Washoe County Library System

The author of the acclaimed true-crime memoir, The Kill Jar, tells the inside story of the “University of Idaho Murders,” offering a memorable, thoughtful dive into our societal fascination with true crime, the media’s seeming blood-frenzy, and the future of homicide investigations, while cultivating an intimate look into the minds and hearts of the victims and their suspected killer alike. Just after 4:00 am on November 13, 2022, four University...

"On January 21, 1958, nineteen-year-old Charles Starkweather changed the course of crime in the United States when he murdered the parents and sister of his fourteen-year-old girlfriend (and possible accomplice), Caril Ann Fugate, in a house on the edge of Lincoln, Nebraska. They then drove to the nearby town of Bennet, where a farmer was robbed and killed. When Starkweather's car broke down, the teenagers who stopped to help were murdered and jammed...

"With stunning detail, Patty Wetterling shares the untold story of the 27-year search for her son Jacob—and its astonishing conclusion. On October 22, 1989, in the small town of St. Joseph, Minnesota, eleven-year-old Jacob Wetterling was kidnapped at gunpoint. Twenty-seven years later, on September 2, 2016, Danny Heinrich led authorities to the boy’s remains. What lies between is the riveting story of the search for Jacob Wetterling, told by...

"David Grann meets Susan Orlean in this page-turning true story of an underground operation into the mysterious world of alligator poaching and its larger than life Floridian characters To catch a Florida Man, you have to become one, and that's what Officer Jeff Babauta did. As his ponytailed, whiskey-soaked alter ego, he established Sunshine Alligator Farm. His goal? Infiltrate the shady world of illegal poachers in the Florida Everglades in order...

"One January day in 1923, a young boy came across the dead body of a twenty-year-old woman on a San Diego beach. When the police arrived on the scene, they found the woman's calling card, which read simply, "I am Fritzie Mann." Yet Fritzie's identity, asrevealed in this compelling history, was anything but simple, and her death-eventually ruled a homicide-captured public attention for months. In Fritzie, historian Amy Absher reveals how broader cultural...

"Philippa Langley took the world by storm when, against all the odds and after a seven-year investigation, she discovered the grave of King Richard III (1452-1485) in a Leicester car park. A king finally laid to rest, the rediscovery and reburial of Richard III was watched by a global audience of over 366 million. Now, in The Princes in the Tower, Langley reveals the findings of a remarkable new research initiative: "The Missing Princes Project."...

"In this fascinating exploration of murder in the nineteenth century, Judith Flanders examines some of the most gripping cases that captivated the Victorians and gave rise to the first detective fiction Murder in Britain in the nineteenth century was rare. But murder as sensation and entertainment became ubiquitous, transformed into novels, into broadsides and ballads, into theatre and melodrama and opera-even into puppet shows and performing dog-acts....

Gypsy-Rose Blanchard discovered that her whole life was a lie. After eight-and-a-half years of incarceration, she can finally tell you the truth—with this exclusive collection of interview transcripts and journal entries, plus her own illustrations and photos.
 
While incarcerated for her role in her mother’s death, Gypsy saw her story told by others again and again in the media, from news reports and podcasts...

"A child disappears . . . a foster mom faces an impossible choice . . . a baby's future hangs in the balance. When Debra Moerke and her husband decided to become foster parents, they never imagined how their lives would change. Debra became especially close to one little girl: four-year-old Hannah. She loved her and did everything she could to help Hannah learn to trust and teach her to feel safe. But when Hannah went back to her birth mother, Karen,...

"The Evidence of Things Not Seen, award-winning author James Baldwin's searing 1985 indictment of the nation's racial stagnation, is contextualized anew by an introduction from New York Times bestselling author and political leader Stacey Abrams. In thisessential work, James Baldwin examines the Atlanta child murders that took place over twenty-two months in 1979 and 1980. Examining this incident with a reporter's skill and an essayist's insight,...