Books for the Armchair Detective in Your Life

Death on the Turnpike

Discover the bloody story of John Wesley Wable's 1950s killing spree that rocked Western Pennsylvania, and left truckers and drivers alike frightened of the turnpike. After a series of murdered truck drivers and a high-speed interstate chase, Wable's gruesome criminal story also involves a thrilling court case and unresolved mysteries to do this day.

Author Richard Gazarik details the incredible true crime narratives of the man dubbed the "Pennsylvania Turnpike Phantom Killer."

Friday, August 15, 1975, began as a typical summer day in Marple Township. Young children played with their friends as adults prepared for work and planned for their vacations at the Jersey Shore. That all changed in the hours before noon, when Gretchen Harrington, the eight-year-old daughter of a Presbyterian minister and his wife, was kidnapped while walking to a vacation Bible school near her home. Her body was found by a jogger in a state park nearly two months later. The crime forever affected Gretchen's contemporaries and their parents in the region, many of whom chose to live in suburban Marple Township because they considered it a safe refuge from a crime-ridden Philadelphia. With rare access to police files, journalists Mike Mathis and Joanna Falcone Sullivan examine the kidnapping, murder and the nearly five-decade-long investigation in what is tragically still a cold case.

Politics in Kelayres turned deadly on November 5, 1934. When Republican boss Big Joe" Bruno sensed his grip on Pennsylvania's anthracite coal region slipping away with the night's election, he and a few family members opened fire on a peaceful Democratic parade passing Bruno's home. The carnage was shocking--five men gunned down and nearly two dozen other victims wounded but alive. Convicted and sentenced to the Schuylkill County Prison, Bruno quickly escaped, allegedly with help from the guard. It took authorities eight months to put him back behind bars. Author Stephanie Hoover delves into this true story of politics, murder and deceit."

On July 12, 1926, Frances Bowermaster McBride, a forty-year-old divorcee, called off her affair with twenty-seven-year-old Norman Morrison. Driven into a rage, Morrison tracked Frances to her home in Carlisle's East End, where she sat on the porch with her three-year-old daughter, Georgia, on her lap. Morrison shot and killed Frances before turning the pistol on himself. Morrison lived but was blinded. Young Georgia fell to the pavement unharmed. Eventually standing trial, Morrison was convicted of first-degree murder. Historian Paul D. Hoch goes beyond the conviction as he traces the later lives of Morrison and Georgia McBride as she came of age in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. Hoch spins a tale of murder, perseverance and, ultimately, redemption.

Author Dale Richard Perelman tells the tragic story of the 1978 murders and the mystery surrounding them.

In the summer of 1978, a mother and her four-year-old were stabbed to death in the quiet town of New Castle. Police suspected the husband, Lou Kadunce, but were unable to find either a weapon or a motive. Sitting in a Lawrence County jail in 1981, convicted serial killer Michael Atkinson accused Frank Costal - a carny, petty thief and Satanist - of having an affair with the Kadunce husband and participating in the murder. A series of intense trials ensued as Costal was convicted of the homicides and a jury found the husband not guilty. Questions surrounding the case gripped the region and grabbed headlines in the Pittsburgh Press.

This is the horrifying tale of the random crime spree that shocked residents of southwestern Pennsylvania in 1979.

During the winter of 1979, southwestern Pennsylvania was rocked by a series of sensational murders, sparking a thirty-year criminal justice saga. A week of brutal, seemingly random killings culminated in the provocation and fatal shooting of Patrolman Leonard Miller, an officer new to the town of Apollo's police force and only twenty one years old. Little more than a year later, two men were convicted of the rash of homicides and sentenced to death-- yet both are alive today. Incorporating details of the central characters' personal lives as well as the state's court system, criminologist Michael W. Sheetz here relays the awful story of the so-called ""kill for thrill"" crime spree with the drama of a novelist and the insight of an officer of the law.