Death sometimes arrives randomly to those seemingly insulated from risk by virtue of their wealth, celebrity and protective environments. Periodically the world halts in shock and reflection upon the abrupt and sudden headlines of a celebrated personality’s death. Their demise jolts and reinforces our understanding of the fragility and vulnerability of life. This edition chronicles the background stories and detailed locations of some of the most newsworthy, famous and even infamous unexpected sudden passings. The profiles feature self-induced suicides, drug overdoses, celebrity murders, unexplained deaths and even brazen homicides where the perpetrator has taken their own life. The West Coast historically remains a vortex for the unexpected. Understanding the circumstances beyond simple summary reporting often clarifies the motivations behind each unfortunately and often desperate act. The contents are divided into four sectional categories including: FAMOUS SUICIDES Actress Peg Entwistle’s leap from the Hollywood sign, Oil swindler C. C. Julian, Valhalla Cemetery savior John E. Osborne Sr., Actor Ross Alexander, Actresses Lupe Velez and Carol Landis, Superman actor George Reeves, Actresses Marilyn Monroe and Pier Angeli, Actors Pete Duel and Freddie Prinze, Punk Rocker Darby Crash, San Francisco assassin Dan White, Seattle judge Gary Little, Singer Del Shannon, Actor Herve Villechaize, Nirvana’s Kurt Cobain, Actor Hugh O’Connor, Model Margaux Hemingway, Heaven’s Gate cult mass poisoning, Actor Brian Keith, Punk Rocker Dee Dee Ramone, Film Director Tony Scott, Right-to-Die Advocate Brittany Maynard, Comedian Robin Williams, Rock keyboardist Keith Emerson and Actor Verne Troyer. SHOCKING ABRUPT CELEBRITY DEATHS President Warren Harding, Evangelist Sister Aimee Semple-McPherson, Actor James Dean’s fatal car collision, Soul singer Sam Cooke, Comedian Lenny Bruce, Senator Robert F. Kennedy’s assassination, Actor Roman Novarro, Rock singer Janis Joplin and actor John Belushi’s drug overdoses, Actress Dominique Dunne’s strangulation, Beach Boy Dennis Wilson’s drowning, Marvin Gaye’s domestic shooting, Actress Rebecca Schaeffer’s stalker killing, Rock Promoter Bill Graham’s helicopter crash, Actor River Phoenix’s drug overdose, Jockey Ron Hansen’s mysterious drowning, Actor Haing Ngor’s killing, Sublime’s Bradley Nowell’s drug overdose, Revenge shooting of Notorious B. I. G., Rock singer Layne Staley, Singers Michael Jackson and Whitney Houston’s drug overdose, Paul Walker’s street racing crash and Singer George Michael’s outing and premature death. INFAMOUS MURDER SUICIDES Brides of Christ cult, LAPD Captain Walter Auble, Ned Doheny and Hugh Plunkett, Teenage Orcutt California Freeway sniper, Newhall California Highway Patrol shootout, Jim Jones and the People’s Temple, Richard Trenton Chase the Vampire Killer, Playboy Playmate Dorothy Stratten, Lynwood Jim Drake, 101 California Building Massacre, Actor Phil Hartman, Seattle Bus Shooting on Infamous Aurora Bridge, Kyle Huff and the Capitol Hill shooting, John Williams the man of a thousand identities, Bruce Pardo’s Christmas Eve firestorm, Portland’s The Zone nightclub massacre, Jed Waits obsession killing, Publicist Ronni Chasen midnight slaying, Speedfreak mass killing and burial grounds, Seattle’s Café Racer coffee house killings, Survivalist Peter Keller’s family murder, Actor Johnny Lewis’ outburst, Marysville-Pilchuck cafeteria shooting and the vindictive Isla Vista shooting spree rampage of Elliot Roger REPUTED SUICIDE LOCATIONS Pasadena’s Colorado Street Bridge, Golden Gate Bridge, Cecil Hotel Los Angeles, Vista Point Bridge Portland, Aurora Bridge Seattle and the USS Hornet

For the first time, rock music icon Gregg Allman, one of the founding members of The Allman Brothers Band, tells the full story of his life and career in My Cross to Bear. No subject is taboo, as one of the true giants of rock ’n’ roll opens up about his Georgia youth, his long struggle with substance abuse, his string of bad marriages (including his brief union with superstar Cher), the tragic death of brother Duane Allman, and life on the road in one of rock’s most legendary bands.

A compassionate, shame-free guide for your darkest days “A one-of-a-kind book . . . to read for yourself or give to a struggling friend or loved one without the fear that depression and suicidal thoughts will be minimized, medicalized or over-spiritualized.”—Kay Warren, cofounder of Saddleback Church What happens when loving Jesus doesn’t cure you of depression, anxiety, or suicidal thoughts? You might be crushed by shame over your mental illness, only to be told by well-meaning Christians to “choose joy” and “pray more.” So you beg God to take away the pain, but nothing eases the ache inside. As darkness lingers and color drains from your world, you’re left wondering if God has abandoned you. You just want a way out. But there’s hope. In I Love Jesus, But I Want to Die, Sarah J. Robinson offers a healthy, practical, and shame-free guide for Christians struggling with mental illness. With unflinching honesty, Sarah shares her story of battling depression and fighting to stay alive despite toxic theology that made her afraid to seek help outside the church. Pairing her own story with scriptural insights, mental health research, and simple practices, Sarah helps you reconnect with the God who is present in our deepest anguish and discover that you are worth everything it takes to get better. Beautifully written and full of hard-won wisdom, I Love Jesus, But I Want to Die offers a path toward a rich, hope-filled life in Christ, even when healing doesn’t look like what you expect.

Murder in California: Serial Killers and Unsolved Murders profiles some of California’s most infamous murder cases. The edition photographically transports you to actual murder sites along with images related to the case and perpetrator(s). The images and accompanying profiles offer a descriptive account and follow-up aftermath providing an important understanding into the far-reaching effects of each crime. Convicted killers and their confirmed victims are identified. For criminals still living, their current incarceration location is provided. A directory of precise crime site locations is included. The captured snapshots portray visual testimonies of extinguished lives removed by acts of violence. Crime scenes often revert back into unremarkable landscape or unassuming buildings over the ensuing years and decades. Several have altered little since their moment of infamy. Many are passed daily by pedestrian and vehicular traffic unaware of a location’s unique significance. California has been the site for many notorious serial killers. The following are portrayed in this edition: Zodiac Serial Killer: Public and media taunting Charles Manson’s serial killing clan Dorothea Puente: The elderly and frail targeted and eliminated for profit Efren Saldivar: Caregiving medical homicide The Unabomber: His UC Berkeley experience Zebra Killings: San Francisco’s racially targeted genocide Heaven’s Gate Cult mass suicide Edmund Kemper III: Monstrous hitchhiking murders Bittaker and Norris: Torture van murders Juan Corona: Migrant workers serial killer Richard Trenton Chase: The vampire killer The Speed Freak Killers and their burial bone yards Herbert Mullin: Killing for earthquake preventiveness David Carpenter: The devil behind bifocals and a stutter Jim Jones and the Peoples Temple Massacre: Lost in a jungle mass suicide The Hillside Strangler Duo: Killing Cousins Rodney Alcala: A beastly killing machine slaying beauty Richard Ramirez: Satan’s ambassador Golden State Killer: The triumph of forensic tracking A Black Hand of Death and Inhumanity (Jose Manuel Martinez) A Killing Rampage Preying On Society’s Most Vulnerable Population (Jon David Guerrero) The Santa Rosa Hitchhiking Murders: preying on the innocent David Nadel: The death of a man and rebirth of a performance icon Torrey Pines Beach: Sands, Secrets and A Butterfly Dancer The continued fascination with the Black Dahlia Murder Fatty Arbuckle’s sex and homicide scandal A Classic Mob Contract Killing Of An Unwanted Distraction Was a 1963 beachfront slaying a prelude to future Zodiac terror? Geneva Ellroy: The transference of tragedy into literary expression A Double Tragedy Complicated By Mysterious Scenarios (Spreckels Mansion Death) Kym Morgan: Death by classified advertisement Kevin Collins: A solitary bus bench memorial to every parent’s nightmare Unauthorized Celebrity Biography Comics and A Founder’s Murder (Todd Lawrence) Ted Healy: The suspected homicide of the fourth Stooge The Resolute Will to keep William Desmond Taylor’s murder unsolved A Contract Killer Terminated By His Own Profession (Frank Bompensiero) Ramona Irene Price strolls innocently into a vanished past Raymond Washington: A cycle of senseless violence devours the Crips gang founder The Senseless Murder of a Catholic Priest on Holiday (Monsignor Louis Gutierrez)

There has never been a show business book quite like The Show Won't Go On, the first comprehensive study of a bizarre phenomenon: performers who died onstage. The Show Won't Go On covers almost every genre of entertainment, and is full of unearthed anecdotes, exclusive interviews, colorful characters, and ironic twists. With dozens of heart-stopping stories, it's the perfect book to dip into on any page.

In modern times, death is understood to have undergone a transformation not unlike religion. Whereas in the past it was out in the open, it now resides mostly in specialized spaces of sequestration—funeral homes, hospitals and other medical facilities. A mainstay in so-called traditional societies in the form of ritual practices, death was usually messy but meaningful, with the questions of what happens to the dead or where they go lying at the heart of traditional culture and religion. In modernity, however, we are said to have effectively sanitized it, embalmed it and packaged it—but it seems that death is back. In the current era marked by economic, political and social uncertainty, we see it on television, on the Internet; we see it almost everywhere. (Inter)Facing Death analyzes the nexus of death and digital culture in the contemporary moment in the context of recent developments in social, cultural and political theory. It argues that death today can be thought of as "interfaced," that is mediated and expressed, in various aspects of contemporary life rather than put to the side or overcome, as many narratives of modernity have suggested. Employing concepts from anthropology, sociology, media studies and communications, (Inter)Facing Death examines diverse phenomena where death and digital culture meet, including art, online suicide pacts, the mourning of celebrity deaths, terrorist beheadings and selfies. Providing new lines of thinking about one of the oldest questions facing the human and social sciences, this book will appeal to scholars and students of social and political theory, anthropology, sociology and cultural and media studies with interests in death.

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • In April 1992 a young man from a well-to-do family hitchhiked to Alaska and walked alone into the wilderness north of Mt. McKinley. Four months later, his decomposed body was found by a moose hunter. This is the unforgettable story of how Christopher Johnson McCandless came to die. "It may be nonfiction, but Into the Wild is a mystery of the highest order." —Entertainment Weekly McCandess had given $25,000 in savings to charity, abandoned his car and most of his possessions, burned all the cash in his wallet, and invented a new life for himself. Not long after, he was dead. Into the Wild is the mesmerizing, heartbreaking tale of an enigmatic young man who goes missing in the wild and whose story captured the world’s attention. Immediately after graduating from college in 1991, McCandless had roamed through the West and Southwest on a vision quest like those made by his heroes Jack London and John Muir. In the Mojave Desert he abandoned his car, stripped it of its license plates, and burned all of his cash. He would give himself a new name, Alexander Supertramp, and, unencumbered by money and belongings, he would be free to wallow in the raw, unfiltered experiences that nature presented. Craving a blank spot on the map, McCandless simply threw the maps away. Leaving behind his desperate parents and sister, he vanished into the wild. Jon Krakauer constructs a clarifying prism through which he reassembles the disquieting facts of McCandless's short life. Admitting an interest that borders on obsession, he searches for the clues to the drives and desires that propelled McCandless. When McCandless's innocent mistakes turn out to be irreversible and fatal, he becomes the stuff of tabloid headlines and is dismissed for his naiveté, pretensions, and hubris. He is said to have had a death wish but wanting to die is a very different thing from being compelled to look over the edge. Krakauer brings McCandless's uncompromising pilgrimage out of the shadows, and the peril, adversity, and renunciation sought by this enigmatic young man are illuminated with a rare understanding—and not an ounce of sentimentality. Into the Wild is a tour de force. The power and luminosity of Jon Krakauer's stoytelling blaze through every page.