Pamela Ann Smart is an American woman who was convicted of conspiracy to commit murder, witness tampering and accomplice to first degree murder. In 1990, at age 22, Smart was accused of conspiring with her underaged sex partner, then 15-year-old William "Billy" Flynn, and three of his friends to have her 24-year-old husband Greggory Smart killed in Derry, New Hampshire. She is currently serving a life sentence at Bedford Hills Correctional Facility for Women, a maximum security prison in Westchester County, New York.
James Frey is an American writer and businessman. His first two books, A Million Little Pieces (2003) and My Friend Leonard (2005), were bestsellers marketed as memoirs. Large parts of the stories were later found to be exaggerated or fabricated, sparking a media controversy. His 2008 novel Bright Shiny Morning was also a bestseller.
The Society Murders is the name given to the 4 April 2002 familicide of husband and wife millionaire socialites Margaret Mary Wales-King, 69, and husband, Paul Aloysius King, 75, in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, by Wales-King's 34-year-old son, Matthew Robert Wales. News media throughout Australia covered the crime and subsequent trial, which later became the subject of a book and a television film.
Mary Jo Buttafuoco is an American author and motivational speaker. In 1992, she was shot in the face by her husband's underage girlfriend, Amy Fisher.
Mary Carol Winkler is an American woman who was convicted of voluntary manslaughter in the 2006 shooting of her husband, Matthew Winkler, the pulpit minister at the Fourth Street Church of Christ in the small town of Selmer, Tennessee.
Diane Fanning is an American crime writer and author who writes nonfiction and mystery novels.
Kathryn Casey is an American writer of mystery novels and non-fiction books. She is best known for writing She Wanted It All, which recounts the case of Celeste Beard, who married an Austin multimillionaire only to convince her lesbian lover, Tracey Tarlton, to kill him.
Gregg Olsen is a New York Times, USA Today and The Wall Street Journal bestselling author of nonfiction books and novels, most of which are crime-related. The subjects of his true crime books include convicted child rapist and school teacher Mary Kay Letourneau, product tampering killer Stella Nickell, fasting specialist Linda Burfield Hazzard, and former Amishman and convicted murderer Eli Stutzman.
Elizabeth Diane Downs is an American criminal who murdered her daughter and attempted to murder her other two children in May 1983. Following the crimes, she told police a man had attempted to carjack her and had shot the children. She was convicted in 1984 and sentenced to life in prison plus fifty years.
Jerry Bledsoe is an American author and journalist known for several true crime titles based on murders in his native state of North Carolina.
The Lincoln Lawyer is a 2011 American legal thriller film adapted from the 2005 eponymous novel by Michael Connelly. The film is directed by Brad Furman, with a screenplay written by John Romano, and stars Matthew McConaughey as the titular lawyer, Mickey Haller. The film also stars Ryan Phillippe, Marisa Tomei, Josh Lucas, William H. Macy, and Bryan Cranston.
Suzy Spencer is an American author and journalist who made the New York Times Best Seller list in 1998 with her first true crime book Wasted. Since then, she has written three additional true-crime books. Her book about alternative sex, Secret Sex Lives: A Year on the Fringes of American Sexuality was released in 2012.
The Pastor's Wife is a 2011 biographical television film, starring Rose McGowan as Mary Winkler and based on the true-crime book of the same title by author Diane Fanning. It premiered on November 5, 2011, on the Lifetime Network.
Shattered: The True Story of a Mother's Love, a Husband's Betrayal, and a Cold-Blooded Texas Murder, by author and novelist Kathryn Casey, is a true-crime account of the killing of a pregnant woman whose body was discovered in 1999 in an upstairs closet in her home in Katy, Texas, near Houston. The book was published by HarperCollins in June 2010. Ms. Casey details numerous reasons that prove no one except David Temple had either motive or opportunity.
Murder by Family a non-fiction true crime book written by Kent Whitaker. The book was released on September 23, 2008 by Howard Books.
The Millionaire's Wife: The True Story of a Real Estate Tycoon, his Beautiful Young Mistress, and a Marriage that Ended in Murder, by the author and journalist Cathy Scott, is a true crime account of the 1990 contract murder of George Kogan on an Upper East Side Manhattan street in broad daylight. The book was published for mass-market release by St. Martin's Press True Crime Library in March 2012.
Deadly Little Secrets: The Minister, His Mistress, and a Heartless Texas Murder is a 2012 true crime book written by the non-fiction author and novelist Kathryn Casey and released by HarperCollins about the 2006 murder by Baptist minister Matt Baker of his 31-year-old wife, Kari Baker, and the staging of her death as a suicide.
Practice to Deceive is a 2013 book by the American author Ann Rule that details the murder of Russel Douglas, found shot between the eyes in his car on Whidbey Island, north of Seattle, Washington, the day after Christmas Day 2003. The book was released in October 2013 by Simon & Schuster's Gallery Books imprint.
Matthew Brian Winkler was a minister who was the victim in a high-profile murder case in 2006.
Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption is a memoir by Bryan Stevenson that documents his career as a lawyer for disadvantaged clients. The book, focusing on injustices in the United States judicial system, alternates chapters between documenting Stevenson's efforts to overturn the wrongful conviction of Walter McMillian and his work on other cases, including children who receive life sentences and other poor or marginalized clients.
