The good years are far in the past and Detective Joe Burke is willing to do whatever it takes to pay the rent, even if that means getting wrapped up in a murder case that's already been closed. It seems Amesbury may not just be the sleepy little last vestige of the great state of Massachusetts before crossing into New Hampshire and for Joe Burke the town will always have a special place in his heart. That is, if it doesn't leave a hole in his head.
A fatal collision of three lives in the most intriguing and original crime story since In Cold Blood. In the spring of 1963, the quiet suburb of Belmont, Massachusetts, is rocked by a shocking sex murder that exactly fits the pattern of the Boston Strangler. Sensing a break in the case that has paralyzed the city of Boston, the police track down a black man, Roy Smith, who cleaned the victim's house that day and left a receipt with his name on the kitchen counter. Smith is hastily convicted of the Belmont murder, but the terror of the Strangler continues. On the day of the murder, Albert DeSalvo—the man who would eventually confess in lurid detail to the Strangler's crimes—is also in Belmont, working as a carpenter at the Jungers' home. In this spare, powerful narrative, Sebastian Junger chronicles three lives that collide—and ultimately are destroyed—in the vortex of one of the first and most controversial serial murder cases in America.
For more than 300 years Massachusetts executed men and women convicted of murder. This book offers an account of how the efforts of reformers and abolitionists and the Supreme Judicial Court's commitment to the rule of law ultimately converged to end the death penalty in Massachusetts.
“A chilling chronicle of local true-life murders that reach back into the long-forgotten seamy history of Worcester County” (Vitality Magazine). The bucolic image of central Massachusetts belies a dark and sometimes deadly past. Grisly crimes and grim misdeeds reach back to colonial settlement in Worcester County, from an escaped slave hanged for rape in 1768 at the Worcester jail to the Sutton choir singer convicted of drowning his wife in 1935. Henry Hammond’s 1899 suicide and the others that followed shook Spencer residents to their cores. Some crimes still grip the imaginations of residents, while others have faded from collective memory. Author Rachel Faugno investigates this sinister history. Includes photos!
A shocking true story of crime, punishment, and injustice in a major American city. Charles Stuart claimed it was a black man who carjacked him, shooting both himself and his wife, ending both her life and the life of their unborn child. The accusation and subsequent manhunt enflamed the long-simmering racial tensions of Boston, leading to the arrest of an innocent man. It was then discovered that Stuart had killed his wife and shot himself to cover up the crime, seeking a big insurance payout. When his crimes were exposed, Stuart jumped off a bridge to his death. Ken Englade explores the story with panoramic vision and a stunning eye for detail. Looking at the crime itself and the police response, Englade shows how Stuart’s crime unraveled, how the truth came out, and what the media’s response can tell us about the biases through which we view the worst of crimes.
Examines the 1999 murder of Mabel Greineder in Wellesley, Massachusetts and the subsequent investigation and indictment of her husband, a doctor leading a double life.
A Brutal Murder The upscale suburb of Wellesley, Massachusetts hadn't seen a murder in 30 years. Then came Halloween, 1999. That brisk morning, Dr. Dirk Greineder, 60, and his wife of 32 years, Mabel, took one of their dogs for a walk in Morses Pond park. A short time later, Dr. Greineder led police to the corpse of his wife. She'd been bludgeoned, stabbed and her throat slashed. Her husband claimed an unknown assailant had committed the act--possibly the same person responsible for two unsolved murders in nearby towns. A Double Life Dirk Greineder was a well-respected allergist whose home was valued at half a million dollars. He and Mabel had raised three children, who had all attended Yale, like their father. But the "good" doctor also indulged in a secret life involving phone sex, Internet porn, and motel trysts with prostitutes. A Family Destroyed A dogged investigation finally yielded enough evidence to lead to Greineder's arrest, and in a six-week trial that would make national headlines, he was supported by his three children, while the dead woman's sister and niece testified for the prosecution. There in the courtroom, a jury would learn the grisly details of cold-blooded murder. . .and the community of Wellesley would learn that you never really know your neighbors. . . 16 Pages Of Shocking Photos
True tales of murder in New England, from the colonial period to today, chronicled by a true crime master, New York Times bestselling author, and star of Investigation Discovery's new television show Dark Minds
The story of a Harvard student’s murder in 1970s Boston amid racial strife and rampant corruption, told with “careful reporting and historical context” (Providence Journal). Shortlisted for the 2021 Agatha Award for Best Non-Fiction and the 2022 Anthony Award for Best Critical or Nonfiction Work At the end of the 1976 football season, more than forty Harvard athletes went to Boston’s Combat Zone to celebrate. In the city’s adult entertainment district, drugs and prostitution ran rampant, violent crime was commonplace, and corrupt police turned the other way. At the end of the night, Italian American star athlete Andy Puopolo, raised in the city’s North End, was murdered in a stabbing. Three African American men were accused of the crime. The murder made national news, and led to the eventual demise of the city’s red-light district. Starting with this brutal murder, The Combat Zone tells the story of the Puopolo family’s struggle with both a devastating loss and a criminal justice system that produced two trials with opposing verdicts, all within the context of a racially divided Boston. Brogan traces the contentious relationship between Boston’s segregated neighborhoods during the busing crisis; shines a light on a court system that allowed lawyers to strike potential jurors based purely on their racial or ethnic identity; and lays bare the deep-seated corruption within the police department and throughout the Combat Zone. What emerges is a fascinating snapshot of the city at a transitional moment in its recent past. “The grim history of racism in Boston, the crime and corruption of the Combat Zone, and the legal permutations of the case take up the bulk of the book. But its heart lies in a character who wasn’t even in the Combat Zone that fateful night—the victim’s brother, Danny Puopolo.” —Providence Journal Includes photographs
MetroWest is known for its rolling farmland, winding rivers and quaint white churches facing green town commons. But looks can be deceiving. Tales from these small towns captured headlines and shocked readers across the state with lurid details of betrayal, cruelty, greed and murder. Nina Danforth, spurred on by love and jealousy, made a midnight call to the home of Andrew Emery in Framingham seeking revenge. The murder of spinster Mabel Page in Weston sent a man to the electric chair, and forty years before Lizzie Borden, the grisly axe murder of a husband and wife sent shock waves through the terrified town of Natick. Authors James L. Parr and Kevin A. Swope reveal the stories behind these crimes and the motives of the desperate criminals who perpetrated them.
