Colorado, 1976. When Reverend Mike Fuller and his beautiful wife, Sharon, arrive in the sleepy town of Rocky Ford, local residents think something’s off about the new couple. The God-fearing minister is gruff and cold, while charismatic Sharon has her husband wrapped around her finger.

Roger and Penny Scaggs seemed a poster couple for family values. Evangelical Christians living in booming Austin, Texas, in the mid-1990s, they were respected leaders in their church and community. As Roger diligently worked his way up the high-tech corporate ladder, Penny kept a pristine home and coached similarly devout young women on how to be perfect wives. But on a windy March evening, this godly woman met the devil head-on.

In this fascinating account, Ann Rule delivers a tour de force: a whirlwind of misguided love, denial, guilt, and passions out of control; a series of brilliantly manipulated crimes; the bizarre and horrifying tale of two families brought to ruin; and, at the center of it all, the heartless, supremely selfish sociopath whose evil hid behind soft words and gentle manners, but who destroyed—without mercy—those who loved her.

In and out of hospitals since birth, angelic nine-month-old Morgan Reid finally succumbed to what appeared to be sudden infant death syndrome. Morgan's Texas-born mother, Tanya, a nurse and devoted wife, pulled up stakes with her grieving husband, Jim, and moved on. It was the best way to put the past behind them. Until their son, Michael, a boy who by all accounts was terrified of his mother, began showing signs of the same affliction that stole the life of his baby sister....

Two days after Christmas, 2011, Russel Faria returned to his Troy, Missouri, home to find his wife, Betsy, dead, a knife still lodged in her neck. She had been stabbed 55 times in a brutal murder that would set off a chain of events leading to one man's wrongful conviction and imprisonment, another man's death, the revelation of a diabolical scheme, and an astounding miscarriage of justice left unresolved for another 10 years.

David Brown was the consummate entrepreneur: a computer wizard and millionaire by age thirty-two. When his beautiful young wife was shot to death as she slept, Brown's fourteen-year-old daughter, Cinnamon, confessed to killing her stepmother. The California courts sentenced her harshly: twenty-four years to life. But in the wake of Cinnamon's murder conviction, thanks in part to two determined lawmen, the twisted private world of David Brown himself unfolded with astonishing clarity—revealing a trail of perverse love, twisted secrets, and evil mind games.

In 1911 two British heiresses, Claire and Dora Williamson, read a brochure about a revolutionary fasting treatment that promised a lifetime of good health. The sanatorium in the village of Olalla, west of Seattle, was surrounded by a beautiful forest, sparkling waters and fresh air. The sisters agreed it sounded perfect and exactly the restorative holiday they needed. But within a month of arriving, under the supervision of Doctor Linda Burfield Hazzard, Claire and Dora began to realise the frightening truth – they were not patients but prisoners at the isolated sanitorium.

When the bodies of three teenagers were found on the shores of Lake Waco, Texas, in July 1982, even seasoned lawmen were taken aback by the savage mutilation and degradation to which they had been subjected. Yet only 52 days after the gruesome triple-murder was discovered, frustrated authorities suspended the case indefinitely. Patrol Sergeant Truman Simons, who had been called to the scene that night, saw the carnage firsthand - and vowed to find the ferocious killer or killers. He soon became a man with a mission, risking his career and his family's safety in search of evidence.

In 1967, during the time of peace, free love, and hitchhiking, 19-year-old Mary Terese Fleszar was last seen walking home to her apartment in Ypsilanti, Michigan. One month later, her naked body stabbed over 30 times and missing both feet and a forearm was discovered on an abandoned farm. A year later, the body of 20-year-old Joan Schell was found, similarly violated. Over the next two years, five more bodies of female students were uncovered around the area.

On June 27, 1996, 30-year-old Anne Marie Fahey, who was the scheduling secretary for the governor of Delaware, had dinner with a man she had been having a secret affair with for over two years. "Tommy" Capano, 47, was perhaps the most politically powerful man in Wilmington. Son of a wealthy contractor, former state prosecutor, partner in a prestigious law firm, advisor to governors and mayors, Tom had a soft-spoken, considerate manner, endearing him to many. But sometime after 9:15 that night when Anne Marie and Tom left a Philadelphia restaurant, something terrible happened to her.

Ejaz Ahmad was handsome, charismatic, and a self-made businessman. He arrived in the United States from Pakistan determined to fulfill his mother's dying wish: to come to America, complete his education, and make his mark in the world. Settling in Memphis, Tennessee, Ejaz became owner of several businesses, father to a handsome boy, and a devout Muslim. The only thing missing in his life was a wife, someone special to protect, honor, and love. Leah Ward was a pretty girl, but a prison parolee with a questionable past.

A promising young attorney and a dedicated family man, Michael Fletcher seemed to have it all. But in the summer of 2000, Michael found himself standing trial for the murder of his pregnant wife, Leann. The verdict - guilty of second-degree murder - would leave friends, family, and the public at large scrambling to make sense of a twisted and frightening series of events that ended in the brutal killing of Leann Fletcher. What could possibly have led Michael Fletcher to commit such a gruesome act?

On June 25, 1973, a seven-year-old girl went missing from the Montana campground where her family was vacationing. Somebody had slit open the back of their tent and snatched her from under their noses. None of them saw or heard anything. Susie Jaeger had vanished into thin air, plucked by a shadow. As days stretched into weeks, and weeks into months, Special Agent Pete Dunbar attended a workshop at FBI Headquarters in Quantico, Virgina, led by two agents who had hatched a radical new idea: What if criminals left a psychological trail that would lead us to them?

RELENTLESS PURSUIT follows the personal mission of a Washington, D.C., federal homicide prosecutor who dedicated himself to bringing justice and closure to the family of a brutally murdered mother and daughter, a case during which the author's own father passed away.

In the 1920s, the richest people per capita in the world were members of the Osage Nation in Oklahoma. After oil was discovered beneath their land, the Osage rode in chauffeured automobiles, built mansions, and sent their children to study in Europe.