St. Martin's True Crime Classics

On September 17, 1998, police found Las Vegas gambling magnate Ted Binion lying dead on the floor of his palatial home, an empty bos of Xanax beside him. The police had been called by Binion's live-in lover, Sandra Murphy, 23, a California girl who had been working in a Vegas strip club when Binion had first met her. At first it seemed it was a fatal drug overdose that killed the handsome multi-millionaire. But was it? A few days later, Binion's "friend" Rick Tabish was arrested for trying to break into a vault where the eccentric millionaire had stored seven million dollars' worth of silver bars and coins. Family members hired ex-homicide detective-turned-private investigator Tom Dillar to start digging into the case. Dillard turned over the evidence he collected to Las Vegas police. What they found led to Binion's death being ruled a homicide and Murphy and Tabish's arrest for murder. The state said they were greedy lovers who'd conspired to kill Binion before they could strike Murphy out of his will, while the defense claimed that his vengeful family was trying to railroad Murphy to keep her from inheriting her fair share of the estate. The two sides collided in court, amid lurid charges and countercharges of physical abuse, drug use and illicit passion, in what became the Southwest's Murder Trial of the Century!

Fifty-five-year-old Dr. Harold "Fred" Shipman has a noble dedication to his profession, winning the trust of his patients with ingratiating charm and an old-school bedside manner. In fact, he even made house calls--but his unsuspecting patients has no idea of the evil that lurked behind the friendly facade of the kindly doctor... After thirty years of practice, Dr. Shipman's true nature was finally exposed--that of a calculating killer who delivered his own prescription for death. Authorities eventually unearthed the shocking possibility that the fatherly physician had killed as many as 297 people. As body after body was exhumed from the local graveyard, the question grew more disturbing. How could such a prolific killer remain undetected for so long? What motive drove this seemingly "good" doctor to his deadly obsession with murder? And just how many people did Harold Shipman kill? The search for answers would take investigators into the life of a man who forever changed the stereotype of the sweet country doctor...