Includes index

Plautius Silvanus ; L. Pedanius Secundus ; Elizabeth Canning -- Elma Sands ; Helen Jewett ; Mary Rogers -- Ann McAllister ; Missing white girls ; The Yale murder ; Webster/Parkman case ; On American crime rates -- Boys on the ice ; On why certain crimes are chosen for fame ; Charlie Ross ; The Wild West -- Lizzie Borden ; Motive, means, and opportunity argument ; On weighing evidence -- "Profiting" from crime ; H.H. Holmes ; Kansas Charley ; William Goebel ; Old Man Rice ; Griffith J. Griffith ; Frank Steunenberg ; Chloe Canfield ; Erich Muenter : part 1 ; Stanford White ; Thomas W. Swope ; Radicalism and crime -- Clarence Darrow and the McNamaras -- Erich Muenter : part 2 ; On the astonishing openness of American society a hundred years ago -- Old murder statistics ; Moman Pruiett ; On the evolution of the legal system -- Mary Phagan introduction ; A system of categorizing crime stories ; Mary Phagan case -- Robert Stroud : part 1 ; Grace Roberts ; Harry K. Thaw ; Sacco and Vanzetti -- The Hall/Mills case ; The Oregon Train Robbery ; The Snyder/Gray case ; Summary of 1920s crimes -- Levels of description ; The Lindbergh baby ; Post-Lindbergh journalism -- The Mad Butcher of Kingsbury Run -- Mad dog killer stories ; Thalia Massie ; The Scottsboro boys ; Robert Stroud : part 2 -- William Heirens ; The Black Dahlia ; Caryl Chessman ; On the importance of what people choose to be interested in -- Sam Sheppard -- Lowell Lee Andres ; In Cold Blood ; Robert Stroud : part 3 ; The onion field ; The Warren Court -- The Boston Strangler -- On the success rate of the judicial system in high-profile cases ; True crime movies ; The Kennedy Assassination -- The Michigan murders ; Definition creep -- The Zodiac -- Susan Nason ; Katherine Ann Power ; Juan Corona ; John List ; The Burger Court -- Randall Dale Adams ; Ted Bundy ; Gary Tison ; Fatal vision ; Echoes in the Darkness -- Charles Hatcher ; On the value of police sketches ; The Yale murder and the insanity defense ; Reviving prison reform -- Sid vicious/Nancy Spungen ; Dallas Egbert III ; Dean Milo ; Chris Hobson ; Lawrencia Bembenek ; McMartin Preschool ; Wayne Williams ; John DeLorean ; Aside on car companies ; Jean Harris ; Jody Plauché ; Bernard Goetz ; Kenneth McElroy ; Joseph Kallinger -- Richard Kuklinski ; Robert Hansen ; Putting the criminal justice system back together ; Lake and Ng -- Jon Dunkle ; On the differences between real and fictional serial murderers ; New Bedford, Massachusetts ; Richard Grissom ; Ray Copeland ; William Lester Suff ; How serial murderers are caught -- Computer spy case ; Mel Ignatow ; The Menendez brothers ; Pam Smart ; O.J. Simpson -- On fictional elements in real crimes ; Rabbi Neulander -- JonBenet Ramsey : part 1 -- JonBenet Ramsey : part 2 ; On prison reform ; On partisanship and justice -- Summary of recent crime stories ; On false confessions ; On popular crime