The best in crime written and curated by #1 New York Times bestselling author Gregg Olsen
A charismatic cult leader is driven to horrifying extremes in a shocking true crime short story by Gregg Olsen, the #1 New York Times bestselling author of If You Tell.
In 1976, in the sealed back bedroom of a home in Washington state, authorities found the decomposing body of three-year-old Davey Weilbacher, beaten to death nearly two months prior. Beyond that bedroom door was self-proclaimed prophet Leon Cunningham, who convinced his sheltered cult of family and friends—including Davey’s lost young mother—that the boy was possessed by the Devil. Exorcism was the only way to save him, leading to a ritualistic campaign of abuse, control, unimaginable violence, and murder.
Gregg Olsen delivers a meticulously researched account of religious manipulation, domestic terror, and one woman’s fifty-year journey to finally tell the truth about what happened behind closed doors in that modest little yellow house in Yakima.
On a hot August afternoon in 1920 at Blue Lakes Ranch in Idaho, a new bride set out three saucers of flypaper on the boarding house porch. By nightfall, her husband was on the floor of their canvas tent, clutching his stomach in agony. Within days he was dead.
Lyda Trueblood was everything a wife should be: beautiful, charming, an excellent cook. Men fell for her easily. They also died easily around her too―poisoned by arsenic. One husband, then another, then two more. Her brother-in-law. And, then there was her two-year-old daughter―whose death no one could ever fully explain.
Six deaths in five years, and a 1921 trial that made Lyda Trueblood a national sensation. But what turned a Missouri farmer's daughter into a methodical killer―and how did she elude justice for so long?
A New Chapter in True Crime
#1 New York Times bestselling author Gregg Olsen launches Notorious Press, a new true crime imprint dedicated to uncovering the stories history almost forgot.
Morgan Olsen
Gregg Olsen
Notorious USA's Gregg Olsen is the #1 New York Times, #1 Amazon Charts, #1 Wall Street Journal, Washington Post and USA Today bestselling author of more than 30 crime books.
An impassioned voice for victims and their families, Olsen has been a guest on Dateline, 48 Hours, 2020, William Shatner's Aftermath, Deadly Women, Good Morning America, CBS Morning News, Today, FOX News, CNN, Anderson Cooper, MSNBC, Entertainment Tonight, Snapped, Forensic Files, Inside Edition, Nancy Grace, Extra, Access Hollywood, NPR with Scott Simon and Biography among dozens of other shows. Olsen's true crime book, If You Tell, was Amazon's bestselling ebook for 2020. Notorious USA is Olsen's exclusive platform for true crime and crime fiction fans dying to be in the know.