Gold digging, adultery, and a slaying on Valentine’s Day, 1923, in this “juicy . . . page-turner” of a true crime story (Chicago Tribune). It was a Roaring Twenties fatal attraction. Nettie Herskovitz was wealthy and widowed when she met Harry Diamond. The attentive, irresistibly sexy twenty-three-year-old suitor would become Nettie’s fifth husband. He was also a bootlegger, pimp, and first-class hustler who thought he’d wed a goldmine. What Harry found instead was a fiercely independent older woman who was nobody’s fool for long. Then, on February 14, 1923, Harry tried to secure his inheritance by shooting Nettie four times, once at point blank range to the head. He blamed the crime on their teenage African American chauffeur. Harry might have gotten away with it, if not for one little oversight. Nettie wasn’t dead. With its combination of sin, sex, high-society scandal, and even the interference of the Ku Klux Klan, the case against the movie-star handsome Harry Diamond moved beyond tabloid fodder to become the most sensational trial of the era.

What's a gal to do when her loaded lover is getting to be a nuisance? Why, just murder him and take all his money, of course. If you want to be fabulously single with tons of cash, just follow the lead of the beautiful and conniving Minnie Wallace Walkup Ketcham, who left a trail of broken hearts, empty wallets, and corpses. Minnie was just 16 when she stood trial in 1885 for the wrongful death of her first husband, a successful businessman and politician almost 40 years her senior. Despite overwhelming witness testimony that the Creole beauty from New Orleans had purchased the arsenic that killed him, Minnie's own testimony brought the entire courtroom to tears. She was acquitted. Minnie returned to New Orleans with James Walkup's fortune, life insurance, Civil War pension, and all the expensive clothes she had shipped home before he even died. Minnie still didn't have enough cash for her liking, so she successfully targeted, seduced, and murdered two more wealthy older men while evading justice in the courtroom (and escaping her lawyer's fees, too). How to Murder Your Three Lovers and Get Away with It is an extraordinary and off-the-wall true story of intrigue, scandal, and murder.

This fascinating chronicle of murder in the Hoosier State paints a chilling portrait of the American Midwest from mid-19th century to the Jazz Age. In Murders that Made Headlines, Jane Simon Ammeson uncovers a grizzly history of crime in Indiana, offering a stark contrast to the nostalgic image of a simpler time in America’s heartland. While the Midwest saw many changes between the 1850s and the 1930s—from horses and buggies to Hudson sedans; ladies in long dresses to flappers in short skirts—the passions that led to murder remained the same. In this compendium of sensational and scandalous crimes, you will find tales of romantic jealousy, manic greed, racism, and family dysfunction—themes that remain all too familiar today. Ammeson recounts the astonishing and sometimes bizarre stories of arsenic murders, Ponzi schemes, prison escapes, perjury, and other shocking crimes that took place in the Hoosier state. These extraordinary true events once captured the public’s attention, only to be forgotten by time. But through extensive research into public records, genealogies, and even exhumed graves, Ammeson reveals the notorious true crimes lurking in our history.

"Where can you travel the Erie Canal on a boat pulled by a horse? What is Wapakoneta, and what does it have to do with Neil Armstrong? Where can you eat ice cream at a stop on the Underground Railroad? Find these answers and more in Little Ohio: Small-Town Destinations. Author and blogger Jane Simon Ammeson traveled across the state to discover where to eat, stay, play, and shop in more than 90 charming small towns. Organized by region, Little Ohio offers fellow road trippers an easy-to-use guide of must-see attractions. Full-color images showcase unmissable museums, quaint Main Streets, historic sites, and more. From wineries to chocolate shops, old mills to Amish villages, river boats to covered bridges, Little Ohio has everything you need for a day, weekend, or week full of fun. No matter where you are in the Buckeye State, there's always something to explore!"--

Stories of the runaway slaves who left their spirits behind. “An easy read and an odd collection of tales of murders, mayhem, madness, and sadness.” —Folklore Before the Civil War, a network of secret routes and safe houses crisscrossed the Midwest to help African Americans travel north to escape slavery. Although many slaves were able to escape to the safety of Canada, others met untimely deaths on the treacherous journey—and some of these unfortunates still linger, unable to rest in peace. In Hauntings of the Underground Railroad: Ghosts of the Midwest, Jane Simon Ammeson investigates unforgettable and chilling tales of these restless ghosts that still walk the night. This unique collection includes true and gruesome stories, like the story of a lost toddler who wanders the woods near the Story Inn, eternally searching for the mother torn from him by slave hunters, or the tale of the Hannah House, where an overturned oil lamp sparked a fire that trapped slaves hiding in the basement and burned them alive. Brave visitors who visit the house, which is now a bed and breakfast, claim they can still hear voices moaning and crying from the basement. Ammeson also includes incredible true stories of daring escapes and close calls on the Underground Railroad. A fascinating and spine-tingling glimpse into our past, Hauntings of the Underground Railroad will keep you up all night.

How does a Norwegian farm girl become an infamous American serial killer, responsible for upward of 40 murders? Born in rural Norway in 1859, "Belle" Storset Sorenson Gunness was constantly dealt bad hands in life—so she decided to take life into her own hands. In America's Femme Fatale: The Story of Serial Killer Belle Gunness, Jane Simon Ammeson traces Gunness's path from a poor teenager rejected by a wealthy lover; to a new wife in Chicago, desperate to escape the poverty of her childhood and impatient for a child to love; to an ambitious, widowed landowner in La Porte, Indiana. Ammeson's careful research reveals how the young immigrant slowly turned into one of America's most dangerous serial killers, allegedly murdering husbands, lovers, and children, and, for a price, disposing of inconvenient corpses for others. Ammeson brings this shocking story to life, detailing the suspicious neighbors who were cowed into silence by Belle's intimidating personality, the culture of orphanages trafficking children and matrimonial agencies, the carnival atmosphere that exploded around the pile of bones found on Gunness's farm, and the sensational reporting that filled newspapers for months. Perfect for true crime fans fascinated by the creation of a sociopathic serial killer, America's Femme Fatale will leave you entertained and looking over your shoulder.

Albin Ludwig was furious. He had caught his wife, Cecilia, with other men before; now, after secretly following Cecilia one evening in 1906, Albin was overcome with suspicion. Albin and Cecilia quarreled that night and again the next day. Prosecutors later claimed that the final quarrel ended when Albin knocked Cecilia unconscious with a wooden potato masher, doused her with a flammable liquid, lit her on fire, and left her to burn to death. Albin claimed self-defense, but he was convicted of second-degree murder. Newspaper coverage of the dramatic crime and trial was jarringly explicit and detailed, shocking readers in Indiana, where the crime occurred. Peter Young of the South Bend Times wrote that the murder's "horrors and its shocking features . . . have never before been witnessed in Mishawaka." The story was front-page news throughout northern Indiana for much of a year. For several generations, the families of both Cecilia and Albin would be silent about the crime--until Cecilia's great-grandson, award-winning journalist Gary Sosniecki, uncovered the family's dark secret. As he discovered, wife beating was commonplace in the early 20th century (before the gender-neutral term of "domestic violence" was adopted), and "wife murder" was so common that newspapers described virtually every case by that term. At long last, The Potato Masher Murder: Death at the Hands of a Jealous Husband unearths the full story of two immigrant families united by love and torn apart by domestic violence.