A thrill kill is premeditated or random murder that is motivated by the sheer excitement of the act. While there have been attempts to categorize multiple murders, such as identifying "thrill killing" as a type of "hedonistic mass killing", actual details of events frequently overlap category definitions making attempts at such distinctions problematic.
Jessica Marie Lunsford was an American nine-year-old girl from Homosassa, Florida, who was murdered in February 2005. Lunsford was abducted from her home in the early morning of February 24, 2005, by John Couey, a 46-year-old convicted sex offender who lived nearby. Couey held her captive over the weekend, during which she was raped and later murdered by being buried alive. The media extensively covered the investigation and trial of Couey.
Anita Lorraine Cobby was a 26-year-old Australian woman from Blacktown, New South Wales who was kidnapped while walking home from Blacktown railway station just before 10:00 p.m. on 2 February 1986, and subsequently sexually assaulted and murdered.
They Do It with Mirrors is a detective fiction novel by British writer Agatha Christie, first published in the US by Dodd, Mead and Company in 1952 under the title of Murder with Mirrors and in UK by the Collins Crime Club on 17 November that year under Christie's original title. The US edition retailed at $2.50 and the UK edition at ten shillings and sixpence (10/6). The book features her detective Miss Marple.
The murder of George Harry Storrs occurred on 1 November 1909 in Stalybridge, Cheshire, England. Despite two trials, no one was convicted of the crime.
Frederick Henry Seddon was a British murderer hanged in 1912 for the arsenic poisoning murder of his lodger Eliza Mary Barrow.
"Sunday in the Park with Jorge" is the 240th episode of NBC's legal drama Law & Order, and the 11th episode of the 11th season. The title is a play on words on the Stephen Sondheim musical Sunday in the Park with George.
Nellie May Madison was an American woman who was convicted of murder in 1934 for killing her husband. She was the first woman to be sentenced to death in the state of California. Due to public outcry, her sentence was later commuted to life in prison and she was eventually released.
The murder of Julia Martha Thomas, dubbed the "Barnes Mystery" or the "Richmond Murder" by the press, was one of the most notorious crimes in the Victorian period of the United Kingdom. Thomas, a widow in her 50s who lived in Richmond, London, was murdered on 2 March 1879 by her maid Kate Webster, a 30-year-old Irishwoman with a history of theft. Webster disposed of the body by dismembering it, boiling the flesh off the bones, and throwing most of the remains into the River Thames.
Susan Lucille Wright is an American convicted murderer from Houston, Texas, who made headlines in 2003 for stabbing her husband, Jeff Wright, 193 times in an act of mariticide and then burying his body in their backyard. She was convicted of murder in 2004, and was given a 20-year sentence at the Crain Unit in Gatesville, Texas. She was denied parole on June 12, 2014, and July 24, 2017. She was granted parole in July 2020 and released from prison on December 30, 2020.
In Forsyth County, Georgia, in September 1912 two separate alleged attacks on white women resulted in black men being accused as suspects. One white woman accused two black men of breaking into her home in Big Creek Community and one of raping her. Another teenage woman was fatally beaten and raped in the Oscarville Community. Earnest Knox was linked to the Oscarville murder along with his half brother by a hair comb sold to him at the Oscarville store. When confronted, he confessed to the Sheriff and implicated his half brother and mother’s live-in boyfriend. His mother testified against the sons during the jury trial which sentenced both to hanging. 21 days later the sentence was carried out.
The murder of Dale Harrell occurred after he was fatally attacked on January 14, 2009 by his wife Marissa-Suzanne "Reese" DeVault in Maricopa County, Arizona. Her trial made national and global headlines. The case was noted as being very similar to that of the murder of Travis Alexander by Jodi Arias, with whom DeVault was in contact and whose murder trial occurred in the same courthouse one year earlier. Though she faced the possibility of a death penalty for her crime, DeVault was sentenced to life in prison. She is imprisoned within the Arizona Department of Corrections.
Lizzie Halliday was an Irish-American serial killer responsible for the deaths of four people in upstate New York during the 1890s. In 1894, she became the first woman to be sentenced to death by the electric chair. Halliday's sentence was commuted and she spent the rest of her life in a mental institution. She killed a nurse while institutionalized and is speculated to have killed her first two husbands.
Jerry Michael "Mike" Williams was an American murder victim. Initially, it was said he left his home in Tallahassee, Florida, United States, to go duck hunting. After subsequent investigations, he was presumed to have drowned in Lake Seminole, a large reservoir located in the southwest corner of Georgia along its border with Florida; investigators later came to suspect he had been the victim of foul play, possibly at another location. His body was found in October 2017 near Tallahassee, and Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE) officials confirmed Williams was a victim of homicide.
Loren Doxey and Dora Doxey were a husband and wife who were charged with murder in St. Louis, Missouri, in 1909, accused of killing a man whom Dora had married in a bigamous relationship. Dora was found not guilty, and the case against Loren was dismissed. Dora was later convicted of bigamy.
The lynching of Paul Reed and Will Cato occurred in Statesboro, Georgia on August 16, 1904. Five members of a white farm family, the Hodges, had been murdered and their house burned to hide the crime. Paul Reed and Will Cato, who were African-American, were tried and convicted for the murders. Despite militia having been brought in from Savannah to protect them, the two men were taken by a mob from the courthouse immediately after their trials, chained to a tree stump, and burned. In the immediate aftermath, four more African-Americans were shot, three of them dying, and others were flogged.
Dating Game Killer, also known as The Dating Game Killer, is a 2017 biographical television film about serial killer Rodney Alcala. It was directed by Peter Medak and broadcast on Investigation Discovery.
Daniel Lewis Hansford was an American shooting victim who was killed by his employer, historic preservationist and antiques dealer Jim Williams, at Williams' home in Savannah, Georgia, United States. His death was documented in John Berendt's 1994 non-fiction book Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil and its 1997 film adaptation. After four trials, Williams was acquitted of Hansford's murder.
Timothy Lane Gribble was an American murderer, rapist and self-confessed serial killer who admitted to raping and strangling three women across Texas between 1985 and 1987. Sentenced to death on two occasions for one of the murders, Gribble would be executed at the Huntsville Unit in 2000.
Jeremiah McCray was an American serial killer, rapist, and burglar who committed five murders across four states from 1956 to 1958, with most of his victims being elderly women whom he killed during robberies. Convicted and sentenced to death for his final murder in Virginia, McCray was subsequently executed a few months later.
