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 at its peak consisted of approximately 100 followers, who lived an unconventional lifestyle, frequently using psychoactive drugs, including amphetamine and hallucinogens such as LSD. Most were young women from middle-class backgrounds, many of whom were attracted by hippie counterculture and communal living, and then radicalized by Manson's teachings. The group murdered at least 9 people, though they may have killed as many as 24.
A thrill killing 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.
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.
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.
Richard Edwin Fox was an American murderer who was executed by the state of Ohio for the kidnapping and murder of an 18-year-old college student whom he lured to her death with the fake promise of a job interview. He was also suspected of killing his wife in Oregon in 1983.
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.
The Norfolk Four are four former United States Navy sailors: Joseph J. Dick Jr., Derek Tice, Danial Williams, and Eric C. Wilson, who were wrongfully convicted of the 1997 rape and murder of Michelle Moore-Bosko while they were stationed at Naval Station Norfolk. They each declared that they had made false confessions, and their convictions are considered highly controversial. A fifth man, Omar Ballard, confessed and pleaded guilty to the crime in 2000, insisting that he had acted alone. He had been in prison since 1998 because of violent attacks on two other women in 1997. He was the only one of the suspects whose DNA matched that collected at the crime scene, and whose confession was consistent with other forensic evidence.
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 is currently incarcerated at Eastern Oregon Correctional Institution.
The murder of Cassie Jo Stoddart was a thrill killing that occurred in Pocatello, Idaho, on September 22, 2006. Stoddart, a 16-year-old high school student, was stabbed and murdered by her classmates Brian Draper and Torey Adamcik both 16, in her aunt and uncle's house. Stoddart's body was discovered two days later, when her relatives returned home from their trip.
The Speed Freak Killers is the name given to serial killer duo Loren Herzog and Wesley Shermantine, together initially convicted of four murders — three jointly — and suspected in the deaths of as many as 72 people in and around San Joaquin County, California, based on a letter Shermantine wrote to a reporter in 2012. They received the "speed freak" moniker due to their habitual methamphetamine abuse. Herzog committed suicide in 2012. Shermantine remains on death row in San Quentin State Prison, in San Quentin, California.
The Tate–LaBianca murders were a series of murders perpetrated by members of the Manson Family during August 9–10, 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.
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.
Gary Gene Grant is an American serial killer who raped and murdered four young people in Renton, Washington, between 1969 and 1971. At the time of the killings, he was only 18 years old, with three of his victims being children under the age of 17. On August 25, 1971, Grant was convicted of murder and sentenced to life imprisonment. He denied his guilt in the crimes, claiming that he is insane.
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 a hatchet. He stabbed their 8-year-old son Ronnie O'Neal IV, who survived and told detectives "My father shot my mother" before being medevaced to a Tampa hospital.
James Jerold Koedatich is an American serial killer who kidnapped and murdered two young women within a two-weeks span in Morris County, New Jersey, in late 1982. Following his arrest, he was tried, convicted, and sentenced to death, but was resentenced to life in prison in 1990. Prior to the murders, Koedatich murdered his roommate in Florida, for which he served eleven years in prison, and while in prison he killed his cellmate, but that was ruled to be self-defense.
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.
