04509cam a2200697 4500 2820768203 TxAuBib 20260724120000.0 ||||||s2026||||||||||||||||||||||||und|u 9780593230879 0593230876 B0FWBBFLWN Amazon fcf6a0d2-66dd-4774-b0d9-3632741a4f8f OverDrive (Reserve ID) 12449183 OverDrive (Product ID) TxAuBib Colloff, Pamela. Catch the Devil [Libby eBook] : A True Story of Murder, Deception, and Injustice on the Gulf Coast. Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, 2026. prime reading free for prime members. Format: OverDrive OverDrive Read. true crime books best sellers. Format: OverDrive Kindle Book. true crime kindle books. criminal justice books. historical true crime. best true crime books. patrick radden keefe. criminology books. true murder books. Criminal Justice. true crime books. true story books. true crime gifts. true crime book. sociology books. catch the devil. criminal minds. death penalty. True stories. criminology. crime books. True Crime. true story. Biography. death row. Sociology. Casey Cep. betrayal. murder . victims. crime. lies. HTML:<b>The riveting, true story of an audacious con man who helped send another man to death row for a murder he did not commit<br /> “Incendiary, emotionally devastating. [This] is a feat of dogged reporting, bravura storytelling, and clear-eyed moral conscience."<br /> —Patrick Radden Keefe, author of <i>Say Nothing</i> and <i>London Falling</i></b><br /> For more than three decades, Paul Skalnik roamed the Gulf Coast lying about who he was. He passed himself off as a fighter pilot, a high-rolling oilman, a criminal defense attorney, an undercover agent, and a terminal cancer patient. In these guises he married nine women—some at the same time.<br /> When Skalnik got caught, as he invariably did, he would run a different con. Locked up with other men awaiting trial, he claimed they confessed their crimes to him. Then he peddled those stories to prosecutors. In Pinellas County, Florida, he became a frequent witness for the state, thinking nothing of exaggerating men’s wrongdoing or implicating the innocent to help prosecutors win convictions. In return, the state rewarded him with his freedom, fueling his growing sense of invincibility. Soon he was not just committing fraud; he was preying on girls in their teens or barely into adolescence.<br /> In 1985, Jim Dailey, a down-on-his-luck Vietnam veteran, was implicated in the murder of a fourteen-year-old girl and landed in the Pinellas County Jail with Skalnik. No forensic evidence or motive linked Dailey to the killing, but Skalnik’s account of his "confession" helped put Dailey on death row. Skalnik, meanwhile, walked free. More than three decades later, after another man took responsibility for the killing, Pamela Colloff, reporting for the <i>New York Times Magazine</i> and ProPublica, visited Skalnik and asked him if he would recant his testimony. He refused.<br /> By then, Skalnik had caused untold damage: to the women and girls he exploited, to the dozens of men he helped imprison, and to Jim Dailey, who went on to receive an execution date. In this mesmerizing debut, Pamela Colloff spins a dark tale of a remorseless and brilliant liar made lethal by a system more concerned with winning convictions than finding the truth. Biography & Autobiography. True Crime. Nonfiction. Sociology. Media Type: eBook. Importer Version: 2014-01-08.01 Import Date: 2026-07-24 20:00:02. https://samples.overdrive.com/?crid=fcf6a0d2-66dd-4774-b0d9-3632741a4f8f&.epub-sample.overdrive.com Excerpt (Kindle Book) https://samples.overdrive.com/?crid=fcf6a0d2-66dd-4774-b0d9-3632741a4f8f&.epub-sample.overdrive.com Excerpt (OverDrive Read)