Showing results by author "Nick van der Leek" in All Categories

"All the stars eventually fall from the sky above the Ramsey home in Boulder, all except the Black Star...." 21 years after JonBenét Ramsey case has gone cold, is there anything we can salvage from the ashes of one little girl’s life? Black Star Over Bethlehem targets the 2007-2008 timeline in the Ramsey archive, but delves in laser-sharp detail into many other areas of the case, including the lights inside the Ramsey residence on the night of the murder, the origin of the duct tape, theories around Asperger's syndrome, the polygraph narrative, the bogus DNA narrative and many hitherto ...

Two years after the Watts Family Murders, how much of what we know to be the truth isn’t the truth? What new information has come through the ether in recent months? What has the new Netflix documentary revealed that we didn’t already know? In POST TRUTH, the 100th True Crime Rocket Science [TCRS] title, the world’s most prolific true crime author Nick van der Leek demonstrates how much we still don’t know in the Watts case. In the final chapter of the SILVER FOX trilogy the author provides a sly twist in a tale that has spanned 12 TCRS books to date. The result may shock or leave ...

When was the last time somebody randomly accused you of murder? Fresh from a research trip to Italy, Lisa Wilson adds her voice to the Meredith Kercher murder mystery. Together with South African photojournalist Nick van der Leek this True Crime Detective Team par excellence uncover a staggering number of inconsistencies, insights, errors and startling possibilities. While DECEIT is a broad overview of the events leading up to the crime, DARK MATTER digs deeper into the five days of intense police investigation immediately following the discovery of the British exchange student murdered ...

True crime's rising stars Nick van der Leek and Lisa Wilson, fresh from the success of three trilogies dedicated to the unsolved JonBenét Ramsey case, have cast about for a new challenge. In the West Memphis Three case, they find a heart of darkness to rival the webs of shadowy intrigue bedeviling Boulder Colorado in 1996. “Having written about the unsolved Ramsey case,” writes van der Leek, “I was looking for a challenging case to rival and to sharpen the true crime saw even further. The West Memphis Three saga does precisely that.” But where the Ramsey case was a murk of ...

Why was Laci Peterson murdered? When was Laci Peterson murdered? How exactly did Scott Peterson dump her body without anyone seeing him? Even after the landmark court case, the prosecution and the jury couldn’t say exactly what happened, when or how, so what did happen? Scott Peterson was convicted of first-degree, premeditated double murder. Trawling through the extended backstory of this fifteen year old case, the author finds obscure pieces to a familiar puzzle and contextualises all the available information: court records, interviews, media reports, police reports, evidence, court ...

Questions remain around the mysterious death and disappearance of 11-year-old Gannon Stauch. What really happened? Where did the crime happen? Why? What was the murder weapon? How was the poor child's body disposed of not once, but twice? Taking on one of his trickiest assignments yet, true crimes’ most prolific star investigates 36-year-old Letecia Stauch, the stepmother of the boy that disappeared from Colorado Springs on January 27th, 2020. "The 32-page Stauch Affidavit provides clues to the tangled web of Letecia's heart, and mind. But it also reveals her exact movements immediately ...

The sequin star trilogy interrogates the sixteen years of ‘post-truth’ surrounding the unsolved JonBenét Ramsey case. The first narrative spans nine lawsuits, two books, John Ramsey’s first political campaign and the circumstances surrounding Patsy’s death – all during the first six years after the Grand Jury trial was railroaded. It also interrogates the psychological fabric holding these “sequins” together. Besides testing aspects from the original timeline, the sequin star narrative examines the arch account of the Ramsey case; that treatise of ‘post-truth’ penned by ...

Nobody knows who killed JonBenét Ramsey. Despite the efforts of Colorado’s legendary super sleuth Lou Smit, the JonBenét Ramsey case has – to the present date - defied demystification. Smit, who cracked over 200 cases and had a 90% success record, devoted the last years of his life to finding JonBenét’s killer. Smit died in 2010 having failed to solve this confounding case. 6 years later, despite massive media attention and widespread public scrutiny the most famous of cold cases remains unsolved. Now two rising stars of the true crime genre have put their heads together for their ...

Did the little girl at the centre of the most heavily reported missing-persons case in modern history ever go “missing” to begin with? If Madeleine was never abducted, if she died on May 3rd, why was it reported as an abduction? Despite the absence of a trial, what we have now is a fairly precise version of events from the McCanns themselves, a by-product of their relentless PR. We also know the original lead investigator Goncalo Amaral’s counter-narrative, which is now a legally defensible matter of public record. The questions that arise from these opposing narratives are dead ...

Vincent van Gogh is the world’s most popular and expensive artist, the father of modern art, and yet no one really knows how he died, when, how or where. If he didn’t commit suicide, what happened? If Vincent did commit suicide, why would the master of expressionism fail to express himself on his own death? Why would a man whose art, beloved for its effusiveness, remain mum on this most primary of primary motives; why not reveal his motives for snuffing out his own yellow flame? Why would someone who wrote so many letters – 830 that we know of, at a rate of almost a letter a day – ...

No one has been able to say why - until now. "As we navigate our way through the monster’s murky psychology, pushing through his dark impulses and penetrating his despicable motivations, will we find ourselves far from familiar places, or troublingly closer to them?"

Doubt persists about the fate of a little girl lost twelve years ago. DEEP INTO DARKNESS challenges and tests the mainstream mythology that is the paedophile-abductor narrative. The current default story for what happened to Madeleine McCann on May 3rd, 2007 has many spin-off conspiracies. DEEP INTO DARKNESS examines the best and worst of these, and debunks almost all of them. But if the conspiracies and crazy theories aren't true, what is? What lies hidden deep in the darkness?

Is the criminal justice system taking advantage of ordinary Americans, or is Steven Avery [and a pair of filmmakers] playing us for fools? It has to be the one or the other, so which is it? Is there something unsavoury about a pair of defense lawyers [defending a murderer/rapist] becoming celebrities? Is Ken Kratz' sexting more offensive than the murder, and is Ken Krantz more of criminal than Steven Avery? Are Teresa Halbach's family really bigger suspects than any of the Averys? What do we make of Dr Phil's statements about this case? Is the judge working in cahoots with the prosecution/...

The 6th narrative in the definitive TWO FACE series examines Nichol Kessinger’s five interviews to law enforcement, while simultaneously interrogating the substantiveness of Chris Watts’ confession. Hidden in the deception and lies are clues, leaks and psychological slips that reveal the true machinery of a monster’s mind.

The 4th narrative in the bestselling NEVEREST series focuses on the Sherpas. What was their role in the 1996 Everest Disaster? What impact did the failure to fix ropes have on summit day? Where were the Sherpas during the "Huddle" on the South Col? Why was Lopsang using oxygen at Camp IV? What impact did the early Sherpa casualties, Tenzing [Adventure Consultants] and Ngawang Topsche [Mountain Madness] have in compounding the problems on the mountain? The new insights are truly new as Van Der Leek attempts to find a way to identify and limit the losses in 1996 by hypothetically managing the...

“The last chapter in particular is grueling and grotesque…” The fifth book in Nick van der Leek’s definitive TWO FACE series on Chris Watts does exactly what the title claims: it drills deep through the mountain of Discovery Documents. The fifth narrative not only makes sense of the 1960 pages of discovery, it also integrates the video footage for the first time into a seamless narrative. Missing pieces are found and new insights revealed and contextualized in the most comprehensive assembly of facts and psychological analysis around this puzzling case yet. The main focus of the ...

SHE SAVED HIM CAN YOU SAVE HER? It was a crime that shocked the community in Coronado to its core. In the days following Rebecca Zahau's death in the summer of 2011, an unfathomable horror closed in around her. By early September the same year, law enforcement announced the case closed, and Zahau's billionaire boyfriend Jonah Shacknai, thanked them for their trouble. Years passed and nothing happened. But it wasn't over. Far from it. Crowdsleuthers rallied to the cause of the Zahau family. Funds were raised to lay charges and re-open the case. The case that seemed mired in red tape, welded ...

The Rebecca Zahau case is one of the most bizarre high-profile homicide cases. It is more holes than fabric. For example, why are there no cell phone records of Adam Shacknai? Why was his girlfriend – whom he supposedly called on the night of the incident – not interviewed? Why are there no cell phone records for Dina Shacknai? Why is there so much mystery surrounding the final call and final message left on Rebecca’s phone? Why was it erased and who erased it? Was Rebecca’s cell phone ever examined for fingerprints? Why it was never established what the blunt object was that caused...

In 2006 freelance photojournalist and amateur climber Nick van der Leek wrote a five page analysis of the 1996 Everest disaster titled MOUNTAIN MADNESS, and published in HEARTLAND magazine. His distillation was described at the time by THE CLIMB co-author, Weston DeWalt, as ‘the clearest exposition of the 1996 disaster I have ever seen’. Now, nine years later, having honed his penmanship within the rigors and deceits of the True Crime genre, Nick van der Leek is taking on the Everest narrative once more but with a fresh approach. Compared to his 2006 article, NEVEREST is a much larger ...

After five years it may seem all has been said and done on this case. Far from it. In his final narrative, true crime mastermind Nick van der Leek finally places the last pieces of the puzzle on the board. What precisely happened in the cubicle? Where was Reeva standing and how did she fall when she was shot? Van der Leek’s research potentially turns the entire case on its head – because his version, supported by forensic evidence and the autopsy photos, does not match the state’s version, the Mollett’s research, nor Oscar’s. So – what does that mean? Justice Eventualis is the ...