Halloween Mysteries

It’s the week of Halloween and there’s a chill in the air and an eerie, ominous feeling. Are you in the mood for a good book to read on damp, foggy nights? If the answer is “yes,” lock your doors, pull down the shades and curl up with one (or more) of the following Halloween mystery novels. I've included the link to order at the end of each post.

 by Marja McGraw

In The Bogey Man, Sandi Webster, a young female P.I., spends a lot of time doing boring, tedious work. A surveillance isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. However, during the early morning hours while she’s watching an unfaithful husband, her cover is blown and the man comes after her.  Before she can say boo, Humphrey Bogart comes to her rescue. Really? He’s been gone for over fifty years.

Sandi continues to have Bogey sightings but no one will believe her until a well-known model and actress is murdered at a Halloween party – and the Bogey Man walks out of the restroom, walking the walk and talking the talk.

Sandi is hired to solve the murder by an unlikely suspect, and in the meantime the Bogey Man dogs her steps in the hopes that he can learn from her and help solve the case.
http://tinyurl.com/9w49u4d 

 by Kaye George

Imogene Duckworthy is twenty-two and has a job (PI assistant) and a new car (used). She loves her mother, but it's time she was on her own. The problem is her daughter Nancy Drew Duckworthy’s pet potbelly. Not a lot of rentals in Wymee Falls will permit a pig, even one as cute and charming as Marshmallow. Jersey Shorr of Shorr Realty manages to find something but there are rumors that the house is haunted. 

Immy tells herself she doesn’t believe in ghosts. She signs the contract and plans to move in before Halloween. What she doesn’t plan on is the very real, very dead body in the bathtub. And the fact that the most logical murder suspect is her Uncle Dewey, fresh out of prison. Immy can’t allow her long-lost relative to be railroaded for a crime he (possibly) didn’t commit, can she? 
http://tinyurl.com/96syxqv 

 by Jan Dunlap

Amidst the annual scarecrow display at the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum, Bob White finds the dead body of Sonny Delite, a birding colleague well-known in the state for his conservation advocacy. Dismissed by the police as a suspect in the case, Bob turns his attention to unmasking the former celebrity wrestler who has joined the Savage High School faculty, but quickly regroups when the murder investigation comes home to roost at the high school. 

Determined to discover the identity of Sonny’s killer, Bob’s chase takes him to the proposed site of a wind farm, into the crosshairs of a World War II ordnance expert who shoots vegetables from his bazooka, to Alberta Marsh and its trove of rare birds, and into the girls’ locker room to round up some egg-laying students. 
http://tinyurl.com/8mwtan9

 by Cindy Sample

Newly divorced Laurel McKay joins the LOVE CLUB, a dating agency advertised as the safe alternative to on-line dating. It turns out that dating Laurel isn’t too safe for her dates, both of whom are found dead. 

When the hunky homicide detective stops by her house on Halloween, he has to decide if the sassy soccer mom dressed in a clown costume is trying to trick him. Or is there a treat in store?
http://tinyurl.com/9ppt832

 by Krista Davis

Domestic diva Sophie Winston is getting into the holiday spirit, and
her decorations for a community haunted house are so good, it’s scary. Not to be outdone, rival domestic diva Natasha is throwing a
spooktacular Halloween party at her house. But when Sophie arrives, she discovers one of Natasha’s guests dead in a hair-raising Halloween display and a pale, fanged party-goer fleeing the scene.

The cause of death is not immediately apparent, but the victim does
have two puncture wounds on his neck. While Sophie’s boyfriend,
homicide detective Wolf, investigates, rumors start flying faster than witches on broomsticks. Could the killer be a real vampire — the same one rumored to have lived in Sophie’s haunted house back when it was a boardinghouse? Good thing a domestic diva never runs out of garlic…
http://tinyurl.com/9d7dw7k

by Nancy Lynn Jarvis

Halloween is the biggest party night of the year in Santa Cruz. Street performers, bands, food booths, and entertainment of all sorts fill Pacific Avenue. Costumed revelers come out to celebrate, but tonight Death is among, them ready to claim his first victim.

Santa Cruz husbands are being murdered. The local news media is buzzing because a dark-clad figure witnesses describe as Death has been seen lurking nearby each time a murder is committed.

When new widows start hiring real estate broker Regan McHenry to sell their houses, she discovers all the murdered men have something in common: their wives belong to a walking group called The Widow's Walk League. No wonder Regan is worried when the group's leader starts paying special attention to her husband, Tom.  
http://tinyurl.com/8jajela 

 

by Dorothy Bodoin

When Jennet witnesses the murder of an animal rights activist during an anti-fur demonstration and meets controversial Caroline Meilland, she is drawn into a dangerous mystery. Hoping to find a place for herself in the animal rights movement, she attends a meeting of Caroline's organization, M.A.R.A. Although Jennet is aware of recent violence directed toward female activists, she wants very much to help animals. 

On the night of the Harvest Ball, Jennet finds a body on the fox trail beside a bloodstained toy fox. Jennet's involvement in the murder is now definite and deadly.
http://tinyurl.com/8cdxt7w

by Patricia Gligor

It’s a few days before Halloween and there’s a serial killer attacking women in their homes in Ann Kern’s neighborhood.

Everyone is behaving strangely, even those closest to Ann. When a psychic warns her that she is in danger, Ann dismisses the warning but, when she receives a series of ominous biblical quotes, she grows nervous and suspicious of everyone, including her own husband.

As the bizarre and frightening events unfold, Ann discovers a handmade tombstone marked with her name, pushing her close to the edge. Will she be the Westwood Strangler’s next victim?

http://tinyurl.com/clyjaz8

Happy reading and Happy Halloween!

Power/Control Serial Killers

Power/Control killers are the psychopaths or sociopaths who derive pleasure from exerting power and control over life and death. They enjoy watching their victims beg for mercy and cower in fear. In fact, they feed off the fear of their victims.

Theodore Robert Cowell (Ted Bundy) was born in Burlington, Vermont in 1946 to an unmarried twenty-two year old mother. He gets his name from his stepfather. His grandparents told him that he was their son and that his mother was actually his sister.

Bundy was a good student but, like many young people, he was devastated when his first love left him. He didn’t deal with grief the way most people do though. He spent years trying to get her back and, when he finally did, he started killing innocent people and then rejected his girlfriend – just as she had rejected him. Authorities speculate that Bundy started killing as early as age fourteen. Many of his victims were said to have a physical resemblance to his first girlfriend. 

Ted Bundy was one of the most infamous power/control serial killers in American history. He was handsome, charming and intelligent, traits which enabled him to seduce his victims. He’s believed to have murdered over one hundred women in several states, including Washington, Oregon, Utah, Idaho, Colorado and Florida.

Bundy had several techniques for luring his victims. He would often fake an injury, with his arm in a cast or sling, to gain their trust. Other times, he would dress as a policeman or fireman. After luring women to his car, he would hit them on their head with a crowbar. He then raped, strangled and mutilated them.

He was also known to engage in necrophilia (sexual attraction/involvement with corpses). He would visit the corpses of his victims several times at the Taylor Mountain body dump site, apply makeup to them and have sex with them until they putrefied.

Bundy’s killing spree lasted from 1974 to 1978. When apprehended, he confessed to forty murders, blaming his addiction to pornography for his actions. This is one of his most chilling quotes. “We serial killers are your sons, we are your husbands, we are everywhere. And there will be more of your children dead tomorrow.”

Bundy was executed in 1989. His body was cremated and the ashes were scattered at an undisclosed location in the Cascade Range in Washington State. The state of Florida spent eight million dollars to electrocute him. Wouldn’t that money have been better spent letting him live out a life sentence in prison, stipulating that he be subject to intense scientific study? Don’t we need to learn “why” he and other serial killers commit such heinous crimes so that we can figure out a way to stop them?

Pleasure Serial Killers

Pleasure (or Hedonistic) killers are, as the name suggests, people who kill for fun or for satisfaction.  There are three subgroups in this classification: lust killers, thrill seekers and for-profit killers. Jeffrey Dahmer, also known as the “Monster,” is an example of a lust killer.

Jeffrey Dahmer was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin on May 21, 1960. His father was an analytical chemist and, as a child, Jeffrey was fascinated with dissecting dead animals. By the time he was in his teens, he was an alcoholic and a loner. He dropped out of college and his father forced him to enlist in the Army. He was discharged after two years because of his heavy drinking. Not wanting to face his father, he moved in with his grandmother and lived there for six years. When he was arrested for exposing himself in public, his grandmother asked him to move out.

Dahmer was first arrested when he was caught fondling a thirteen year old boy in Milwaukee. He was sentenced to one year in a work release camp and, after serving ten months, he was released on probation for his good behavior. That’s when his killing spree began.

He committed his first murder when he was eighteen; the victim was a nineteen year old hitchhiker. For the most part, his victims were boys of Asian and African descent. His murders were gruesome! He tortured, forced sodomy and dismembered his victims, removing their limbs. He also practiced necrophilia (having sex with dead bodies) and cannibalism.

There was talk that a teenaged boy, taken by Dahmer to his house, almost escaped. Allegedly, he wandered into the streets without clothes and with Dahmer in close pursuit. Police found the boy and took him back to Dahmer’s house where Dahmer told him the boy was his partner. Unfortunately, the police believed him and, in spite of noticing a weird smell there, they left without investigating. Soon after, the boy was killed and Dahmer kept his skull as a souvenir.

Dahmer’s rein of terror lasted from 1978 to 1991. He was finally apprehended when a would-be victim escaped and alerted the police. He was convicted of fifteen murders and sentenced to fifteen life terms. He then expressed remorse and wished that he too would die. His wish was granted when he was beaten to death by a fellow inmate and died of severe head trauma.

In his will, Dahmer requested that his body be cremated but his mother wanted his brain to be preserved so that medical researchers could study it. His father didn’t agree and Dahmer’s parents went to court. In 1995, a judge ruled that his will be upheld and Jeffrey Dahmer’s body (and brain) were cremated.

Do you agree with the judge’s decision or with Dahmer’s mother?

Mission Serial Killers

Mission killers believe that it is their duty or destiny to rid the world of certain types of people as a way of cleansing society. Common targets are prostitutes and homosexuals. “Angels of Death,” that prey on patients in hospitals and nursing homes, committing what they call mercy killings, also fit into this category. These killers believe they have a “mission.”

Gary Ridgway (The Green River Killer) was responsible for the deaths of between 48 and 71 women from 1982-1984. When apprehended, he avoided execution by agreeing to help locate the remains of all of those women and providing details. He was sentenced to 48 life sentences and was incarcerated at the Washington State Penitentiary.

Ridgway was born in Salt Lake City, Utah and had two brothers. His mother was a domineering woman who constantly berated their father and completely controlled him. Ridgway’s IQ was 80, which signified a slight mental deficiency. He was a troubled adolescent and, when he was sixteen years old, he stabbed a six year old child. For whatever reason, he was always obsessed with prostitutes.

His drama unfolds at Aurora Avenue on the banks of the Green River in the state of Washington, an area frequented by hundreds of prostitutes. The body of Ridgway’s first victim, a sixteen year old prostitute, was found there. She was raped and strangled. He was known to leave a group of dead bodies in clusters. Driving by and remembering them gave him a high.

The “Green River Taskforce” was formed in 1984 when the death toll had reached 26. Police enlisted the help of another serial killer, Ted Bundy, who was on death row, to get insight into the workings of a serial killer’s mind. He gave them several valuable clues up until the time he was executed.

Gary Ridgway was one of the worst slayers in American history, who said he killed more women than any other serial killer. In his words, “I hate most prostitutes. I did not want to pay them for sex. I also picked prostitutes as victims because they were easy to pick up without being noticed. I knew they would not be reported missing right away, and might never be reported missing.”

Ridgway was married for fourteen years and he managed two totally separate lives: one the life of a wonderful husband going on romantic vacations with his wife and the other as an infamous serial killer.

Can you imagine how his wife must have felt when she found out that she was living with a serial killer?