Bundy, is definitely for you. For within these pages you’ll read of the many questions still surrounding this fascinating and intricate case, as well as the answers that are only now being provided here. There’s so much more to learn, and new information is still surfacing about Bundy, his victims and his potential victims. As such, there is new testimony included from those who had a brush with the killer, and others who played their own roles in this multi-state case. A must-read for those true crime readers fascinated by America’s most enigmatic and infamous serial killer.
If you can’t get enough of Bundy, check out Sullivan’s other books on the case here.
WRECKING CREW by John Ferak (Netflix’s Making A Murderer)
While working for USA TODAY’s Investigative Team, John Ferak wrote dozens of articles on the murder case against Steven Avery, who had already beat one wrongful conviction only to be charged with the murder of Teresa Halbach. In WRECKING CREW, Ferak lays out the post-conviction strategy of Kathleen Zellner, the high-profile lawyer, to free Avery.
MY SON, THE KILLER by Brian Whitney with Anna Yourkin (Netflix’s Don’t F**k With Cats)
In 2012, Luka Magnotta had earned his notoriety by videotaping himself stabbing Chinese student Lin Jun to death with an ice pick and dismembering the body, before posting the video online. After mailing Jun’s hands and feet to elementary schools, he was arrested at an Internet café in Berlin where he was reading news stories about himself.
BETRAYAL IN BLUE by Burl Barer, Ken Eurell, and Frank C Girardot Jr. (The Seven Five)
They had no fear of the cops because they were the cops. NYPD officers Mike Dowd and Kenny Eurell knew there were two ways to get rich quick in Brooklyn’s Lower East Side. You either became drug dealers, or you robbed drug dealers. These “Cocaine Cops” did both and ended up running the most powerful gang in New York’s 75th Precinct in the 1980s.
THE CASE OF THE ZODIAC KILLER by Michael Morford and Michael Ferguson (Zodiac)
In the late 1960’s and early 1970’s, a serial killer terrorized the San Francisco Bay area of California. Through bold letters and cryptic ciphers mailed to local newspapers as well as taunting calls to police, the Zodiac left his mark. Then without warning he was gone, but not before achieving infamy in true crime history. Criminology podcast takes the deepest dives into the most mysterious true crime cases using actual case files, documents, and police reports to help tell the full and accurate story of the crimes they cover.
THE CASE OF THE GOLDEN STATE KILLER by Michael Morford And Michael Ferguson (HBO’s I’ll Be Gone In The Dark)
In 1976, a serial rapist terrorized Sacramento County in California. The masked predator made his way into the homes of his victims, leaving a trail of devastation behind him. He moved on to other areas in California where he sank to an all new level of depravity, and his evil urges drove him to murder; again, and again. Joined by the investigators who hunted him, the witnesses who saw him, and the survivors who lived to tell their stories, Criminology Season Two: The Case of the Golden State Killer examines the story of the most prolific serial rapist and murderer in American history.
ROOM 1203 by Andy Caldwell (American Crime Story: OJ Simpson)
(Okay, so this book isn’t about OJ’s famous 1994 trial like the American Crime Story series. But we figured fans of the show may want to know how OJ actually ended up in prison.)
ROOM 1203 is the true story of the convoluted and bizarre events surrounding a violent armed robbery of a sports memorabilia collector in a Vegas hotel. On that night, Simpson put an exclamation mark on his spectacular fall from the height of Hollywood’s glamour and glitz to a shadowy world of scams and schemers in Sin City. Written by the lead detective assigned to the case, the book provides details, insights and facts not previously reported, as well as the investigation that pieced the crime together and landed an arrogant man who believed he was above the law in a Nevada prison.
REPEAT OFFENDER by Bradley Nickell (Repeat Offender)
Millions in stolen property, revolting sex crimes and murder-for-hire were all in the mix for a Las Vegas police detective as he toiled to take Sin City’s most prolific criminal off the streets. In REPEAT OFFENDER Las Vegas Police Detective Bradley Nickell provides the inside scoop on the most prolific repeat offender Las Vegas has ever known.
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