Bøker av Ruth Kanton

In August 1994, two farmers working in a field stumbled upon the skeletal remains of Clinton Trezise. Unfortunately, there was no evidence present on the remains or the grave that could help police identify the victim. There was evidence of dyed hair and previously broken bones, which gave forensic experts hope that they would be able to identify the victim, but nobody came forth to claim the victim, not even after a $100,000 reward was offered. Trezise's family finally filed a missing person report in October 1995, but authorities still couldn't make the connection. Photos of Trezise were sent to forensic experts to compare against the skull, and they concluded that they were not a match - twice. Trezise was an openly gay man. Soon there would be numerous bodies of gay men found dead or missing in the area. A man or group of men were targeting them. Thus began the story of the Snowtown Murders...

On Wednesday May 6, 2020, investigators arrived at Clark Perry Baldwin's home in Waterloo, Iowa, and placed him under arrest for multiple murders. Brent Cooper, the district attorney general of the 22nd Judicial District in Tennessee announced the arrest later that day, revealing that Baldwin was the main suspect in three cold cases, one in Spring Hill Tennessee, and two in Wyoming. Baldwin is suspected of the 1991 murder of Pamela Rose Aldridge McCall and her unborn baby, and the 1992 murders of Bitter Creek Betty and the I-90 Jane Doe and her unborn baby. He was charged in Tennessee with two counts of murder in the case of McCall and her unborn baby. Two murder charges were also brought against him in Wyoming for the murder of the two Jane Does, Bitter Creek Betty and the I-90 Jane Doe, who had been discovered 400 miles apart in 1992. Baldwin, who grew up in Nashua, Iowa, graduated from Nashua-Plainfield High School in 1979. As an adult, he was a resident of a few different towns, including Nashua, Missouri, Waterloo, Virginia, Newport News, and Springfield. He worked as a long-haul trucker for Marten Transport for a number of years, spanning the times and locations of the murders.Baldwin's arrest came as a surprise to friends and neighbors, many of whom described him as a quiet person, with one person going as far as stating that he was a "gentle giant."What possessed Baldwin to commit the atrocities he did?

On July 15, Gianni Versace left his house in Miami Beach, Casa Casuarina, at around 8:30 a.m., and headed to News Café to pick up his morning coffee and a bunch of magazines. He walked home, and as he was opening the gate to his mansion at around 8:55 a.m., witnesses stated that they saw a man rushing over to Versace, and shot him twice in the back. In the ensuing commotion after the shots rang out, the man ran away from the scene, and a number of people saw him enter a parking garage. Police were called to the scene, and found Versace lying on the steps, bleeding from two bullet wounds, one in the back of the head, and one in the left cheek. One witness ran after the assailant, but was unable to catch him. Versace was rushed over to Jackson Memorial Hospital, where he was pronounced dead at 9:21 a.m. News of the shooting spread like wildfire, and in a few hours, news stations were on the scene, their vans and trucks blocking the roads as they delivered the breaking news. Miami Police quickly locked down the city, and began tracing the gunman's steps, following the witness reports. In the parking garage, officers found Reese's red truck parked, with clothes dropped on the ground next to the truck. The clothes matched witness descriptions of what the shooter was wearing. According to witnesses, a man had rushed out of the parking garage and hailed a cab.Who killed Gianni Versace and why?

Laura lived in room 518 in Hill Hall dormitory, a single room at Eastern Michigan University. When she walked into her door after the secret Santa Christmas party, she called her boyfriend Travis Scott, who worked at an engineering firm, Covanta Energy, in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Scott was working late, and the two spoke for a few minutes before Laura stated that she was turning in for the night. Laura had exams the next day, and when she failed to show up, her friends increasingly grew concerned. They began frantically calling her phone, but she was not picking up. In Hastings, Michigan, Robert and Debra Dickinson, Laura's parents, were also growing concerned. They were a tight-knit family, and the phone calls were frequent. Laura always picked up her phone, and in the rare occasions that she didn't, she always returned the calls soon after. They reached out to Scott, who was having the same problems. By December 15, 2006, two days after anyone last heard from Laura, Robert and Scott began making plans to drive down to the school. After discussing the plan, Scott decided that he would take the day off work and check on Laura, promising to call back with news as soon as he found out what was going on...What happened to Laura Dickinson?

Julie Ann Weflen was an oddity...a beautiful woman who eschewed a white collar office career, she became a power equipment technician...a blue collar job for the Bonneville Power Administration in Spokane, Washington. A petite woman who weighed in at less than 110 pounds, she was last seen on September 16th, 1987. Her hard hat, tool box, bottle of water, and sunglasses were all found near her abandoned truck. The vehicle door was left open and her purse remained inside. Dirt and the gravel near the truck showed that a struggle had taken place. Julie had tried to find off her attacker or attackers. Now over thirty years later, she has never been seen since.What happened to Julie Weflen?

Helle Crafts worked as a flight attendant while married to pilot Richard Crafts...The two were happily married for six years, raising three children, until Helle learned of her husband's affairs. She hired a defense attorney as well as a private investigator who photographed Richard making out with another stewardess. On November 18th, 1986, a group of friends dropped Helle off at her home....She was never seen or heard from again....Aided by a massive snowstorm, her husband Richard was able to evade questions on his wife's whereabouts from family and friends for several weeks. But those close to her became almost immediately concerned. Helle had warned them "if something happens to me, don't think it was an accident."What happened to Helle Crafts on that fateful night in November?

"The Disappearance of Ann Marie Burr" delves into one of America's most baffling missing person cases. Ann Marie Burr, an 8-year-old girl from Tacoma, Washington, vanished from her home in August 1961, sparking a mystery that remains unsolved to this day. The book explores the events leading up to her disappearance, the initial investigation, and the subsequent search efforts that failed to locate her. It also examines the theories and suspects that have emerged over the years, including the speculation that she may have been one of the earliest victims of notorious serial killer Ted Bundy. Despite the passage of time, Ann Marie Burr's disappearance continues to haunt her family and perplex investigators, making it a chilling and compelling mystery.

Catherine Rose Isenberg was an up and coming actress in the East Coast theater scene in the early 1980s. The daughter of a prominent psychologist, she graduated from the top finishing schools and a bright future was hers for the taking in whatever endeavor she choose. But on December 1st, 1984, the beautiful Caroline was viciously assaulted and murdered. Who would want to kill the mild-mannered young actress who had charmed so many theater goers with her "sweet shyness"?

Zebb had been working at the electronics department in Walmart for quite some time, and was logging in over 40 hours a week despite being a part-time employee. He took up extra shifts whenever they were available, and in the two years he had worked there, he had never taken a sick day or skipped his shift. With the money he made, Zebb had been saving up for a new car, and he felt ready to trade in his 1990 Mazda Protégé for a Mitsubishi Eclipse. He had spoken to a few people about where he could find it, and he finally turned to Robert "Jason" Owens, who promised to help. Jason, who worked at Volvo Construction Equipment in Asheville, knew about a dealership in Leicester, North Carolina, that had the Mitsubishi Eclipse Zebb was looking for. 18-year-old Zebb and 21-year-old Jason made plans to meet up at the Walmart parking lot on Sunday 2, 2000, after Zebb's shift, and drive together to Leicester to check out the car.At around 9 p.m. on that Sunday night, Zebb's coworkers watched Zebb and Jason interact briefly in the parking lot and then drive off separately. They knew that Zebb was heading to check out the car, and was excited to finally get it. They drove down Long Shoals Road, and the two stopped at a convenience store to buy sodas, and the surveillance footage showed the two men entering the store at around 9:15 p.m. That was the last sighting of Zebb.What happened to Zebb Quinn

Rudy Bladel was an oddity among serial killers in that he only targeted railroad employees. For an astonishing span of fifteen years, he terrorized railways with numerous random sniper murders. Disgruntled at being laid off from his job as a railroad worker, Bladel took out his frustration on the various people who worked in the Indiana rail yards for over a decade before he was finally caught. Why did it take so long to catch him?

Steven David Catlin loved wooing women and he was a self-proclaimed "Lady Killer. But when his new marriage ends in death to his wife, his former wife becomes suspicious. She begins to secretly piece clues together of their time together only to find out that her former husband was not just a sneaky philanderer but a cold and calculating killer.

On February 24, 1976, Roger Amiotte, a rancher, was installing a fence when he saw a body at the bottom of a thirty-foot embankment. The land was at the northeast corner of the reservation, a few miles from Wanblee, South Dakota. The body had been revealed after the snow had melted away. The body was badly composed, curled in the fetal position, and still covered by a pair of jeans and a maroon ski jacket. The coroner, W. O Brown, conducted the autopsy. He documented that death had occurred ten days prior, and that she had died from exposure. The body was determined to be a Jane Doe. To identify the body, the hands were cut off and sent to the FBI Headquarters in Washington, D.C. for fingerprinting. A few days later, the body was buried in an unmarked grave in South Dakota as a Jane Doe.A few hours after the burial, the FBI lab confirmed that the fingerprints from the dismembered hands belonged to Anna Mae Pictou Aquash....But who would want to murder the fiery Native American activist?

On February 14, 2007, Stephen Grant walked into Macomb County Sheriff's Office a little before 11 a.m. He told the desk sergeant that he wanted to report his wife Tara missing. Turning to the deputy manning the desk with him, the sergeant asked him to call detective Bill Hughes, a 20-year veteran in the police force, to the lobby. Hughes invited Stephen into his office, and sat silently as Stephen immediately began rambling on about Tara Lynn Grant's disappearance. He stated that Tara had gotten home late on February 9 because of a snow storm. He revealed that he had drunk a couple of beers before she arrived, and that they had argued on the phone earlier in the evening because she had changed her travel plans. She had stated that she would be flying out on Sunday instead of Monday, and this had him bent all out of shape. He stated that she walked into the house wearing her ear buds, and didn't immediately respond to his greeting. This riled him up, and they resumed their argument soon after. After about 20 minutes of arguing, he said he overheard her talking to someone on her phone, asking them to pick her up and that she would be out in a minute. He had no idea who was on the other side of the call, but he assumed it was the car service she usually hired to take her to the airport. As she left, he said, she told him, "Don't forget to get the car to the dealership Monday to get the dent fixed." He then saw her enter a dark sedan parked at the end of the driveway. That was the last time he saw her.What happened to Tara Lynn Grant?

At around 2 a.m. on June 5, 2002, Elizabeth was woken up by a male voice whispering in her ear "I have a gun at your throat. Don't make a sound. Get up and come with me." When she opened her eyes, she saw a tall figure looming over her, and immediately felt something cold against her throat. Afraid of what the man would do to her family if she didn't comply with his instruction, she got out of bed quietly and stood up.Mary Katherine was startled by the sound of movement in the room, but decided to pretend that she was still asleep. She opened her eyes a bit, but the room was too dark for her to make out exactly what was happening. She did see a tall shadow looming, and she became terrified of what would happen to her if the intruder found out she was awake. Now awake and on her feet, the man asked Elizabeth to walk to the closet and take out her shoes. Elizabeth quickly complied. Mary Katherine heard her sister ask the man, "Why are you taking me?" Mary Katherine said she heard the man say something to the tune of "for ransom"....

On January 23, 1990, a college student driving around in the outskirts of Portland, Oregon, noticed a body lying in an embankment off the highway. The young woman was half-naked, and investigators discovered that she had been strangled, the rope still looped tightly around her neck. The student was immediately considered a suspect, and an interview was done at the police station. He stated that he had just done his finals, and decided to take a drive to clear his head when he spotted the body. His story sounded plausible, but since it had been raining at the time, investigators found it odd that he chose that time to take a scenic drive. To make sure all their bases were covered, they called the school and managed to confirm the student's story. This left them with no suspects, and the victim's identity was still unknown. They released various details to the media, hoping that someone would recognize the woman. The plan panned out...The victim's identity was discovered but the question remained...Who killed her?

One of France's most bizarre tales of true crime...Police receive an ominous phone call stating that in only a few short hours, a woman will be kidnapped. The anonymous caller claims that the couple will be sitting at a café and that a young woman with them will be in mortal danger. The police take the call seriously and head to the café but find no one matching the couple's description...But only hours later, a young model, Elodie Morel, is reported missing. She was last seen having responded to a casting call for models and was supposed to have met the couple at the cafe. Could she be the victim? And how did the caller know so much?

On February 19, 2005, a 25-year-old woman left her home in Osaka, Japan, to meet up with a man she had been messaging online for the past few months on an online suicide club. Michiko Nagamoto had been suffering for depression for a while, and had considered suicide a couple of times. During her conversations with Hiroshi, they entered a suicide pact, and began preparing for the day they would go ahead with it. Hiroshi told her to make sure she left a suicide note for her family, and urged her to delete their correspondences before they met up on February 19. While she did write the note, Michiko either forgot or chose not to delete the emails. What she didn't know was that the man she was going to meet had no intention of going through with a suicide pact. He was, in fact, Japan's newest serial killer...

After leaving a movie in Jersey City, Shannan kissed her boyfriend, Alex Diaz, goodbye. She had received a call out from a client in Oak Beach and promised to come back the next day. Diaz was not worried about her since she had a driver who acted as her security, pocketing half of Shannan's earnings. Shannan called her driver, Michael Pak, and the two drove off from Jersey City at around 10 p.m. that night. Pak drove into the gated community at around 2 a.m., parking outside the client's home to wait out Shannan's appointment. He watched as she walked up to the door, and then settled in his seat to wait for her to come out so he could drive her back home. Sometime after 4 a.m., Pak saw Shannan running out of the house, seemingly scared and acting irrational. She kept stating that the client wanted to kill her, and kept running when Pak tried to help. She was on the phone telling the person on the other side "They're trying to kill me!" Pak drove slowly in the community, trying to follow Shannan's screams and cries. He had never seen her behave like this before, so he assumed it may have something to do with drugs. Shannan, who was on the phone with 911 at the time, ran around the neighborhood looking for someone to help her. When she saw a light on in one of the houses, she ran to the door and began knocking frantically, screaming for help. What happened to Shannan that night?

Brian Shaffer called his girlfriend Alexis and expressed how much he missed her and loved her. He told her that he was looking forward to spending the next week with her in Miami. As the call wrapped up, he told her that he was planning on bar hopping with his friend Clint. She asked him to call her the next day, and he readily agreed. After hanging up, he and Clint walked out of a bar called The Ugly Tuna. They made their way down the street, entering a few bars along the way. They would walk into a bar, take a shot or two, and then walk back out to find the next bar. They continued their pub crawl for a while, slowly making their way towards the Arena District. When they got into a bar called The Short North, Clint and Brian ran into Clint's friend, Meredith Reed. It was almost midnight, and the two men asked Reed if she would give them a ride back to The Ugly Tuna. She agreed, and even stated that she would go in with them into the bar for a drink. The three were captured by CCTV riding the escalator to The Ugly Tuna Saloon at 1:15 a.m. on April 1, 2006. They went into the bar, and at 1:55 a.m. the surveillance cameras caught Brian talking to two women at the top of the escalators. After the women left, Brian turned around and walked back into the bar. The three then discussed heading home. That was the last time they saw Brian.

Licorice McKechnie was an oddity...A famous musician whose life was shrouded in mystery until she finally disappeared...Over the years, many have taken it upon themselves to solve the mystery of her disappearance. Many inquiries have led to dead ends, with many believing that Licorice is still alive and well in California. Rumors circulated that Licorice may have become deeply involved with Scientology, but those close to her have maintained that she quickly became disillusioned with the church's teachings. So the question remains...what happened to Licorice McKechnie?