Despite their wealth, fame, and power, celebrities are ultimately just flesh and blood like all of us. Their status or accomplishments are not a magical shield of protection when it comes to death. In fact, in some cases, celebrities are more vulnerable than your averge person. As we shall see in this book, a number of celebrities have been murdered by their own fans. A number of celebrities have also been murdered in cases that remain unsolved. Fame can be a fickle and fleeting phenomenon and Hollywood is awash with former child stars who died in tragic circumstances when the phone stopped ringing and the money rang out. In this book we will look at a number of celebrity deaths and murders. The cases that follow are eclectic and all darkly fascinating. Drug overdoses, murders, suicides, crazed fans, unsolved deaths, autoerotic asphyxiation, car crashes, freak accidents, drownings, disease, and so on...
The cases that follow are once again eclectic and darkly fascinating. Drug overdoses, murders, suicides, unsolved deaths, autoerotic asphyxiation, car crashes, plane crashes, freak accidents, doomed child stars, and so on. Shocking Celebrity Deaths and Murders Volume 3 includes, among others, Anna Nicole Smith, Dustin Diamond, Patrick Swayze, John Ritter, Sarah Harding, Bobby Driscoll, Samantha Smith, and Mya-Lecia Naylor.
A second all new volume of celebrity deaths and murders. The cases that follow are eclectic and darkly fascinating. Drug overdoses, murders, television suicides, crazed fans, unsolved deaths, autoerotic asphyxiation, car crashes, freak accidents, doomed child stars, and so on. New additions include James Dean, Peaches Geldof, Paul Walker, Steve Irwin, Whitney Houston, Christine Chubbuck, Lana Clarkson, Caroline Flack, Jayne Mansfield, and many more.
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
"When she was found battered and bloodied in her Lincoln Phaeton convertible, authorities declared it suicide. Others called it murder. Thelma Todd, one of America's mpst popular comedians, was dead. And no one knew why. She was the blonde with style. The bombshell with the wisecrack. Thelma Todd wanted to be a schoolteacher :instead she became a star. She wanted to run a restaurant; instead she ran into the mob. In 1935 more than five hundred letters were sent to her weekly by fans. But the ones who attracted her most were dangerous men. More than fifty years after the notorious Thelma Todd murder case was closed, unsolved, Andy Edmonds fingers the killer."--Excerpt taken from the title page verso
Thirty-four eclectic and spine chilling stories from the world of true crime. Serial killers, cannibals, necrophiles, celebrities with the darkest secrets, medical killers, mysterious killers who were never captured, movie production deaths, poisoners, spree killers, supernatural Victorian monsters, and many more darkly fascinating chapters in the annuals of crime. All this and more awaits in Chilling True Crime Stories - Volume 4.
A journalist's twenty-year fascination with the Manson murders leads to "gobsmacking" (The Ringer) new revelations about the FBI's involvement in this "kaleidoscopic" (The New York Times) reassessment of an infamous case in American history. Over two grim nights in Los Angeles, the young followers of Charles Manson murdered seven people, including the actress Sharon Tate, then eight months pregnant. With no mercy and seemingly no motive, the Manson Family followed their leader's every order -- their crimes lit a flame of paranoia across the nation, spelling the end of the sixties. Manson became one of history's most infamous criminals, his name forever attached to an era when charlatans mixed with prodigies, free love was as possible as brainwashing, and utopia -- or dystopia -- was just an acid trip away. Twenty years ago, when journalist Tom O'Neill was reporting a magazine piece about the murders, he worried there was nothing new to say. Then he unearthed shocking evidence of a cover-up behind the "official" story, including police carelessness, legal misconduct, and potential surveillance by intelligence agents. When a tense interview with Vincent Bugliosi -- prosecutor of the Manson Family and author of Helter Skelter -- turned a friendly source into a nemesis, O'Neill knew he was onto something. But every discovery brought more questions: Who were Manson's real friends in Hollywood, and how far would they go to hide their ties? Why didn't law enforcement, including Manson's own parole officer, act on their many chances to stop him? And how did Manson -- an illiterate ex-con -- turn a group of peaceful hippies into remorseless killers? O'Neill's quest for the truth led him from reclusive celebrities to seasoned spies, from San Francisco's summer of love to the shadowy sites of the CIA's mind-control experiments, on a trail rife with shady cover-ups and suspicious coincidences. The product of two decades of reporting, hundreds of new interviews, and dozens of never-before-seen documents from the LAPD, the FBI, and the CIA, Chaos mounts an argument that could be, according to Los Angeles Deputy District Attorney Steven Kay, strong enough to overturn the verdicts on the Manson murders. This is a book that overturns our understanding of a pivotal time in American history.
Profiled on ABC's The View, Good Morning America, and dozens of other national outlets, The Last Days of Dead Celebrities captured our imagination with its intelligent, intimate reporting. John Lennon, Lucille Ball, Orson Welles, Ted Williams, John Denver -- these are just a few of the fifteen celebrities profiled here, each passing in a way that was as unique and distinctive as the life of the individual. Some slipped quietly into the night -- Welles died peacefully in bed with his typewriter still balanced on his stomach -- while others met a more shocking and violent end, as did Lennon and Tupac Shakur. Working with an extraordinary level of access, exclusive material, and the cooperation of the stars family and friends, Mitchell Fink sets the record straight on these very human, very vulnerable public figures.
Rooted in the creative success of over 30 years of supermarket tabloid publishing, the Weekly World News has been the world's only reliable news source since 1979. The online hub www.weeklyworldnews.com is a leading entertainment news site.
