# books about real murders



## binka (Sep 22, 2011)

it's my sister's birthday in a couple of weeks and she's asked me to get her a book about a murderer / serial killer. she specified it has to be an account of a real life killer or at the very least based on a true story. she also said it has to go into 'all the gory details'.

does anyone have any recommendations?


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## Pickman's model (Sep 22, 2011)

you could go for 'helter skelter' about the tate-la bianca murders by the manson family. although the pictures don't proudly display the stab wounds.


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## Pickman's model (Sep 22, 2011)

or there's that truman capote book 'in cold blood'


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## DotCommunist (Sep 22, 2011)

http://books.google.com/books/about/Heydrich.html?id=XM0Qu8-CXJEC


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## DotCommunist (Sep 22, 2011)

http://www.amazon.com/Killing-Pablo-Worlds-Greatest-Outlaw/dp/0142000957/ref=pd_sim_b3

The rise and assasination of Pablo Escobar


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## DotCommunist (Sep 22, 2011)

DotCommunist said:


> http://books.google.com/books/about/Heydrich.html?id=XM0Qu8-CXJEC


 
about the nazi butcher Heydrich and his deserved end


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## binka (Sep 22, 2011)

thanks pickman's i might get both of those. thanks dotcommunist i did think of nazis but i think what she really likes is scaring the shit out of herself that those things could happen to her so im thinking more along the lines of poor innocent person going on their way then all of a sudden some nutter tortures them to death


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## Redeyes (Sep 22, 2011)

Somebody's Husband, Somebody's Son

It's been a long while since I read it but I always remember the book I read about Peter Sutcliffe being a decent read.


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## Orang Utan (Sep 22, 2011)

gordon burn - happy like murders - it's about fred west (and rose). one of the most disturbing books i've ever read.


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## equationgirl (Sep 23, 2011)

If it's still in print - 10 Rillington place by Ludovic Kennedy. About serial killer John Christie from 1940s/50s. Very dark stuff.


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## Orang Utan (Sep 23, 2011)

equationgirl said:


> If it's still in print - 10 Rillington place by Ludovic Kennedy. About serial killer John Christie from 1940s/50s. Very dark stuff.


the relative of a friend of mine was hanged for the murders christie committed


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## binka (Sep 23, 2011)

thanks for all the suggestions. been looking through them on amazon and the 'people also bought' i knew true crime was a big genre but fucking hell... im also liking the look of a ted bundy one and "sadistic killers: profiles of pathalogical predators whic has this review:
"if yo like gore and true crime youll love this book its brilliant and with such detail too..."

sounds right up her alley. think i'll end up getting her 4 or 5 most books on amazon are only about a fiver anyway (yes i know, im a very generous brother)

happy like murderers is in the basket


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## equationgirl (Sep 23, 2011)

Orang Utan said:


> the relative of a friend of mine was hanged for the murders christie committed


I have a recollection that this man's death was one of the reasons the death penalty was abolished in the UK. Christie was a cowardly evil man.

How awful for your friend, it must have had a huge impact on the family.


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## equationgirl (Sep 23, 2011)

binka said:


> thanks for all the suggestions. been looking through them on amazon and the 'people also bought' i knew true crime was a big genre but fucking hell... im also liking the look of a ted bundy one and "sadistic killers: profiles of pathalogical predators whic has this review:
> "if yo like gore and true crime youll love this book its brilliant and with such detail too..."
> 
> sounds right up her alley. think i'll end up getting her 4 or 5 most books on amazon are only about a fiver anyway (yes i know, im a very generous brother)
> ...



Ted Bundy was unnervingly charming and quite handsome, according to eyewitness reports and contemporary photographs. This is one of the reasons that he went undetected for so long - he didn't fit people's idea of what a monster should look like.


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## binka (Sep 23, 2011)

equationgirl said:


> Ted Bundy was unnervingly charming and quite handsome, according to eyewitness reports and contemporary photographs. This is one of the reasons that he went undetected for so long - he didn't fit people's idea of what a monster should look like.


thats exactly whats shes after the 'he always seemed such a good neighbour' types.


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## Orang Utan (Sep 23, 2011)

you should read jon ronson's the psychopath test - psychopaths are often charming people. bog-eyed stabby loons are usually schizophrenic.


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## equationgirl (Sep 23, 2011)

Wiki article on Bundy makes for gripping reading too.


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## binka (Sep 23, 2011)

just reading the wiki article on john wayne gacy. pogo the clown!


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## josef1878 (Sep 23, 2011)

I can't do it on this phone but if anybody can find the picture of Ted Bundy from the front page of the Mirror (i think) after he was executed, it says a lot. He's still smiling. Clever, cunning and very evil man.


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## DotCommunist (Sep 23, 2011)

Dahmer makes for an interesting read as well. He had a male torso fixation and liked to pretend e had sith powers


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## Orang Utan (Sep 23, 2011)

dennis nilsen is interesting too. brian masters' killing for company is the one to read.
he was odd, cos he seemed to have a conscience about his crimes (though not enough to stop).
he'd get smashed, murder, then wake up, feeling like shit, rueing the events of last night. which we've all done from time to time.


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## BlackArab (Sep 23, 2011)

ger her a Tony Blair book


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## JimW (Sep 23, 2011)

Just seen a post about this book elsewhere: http://www.haymarketbooks.org/hc/People-Wasnt-Made-to-Burn


> *IN 1947*, James Hickman shot and killed the landlord he believed was responsible for a tragic fire that took the lives of four of his children on Chicago’s West Side. Prosecutors hung the death sentence over Hickman’s head, but a vibrant defense campaign exposed how working poverty and racism led to his crime and helped win Hickman’s freedom.
> With a true-crime writer’s eye for suspense and the historian’s depth of knowledge, Joe Allen unearths the compelling story of a campaign that was willing to stand up to Jim Crow well before the modern civil rights movement had even begun.
> As deteriorating housing conditions and an accelerating foreclosure crisis combine to form a hauntingly similar set of factors as those that led to the tragic fire that claimed the lives of James Hickman’s children, Allen’s book restores to prominence a previously unknown individual whose story has profound relevance today.


Trotskyist true crime!
ETA: Not read it myself, so can't recommend but looks interesting.


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## Belushi (Sep 23, 2011)

Orang Utan said:


> dennis nilsen is interesting too. brian masters' killing for company is the one to read.
> he was odd, cos he seemed to have a conscience about his crimes (though not enough to stop).
> he'd get smashed, murder, then wake up, feeling like shit, rueing the events of last night. which we've all done from time to time.



Typical fucking Guardian reader.


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## goldenecitrone (Sep 23, 2011)

Orang Utan said:


> dennis nilsen is interesting too. brian masters' killing for company is the one to read.
> he was odd, cos he seemed to have a conscience about his crimes (though not enough to stop).
> he'd get smashed, murder, then wake up, feeling like shit, rueing the events of last night. which we've all done from time to time.



Yep, great book. I rode past that house in Cranley Gardens a couple of times, when I used to live near Ally Pally. It really is a typical leafy London street. It's weird to think of the drains blocking up with human fat.


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## QueenOfGoths (Sep 23, 2011)

Orang Utan said:


> dennis nilsen is interesting too. brian masters' killing for company is the one to read.
> he was odd, cos he seemed to have a conscience about his crimes (though not enough to stop).
> he'd get smashed, murder, then wake up, feeling like shit, rueing the events of last night. which we've all done from time to time.


Was just going to mention "Killing for Company", it's a fascinating read, quiet horrific and yet Nilsen talks about his crimes with such normality.


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## colbhoy (Sep 24, 2011)

Pickman's model said:


> or there's that truman capote book 'in cold blood'


This^


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## Maurice Picarda (Sep 24, 2011)

I'm glad she's not my sister. She sounds a bit stabby.


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## Cheesypoof (Sep 24, 2011)

ive read so many. best is The Shrine of Jeffrey Dahmer.


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## Espresso (Sep 24, 2011)

The Final Truth; Autobiography of a Serial Killer.
Pee Wee Gaskins spoke to the ghostwriter while he was on death row.


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## Glitter (Sep 24, 2011)

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_Sn8bFn-y_k8/SnbFINdyI3I/AAAAAAAABP4/abODFGN65DI/s320/fred.jpg

This is grim.

I normally have a high tolerance for this stuff but I couldn't finish it. Couldn't even get halfway through in fact.


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## twentythreedom (Sep 24, 2011)

goldenecitrone said:


> Yep, great book. I rode past that house in Cranley Gardens a couple of times, when I used to live near Ally Pally. It really is a typical leafy London street. It's weird to think of the drains blocking up with human fat.



My great aunty lived on Cranley Gardens when it all happened, just a few houses up the road


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## Bernie Gunther (Sep 24, 2011)

binka said:


> thanks pickman's i might get both of those. thanks dotcommunist i did think of nazis but i think what she really likes is scaring the shit out of herself that those things could happen to her so im thinking more along the lines of poor innocent person going on their way then all of a sudden some nutter tortures them to death



My local serial killer expert (the wife) recommends: 'The Stranger Beside Me' by Ann Rule, about Ted Bundy.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Stranger-Beside-Me-Ann-Rule


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## felixthecat (Sep 24, 2011)

Bernie Gunther said:


> My local serial killer expert (the wife) recommends: 'The Stranger Beside Me' by Ann Rule, about Ted Bundy.
> 
> http://www.amazon.co.uk/Stranger-Beside-Me-Ann-Rule


Seconded. Excellent if chilling book.


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## goldenecitrone (Sep 24, 2011)

twentythreedom said:


> My great aunty lived on Cranley Gardens when it all happened, just a few houses up the road



She must have seen Neilson going to and fro in the street from time to time. Creepy.


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## silverfish (Sep 24, 2011)

This dude is creepy, good read

And you can back it up with his story in a documentary with interviews on youtube

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Kuklinski


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## krtek a houby (Sep 24, 2011)

This is a particularly sad book, the boy was failed by the system in Ireland - almost inevitable that tragedy would ensue


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## twentythreedom (Sep 25, 2011)

goldenecitrone said:


> She must have seen Neilson going to and fro in the street from time to time. Creepy.



I might even possibly have seen him myself. We used to go visit her regularly.


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## dylans (Sep 25, 2011)

You could try "killing for pleasure. The definitive story of the Snowtown Serial Murders" by Debi Marshall. Its the story of the so called bodies in the barrel murders in South Adelaide. A 7 year killing spree by, uniquely, a gang of serial killers that began by supposedly targetting pedophiles and then quickly descended into the truly barbaric torture and murder of gay people, mentally disabled people, transexuals drug users and just about anyone that the leader of the gang John Bunting didn't like or he thought he could rob of their benefit payments.  By the time they were caught they had killed 11 people and stored their bodies in barrels of acid in a disused bank vault.

There is a movie of the story out now too simply called Snowtown by Justin Kurzel which, though brilliant is truly horrific and, in the ultra real style of much Australian cinema, paints a harrowing portraitof the grim depressing reality of much small town life in rural South Adelaide where hopelessness, boredom, casual violence, drug abuse and sexual and domestic abuse are all too common and form the backdrop for these truly shocking series of murders.

I have a particular interest in this story because, though I only met him once as a child, the leader of the gang John Bunting happens to be my cousin.


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## redsquirrel (Sep 25, 2011)

dylans said:


> There is a movie of the story out now too simply called Snowtown by Justin Kurzel which, though brilliant is truly horrific and, in the ultra real style of much Australian cinema, paints a harrowing portraitof the grim depressing reality of much small town life in rural South Adelaide where hopelessness, boredom, casual violence, drug abuse and sexual and domestic abuse are all too common and form the backdrop for these truly shocking series of murders.


Really good movie, but like you say is pretty tough. When I went to see I reckon at least 6 people walked out part way through.


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## trevhagl (Sep 26, 2011)

"To Kill and kill again" by Roy Archibald Hall

Not just the usual serial killer book but lots of ducking and diving, scams etc along the way, fucking great read from start to finish.


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## trevhagl (Sep 26, 2011)

dylans said:


> You could try "killing for pleasure. The definitive story of the Snowtown Serial Murders" by Debi Marshall. Its the story of the so called bodies in the barrel murders in South Adelaide. A 7 year killing spree by, uniquely, a gang of serial killers that began by supposedly targetting pedophiles and then quickly descended into the truly barbaric torture and murder of gay people, mentally disabled people, transexuals drug users and just about anyone that the leader of the gang John Bunting didn't like or he thought he could rob of their benefit payments. By the time they were caught they had killed 11 people and stored their bodies in barrels of acid in a disused bank vault.
> 
> There is a movie of the story out now too simply called Snowtown by Justin Kurzel which, though brilliant is truly horrific and, in the ultra real style of much Australian cinema, paints a harrowing portraitof the grim depressing reality of much small town life in rural South Adelaide where hopelessness, boredom, casual violence, drug abuse and sexual and domestic abuse are all too common and form the backdrop for these truly shocking series of murders.
> 
> I have a particular interest in this story because, though I only met him once as a child, the leader of the gang John Bunting happens to be my cousin.



sounds interesting, whats the type size like? No smart arse comments from others , its been done before...


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## trevhagl (Sep 26, 2011)

Espresso said:


> The Final Truth; Autobiography of a Serial Killer.
> Pee Wee Gaskins spoke to the ghostwriter while he was on death row.



is that well written? Also my usual question - type size?


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## trevhagl (Sep 26, 2011)

BlackArab said:


> ger her a Tony Blair book



although he murdered more than any serial killer we know of, i think it may still be a little er...DULL


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## Orang Utan (Sep 26, 2011)

trevhagl said:


> sounds interesting, whats the type size like? No smart arse comments from others , its been done before...


do you wear spectacles?


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## Bakunin (Sep 28, 2011)

I can recommend three books by the late and much-missed New York author Philip Carlo.

1. 'The Ice Man' about Mafia associate and freelance hitman Richard Kuklinski. a thoroughly charming chap who once tested a crossbow by stopping his car to ask a passerby for directions and then shooting the bolt through the man's forehead. The customer was always right for Kuklinski, whatever the employer wanted, no matter how grisly, Kuklinski would provide, even down to claiming to have filmed at least one of his victims as the victims was eaten alive by rats before sending his employer the tape.

2. 'The Night Stalker' which is a biography of Richard Ramirez who terrorised California during the mid 1980's on a rempage of home invasions and torture-murders which claimed at least 15 lives.

3. 'The Butcher: Anatomy Of A Mafia Psychopath' about Tommy 'Karate' Pitera, a lethal black belt, drug dealer and hitman for the New York Mafia. Pitera operated his own personal graveyard in which he interred the bodies of at least 60 dismembered victims, according to one prosecutor.

Would those make for a nice selection, or possibly a boxed set, maybe?


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## Me76 (Sep 28, 2011)

Forty years of Murder (*Simpson (Professor), Keith* (1978), _Forty Years of Murder_, Grafton Books, London, ISBN 0-586-05038-8 )

is a good one.  He's a pathologist who worked in the 50s and 60s on some of the most famous cases in Britain. Lots of gory pictures and good snippets into a lot of cases.


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## vauxhallmum (Sep 29, 2011)

The Maul and The Pear Tree by PD James and TA Critchley was quite interesting, about the
real life unsolved Ratcliffe Highway murders. Recommended to me by Urban


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## Lock&Light (Sep 29, 2011)

"They've Hanged my Darling Billy", by Robert Graves.


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## Voley (Sep 29, 2011)

DotCommunist said:


> http://www.amazon.com/Killing-Pablo-Worlds-Greatest-Outlaw/dp/0142000957/ref=pd_sim_b3
> 
> The rise and assasination of Pablo Escobar


That's a great book. I rattled through it in about two days.


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## baldrick (Oct 1, 2011)

Glitter said:


> http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_Sn8bFn-y_k8/SnbFINdyI3I/AAAAAAAABP4/abODFGN65DI/s320/fred.jpg
> 
> This is grim.
> 
> I normally have a high tolerance for this stuff but I couldn't finish it. Couldn't even get halfway through in fact.


that was one of the worst things I have ever read.

i couldn't finish it either, i felt completely horrorstruck from about 5 pages in. i genuinely don't know how that guy could write it. it gave me nightmares. even thinking about it brings me out in a cold sweat.


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## Geri (Oct 1, 2011)

baldrick said:


> that was one of the worst things I have ever read.



Me too - really brings it home how sick and twisted those two were.


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## ilovebush&blair (Oct 1, 2011)

party monster by james st james is really good.


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## Giles (Oct 2, 2011)

equationgirl said:


> Ted Bundy was unnervingly charming and quite handsome, according to eyewitness reports and contemporary photographs. This is one of the reasons that he went undetected for so long - he didn't fit people's idea of what a monster should look like.



Isn't this the case with loads of serial killers, though?

If you look at most of the murderers mentioned on this thread, the common denominator would be that they ALL looked and acted pretty normal.

It's become a cliche when some horrific case come to light, all the neighbours saying what a nice, polite, quiet person he was, didn't "look the type" to be boiling severed heads on his cooker / melting bodies in vats of acid / running a sex-n-murder dungeon in his house / etc.

Giles..


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## equationgirl (Oct 2, 2011)

I'm never quite sure what 'the type' looks like. It's not like they have 'murderer' tattooed across their forehead.


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## sheothebudworths (Oct 2, 2011)

'THE TRUE STORY OF THE GIRL IN THE BOX' (she doesn't actually die though).


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## Espresso (Oct 2, 2011)

trevhagl said:


> is that well written? Also my usual question - type size?



I am never altogether sure what people mean when they ask if a book is well written. I don't know enough about the technicalities of writing and editing and whatnot to comment. Or even quite what the whatnots might be, to my shame. But I know I like a book which holds my attention and makes me think about it and want to get back to it when I'm not reading it. And that one certainly did.

As for how big they type was - it was decidedly very titchy.


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## Dhimmi (Oct 2, 2011)

There's two encyclopedic tomes entitled "The Encyclopedia of Serial Killers" and "The Encyclopedia of Mass Murderers"both by Lane and Gregg ; ISBN 0-7472-0461-6 and 0-86019-790-6 respectively, and although they don't meet your expressed criteria they are an ideal pair of starting volumes for those with an interest in this area of criminology.


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## Orang Utan (Oct 3, 2011)

this was a very good read indeed:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2011/oct/02/what-madness-darian-leader-extract-shipman


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## Lock&Light (Oct 3, 2011)

Orang Utan said:


> this was a very good read indeed:
> http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2011/oct/02/what-madness-darian-leader-extract-shipman



I read that earlier today. Very interesting, indeed.


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## UrbaneFox (May 15, 2013)

krtek a houby said:


> This is a particularly sad book, the boy was failed by the system in Ireland - almost inevitable that tragedy would ensue


I'll get this. Might be interesting to read about the home lives of Baby P and Tia at some point.


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## colbhoy (May 18, 2013)

This is an excellent read:


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## goldenecitrone (May 18, 2013)

twentythreedom said:


> My great aunty lived on Cranley Gardens when it all happened, just a few houses up the road


 
Crikey. Did she ever complain about the smell coming from the drains?


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## Bakunin (May 18, 2013)

Might be knocking out a collection of my published true crime articles at some point. I'm looking at possibly self-publishing online and/or in print as a way to go.


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## twentythreedom (May 18, 2013)

goldenecitrone said:


> Crikey. Did she ever complain about the smell coming from the drains?


Yes, interestingly enough, I believe she did


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## DaveCinzano (Dec 7, 2015)

dylans said:


> I have a particular interest in this story because, though I only met him once as a child, the leader of the gang John Bunting happens to be my cousin.


 
Blimey


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