True Crime Uncensored with Burl Barer and Mark Boyer

The gripping story of a young woman’s murder, unsolved for more than two decades, brilliantly investigated and reconstructed by her stepsister.

Growing up, Rachel Rear knew the story of Stephanie Kupchynsky’s disappearance. The beautiful violinist and teacher had fled an abusive relationship on Martha’s Vineyard and made a new start for herself near Rochester, NY. She was at the height of her life - in a relationship with a man she hoped to marry and close to her students and her family. And then, one morning, she was gone.

Around Rochester - a region that has spawned such serial killers as Arthur Shawcross and the 'Double Initial' killer - Stephanie’s disappearance was just a familiar sort of news item. But Rachel had more reason than most to be haunted by this particular story of a missing woman: Rachel’s mother had married Stephanie’s father after the crime, and Rachel grew up in the shadow of her stepsister’s legacy.

In Catch the Sparrow, Rachel Rear writes a compulsively listenable and unerringly poignant reconstruction of the case's dark and serpentine path across more than two decades. Obsessively cataloguing the crime and its costs, drawing intimately closer to the details than any journalist could, she reveals how a dysfunctional justice system laid the groundwork for Stephanie's murder and stymied the investigation for more than 20 years, and what those hard years meant for the lives of Stephanie’s family and loved ones. Startling, thrilling and deeply moving, Catch the Sparrow is a retelling of a crime like no other.

As the media clamored for details, Kennedy spent the next six weeks, sixteen hours a day, locked in an interrogation room with Dahmer. There the 31-year-old killer described in lurid detail how he lured several young men to his apartment where he strangled, sexually assaulted, dismembered, and in some cases, cannibalized his victims.

In GRILLING DAHMER: The Interrogation of "The Milwaukee Cannibal"the reader is taken on a horrifying tour into the mind of evil as Kennedy patiently and meticulously listened to unspeakable horrors so that a monster would be taken off the streets forever.

In the early morning of October 18, 1986, Cherie Wier’s life collapses when her teenage son takes the life of her beloved husband. For years, Cherie grapples with events preceding and following the crime, struggling to overcome the consuming grief she suffers from her loss and the difficulty she faces as she attempts to forgive her son. The courtroom accounts of gruesome details and the shocking testimonies from experts, only add to Cherie’s yearning to make sense of the crime. She is tormented, wanting to know how and WHY this tragedy happened and if there was anything she could have done to prevent it . . .

Gem heist mastermind Punch details the truth about three famous heists -- The Pierre Hotel Heist was NOT the biggest. The Regency heist was much bigger and nobody was killed, cheated or deceived.

Plus bonus episode The Harry Winston Heist.

"Ron Franscell's 'Deaf Row' tells a darkly engrossing story with masterful, easy-flowing prose and a clever infusion of humor. The tension builds incrementally to a chilling five-star climax in which Franscell puts his well-honed skill as a true crime author to good use. It gave me goosebumps big time." —ANNE HILLERMAN, bestselling author of the Leaphorn, Chee, Manuelito mysteries

"A line-up that begs to be part of a movie. Author Ron Franscell, who writes both fiction and nonfiction, creates an endearing group of old men in a gripping story of a psychotic killer." — DENVER POST

"I'm a big fan of Ron Franscell's works and I consider them 'can't-miss' crime books." —CJ BOX, #1 New York Times bestselling author of LONG RANGE and THE HIGHWAY

"As you read along, be sure to dog-ear the pages bursting with Franscell's gritty descriptions - a sentence, a paragraph or a page - of the silver-haired people and the gray places of rural Colorado in this raw, wintry crime novel." —ALBUQUERQUE JOURNAL

"A first-class mystery!" —JORDAN RICH, host at WBZ-AM/Boston

"DEAF ROW is a self-aware, clever police procedural with a riveting climax, but what truly sets this mystery apart is its wonderfully realized characters. Franscell explores struggles with aging, death and friendship with poignant prose, humor and affection and has given us yet another gem of a book that's impossible to put down. I fell in love with these guys in DEAF ROW!" —CHRISTINE CARBO, bestselling author of A SHARP SOLITUDE

"Ron Franscell is well-known and justly revered for his brilliant, often elegant and always suspenseful non-fiction, but with DEAF ROW he breaks new ground and creates an immediately unforgettable new fictional character — Mountain Bell — who takes his place right near the top in the pantheon of thriller heroes. If you haven't yet read Franscell, this is a fantastic place to start, in a novel of shattering power and a mystery that will take your breath away. Highly recommended!" —JOHN LESCROART, author of 19 NYTimes bestsellers, including THE 13th JUROR and THE MISSING PIECE

"...an undisputed gift for storytelling." —GREGG OLSEN, #1 New York Times bestselling author of IF YOU TELL

"A solid mystery that will keep readers rooting for [Woodrow] Bell and his band of retirees. For fans of Craig Johnson, CJ Box and Meg Gardiner." —LIBRARY JOURNAL

"A fantastic whodunit, but that's only part of what makes it so good ... it's also a story about aging, redemption, friendship, and connection. Finishing DEAF ROW was bittersweet; satisfying, yet like saying goodbye to a group of folks I'd come to care about like family." —OIL CITY NEWS, Casper WY

"By the second paragraph of Deaf Row, I was invested. ... I can't say enough about Deaf Row, except that I thoroughly enjoyed it and highly recommend it. Ron Franscell is one of our finest modern literary masters and this book proves it." —Robert Waters' KIDNAPPING, MURDER & MAYHEM BLOG

"A stroke of genius ... I fell in love with these characters." —TIM DENNIS, host at Darkness Radio

"Horrifying and hysterical! Smart writing and colorful characters from one of crime's best storytellers." —MYSTERYVOX

From the Author

"In the end, DEAF ROW is a classical mystery but it also dives into the lives of old people whose best days are behind them, whom we see every day but no longer actually notice. It's been either the blessing or the curse of my book-writing career: I just don't want to do it like everybody else is doing it. I blended journalism and novel technique in my true crime, and in DEAF ROW, I wanted to blend commercial crime fiction with a kind of literary exploration of men who have outlived their best days and who are now growing invisible to the rest of the world. So, yeah, DEAF ROW is an up-market fiction that should appeal to both suspense fans and to fans of more literary storytelling."

On Christmas Night 1996, six-year-old JonBenet Ramsey was murdered in her family’s home in Boulder, Colorado. A ransom note was found in the home, but it was hours before her father, John, found her body in the basement. She had been strangled with a garrote and her skull was fractured.

The media sensationalized the tragic death of the “child beauty queen” and public speculation and rumors ran rampant. What followed was one of the most notorious unsolved murder investigations in American history.

Boulder police fixated on JonBenet’s parents as suspects. Needing investigative help, the Boulder DA brought in legendary homicide detective Lou Smit. However, he was soon disenchanted with law enforcement’s obsession with the Ramsey family as the primary suspects, excluding other possibilities.

Smit resigned but continued to work on his own time, and at his own expense, determined to find justice for JonBenet. He determined the Ramsey family was not involved in her death but died in 2010 before he could identify the killer.

Thousands of people attended his funeral service, including John Ramsey, and the detective’s lifelong friend and colleague, John Anderson. Along with a handful of retired detectives, Anderson and Smit’s family continue to pursue justice based on Smit’s work.

Now, for the first time in LOU AND JONBENET, Anderson tells the story of Smit’s investigation and why the Smit family team now believes that the killer can be identified.

Three years after Stidham moved to Tucson, his life ended in an empty, darkened parking lot. But who would murder such a nice man in such a violent manner?

Wade "Chip" Williamson did think there was any danger is having his wife's former boyfriend over  to the house.  WRONG. The ex boyfriend 

roughs up the wife and threatens to kill the husband.  When the boy friend  tries to kill the husband, Chip shoots him in self defense.

He is surprised when he is charged with first degree murder.