Ignorant Philosophy

A Brutal Serial Killer Was Stalking Omaha. But Who Could Kill With Such Precision?Detective Derek Mois wasn’t sure what he was dealing with when in March 2008 he walked into a home in an affluent Omaha neighborhood and was confronted with the bodies of an 11-year-old boy and the housekeeper. Both had been murdered with kitchen knives plunged into their throats. Who would do something so vile, and why? Lacking answers, Mois and other detectives working the case were stumped.Five years later, a strikingly similar crime occurred in which two more victims were brutally murdered with knives expertly thrust into their jugular veins. The modus operandi of the murders pointed Mois and a special task force in the direction of looking for a serial killer. But no one could have anticipated that path would lead to the Department of Pathology at Creighton University.In PATHOLOGICAL: The Murderous Rage Of Dr. Anthony Garcia, authors Henry J. Cordes and Todd Cooper, who covered the story for the Omaha World-Herald, recount the dramatic tale of deep-seated revenge, determined detectives, and the sensational trial of the doctor-turned-serial killer. PATHOLOGICAL: The Murderous Rage of Dr. Anthony Garcia-Henry J. Cordes

It was an unbelievable crime—hideous, unexpected, baffling. A crime destined to become the most notorious and obsessive cold case in Cincinnati history. On that long ago day in September on the cusp of autumn, we were horrified by the blaring Bricca murder headlines. Jerry, his pretty wife Linda, and their young daughter Debbie were found stabbed to death in their home in the city’s Bridgetown neighborhood. Striking between the 4th and 5th slayings of the Cincinnati Strangler in 1966, the Bricca killer plunged a city already on edge into an abyss.

A half century later, the Bricca mystery lingers in cobwebs and survives on whispers. Enter Cincinnati crime writer, JT Townsend, author of local best-seller Queen City Gothic. JT was given unprecedented access to the case file, laden with information that never saw the light of print before–evidence that might illuminate the relentless rumors that police “screwed up the crime scene” or “covered up for the suspect.” 50 years later, True Crime Detective JT Townsend answers “Who dun it?” and renders a final verdict.

As an armchair detective stalking a mystery killer, Townsend is not shackled by presumption of innocence or reasonable doubt. ALL evidence is admissible. In this gripping excavation, Townsend jettisons the implausible until we arrive at the probable truth. Townsend finally addresses the question: Who killed the Bricca family? SUMMER'S ALMOST GONE-J.T. Townsend

Some crimes are so shocking that they change a nation forever. In revealing the lives and crimes of Australia's worst murderers, rapists and kidnappers in all their horror, Innocence Lost answers the question we ask when we hear about lives taken so ruthlessly: WHY? Seasoned crime writer Amanda Howard has spent 18 years studying and interviewing killers and criminals across the globe to get answers to this question. In interviewing many of these criminals face to face in prison, she is given a rare insight into these faces of evil. The stories of serial killers such as Ivan Milat and Martin Bryant are detailed, as well as double murderer Mark Valera, child murderer Kathleen Folbigg and Anita Cobby's killers. The mysterious disappearances of Daniel Morcombe and the Beaumont children are explored, and we are given an intriguing insight into family killers Katherine Knight, Matthew de Gruchy and Sef Gonzalez. INNOCENCE LOST:The Crimes That Changed Australia-Amanda Howard

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On a cold, winter’s night in early 1963, mob enforcer Rocco Anthony Balliro and a pair of associates stormed a darkened apartment on the outskirts of Boston and engaged in a fierce gun battle with several assailants (police officers, it turned out) waiting in ambush for the ex-convict and recent prison escapee. In the aftermath, a young woman and her toddler son lay dead.

The story of Rocco Balliro, a petty criminal and enforcer for New England crime boss Raymond L.S. Patriarca, played out in glaring headlines across the country following the shootout with the Boston police. Had he heeded the commands of the cops to drop his weapon, Rocco would not have spent the next fifty years behind bars, and his girlfriend and her son might still be alive today. Instead, he fired the gun, erupting death and mayhem in the apartment. In the aftermath of the shootings, all fingers pointed at Rocco. But he would maintain his innocence in the death of his girlfriend and her son for the rest of his life, though plagued with lingering questions.

Did he fire the deadly bullets or did they come from another source? Did he unknowingly kill the pair or was he simply guilty of an ill-advised home invasion? What was the police’s true involvement?

Balliro agreed to meet with the author over the span of a couple years. Along with countless tales of criminal escapades, Balliro handed over reams of documents, correspondence, and clippings related to his life and the alleged crime that put him behind bars, while Balliro arranged for meetings with many of his family members and associates. 

This is Rocco’s own story of his life. But most importantly, it is his version of the events from the night of February 2, 1963, in a Boston suburb, and his profession of innocence until his dying breath. SHOTS IN THE DARK: The Saga of Rocco Balliro-Daniel Zimmerman

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The true story of Air Force men and women who struggle to prevent a mass murder and an aviation disaster, and their heroic response to both tragedies when their warnings go unheeded.

Have you ever heard someone say that a tragedy struck without warning? 

On 20 June 1994, a former airman sought vengeance with a rifle at the Fairchild Air Force Base hospital. Four days later a rogue pilot crashed a B-52 outside of Fairchild's Nuclear Weapon Storage Area. Both tragedies had been predicted and repeatedly warned about. 

Warnings Unheeded is a rare look inside the troubled mind of a would-be active shooter. It is an exclusive look at a talented pilot whose dangerous flying prompted aircrews to refuse to fly with him. It is a look at the leadership culture that allowed both men to travel unchecked on the pathway toward destruction.

This unique true-crime book reads like a suspense novel, densely packed with details garnered from medical records, police reports and first-hand accounts obtained from journal entries, letters, witness statements and personal interviews. These empowering stories detail the heroic response to the tragedies, the events that lead up to them, the precursors of violence and disaster and the traumatic aftermath.

Written by Andy Brown, the man who ended the hospital killing spree. Brown's narrative focuses mainly on others, including the heroic life-saving actions of hospital patrons and staff, but he also describes the preparations he made which enabled him to win a pistol-versus-rifle gunfight as well as his own experience with the effects of trauma. WARNINGS UNHEEDED: Twin Tragedies at Fairchild Air Force Base-Andy Brown

In March 2009, pretty, vivacious Rhonda Casto plunged to her death from a 300-foot cliff in the Oregon woods. The only witness, Stephen Nichols, the father of her nine-month-old baby, Annie, told police investigators she slipped and fell.

 

Yet, Nichols’ story didn’t quite mesh with the facts. And some of his other actions raised suspicions as well, including just days after her death trying to collect on a million-dollar life insurance policy he’d taken out on his unemployed, 23-year-old girlfriend four months earlier. What had begun with a 911 call to report an accident, quickly turned into a homicide investigation.

 

However, in part due to lackluster police work, the case grew cold. Then in 2011, Dardie Robinson, a tenacious investigator with a Portland law firm began digging into the circumstances surrounding Rhonda's death. The law firm represented Rhonda’s mother, who believed that Nichols, 34 at the time, had murdered her daughter. She wanted to prevent him from gaining custody of Annie and the life insurance money.

 

What Robinson discovered, including an attempt by Nichols to throw his first wife off a high-rise balcony in China, as well as sexual abuse allegations with Rhonda's underaged sister, convinced her that Rhonda’s death was no accident. So began her six-year battle to ‘save Annie’ from her own father and find justice for Rhonda.

 

In the meantime, a parallel investigation into the case by co-authors Steve Jackson, an award-winning journalist and New York Times bestselling author, and private investigator Tom McCallum, posed the same questions. What really happened to Rhonda Casto on that cold, rainy afternoon on the Eagle Creek trail? And what would become of her child? SAVING ANNIE-Book Two-The Investigator-Steve jackson

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In 2016-17, while working for the USA TODAY NETWORK's Wisconsin Investigative Team, author John Ferak wrote dozens of articles examining the murder case again Steven Avery, who had already beat one wrongful conviction only to be charged with the murder of Teresa Halbach in 2005. The case became the wildly successful Netflix "Making A Murderer" documentary. 

In WRECKING CREW: Demolishing The Case Against Steven Avery, Ferak lays out in exacting detail the post-conviction strategy of Kathleen Zellner, the high-profile, high-octane lawyer, to free Avery. To write this book, Zellner, perhaps America's most successful wrongful conviction attorney, gave Ferak unique access to the exhaustive pro bono efforts she and her small suburban Chicago law firm dedicated for a man she believes to be a victim of an unscrupulous justice system in Manitowoc County. WRECKING CREW: Demolishing The Case Against Steven Avery-John Ferak