PEOPLE KNOWN FOR: crime
American financier and convicted sex offender
Jeffrey Epstein was an American financier and convicted sex offender who was accused of serial sex trafficking of women and girls. Through his successful financial career, Epstein became a multimillionaire...
king of England
Richard III was the last Plantagenet and Yorkist king of England. He usurped the throne of his nephew Edward V in 1483 and perished in defeat to Henry Tudor (thereafter Henry VII) at the Battle of Bosworth...
American criminal and cult leader
Charles Manson was an American criminal and cult leader whose followers carried out several notorious murders. Their most famous victim was actress Sharon Tate, wife of film director Roman Polanski, who...
Discover the true story of the woman who inspired the latest installment of Monster.
Lizzie Borden was an American woman suspected of brutally murdering her stepmother and father with a hatchet in 1892. Bordenâs trial, in which she was acquitted, was a national sensation in the United...
American boxer
Mike Tyson is an American boxer who in 1986, at age 20, became the youngest heavyweight champion in history. In his fighting prime, Tyson was known for his speed and aggression, with many of his victories...
His downfallâfrom the scion of a legal dynasty to convicted murderer and embezzlerâinspired Huluâs Murdaugh: Death in the Family.
Alex Murdaugh is a former lawyer from one of South Carolinaâs most powerful families. In 2021 his wife, Margaret (âMaggieâ) Murdaugh, and youngest son, Paul Murdaugh, were murdered on the familyâs estate....
NFL football player and convicted murderer
Aaron Hernandez was drafted into the NFL in 2010, at the age of 20. At 27, he was found dead from suicide in a prison cell. In the few years between, he became a professional football star with the New...
American serial killer
Ted Bundy was an American serial killer and rapist, one of the most notorious criminals of the late 20th century. Bundy confessed to 30 murders (some sources say 36), but investigators believe he actually...
British-American convicted sex offender
Ghislaine Maxwell is a former British and American socialite who was convicted in 2021 of sex trafficking of underage girls for the American financier Jeffrey Epstein. According to prosecutors, Maxwell...
American serial killer
Aileen Wuornos was an American serial killer who murdered at least seven men in 1989â90 while working as a sex worker along Florida highways. She was arrested in 1991 and pleaded self-defense. Wuornos...
Indian revolutionary
Udham Singh was an Indian political activist who fought against the British raj in India and sought revenge for the 1919 massacre of civilians by the British army at Jallianwala Bagh in Amritsar in the...
French serial killer
Charles Sobhraj is a French serial killer, smuggler, con artist, and thief whose career of disguises, passport theft, and murders along the Asian hippie trail (an overland route between Europe and Southeast...
American businessman and kidnapper
Tony Kiritsis was an American businessman who took mortgage executive Richard (Dick) Hall hostage for some 63 hours in February 1977 because of a business dispute. The incident became national news as...
English criminal
Moll Cutpurse was the most notorious female member of 17th-century Englandâs underworld. She was a thief, an entertainer, a receiver (fence) and broker of stolen goods, and a celebrated cross-dresser....
Italian American crime boss
Joseph Bonanno was an Italian American crime boss of the eponymous Bonanno family, one of the New York City-based Five Families of organized crime. Bonanno is considered one of the original godfathers...
American criminal
Ted Kaczynski was an American criminal who conducted a 17-year (1978â95) bombing campaign that killed 3 and wounded 23 in an attempt to bring about âa revolution against the industrial system.â Kaczynski...
dictator of Guatemala
EfraĂn RĂos Montt was a Guatemalan army general and politician who ruled Guatemala as the leader of a military junta and as dictator (1982â83). In 2013 he was tried by a Guatemalan court on charges of...
American outlaw biker
Sonny Barger was an American outlaw biker credited with turning the Hells Angels motorcycle club into a global brand. Barger, who came to the fore as a founding member of the Oakland, California, chapter...
American laborer
Steven Avery is an American labourer who served 18 years in prison (1985â2003) for rape and attempted murder before his conviction was overturned because of DNA evidence. In 2005 he was charged with murder...
American gangster
Joseph Valachi was an American gangster and a member of the Genovese crime family who turned informer in 1962. Valachi entered the Mafia world during the Castellammarese War of 1930â31, when rival factions...
American confidence man
Gaston Means was an American confidence man notable for attaining close proximity to the highest echelons of government and leveraging the information afforded him by his position. Means was born into...
American gangster
Al Capone was an American Prohibition-era gangster who dominated organized crime in Chicago from 1925 to 1931 and became perhaps the most famous gangster in the United States. Caponeâs parents immigrated...
Venezuelan militant
Carlos the Jackal is a Venezuelan militant who orchestrated some of the highest-profile terrorist attacks of the 1970s and â80s. He was arrested in 1994 and ultimately received three life sentences. RamĂrez...
American serial killer
Rodney Alcala was an American serial killer known as the âDating Game Killerâ because of his 1978 appearance on the popular TV show, whose producers were not aware of his multiple gruesome murders. His...
American serial killer
Edmund Kemper is an American serial killer who, between 1964 and 1973, murdered 10 people in California, including his mother, his paternal grandparents, and several female hitchhikers. Kemper, who was...
Discover the true story of the serial killer who inspired the Peacock series Devil in Disguise.
John Wayne Gacy was an American serial killer whose murders of 33 boys and young men in the 1970s received international media attention and shocked his suburban Chicago community, where he was known for...
American real-estate heir
Robert Durst was an American real-estate heir who was a suspect in the 1982 disappearance of his first wife and who was convicted in 2021 of the 2000 murder of a friend; he was acquitted of killing a neighbor...
Discover the true story of the man who assassinated Pres. James A. Garfield.
Charles J. Guiteau was a lawyer and aspiring politician who assassinated Pres. James A. Garfield. Guiteau, who experienced mental instability, believed that he had helped Garfield win the 1880 election...
American author and financial security consultant
Frank Abagnale, Jr. is an American author, former con artist, and financial security consultant. He became a household name after the 1980 publication of his memoir, Catch Me If You Can: The True Story...
American factory superintendent
Leo Frank was an American factory superintendent whose conviction in 1913 for the murder of Mary Phagan resulted in his lynching. His trial and death shaped the nascent Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and...
American murderer
Gary Gilmore was an American murderer whose execution by the state of Utah in 1977 ended a de facto nationwide moratorium on capital punishment that had lasted nearly 10 years. His case also attracted...
Mexican drug lord
JoaquĂn GuzmĂĄn is the former head of the Sinaloa drug cartel, one of the most powerful criminal organizations in Mexico since the late 20th century. GuzmĂĄn helped develop creative ways of smuggling drugs...
Colombian criminal
Pablo Escobar was a Colombian drug lord who rose to infamy as the leader of the MedellĂn cartel, overseeing a period marked by extreme violence, corruption, and wealth. Escobar was arguably the worldâs...
A nightclub owner in Dallas, Jack Ruby shot and killed Lee Harvey Oswald, the suspected assassin of John F. Kennedy, on live TV.
Jack Ruby was an American nightclub owner who killed Lee Harvey Oswald, the suspected assassin of Pres. John F. Kennedy, on November 24, 1963, as Oswald was being transferred to a county jail. Despite...
British serial killer
Mary Ann Cotton was a British nurse and housekeeper who was believed to be Britainâs most prolific female serial killer. She allegedly poisoned up to 21 people. Mary Ann grew up in Durham county, northeastern...
American hedge-fund investor
Bernie Madoff was an American hedge-fund investment manager and former chairman of the NASDAQ (National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations) stock market. He was best known for operating...
American serial killer
Richard Ramirez was an American serial killer, rapist, and burglar who murdered at least 13 people in California in 1984â85. Known as the âNight Stalker,â Ramirez was a self-described Satanist. He was...
American serial killer
Dennis Rader is an American serial killer who murdered 10 people over a span of three decades before his arrest and confession in 2005. He called himself BTK because he bound, tortured, and killed his...
Colombian cocaine trafficker
Griselda Blanco was a Colombian cocaine trafficker who amassed a vast empire and was a central figure in the violent drug wars in Miami in the 1970s and â80s. Although there is some confusion about her...
American crime boss
John Gotti was an American organized-crime boss whose flamboyant lifestyle and frequent public trials made him a prominent figure in the 1980s and â90s. Gotti was the fifth of 13 children born to John...
Discover the true story of the serial killer and grave robber who inspired Netflixâs Monster.
Ed Gein was an American murderer whose gruesome crimes gained worldwide notoriety in the 1950s, when it was discovered that he robbed graves and used body parts to make household items and other objects....
American assassin
Charles Whitman was an American mass murderer responsible for the deadly Texas Tower shooting of 1966. On August 1 of that year, having earlier in the day killed his wife and mother, Whitman fired down...
American actor and assassin
John Wilkes Booth was a member of one of the United Statesâ most distinguished acting families of the 19th century and the assassin who killed U.S. Pres. Abraham Lincoln. Booth was the 9th of 10 children...
British physician and serial killer
Harold Shipman was a British doctor who is one of the deadliest serial killers in history, believed to have murdered about 250 of his patients, according to an official inquiry into his crimes. In 2000...
American accused assassin
Lee Harvey Oswald was the accused assassin of U.S. Pres. John F. Kennedy in Dallas on November 22, 1963. He himself was fatally shot two days later by Jack Ruby (1911â67) in the Dallas County Jail. A special...
American record producer
Phil Spector was an American record producer of the 1960s, described by the writer Tom Wolfe as the âFirst Tycoon of Teen.â There had been producers since the beginning of the record industry, but none...
Colombian drug dealer
Carlos Lehder is a Colombian-German drug smuggler, a leader in the powerful MedellĂn drug cartel, who was credited with revolutionizing the transportation network for delivering cocaine to the United States...
American murderer
Richard Speck was an American mass murderer who killed eight female nursing students in a Chicago town house in 1966. The following year Speck was sentenced to life in prison. However, after capital punishment...
American organized crime boss
Paul Castellano was an American organized crime figure, the reputed successor to Carlo Gambino as the âboss of bossesâ of the Five Families of La Cosa Nostra, sometimes referred to as the Mafia, in New...
president of Argentina
Jorge Rafael Videla was a career military officer who was president of Argentina from 1976 to 1981. His government was responsible for human rights abuses during Argentinaâs âDirty War,â which began as...
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