This book covers the murder of Mary Yoder, a chiropractor who owned a business with her chiropractor husband. Mary took ill out of the blue, rapidly deteriorating overnight. She died an excruciating death not long after taking ill. Police would eventually uncover some really bizarre behavior from the office manager, who was the ex-girlfriend of their son. This was a wild case, and I was glad to find this book on the reading list for Dateline.

This case was featured on Dateline, Season 26, Episode 10. I typically enjoy books by this author, and I did enjoy this one. It was engaging and informative, though repetitive at times. It added more backstory to the case than I was previously aware of, so certainly worth the read. This is currently available to listen to on Audible Plus and was about 8 hours long. 

 

William Randolph Hearst was born in California in 1863 to a wealthy family. His father was a millionaire mining engineer, which afforded WRH a lot of luxury and educational opportunities. WRH took over the management of his father's newspaper in 1887, which served as the launch point for his media empire. WRH married Millicent Wilson in 1903 but carried on several extramarital affairs. His long-term mistress was Marion Davies, with whom he was linked from 1917 to 1951. They never legally married. WRH remained legally married, but separated, to Millicent Wilson until his death. WRH also had five children with Millicent. WRH was a controversial figure for his political and personal bias that infiltrated the news media he owned. WRH died in 1951, aged 88.

This book was massive. It was almost 800 pages. This was highly detailed and related a tremendous amount of facts. I have never read anything by this author but was pleased with the attention to detail and level of research that was put into this biography. I learned a lot about William Randolph Hearst and his media empire from this book, which was certainly the goal.

 

 Christopher Watts is a convicted murderer who has written and discussed his actions prior to, during, and after the murder of his pregnant wife and two daughters. He suffocated his two daughters and shoved them into an oil tank at the oil field where he worked. He choked his wife to death and dumped her body in a shallow grave at the same location. In this book, he gives off a woe is me attitude, and does not seem genuinely remorseful at all. It is an interesting look inside the mind of a scumbag. If you are interested in reading this book, it is very short. I found someone to read it aloud on YouTube for free, and there is also a free PDF available online. If you want to purchase it, it runs for a cool $99 on Amazon. (Do Not Recommend.) 

 This book covers the case of Betsy Faria, a wife and mother with cancer, who was found murdered in her home when her husband returned from visiting his friends. The husband had a pretty solid alibi with his friend group, as well as receipts from purchases made during the time of the murder, as well as being seen on video footage. The police immediately assumed he killed his wife and based most of their "evidence" on the statements made by a coworker and so-called friend of Betsy's, Pam Hupp. This case is a wonderful example of incompetence. The police, the judge, the prosecution, and the jury who are apparently either easily bought or blind to red flags. This was such a miscarriage of justice!

This book is currently available to listen to on Audible Plus and was around eight hours long. I listened to it in one shift at work. This book is also part of the Dateline Reading List. The case was featured in Episode 28 of Season 22. The physical copy of this book is less something around 300/350 pages. The book featured way more details than the Dateline episode did, which was great. Pamela Hupp just carried on with one crazy scheme after another. This was a pretty wild ride. 

 

I have opinions about this case, so bear with me.

Jodi Arias was born in 1980 in California. She, by multiple accounts, was a manipulative, lying, scheming person. (A parade of red flags.) Her family had multiple issues with her throughout the years, prompting her to move out and in with a boyfriend at the time. She had severe trust issues, and was known to search through people's emails, messages, and other personal documents. (More red flags for the parade.) She struggled with money, as she was working waitressing jobs, and eventually became interested in Pre-Paid Legal Services. It was during a conference for Pre-Paid Legal Services in September 2006 where she met Travis Alexander.

Alexander and Arias began some type of relationship. Arias believed that she was his girlfriend, though Alexander behaved differently with her around his friends. (That was a scumbag thing to do.) Alexander was mostly interested in a sexual relationship with Arias, while Arias was fully obsessed and committed to Alexander. She converted to his Mormon religion, in hopes that would make him love her, be public with her, and marry her. Alexander was continuing to date other women while engaging in a sexual relationship with Arias (a scumbag thing to do) in hopes of finding a "proper Mormon bride" to fulfill his religious and life goals of having a wife and family. Arias confronted Alexander multiple times about seeing other people, which he denied. (A scumbag thing to do.) Arias moved closer to Alexander after he called the relationship off and continued to lurk around his home and sneak over in the night for sexual encounters. (Red flag central.) When Alexander started seeing another woman, Arias sent her crazy emails (red flag) and slashed the tires on both of their cars (double red flag). She got into his email, his social media, and his phone. For whatever reason, Alexander was never able to just sever ties with Arias. (My opinion is that he was not entering into sexual relationships with Mormon women he deemed marriage material, and was keeping Arias around to use for sex, which is a scumbag thing to do.)

Arias rented a car to go visit a friend. She told multiple people of her plans. She borrowed gas cans for her trip in case of emergency. (Red flag.) She told her friend that she had gotten lost and had driven 100 miles in the wrong direction (red flag) and then went to sleep in her car (red flag) before getting back on the correct path. She arrived a day later than she originally planned. (Red flag.) Her phone had been turned off, so it was not bouncing off of any towers, and she claimed it was dead and she couldn't find the charger. (Red flag.) When she showed up to the friend's house, she was wearing long sleeves and had bandages on her fingers. (Red flag.) When she returned the car to the rental agency, it was missing floor mats and had weird substances and stains. (Red flags.) In actuality, she had made a little side trip to Alexander's house. She had some sexual encounters with him, before stabbing him dozens of times, slitting his throat, and shooting him in the head with a gun she stole from her grandfather. She left him in the shower.

Alexander's roommates believed he had gone on a business trip that was planned, so didn't notate his absence as particularly unnerving. However, the girl he was going on the trip with began raising the alarm when she couldn't get him to answer her messages or calls about when to leave for the trip. I realize he was shut in the bathroom, in his room, with the doors shut, but I cannot understand how his roommates didn't smell a smell in that house for the week he was rotting in the shower. A group of his friends went to his house to look for him, discovering his body. In multiple statements to the police, Arias was listed as a person of interest. Obviously, Arias is not the world's smartest criminal, so she was found out pretty quickly. She was eventually convicted of first-degree murder and is currently serving life without parole.

Arias apparently had a photography business yet didn't know very much about cameras. She had taken pictures of her and Alexander in various stages of undress. She had taken pictures of Alexander in the shower moments before his murder. She had taken pictures during the actual murder. She put the camera in the washing machine but didn't take out the memory card and toss it out along the interstate or something. None of his friends liked her, and had warned him about her multiple times, and she claimed to not know why everyone was pointing the finger at her. Stupidity. Arias was a walking red flag, and everyone could see it...except Alexander apparently. She allowed this man to use her for sex and as a companion on trips or to talk to at night when he was bored. She had no respect for herself and allowed herself to be used in this way. She should have yelled at him, blocked him, and moved on with her life. Instead, she ruined her life, ended his, and ruined the lives of the people in their orbits who cared for them. Stupidity. She was also later diagnosed with a host of mental illnesses: borderline personality disorder, bipolar disorder, sociopathy, and narcissistic personality disorder. This woman needed medication, not boyfriends.

Alexander is lauded by his friends as a wonderful friend, a smart businessman, and an all-around great person. When someone we love or care about dies, especially in a horrific way, we tend to only want to think about the great things about them. Alexander, by all accounts, overcame a lot in his life and really took the lemons to make lemonade. He seemed like a fun, genuine person, and I can see why he had so many friends and coworkers that enjoyed his company. Alexander also did some scumbag things, like using someone for sex. These illicit sexual activities went against his religious doctrine as well. He also obviously had terrible taste in women, at least where Arias was concerned, and that cost him his life. He did not deserve to be murdered, despite his unsavory treatment. He deserved to be yelled at and blocked, sure, but never murdered. Certainly not murdered in this brutal way. Certainly not left to decompose in his own shower. This whole entire thing could have been avoided.

This book is currently available on Audible Plus to listen to for free. It was about an eight hour listen. I had read another book about this case prior to this one, but it mostly focused on her. This book had a lot of information about Travis Alexander and the people close to him in it. If you are interested in this book or case, and you have not looked at images for it, this is your fair warning to be careful when you google them because the autopsy photos are on Murderpedia and show up on the Google search. If you aren't into autopsy photos or grim images... look out. They show up when you look up the pictures that were on the memory card that Arias tried to destroy in the washing machine. This book was written in a way that was tasteful, yet informative. It provided a lot of insight into the relationship between Alexander and Arias.

 

 Olive Oatman was born in Illinois in 1837. She and her family were attacked by a group of Indigenous people while they were moving to another area in 1851. Olive was taken captive along with her sister. The rest of her family were murdered, except one bother who survived the attack. She always believed she was taken by Apache, but it may have been another smaller group. She was held captive by them for a year, forced to do slave labor, until she was traded to the Mohave. Her sister died in captivity, but Olive remained with the Mohave for four years. She was eventually brought back to White Anglo-European society, where she eventually spoke about some of her experiences.

The images of Olive Oatman have been circulated around for years, as she was the first White woman to have a Native tattoo. This book was available for free on Audible Plus, so I thought it would be a good opportunity to learn more about Olive and her experience in captivity. This also was a good time to read this since I am currently taking a Colonial America class, in which Native enslavement is featured. It helped to give a little context to the relationships between Native groups and White people who were moving westwardly. The book was about five hours to listen to, but the physical copy is less than three hundred pages. Overall, it was an alright read. 

 This book discusses a slew of topics, from skeletal identification to facial reconstruction, to advances in DNA technology. The author embarks on a journey to assist in the identification of a decapitated skull found in a park near Ina, Illinois. The previously unidentified person was labeled Ina Jane Doe due to the location where she was found. The skull was discovered in Wayne Fitzgerrell State Park by two girls on January 27, 1993. A forensic artist was called in to create an image to put out in hopes someone would recognize the woman...to no avail. After seeing the images, I can see why nobody claimed her. The recreations looked NOTHING like the actual victim. The most recent, done during the process of the author writing this book, looked the most similar (and the most like someone actually made and effort and not like my dog attempted to draw it). The books takes you all the way through the process of determining the identity of the victim.

I got this book on Audible, and it was about a 12 hour listen. I started it at work yesterday and finished it up today. The physical copy is about 350 pages. This was a long listen, and I think you could probably read through the physical copy faster. It was a lot of information, and sometimes there was filler and random thoughts that probably could have been left out. Overall, the book was interesting, and I learned a lot, especially about dental identification. I am also glad that they were able to figure out the identity of the victim to at least give the family that answer. This book is also on the CrimeCon reading list, for those who are interested in that. 

This memoir was pretty entertaining. I hadn't ever really been interested in the world of trucking, but this book was free on Audible Plus and I enjoy memoirs. I thought I would give it a shot. Trucking life is definitely not a career for me, but it can certainly be an interesting one. This author gives some good life tips in this book that can apply to things other than trucking. Overall, a solid read. 

 This book is currently available to listen to for free on Audible Plus. It was around eight hours long, and featured a detailed history of the formation of Pixar, behind the scenes looks into some classic Pixar films, and discusses the animators and brain power behind the logo. I just picked this book up because it was free to listen to, and who doesn't love Pixar? It was a decent book with interesting facts, and it got me through my workday. 

 This book discusses serial killer, Dean Corll, and his two apprentices. One apprentice, in particular, is prominently discussed: Wayne Henley. Henley was just fourteen when he met Corll and began spending time with him. Henley was originally lured to Corll's house by his other accomplice with intentions of sexual assaulting him and possibly murdering him. Corll, however, was hesitant because of the involvement of Henley's mother...Henley would be missed. Corll groomed Henley to become another accomplice, who would lure boys, help bury bodies, and eventually murder them himself. Henley eventually wound-up murdering Corll. (No loss there.)

This book was on the reading list for CrimeCon 2024, which is why I purchased it. The Audible version was about 9ish hours to listen to. The hardcover version is about 340ish pages. I was very impressed with the attention to detail and the research that went into this book. I had learned about Dean Corll from a podcast, but I had not learned much about his two cohorts. I thought the psychology aspect of how Henley came to be involved and participate in these crimes was really thought provoking. I would definitely recommend this book if you are interested in serial killers.