The Carlton Smith True Crime Collection

Four chilling, true stories of murder from the Pulitzer Prize finalist and coauthor of New York Times bestseller, The Search for the Green River Killer. As an investigative journalist for the Seattle Times, Carlton Smith covered the Green River Killer case for over a decade. Smith, along with his coauthor, fellow reporter Tomas Guillen, were named Pulitzer Prize finalists for their New York Times bestseller, The Search for the Green River Killer, which was published ten years before Gary Ridgway was finally arrested for his crimes. Gathered here in this volume are four of Smith’s most engrossing accounts of serial killers, pathological liars, and shockingly cold-blooded murderers. Fatal Charm: When handsome, charming Randy Roth’s fourth wife drowned in a speedboating accident just weeks after their first anniversary, authorities began to look at a pattern of suspicious behavior, uncovering the lies of a serial wife killer. Dying for Daddy: Jack Barron’s wife died mysteriously in her sleep. Soon after, his two young children were also found dead in their beds. But only when his fifty-two-year-old mother died, also of asphyxiation in her sleep, did law enforcement officials finally take action against a man driven to commit the most unspeakable of acts. Cold-Blooded: When lawyer Larry McNabney disappeared, his wife claimed he joined a cult. By the time his body was found in a shallow grave three months later, Elisa McNabney was speeding toward a new life in Florida—and a brand-new identity. Beautiful, seductive, and ruthless, she had thirty-eight aliases and a rap sheet a mile long, but her run was about to end. Killing Season: Over the course of seven months in 1988, eleven women disappeared off the streets of New Bedford, Massachusetts. Nine turned up dead. Two were never found. And the perpetrator remains unknown. Smith provides a riveting account of the unsolved murders—and the botched investigation that let the New Bedford Highway Killer walk away.

Claiming he'd been sent by God to confess, truck driver Wayne Adam Ford walked into the Humbolt County Sheriff's Office and admitted to them that he was a serial killer. After police found a gruesome piece of evidence in Ford's pocket, he told them that he had to be stopped before he killed again, before he murdered his ex-wife, and made his beloved three-year-old son an orphan. Authorities arrested the long-haul trucker and listened in horror to his startling confession... Ford was a long-distance trucker who had traveled fourteen western states. Prowling the highways in his big rig tractor-trailer, he picked up young, vulnerable women and then raped, killed, and dismembered them. He scattered some of their bodies in waterways along the road. He kept parts of others for over a year in the freezer of his trailer home. Learn the shocking truth in Shadows of Evil--a chilling account of madness, depravity, and murder...

Was he his brother's keeper? Robert and Doris Angleton seemed to have the perfect life. Until she was coldly murdered in her own home, shot thirteen times in the head, chest, and abdomen... Suddenly the ideal husband seemed anything but perfect: he was jailed, accused of hiring his older brother, Roger, to kill his wife for money-- possibly as much as $2 million. However, without the crucial eyewitness testimony of Roger-- who soon committed suicide in a Houston jail cell-- the case against Robert rested entirely on circumstantial evidence. But the facts raise more questions than answers... * Doris Angleton-- deeply involved in a secret love affair-- had asked her husband for a divorce, which might have exposed him as a tax-skipping millionaire bookie and favored police informant... * Extensive handwritten and typewritten notes, coupled with a secretly taped conversation between Roger and another man outlining the murder, were found in a briefcase Roger Angleton was carrying when he was arrested in Las Vegas, Nevada. However, it was later concluded that the second voice on the tape was not Robert's... * Also in Roger's briefcase: $64,000 in cash, along with a money wrapper with Robert's fingerprint on it... * Ultimately Roger confessed to the murder in his suicide note, exonerating his brother of any guilt... A Texas jury came to one conclusion. Read this fascinating true-crime account of greed, deception, and cold-blooded murder-- and decide for yourself. With eight pages of shocking photos!

The community of Palo Alto, California, was shocked when Kristine Fitzhugh was found dead of an accident--or was it? When her death was determined as homicide, Kristine's husband of 33 years, Ken Fitzhugh, was charged with murder. As the case progressed, the long-hidden secrets of the Fitzhugh family came spilling out. of photos. Original.

From a New York Times–bestselling journalist: The story of the murder of a California attorney at the hands of the lethally cunning wife he never doubted. A wealthy and well-connected legal ace and the proud owner of a champion show horse, Larry McNabney had every reason to love his life. But when he disappeared in September 2001, his wife, Elisa, claimed he joined a cult. When Larry’s body was found in a shallow grave three months later, Elisa was already gone. In a red convertible Jaguar, her brown hair dyed blond, Mrs. McNabney was speeding toward a new life in Florida—and a brand new identity. Who was Elisa McNabney? Beautiful, seductive, and ruthless, she had thirty-eight aliases and a rap sheet a mile long. Carlton Smith, coauthor of the true crime classic The Search for the Green River Killer, reveals one shocking surprise after another in this harrowing tale of broken vows and deadly betrayal.

A New York Times–bestselling journalist traces a string of unsolved murders—and the botched investigation that let the New Bedford Highway Killer walk away. Over the course of seven months in 1988, eleven women disappeared off the streets of New Bedford, Massachusetts, a gloomy, drug-addled coastal town that was once the whaling capital of the world. Nine turned up dead. Two were never found. And the perpetrator remains unknown to this day. How could such a thing happen? How, in what was once one of America’s richest cities, could the authorities let their most vulnerable citizens down this badly? As Carlton Smith, a Pulitzer Prize finalist for his coverage of the Green River Killer case, demonstrates in this riveting account, it was the inability of police officers and politicians alike to set aside their personal agendas that let a psychopath off the hook. In Killing Season, Smith takes readers into a close-knit community of working-class men and women, an underworld of prostitution and drug abuse, and the halls of New England law enforcement to tell the story of an epic failure of justice.

They Were The Perfect Family. . . For twenty years, Ken and Kristine Fitzhugh and their two sons had lived lives of comfortable middle-class normality in the university town of Palo Alto, California. Then came the shocking news that Kristine Fitzhugh was dead, the victim of a terrible accident... By the time the Palo Alto Police Department looked closer at the death of Kristine Fitzhugh, there could be only one conclusion. Someone had murdered Kristine in her own home, inflicting a series of horrific blows to the back of her head, and then cleaned up the mess to make it look like an accident. Who would do such a thing? Protesting his innocence, Kenneth Fitzhugh was arrested and tried for the murder of his wife. And as the case progressed, one by one, the hidden secrets of the Fitzhugh family came spilling out. . . Blood Will Tell is the shocking true story of a seemingly happy family and the deadly secrets that led to murder.

From the bestselling author of The Search for the Green River Killer: A chilling true account of the dream husband who was every woman’s nightmare. Randy Roth was handsome, hardworking, kind, and in top physical shape. But for all his charm and good looks, he was seemingly cursed with the ladies. His first marriage ended in divorce before the couple’s fifth anniversary; his second wife plunged to her death during a hike; and his third wife left him after less than five months. But when Roth’s fourth wife, Cynthia, drowned in an apparent speedboating accident in Washington State’s Lake Sammamish just weeks after their first anniversary, a pattern of suspicious behavior finally caught up to him. As Roth set about collecting on a hefty insurance payout, the authorities were on to his game. Roth had been careful—and so close to getting away with it. But, as chronicled by Seattle Times reporter and Pulitzer Prize finalist Carlton Smith, his lies were about to come crashing down around him.

On Easter Sunday, multimillionaire Dale Ewell, his wife, and 24-year-old daughter were gunned down one by one as they returned home from their beach house. The stone-cold killer waited on a sheet of plastic to avoid leaving clues and calmly retrieved all the bullet casings before leaving the house of blood. The Ewells' tony Fresno community was shocked by the grisly murder of the socially prominent family. Only the son, handsome 21 year-old Dana, seemed strangely unaffected except for his outrage at not receiving his slaughtered family's entire multimillion-dollar fortune immediately. Although the father Dale Ewell, was a ruthless businessman with a score of enemies, Detective John Souza immediately suspected the spoiled son with the new airplane and the Armani suits. But the brilliant college student sneered at the veteran investiagtor's efforts and appeared to have an airtight alibi. But Souza knew there had to be a hole and when he found it he would bring a cold-blooded killer to justice. Seeds of Evil is a terrifying true story of murder and money in California.

New York Times Bestseller: From the journalists who covered the story, the shocking crimes of Gary Ridgway, America’s most prolific serial murderer. In the 1980s and 1990s, forty-nine women in the Seattle area were brutally murdered, their bodies dumped along the Green River and Pacific Highway South in Washington State. Despite an exhaustive investigation—even serial killer Ted Bundy was consulted to assist with psychological profiling—the sadistic killer continued to elude authorities for nearly twenty years. Then, in 2001, after mounting suspicion and with DNA evidence finally in hand, King County police charged a fifty-two-year-old truck painter, Gary Ridgway, with the murders. His confession and the horrific details of his crimes only added fuel to the notoriety of the Green River Killer. Journalists Carlton Smith and Tomas Guillen covered the murders for the Seattle Times from day one, receiving a Pulitzer Prize nomination for their work. They wrote the first edition of this book before the police had their man. Revised after Ridgway’s conviction and featuring chilling photographs from the case, The Search for the Green River Killer is the ultimate authoritative account of the Pacific Northwest killing spree that held a nation spellbound—and continues to horrify and fascinate, spawning dramatizations and documentaries of a demented killer who seemed unstoppable for decades.