What’s one more crime in the murder capital of the world?
murder
A Murder in Hawaii: The Two Trials of Maryann Acker
After three decades, author Linda Spaldin tries to help exonerate a woman on whose trial she had been a juror.
Garlic, Grilled Chicken and Murder in Los Angeles
In the April 2008 issue of Los Angeles magazine reporter Mark Arax wrote about Los Angeles’ beloved Zankou Chicken chain, and how one owner tore the founding family apart by murdering two of its members and killing himself. The story is a compelling mix of family dynamics, fast food and the complex American dream. It was […]
The Rolling Stones’ Dark Masterpiece
Many people say the 1960s ended at Altamont, when the Hell’s Angels fatally stabbed an eighteen year-old black man named Meredith Hunter during a huge, Woodstock-like music festival. The Rolling Stones were playing “Under My Thumb” during the murder, just feet away. In Slate, Jack Hamilton writes about the album the Rolling Stones recorded after […]
Vanity Fair’s Early Look into the Alleged Crimes of Robert Durst
The Jinx—a six-part documentary miniseries about alleged murderer and real estate scion Robert Durst—aired its final episode this past Sunday, a day after Durst’s real life arrest for the murder of his close friend Susan Berman. Berman was killed in 2000. In 2002, Ned Zeman profiled Durst (and his alleged crimes) for Vanity Fair. The excerpt below offers […]
Looking at Five Generations of a Single Dutch Family to Understand the Genetics of Violence
A short piece published in BBC Magazine explored the science of whether murderers are born or made. A British neurocriminologist named Adrian Raine has made a career out of studying the brains of violent criminals. Raine was the first person to conduct a brain imaging study on murderers, and has since scanned the brains of numerous homicidal individuals, looking for similarities. […]
The Reporter at the Ayahuasca Tea Ceremony
In a piece for the Financial Times John Paul Rathbone wrote about the murder of Glauco Villas Boas, one of Brazil’s best-known cartoonists. Glauco was a leader of the CĂ©u de Maria church, one of the many churches in Brazil that treat hallucinogenic ayahuasca tea as a sacrament. The young man charged with murdering Glauco had partaken in the religious rituals […]
How to Tell Your Children and Friends That Your Father Is a Serial Killer
Recently, Roy Wenzl profiled a woman named Kerri Rawson for The Wichita Eagle. Rawson’s life was upended a decade ago, when an FBI agent knocked on her door and informed her that the man she’d always known as a loving father was in fact the BTK serial killer. Wenzl’s piece is a compelling and meticulous portrait of a […]
On Texas's 'Law of Parties' or Accomplices as Killers
In 1998 a district attorney sent a teenager to life in prison for his role in a murder of a 16-year-old girl. In Texas Monthly, Pamela Colloff revisits the case and looks at why the DA is questioning the life sentence years later: The DA did not pull any punches once The State of Texas […]
Longreads Best of 2012: Kiera Feldman
Kiera Feldman is a reporter for The Nation Institute’s Investigative Fund. She wrote “Grace in Broken Arrow” for This Land Press, which was featured on Longreads in May. I’m of the belief that a good murder story should put you out of commission for a while. There is a storyworld to journey into, and it is a doozy. […]
