Diane Alexis Whipple was an American lacrosse player and college coach. She was killed in a dog attack in San Francisco on January 26, 2001. The dogs involved were two Presa Canarios: a male named Bane and a female named Hera. Paul Schneider, the dogs' owner, is a high-ranking member of the Aryan Brotherhood and is serving three life sentence terms in state prison. The dogs were looked after by Schneider's attorneys, Robert Noel and Marjorie Knoller, a husband and wife who lived in the same apartment building as Diane Whipple. After the fatal attack, the state brought criminal charges against the attorneys. Robert Noel, who was not present during the attack, was convicted of manslaughter. Marjorie Knoller, who was present, was charged with implied-malice second-degree murder and convicted by the jury. Knoller's murder conviction, an unusual result for an unintended dog attack, was rejected by the trial judge but ultimately upheld. The case clarified the meaning of implied malice murder.
In the U.S. state of California, capital punishment is a legal penalty. However it is not allowed to be carried out as of March 2019, because executions were halted by an official moratorium ordered by Governor Gavin Newsom. Prior to the moratorium, executions were frozen by a federal court order since 2006, and the litigation resulting in the court order has been on hold since the promulgation of the moratorium. Thus, there will be a court-ordered moratorium on executions after the termination of Newsom's moratorium if capital punishment remains a legal penalty in California by then.
Susan Denise Atkins was an American convicted murderer who was a member of Charles Manson's "Family". Manson's followers committed a series of nine murders at four locations in California, over a period of five weeks in the summer of 1969. Known within the Manson family as Sadie Mae Glutz or Sexy Sadie, Atkins was convicted for her participation in eight of these killings, including the most notorious, the Tate murders in 1969. She was sentenced to death, which was subsequently commuted to life imprisonment when the California Supreme Court invalidated all death sentences issued prior to 1972. Atkins was incarcerated until her death in 2009. At the time of her death, she was California's longest-serving female inmate, long since surpassed by her fellow murderous Manson family members Leslie Van Houten and Patricia Krenwinkel.
Michael Malloy, later known as either Mike the Durable or Iron Mike, was a homeless Irishman from County Donegal who lived in New York City during the 1920s and 1930s. A former firefighter, he survived multiple murder attempts by five acquaintances, who attempted to commit homicide as a life insurance fraud.
Thomas and Jackie Hawks were a couple from Prescott, Arizona, United States, who were murdered in 2004.
Chester Dewayne Turner is an American convicted serial killer. On April 30, 2007, he was convicted of the murders of ten women in Los Angeles, and was also found guilty of the death of the unborn child of one of his victims. He was convicted of four additional murders on June 19, 2014. Prosecutors have called Turner "one of the most prolific serial killers in the city's history".
Central California Women's Facility (CCWF) is a female-only California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation state prison located in Chowchilla, California. It is across the road from Valley State Prison. CCWF is the second largest female correctional facility in the United States, and houses the only State of California death row for women.
Valley State Prison (VSP), previously the Valley State Prison for Women (VSPW), is a state prison in Chowchilla, California. It is across the road from Central California Women's Facility. It was formerly a prison for women.
John Leonard Orr is an American former firefighter, novelist, and convicted serial arsonist and mass murderer. A fire captain and arson investigator in the Glendale, California, Orr was convicted of serial arson and four counts of murder, however he is believed to have set nearly 2,000 fires in a 30 year arson spree where most of them occurred between 1984 and 1991, making him the most prolific serial arsonist in American history.
Julia Lynn Turner, originally Julia Lynn Womack, was an American convicted murderer. In 1995, her husband, Glenn Turner, died after allegedly being sick with the flu. In 2001, the death of what had been described as her common-law husband, Randy Thompson, under remarkably similar circumstances, aroused the suspicion of law enforcement. After investigation, it was determined by authorities that Lynn Turner had murdered both her husbands by poisoning them with ethylene glycol–based antifreeze. She was tried for Glenn Turner's murder in 2004. She was found guilty and went to trial in 2007 for the murder of Randy Thompson, ultimately being convicted. Turner died in prison on August 30, 2010. The cause of death was an apparent suicide by toxic overdose of blood pressure medication.
The Julie Jensen case involves the trial of a Pleasant Prairie, Wisconsin man, Mark Jensen, on charges that he murdered his wife, Julie Carol Jensen on December 3, 1998. The case is notable for the eventual admission into evidence of a letter written by the deceased prior to her death expressing suspicion of her husband's intentions.
Kristin Margrethe Rossum is an American former toxicologist who was convicted of the murder of her husband Gregory T. de Villers, who died from a lethal dose of fentanyl on November 6, 2000. Rossum is serving a life sentence at the Central California Women's Facility in Chowchilla.
Lyda Southard, also known as Lyda Anna Mae Trueblood, was an American female suspected serial killer. It was suspected that she had killed her four husbands, a brother-in-law, and her daughter by using arsenic poisoning derived from flypaper in order to obtain life insurance money.
Lethal Vows is a 1999 made-for-television American drama film based on the events which led to the trial and conviction of Richard K. Overton for the poisoning death of his third wife, Janet Overton. Starring John Ritter, Marg Helgenberger and Megan Gallagher, the movie premiered October 13, 1999, on CBS.
Stacey Ruth Castor was an American convicted murderer from Weedsport, New York. In 2009, she was found guilty of intentionally poisoning her then-husband David Castor with antifreeze in 2005 and attempting to murder her daughter, Ashley Wallace, with crushed pills mixed in with vodka, orange juice, and Sprite in 2007. In addition, she is suspected of having murdered her first husband, Michael Wallace, in 2000; his grave lay next to David Castor's until David's remains were disinterred in 2016 and buried elsewhere by his son. The story made national news, and Castor was subsequently named "The Black Widow" by media outlets. A special two-hour edition of ABC's 20/20 aired on April 24, 2009, and again on February 8, 2019, to provide the full story of the Castor case.
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.
Larissa Schuster is an American convicted murderer who was sentenced to life in prison without parole in 2008 for committing the July 2003 murder of her estranged husband Timothy Schuster by submerging his body in hydrochloric acid. Due to the unusual manner in which she committed the murder, Larissa's case made national headlines. She has been dubbed "the Acid Lady" by various media outlets.
Kerry Lyn Dalton was convicted of first-degree murder in May 1995 and was sentenced to death by lethal injection the same year. Since her sentencing, she has been incarcerated at the Central California Women's Facility in Chowchilla, California, awaiting her execution and appealing her death sentence. On May 16, 2019, the Supreme Court of California published their opinion on Dalton's automatic appeal. The Justices found the charge of lying-in-wait and the charge of conspiracy were invalid; therefore, they recommended that her sentence be 25 years to life. The California Supreme Court did not invalidate the third death-qualified charge against Dalton; therefore, she continues to be condemned. Although the Supreme Court issues opinions and can order a case to be re-tried, they do not enforce their opinions.
On May 24, 2013, Gabriel Fernandez, an eight-year-old boy from Palmdale, California, who had been abused and tortured over a period of months, was murdered by his mother, Pearl Sinthia Fernandez, and her boyfriend, Isauro Aguirre, from whom he had received a beating two days earlier. Pearl Fernandez and Isauro Aguirre were charged and convicted of first-degree murder with special circumstances of torture. Fernandez was sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole and Aguirre was sentenced to death.
