Cleveland Ohio True Crime

Cleveland history buffs and true crime fans will be thrilled (and chilled) to get their hands on John Stark Bellamy's latest collection. Killer in the Attic contains more gruesome, horrible, tragic, and despicable-but true-tales from Cleveland's history. In Bellamy's latest book, the history expert serves up 26 more detailed and compelling accounts of the unspeakable.

Cleveland's crime and disaster expert is back yet again, with more true tales of woe from local history. This fifth book in John Stark Bellamy's popular series (which includes They Died Crawling and The Killer in the Attic) delivers 26 new accounts of Cleveland-area crimes and disasters from 1900 through 1950. The title story is about a death on the "Thriller" roller coaster at Euclid Beach Park. Also recounted are such tales as the odd international hoax in which a Lakewood lad became "The Boy with Hitler's Face" and one of Cleveland's most baffling murder mysteries ever: the brutal killing of sweet 16-year-old Beverly Jarosz in her Garfield Heights bedroom. Sometimes gruesome, often surprising, Bellamy's tales are meticulously researched and delivered in a literate and entertaining style.

Here are 13 more incredible but true crime stories from the streets of Cleveland, Ohio-and from the author of They Died Crawling And Other Tales of Cleveland Woe. Included are northeast Ohio's most terrifying unsolved cases: the Torso Murders, which stumped Eliot Ness and dozens of other local lawmen; the historic and tragic Collinwood School fire; the enduring Beverly Potts disappearance mystery; and over a dozen more equally compelling tales of mayhem, melancholy, and mystery.

Bellamy is back! Cleveland's crime and disaster expert returns with 25 more short true tales of woe from local history. As usual, the chapter titles give the best idea of the excitement to follow:

Murderer in Short Breeches: The Gothic Doom of Maggie Thompson (1889)

"Jump Boys, It's a Crash!": The Doodlebug Deathtrip (1940)

Medina's Wickedest Stepmother: The Garrett Tragedy (1887)

"We are Going Down!": The Ashtabula Bridge Disaster (1876)

The Phantom Flapper Killer: The Mystery of Margaret Heldman (1928)

"Step Aside, Daddy, and I'll Fill Him Full of Lead!": The Insouciant Mabel Champion (1922)

Bellamy's signature style brings to life the colorful characters who took part in some of Cleveland's most exciting and tragic moments. Crooks and cops, heroes and villains, ordinary folks who found themselves in extraordinary circumstances-these are the people who make high drama. Bellamy recounts these most notable local dramas in his gripping narratives.

104 spine-chilling black-and-white photographs accompany the text.

Women who murder . . . why are they so much more fascinating than their male counterparts?

Just take a look at the past 150 years in Cleveland, for example.

Measure almost any murder committed by a female during those fifteen decades against any homicide by a mere male and you'll soon discover there is simply no comparison in cunning, quality, and sheer entertainment value between the shallow, predictable murders of men and the complex, richly nuanced slayings perpetrated by women.

For evidence of this tantalizing truth, dip into any of the sixteen strange-but-true tales collected in this anthology by Cleveland's leading historical crime writer.

Here, you'll meet ill-fated Catherine Manz, the "Bad Cinderella" who poisoned her step-sister in revenge for years of mistreatment, then made her getaway wearing her victim's most fetching outfit, a red dress and an enormous feathered hat . . .

Velma West, the big-city girl who scandalized rural Lake County in the 1920s with her "unnatural passions"-and ended her marriage-made-in-hell with a swift hammer's blow to the skull of her dull husband, Eddie . . .

Eva Kaber, "Lakewood's Lady Borgia," who, along with her mother and daughter, conspired to dispose of an inconvenient husband with arsenic and knife-wielding hired killers . . .

Martha Wise, Medina's not-so-merry widow, who poisoned a dozen relatives-including her husband, mother, and brother-because she enjoyed going to funerals . . .

And a whole cast of other, equally fascinating women who behaved very, very badly.

This is wickedly entertaining reading!

The foulest crimes and worst disasters in Cleveland history are recounted in these 15 incredible-but-true tales.

Each no-holds-barred account delves into one of this city's most notorious moments, from the 1916 waterworks collapse to the Cleveland Clinic fire to the sensational Sam Sheppard murder trial.

These gripping narratives deliver high drama and dark comedy, heroes and villains, obsession, courage, treachery, deceit, fear, and guilt-all from the streets of Cleveland.