amandasheppardauthor

Tag: true-crime

  • 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…

  • Inside the Psychology of “Black Widow” Killers — And Why Their Stories Still Terrify Us

    When most people imagine a serial killer, they picture a man: a stranger in the shadows, a predator driven by sadism or compulsion. But history — and the present — tell a different story. A quieter, more calculated kind of killer exists, one who moves through kitchens, bedrooms, and hospital rooms with disarming ease. The…