This is the first historical study to examine changing perceptions of sexual murder and the treatment of sex killers while the death penalty was in effect in Canada.

From Confederation to the partial abolition of the death penalty a century later, defendants convicted of sexually motivated killings and sexually violent homicides in Canada were more likely than any other condemned criminals to be executed for their crimes. Despite the emergence of psychiatric expertise in criminal trials, moral disgust and anger proved more potent in courtrooms, the public mind, and the hearts of the bureaucrats and politicians responsible for determining the outcome of capital cases. Wherever death has been set as the ultimate criminal penalty, the poor, minority groups, and stigmatized peoples have been more likely to be accused, convicted, and executed. Although the vast majority of convicted sex killers were white, Canada’s racist notions of "the Indian mind" meant that Indigenous defendants faced the presumption of guilt. Black defendants were also subjected to discriminatory treatment, including near lynchings. In debates about capital punishment, abolitionists expressed concern that prejudices and poverty created the prospect of wrongful convictions. Unique in the ways it reveals the emotional drivers of capital punishment in delivering inequitable outcomes, The Death Penalty and Sex Murder in Canadian History provides a thorough overview of sex murder and the death penalty in Canada. It serves as an essential history and a richly documented cautionary tale for the present.

Documents the life stories of death-row prisoners and the author's experiences as a pro bono attorney on Texas death penalty cases to present arguments for the abolishment of state-sanctioned executions.

The tragic murder of Reena Virk—which inspired the major television series Under the Bridge—and its aftermath are recounted in heart-wrenching detail by her grieving father. The horrifying killing of fourteen-year-old Reena Virk at the hands of her peers in 1997 shocked and stunned the public. This callous act of violence drew nation-wide attention to bullying and cast a spotlight on Virk’s mourning parents, Manjit and Suman, who had already been let down by social services and law enforcement by the time of their daughter’s murder. In Reena: A Father’s Story, Manjit Virk speaks out for the first time about his family’s life before and after Reena’s death. This is a powerful story of an immigrant family’s struggles to make a new life in a new country, the cultural clashes they endured, the anguish they experienced over their loss of their child, and, ultimately, their perseverance in the face of unspeakable tragedy and public scrutiny.

In this “true story that reads like a novel,” the #1 New York Times–bestselling author reveals the facts behind a notorious Southern murder case (Library Journal). When North Carolina farmer Stuart Taylor died after a sudden illness, his forty-six-year-old fiancée, Velma Barfield, was overcome with grief. Taylor’s family grieved with her—until the autopsy revealed traces of arsenic poisoning. Turned over to the authorities by her own son, Velma stunned her family with more revelations. This wasn’t the first time she had committed cold-blooded murder, and she would eventually be tried by the “world’s deadliest prosecutor” and sentenced to death. This book probes Velma’s stark descent into madness, her prescription drug addiction, and her effort to turn her life around through Christianity. From her harrowing childhood to the crimes that incited a national debate over the death penalty, to the final moments of her execution, Velma Barfield’s life of crime and punishment, revenge and redemption, this is crime reporting at its most gripping and profound. “A painfully intimate, moving story about the life and death of the only woman executed in the U.S. between 1962–1998 . . . With graceful writing and thorough reporting, it makes the reader look hard at something dark and sad in the human soul . . . Breathes new life into the true crime genre.” —The News & Observer “Undertakes to answer the questions about the justice system and the motives that drive women to kill.” —The Washington Post Book World “An extraordinary piece of writing . . . The most chilling description of a legal execution that we are ever likely to get.” —Citizen-Times “Taut and engrossing on the nature of justice and the death penalty as well as on guilt and responsibility.” —Booklist

In 1960 at the age of 14, Steven Truscott was sentenced to death for the murder of Lynne Harper, aged 12yrs. Truscott was in a death cell for most of 4 months; then his sentence was commuted to life imprisonment. He spent the next 3 years in the Guelph Training School, and in January 1963 was transferred to the federal penitentiary at Kingston, Ontario. But was he guilty? The author reviews the case and presents evidence of his innocence.

"WARNING- This book contains police and court transcripts of audio and descriptions of extremely graphic sexual violence contained in videotapes made by the perpetrators." Paul Bernardo and Karla Homolka were so perfectly iconic as a newlywed couple that they were dubbed "Ken and Barbie". But their marriage had a dark side involving sex, death, and videotape. The 'perfect couple' first raped and murdered Karla's little sister and then kidnapped teenage schoolgirls whom they enslaved, raped, tortured and killed while gleefully recording themselves on video doing it. Vronsky will take you on the journey from the Scarborough Rapist (Bernardo) to Bordelais (Homolka's current last name) and her return to Canada in October, 2014 from the island of Gaudeloupe where she lived for several years with her husband and three children. WITH (21) PHOTOS