Gary Mark Gilmore was an American criminal who gained international attention for demanding the implementation of his death sentence for two murders he had admitted to committing in Utah. After the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a new series of death penalty statutes in the 1976 decision Gregg v. Georgia, he became the first person in almost ten years to be executed in the United States. These new statutes avoided the problems under the 1972 decision in Furman v. Georgia, which had resulted in earlier death penalty statutes being deemed "cruel and unusual" punishment, and therefore unconstitutional. Gilmore was executed by a firing squad in 1977. His life and execution were the subject of the 1979 nonfiction novel The Executioner's Song, by Norman Mailer, and the 1982 TV film of the novel starring Tommy Lee Jones as Gilmore.
Ernesto Arturo Miranda was an American laborer whose criminal conviction was set aside in the landmark U.S. Supreme Court case Miranda v. Arizona, which ruled that criminal suspects must be informed of their right against self-incrimination and their right to consult with an attorney before being questioned by police. This warning is known as a Miranda warning. Miranda had been convicted of kidnapping, rape, and armed robbery charges based on his confession under police interrogation.
John Albert Taylor was an American who was convicted of burglary and carrying a concealed weapon in the state of Florida, and sexual assault and murder in the state of Utah. Taylor's own sister tipped off police in June 1989 after 11-year-old Charla King was found raped and strangled to death in Washington Terrace, Utah. His fingerprints were found at the crime scene, which was located in an apartment complex where he had been staying. In December 1989, Taylor was sentenced to death and placed on death row at Utah State Prison.
The Hi-Fi murders were the torture of five people resulting in three deaths during a robbery at the Hi-fi Shop, a home audio store in Ogden, Utah, United States, on the evening of April 22, 1974. Several men entered the Hi-fi Shop shortly before closing time and began taking hostages. They forced their victims to drink corrosive drain cleaner, which the perpetrators believed would fatally poison their hostages, but instead caused burns to their mouths and throats. Further violence included kicking a pen into an ear and the brutal rape of an eighteen-year-old woman, before three of the victims were fatally shot. The two surviving victims were left with life-changing injuries.
John William Byrd Jr. was an American murderer who was executed by lethal injection for killing convenience store clerk Monte Tewksbury. Byrd, who protested his innocence until his execution, spent 18 years and 6 months on Ohio's death row. Byrd was the third person to be put to death since Ohio reintroduced the death penalty in 1981. His execution remains controversial.
Jason Derek Brown is an American fugitive wanted for first degree murder and armed robbery in Phoenix, Arizona. On November 29, 2004, Brown allegedly shot and killed Robert Keith Palomares, a 24-year-old armored car guard outside a movie theater and then fled with the money. On December 8, 2007, he was named by the FBI as the 489th fugitive to be placed on its Ten Most Wanted list. He is considered to be armed and extremely dangerous. On September 7, 2022, he was removed from the Ten Most Wanted list without being captured, but he is still wanted. He was replaced on the list by Michael James Pratt. In 2022, a theatrical film about Brown's life was made, titled American Murderer, starring Tom Pelphrey as Brown, Ryan Phillippe, Idina Menzel, and Jacki Weaver.
Leonard Melvin Shockley was a juvenile executed in the United States on April 10, 1959, for a murder committed when he was under the age of 18. Shockley, a black male, was executed in Maryland in a gas chamber for the murder of shopkeeper Sarah Hearne on January 16, 1958. Shockley was involved in the robbery of a small shop in Dorchester County, Maryland. He was accompanied by his older brother, 23-year-old Harold Edward Shockley. Hearne was found stabbed several times in the back and breast, and her throat had been cut. The young culprits were identified by an eyewitness. Leonard was 17 years of age at the time of his execution, making him the last instance of a person being executed while still a juvenile in America. His brother received life in prison but was eventually released.
Keith Eugene Wells was an American murderer convicted of the 1990 murders of John Justad and Brandi Rains in Boise, Idaho. He was executed in 1994 by the state of Idaho at the Idaho Maximum Security Institution via lethal injection only one year and nine months after having been sentenced to death by Judge Gerald Schroeder. Wells was the first person to be executed in Idaho since Raymond Snowden was hanged in 1957 and only the tenth since Idaho gained statehood. He chose not to appeal the death sentence although it was appealed on his behalf. The United States Supreme Court rejected an appeal filed against his wishes.
John Frederick Thanos was an American spree killer who was convicted in 1992 of the murders of three teenagers: Gregory Taylor, Billy Winebrenner, and Melody Pistorio. He was executed for the murders in 1994, becoming the first person to be executed in Maryland since 1961.
Curtis Michael Allgier is an American white supremacist skinhead who is being held in the Utah State Prison in Draper, Utah, for the murder of corrections officer Stephen Anderson.
Ronnie Lee Gardner was an American criminal who received the death penalty for killing a man during an attempted escape from a courthouse in 1985, and was executed by a firing squad by the state of Utah in 2010. His case spent nearly 25 years in the court system, prompting the Utah House of Representatives to introduce legislation to limit the number of appeals in capital cases.
Barton Kay Kirkham was an American murderer. He was a member of the United States Air Force who was discharged in 1955 after committing a robbery in Colorado while absent without leave (AWOL). In 1956, he was sentenced to death after the murder of two grocery store clerks during an armed robbery in Salt Lake City, Utah.
Paul Michael Warner is an American lawyer who served as a United States magistrate judge for the United States District Court for the District of Utah. He was appointed to this position on February 19, 2006. He retired in 2020.
The Bisbee massacre occurred in Bisbee, Arizona, on December 8, 1883, when six outlaws who were part of the Cochise County Cowboys robbed a general store. Believing the general store's safe contained a mining payroll of $7,000, they timed the robbery incorrectly and were only able to steal between $800 and $3,000, along with a gold watch and jewelry. During the robbery, members of the gang killed five people, including a lawman and a pregnant woman. Six men were convicted of the robbery and murders. John Heath, who was accused of organizing the robbery, was tried separately and sentenced to life in prison. The other five men were convicted of murder and sentenced to hang.
James Allen Red Dog was a mixed Sioux and Assiniboine serial killer from Fort Peck Indian Reservation who was executed at his own request for murdering Hugh Pennington and who had previously been convicted twice of armed robbery. As a result of his crimes, then-Senator Joe Biden introduced legislation that required states to be notified by federal officials when dangerous criminals were placed in their jurisdictions.
Mark Anthony Stroman was an American neo-Nazi and spree killer who was executed in Texas for murder. In 2001, Stroman carried out a shooting spree in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks, killing two people and seriously injuring a third. His motive for the shooting spree was "revenge" for the September 11 attacks, as he specifically targeted Arabs or people who looked "of Muslim descent." However, his victims were all from South Asia, with one of the two murder victims being Hindu.
The Soldiers of Aryan Culture (SAC), sometimes referred to erroneously as Soldiers of the Aryan Culture or Soldiers of an Aryan Culture, is a large white supremacist prison gang in the United States.
Paul Ezra Rhoades was an American spree killer and suspected serial killer convicted of three murders committed in Idaho during a three-week crime spree in 1987. He is the prime suspect in at least four additional killings in Utah and Wyoming dating back to 1984, however, he was never conclusively linked to these murders. He was executed for two of his confirmed murders in 2011, becoming the first person to be executed in Idaho in over seventeen years.
Ronald Keith Allridge and James Vernon Allridge III were American brothers and serial killers who killed three people and committed numerous armed robberies in Fort Worth, Texas, during a crime spree in early 1985. For their crimes, the Allridge brothers were sentenced to death and subsequently executed by lethal injection; Ronald in 1995 and James in 2004.
Gilbert William Galvan Jr. is an American bank robber. Having spent many of his adult years in prison, Galvan fled to Canada where he assumed the name Robert Lee Whiteman and began a three-year spree robbing banks and jewelry stores in the 1980s. The media dubbed him the Flying Bandit and the Phantom Bandit. Galvan's exploits were the subject of a 1996 true crime book, The Flying Bandit, written by Robert Knuckle and Ed Arnold, which was adapted into the 2022 film Bandit.
