Showing results by author "Burl Barer" in All Categories

NYPD officers Mike Dowd and Kenny Eurell knew there were two ways to get rich quick in Brooklyn's Lower East Side. You either became drug dealers, or you robbed drug dealers. They decided to do both. Dowd and Eurell ran the most powerful gang in New York's dangerous 75th Precinct, the crack cocaine capitol of 1980s America.

By day, Robert Lee Yates, Jr., was a respected father of five, a skilled helicopter pilot who served in Desert Storm and the National Guard, and a man no one suspected of a deadly hidden life. By night he prowled the streets where prostitutes gathered, gaining their trust before betraying them with a bullet to the head. On August 26, 1997, the decomposed bodies of two young women were discovered in Spokane, Washington. Within months, four more women were added to the mounting death toll.

On March 15th, 1987 police in Anchorage, Alaska arrived at a horrific scene of carnage. In a modest downtown apartment, they found Nancy Newman's brutally beaten corpse sprawled across her bed. In other rooms were the bodies of her eight-year-old daughter, Melissa, and her three-year-old, Angie, whose throat was slit from ear to ear. Both Nancy and Melissa had been sexually assaulted.

1982: Oregon businessman Phil Champagne, age 52, dies in a tragic boating accident off Lopez Island. He is survived by one ex-wife, four adult children, an octogenarian mother, and two despondent brothers. Phil didn't know he was dead until he read it in the paper. All things considered, he took it rather well. So did Phil's brother, Mitch, the beneficiary of a 1.5 million dollar policy on Phil's life.

Frank Rodriguez, a much-loved counselor of troubled teens, lies dead on the bedroom floor. His wife and step-daughter are in shock, and so is the medical examiner when he performs the autopsy. Aside from being dead, Frank is in perfect health.

Fully clothed, the dead man looks as if he is simply taking a nap. There is no forced entry into the apartment, but there seems to have been a violent battle at the locked bedroom door-- and get this: the phone call reporting the murder came from inside the dead man's bedroom by someone using the poor fellow's cordless phone. The last people to see this victim alive were a young couple -- teens, actually, the girl was 7, months pregnant, and a mutual friend of both the teens and the murder victim -- a low level criminal specializing in identity theft and bank fraud.

In May, 1988, in Everett, Washington, four-year-old Feather Rahier disappeared while playing outside after dinner. Her frantic cries drew Feather's mother to the dark garage that was home to Richard Matthew Clark. Clark had stolen the child, bound, and gagged her, and begun to undress her. Only at the last instant was the little girl saved by her mother's desperate intervention. The next victim wouldn't be so fortunate.

From daring heists to the ultimate escape, discover the true story of Punch Stanimirovic, his extraordinary crew, and his high-society family. Edgar Award winner and New York Times bestselling author Burl Barer brings to light the remarkable story of four decades and two generations of America's First Family of kind and generous "altruistic outlaws" in Stealing Manhattan: The Untold Story of America's Billion Dollar Gem Heist Masterminds.

Ready to uncover the truth behind Hollywood's elite? Secrets of a Hollywood Private Eye is your ultimate source for the juiciest stories, scandals, and gossip from Tinsel Town.

Paul St. Pierre was an alcoholic driven by an urge to kill all the time. He bullied his younger brother, Chris, into committing unspeakable acts. His childhood friend, Andrew Webb, took drugs, talked to skulls, and dreamed about eating human flesh. It was only a matter of time before the trio terrorized a quiet neighborhood near Tacoma, Washington, with the brutal murders of innocent victims caught in a storm of senseless rage. Then the twisted triad turned on each other - over money. Paul shot Andrew in the stomach. Chris called the cops. But with tortured individuals like these, justice opened the doors to more surprising revelations.

When Jerry Heimann's son arrived at his father's home in Everett, Washington, he found his grandmother, an Alzheimer's patient, alone in the house, starving and dehydrated. His father was missing. The furniture was gone. Within hours, police realized that Jerry's live-in housekeeper, Barbara Opel, had robbed him and fled. But where was Jerry? The next morning, Barbara Opel's 11-year-old son led police to Jerry's body. Soon, stunned detectives were getting confessions from a ragtag group of teens and preteens.

Jimmy Joste was a powerhouse in the oil and gas industry, but he was a weakling when it came to his gorgeous, athletic, longtime lover, Rhonda Glover. Addicted to her sexual prowess and madly in love, Joste gave her homes, cars, cash, and a $350,000 engagement ring. Their 15 years of passion and excess ended the day Rhonda drove directly from a shooting range to the Austin home they once shared. After pumping 10 bullets into him from a Glock 9mm, she stood over Joste's blood-splattered body and shot him six more times, twice below the waist.

A story from the anthology Masters of True Crime, which spans murder cases from the beginning of the 20th century to today. This is a must-hear for fans of true crime and will also be compelling to mystery and thriller listeners.