Michigan

Author Karen Dybis follows the twists and turns of a shocking story, revealing the truth of Detroit's own Hex Woman.

Detroit was full of stark contrasts in 1931. Political scandals, rumrunners and mobs lurked in the shadows of the city's soaring architecture and industrious population. As the Great Depression began to take hold, tensions grew, spilling over into the investigation of a mysterious murder at the boardinghouse of Hungarian immigrant Rose Veres. Amid accusations of witchcraft, Rose and her son Bill were convicted of the brutal killing and suspected in a dozen more. Their cries of innocence went unheeded - until one lawyer, determined to seek justice, took on the case.

On August 16, 1982, an unidentified attacker brutalized and strangled Maggie Hume at her apartment in Battle Creek, Michigan. The daughter of a beloved local football coach, her seemingly senseless murder sparked intense scrutiny that lingers today. Award-winning author Blaine Pardoe and his daughter, Victoria Hester, crack open three decades of material on this mysterious tragedy, exposing dark secrets and political in-fighting that tore at the Battle Creek legal system for years. Compiled from documents, videos and interviews, this book presents the facts and clues of the case to the public for the first time.

They used arsenic to obtain chemical divorces and strychnine to settle scores. They bludgeoned husbands to make way for lovers. They flattened love triangles with blunt objects. They murdered for money, for revenge, for pleasure.

Meet the heiress who just could not take "no" for an answer from her mechanic lover; meet the two nursing home workers whose deadly game ended after the murders of six residents; meet the three sirens who lured a wealthy banker to the strip poker game of death. And many, many other Michigan mistresses of mayhem in this collection of true crime tales.

Passion, Greed, Murder, Corn Flakes

At the convergence of the Battle Creek and Kalamazoo rivers lays Cereal City, USA. Named after a bloody battle between natives and land surveyors, Battle Creek is most famously the home to the Kelloggs, a family of eccentric inventors and entrepreneurs who would go on to rule the world of breakfast foods. But before their worldwide fame came the sanitarium. And the questionable deaths. And the fires. And after their downfall came the complicated legacy that would result in tragedy for decades to come.

Author and podcaster Jenn Carpenter reveals how cereal, Battle Creek's lifeblood, also served as the root cause of bloodshed in the city many times over.

Founded in 1798, Hamtramck shrank in size even as it grew in population. Stuffing tens of thousands of people in 2.1 square miles is bound to breed conflict, and many of those conflicts boiled over into murder. Sunday, September 7, 1884, was supposed to be a day of joy for Fritz Krum, whose child was being christened. Instead, it ended in a fatal stabbing. The 1930 killing of police officer Barney Roth in a reputed mob hit drew national attention. The murder of Hamtramck teen Bernice Onisko remains an open case today, more than eighty years after it occurred. Gathering cases from the late nineteenth century to more recent times, prolific local historian Greg Kowalski takes readers on a journey through Hamtramck homicide.

The rich history of the Wolverine State has a serious dark side. In the Detroit area, the Black Legion outdid the Ku Klux Klan in hate but remained secret until one of its leaders was implicated in a murder. John Harvey Kellogg of Battle Creek was equal parts physician and quack. Then there were the state's two self-proclaimed kings--James Jesse Strang, the leader of a Mormon group on Beaver Island, and Albert Molitor, the reputed illegitimate son of German royalty who established his own kingdom on Presque Isle. Michigan author and historian Norma Lewis present a gallery of the state's most despicable criminals, crooks, conmen and more.

Spellbinding cases of mayhem from the Great Lake State

Blanketed by forests, dotted by lakes, crisscrossed by rivers and surrounded by Great Lakes, Michigan is a good place to hide secrets, bury bodies and stash evidence. Dig deep enough, and you will unearth something sinister. Is the suicide note of a prominent Detroit physician also a confession to murder? Were inmates unlawfully released from Jackson State Penitentiary to carry out a contract killing on a politician before he could turn State's evidence? Who silenced a fiery radio personality known as "the voice of the people'?? Did a notorious serial killer stalk women in Lansing during the 1970s?

Join true crime author Tobin T. Buhk as he excavates some of the most vexing unsolved crimes in Michigan history.

Washtenaw County has enjoyed low crime rates, but extraordinary criminal acts occasionally pierced its calm and quiet. A strange bank robbery at Dexter in 1894 and the 1897 murder of James Richards raised concerns. In 1937, the McHenry family suffered a terrible tragedy but found room in their hearts to forgive. After the murder of Eleanor Farver in 1970, detectives searching for suspect John Edward Burns probed his background, seeking clues to where he fled. They discovered that John Edward Burns never existed. Attorney Peter Kensler was shockingly murdered in front of his home near Manchester with two shotgun blasts to the face--the case has never been solved. Local historian James Thomas Mann leads a tour into some of the darkest corners of Washtenaw County's past.

With his boyish good looks, Arthur Warren Waite charmed into marriage the daughter of wealthy Grand Rapids business tycoon John E. Peck in 1916. He then wasted no time executing what he believed to be a flawless scheme to hijack his wife's inheritance. The plot went awry when a mysterious telegram set off a sequence of events that ultimately exposed his immoral ambition to poison all other Peck heirs. Follow Waite's fingerprints of indiscretion" around Grand Rapids and New York City as author Tobin T. Buhk details this audacious plan of staggering complexity."

Investigate the mysteries surrounding the horrifying murder of Battle Creek's Daisy Zick. A must-read for fans of true crime and Michigan history enthusiasts.

On a bitterly cold morning in January 1963, Daisy Zick was brutally murdered in her Battle Creek home. No fewer than three witnesses caught a glimpse of the killer, yet today, it remains one of Michigan's most sensational unsolved crimes.

The act of pure savagery rocked not only the community but also the Kellogg Company, where she worked. Here, Blaine Pardoe artfully takes the reader into this true crime thriller. Utilizing long-sealed police files and interviews with the surviving investigators, the true story of the investigation can finally be told.

Who were the key suspects? What evidence does the police still have on this five-decades-old cold case? Just how close did this murder come to being solved? Is the killer still alive? These questions and more are masterfully brought to the forefront for true crime fans and armchair detectives.