The following booklist represents a portion of the books available in the Northglenn High School library. For additional books on this topic or related topics, please visit the library or use Destiny to search the collection.

Little, Crazy Children: A True Crime Tragedy

365.152 REN

In September of 1990, in the Cleveland suburb of Shaker Heights, sixteen-year-old Lisa Pruett, a poetry lover and member of a church youth group, was on her way to a midnight tryst with her boyfriend, when she was viciously stabbed to death only thirty feet from the boy's home. The murder cast a palpable gloom over the upscale community and sparked accusations, theories, and rumors among Lisa's friends and peers. Together they wove a damning narrative that circled back to a likely suspect: 'weird' high school outcast Kevin Young. Without a shred of evidence the teen was arrested, charged, and tried for the crime. With a fresh perspective and painstaking research culled from police files, court records, transcripts, uncollected evidence, and new interviews, James Renner reconstructs the events leading up to and following that heartbreaking night.

Starkweather: The Untold Story of the Killing Spree that Changed America

364.152 MAC

On January 21, 1958, nineteen-year-old Charles Starkweather changed the course of crime in the United States when he murdered the parents and sister of his fourteen-year-old girlfriend (and possible accomplice), Caril Ann Fugate, in Lincoln, Nebraska. They then drove to the nearby town of Bennet, where a farmer was robbed and killed. When Starkweather's car broke down, the teenagers who stopped to help were murdered and jammed into a storm cellar. By the time the dust settled, ten innocent people were dead and the city of Lincoln was in a state of terror. Starkweather, tells the story of this shocking event and its lasting impact, a crime spree that struck deep into the heart of the heartland.

Blood on Their Hands: Murder, Corruption, and the Fall of the Murdaugh Dynasty

364.1 MAT

Years before the name Alex Murdaugh was splashed across every major media outlet in America, local South Carolina journalist Mandy Matney had an instinct that something wasn't right with the powerful Murdaugh dynasty. When Mandy and her reporting partner Liz Farrell looked closer at a fatal boat crash involving the storied family's teenage son Paul, they began to uncover a web of mysteries surrounding the deaths of the Murdaughs' long-time housekeeper and a young man found slain years earlier on a backcountry road. Just as their investigations were unfolding, the brutal double murder of Maggie and Paul Murdaugh rocketed Alex Murdaugh onto the international stage.

I'll Be Gone in the Dark: One Woman's Obsessive Search for the Golden State Killer

364.15 MCN

For more than ten years, a mysterious and violent predator committed fifty sexual assaults in Northern California before moving south, where he perpetrated ten sadistic murders. Then he disappeared, eluding capture by multiple police forces and some of the best detectives in the area.

Three decades later, a true crime journalist was determined to find the violent psychopath she called "the Golden State Killer." I'll Be Gone in the Dark offers an atmospheric snapshot of a moment in American history and a chilling account of a criminal mastermind and the wreckage he left behind. It is also a portrait of a woman's obsession and her unflagging pursuit of the truth.

Murder Among Friends: How Leopold and Loeb Tried to Commit the Perfect Crime

364.152 FLE

In 1924, eighteen-year-old college students Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb made a decision to commit the perfect crime, kidnapping and murdering a child they both knew. But they made one crucial error—as they were disposing of the body of young Bobby Franks, whom they had bludgeoned to death, Nathan's eyeglasses fell from his jacket pocket. Multi-award-winning author Candace Fleming depicts every twist and turn of this harrowing case—how two wealthy, brilliant young men planned and committed what became known as the crime of the century, how they were caught, why they confessed, and how the renowned criminal defense attorney Clarence Darrow helped them avoid the death penalty.

The Book of Atlantis Black

364.152 BON

A young woman is found dead on the floor of a Tijuana hotel room. An ID in a nearby purse reads "Atlantis Black." The police report states that the body does not seem to match the identification, yet the body is quickly cremated and the case is considered closed.

So begins Betsy Bonner's search for her sister, Atlantis, and the unraveling of the mysterious final months before Atlantis's disappearance, alleged overdose, and death. Through a history only she and Atlantis shared—a childhood fraught with abuse and mental illness, Atlantis's precocious yet short rise in the music world, and through it all an unshakable bond of sisterhood—Bonner finds questions that lead only to more questions and possible clues that seem to point in no particular direction.

The Acid King

364.152 POL

On June 19, 1984, seventeen-year-old Ricky Kasso murdered Gary Lauwers in what local police and the international press dubbed a "Satanic Sacrifice." The murder became the subject of several popular songs, and television specials addressed the issue of whether or not America's teens were practicing Satanism. Even Congress got in on the act, debating Satanic symbolism in songs by performers like AC/DC and Ozzy Osbourne. But what this case revealed were bigger problems lurking at the heart of suburban America. The subsequent police investigation and accompanying media circus turned a village upside down. It shattered the image of an idyllic small town, changed the way neighbors viewed each other, and recast the War on Drugs.

Crimes of the Centuries: The Cases that Changed Us

364.1 HUN

Crimes and trials have captured American consciousness since the Salem Witch Trials in the seventeenth century. And these cases over the centuries have fundamentally changed our society and shifted our legal system, resulting in the laws we have today and setting the stage for new rights and protections. From the first recorded murder trial led by the first legal dream team, to one of the earliest uses of DNA, these cases will fascinate.

The Stranger Beside Me

364.152 RUL

In 1971, while working the late-shift at a Seattle crisis clinic, true-crime writer Ann Rule struck up a friendship with a sensitive, charismatic young coworker: Ted Bundy. Three years later, eight young women disappeared in seven months, and Rule began tracking a brutal mass murderer. But she had no idea that the "Ted" the police were seeking was the same Ted who had become her close friend and confidant. As she put the evidence together, a terrifying picture emerged of the man she thought she knew—his magnetic power, his bleak compulsion, his double life, and—most of all—his string of helpless victims. Bundy eventually confessed to killing at least thirty-six women across the country.

Tangled Vines: Power, Privilege, and the Murdaugh Family Murders

364.152 GLA

Among the lush, tree-lined waterways of South Carolina low country, the Murdaugh name means power. A century-old, multimillion-dollar law practice has catapulted the family into incredible wealth and local celebrity—but it was an unimaginable tragedy that would thrust them into the national spotlight. On June 7th, 2021, prominent attorney Alex Murdaugh discovered the bodies of his wife, Maggie, and son, Paul, on the grounds of their thousand-acre hunting lodge. The mystery deepened only months later when Alex himself was discovered shot in the head on a local roadside. But as authorities scrambled for clues and the community reeled, dark secrets about this Southern legal dynasty came to light.