Books for the Armchair Detective in Your Life

Some said that the killer couldn't be a local. Others claimed that he was the wealthy son of a prominent Morgantown family. Whispers spread that Mared and Karen were sacrificed by a satanic cult or had been victims of a madman poised to strike again. Then the handwritten letters began to arrive: "You will locate the bodies of the girls covered over with brush--look carefully. The animals are now on the move."

Investigators didn't find too few suspects--they had far too many. There was the campus janitor with a fur fetish, the "harmless" deliveryman who beat a woman nearly to death, the nursing home orderly with the bloody broomstick and the bouncer with the "girlish" laugh who threatened to cut off people's heads. Local authors Geoffrey C. Fuller and S. James McLaughlin tell the complete story of the murders for the first time.

Dive into this riveting tale and discover just how deadly a pen and paper can be when wielded by a master manipulator. In the 1930s, in the sleepy town of Quiet Dell, West Virginia lonely, wealthy women began to disappear. Under the guise of charming love letters, con man Harry F. Powers lured them into a sinister web of deceit. When correspondence evolved into promises of romance, and then face-to-face meetings, these women would mysteriously vanish. As the number of missing women grew, the authorities finally took notice. Investigators unearthed a murder garage with a custom-made concealed dungeon, revealing the appalling evidence of multiple murders. The horror of Powers' crimes gained statewide notoriety, and shook the community to its core. Local author Angela Fielder tells a riveting tale of one of history's most cunning serial killers.

One of the most notoriously dangerous and deadly correctional facilities in the US, this history of the legendary penitentiary in West Virginia will make you reconsider a life of crime.

In 1863, the newly formed West Virginia lacked a state penitentiary to house convicted felons. As a result, construction began in July 1866 on the West Virginia Penitentiary, the second public building constructed in the state. The infamous and foreboding West Virginia Penitentiary in Moundsville was known as one of the bloodiest institutions in the United States. With an extensive history of violence, the prison was ranked on the Department of Justice's Top Ten Most Violent Correctional Facilities list. Nearly 1,000 inmates perished within the stone walls of the prison, many of whom are said to still be serving their sentence, even after death. Many inmates were tortured, executed, murdered, or committed suicide. Plagued by these horrific events, the prison is a hotspot for paranormal activity. Images of America: West Virginia Penitentiary chronicles the fascinating history of a notorious prison from the planning stages to present day.

In 1949, two bandits from Youngstown, Ohio, boarded a B&O passenger train from Washington, D.C., to Detroit. In the West Virginia mountains near Martinsburg, Luman "Lu" Ramsdell and his gang stopped the train to rob and terrorize nearly 150 people on board. They pistol-whipped several and shot at others before exiting the train to next rob a tavern and hijack getaway cars. National headlines likened the event to the exploits of Jesse James and the infamous days of the Wild West. Lu and the gang led authorities on a chase that ended with a harrowing shootout five blocks from the White House. Climb aboard with author Wilson Casey for a firsthand account from the head bandit himself in this true tale of America's last moving train robbery.