Some said that the killer couldn't be a local. Others claimed that he was the wealthy son of a prominent Morgantown family. Whispers spread that Mared and Karen were sacrificed by a satanic cult or had been victims of a madman poised to strike again. Then the handwritten letters began to arrive: "You will locate the bodies of the girls covered over with brush--look carefully. The animals are now on the move." Investigators didn't find too few suspects--they had far too many. There was the campus janitor with a fur fetish, the "harmless" deliveryman who beat a woman nearly to death, the nursing home orderly with the bloody broomstick and the bouncer with the "girlish" laugh who threatened to cut off people's heads. Local authors Geoffrey C. Fuller and S. James McLaughlin tell the complete story of the murders for the first time.

In Pretty Little Killers, journalist Daleen Berry and investigator Geoffrey Fuller expand upon their New York Times bestselling ebook The Savage Murder of Skylar Neese to give you even more information behind one of the most horrific and shocking murders of our time. Including over 100 pages of new material, Pretty Little Killers shares the latest theories and answers the questions that have left many people baffled. After killer Shelia Eddy pled guilty to first degree murder and was sentenced to life in prison and Rachel Shoaf was sentenced to thirty years for second-degree murder, family, friends, investigators, and other key sources reveal the facts you would have learned if the case had gone to trial. Including specific details drawn from Rachel's confession, Pretty Little Killers looks at the crime through the eyes of the victim and killers, providing intimate testimony from the pages of Rachel's personal journal, Skylar's diary and school papers, and court records. Berry and Fuller examine all this, including previously unreported details about Rachel and Shelia's rumored lesbian relationship and explain why more than one investigator believes Skylar's murder was a thrill kill. Most important, Pretty Little Killers provides a satisfying answer to Skylar's final question: “Why?"

Four decades after Jeannette DePalma's tragic death, authors Jesse P. Pollack and Mark Moran present the definitive account of the shocking Springfield township cold case. As Springfield residents decorated for Halloween in September 1972, the crime rate in the quiet, affluent township was at its lowest in years. That mood was shattered when the body of sixteen-year-old Jeannette DePalma was discovered in the local woods, allegedly surrounded by strange objects. Some feared witchcraft was to blame, while others believed a serial killer was on the loose. Rumors of a police cover up ran rampant, and the case went unsolved - along with the murders of several other young women.

*** A NEW YORK TIMES "100 Notable Books of 2020" *** A stunning, complex narrative about the fractured legacy of a decades-old double murder in rural West Virginia—and the writer determined to put the pieces back together. In the early evening of June 25, 1980 in Pocahontas County, West Virginia, two middle-class outsiders named Vicki Durian, 26, and Nancy Santomero, 19, were murdered in an isolated clearing. They were hitchhiking to a festival known as the Rainbow Gathering but never arrived. For thirteen years, no one was prosecuted for the “Rainbow Murders” though deep suspicion was cast on a succession of local residents in the community, depicted as poor, dangerous, and backward. In 1993, a local farmer was convicted, only to be released when a known serial killer and diagnosed schizophrenic named Joseph Paul Franklin claimed responsibility. As time passed, the truth seemed to slip away, and the investigation itself inflicted its own traumas—-turning neighbor against neighbor and confirming the fears of violence outsiders have done to this region for centuries. In The Third Rainbow Girl, Emma Copley Eisenberg uses the Rainbow Murders case as a starting point for a thought-provoking tale of an Appalachian community bound by the false stories that have been told about. Weaving in experiences from her own years spent living in Pocahontas County, she follows the threads of this crime through the complex history of Appalachia, revealing how this mysterious murder has loomed over all those affected for generations, shaping their fears, fates, and desires. Beautifully written and brutally honest, The Third Rainbow Girl presents a searing and wide-ranging portrait of America—divided by gender and class, and haunted by its own violence.

"Six years ago, two WVU freshman were last seen hitchhiking back to their dorms after seeing a movie in downtown Morgantown. Their bodies were later found in the dark woods south of town. E.P. Clawson was convicted of the murders, but Michael Chase, a reporter for the Herald-Dispatch, never thought Clawson was guilty -- a belief that nearly cost him his career. Now the murders have started again."--Cover p. [4].

Murder Along the Cape Fear is the story of Fayetteville and Fort Bragg, North Carolina, during the twentieth century. Seen through the eyes of a native son, this is the tale of one - a distinguished historian - who lived through some of it and heard about much of it from friends and relatives. In this hundred-year journey the town was profoundly impacted by the establishment of Fort Bragg 10 miles to its west. Throughout this hundred-year history, murder seems to be the scarlet thread that stitched the town into infamy. The book demonstrates that Fayetteville was by no means innocent prior to the coming of Fort Bragg. Nor did all of the crime and evil emanate from Fort Bragg after 1918. As for murder, there was an abundance of killing that had no connection with Fort Bragg, but the most sensational murder case of the century involved Jeffrey MacDonald, a Green Beret Army captain and physician who received three life terms in federal prison for killing his pregnant wife and two daughters. While many other Fort Bragg soldiers were involved with murders along the Cape Fear, murders were also committed by transient civilians and local citizens like the famous inventor of the M-1 carbine, Marshall "Carbine" Williams, and Velma Barfield, who poisoned her mother and three other people. In all, about two dozen murder cases-some highly publicized and some not-are woven into this story about a North Carolina town in the twentieth century. Engagingly told, this book is a wonderful blend of history, lore, and murder.

One Christmas Eve in 1945, the Sodder family goes to sleep, the kids dreaming of Santa. By morning, their house is in ashes and five young children have vanished. Cursory policing, planted "evidence", Italian politics, and small town crime all play into the picture. The FBI was called in, but no records remain of their investigation. This is a story that has fueled speculation well beyond Fayetteville, West Virginia for decades. Coincidences, highly unusual unexplainable events, and peculiar behavior are present at every turn in this true-life tragedy. Read about nationwide when it happened, and investigated and reported on in West Virginia all the way up till the 1970s, this is a story you will never forget. This is indeed a most unbelievable yet true story; and the title of the 1970 report on the subject called The Saddest Christmas Story Ever Told still rings true.