Jenny Ashford is a horror, true crime, and paranormal writer, graphic designer, and podcaster. Her most recent books are a three-volume true crime compilation collectively known as The Faceless Villain: A Collection of the Eeriest Unsolved Murders of the Twentieth Century. Volume One was published in 2017, Volume Two in 2018, and Volume Three in 2019. Her other books include four paranormal nonfiction books: The Unseen Hand: A New Exploration of Poltergeist Phenomena, The Mammoth Mountain Poltergeist (with Tom Ross), House of Fire and Whispers: Investigating the Seattle Demon House, and The Rochdale Poltergeist (both with Steve Mera); as well as three horror novels, Red Menace, Bellwether, and The Five Poisons; two short story collections, Hopeful Monsters and The Associated Villainies; and a graphic novel, The Tenebrist. A second edition of The Associated Villainies was published in 2019, featuring four new stories, an enhanced print layout, and an audio book version. A second edition of The Five Poisons was published in 2020. Her short stories have appeared in several anthologies, including The Nightmare Collective, History Is Dead, 2012AD, ChimeraWorld #3, and ChimeraWorld #4. Her horror blog, Goddess of Hellfire, contains writing news, short stories and articles, and her reviews and opinions on horror films and books. She also co-hosts a podcast with Tom Ross called 13 O'Clock, on which they discuss true crime, unexplained mysteries, paranormal weirdness, horror movies and books, food, and other fun, creepy topics. They recently collaborated on a 13 O'Clock cookbook. Jenny's graphic design work can be seen on everything from books and business cards to posters and packaging. She runs an online store called Gravecake selling products with her designs, and also has a board-and-card game concern called Giallo Games, which produces games based around the beloved Italian horror/crime genre, among many other themes.
On Valentine’s Day of 1978, a young girl was found slain near San Diego, California, having been subjected to brutal torture before her death. To this day, she remains unidentified, and is referred to only as San Diego County Jane Doe. The victim was white, between fourteen and eighteen years old, and stood only about … More San Diego County Jane Doe
The summer of 1977 began fading into autumn, and in New Jersey, it was almost time for college classes to begin. Twenty-five-year old Sigrid Stevenson, a graduate student in music, had just returned to the campus of Trenton State College (now known as the College of New Jersey), but found that the family she’d been … More Sigrid Stevenson
It was the evening of Friday, January 14th, 1977, and the weather in Port Huron, Michigan had been far crueler than usual. Twenty-year-old Iris Johnston simply wanted to go down the block to the store, but was unable to get her car out of the driveway, so decided to bundle up and set out on … More Iris Johnston
Collingwood was, in 1977, a fairly safe, working-class suburb of Melbourne, Australia, and it had seemed the perfect place for longtime friends and roommates—twenty-eight-year-old high school teacher Susan Bartlett and twenty-seven-year-old mother Suzanne Armstrong—to maintain a house and raise Suzanne’s sixteen-month-old son Gregory. On the evening of January 10th, Susan’s brother and his girlfriend stopped … More Easey Street Murders: Suzanne Armstrong & Susan Bartlett
Sixteen-year-old Deborah Lynn Rosencrans was undergoing some trying family turmoil. Her parents were divorced, and her mother had been forced to work several jobs in order to make ends meet. Recently, though, Deborah’s mother had remarried, and the family was planning to move back to their former home in Orlando, Florida. Deborah, though, wanted to … More Deborah Lynn Rosencrans
Florence Broadhurst had been born in a remote, rural part of Queensland, but she apparently had much bigger ambitions than her unassuming origins would suggest. She was an accomplished singer and comedian, and parlayed these talents into a career that took her out of her humble hometown and eventually around the world. Florence opened an … More Florence Broadhurst
Twenty-four-year-old Elizabeth “Betty Jane” Berquist lived in an apartment on Seneca Street in Greenock, Pennsylvania with her two-year-old daughter Tara. Betty Jane had previously had a job as a server at the Canopy Restaurant in McKeesport while she was making her way through nursing school, but just recently she had got her first nursing position … More Elizabeth “Betty Jane” Berquist
It was Sunday, February 27th, 1978, and twenty-three-year-old Julie Campbell, a medical records clerk at the Lahey Clinic in Boston, had been spending the evening with two friends at a bar called the Plough and Stars in Cambridge, Massachusetts. After parting from her friends at around one a.m. on the morning of February 28th, Julie … More Julie Campbell
In the summer of 1969, a young teacher would mysteriously vanish, and although her remains would not be discovered for nearly thirty years, her suspected killer had possible links to at least one other case already mentioned on this site. Twenty-nine-year-old Luella Blakeslee, an avid world traveler and an alumnus of both the University of … More Luella Blakeslee
It was Wednesday, April 2nd, 1969. Seventy-six-year-old Annie Walker had been at her bank in the village of Coalville that day, withdrawing the sum of one-thousand pounds. As she headed back toward her home in nearby Heather, Leicestershire, England, it seems that someone was following her. The next day, the body of Annie Walker was … More Annie Walker
