Amanda Howard (born 1973) is an Australian fiction writer, true crime author, and expert on serial killers.
Amanda Howard was born on 19 November 1973 in Bankstown, New South Wales, Australia. She lists her early crime influences as the 1989-1990 The Granny Killer case and the 1991 movie, The Silence of the Lambs . [1] [2] In 2003, she received a bachelor's degree in social science (criminology) from Charles Sturt University. [3] [4] In 2012, she received a diploma of management (health care) from TAFE NSW. [3] In 2015-2017, she studied for a master's degree of arts (writing) from Swinburne University of Technology [3] [5] and in 2019, a graduate certificate (criminology) at Griffith University. [3] She is currently studying a master's degree (criminology) at Macquarie University. [3]
Her interest in criminology began when she noticed factual errors in an undergraduate textbook, and set out to confirm the information by writing directly to the criminal (in this case Ivan Milat). [6] Following this, she wrote to others and when many began writing back, she decided to pursue it further. [7] After 25 years of corresponding with hundreds of serial killers (including Milat, Charles Manson, David Birnie, Richard Ramirez, Ian Brady, and Roy Norris) she has been nicknamed "The Serial Killer Whisperer" by sections of the media. [1] [2] [5] [8] [9]
Howard released her first books in 2004, and has since made numerous media appearances on radio, television, at conferences, online, and also appears on the morning show Studio 10 as a regular guest. [10] [11] [12] In 2017, she was included in the Who's Who of Australian Women. [5] In 2018, she began work as an associate producer on an American film about serial killer Jesse Pommeroy. [5]
In 2019, Howard opened a pop up museum exhibition called Memento Mori Death Museum. It features pieces from her true crime collection and correspondence from killers from across the globe as well as pieces related to death and culture. [13] [14]
Howard was married to Steve, a high-school peer, and they went on to have two children. In mid-2017, however, her husband committed suicide at the family home at the age of 42. [4] [15] As a result of his death, Howard is now a spokesperson for male suicide prevention. [5]
Howard has authored a number of books and articles in a number of genres: [16]
2004:
2005:
2007:
2008:
2009:
2011:
2013:
2014:
2015:
2016:
2017:
2018:
Howard has also authored a series of investigative novels "following the life of a police detective who is an international expert on ritual crimes and ancient societies." [20] [21] The series, set in the fictional Somerset Police Violent Crimes Department, currently consists of:
A serial killer is typically a person who murders three or more persons, with the murders taking place over more than a month and including a significant period of time between them. While most authorities set a threshold of three murders, others extend it to four or lessen it to two.
True crime is a nonfiction literary, podcast, and film genre in which the author examines a crime and details the actions of people associated with and affected by criminal events.
Ann Rae Rule was an American author of true crime books and articles.
The Claremont serial killings is the name given by the media to a case involving the disappearance of an Australian woman, aged 18, and the killings of two others, aged 23 and 27, in 1996–1997. After attending night spots in Claremont, a wealthy western suburb of Perth, Western Australia, all three women disappeared in similar circumstances leading police to suspect that an unidentified serial killer was the offender. The case was described as the state's biggest, longest running, and most expensive investigation.
Belanglo State Forest is a planted forest, of mainly pine but some native forestry around the edges, open to the public, in the Australian state of New South Wales; its total area is about 3,800 hectares. The Belanglo State Forest is located south of Berrima in the Southern Highlands, three kilometres west of the Hume Highway between Sydney and Canberra. The forest is owned by the New South Wales Government and contains some of the earliest pine plantings in the state. The first radiata pines were planted in this area in 1919.
The backpacker murders were a spate of serial killings that took place in New South Wales, Australia, between 1989 and 1993, committed by Ivan Milat. The bodies of seven missing young people aged 19 to 22 were discovered partially buried in the Belanglo State Forest, 15 kilometres (9.3 mi) south-west of the New South Wales town of Berrima. Five of the victims were foreign backpackers and two were Australians from Melbourne. Milat was convicted of the murders on 27 July 1996 and was sentenced to seven consecutive life sentences, as well as 18 years without parole. He died in prison on 27 October 2019, having never confessed to the murders for which he was convicted.
Adolfo de Jesús Constanzo was a Cuban-American serial killer, drug dealer and cult leader who led an infamous drug-trafficking and occult gang in Matamoros, Tamaulipas, Mexico, that was dubbed the Narcosatanists by the media. His cult members nicknamed him The Godfather. Constanzo led the cult with Sara Aldrete, whom followers nicknamed "The Godmother". The cult was involved in multiple ritualistic killings in Matamoros, including the murder of Mark Kilroy, an American student abducted, tortured and killed in the area in 1989.
Paul Charles Denyer is an Australian serial killer currently serving three consecutive sentences of life imprisonment with a non-parole period of 30 years for the murders of three young women in Melbourne, in 1993. Denyer became known in the media as the Frankston Serial Killer as his crimes occurred in the neighbouring suburbs of Frankston.
David Wilson is a Scottish emeritus professor of criminology at Birmingham City University. A former prison governor, he is well known as a criminologist specialising in serial killers through his work with various British police forces, academic publications, books and media appearances.
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David John Birnie and Catherine Margaret Birnie were an Australian couple from Perth who murdered four women at their home in 1986, also attempting to murder a fifth. These crimes were referred to in the press as the Moorhouse murders, after the Birnies' address at 3 Moorhouse Street in Willagee, a suburb of Perth.
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Ivan Robert Marko Milat, commonly referred to in media as the Backpacker Murderer, was an Australian serial killer who abducted, assaulted, robbed and murdered two men and five women in New South Wales between 1989 and 1992. His modus operandi was to approach backpackers along the Hume Highway under the guise of providing them transport to areas of southern New South Wales, then take his victims into the Belanglo State Forest where he would incapacitate and murder them. Milat is also suspected of having committed many other similar offences and murders around Australia.
Edward Wayne Edwards was an American serial killer and former fugitive. Edwards escaped from jail in Akron, Ohio, in 1955 and fled across the country, holding up gas stations. By 1961, he was on the FBI's Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list.
Jillian Lauren is an American writer, performer, adoption advocate, and former call girl for Jefri Bolkiah, Prince of Brunei; about whom she wrote her first memoir, Some Girls: My Life in a Harem.
Hadden Irving Clark is an American veteran, murderer and serial killer, currently serving two 30-year sentences at Eastern Correctional Institution in Westover, Maryland for the murders of 6-year-old Michele Lee Dorr in 1986, and 23-year-old Laura Houghteling in 1992. He was also given a 10-year sentence for robbery after stealing from a former landlord.
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