James Byrd Jr. was an African American man who was murdered by three white men, two of whom were avowed white supremacists, in Jasper, Texas, on June 7, 1998. Shawn Berry, Lawrence Brewer, and John King dragged him for three miles behind a Ford pickup truck along an asphalt road. Byrd, who remained conscious for much of his ordeal, was killed about halfway through the dragging when his body hit the edge of a culvert, severing his right arm and head. The murderers drove on for another 1+1⁄2 miles before dumping his torso in front of a Black church.
Maynard Holbrook Jackson Jr. was an American attorney and politician who served as the 54th mayor of Atlanta, Georgia from 1974 to 1982, and again as the city's 56th mayor from 1990 to 1994. A member of the Democratic Party, he was the first Black mayor of Atlanta and of any major city in the South; his three terms made him the second longest-serving mayor in the city's history, after six-term mayor William B. Hartsfield.
The Atlanta murders of 1979–1981, sometimes called the Atlanta child murders, was a series of murders committed in Atlanta, Georgia, between July 1979 and May 1981. Over the two-year period, at least 28 children, adolescents, and adults were killed. Wayne Williams, an Atlanta native who was 23 years old at the time of the last murder, was arrested, tried, and convicted of two of the adult murders and sentenced to two consecutive life terms.
Carol Ann Stuart was murdered on October 23, 1989, by her husband, Charles Michael "Chuck" Stuart Jr.. Both persons were white. Charles Stuart claimed that a black man had carjacked their car in Boston and shot both his pregnant wife and himself.
Robert Lee Yates Jr., also known as the Grocery Bag Killer, is an American serial killer from Spokane, Washington. From 1975 to 1998, he is known to have murdered at least 11 women in Spokane. He also confessed to two murders committed in Walla Walla in 1975 and a 1988 murder committed in Skagit County.
Marcus Fiesel was an American 3-year-old child who was murdered in Clermont County, Ohio, in August 2006. Fiesel had recently been removed from his mother's care by child protective services, and placed into foster care with David and Liz Carroll in Union Township, where he died from hyperthermia after being restrained and neglected in a closet for a two-day period. On February 21, 2007, Liz Carroll was convicted of murdering him. On February 26, 2007, it was announced attorneys for David Carroll had reached a plea agreement.
This is a list of notable overturned convictions in the United States.
Riley Ann Sawyers was a two-year-old American girl who was beaten to death by her mother Kimberly Dawn Trenor and her mother's partner Royce Zeigler in a filicide. Her body was later found in Galveston Bay, Texas.
The Easter Sunday Massacre occurred on Easter Sunday, March 30, 1975, when 41 year-old James U. Ruppert fatally shot eleven members of his own family in his mother's house at 635 Minor Avenue in Hamilton, Ohio.
Robert Black was a Scottish serial killer and paedophile who was convicted of the kidnap, rape and murder of four girls aged between 5 and 11 in a series of crimes committed between 1981 and 1986 in the United Kingdom.
The murders of Karlie Pearce-Stevenson and Khandalyce Pearce were initially treated as unrelated. The skeletal remains of Pearce-Stevenson were found in Belanglo State Forest, New South Wales, Australia in 2010. Her daughter Khandalyce Pearce's remains were found near Wynarka, South Australia in July 2015. The two cases were not linked until positive identification was confirmed by DNA testing in October 2015. The mother and daughter were last seen by family in 2008 in Alice Springs, Northern Territory and reported missing in 2009; however, the report was withdrawn. It was discovered Pearce-Stevenson's mobile phone was used for years following her death to send false "proof of life" messages to family and friends. The mother and child's identities were exploited by third parties to commit social security and other types of identity fraud.
Shawn Michael Grate is an American serial killer and rapist who was sentenced to death for the murders of five young women in and around northern Ohio from 2006 to 2016. Grate was convicted on two counts of aggravated murder on May 7, 2018, in Ashland County, pleaded guilty to two additional murders on March 1, 2019, in Richland County, and pleaded guilty to an additional murder on September 11, 2019, in Marion County.
Joaquin Shadow Rams Sr. is an American murderer and suspected serial killer. Convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment for the drowning death of his 15-month-old son Prince in October 2012, he is additionally suspected in the deaths of his ex-girlfriend and mother, as in all of these cases, he had taken out insurance policies with large sums on the victims.
Joseph "Joey" Daniel Miller is an American serial killer who raped and murdered at least five girls and women in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania from 1986 and 1990. In 1993, he was convicted and sentenced to death, but it was later commuted to life imprisonment without a chance of parole.
Ee Lee was an American woman who was raped and murdered by two black teenagers in a racially-motivated daylight attack in Milwaukee. The two perpetrators, Kamare Lewis and Kevin Spencer, pleaded guilty to first-degree reckless homicide and second-degree sexual assault in 2023. Later that year, Lewis was sentenced to 26 years in prison, while Spencer was sentenced to 32 years in prison.
Emma Grace Cole was an American murder and torture victim from Bloomington, Indiana, whose burnt skeletal remains were discovered near a softball complex in Smyrna, Delaware, on September 13, 2019. She remained unidentified for over a year and was known as "Baby Elle", "Jane Smyrna Doe 2019", and "Smyrna Doe" until her identification in October 2020. The murder has gained significant attention and media coverage due to the brutality of Emma's death and her former status as an unidentified murder victim. She was murdered by her mother, Kristie Lynn Haas, who pleaded guilty to murder in 2023.
Amore Joveah Wiggins, formerly known as Opelika Jane Doe was a formerly unidentified murder victim whose skeletal remains were found in a trailer park in Opelika, Alabama. Her identity was not known until nearly 11 years later in January 2023. Wiggins's father, Lamar Vickerstaff, was subsequently charged with felony murder and failure to report a missing child, while her step-mother, Ruth Vickerstaff, was charged with the latter. If convicted, Lamar would face up to life imprisonment without the possibility parole or the death penalty, and Ruth would face up to 10 years in prison.
Carl Millard Patton, Jr. is an American serial killer who committed five murders across Georgia from 1973 to 1977 with multiple accomplices. He was linked to them with the help of DNA in 2003, subsequently pleaded guilty and was sentenced to life imprisonment.
Known as the Chin Swee Road child death case, the charred skeletal remains of a 30-month-old girl, whose given name was Umaisyah, were first discovered hidden and sealed inside one of the metal cooking pots from a flat in Chin Swee Road on 10 September 2019. After they uncovered the identity of Umaisyah's remains, the police found that her parents, who used to reside in the flat, were likely responsible for killing the girl five years before in March 2014. The cause of Umaisyah's death was due to her father slapping her on the face twice or thrice with great force, which resulted in a traumatic brain injury that led to a brain seizure, causing Umaisyah to die and her parents, who did not seek medical help for her, burnt the body to avoid detection of their daughter's murder and abuse and the father's drug use.
Kenyatta "KeKe" Odom, formerly known as Christmas Doe and Ware County Jane Doe, was a formerly unidentified murder victim whose decomposed remains were found in Millwood, Georgia on December 21, 1988. Her body was discovered inside a suitcase filled with cement that was placed inside of a television console and discarded on the side of a road. She was unidentified for 34 years until she was identified in November 2023.
