Danger In The Dorm

It’s a chilling reality that homicide investigators know all too well: the last face most murder victims see is not that of a stranger, but of someone familiar. Whether only an acquaintance or a trusted intimate, such killers share a common trait that triggers the downward spiral toward death for someone close to them: they are masters at hiding who they really are. Their clever masks let them appear safe, kind, and truthful. They are anything but—and almost no one can detect the murderous impulses buried deep in their psyches.

These doomed relationships are the focus of Ann Rule’s sixteenth all-new Crime Files collection. In these shattering inside views of both headlined and little-known homicides, Rule speaks for vulnerable victims who relied on the wrong people. She begins with two startling novella-length investigations.

FEVER IN THE HEART covers the real life drama of a love triangle that ended in tragedy, shocking the tight knit community of Yakima, Washington. 
What began as an innocent flirtation erupted into an affair that destroyed many lives.  At its center were three people so charismatic, attractive and intelligent, that they should have had decades of happiness ahead of them.  But three is a crowd, and the odd man out wanted back in--at any cost. 
But was he capable of murder?  Supporters said no, and pointed out he had an airtight alibi.  Yet someone hatched a fatal scheme so unbelievable it could be a plot from a Hitchcock film.  Ann Rule first covered this case for COSMOPOLITAN magazine in 1976.  But Olive Blankenbaker, mother of one of the victims, begged Rule to dig deeper and write an entire book.  Rule promised Olive that she would.  It took twenty years, but she kept her promise to Olive.  Rule's thorough research of one of the most fascinating cases she has ever found brings FEVER IN THE HEART to life and keeps true crime fans riveted.    Readers who don't want the plot revealed should avoid reading THE LIBRARY JOURNAL'S spoiler review below.  While there are many twists, turns and surprises in this convoluted story, some might find the review below gives away too much.

After his first grisly crime, Harvey Louis Carignan beat a death sentence and continued to use want ads to lure his young female victims. And time after time, justice was thwarted by a killer whose twisted legal genius was matched only by his sick savagery. Here, complete with the testimony of women who suffered his unspeakable sexual abuses and barely escaped with their lives, and of the police who at last put him behind bars, is one of the most shattering and thought-provoking true-crime stories of our time. Includes 8 pages of photos

When librarian Martha Gail Fulton was gunned down in a Michigan parking lot on a quiet evening, there were two obvious suspects--Gail's husband George, a former military officer . . . and George's mistress, the flashy businesswoman Donna Kay Trapani. Police were baffled to find that both had ironclad alibis. Yet evidence showed the shooter, a male, had an accomplice--a mystery woman. Now, M. William Phelps recounts the compelling real-life drama of a twisted love triangle that ended in bloody murder, and the riveting investigation that brought to light a master manipulator's trail of deadly deceit.

"Phelps is the Harlan Coben of real-life thrillers." Allison Brennan

Praise for M. William Phelps

"One of our most engaging crime journalists." Katherine Ramsland

"Phelps ratchets up the dramatic tension." Stephen Singular

"One of America's finest true-crime writers." Vincent Bugliosi

"Phelps creates a vivid portrait." Publishers Weekly

First, he bound and beat his girlfriend, a 43-year-old librarian. Then he went after her teenaged daughter-warning her, "Scream and I will kill you both”-before knocking her unconscious. When the teenager awoke, he proceded to rape her. And in a final horrifying act of depravity, he forced the girl to watch as he slit her mothers throat. But the killing didnt stop there...

In The Crosshairs Of A Killer…

Stephen Stanko was described as "a perfect gentleman” who "seemed so pleasant…and so normal.” But behind Stankos mild-mannered appearance, round spectacles, and quiet intelligence was a coldblooded ex-convict who kept a grisly scrapbook on serial killers-and convinced everyone he was a nice guy-until he killed and killed again.

On The Trail Of A Psycho…

A well-orchestrated manhunt caught up with Stanko, who tried to get away with his crimes by pleading insanity. But the jury saw through his ruse and the ruthless killer was sentenced to death.

Case Seen On 48 Hours

Includes 16 Pages of Shocking Photos

Rule (Everything She Ever Wanted) upholds her title as maven of the murder tale in this riveting second volume in her anthology series. Like A Rose for Her Grave, this collection consists of one book-length treatment and five shorter case histories from her true-crime files. Meticulous in her coverage, Rule demonstrates her signature, compassionate re-creation, when describing the numerous lives affected when Florida highway patrolman Tim Harris obsessively stalked his wife and then raped and murdered a female driver near I-95. Operating on many levels, it can be read as the psychological profile of a man for whom a wife was simply another possession or as a wonderfully detailed police procedural, complete with frustrating false leads and a brilliantly inspired interrogation scene. In each of the subsequent cases, Rule shifts the focus slightly, concentrating on an entangled forensics puzzle in one, on a two-year missing-person search complicated by a psychic goose chase in another. Rule's considerable reporting skills and hindsight analysis make her a gifted cautionary guide through the hazards of human folly. Yet, as she admits in the chilling "Black Christmas," when a picture-perfect family can be brutally murdered due to an absurd misunderstanding, all the little red flags in the world may mean nothing.

The centerpiece of this chilling collection is the history of Randy Roth, a "modern-day Bluebeard" who specialized in marrying women and then killing them for insurance and Social Security benefits. Rule ( Everything She Ever Wanted ) traces Roth's crimes thoroughly and does an equally complete job of providing information on the investigative side of the story, such as the difficulties of being a female prosecutor. The remaining shorter cases come from Rule's "archives": a rapist returns after eight years in prison to kill the woman who put him there along with her daughter and a neighbor; a jilted husband hires a female "hit person" to kill his estranged wife; a 13-year-old girl disappears after tending to the mobile home of a friend on vacation; a sadistic killer murders a woman, chops her up and disposes of her dismembered body in a slough; and a young, single woman is strangled by a neighbor pretending to be her protector. In a brief introduction to each, Rule discusses the effect of the individual case on her feelings about capital punishment and other issues, and her unwavering voice presents even the most gruesome details rationally

It was nine days before Christmas 1998, and thirty-two-year-old Ronda Reynolds was getting ready to travel from Seattle to Spokane to visit her mother and brother and grandmother before the holidays. Ronda’s second marriage was dissolving after less than a year, her career as a pioneering female Washington State Trooper had ended, but she was optimistic about starting over again. "I’m actually looking forward to getting on with my life," she told her mother earlier the night before. "I just need a few days with you guys." Barb Thompson, Ronda’s mother, who had met her daughter’s second husband only once before, was just happy that Ronda was coming home.

At 6:20 that morning, Ron Reynolds called 911 and told the dispatcher his wife was dead. She had committed suicide, he said, although he hadn’t heard the gunshot and he didn’t know if she had a pulse. EMTs arrived, detectives arrived, the coroner’s deputy arrived, and a postmortem was conducted. Lewis County Coroner Terry Wilson, who neither visited the death scene nor attended the autopsy, declared the manner of Ronda’s death as "undetermined." Over the next eleven years, Coroner Wilson would change that manner of death from "undetermined" to "suicide," back to "undetermined"—and then back to "suicide" again.

But Barb Thompson never for one moment believed her daughter committed suicide. Neither did Detective Jerry Berry or ballistics expert Marty Hayes or attorney Royce Ferguson or dozens of Ronda’s friends. For eleven grueling years, through the ups and downs of the legal system and its endless delays, these people and others helped Barb Thompson fight to strike that painful word from her daughter’s death certificate.

In the summer of 2003, the Houston suburb of Clear Lake, Texas, was devastated when four young residents were viciously slain. The two female victims were just eighteen-years-old, popular and beloved--but when a killer came knocking, it turned out to be someone they knew all too well. . ..Seventeen-year-old Christine Paolilla was an awkward outsider--until the girls befriended her. In this gripping true story, M. William Phelps delves into the heart of a baffling mystery to get to the truth of an act so brutal it could not be understood--until now.

"Phelps is the Harlan Coben of real-life thrillers." Allison Brennan

"The best true-crime writer to come along in years." Gregg Olsen

Praise for M. William Phelps

"Phelps ratchets up the dramatic tension." Stephen Singular

"One of America's finest true-crime writers." Vincent Bugliosi

"Phelps creates a vivid portrait." Publishers Weekly