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.
It was August of 2000, and twenty-one-year-old Laneshia Crowder, known as Lane to friends and family, was living in the town of Carrollton, a safe and friendly exurb of Atlanta, with her two children: two-year-old daughter Lyric and seven-year-old son Kenneth. On Saturday, August 12th, the family had been on an outing, and they all … More Laneshia Crowder
In early November of 1997, in a suburb of Victoria, Australia, a woman would be coldly gunned down in her driveway in the middle of the afternoon, in a shocking crime that is now suspected to have been a case of mistaken identity. It was just after three-thirty p.m. on Thursday, November 6th, when thirty-four-year-old … More Jane Thurgood-Dove
It was Monday, April 30th, 1979, and Pacific Power & Light employee Bob Gilbert was performing his regular daily task of checking the dam that formed Mirror Lake from the surrounding Deschutes River in Bend, Oregon. On this particular day, though, he came across something as unexpected as it was grisly: a human thigh. Police … More Mary Jo Templeton
Twenty-eight-year-old Joyce Chiang was the daughter of Taiwanese immigrants, and worked as a lawyer for what was then called the Immigration and Naturalization Service, or INS. On the evening of January 9th, 1999, Joyce had been out to dinner and a movie with friends, and one of them had offered to give her a ride … More Joyce Chiang
In early August of 1993, a little girl visiting her grandmother in Massachusetts would vanish off a neighborhood street, only to turn up dead more than two months later. Ten-year-old Holly Piirainen lived with her family in Grafton, Massachusetts, but on August 5th, she, her father, and her two younger brothers were staying at their … More Holly Piirainen & Molly Bish
It was about quarter to eleven on the morning of Saturday, March 28th, 1987. Sixty-six-year-old Helen Fleet had bundled her two dogs, Bilbow and Cindy, into her blue Datsun and was driving out to Worlebury Woods near her home in Weston-super-Mare, in North Somerset, England, to take her beloved pets for a walk. She was … More Helen Fleet, Kate Bushell, Lyn Bryant
The year of 1967 would be less than a week old before a seemingly random murder in England would shock the public with its grisly and scandalous details. Seventeen-year-old Bernard Oliver hailed from North London, and worked in a warehouse near his home in Muswell Hill. By all accounts, he was a friendly, soft-spoken young … More Bernard Oliver: The Tattingstone Suitcase Murder
Early September of 2000 in northwest England saw a grisly murder take place, of a troubled young woman whose mental health had tragically deteriorated over the previous decade. And in a particularly ghastly touch, her brother would later be savagely slain as well, in a completely unrelated incident. Susan Kelly was thirty-eight years old in … More Susan Kelly
Before 1980 came to a close, a troubled young girl in Kalamazoo, Michigan would disappear without trace, and though her body would be found only a month into the new year, she would remain unidentified for decades, known only as Bossier Doe until authorities in 2015 finally matched her with her true identity: Carol Ann … More Carol Ann Cole: Bossier Doe
On July 31st, 1960, a family on the lookout for interesting rocks near a creek bed off Old Alamo Road in Congress, Arizona stumbled across the partly-buried and dreadfully decomposed body of a little girl. It appeared that whoever had killed the child or left the body there had made more than one attempt at … More Sharon Lee Gallegos: Little Miss Nobody
