Ilumina Public Library: El Paso County's All-Digital Library

OUT OF CONTROL June 26, 2010. A Pennsylvania State Trooper, heading home from work, witnesses a car speeding and crashing into trees. Stopping to help, he finds that the driver, Michael Ballard, is alive-and drenched in blood. When asked what happened, the man answers: "I just killed everybody." OUT OF HIS MIND Not far from the accident, police make a gruesome discovery in the home of Michael's ex-girlfriend, Denise Mehri. Four bodies are found,...

The Angel Makers is a true-crime story like no other—a 1920s midwife who may have been the century’s most prolific killer leading a murder ring of women responsible for the deaths of at least 160 men. The horror occurred in a rustic farming enclave in modern-day Hungary. To look at the unlikely lineup of murderesses—village wives, mothers, and daughters—was to come to the shocking realization that this could have happened anywhere, and to...

"You haven't heard the last of us yet..." These were chilling words on a note left behind by seven armed and dangerous inmates who escaped from the John Connally prison in South Texas on December 13, 2000. Their promise has apparently been fulfilled. The inmates, now known as the Connally Seven, are suspected of having first robbed a Radio Shack in Houston, and then, days later, on Christmas Eve, of having fatally shot and runover a young police...

In 1981, at the age of eighteen, John N. Huffington was found guilty of a double homicide in Harford County, Maryland. He was given two death sentences plus 21 years in what became known as the Memorial Day Murders. Maintaining his innocence from day one, John spent 32 years, 2 months, and 28 days in the Maryland Prison System, the first 10 years of his sentence were on death row. John's conviction was tainted with flimsy, unsubstantiated science...

Every adopted child has their own story of how they came to be with their forever families. In modern times, children are usually told as soon as their young minds can understand the concept that their parents adopted them-maybe from a couple who just didn't have enough money, or maybe from a lady who was all alone and didn't have what she needed to raise a child. Although Carter can't speak for all the adopted kids of his generation, he didn't learn...

Fifty-five-year-old Dr. Harold "Fred" Shipman has a noble dedication to his profession, winning the trust of his patients with ingratiating charm and an old-school bedside manner. In fact, he even made house calls--but his unsuspecting patients has no idea of the evil that lurked behind the friendly facade of the kindly doctor... After thirty years of practice, Dr. Shipman's true nature was finally exposed--that of a calculating killer who delivered...

Carlton Stowers, the two-time Edgar Award winner and New York Times bestselling master of true crime, is back. Scream at the Sky is his masterful chronicle of one man's murderous career, and another man's sworn promise to deliver justice and closure to the people of Texas. Wichita Falls, Texas, was home to a hundred thousand people in the last months of 1984. That winter was harsh, as the normally arid Texas plains gave way to ominous dark clouds...

Janeen Snyder was only fourteen when she moved in with Michael Thornton, his wife, and teenage daughter. Michael was a successful entrepreneur and family man with eight beauty salons and a six-figure income-but two years later, he gave it all up to run away with Janeen. At last, on the road with his new young lover, Michael could indulge his darkest, wildest obsessions ... They worked together as a team, luring girls into their twisted world of violence,...

The result of 15 years of research and exclusive information, this is the first book of investigative journalism to tell the complete story of Littleton, Colorado's 1999 mass shooting, its far-reaching consequences, and common characteristics among public shooters across the country. A classic in the tradition of In Cold Blood and The Executioner's Song, it comprehensively explores fundamental American themes of violence, racism, parenting, and policing....

Se cumplen treinta años de la tragedia de Waco, Texas, que culminó el 19 de abril de 1993 tras cincuenta y un días de asedio policial. Ese día, el complejo de Mount Carmel, donde se habían atrincherado los más de cien fieles seguidores de la secta de la Rama Davidiana armados hasta los dientes, acabó pasto de las llamas, y setenta y seis davidianos perdieron la vida, entre ellos veinte niños y el temible líder del culto, Vernon Howell, rebautizado...