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.
Following the historic Lindbergh kidnapping, the United States Congress passed a federal kidnapping statute—known as the Federal Kidnapping Act, 18 U.S.C. § 1201(a)(1) —which was intended to let federal authorities step in and pursue kidnappers once they had crossed state lines with their victim. The act was first proposed in December 1931 by Missouri Senator Roscoe Conkling Patterson, who pointed to several recent kidnappings in the Missouri area in calling for a federal solution. Initial resistance to Patterson's proposal was based on concerns over funding and state's rights. Consideration of the law was revived following the kidnapping of Howard Woolverton in late January 1932. Woolverton's kidnapping featured prominently in several newspaper series researched and prepared in the weeks following his abduction, and were quite possibly inspired by it. Two such projects, by Bruce Catton of the Newspaper Enterprise Association and Fred Pasley of the Daily News of New York City, were ready for publication within a day or two of the Lindbergh kidnapping. Both series, which ran in papers across North America, described kidnapping as an existential threat to American life, a singular, growing crime wave in which no one was safe.
Mark Goudeau is an American serial killer, kidnapper, thief and rapist. Goudeau terrorized victims in the Phoenix metro area between August 2005 and June 2006; coincidentally, Goudeau was active at the same time as two other Phoenix serial killers, jointly known as the "Serial Shooter.”
Joseph Edward Duncan III was an American convicted serial killer and child molester who was on death row in federal prison following the 2005 kidnappings and murders of members of the Groene family of Coeur d'Alene, Idaho. He was also serving 11 consecutive sentences of life without parole for the 1997 murder of Anthony Martinez of Beaumont, California. Additionally, Duncan confessed to — but had not been charged with — the 1996 murder of two girls, Sammiejo White and Carmen Cubias, in Seattle, Washington. At the time of the attack on the Groene family, Duncan was on the run from a child molestation charge in Minnesota.
This is a list of notable overturned convictions in the United States.
The Ripper Crew or the Chicago Rippers was an organized crime group of serial killers, cannibals, rapists, and necrophiles. The group composed of Robin Gecht and three associates: Edward Spreitzer, and brothers Andrew and Thomas Kokoraleis. They were suspected in the murders of 17 women in Illinois in 1981 and 1982, as well as the unrelated fatal shooting of a man in a random drive-by shooting. According to one of the detectives who investigated the case, Gecht "made Manson look like a Boy Scout."
Kelsey Ann Smith was an Overland Park, Kansas, teenager who disappeared on June 2, 2007, and was murdered that evening. The story was featured in the international media, including on America's Most Wanted, before her body was found near a lake in Missouri on June 6, 2007.
The Jeanine Nicarico murder case was a complex and influential homicide investigation and prosecution in which two men, Rolando Cruz and Alejandro Hernandez, both Latinos, were wrongfully convicted of abduction, rape and murder in 1985 in DuPage County, Illinois. They were both sentenced to death. The case was scrutinized during appeals for being weak in evidence.
Brian James Dugan is a convicted rapist and serial killer active between 1983 and 1985 in Chicago's western suburbs. He was known for having informally confessed in 1985 to the February 1983 abduction, rape and murder of 10-year-old Jeanine Nicarico of Naperville, Illinois, which was a highly publicized case. He was already in custody for two other rapes and murders, one of a woman in July 1984 and the other an 8-year-old girl in May 1985. He was sentenced to life after pleading guilty to the latter two crimes.
Theodore "Ted" Roosevelt Patrick, Jr. is an American deprogrammer and author. He is sometimes referred to as the "father of deprogramming."
The Union Correctional Institution, formerly referred to as Florida State Prison, Raiford Prison and State Prison Farm is a Florida Department of Corrections state prison located in unincorporated Union County, Florida, near Raiford.
Donald Leroy Evans was an American serial killer who murdered at least three people from 1985 to 1991. He was known for confessing to killing victims at parks and rest areas across more than twenty U.S. states.
Denise Amber Lee was a 21 year old woman who was murdered by Michael King in the U.S. state of Florida on January 17, 2008 after he had kidnapped and raped her earlier in the day.
CeCe Moore is an American genetic genealogist who has been described as the country's foremost such entrepreneur. She has appeared on many TV shows and worked as a genetic genealogy researcher for others such as Finding Your Roots. She has reportedly helped law enforcement agencies in identifying suspects in over 300 cold cases using DNA and genetic genealogy. In May 2020, she began appearing in a prime time ABC television series called The Genetic Detective in which each episode recounts a cold case she helped solve. In addition to her television work, she is known for pioneering the genetic genealogy methodologies used by adoptees and others of unknown origin for identifying biological family.
Nicholas James Yarris is an American writer and storyteller who spent 22 years on death row in Pennsylvania after being wrongfully convicted of murder.
Jessica Lynn Heeringa was a 25-year-old woman who disappeared from the Exxon gas station where she was working the late shift in Norton Shores, Michigan, United States, on April 26, 2013.
The kidnapping and murder of Yingying Zhang occurred in Urbana, Illinois, on June 9, 2017, when Zhang, a visiting Chinese scholar at the University of Illinois Urbana–Champaign, was abducted by Brendt Allen Christensen, a Champaign resident and former physics graduate student at the university. Christensen lured Zhang into his car at a bus stop on campus posing as a police officer with the promise of a ride after she missed a bus, but then took her to his apartment where he raped and murdered her while his wife was out of town for the weekend.
Cherish Lily Perrywinkle was an 8-year-old girl from Jacksonville, Florida who was abducted from a Walmart on June 21, 2013. She was seen on CCTV cameras leaving the store with a man named Donald James Smith who was later convicted of her murder and sentenced to death.
Joseph Donald Ture, Jr. is an American serial killer, mass murderer, rapist, burglar, and kidnapper who murdered at least three women and three children in Minnesota from 1978 to 1980. Originally convicted of a single murder in 1981, his more complete exposure occurred in the late 1990s based upon multiple reinvestigations, which also pinpointed him in numerous unsolved rapes. He is currently serving six life sentences at Minnesota Correctional Facility – Stillwater in Bayport, Minnesota.
