M William Phelps – författare

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A silent, simmering killer terrorized New England in1911. As a terrible heat wave killed more than 2,000 people, another silent killer began her own murderous spree. That year a reporter for the Hartford Courant noticed a sharp rise in the number of obituaries for residents of a rooming house in Windsor, Connecticut, and began to suspect who was responsible: Amy Archer-Gilligan, who’d opened the Archer Home for Elderly People and Chronic Invalids four years earlier. “Sister Amy” would be accused of murdering both of her husbands and up to sixty-six of her patients with cocktails of lemonade and arsenic; her story inspired the Broadway hit Arsenic and Old Lace.

The Devil’s Rooming House is the first book about the life, times, and crimes of America’s most prolific female serial killer. In telling this fascinating story, M. William Phelps also paints a vivid portrait of early-twentieth-century New England.

The Devil's Right Hand chroniclesthe legacy of death and destruction in the gunmaking Colt family during the nineteenth century, a legacy largely remembered for a lurid murder case that inspired Edgar Allan Poe’s story “The Oblong Box”—but one that encompassed much more. . .

     New York Times and nationally bestselling author M. William Phelps reveals an unfathomable pattern surrounding repeating arms inventor Samuel Colt—from the death of all his children, including Sam’s sea captain son’s mysterious demise aboard his yacht, to the eccentric life of his widow. But the tip of this iceberg was the 1841-42 murder case of brother John C. Colt, one of New York’s most sensational scandals. Printer Samuel Adams went to collect a debt from bookkeeper and author John Colt and was never seen alive again. Shocking revelations followed: Did John shoot Adams with one of his brother’s Colt firearms before hacking him up and packing him in an oblong box? Did Sam Colt invent the revolving pistol, or steal the idea?

     Part historical true-crime, part family biography and cultural history, The Devil’s Right Hand is a stirring narrative about a darkly cursed American dynasty.

Bestselling true-crime author M. William Phelps, star of the new investigative television series “Dark Minds,” takes readers to his own backyard in these eight bloodcurdling murder cases. Think New England is all bucolic landscapes and Robert Frost poems? Think again.

    In Murder, New England, Phelps explores different motives, themes, and community reactions to horrific crimes:

** Murder by Blood: The Strange Death of Rebecca Cornwell (1673, Narragansset Bay, RI). A 73-year-old widow burned to death in front of her bedroom fireplace…

** William Beadle: Husband, Father, Murderer (1782, Wethersfield, CT). A man murders his wife and kids before taking his own life...

** The Angry Man: Murder in Manchester (1821, Manchester, NH). A poor widow killed in her home by a “ruffian” looking for food and drink...

** Better Off in Heaven: John Kemmler Kills His Three Children (1879, Holyoke, MA). After losing his mill job, a man kills his daughters because he fears they will become prostitutes...

** Birth of the “Big Seven”: Gaspare Messina’s Mafioso (1917, Boston). An ol’ fashioned Mafia murder tale...

** Electronic Kill Machine: “Forensic Files” Murder (2001, Somerville, MA). Teenage slackers, the show “Forensic Files,” and the murder of a grandmother blamed on TV, youth, drugs, sex, money, and rock-n-roll...

** Sings of Life (2006, Lanesborough, MA). A woman employs the help of her cocaine-snorting daughter and Goth son to help her get rid of their step-father.

** Sesame Street Murder: Death on Big Bird’s Estate (2008, Woodstock, CT). A young woman out for a jog murdered by the groundskeeper of an estate owned by the puppeteer who played Big Bird and Oscar the Grouch.

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A chilling scene unfolds on the Woodstock, Connecticut, estate of the Sesame Street puppeteer who played Big Bird and Oscar the Grouch:

Near the end of the access road was a picnic area with a large pagoda-like structure topped by an A-framed roof. Two paddle boats were stored under the ceiling of the open-air building. The pagoda had that sacred, spiritual look one would expect of a place to relax and meditate. Here was a haven separated from the main living space where one could retreat and disconnect from the world.

     What upset the serenity of the scene was the trail of blood. It lead from the roadway directly to the pagoda—and yet stopped in the center of the ground under the ceiling. The paddle boats, investigators noticed, had blood spatter and smudge marks on them. But what did it mean that the trail of blood just stopped?

     As they continued to search, troopers looked above them and spied a set of pull-down stairs. There was a storage area or attic within the pagoda’s A-frame.

     The blood trail had stopped directly beneath the pull-down stairs.

In 1993, Donna Palomba was raped by a masked assailant in her own home. Yet, her story is more than a victim’s tale of physical and emotional recovery. It is a story of one woman’s hunt for justice while fending off attacks by institutions designed to defend and protect her—the police department, the local government, and a community clinging to an outrageous claim that Donna had invented the crime to cover up a sexual affair.

     From the night of the attack, the botched crime scene investigation, and the abuse as authorities attempted to close the case by discrediting her, Donna was left as a victim with no name and no identity. Meanwhile, there was one courageous detective, later to become chief of police, who broke a cops’ code of silence in the name of justice. As they fought on, a legal battle ensued after the Waterbury Police Department—now with media support—refused to let go of its allegations against her and admit wrongdoing. Finally, after eleven years of struggle, Donna learned the identity of her attacker from the chief of police, who explained that the DNA from the rape kit taken a decade ago had turned up a shocking match.

     In 2007, Donna Palomba was the subject of a special two-hour Dateline episode about her case. Suddenly, she was Jane Doe no more, launching the Jane Doe No More organization and becoming a promoter of the rights of women and victims of sexual assault. With the help of crime investigator and author M. William Phelps, this is her story.

A New York State investigator matches wits with a devious serial killer in the New York Times bestselling author’s true crime thriller.

Gary C. Evans was master of disguise and career criminal who had once befriended David "Son of Sam" Berkowitz. In 1989, he started weaving a web of deadly lies in Upstate New York, telling a female friend that the father of her child had deserted her. In fact, Evans had killed the man—just before striking up a ten-year romance with the woman.

Evans first met Investigator James Horton in 1985 when Evans snitched on a childhood friend and crime partner—failing to mention that he'd murdered him. Then, two local jewelry dealers were killed. In 1997, another old friend of Evans, went missing. Was Evans responsible? Horton launched a nationwide manhunt to uncover the truth.

For more than a decade, Evans and Horton maintained an odd relationship—part friendship, part manipulation—with Evans serving as a snitch while the tenacious investigator searched for the answers that would put him away. After Horton used Evans to obtain a confession from a local killer, Evans led Horton in a final game of cat-and-mouse that would culminate in the most shocking death of all . . .

A newlywed couple has a murderous celebration the day after their wedding in this classic true-crime thriller by the New York Times–bestselling journalist.

On a hot Florida night in 2003, aspiring model Sandee Rozzo drove into her garage after a long shift at a local bar. Waiting in the shadows was a killer who fired eight bullets point-blank into her chest. The police immediately suspected Timothy Alvin “Tracey” Humphrey, the ex she had recently agreed to testify against for imprisoning and raping her.

But Humphrey had recently manipulated nineteen-year-old Ashley Laney into falling in love with him. On their wedding night, he made a strange request—one that would end in a tragic and brutal murder. The police knew Humphrey was the likely suspect, but he had an alibi for the time of the shooting. How could they prove that he was the psychopath behind Sandee’s murder even if he didn’t pull the trigger? It would all come down to a bold prison escape, a manhunt for a killer, and an explosive trial . . .

INCLUDES SIXTEEN PAGES OF SHOCKING PHOTOS

The New York Times bestselling author examines the shocking case of a Kansas woman who murdered to become a mother. On December 16th, 2004, a 911 operator in rural Missouri received a frantic call from the mother of twenty-three-year-old Bobbie Jo Stinnett. The eight-months-pregnant mother-to-be had been found bleeding on her family room floor—her unborn baby gone. More than 150 miles away, in Melvern, Kansas, Lisa Montgomery proudly showed off “her” new baby, duping many while arousing the suspicions of others. Across the nation, televisions broadcast the first Amber Alert for an unborn child. Here is the true story of the frantic search for a baby born under shocking conditions, of the lucky break that led to the killer, of a tortured history of sexual abuse, and the pain that lingers in two American towns. With the exclusive cooperation of key witnesses and participants, award-winning investigative reporter M. William Phelps reveals what really happened that fateful December day.“The most disturbing and moving look at murder in rural America since In Cold Blood.” —Gregg Olsen

The New York Times–bestselling journalist and serial killer expert recounts a tragic case of infanticide—including an exclusive interview with the killer.

It started with a horrifying discovery in an Arizona self-storage facility: the abandoned bodies of three infants wrapped in plastic. Dianne O’Dell, a mother of eight children, admitted the babies were hers. She claimed they’d died of natural causes; that she’d been impregnated by her father when young; that her own mother had forced her into teen prostitution.

As daily headlines about bullying and teen violence render it more timely than ever, this shocking true crime tale of a vulnerable small-town girl gruesomely murdered by the peers she called friends is now updated with chilling new details and insights from New York Times bestselling author, investigative journalist, and host of the hit podcast Crossing the Line, M. William Phelps.

After leaving her troubled home life in Texas, 16-year-old Adrianne Reynolds hoped for a fresh start as part of her adoptive father’s family in East Moline, Illinois, near the banks of the Mississippi River. Seeking acceptance, she was drawn to a trio of classmates steeped in, and obsessed with, the Juggalo culture—fans of the rap duo Insane Clown Posse. Though they bonded over their feelings of being outcasts, sporting dark clothing, “killer” clown makeup, tattoos, and piercings, Adrianne was ill-prepared to deal with the twisted tangles of jealousy and domination in her new social world. After a brutal murder stunned the community and was traced back to the teens, bonds were severed and loyalties tested . . . as the shocking truth finally emerged. In this updated edition of a true-crime classic, M. William Phelps revisits the alarming and timely saga of a girl who tried to find herself, the youths who befriended and then betrayed her, and the heartbreaking problems of bullying and teen-on-teen violence that continue to shock and bewilder us.

“Phelps is a true-crime veteran.”—New York Post

The missing-persons case of Heather Strong, a young, beautiful suburban mother, baffled Florida detectives. When the file was handed to a veteran investigator, he knew Heather was dead. The challenge was to find her body—and whoever killed her. Soon, a sordid triangle of sex, jealousy, and rage came to light. The killers were cunning, manipulative, depraved—and they were as close to Heather as a man and a woman could possibly be. Vividly recreated by master investigative journalist M. William Phelps, this riveting account of seething small-town passions is a classic tale of crime and justice.

Includes 16 Pages Of Dramatic Photos