Vehicular homicide is a crime that involves the death of a person other than the driver as a result of either criminally negligent or murderous operation of a motor vehicle.
Malice Green was an American resident of Detroit, Michigan who died after being assaulted by Detroit police officers Walter Budzyn and Larry Nevers on November 5, 1992. The official cause of death was ruled to be due to blunt force trauma to his head.
Capital murder was a statutory offence of aggravated murder in Great Britain, Northern Ireland, and the Republic of Ireland, which was later adopted as a legal provision to define certain forms of aggravated murder in the United States. In some parts of the US, this term still defines the category of murder for which the perpetrator is eligible for the death penalty. Some jurisdictions that provide for death as a possible punishment for murder, such as California, do not have a specific statute creating or defining a crime known as capital murder; instead, death is one of the possible sentences for certain kinds of murder. In these cases, "capital murder" is not a phrase used in the legal system but may still be used by others such as the media.
Murder is an offence under the common law of England and Wales. It is considered the most serious form of homicide, in which one person kills another with the intention to cause either death or serious injury unlawfully. The element of intentionality was originally termed malice aforethought, although it required neither malice nor premeditation. Baker, chapter 14 states that many killings done with a high degree of subjective recklessness were treated as murder from the 12th century right through until the 1974 decision in DPP v Hyam.
In the English law of homicide, manslaughter is a less serious offence than murder, the differential being between levels of fault based on the mens rea or by reason of a partial defence. In England and Wales, a common practice is to prefer a charge of murder, with the judge or defence able to introduce manslaughter as an option. The jury then decides whether the defendant is guilty or not guilty of either murder or manslaughter. On conviction for manslaughter, sentencing is at the judge's discretion, whereas a sentence of life imprisonment is mandatory on conviction for murder. Manslaughter may be either voluntary or involuntary, depending on whether the accused has the required mens rea for murder.
Joanna Lee was a South Korean woman who died in December 2000 in Auckland, New Zealand, during a prolonged and violent exorcism carried out by Luke Lee, pastor of "Lord of All", a small Christian sect. In 2001, Pastor Lee was convicted of her manslaughter. In 2006, his conviction was overturned by New Zealand's Court of Appeal and a retrial ordered but, by that time, he had already been deported to South Korea.
Jane Longhurst was a British special-needs teacher and musician who was murdered by Graham Coutts on 14 March 2003. Longhurst's partly decomposed body was found burning in woodland in West Sussex on 19 April. Coutts, who was dating Longhurst's best friend, was a guitarist and part-time salesperson living in Brighton.
On 14 October 2004, Pádraig Nally, an Irish farmer living in County Mayo, Republic of Ireland shot dead Irish Traveller John "Frog" Ward, who had been trespassing on his property. In November 2005 Nally was sentenced to six years' imprisonment for manslaughter. His conviction was quashed in October 2006 and, after a retrial in December 2006, he was found not guilty of manslaughter.
Colm Murphy was an Irish republican who was the first person to be convicted in connection with the Omagh bombing, but whose conviction was overturned on appeal. While awaiting a retrial on criminal charges, Murphy was found liable for the bombing in a civil trial, along with Michael McKevitt, Liam Campbell and Seamus Daly. He was subsequently cleared of criminal charges in February 2010.
Linda and Charlotte Mulhall are sisters from Dublin, Ireland, who killed and dismembered their mother's boyfriend, Farah Swaleh Noor, in March 2005. Noor was killed with a Stanley knife wielded by Charlotte and struck with a hammer by Linda following a confrontation with the sisters and their mother, Kathleen Mulhall. His head and penis were sliced off and the rest of his corpse dismembered and dumped in the Royal Canal in Dublin where a piece of leg, still wearing a sock, was spotted floating near Croke Park 10 days later.
Sara Thornton is a British woman who was sentenced to life imprisonment after being convicted of the 1989 murder of her violent and alcoholic husband, Malcolm Thornton. Thornton never denied the killing, but claimed it had been an accident during an argument. The prosecution at her trial argued that she had carried out the act for financial gain, and she was found guilty of murder.
Karen Price was a 15-year-old Welsh murder victim who disappeared in 1981. After the discovery of her body in 1989, British facial reconstruction artist Richard Neave used her skull to create a model of her physical appearance. The reconstruction and the matching of DNA in the body to that of Price's parents allowed her body to be identified. The case was cited as one of the first instances in which DNA technology was used in this way.
Bad Day in Blackrock is a 2008 novel by Kevin Power. The plot was loosely based on the real-life death of Brian Murphy that occurred in Dublin in 2000 as a result of a violent assault outside a nightclub.
The 2011 Helmand Province killing was the manslaughter of a wounded Taliban insurgent by Alexander Blackman, which occurred on 15 September 2011. Three Royal Marines, known during their trial as Marines A, B, and C, were anonymously tried by court martial. On 8 November 2013, Marines B and C were acquitted, but Blackman was initially found guilty of murder of the Afghan insurgent, in contravention of section 42 of the Armed Forces Act 2006. This made him the first British soldier to be convicted of a battlefield murder whilst serving abroad since the Second World War.
Elaine O'Hara was an Irish childcare worker who was murdered in August 2012 by architect Graham Dwyer. She was last seen alive at a public park in Shanganagh, Dublin, Ireland, on 22 August. The remains of her body were discovered on Killakee Mountain, south of Dublin, in September 2013. The investigation of her disappearance and later of her death was widely reported.
Freddie Thompson is an Irish criminal connected to the Crumlin-Drimnagh feud who was also convicted of the murder of David Douglas.
On 23 October 2019, the bodies of 39 Vietnamese people — 31 men and 8 women — were found in the trailer of an articulated refrigerator lorry in Grays, Essex, United Kingdom. The trailer had been shipped from the port of Zeebrugge, Belgium, to Purfleet, Essex, UK, and the lorry cab and its driver are believed to have originated from Northern Ireland. Investigations are being led by Essex Police, and involve the national authorities of the UK, Belgium, Ireland and Vietnam.
The killing of Greg Gunn occurred on the morning of February 25, 2016, in Montgomery, Alabama. Gunn, a 58-year-old African-American man, was shot and killed near his home after fleeing from a stop-and-frisk initiated by Aaron Cody Smith, a white police officer. Smith was charged with murder and indicted by a grand jury in 2016. The case came to trial in late 2019 following a change of venue to Ozark, Alabama. Smith was found guilty of manslaughter, and, in January 2020, was sentenced to 14 years in prison.
Siblings, Lisa Cash, Christy Cawley and Chelsea Cawley, aged 18 and 8 respectively, from Tallaght, South County Dublin were killed in their home, in the early hours of 4 September 2022. Their 14-year-old brother raised the alarm by jumping out of the window. A 24-year-old man, Andy Cash, was arrested at the scene, and was charged with the murders the following day.
