The bestselling author Gregg Olsen solves a murder among the Amish and reveals the conspiracy to keep it a secret in a heartbreaking and horrifying true-crime story, THE AMISH WIFE.
THE AMISH WIFE
Unraveling the Lies, Secrets, and Conspiracy That Let a Killer Go Free
by Gregg Olsen
Thomas & Mercer, January 2024
(via David Black Literary Agency)
What if the first true crime story you ever wrote (ABANDONED PRAYERS) had loose ends that haunted you for more than thirty years?
What if you had a second chance to right a wrong, solve a murder, and bring justice to a woman who had none?
Would you take a second bite of the apple?
Gregg Olsen didn’t think twice. A call from an Amish farmer brought Olsen back into a story that never left him and gave him the chance to answer the question once and for all.
Who killed Ida Stutzman?
The young, pregnant Ohio Amish woman died in a barn fire. Her death was declared by natural causes. Soon after, her husband, Eli Stutzman, sold the farm, left the faith, and set off on an odyssey of sex, drugs, and erratic behavior that would culminate in the death of his and Ida’s young son, Danny—a mysterious crime (“Little Boy Blue of Chester, Nebraska”) that gained national attention and inspired Olsen’s true crime classic, Abandoned Prayers.
Now, in THE AMISH WIFE: Unraveling the Lies, Secrets, and Conspiracy That Let a Killer Go Free, Gregg Olsen revisits the Stutzman story and the niggling questions surrounding the events that took Ida’s life 45 years ago.
What did the coroner so quickly rule the young mother’s death heart failure? Why didn’t the county sheriff investigate the circumstances behind her death? How come Ida’s relatives repressed their doubts about her death and never publicly expressed their concerns—even after all this time?
The answers were found between the two worlds that Eli Stutzman inhabited – the gay and Amish.
Gaining greater access than most outsiders are afforded, Olsen takes readers deep into the circumscribed world of an Amish community and beyond as he pieces together the puzzle surrounding Ida’s death. The gay men in Eli’s life Olsen met more than three decades ago, like the Amish, were freer in 2022 to speak a truth they’d kept silent out of a fear that has lessened over the years.
Just how much did a conspiracy of silence shared by inhabitants of two very different words become complicit in an Amish wife’s death and, later, her son’s?
#1 New York Times bestselling author Gregg Olsen has written more than thirty books, including If You Tell, Lying Next to Me, The Last Thing She Ever Did, and two novels in the Nicole Foster series, The Sound of Rain and The Weight of Silence. His last true crime book, If You Tell, found a home on Amazon Charts for more than 180 weeks and was the bestselling Kindle eBook of 2020 (and the second bestselling of 2021). He has appeared on Good Morning America, Dateline, Entertainment Tonight, CNN, and MSNBC and been featured in Redbook, People, Salon, the Seattle Times, Los Angeles Times, and New York Post. His fiction and nonfiction works have appeared on the USA Today and Wall Street Journal and New York Times bestseller lists. A Seattle native, he lives with his wife in rural Washington State.
Australia’s most prolific serial sexual killers met in prison. They were a complete contrast: Christopher Worrell, the charismatic youngster; and James Miller, the older and socially awkward loner. For Miller, it was love at first sight. They developed an ominous bond – proving that opposites can attract – and then kill. The tag team were inseparable, working, socialising and killing together – slaying as many people as the notorious serial killer Ivan Milat. James Miller said it was all his mate’s doing. He and Worrell often picked up girls off the street. Miller drove them to a discreet location, where Worrell and the women had consensual sex. Miller pleased his lover and the women had sex with an attractive and charismatic man. It was fun all round. But then it all went wrong. On 23 December 1976, they picked up Veronica Knight. Worrell went satanic, killing her without warning. And then it happened again and again, six more times. There was nothing Miller could do. He claimed he was victim number eight. Miller lied. Using the latest research into serial sexual homicide, the truth of the murder spree and the offenders’ motives are finally revealed.
The world’s most notorious top 10 list was first unveiled in 1950. As soon as he saw the photos, a Mississippi boy realised that the vagrant he’d seen holed up in a cave was in fact William Nesbit, the ‘Dynamite Killer’. He smoked him out. The list quickly became the FBI’s leading crime-fighting tool, leading to the capture of mobsters, serial killers and now terrorists. THE WANTED traces the history of the Most Wanted through seven thrilling manhunts – full of close detective work, psychological profiles and chases – and the fugitives, agents and innocents drawn into its web. With rare access to FBI records and agents, this is both an epic true crime saga, and the story that shaped modern America. The book will include approximately twenty to twenty-five images.
Soering, une série documentaire de True Crime en cinq parties sur l’affaire Jens Söring et le meurtre des Haysom, sera diffusée courant 2022 sur Netflix. Elle est tirée du livre RÜCKKEHR INS LEBEN paru en septembre 2021 chez C. Bertelsmann/PRH Verlagsgruppe, dans lequel Jens Söring parle de sa lutte pour retrouver une vie normale après avoir passé plus de trois décennies en prison aux États-Unis dans les conditions les plus sévères.
In the aftermath of 9/11, Ana Montes was arrested by federal authorities after 17 years of feeding American secrets to the Cuban government.