A husband’s anguish, a son’s suspicion, a killer’s secret. The true crime account of Jeffrey Gorton, the Michigan murderer who lived under the radar.   In 1991, flight attendant Nancy Ludwig checked in to an airport hotel near Detroit. The next morning she was found gagged, raped, and tortured—her throat slit with such rage that she was nearly decapitated. Her husband Arthur never gave up hope that the future would bring enough evidence to close the case. But it was the past that held the clue.   In 1985, fifty-five-year old Margarette Eby, a music professor, met the same grisly death at her cottage in Flint, Michigan. The case went cold—until six years later when the victim’s son Mark came upon the story of Nancy Ludwig’s slaying. With nothing to go on but intuition, he called authorities, certain that the same fiend committed both crimes.   A cunning sting operation yielded irrefutable DNA evidence, and authorities were led to the home of respected navy veteran Jeffrey Gorton living quietly with his wife and two children. But his cold-blooded secrets were only beginning to come to light, leaving fears that there were more victims yet to be found in a killing spree that had finally come to an end. Blood Justice shows veteran reporter and author Tom Henderson at the top of his game.  ***Please note: This ebook edition does not contain the photos found in the print edition.***

The true crime story of the Gilded Age revenge killing that shocked New York City and the world—from a New York Times–bestselling author.“A terrifically entertaining work of popular history: swiftly paced, richly evocative, engrossing from the first page.” —Wall Street JournalIn 1901 Evelyn Nesbit, a sixteen-year-old chorus girl in the musical Florodora, dined alone with the architect Stanford White in his town house on 24th Street in New York City. White was forty-seven, the foremost architect of his day, and a celebrity responsible for designing numerous landmark buildings in Manhattan. That evening, after drinking champagne, Nesbit lost consciousness and awoke to find herself naked in bed with White, who had raped her.Evelyn spoke of it to no one until, sever years later, she confided in Harry Thaw, the millionaire playboy who would become her husband. Thaw, thirsting for revenge, shot and killed White in 1906 before hundreds of theatergoers during a performance at Madison Square Garden. The trial was a sensation that gripped the nation. Most Americans agreed that Thaw was justified in killing White, but the city’s district attorney expected to send him to the electric chair. Evelyn Nesbit’s testimony was so explicit and shocking that President Theodore Roosevelt himself called on the newspapers not to print it. The Girl on the Velvet Swing is a tale of glamour, excess, and danger—an immersive, fascinating look at the murder that made the Gilded Age and the trial that shocked the world.“Baatz has resurrected a forgotten saga of lust, lucre and lunacy that would seem improbable if it were merely fiction. . . . This true-life theater is packed with action [and] surprises.” ?David Holahan, USA Today“Simon Baatz has written a wickedly enjoyable book that enthralled me from start to finish. This multifaceted tale, rendered with an expert’s touch, encompasses the aspirations and vices of an entire era.” ?Laurence Bergreen, author of Capone