As Springfield residents decorated for Halloween in September 1972, the crime rate in the quiet, affluent township was at its lowest in years. That mood was shattered when the body of sixteen-year-old Jeannette DePalma was discovered in the local woods, allegedly surrounded by strange objects. Some feared witchcraft was to blame, while others believed a serial killer was on the loose. Rumors of a police coverup ran rampant, and the case went unsolved along with the murders of several other young women.

Valarie Clark Miller seemed to have it all. Smart and beautiful with a wealthy, successful husband and growing family, Valarie appeared to be the picture-perfect Mormon wife. But it was all a façade. Inside, she was crumbling from the pressures of long-repressed memories of a childhood filled with sexual and physical abuse.

At just 21 years of age, friends Todd Wilson and Scott McCarthy were virtually inseparable. The pair reported for duty at United Bank of Denver at 6: 00 a.m. on Father’s Day 1991—McCarthy’s first day on the job. They joined two more experienced guards and began making their rounds. By 9:30 a.m., all four were dead. The killer then descended upon the cash vault where he held six petrified tellers at gunpoint before absconding with nearly $200,000. Eighteen days later, the Denver Police Department arrested one of its own. Not only had retired sergeant James W.

Houston, Texas, in the early 1970s was an exciting place—the home of NASA, the city of the future. But a string of more than two dozen missing teenage boys hinted at a dark undercurrent that would go ignored for too long. While their siblings and friends wondered where they had gone, the Houston police department dismissed them as runaways, fleeing the Vietnam draft or conservative parents, likely looking to get high and join the counterculture.

Ivor and Sally Davis were horrified when their Malibu neighbors, Verna Roehler and her son, Doug died in a terrible boating accident. The nightmare only continued when her husband, their friend, Fred Roehler, was arrested and then convicted for their murder. As investigative writers they set out hoping to find Roehler innocent—instead they found a viper's nest of deceit and murder.

In 2004, the body of a young Perth woman was found on the grounds of a primary school. Her name was Rebecca Ryle. The killing would mystify investigators, lawyers, and psychologists - and profoundly rearrange the life of the victim's family. It would also involve the author's family, because his brother knew the man charged with the murder. For years, the two had circled each other suspiciously, in a world of violence, drugs, and rotten aspirations.

STORM OF SUSPICION: The Karen Read Murder Trials is both an electrifying, real-time courtroom thriller and the gripping personal account of author Kevin Lenihan’s detailed examination of the evidence—both known and what he’s discovered—as well as the dark rumors, courtroom bombshells, and conspiracy theories that are at the heart of two of the most explosive and controversial murder trials of the decade.

Is there anything more to be said about the 1999 murder of Hae Min Lee? The wave of podcasts (starting with the phenomenally successful Serial), blogs, videos, documentaries, and books about this case would seem to indicate that the answer is no. But I would beg to differ. There are questions that have never been answered and mistakes that have never been corrected. After much thought and research, I believe that I have, indeed, been able to present a fresh perspective about what really happened on January 13, 1999 and in the days and weeks afterwards.

On February 1, 1910, the vivacious, diamond-adorned music hall performer Belle Elmore suddenly vanished from her home, causing alarm among her friends, the entertainers of the Music Hall Ladies’ Guild. Their demands for an investigation would lead to the unearthing of a gruesome secret and trigger a fevered international manhunt for Belle’s husband, medical fraudster Dr. Hawley Harvey Crippen.

When Scott Dozier was sent to Nevada’s death row in 2007, convicted of a pair of grisly murders, he didn’t cry foul or embark upon a protracted innocence campaign. He sought instead to expedite his execution—to hasten his inevitable death. He decided he would rather face his end swiftly than die slowly in solitary confinement. In volunteering for execution, Dozier may have been unusual. But in the tortuous events that led his death date to be scheduled and rescheduled, planned and then stayed, his time on death row was anything but.