amandasheppardauthor

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  • Living in the Cab: The Hidden World Behind Four Children and a Semitruck

    Some stories are so stark, so claustrophobic, that they force you to imagine the details even when you don’t want to. This is one of them: four children, confined to the cab of a semitruck since 2019. Four children whose childhoods existed in the space behind a steering wheel. Four children who lived in motion…

  • When Systems Sleep: The West Virginia Case of a Child and the Cocaine-Fueled Collapse Behind Him

    In Fairmont, West Virginia, a second-story window became the dividing line between a child’s instinct for escape and a mother’s collapse into the kind of chaos that destroys more than just a household. It’s the kind of story that forces you to confront not just what happened, but everything that had to fail for it…

  • The Anatomy of a System Failure: Inside the Chaos Surrounding Simon Levy

    When the story of Simon Levy surfaced—first as a suspected attacker, then as a confirmed double murderer—it read like the kind of grim true‑crime arc that feels almost impossible in a modern justice system. And yet, as details continue to emerge, it becomes painfully clear that Levy’s violence wasn’t contained by the system meant to…

  • 🎉 Black Widows Is Now Available on Barnes & Noble and NOOK! 🎉

    True‑crime lovers, the moment has finally arrived — Black Widows is officially available on Barnes & Noble and NOOK, and I couldn’t be more excited to share it with you! This book has been years in the making: countless hours of research, writing, revising, and diving deep into the psychology, history, and haunting realities of…

  • The Woman in the Walls: The Haunting Case of Brenda Marie LeBlanc

    For more than two decades, Brenda Marie LeBlanc existed only as a question — a woman who slipped out of the 1990s and into silence, leaving behind no trace except the memories of those who once knew her. She was not listed on missing‑person registries. She was not the subject of national searches or televished…

  • A Troubling Case in Maricopa County: When Help Isn’t Enough

    WARNING: GRAPHIC CONTENT Some cases linger long after you read them—stories so distressing and complex that they challenge your understanding of how neglect, vulnerability, and personal choice collide. The Maricopa County case involving Vivian Shimkus, his mom and his adult son is one of those situations, and the more details that emerge, the more unsettling…

  • The Boy in the Box: The Long Road to Giving Joseph Augustus Zarelli His Name

    WARNING: GRAPHIC CONTENT Some crimes do not fade with time—they ferment. They settle into the collective memory like a bruise that never heals, growing darker at the edges each year that passes without answers.In Philadelphia, one of those bruises belonged to a small, malnourished boy found in a discarded cardboard box more than six decades…

  • An Unfolding Nightmare in Chino Hills

    True crime often forces us to confront the moments when violence and desperation collide—and on a quiet Wednesday night in Chino Hills, California, one of those moments erupted into a scene as chilling as any case I’ve explored in my upcoming book, Angels of Death: The Hidden Crimes of Medical Killers. Residents on Monteverde Drive…

  • A Kansas Community Faces the Ashes of a Terrible Loss

    Rural Dickinson County doesn’t often make headlines. The land stretches quiet and steady, tucked west of Topeka, the sort of place where neighbors recognize each other’s trucks by sound alone. But in January, that quiet was shattered when a house fire claimed the life of two‑year‑old Elijah Crump—an adored toddler whose smile, family says, never…

  • Breaking Point or Breaking Trust? The Hialeah Child Abuse Case

    A quiet Miami neighborhood was jolted awake this weekend when a disturbing scene unfolded behind a great‑grandmother’s home in Hialeah. Police say 34‑year‑old Yashira Marie Maldonado chained her 13‑year‑old daughter to a fence in blistering Florida heat, then went back inside to lie in bed and watch television. According to the police report, the teen…