John Glatt

New York Times bestselling crime writer John Glatt tells the true story behind the kidnappings and long-overdue rescue of three women found in a Cleveland basement.The Lost Girls tells the truly amazing story of Amanda Berry, Gina DeJesus and Michelle Knight, who were kidnapped, imprisoned, and repeatedly raped and beaten in a Cleveland house for over a decade by Ariel Castro, and their amazing escape in May 2013, which made headlines all over the world. The book has an exclusive interview and photographs of Ariel Castro's secret fiancé, who spent many romantic nights in his house of horror, without realizing he had bound and chained captives just a few feet away. There are also revealing interviews with several Castro family members, musician friends and several neighbors who witnessed the dramatic rescue.

Lacey Spears made international headlines in January 2015 when she was charged with the “depraved mind” murder of her five-year-old son, Garnett. Prosecutors alleged that the 27-year-old mother had poisoned him with high concentrations of salt through his stomach tube. To the outside world, Spears had seemed like the perfect mother, regularly posting dramatic updates on her son’s harrowing medical problems, but in reality, she was a text book case of Munchausen by Proxy Syndrome. From the time he was an infant, she deliberately made Garnett sick to elicit sympathy from medical professionals, as well as her hundreds of followers on Facebook and other social media. When a Westchester County jury found her guilty of killing Garnett in April 2015, she was sentenced to twenty years to life in prison. Using Spears's own never-before-seen Facebook, Twitter, and blog posts, an exclusive prison interview with Spears herself, as well as interviews with her family and the three police investigators who broke the case, My Sweet Angel provides the definitive account of this shocking case.

In The Doomsday Mother , bestselling true crime author John Glatt tells the twisted tale of Lori Vallow, accused of having her two children murdered to start a new life with her new husband, doomsday prepper Chad Daybell. At first, the residents of Kauai Beach Resort took little notice of their new neighbors. The glamorous blonde and her tall husband fit the image of the ritzy gated community. The couple seemed to keep to themselves―until the police knocked on their door with a search warrant. Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell had fled to Hawaii in the midst of being investigated for the disappearance of Lori’s children back in Idaho―Tylee and JJ―who hadn’t been seen alive in five months. For years, Lori Vallow had been devoted to her children and her Mormon faith. But when her path crossed with Chad Daybell, a religious zealot who taught his followers how to prepare for the end-times, the tumultuous relationship transformed her into someone unrecognizable. As authorities searched for Lori’s children, they uncovered more suspicious deaths with links to both Lori and Chad, including the death of Lori’s third and fourth husbands, her brother, and Chad’s wife. In June 2020, the gruesome remains of JJ and Tylee were discovered on Chad’s property, and the newlyweds were arrested and charged with murder. And in a shocking development, horrifying statements revealed that the couple’s fanatical beliefs had convinced them the children had become zombies--a belief that may have led to their deaths. Bestselling author and journalist John Glatt takes readers deeper into the devastating story of Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell in an attempt to unravel the lethal relationship of this doomsday couple.

In Golden Boy, New York Times bestselling author John Glatt tells the true story of Thomas Gilbert Jr., the handsome and charming New York socialite accused of murdering his father, a Manhattan millionaire and hedge fund founder. By all accounts, Thomas Gilbert Jr. led a charmed life. The son of a wealthy financier, he grew up surrounded by a loving family and all the luxury an Upper East Side childhood could provide: education at the elite Buckley School and Deerfield Academy, summers in a sprawling seaside mansion in the Hamptons. With his striking good lucks, he moved with ease through glittering social circles and followed in his father's footsteps to Princeton. But Tommy always felt different. The cracks in his façade began to show in warning signs of OCD, increasing paranoia, and--most troubling--an inexplicable hatred of his father. As his parents begged him to seek psychiatric help, Tommy pushed back by self-medicating with drugs and escalating violence. When a fire destroyed his former best friend's Hamptons home, Tommy was the prime suspect--but he was never charged. Just months later, he arrived at his parents' apartment, calmly asked his mother to leave, and shot his father point-blank in the head. Journalist John Glatt takes an in-depth look at the devastating crime that rocked Manhattan's upper class. With exclusive access to sources close to Tommy, including his own mother, Glatt constructs the agonizing spiral of mental illness that led Thomas Gilbert Jr. to the ultimate unspeakable act.

New York Times bestselling crime writer John Glatt tells the true story behind the kidnappings and long-overdue rescue of three women found in a Cleveland basement.The Lost Girls tells the truly amazing story of Amanda Berry, Gina DeJesus and Michelle Knight, who were kidnapped, imprisoned, and repeatedly raped and beaten in a Cleveland house for over a decade by Ariel Castro, and their amazing escape in May 2013, which made headlines all over the world. The book has an exclusive interview and photographs of Ariel Castro's secret fiancé, who spent many romantic nights in his house of horror, without realizing he had bound and chained captives just a few feet away. There are also revealing interviews with several Castro family members, musician friends and several neighbors who witnessed the dramatic rescue.

He Had A Successful Career, A Selfless Wife, And Three Loving Children. When high school sweethearts Karen and Richard Sharpe married, they shared an interest in medicine, a desire for family, and a dream for the future. For Karen, that dream became a nightmare. After years of abuse at the hands of her physician husband, she put an end to their 26-year marriage. Fearing a crushing divorce settlement, Richard ended the marriage first by unloading a .22-caliber rifle into Karen's chest. The murder revealed more about the millionaire doctor-and his double life-than polite Boston society was prepared for. He Also Had A Secret That Shot His Picture-Perfect World To Hell. Behind the doors of their upscale Massachusetts home, Dr. Sharpe was a compulsive cross-dresser with a penchant for his own daughter's underwear-a respected family man who had not only been taking hormones to grow breasts, but who stole his wife's birth control pills to supplement them. But not even his own family could have imagined that it would take cold-blooded murder to finally reveal the good doctor's disturbing secrets, and shatter forever the prosaic facade of an all-American family.

Josef Fritzl was a 73-year-old retired engineer in Austria. He seemed to be living a normal life with his wife, Rosemarie, and their family―though one daughter, Elisabeth, had decades earlier been "lost" to a religious cult. Throughout the years, three of Elisabeth's children mysteriously appeared on the Fritzls' doorstep; Josef and Rosemarie raised them as their own. But only Josef knew the truth about Elisabeth's disappearance… For twenty-seven years, Josef had imprisoned and molested Elisabeth in his man-made basement dungeon, complete with sound-proof paneling and code-protected electric locks. There, she would eventually give birth to a total of seven of Josef's children. One died in infancy―and the other three were raised alongside Elisabeth, never to see the light of day. Then, in 2008, one of Elisabeth's children became seriously ill, and was taken to the hospital. It was the first time the nineteen-year-old girl had ever gone outside―and soon, the truth about her background, her family's captivity, and Josef's unspeakable crimes would come to light. John Glatt's Secrets in the Cellar is the true story of a crime that shocked the world.

In the fall of 1999, a twenty-two-year-old woman was discovered naked and bleeding on the streets of a small New Mexico town south of Albuquerque. She was chained to a padlocked metal collar. The tale she told authorities--of being beaten, raped, and tortured with electric shock--was unthinkable. Until she led them to 59-year-old David Parker Ray, his 39-year-old fiancee Cindy Hendy--and the lakeside trailer they called their "toy box". What the FBI uncovered was unprecedented in the annals of serial crime: restraining devices, elaborate implements of torture, books on human anatomy, medical equipment, scalpels, and a gynecologist's examination table. But these horrors were only part of the shocking story that would unfold in a stunning trial...

In Tangled Vines , bestselling true crime author John Glatt reconstructs the rise of the prestigious Murdaugh family and the shocking double murder that led to the downfall of its patriarch, Alex Murdaugh. 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 from the loss and media attention, dark secrets about this Southern legal dynasty came to light. The Murdaughs, it turned out, were feared as much as they were loved. And they wouldn’t hesitate to wield their influence to protect one of their own; two years before he was killed, a highly intoxicated Paul Murdaugh was at the helm of a boat when it crashed and killed a teenage girl, and his light treatment by police led to speculation that privilege had come into play. As bombshells of financial fraud were revealed and more suspicious deaths were linked to the Murdaughs, a new portrait of Alex Murdaugh a desperate man on the brink of ruin who would do anything, even plan his own death, to save his family’s reputation.

In The Perfect Father, New York Times bestselling author John Glatt reveals the tragedy of the Watts family, whose seemingly perfect lives played out on social media—but the truth would lead to a vicious and heartbreaking murder. In the early morning hours of August 13th, 2018, Shanann Watts was dropped off at home by a colleague after returning from a business trip. It was the last time anyone would see her alive. By the next day, Shanann and her two young daughters, Bella and Celeste, had been reported missing, and her husband, Chris Watts, was appearing on the local news, pleading for his family’s safe return.But Chris Watts already knew that he would never see his family again. Less than 24 hours after his desperate plea, Watts made a shocking confession to he had strangled his pregnant wife to death and smothered their daughters, dumping their bodies at a nearby oil site. Heartbroken friends and neighbors watched in shock as the movie-star handsome, devoted family man they knew was arrested and charged with first degree murder. The mask Chris had presented to the world in his TV interviews and the family’s Facebook accounts was slipping—and what lay beneath was a horrifying image of instability, infidelity, and boiling rage.In this first major account of the case, bestselling author and journalist John Glatt reveals the truth behind the tragedy and constructs a chilling portrait of one of the most shocking family annihilator cases of the 21st century.

One by one, three waterlogged suitcases were pulled from the Chesapeake Bay. In each were body parts of a man. In a forensics room, the truth was William McGuire had been horribly murdered and dismembered. William and his loving wife, a registered nurse named Melanie, had just closed on their New Jersey dream home. Little did William know about the nightmare that was in store… For Melanie had been involved in a long-term affair with a married doctor at the fertility clinic where she worked—and she had plans for the future that didn’t include William. Investigators believe that on April 29, 2004, Melanie first drugged her husband, then murdered him in cold blood. Three years after America witnessed the details of the suitcase incident unfold—on 48 Hours, Dateline NBC, and ABC Primetime , and in People magazine, among other news outlets—Melanie was convicted of first-degree murder and desecrating human remains. This is the true story of a marriage that turned deadly…

Was the burden of fame too much? He was called "one of the most gifted actors of his generation." His work in films like The Mosquito Coast, Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade, and My Own Private Idaho made him a favorite of critics and the public alike. But all that promise would soon come tragically to an end. In 1994 outside a Hollywood club called The Viper Room, River Phoenix lay dying from a drug overdose. His tragic death at the age of twenty-three shocked America, who had known him as a strict vegetarian, close to his family and committed to saving the environment. Learn the truth about how: - He lost his virginity at the age of four - He financially supported his parents and four siblings in his mid-teens - He felt burdened to save the world - and believed his fame was a platform to do it - He shunned his image as a teenage heartthrob - and was shy around girls - He secretly turned to drugs and alcohol to numb his pain Veteran journalist John Glatt delivers an intimate portrait of River Phoenix, whose noble ideals and raw talent could not protect him from the pressures of fame.

On 31 October 1993, River Phoenix, the gifted young star of Stand by Me, Mosquito Coast, My Own Private Idaho, Running on Empty, Dogfight and Sneakers, collapsed and died of a lethal speedball of drugs on a cold pavement outside a Hollywood nightclub. His death shocked millions of people worldwide. This first serious biography of River Phoenix is based on a year's meticulous research and more than 65 interviews with members of his family, close friends, fellow actors and directors, members of the Children of God cult and fellow rock band members.