You rarely hear about organized crime in San Francisco, and many wonder if we have a mafia family. Chicago mobster Nick DeJohn could have answered the question — but it’s hard to talk when you are lying in the trunk of your car. It’s even more difficult when you’ve been strangled. If DeJohn could have spoken, he might have said: “There is a mafia in San Francisco, and they’re not crazy about outsiders.”

Enclosed below is a complimentary preview of "The Murder of Lord Errol," one of the fascinating chapters from the book.

The story of Charles and Belle Cora is a tale of prostitution, gambling, drunkenness and murder. But most of all, it is a love story.

Lloyd Sampsell and Ethan McNabb, dubbed the “Yacht Bandits,” were the Errol Flynns of crime in the 1920s. These dashing outlaws cruised the West Coast in a luxurious schooner, robbing banks along the way.

History has a dark side, and we're shining a lantern on it. The House of Syx unearths true crime, strange history, and unsolved mysteries from before the 1970s.

“Live fast, die young, leave a good looking corpse.” It’s a maxim rarely quoted by high school commencement speakers, but students who attended the Preston School of Industry took the adage seriously, with fatal results.

Killing someone is not generally considered a good career move. It is frowned on in the bible and there is no mention of this technique in any of the books of Dale Carnegie, Stephen Covey, or Tony Robbins. For Paul Kelly, however, this act secured a long and successful acting career.

San Francisco police officer Ken Katz had finished his shift at 6:40 p.m. on Jan. 19, 1979, and was on his way home after completing his off-duty assignment: buying the ingredients for his wife’s banana daiquiris.