Charles Milles Manson was an American criminal, cult leader and musician who led the Manson Family, a cult based in California, in the late-1960s. Some of the members committed a series of at least nine murders at four locations in July and August 1969. In 1971, Manson was convicted of first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder for the deaths of seven people, including the film actress Sharon Tate. The prosecution contended that, while Manson never directly ordered the murders, his ideology constituted an overt act of conspiracy.
The Manson Family was a commune, gang, and cult led by criminal Charles Manson that was active in California in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The group consisted of approximately 100 followers, who lived an unconventional lifestyle and frequently used psychoactive drugs like Benzedrine (amphetamine) as well as hallucinogens such as LSD. Most were young women from middle-class backgrounds, many of whom were attracted by hippie culture and communal living and then radicalized by Manson's teachings.
Tracey Avril Wigginton, known as the "Lesbian Vampire Killer", is an Australian murderer who achieved notoriety for killing Edward Baldock in 1989, supposedly to drink his blood. This was described as "one of the most brutal and bizarre crimes Australia has ever seen." Wigginton was sentenced to life imprisonment in 1991, and was paroled in 2012.
Carl Eugene Watts, also known by his nickname Coral, was an American serial killer dubbed "The Sunday Morning Slasher" who murdered numerous women and girls over an eight-year period. He is suspected of being the most prolific serial killer in United States history. He died of prostate cancer while serving two sentences of life imprisonment without parole in a Michigan prison for the murders of Helen Dutcher and Gloria Steele, although the number of his victims may have exceeded 100.
Eric Edgar Cooke, nicknamed the Night Caller and later the Nedlands Monster, was an Australian serial killer who terrorised the city of Perth, Western Australia, from September 1958 to August 1963. Cooke committed at least 20 violent crimes, eight of which resulted in deaths.
Faye Della Copeland and Ray Copeland became, at the ages of 69 and 76 respectively, the oldest couple ever sentenced to death in the United States. They were convicted of killing five drifters at their farm in Mooresville, Missouri. When her sentence was commuted to life in prison in 1999, Faye Copeland was the oldest woman on death row.
Adremy Dennis was a convicted murderer executed by Ohio. He was found guilty of the 1994 murder of Akron, Ohio, resident Kurt Kyle. Dennis was the 15th person executed by the state since it reinstated the death penalty in 1981.
On January 27, 2001, Dartmouth College professors Half and Susanne Zantop, aged 62 and 55 respectively, were stabbed to death at their home in Etna, New Hampshire. Originally from Germany, the couple had been teaching at Dartmouth since the 1970s. High school classmates James J. Parker, age 16, and Robert W. Tulloch, age 17, were charged with first-degree murder.
Stephen Wayne Anderson was an American contract killer and serial killer who was executed at California's San Quentin State Prison by lethal injection in 2002 for the murder of Elizabeth Lyman. He was either known to have killed or admitted to the killings of at least eight other people, including a fellow inmate and at least seven contract killings.
The murder of Leigh Leigh, born Leigh Rennea Mears, occurred on 3 November 1989 while she was attending a 16-year-old boy's birthday party at Stockton Beach, New South Wales, on the east coast of Australia. The 14-year-old girl from Fern Bay was assaulted by a group of boys after she returned distressed from a sexual encounter on the beach that a reviewing judge later called non-consensual. After being kicked and spat on by the group, Leigh left the party. Her naked body was found in the sand dunes nearby the following morning, with severe genital damage and a crushed skull.
Richard Lawrence Marquette is an American serial killer who killed three women, drained their blood, mutilated and dismembered their bodies, and scattered their remains between 1961 and 1975. He was the first person ever to be added as an eleventh name on the FBI Ten Most Wanted List, in connection with the 1961 murder of Joan Caudle in Portland, Oregon. He has been incarcerated at the Oregon State Penitentiary since June 1975.
The murder of Cassie Jo Stoddart took place in Pocatello, Idaho on September 22, 2006, when Cassie Jo Stoddart, a student at Pocatello High School, was stabbed to death by classmates Brian Lee Draper and Torey Michael Adamcik. Both perpetrators received sentences of life imprisonment without parole on August 21, 2007.
The Tate–LaBianca murders were a series of murders perpetrated by members of the Manson Family during August 8–10, 1969, in Los Angeles, California, United States, under the direction of Tex Watson and Charles Manson. The perpetrators killed five people on the night of August 8–9: pregnant actress Sharon Tate and her companions Jay Sebring, Abigail Folger, and Wojciech Frykowski, along with Steven Parent. The following evening, the Family also murdered supermarket executive Leno LaBianca and his wife, Rosemary, at their home in the Los Feliz section of Los Angeles.
Scott William Cox is a suspected American serial killer, convicted on two separate counts of homicide in 1993 in Portland, Oregon, and suspected of many more. He was sentenced to 25 years in prison, but was granted parole in 2013, five years early. He currently is serving a post-prison supervision term of life. He is also the prime suspect in 20 unsolved murder cases throughout the United States and Canada, although charges were never brought against him.
On the evening of November 26, 1960, Larry Ralph Peyton and his girlfriend, Beverly Ann Allan, disappeared after having made plans to shop at the Lloyd Center shopping mall in Portland, Oregon, United States. The following day, November 27, Peyton's Ford coupe was found in Forest Park, with his mutilated body inside. Allan was missing from the scene, though her purse and coat were still inside the car. A widespread manhunt ensued over the following two months. In January 1961, a highway crew 30 miles (48 km) outside Portland discovered Allan's partially nude body in a ravine, and it was determined she had been raped and strangled to death.
The murder of Rachael Anderson occurred on January 28, 2018, in Columbus, Ohio. Anderson, a twenty-four-year-old aspiring funeral director, was kidnapped, raped, and murdered by Anthony Pardon in her apartment on her birthday. Pardon, a registered sex offender with an extensive criminal history, left Anderson's body in her bedroom closet where she was discovered the next day. A significant amount of evidence linked Pardon to the crime, including cellphone data and DNA. He was arrested and charged with Anderson's murder. He was convicted in 2020 and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
On March 18, 2018, in Riverview, Florida, 29-year-old Ronnie O'Neal III fatally shot his ex girlfriend, 33-year-old Kenyatta Barron, and hacked their 9-year-old daughter, Ron'Niveya O'Neal, to death with an axe. He stabbed their 8-year-old son Ronnie O'Neal IV, who survived and told detectives "My father shot my mother" before being escorted to a local hospital.
James Jerold Koedatich is an American serial killer who was sentenced to death for the killings of two women in Morris County, New Jersey, which he committed during the final months of 1982, after having been previously paroled for the 1971 murder of his roommate in Florida. Koedatich had killed a fellow inmate in 1973, but that was ruled to be self-defense.
Anthony Joseph Dolff, was farmer in Kamsack, Saskatchewan, Canada, who was killed in 1993. He was stabbed 17 times, hit on the head with a television, and strangled with a telephone cord. Three Saulteaux people, members of the Keeseekoose First Nation, were convicted of the crime. One, Jason Keshane, 14 years old at the time of the crime, confessed to the killing and as a juvenile was sentenced to two years in prison for second degree murder. His cousins, sisters Nerissa and Odelia Quewezance, 19 and 21 at the time, were sentenced to life in prison. Neither confessed and both have maintained their innocence at all times. Dolff had been a maintenance man at the residential school the two sisters attended. That night they reportedly drank a great deal of liquor and took prescription sleeping pills at Dolff's house, where he pestered them for sex. When he discovered that Odelia had taken money from his bedroom, a violent confrontation took place, in the course of which he was killed.
On the night of June 11, 2009, Joanne Witt was murdered by her teenage daughter Tylar and Tylar's boyfriend Steven "Boston" Colver, one or both of whom stabbed Witt 20 times on the upper half of her body. Witt was murdered because she had objected to their relationship as Tylar was only 14, while Colver was 19. When Witt missed two days of work without calling, her supervisor called both law enforcement and Witt's parents. Sheriff's deputies met the parents at Witt's home in El Dorado Hills, California, where they discovered the body. Tylar and Colver were arrested in San Bruno, California, several days later. Two years after the murder, Tylar pled guilty to second degree murder and was sentenced to 15 years to life in prison. Colver was tried and convicted of first degree murder and was sentenced to life without the possibility of parole. On August 26, 2022, Tylar Witt was granted parole.
