Crime Detector #5

Tom Parker's obsession with guns—nurtured since childhood—leads him down a dark path from reform school through the Army and into a doomed romance with Ann Crawford, the sister of his late military buddy. When the newlyweds turn to armed robbery to fund their lavish lifestyle, their bloody crime spree along the East Coast puts them on a collision course with the law, and Tom's own brother Bill. A tragic tale of how a man's consuming passion can trap him and everyone he loves.

Captain Craig of the Homicide Department investigates the seemingly natural death of James Cartell, only to grow suspicious when the victim's son John offers contradictory details about his father's health. As Captain Craig digs deeper, a careless mistake in John's pocket reveals the truth behind "The Deadly Needle" and exposes a murderer's desperate gambit for inheritance.

John "Fats" Logan is a cold-blooded hired killer who lives well off his bloody contracts—until a traveling bone splinter lodges near his heart and forces him into the hospital for emergency surgery. When a desperate woman hires him to murder her husband Anthony Samuels, Logan accepts the job, unaware that the surgeon meant to save his life and the man he's contracted to kill are cousins who bear a striking resemblance. As Logan prepares for his operation, justice works in ways even the most ruthless criminal cannot predict.

When the notoriously lawless Allen family of Virginia faces conviction in court, they make good on a dangerous promise: they'll never spend a day in jail. In a shocking act of defiance, Claude, Floyd, Victor, Wesley, and the rest of the Allens turn the courthouse into a battlefield, determined to gun down every officer of the law standing between them and freedom. The mayor of Hillsville is forced to call in the governor himself as the violence spirals beyond anyone's control.

A man consumed by rage and thoughts of vengeance plans a terrible act against his wife, but fate—and a chance encounter—sets in motion a series of events that will ultimately catch up with him and others like him. This true crime story from 1954 traces how the Allen family's descent into violence and crime leads to their downfall at the hands of law enforcement. "The Penalty of Being Big..." shows how desperation and brutality can only end one way: in capture and reckoning.

Dr. Howard Channy documents a horrifying mystery that began when his old friend Johnathan Barkley returned from Tibet afflicted by a nameless terror—one that manifests in shocking ways and leads Channy himself to a fateful encounter with the High Priestess Lucian and forces he cannot control. As Channy's own descent into madness unfolds, he records this account as a final warning, knowing that the truth of what happened may die with him.