Recounts a family's attempts to solve the murder of one of their kin, a Memphis woman named Deborah Watts, in a case stretching over twenty years, from 1977 to 1997.

A journey through Memphis’ troubled past: the shocking crimes and the brutal killings that led to it being dubbed the “Murder Capital of the World.” With its alluring hospitality, legendary cuisine and transcendent music, Memphis is truly a quintessential Southern city. But lurking behind the barbeque and blue suede shoes is a dark history checkered with violence and disarray. Revisit the mass murder of 1866 that took more than fifty lives, the infamous Alice Mitchell case of the 1890s and a string of unthinkable twentieth-century sins. Author and lifelong Memphian Teresa Simpson explores some of the River City’s most menacing crimes and notorious characters in this riveting ride back through the centuries. Includes photos!

Alice + Freda Forever is a gut-wrenching story of love, death, and the dangers of intolerance."—Bustle In 1892, America was obsessed with a teenage murderess, but it wasn't her crime that shocked the nation—it was her motivation. Nineteen-year-old Alice Mitchell had planned to pass as a man in order to marry her seventeen-year-old fiancée Freda Ward, but when their love letters were discovered, they were forbidden from ever speaking again. Freda adjusted to this fate with an ease that stunned a heartbroken Alice. Her desperation grew with each unanswered letter—and her father's razor soon went missing. On January 25, Alice publicly slashed her ex-fiancée's throat. Her same-sex love was deemed insane by her father that very night, and medical experts agreed: This was a dangerous and incurable perversion. As the courtroom was expanded to accommodate national interest, Alice spent months in jail—including the night that three of her fellow prisoners were lynched (an event which captured the attention of journalist and civil rights activist Ida B. Wells). After a jury of "the finest men in Memphis" declared Alice insane, she was remanded to an asylum, where she died under mysterious circumstances just a few years later. Alice + Freda Forever recounts this tragic, real-life love story with over 100 illustrated love letters, maps, artifacts, historical documents, newspaper articles, courtroom proceedings, and intimate, domestic scenes.

Recounts the events surrounding the 1993 murders of three boys in West Memphis, Arkansas, and the trials of the three teens who were convicted of the crime.

The award-winning investigative journalist takes readers deep inside the 1993 slayings of three boys in West Memphis, Arkansas, revealing the overzealous prosecution that may have improperly convicted three teenagers.

The more I investigated, the more the story took on a more meaningful purpose to me. The horror that was Shannon Avenue was a story that needed to be told. What began as a project to tell a story became a labor of love. I wondered, at the time of the occurrence, how a team of police officers could stand idly by while their brother officer was being held hostage and do nothing. I was determined to find out. What I found was that every officer there was a victim. The tragedy touched more lives than I could ever imagine. This is their story