Even More True Crime Books About Serial Killers

Here’s a true crime memoir for fans of books like The Fact Of The Body that combine details about the author's life with research of crime, albeit this is much less heavy, violent, and dark. During the summer of 1980, Vicki Durian and Nancy Santomero were murdered in Pocahontas County, West Virginia as they were hitchhiking on the way to the Rainbow Gathering peace festival. Eisenberg spent time living in the Appalachian community researching the crime, and this is in part her look into the case but also the effects on the community and her meditation on living there.

Related: True Stories Of White Collar Crime

In 1982, four taxi drivers were murdered over the course of a week in Buenos Aires with what appeared to be no rhyme or reason. Nineteen-year-old Ricardo Melogno was reported by his family, arrested, and sentenced for the crimes. Now, Busqued not only poured over the case but also interviewed Melogno, who after serving his entire sentence is still incarcerated in perpetuity. It is so rare that we get a translated true crime book, and this is written with care, examining mental illness and the justice system in Argentina.

Roger L. Depue was chief of the FBI Behavioral Science Unit when John Douglas, Robert Ressler, and Roy Hazelwood were there as mind hunters, leading a team whose innovative techniques and training programs are still being used today. Depue retired and continued to work, founding an elite forensics group that consulted on high-profile cases. Then a devastating personal loss led him to life in a seminary and a career counseling maximum-security inmates. This is his life story of seeing the absolute worst and best in people.

In 1990, Pat Brown suspected the man renting a room in her home of committing an unsolved murder of a woman. Even after finding evidence and presenting it to the police, they merely treated her as a housewife with an overactive imagination. This spurred her to become a private profiler who takes on citizens' and families' cases trying to uncover information for them. This is Brown's autobiography about her life and work.

Related: The Best True Crime Podcasts of 2019

Historian Philip Sugden wrote a comprehensive study on London's East End killer, Jack the Ripper. This book reassesses the known evidence and challenges the assumptions about the person behind the mysterious long-unsolved murders that occurred between 1888-91. And if you’re still interested in the case and want further reading on the victims and who they were, check out The Five: The Lives of Jack the Ripper's Women by Hallie Rubenhold.

Detective Lt. Joe Kenda is the star of the hour-long docuseries Homicide Hunter, on which he relives the nearly 400 homicide investigations he helped close during his 23 years with the Colorado Springs Police Department. In this book, he shares nineteen never-before-revealed case files from his years as a homicide detective.

Many people have been unable to let go of the horrific crimes in which Charles Manson’s followers murdered seven people. Journalist and entertainment writer Tom O'Neill is one of the people captivated by this story. He spent the past twenty years researching the case and claims to have new evidence “including police carelessness, legal misconduct, and potential surveillance by intelligence agents.”

Related: All About The Manson Murders