Crime Library

Last updated
Crime Library
Type of site
Online database, Law enforcement
Available inEnglish
Owner truTV
Created byMarilyn J. Bardsley
URL www.crimelibrary.org
CommercialYes
Launched1998;26 years ago (1998)
Current statusActive

Crime Library is a website documenting major crimes, criminals, trials, forensics, and criminal profiling from books. It was founded in 1998 and was most recently owned by truTV, a cable TV network that is part of Time Warner's Turner Broadcasting System. In August 2014, Crime Library was no longer being updated.

Contents

Content

Crime Library contains an extensive collection of crime related articles, which were separated into categories: Serial Killers, Notorious Murders, Criminal Mind, Terrorists & Spies and Gangsters & Outlaws. Each category was then broken down into further subcategories. For example, within Serial Killers were the subcategories Most Notorious, Sexual Predators, Truly Weird & Shocking, Unsolved Cases, Partners in Crime and Killers from History. Crime Library also featured photo galleries. These may have had anywhere from 10 to upwards of 100 slides. Some photo galleries were focused on a specific case, while others were lists of crimes linked by a theme (e.g., "Baby for Sale," cases where a person was arrested for allegedly attempting to sell his or her child), or collections of unusual booking photos.

High-profile crimes in the United States were prominent on Crime Library, but the site also contained information about historically notorious characters from various countries, including United Kingdom, Australia and France.

All articles on Crime Library were written exclusively for Crime Library by dozens of commissioned writers, many of them true-crime authors, including Chuck Hustmyre, [1] Katherine Ramsland, [2] Gary C. King [3] and Anthony Bruno. [4]

Crime Library maintained social media features where readers could interact and discuss criminal cases, including a Facebook page, a Twitter account and message boards.

History

Crime Library was founded by Marilyn J. Bardsley [5] in January 1998. Court TV, later truTV, purchased Crime Library in 2001, the same year The Smoking Gun was acquired by Court TV. [6] Originally "The Crime Library," the name of the site was shortened to Crime Library in 2003 to accompany a redesign that changed the site's color scheme and layout.

Crime Library was managed by editor-in-chief Andy Brooks and managing editors Nastacia Leshchinskaya and Cora Van Olson.

As of August 2014, Crime Library was no longer providing updates on their website. As of 2015, the site is no longer accessible, but its content can be read at the Wayback archive [7] of the site.

As of 2022, the website is accessible again under a new URL. [8]

Related Research Articles

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A serial killer is a person who murders three or more people, with the killings taking place over a significant period of time between them. The serial killers' psychological gratification is the motivation for the killings, and many serial murders involve sexual contact with the victims at different points during the murder process. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) states that the motives of serial killers can include anger, thrill-seeking, financial gain, and attention seeking, and killings may be executed as such. The victims tend to have things in common such as, demographic profile, appearance, gender or race. The FBI will focus on particular patterns that the serial killers follow throughout their murders. They will then use on the patterns they find for key clues into finding the killer along with their motives. Although a serial killer is a distinct classification that differs from that of a mass murderer, spree killer, or contract killer, there are overlaps between them.

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. It is a cultural phenomenon that can refer to the promotion of sensationalized and emotionally charged content around the subject of violent crime, for the general public.

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The Smoking Gun is a website that posts legal documents, arrest records, and police mugshots on a daily basis. The intent is to bring to the public light information that is somewhat obscure or unreported by more mainstream media sources. Most of the site's content revolves around historical and current events, although it also features documents and photos relating to out-of-the-ordinary crimes and people.

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References

  1. "Crime writer teaches new fiction writing leisure class". lsureveille.com.
  2. Michael J. Connor (3 November 2014). "The academic legacy of Rulloff, Ithaca's famed 19th Century killer". The Ithaca Voice.
  3. "Dayton Leroy Rogers, Serial Killer With Bizarre Foot Fetish, Could Escape Execution". The Huffington Post.
  4. "'Side-Stepping A Wiretap' – A Tale of the Telling of James 'Whitey' Bulger!". thesop.org.
  5. "Behind Crime Library, personal pain and true horror". The Daily Dot.
  6. Greenman, Catherine. "Technology Briefing: E-Commerce; CourtTV Buys 2 Web Sites". The New York Times. Retrieved 3 February 2012.
  7. "Crimelibrary.com". Archived from the original on 2008-05-12. Retrieved 2020-07-30.
  8. "Crimelibrary.org" . Retrieved 2022-06-20.