Southwestern Illinois experienced a plethora of violence during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Settlers and Native Americans clashed at the Wood River Settlement, while Abraham Lincoln dueled on a Mississippi River island. Racial strife led to the lynching of a Black schoolteacher in Belleville in 1903 and a deadly riot in East St. Louis fourteen years later. Benbow City was a latter-day Wild West town of saloons, gambling dens and brothels, and Pere Marquette State Park screened a cache of Nike missiles. From the birthplace of Martin Luther King Jr.'s killer to the mystery surrounding Jean Lafitte's grave, John Dunphy examines the bloody ledger of southwestern Illinois.

Southwestern Illinois experienced a plethora of violence during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Settlers and Native Americans clashed at the Wood River Settlement, while Abraham Lincoln dueled on a Mississippi River island. Racial strife led to the lynching of a Black schoolteacher in Belleville in 1903 and a deadly riot in East St. Louis fourteen years later. Benbow City was a latter-day Wild West town of saloons, gambling dens and brothels, and Pere Marquette State Park screened a cache of Nike missiles. From the birthplace of Martin Luther King Jr.'s killer to the mystery surrounding Jean Lafitte's grave, John Dunphy examines the bloody ledger of southwestern Illinois.

For 16 years, Harry Spiller worked as a deputy sheriff, investigator, and sheriff in a place where murder isn't suppose to happen- Southern Illinois. Investigating murder cases mainly in Williamson County and assisting in other counties, he learned the hard reality that murder is all around us. The act is swift for the victim and can happen to anyone, anywhere, at any time. It doesn't matter if you live in a big city or a small county, with brick-front towns, small farms, white church houses, lakes and ponds, the Shawnee National Forest, and the muddy rivers. All too often, victims fall prey in places that we think are safe to raise our families, places where we take walks on hot summer nights, where our children play in the park without concern, where we fish in the local pond hoping to land the big one, and where we leave our doors unlocked at night. In this book, Murder In The Heartland, there are 20 case files.

It's not the usual boring history read. It's a fast-paced, easy to read, behind the scenes look at the making of Iowa and Illinois focusing on Eastern Iowa and Western Illinois.

The 'Murder in the Heartland' series is dramatic and chilling. Harry Spiller...brings to his work the prodigious research, and narrative skill necessary to create suspense. The New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Robert Vaughan. This is the third book in the reviting MURDER IN THE HEARTLAND series by author and retired sheriff Harry Spiller. His series details the many unusual murders that have occurred throughout Southern Illinois in recent decades. In Murder In The Heartland, Book 3, the author profiles 12 case files that he has researched over the past several years. Rural America isn't immune to the bizarre and unpredictable human behavior that leads to murder.""

Meet the men from Southwestern Illinois who served in the Civil War. Learn about their lives prior to enlistment, follow them into battle, and bear witness to their legacy.

BLOOD, BULLETS AND BOOZE GHOSTS AND GANGSTERS OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS When we think of the Roaring 20's - that decade of gangsters, jazz, Prohibition, and flappers - most of us think of Chicago, Al Capone, and the St. Valentine's Day Massacre. The Windy City has become famous for its one-way-rides and violent shootouts, but author Troy Taylor presents another part of Prohibition-era Illinois that not only outgunned and outdrank Chicago but has just as many ghost stories left lingering behind from those turbulent days. Southern Illinois - or "Little Egypt" as some call it - not only had just as many gangsters and just as much booze and bloodshed, but it also had aerial bombings, homemade military tanks, dirty cops, unsolved murders, attacks on hospitals, and gun battles with the Ku Klux Klan! Take a trip back in time to the days of the explosive Southern Illinois gang wars, when Charlie Birger, the Shelton Brothers, the Ku Klux Klan, and a bunch of wild card gunmen wreaked havoc, created mayhem, and carried out countless murders as they fought for control of the liquor trade. And it was all happening at the same time Al Capone was the biggest mob boss in that city by Lake Michigan. Maybe the gangs of Southern Illinois didn't wear fancy suits or drink their bootleg liquor in fancy glasses on Lake Shore Drive, but they were just as deadly as their counterparts - maybe even more so! Delve into the gangsters and ghosts of the Roaring 20's in a way you never have before with this page-turner of a book!