In 1968, at the age of eleven, Mary Bell was tried, and convicted, of manslaughter after the death of two small boys in Newcastle upon Tyne, England. Her friend, and neighbour, thirteen-year-old, Norma Bell, no relation, was acquitted. Gitta Sereny attended the trial, and spent the next two years researching, and writing, what has become a classic study, The Case of Mary Bell . Over the years, however, she came to realize that if we are ever to understand the pressures which bring a child to commit serious crimes, only they, when adult, can tell us.Twenty-seven years after her conviction, and her sentence of detention for life, after her mother's death, Mary Bell agreed to talk about her harrowing childhood, her two terrible acts nine weeks apart, her public trial, and her twelve years of detention - seven of them, beginning when she was sixteen, in a maximum security women's prison.Nothing she said in the five months of intensive talks with Gitta Sereny was intended, or can be taken, as an excuse for her she herself rejects all mitigation. But the story of her life forces the reader to ponder society's responsibility for children at breaking point. It challenges our willingness to commit ourselves to the prevention of violent acts such as Mary committed. It is a clarion call to review our system of justice, and punishment, as it applies to the most needy amongst us - our children at risk.Cries Unheard is a brilliant tour de force, meticulously piecing together the terribly damaged life of Mary Bell, who only as an adult, and loving parent herself, grew to realize the moral enormity of her crimes. But it is not an isolated tragedy. There are thousands of children in prison across Europe, and in America. And in Britain, where punitive justice for children is most formalized, recent cases such as the murder of James Bulger show the urgency for our attention, our compassion, and our action.

From a renowned investigative reporter, the true story behind a horrifying Internet abuse epidemic - and the heroes who are out to stop it. The Internet has helped make child abuse terrifyingly common - it is the new face of crime in the 21st century. There are tens, probably hundreds of thousands of children whose sexual abuse has been electronically recorded and distributed on the Internet. As Julian Sher reveals, the men perpetrating these crimes include lawyers, priests, doctors and politicians. They pick their victims from the streets of Bangkok to Boy Scout troops in England, while the police - from a crack image analyst with the Toronto police to an FBI agent who poses as a thirteen-year-old girl online - work desperately to nab the predators. One Child at a Time goes behind the headlines to show how law officers are fighting back against this tide of abuse, from daring rescues in homes to the seizures of millions of dollars in the offshore bank accounts of the porn merchants. In riveting detail, Julian Sher shows how clue by clue, and image by image, investigators are using cutting edge tools, turning the technology of the Internet against the perpetrators as they race to find and rescue the victims - children who otherwise have no voice. This important book explores the ramifications of a worldwide struggle, from the need for updated legal powers to the unexpected effects the Internet has had on our social fabric. It also includes a full list of resources for concerned parents. Though sometimes harrowing, One Child at a Time is alsoinspiring - and never less than absolutely relevant. In their efforts to rescue the child victims of one of today's most pervasive and insidious crimes, police must be creative, dogged and go well beyond the borders drawn on any map. . . Canadian cop Paul Gillespie changed the way that police around the world tackle Internet porn. He decided that if the system was broken, he was going to send an email to Bill Gates and ask for help. Gates not only answered, but Microsoft ended up kicking in millions of dollars, working with Gillespie's team to develop the Child Exploitation Tracking System, a searchable database to track and investigate Web predators and their victims. It soon spread across Canada, and then to the UK, Australia and the U.S. Older men pretend to be young and caring, luring lonely young girls in chat rooms. But when they show up to meet their victim, they discover the FBI is waiting to arrest them. Emily Vacher, one of the FBI's top Internet undercover operatives, specializes in trapping the predators at their own game of deception. The photos of the child's abuse were everywhere on the Net, but no one knew who or where she was. In a frantic 36-hour hunt, using CSI-type sleuthing to find clues in the pictures, Canadian, American and European police rescued a girl from North Carolina. Jim Gamble, one of the most senior police officers in the UK, has spearheaded the creation of a Virtual Global Taskforce to patrol the web 24/7. It was time for a sheriff to tame the wild, wild Web, Gamble decided. Now children have a redreport abuse button on chat room software and browsers they can click any time they feel threatened. It is time for the children's stories-too often hidden in the dark corners of the Web-to be told. Their torment has been etched in their memories-and the memories of the police officers dedicated to rescuing them. It is what scars them. But it is also what spurs them on. Because they know behind every picture or video lies a little, frightened child. Detective Sergeant Paul Gillespie of the Toronto Police's Exploited Child Unit can't shake the lingering echoes of some of the worst videos he has seen of shackled children: Sometimes, he says, you can hear the children cry. --from One Child at a Time

Although he was a suburban husband and father, living a far different life than the “Wolf of Wall Street,” Michael Kimelman had a good run as the cofounder of a hedge fund. He had left a cushy yet suffocating job at a law firm to try his hand at the high-risk life of a proprietary trader — and he did pretty well for himself. But it all came crashing down in the wee hours of November 5, 2009, when the Feds came to his door—almost taking the door off its hinges. While his wife and children were sequestered to a bedroom, Kimelman was marched off in embarrassment in view of his neighbors and TV crews who had been alerted in advance. He was arrested as part of a huge insider trading case, and while he was offered a “sweetheart” no-jail probation plea, he refused, maintaining his innocence. The lion’s share of Confessions of a Wall Street Insider was written while Kimelman was an inmate at Lewisburg Penitentiary. In nearly two years behind bars, he reflected on his experiences before incarceration—rubbing elbows and throwing back far too many cocktails with financial titans and major figures in sports and entertainment (including Leonardo DiCaprio, Alex Rodriguez, Ben Bernanke, and Alan Greenspan, to drop a few names); making and losing hundreds of thousands of dollars in daily gambles on the Street; getting involved with the wrong people, who eventually turned on him; realizing that none of that mattered in the end. As he writes: “Stripped of family, friends, time, and humanity, if there’s ever a place to give one pause, it’s prison . . . Tomorrow is promised to no one.” In Confessions of a Wall Street Insider , he reveals the triumphs, pains, and struggles, and how, in the end, it just might have made him a better person. Skyhorse Publishing, along with our Arcade, Good Books, Sports Publishing, and Yucca imprints, is proud to publish a broad range of biographies, autobiographies, and memoirs. Our list includes biographies on well-known historical figures like Benjamin Franklin, Nelson Mandela, and Alexander Graham Bell, as well as villains from history, such as Heinrich Himmler, John Wayne Gacy, and O. J. Simpson. We have also published survivor stories of World War II, memoirs about overcoming adversity, first-hand tales of adventure, and much more. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller or a national bestseller, we are committed to books on subjects that are sometimes overlooked and to authors whose work might not otherwise find a home.

It was a night David Smith would never forget...the night he began living every father's most agonizing nightmare. On that chilly fall evening in 1994, he learned that his two young sons had been kidnapped. The person who broke the news was his estranged wife Susan Smith - the children's mother. In the harrowing days and nights that followed, an intensive manhunt began that would focus the eyes of America on the Smith family. But through it all, David Smith had only one thought: to get his boys back. Nine days later, a tearful Susan Smith confessed that the kidnapping had been a hoax, a cruel lie. The truth would be even crueler: three-year-old Michael and fourteen-month-old Alex Smith were dead, slain by their mother's own hand. David Smith speaks out about his life with Susan, the beloved children he has lost but will always love, and the slow, painful process of trying to put his life back together. He talks honestly and openly about his less-than-perfect marriage - a troubled relationship that led to affairs on both their parts; Susan's destructive obsession with the lover who'd rejected her; the events leading up to that fateful night last October; and, finally, the need to come to terms with his own grief and loss.

This psychological crime thriller takes us inside the mind of a unique female serial killer, a prostitute who murdered seven adult men-a case with which the author was intimately involved. The issues raised by this high-profile criminal case remain unresolved to this day. Women, even prostitutes, have the right to self-defense in theory, but in practice, the story is more complicated. This book will challenge everything you ever thought about prostitutes, serial killers, and justice in America. Aileen Wuornos is a damaged soul, a genuine American outlaw, a symbol of women's rage, a symbol of what can happen to severely abused children, and of how our justice system fails women. Chesler's involvement with a serial killer has haunted her ever since. She speaks in Aileen Wuornos' voice, as well as in her own, and delivers an incisive, original, and dramatic portrait of a cognitively impaired, traumatized, and alcoholic woman who had endured so much pain in her short life. When she'd had enough, the results were deadly. This is a poignant, sometimes humorous, never-before-told behind-the-scenes tale. Wuornos' story is handled with great sensitivity, but also with realistic detachment by Chesler as she probes the telling moment, the telling phrase. Was Wuornos suffering from post-traumatic stress after a life lived on a "killing field?" Was she also "born evil?" So many prostitutes have been torture-murdered by serial killers-how did Wuornos, once prey, become a predator? Requiem for a Female Serial Killer will also haunt you. It won't let you put it down. Take a walk on the wild side. The ghost of Aileen Wuornos beckons.