Books like Parents Who Kill by Carol Anne Davis

An investigative reporter tracks the long‑timed serial killer who has murdered women in South Central Los Angeles since the 1980s, uncovering the case’s alleged identity.

Michelle Oberman and Cheryl L. Meyer don’t write for news magazines or prime-time investigative television shows, but the stories they tell hold the same fascination. When Mothers Kill is compelling. In a clear, direct fashion the authors recount what they have learned from interviewing women imprisoned for killing their children. Readers will be shocked and outraged—as much by the violence the women have endured in their own lives as by the violence they engaged in—but they will also be informed and even enlightened. Oberman and Meyer are leading authorities on their subject. Their 2001 book, Mothers Who Kill Their Children, drew from hundreds of newspaper articles as well as from medical and social science journals to propose a comprehensive typology of maternal filicide. In that same year, driven by a desire to test their typology—and to better understand child-killing women not just as types but as individuals—Oberman and Meyer began interviewing women who had been incarcerated for the crime. After conducting lengthy, face-to-face interviews with forty prison inmates, they returned and selected eight women to speak with at even greater length. This new book begins with these stories, recounted in the matter-of-fact words of the inmates themselves. There are collective themes that emerge from these individual accounts, including histories of relentless interpersonal violence, troubled relationships with parents (particularly with mothers), twisted notions of romantic love, and deep conflicts about motherhood. These themes structure the books overall narrative, which also includes an insightful examination of the social and institutional systems that have failed these women. Neither the mothers nor the authors offer these stories as excuses for these crimes.

An engaging examination of ten landmark twentieth‑century murder trials that captured national headlines and reshaped media coverage of criminal proceedings.

An intensive look at the unsolved 1991 murder of four girls in Austin, Texas, tracing decades of investigation, DNA advances, and the challenges of justice.

A mother’s tale of abuse, murder, and the search for forgiveness as a daughter confronts her abusive father, Bruno, and seeks to honor her mother’s memory.

In February 2013, Suburban Washington, D.C. faced an alarming spike in homicides and police‑involved shootings. Del Quentin Wilber follows the Prince George’s County homicide unit through its frantic investigation of a series of brutal murders, including the infamous “Red Ball” case.