The murder of Tia Sharp by Stuart Hazell in 2012 was such a sad and grim tale that even hardened court reporters were left shaken and upset at the conclusion of the Old Bailey trial. Why was Hazell so trusted by Tia's family? How much did the police suspect Hazell? Did the support of the Sharp family make Hazell less suspicious to the police? Was he always destined to kill Tia? What actually happened the night she died? All of these questions and more will be examined and discussed in The Vanishing of Tia Sharp.
When Tia Sharp went missing and Stuart Hazell was interviewed by ITV, many viewers were absolutely convinced that Hazell was responsible for Tia's disappearance. The television interview only confirmed the deep suspicions and grave doubts many already had about this ramshackle man they'd seen fleetingly on the nightly news. As far as the police could deduce, Hazell was almost certainly the last person to speak to Tia before she disappeared. It appeared, even at the time, that he was quite probably the last person to see her. And yet, mystifyingly, Stuart Hazell was not treated as a suspect by the police when the investigation began. A trio of factors in this bleak and harrowing case clouded the obvious. These factors all played a pivotal part in prolonging and complicating the investigation. What should have been an open and shut case became something more complex and strange. In the book that follows we will see how trusted Stuart Hazell was by the Sharp family and how was able to develop a close bond with Tia Sharp. This book will also attempt to deduce what happened the fateful and tragic night that Tia lost her life and then somehow make sense of the bizarre situation that Stuart Hazell, thanks to some very basic police mistakes, found himself trapped in. The Tia Sharp case was unbearably sad and at times perplexing. We will attempt to see what, if any, lessons this tragic case ultimately left us with.
On 3 August 2012, as London was gripped by the Olympics, Tia Sharp, a 12-year old schoolgirl, was reported missing from her grandmother's home in New Addington, south London. A call made by her mother, Natalie, alerted police to Tia's disappearance and so began a massive search operation to find the missing girl. Police were seconded from the Olympic village to make house-tohouse enquiries, while locals searched the nearby area.A Twitter campaign began, sparking a nationwide appeal to find Tia. It was reported that Tia had disappeared after being dropped off at a train station to go shopping, but in the days that followed a different story emerged.Only seven days after Tia was reported missing, the terrible news came that the family hoped they would never have to hear; Tia's body, wrapped in bin bags, had been found in her grandmother's attic. The truth that unfolded over the course of the day horrified the public; not only had the police searched the house on three separate occasions before discovering Tia's body, late the following evening, Stuart Hazell - the man who Tia trusted, the man who appealed for her return - was charged with her murder.Tia Sharp: A Family Betrayal examines the appalling case of an evil step-grandfather who betrayed his families trust, deceived friends and neighbours, and cut short the life of a young, well-loved girl. An insight into the facts behind the murder, the court case and the aftermath of one of the most shocking crimes a family should never have to face.
Fact is never more strange than fiction than when it comes to crime, and the crimes described here are so bizarre it's inconceivable that they could have been made up. In this all-new collection of truly unusual crimes, a sequel to the bestselling Mammoth Book of Bizarre Crimes, Odell and Donnelley tell the extraordinary stories of criminal acts far stranger than any fiction, including the murder of Italian fashion designer Gianni Versace by spree-killer Andrew Cunanan and the killing of intern Chandra Ann Levy, who had had an affair with US Representative Gary Condit, though he was cleared of any involvement in her murder. They reveal how Danilo Restivo was eventually convicted of the murder of Heather Barnett in England after the ritualistic placing of hair connected him to another murder in Italy. They tell the terrible story of the inexplicably brutal murder, over a number of days, of 15-year-old Kristy Bamu by his sister and her lover because they believed him to be practising 'witchcraft'. They also give a chilling account of the thirty-one-year-old mother-of-two, Joanna Dennehy, who killed three men. 'I started killing,' she said, 'to see if I was as cold as I thought I was. Then it got moreish and I got a taste for it.'
The disappearance of Shannon Matthews in Dewsbury in 2008 is a true crime case that people still seem to be fascinated by. Rarely a year goes past without a new television documentary on the case or a battery of tabloid updates concerning the activities of the disgraced Karen Matthews. The reason why the Shannon Matthews case became so famous is that it didn't end in the way people expected. The missing child was found alive and there was an outrageous twist when it became apparent that the mother was involved and it had all been a strange sort of hoax. The Shannon Matthews case was like a black comedy written by a thriller writer. The fact it was true made it all the more astonishing.
An unreliable first-person narrative in the tradition of noir writer, Jim Thompson, set in the world of art, wine, and provincial retailSpurned by his illicit lecturer lover, art student Kier Rothwell presents a gruesome effigy of her in the end of year exhibition leading to his removal from the college. Furious at his reduced means and opportunity, Kier (now calling himself New Shockley) is determined to liberate himself from imagined mediocrity, beginning by taking a job at In Vino Veritas, the local wine store. This not only eases his financial situation but offers creative satisfaction in his plan to reinvent the shop as a working art installation. His personalised wine labels make grotesques of the shop's middle-class clientele and in-shop tension builds. His combative colleague Petra mocks his artistic efforts and his anger boils. When Petra is made manager and tries to fire him it is all too much. New Shockley kills her with a broken bottle and hides her body in a freezer. Things spiral even further out of control as New tries desperately to cover up his crime, battling meddling customers, nosey policeman and his own demons until he plans the ultimate denouement for all who have crossed him.Tautly written and threaded with dark humour, Murder by the Bottle is a compelling study in character, criminality and truth.
This book argues that Britain is gripped by an endemic and ongoing panic about the position of children in society – which frames them as, alternately, victims and threats. It argues the press is a key player in promoting this discourse, which is rooted in a wide-scale breakdown in social trust.
Jaden Brendan Knight joined the National Democratic Party at the age of twenty-seven. He excelled very rapidly within the NDP. On his thirtieth birthday, Jaden was elected party leader and overthrew the government by exposing the leader’s corruption and dictatorship. Four years later, Jaden was elected the President of Ghana. Jayzel Carter is now twenty-six years old, she has been on the silver screen since she was six months old. Sensuous, beautiful and generous to a fault, Jayzel’s great-grandfather is the Ashante king. Jayzel and Jaden will meet at a charity event and they will fall passionately in love. How will the king and the Ashante kingdom react to their union, especially when Jaden have shared blood to gain power in his kingdom?
Lisa Sharp and her husband Chance Benson have always shared one goal: to protect their families at all costs. Since they were teenagers and intruded on a man in the bathroom of London's Ritz Hotel, overhearing his plans to bomb a local gentleman's club, they have vowed to protect their families always. Arriving in Canada with their son for the Christmas holidays, the last thing the couple expects is for their only child to be kidnapped. The couple's only hope is the legend of the silent brotherhood, which they believe will help to keep their son and his cousins safe just like it did years ago...
Twenty-seven eclectic and chilling stories from the world of true crime. Serial killers young and old, celebrity deaths, cannibals, necrophiles, serial killers who were never captured, missing persons, and other darkly fascinating chapters in the annuals of crime. All this and more awaits in Chilling True Crime Stories.
