The Best New True Crime Stories: Crimes of Passion, Obsession & Revenge

By Mitzi Szereto

Obsession, Unrequited Love, Jealousy, Revenge, and Violence Collide in this Page-Turning Anthology

#1 New Release in Forensic Science Law and Hoaxes & Deceptions

Crimes of passion are both eerie and strangely tantalizing. How can someone you hold dear become someone you fear? This riveting anthology explores the question through some of the most compelling true crime accounts and stories of obsession and vengeance.

Crimes fueled by emotions. Love, passion, obsession, jealousy, and betrayal. When it comes to the emotions, people can react in strange and unexpected ways. Whether it’s a heart hurt by unrequited love, or a lover so passionate they’ll stop at nothing to get their way—even the most mild-mannered soul can suddenly flip, becoming a vengeful spirit with dark intentions. From the ancient Greek myth of Jason and Medea to Shakespeare’s Othello, themes dealing with deeply felt emotions have persisted. But unlike mythology or fiction, The Best New True Crime Stories: Crimes of Passion, Obsession & Revenge contains stories from real life.

A special selection of stories written exclusively for this book. The Best New True Crime Stories: Crimes of Passion, Obsession & Revenge includes stories from around the world and from different times. As with all titles in the popular The Best New True Crime Stories series, this volume contains original nonfiction accounts penned by writers from across the literary spectrum. Dive into these twisted true tales of passion and unrequited love turned violent. Examine why some have fully embraced their dark side, resorting to crime to achieve their own special brand of satisfaction and retribution.

If you enjoyed Mitzi's last book in her series, The Best New True Crime Stories: Well-Mannered Crooks, Rogues & Criminals, and books like You Love Me, and The Big Book of Serial Killers Volume 2, then you’ll love The Best New True Crime Stories: Crimes of Passion, Obsession & Revenge.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Aug 10, 2021
• ISBN: 9781642506495

Mitzi Szereto

Mitzi Szereto is an internationally acclaimed author and anthology editor of fiction and nonfiction books spanning multiple genres. She has written numerous novels within her The Best True Crime Stories series. She's also written crime fiction, gothic fiction, horror, cozy mystery, satire, sci-fi/fantasy, and general fiction and nonfiction. Her anthology, Erotic Travel Tales 2, is the first anthology of erotic fiction to feature a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. Mitzi's Web TV channel "Mitzi TV" has attracted an international audience. The Web series segments have ranged from chats with Tiff Needell, Jimmy Choo, and her ursine sidekick, Teddy Tedaloo. Other on-screen credits include Mitzi portraying herself in the pseudo-documentary British film, "Lint: The Movie." She maintains a blog of personal essays at "Errant Ramblings: Mitzi Szereto's Weblog." To learn more about Mitzi follow her on Twitter and Instagram @mitziszereto or visit her website at mitziszereto.com.

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Praise for The Best New True Crime Stories: Crimes of Passion, Obsession & Revenge

True crime fans hungering for juicy tales of hot-blooded murder will gobble up the offerings in this irresistibly page-turning collection.

—Harold Schechter, author of Hell’s Princess: The Mystery of Belle Gunness, Butcher of Men

A grand sweep through tales of an abused wife’s murderous revenge in Victorian-era Canada; a 1980 Brink’s robbery in San Francisco by an unfailingly polite, gay thief who adopts a new identity and squanders his fortune in a sybaritic lifestyle in New York before being arrested; a husband’s revenge murder of his adulterous wife in sexually licentious postwar England, leading to an unusual appeal to the House of Lords before he is hanged; the sensational 2012 ‘Facebook Murder’ in the Netherlands signaled by the online post ‘A Girl Dies Today at 3 p.m.’; and the sordid tale of Evelyn Nesbit, gorgeous salesgirl turned famed actress, and her role in a love triangle with a prominent New York architect and the railroad scion who murders him in a rage on the rooftop theater of Madison Square Garden. Headlines in the sensationalist New York newspapers scream of the ‘Trial of the Century’—but of course it’s only 1906, and the century is still quite young.

—Joe Sharkey, author of Above Suspicion

Szereto and her contributors’ dark stories and clean writing styles combine for a gripping read. Wonderful!

—Liza Rodman, author of The Babysitter: My Summers with a Serial Killer

What motivates people to kill and commit heinous crimes? Is it a snap decision or calculated, plotted, and sinister? There’s a whole lot of reasons, hence our endless intrigue about what goes on in the minds of criminals. This volume of crime cases edited by true crime queen Mitzi Szereto is a fascinating look at crimes where perpetrators let their rage and bad judgment take over. With historical crimes and more contemporary ones featured, it’s also interesting to see how our understanding of violence has evolved over the years.

—Emily Webb, cohost of Australian True Crime podcast and author of Angels of Death: Doctors and Nurses Who Kill

The true heart of darkness is in true crime. Crime fiction authors are an inventive bunch, but rarely have they created stories of passion, obsession, and revenge as compelling as these true accounts of what the passionate human heart and obsessive mind can make a person do. You may pity some of the killers in this collection; you may loathe others. But I guarantee you won’t forget them.

—Peter Guttridge, critic and crime fiction author

Praise for The Best New True Crime Stories: Well-Mannered Crooks, Rogues & Criminals

What a fantastic collection of spellbinding true crime stories from around the world! Each one is deeply researched, thoughtful, and fascinating. This anthology is simply good reading for any fan.

—Kate Winkler Dawson, American Sherlock: Murder, Forensics, and the Birth of American CSI

"Conjuring the spirits of Truman Capote and Damon Runyon (with the ghost of Patricia Highsmith looking on), the stories in The Best New True Crime Stories: Well-Mannered Crooks, Rogues & Criminals thrillingly depict real-life misdeeds throughout history. An Ecuadorian Robin Hood, an art scandal in Paris, new insights into the life and death of a Depression-era bootlegger—what’s not to love?"

—Abbott Kahler, New York Times bestselling author (as Karen Abbott) of The Ghosts of Eden Park

Ever since E.W. Hornung—brother-in-law of Arthur Conan Doyle—introduced the public in 1898 to his character A.J. Raffles, genteel, cricket-playing thief, the notion of the nonviolent criminal, from Robin Hood to Danny Ocean, has captured the public’s attention. No blood, no gore: just people trying to scrape a living off the earnings of others. In her latest compendium, Mitzi Szereto has brought together a terrifically readable collection of new and intriguing case histories, including John Dillinger’s bagman and Ching Shih, the nineteenth-century woman pirate of the South China Sea.

—J.P. Smith, author of If She Were Dead and The Summoning

"Mitzi Szereto and a stellar group of authors bring us The Best New True Crime Stories: Well-Mannered Crooks, Rogues & Criminals. Real-life Robin Hoods, smooth-talking charmers, and gentlemen robbers, and an unforgettable cast of criminal characters. True crime storytelling at its very best!"

—Dan Zupansky, author and host of True Murder

Readers have always been fascinated by charismatic criminals, from A.J. Raffles to Tom Ripley, and this anthology examines the nefarious activities of a very diverse bunch of their real-life counterparts.

—Martin Edwards, The Crime Writers’ Association Diamond Dagger award-winning author of Mortmain Hall and The Golden Age of Murder

Praise for The Best New True Crime Stories: Small Towns

Here be monsters! This brilliant collection of gruesome small-town misdeeds spanning a century and four continents will have you running for the comfort and safety of the big city.

—Peter Houlahan, author of Norco ’80

An eye-opening excursion into the world of murder, often committed by the neighbors and friends of those who live in these small towns. Without question, it’s a book you won’t soon forget!

—Kevin M. Sullivan, author of Through an Unlocked Door: In Walks Murder

A well-curated and considered collection comprising some well-written essays/stories that explore the origins of each crime…. These stories get to the human cost behind the terrible events that suddenly vault a small town into the public gaze.

—Paul Burke, NB Magazine

These well-researched, globe-trotting, bite-sized tales are perfect for a lazy summer afternoon—especially at a time when it’s much safer to travel through the pages of a book.

—Dean Jobb, Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine

Remember the saying ‘The devil is in the details’? Well, it’s small towns that deal in details as they unfold in scary, thrilling, and sometimes gruesome fashion. Mitzi Szereto’s new true crime anthology is filled with the devil and the details—great stories and fantastic writing. After reading this book, you will look at your neighbors in a whole new way… Or, perhaps never again!

—Bob Batchelor, cultural historian and author of The Bourbon King: The Life and Crimes of George Remus, Prohibition’s Evil Genius

Mitzi Szereto has assembled a group of today’s brightest and best authors for this truly extraordinary anthology. Brilliant!

—Dan Zupansky, author and host of True Murder

A very thought-provoking compilation in the true crime milieu.

—Gary Jenkins, mob author and host of the popular mob podcast, Gangland Wire

Praise for The Best New True Crime Stories: Serial Killers

This compelling collection of serial killer stories is more than its beautifully told parts—it adds up to a clear and startling portrait of murder as an addiction and the very human demons that haunt the lives of killers and victims alike.

—Deborah Blum, author of The Poisoner’s Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz-Age New York

An engrossing and multifaceted anthology for a new era of true crime writing. This fascinating collection goes beyond the procedural to raise important questions about how man’s darkest impulses both threaten and consume us—as individuals and as a culture.

—Piper Weiss, author of You All Grow Up and Leave Me

"The stories in The Best New True Crime Stories: Serial Killers provide insight into a compulsion that’s unfathomable to the average person. Can’t get enough true crime? This thought-provoking, highly readable collection will scratch that itch."

—Alma Katsu, author of The Hunger

True crime addicts will devour this book. The portraits of these psychopaths will mesmerize and horrify everyone who reads it.

—Aphrodite Jones, bestselling true crime author

Mitzi Szereto collects some of the day’s very best true crime writing focused on one (troubling, fascinating, compelling) strand of the crime world: serial killers.

—CrimeReads

Wonderfully written, these stories will take you on a journey that will chill you to the bone, horrify you, even terrify you, but it’s a journey you will be compelled to finish. Amazing book; one of the best true crime books I’ve read in a long time.

—Readers’ Favorite

Can’t get enough true crime stories? Anthologist Mitzi Szereto has put together a collection of short pieces about serial killers that will help to satisfy the needs of any true crime junkie…. This book will be a must-have for any fans of true crime literature.

—Manhattan Book Review

Chilling, very moving (those poor victims), but above all, essential reading.

—Peter Guttridge, critic and crime fiction author

From the virtually crime-free, ultra-respectable suburbs of Japan to the mean streets of South America where life is cheap; from the peaceful, but forever-tainted, English cathedral town of Gloucester to a Native Indian Reservation in Minneapolis; from the fjords of Norway to the idyll of a Midwest farm in the USA, this book travels the world examining the history and psychology of some of the world’s most gruesome serial killers.

—Robin Bowles, Australia’s true crime queen

The Best New True Crime Stories

Crimes of Passion, Obsession & Revenge

Mitzi Szereto

Coral Gables

Copyright © 2021 by Mitzi Szereto

Published by Mango Publishing, a division of Mango Publishing Group, Inc.

Cover Design: Elina Diaz

Cover Photo: Ogovorka

Layout & Design: Megan Werner

The accounts in this book are true and accurate to the best of our knowledge. They may contain some speculation by the author(s) and opinions/analyses from psychology, criminology, and forensics experts. This book is offered without guarantee on the part of the editor, authors, or publisher. The editor, authors, and publisher disclaim all liability in connection with the use of this book.

Mango is an active supporter of authors’ rights to free speech and artistic expression in their books. The purpose of copyright is to encourage authors to produce exceptional works that enrich our culture and our open society.

Uploading or distributing photos, scans or any content from this book without prior permission is theft of the author’s intellectual property. Please honor the author’s work as you would your own. Thank you in advance for respecting our author’s rights.

For permission requests, please contact the publisher at:

Mango Publishing Group

2850 S Douglas Road, 2nd Floor

Coral Gables, FL 33134 USA

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For special orders, quantity sales, course adoptions and corporate sales, please email the publisher at [e-mail]. For trade and wholesale sales, please contact Ingram Publisher Services at [e-mail] or +1.800.509.4887.

The Best New True Crime Stories: Crimes of Passion, Obsession, & Revenge

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication number: 2021938192

ISBN: (print) 978-1-64250-648-8, (ebook) 978-1-64250-649-5

BISAC category code TRU004000, TRUE CRIME / Con Artists, Hoaxes & Deceptions

Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

Introduction

Mitzi Szereto

I’ve Seen the Dead Come Alive

Joe Turner

Petit Treason

Edward Butts

The Crime Passionnel of Henriette Caillaux: The Murder that Rocked Belle Époque Paris

Dean Jobb

A Young Man in Trouble

Priscilla Scott Rhoades

The Madison Square Garden Murder: THE FIRST TRIAL OF THE CENTURY

Tom Larsen

Facebookmoord

Mitzi Szereto

Death by Chocolate

C L Raven

The Gun Alley Murder

Anthony Ferguson

The Beauty Queen and the Hit Men

Craig Pittman

Because I Loved Him

Iris Reinbacher

A Crime Forgiven: The Strange Case of Yvonne Chevallier

Mark Fryers

Bad Country People

Chris Edwards

The Life and Demise of England’s Universal Provider

Jason Half

Revenge of the Nagpur Women

Shashi Kadapa

A Tale of Self-Control and a Hammer

Stephen Wade

References

About the Editor

About the Contributors

Introduction

"O, beware, my lord, of jealousy;

It is the green-ey’d monster which doth mock

the meat it feeds on."

—William Shakespeare, Othello

When it comes to the emotions, human beings have been known to react in strange and unexpected ways. Heartbreak, jealousy, anger, obsession, even fear—these powerful emotions can drive people to do things they never imagined themselves capable of. Even the most mild-mannered of souls can suddenly flip and go over to the dark side. They feel provoked into taking a course of action that can lead them down a very murky path. Suddenly someone who was once a perfectly reasonable individual becomes a criminal in the eyes of the law.

From the ancient Greek myth of Jason and Medea to Shakespeare’s Othello, themes dealing with deeply felt emotions have been around for a long time. And they continue to crop up again and again in contemporary fiction, film, and television. Perhaps what makes a crime of passion so fascinating is the simple fact that we can understand it. We can feel those emotions, and yes, even identify with them. We’ve all experienced these emotions in varying degrees of intensity. But it’s how we react to them that determines whether we continue with our daily lives in a manner deemed acceptable to society or commit acts that brand us as criminals.

It’s most common to hear about crimes of passion in a violent context, very often involving murder, with the act being committed in the heat of the moment or in the heat of passion. A temporary insanity defense might be invoked in such instances, offering validation that these impulse acts were unplanned. Yet sometimes the motivation behind such crimes simmered on the back burner before the act, gaining momentum over time, whereupon it enters the realm of the premeditated. Of course, there are other types of crimes of passion that don’t include violence or murder, although the emotions behind them are fundamentally the same. You just don’t find a corpse at the end of it.

True crime has undeniably made an impact on contemporary culture—not just because it tells the stories of crime, but because it tells the stories of people. With that in mind, I’d like to welcome you to The Best New True Crime Stories: Crimes of Passion, Obsession & Revenge, the fourth volume in my true crime franchise. Featuring an intriguing collection of original nonfiction stories from writers around the globe, this book contains accounts of individuals who embraced their dark side, resorting to criminal means to achieve satisfaction and retribution, or in some cases, simply to seek justice. Are the individuals showcased on these pages villains or victims? I’ll leave that for you to decide.

Mitzi Szereto

I’ve Seen the Dead Come Alive

Joe Turner

Richard McCroskey was a troubled teenager and an aspiring musician from California who went by the moniker Syko Sam. His genre of choice was hip-hop, or more accurately, horrorcore rap, a genre defined by its horror-inspired imagery and lyrics.

Sam was a lonely kid who spent most of his time alone and found solace in music. He wrote lyrics about murder and dismemberment, but assured others that it was simply artistic expression and nothing more.

In early 2009, Sam met a fifteen-year-old girl named Emma Niederbrock on social media, and the two struck up a whirlwind romance, albeit one based mostly online. The two were smitten, bonding over their love of the niche horrorcore genre and talking longingly into the early-morning hours on MySpace. Sam felt he’d finally met someone who understood him.

After months of chatting, Sam and Emma decided to meet up in person. However, the reality of their meeting was much different from the fantasy they’d both had. Emma discovered that Sam wasn’t the brooding, tortured artist she’d taken him for. And it turned out that Sam’s murderous lyrics went much deeper than anyone could have imagined.

Emma Niederbrock was born in Champaign, Illinois, on October 15, 1992. The only daughter of a criminal justice professor and a Presbyterian Church pastor, she attended school in Illinois until around 2006. Like her parents, Emma was a smart girl, an academically gifted student who excelled in her studies. Throughout middle and high school, she achieved impressive grades and was on track for future academic success.

However, her social life was a different story. Despite her intelligence, she was a shy girl who struggled to make friends. Her social circle remained small throughout her entire time at middle school, with only rare additions. Things got worse when Emma’s parents separated when she was fourteen. They maintained a close relationship, but the stress took its toll on Emma. She began living with her mother in Farmville, Virginia. Moving to a new city diminished her social circle even further.

Struggling with the pressures of public school, Emma dropped out within the year in favor of being homeschooled by her mother, Debra. Aware of the limitations this would put on Emma’s ability to meet new people, Debra often invited students from her university over to the house for cookouts in their garden. However, given the age gap between Emma and her mother’s students, she still wasn’t able to make any close friends.

During her early teenage years, fashion was Emma’s world. She had ambitions of becoming a fashion designer; but like so many teenage dreams, this quickly fizzled out when another obsession took its place. This obsession was alternative music.

Since Emma didn’t get the chance to socialize with others during her homeschool lessons, social media became her foremost method of communication with potential friends—in particular, MySpace. As alternative music took center stage in her life, her other interests dwindled. She adopted the moniker RagDoll, and was drawn to rock, heavy metal, and its many subgenres. However, the one genre that really attracted her was horrorcore.

The more Emma immersed herself in horrorcore’s subculture, the more friends and acquaintances she made. At fifteen, she found that for the first time in her life she was part of a wide social circle.

Despite horrorcore’s sinister overtones, Emma’s parents, Mark and Debra, were reluctant to monitor the media their daughter was consuming. She was a teenage girl with an artistic side, so it was only natural for such a personality to experiment with alternative interests and lifestyles. Emma indeed began to alter her appearance in line with her new passion. She dyed her hair pink and took to wearing black clothes and dark markup. Debra and Mark simply brushed this off as Emma’s goth phase, and didn’t intervene due to concerns that their daughter might rebel in more destructive ways, such as drug use or heavy drinking.

But Emma did not. She continued to meet people through social media, including two horrorcore artists named Razakel and SickTanick, a couple based in Albuquerque, New Mexico. They became close friends, and sensing that Emma was a little lonely, the two artists put her in contact with another homeschooled horrorcore fan in the neighboring state of West Virginia. That girl was Melanie Wells.

Melanie was two years older than Emma, and she was also part of the horrorcore subculture. Born in February 1991 in Louisville, Kentucky, Melanie and her family had moved to West Virginia only a few years later. Unfortunately, she and Emma lived two hundred miles apart, so they were forced to keep an online friendship. But a few months after making contact, the two met up for the first time at a horrorcore concert in Chicago. Right away, Emma and Melanie became best friends.

Emma’s love of alternative music took her to rock and heavy metal clubs around Virginia, since they were the closest places where horrorcore had anything like a mainstream presence. She began to party regularly with her new friends, even posting pictures of herself drinking and doing drugs in clubs on her MySpace page. But despite her new lifestyle, she was still the friendly, sweet girl she always had been. Her mother expressed some concerns to her daughter about the things she got up to and her new companions, but on the flip side, Debra was happy that Emma had finally come out of her shell. She was much more energetic and outgoing now that she’d discovered a community of people with whom she felt a bond, and that was more than her parents could ask for.

As Emma’s social circle began to expand, she regularly caught the attention of the opposite sex. This was unsurprising since Emma was a good-looking girl and was fast becoming a social butterfly. Since relationships were a new world to Emma, online flirtation allowed her to explore this new realm through the safety of her computer screen, where she wasn’t forced to jump in at the deep end.

In early 2009, Emma received a message from a teenager named Richard McCroskey. McCroskey’s MySpace profile brandished deep, dark imagery, excessive by even horrorcore standards. McCroskey posed with weapons and posted his amateur lyrics for all to see. He decorated his page with crime scene photos and portraits of infamous serial killers. His real name was nowhere to be seen, only his self-appointed stage name: Syko Sam. A banner at the top of the page declared: I’m different. I’ve seen the dead come alive.

Emma, perhaps through naiveté or a morbid fascination, was hooked immediately.

Richard Samuel McCroskey was nineteen years old when he first messaged Emma Niederbrock. He was an aspiring horrorcore rapper who not only went by the name Syko Sam, but also Lil Demon Dog—both of which were references to New York serial killer David Berkowitz. While this might have been a red flag under other circumstances, horrorcore artists regularly had names relating to the morbid and the gruesome.

McCroskey was based in Castro Valley, California, where he resided with his father and his twenty-one-year-old sister. He had previously lived in Hayward, attending both Tennyson and Hayward High Schools, but had dropped out of both before completing his studies.

McCroskey endured a difficult childhood. Because of his red hair and his fuller physique, he made an easy target for school bullies. As a result, he spent most of his time locked away in his bedroom playing video games, listening to music, and reaching out to people online.

Music became his outlet for his anguish. Adopting the moniker Syko Sam, he began composing and releasing his own rap music under the horrorcore banner.

His first album, bearing the title I Kill People For Real, saw Sam describing a multitude of murderous acts from the point of view of a sadistic killer. Every song on the album dealt with the subject of murder or violence in some way, with continuous references to the evil voices in his head that told him to murder continuously and take lives on a killing spree.

McCroskey even shot his own music video, which he uploaded on his MySpace page. The video saw him rapping about how much he enjoyed defiling graves as he tipped over a cross-shaped tombstone in a cemetery, though to his viewers, this was just part of McCroskey’s rap character.

McCroskey had a difficult relationship with his father, who asked him to move out of their home in late 2009. But with no job or stability, McCroskey was stuck there until he could find a way out. However, when he began chatting to Emma online, he thought that his luck had finally changed. Emma seemed intrigued by McCroskey’s character, and the two bonded over their love of horrorcore.

Neither Emma nor McCroskey had experienced a romantic relationship of any kind in the past, so their online connection ramped up in intensity very quickly. Within a few weeks, Emma and McCroskey were saying that they loved each other.

But with Emma in Virginia and McCroskey in California, and with them both being so young, opportunities to meet in person were minimal. However, an upcoming horrorcore festival called Strictly for the Wicked was due to take place in Detroit, Michigan, in September, a show that was usually a veritable who’s who of the horrorcore community. It was horrorcore’s Woodstock, a place for artists and fans to socialize with each other across an all-day event.

Emma and her friend Melanie were both desperate to attend the show, with Emma thinking it could be the ideal occasion to finally meet up with McCroskey in person. She asked him if he’d be willing to attend with her, and he agreed.

Since Melanie was eighteen, convincing her parents to let her go wasn’t difficult. Emma, on the other hand, had to beg and plead with her parents for permission. Neither Debra nor Mark liked the look of McCroskey, but they understood that they couldn’t keep the shackles on their now-sixteen-year-old daughter, especially when it came to matters of the heart.

Eventually, Mark and Debra gave in to Emma’s demands, but they had a few conditions. The first was that they’d want to meet McCroskey for themselves before packing Emma off to Detroit with a stranger from the internet. Therefore, Debra told Emma that McCroskey could stay at their place for a few days before the festival so she could get to know him. The second condition was that Mark would drive Emma, Melanie, and McCroskey from Virginia to Detroit, stay over in a hotel, and then drive them back. Both Emma and McCroskey agreed to these arrangements.

The date of the festival fast approached. On the morning of September 6, 2009, Emma posted on McCroskey’s MySpace page:

The next time you check your myspace, youll be at my house!! I cant waiiiit to see you baby its like 6:17AM, and ive been up since 4ish filled with uber amounts of excitement…i love you sooo SO much baby; forever and for always.

But for all her nerves and excitement, things quickly fell apart.

McCroskey flew from California to Virginia on September 6. He would be staying at Emma’s house until the next week, when Mark would drive them to Michigan. A week after that, McCroskey would fly back to California, having spent a total of two weeks in Emma’s company.

After around nine months of texting, emailing, and posting sentimental nothings on each other’s MySpace pages, it was time for Emma to meet her online boyfriend in the flesh. Emma’s father drove her and Melanie to Richmond airport. Emma waited at the terminal, anxious and excited to finally lay eyes on McCroskey in person.

He emerged from the gate, shuffling nervously as he and Emma locked eyes for the first time. He meandered toward her, decked in an oversized black hoodie, loose jeans, and cheap white athletic shoes. His ginger hair was greasy and gelled forward.

McCroskey approached her and introduced himself, stumbling over his words. They had both had fantasies of greeting each other in a loving embrace, like a scene lifted straight from a romantic

Reviews for The Best New True Crime Stories

[catherine_dilts · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I received a copy in exchange for a review.
The stories in this true crime anthology are incredibly diverse. A sensitive gay man robs a Brink's truck in A Young Man in Trouble. In Revenge of the Nagpur Women, a monstrous criminal in a slum of India finally receives a worthy punishment. Because I Loved Him follows the life and horrific crime of a Japanese woman. Each story also gave information on the aftermath of the crime, delved into the motivations of the criminals, and the lives of victims and survivors. I enjoyed The Life and Demise of England's Universal Provider, covering the case of the 1907 murder of a businessman with plenty of enemies, but an unexpected killer. With stories set from the 1800s to modern day, and settings sprinkled across the globe, there was nothing repetitive in the anthology.