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Larry W. Eyler was caught in 1983, accused of being the "homosexual highway killer," responsible for 22 murders in three states. Unbelievably, he was indicted for just one killing and spent three months in jail before an Illinois judge determined that the overwhelming evidence against him was tainted. He was released. Six months later Eyler was caught again. This time he was accused of a brutal, unimaginable murder of a 15-year-old street hustler. Crime journalist Gera-Lind Kolarik was the first person to recognize the killer's hunting pattern, which crossed state lines -- she alerted the Illinois Lake County sheriff, thus initiating a crucial turn in the investigation. In Freed to Kill, Kolarik with journalist Wayne Klatt intelligently examines the story of Eyler and his victims and investigates the institutions and officials that allowed Eyler a chance to hunt again.
On the night of April 7, 1990, newlyweds Nancy and Richard Langert were brutally shot in the basement of their suburban Chicago home. There were no leads. Nothing was stolen. The only clue was an illegible message Nancy left behind, written in her own blood. It was a crime that shocked the community and baffled the FBI and seven local police departments. They explored every prospect -- from IRA assassinations to Mafia hit. But it was a tough Illinois policewoman who would track down the killer, exposing a horror that was shockingly close to home. Veteran Chicago journalists Gera-Lind Kolarik and Wayne Klatt present a chilling investigation into this true story of murder, compulsion and tragedy.
Connie Krauser Chaney had a troubled childhood that she hoped to escape by creating her own stable and caring family. Stability, however, was the last thing she found with her husband Wayne Chaney. Physically and sexually abusive, Wayne was an uncontrollable force in the life of Connie and their young beautiful son, Max. Acclaimed author Gera-Lind Kolarik investigates both sides of this fatally abusive relationship, which prompted one of the United States' first anti-stalking laws.
Knowlton experiences a flood of repressed childhood memories, and realizes that her father was L.A.'s notorious Black Dahlia Killer. Carefully documenting her claims, she exposes George Knowlton's 30-year rampage of rape and murder. Even more shocking is the evidence she provides revealing that the police always knew the killer's identity.
Photographer Charles Edgar Rathburn was trying to crack the big time, and so was Linda Sobek, a former Los Angeles Raiders cheerleader turned model. An assignment for "Autoweek" took them to an isolated location called El Mirage dry lake. When it was over, Linda would be dead. In his unsettling account, Nerad details the story of an exquisite woman and her collision course with the man who killed her.
In the early 1980's, a string of savage murders rocked Chicago. The victims were beautiful young women, and the killers were four men, led by a typical "boy-next-door". Now learn the full story of these shocking crimes, from Satanic rituals to the revealing trials to the final guilty verdicts and life sentences for all four men. Includes 8 pages of photos.
On November 29,1992, Judy Blake Moilanen, 35, took her dogs for a walk in the north Michigan woods. It was the last time she would be seen alive. She was found shot through the chest, a seeming hunting accident victim. But state police Sergeant Bob Ball remained skeptical ... Judy's husband, Bruce,37, was the beneficiary of insurance policies with "accidental death" clauses that would pay off $330,000 in claims. Disturbing facts soon surfaced about a prior incident in which Judy had narrowly escaped being killed by a concrete block that had fallen from the roof where her husband was working. On a separate occasion, a fire had broken out as she and her 3 year-old daughter slept alone in the house. Bruce Moilanen was a debt-dodger and chiseler, obsessed with a happily married woman who regarded him only as a "pest." For months, Sergeant Ball painstakingly gathered evidence against Moilanen, yet there was still no sign of a murder weapon as the trial date approached. Would a youthful prosecutor be able to overcome a tenacious defense and the specter of a reasonable doubt to prove that Judy Moilanen's death was anything but accidental--and every bit an act of cold-blooded murder?
Follows the case of Matthew Heikkila, a young man who was tried for killing his adoptive parents Richard and Dawn and who pleaded not guilty by reason of the "Adopted Child Syndrome." Original.
A region-by-region tour of Chicago that describes significant crimes that took place in each area and chronicles the changes--such as laws, real estate development, and industrialization--that have influenced crime in the city.