James Franklin McIngvale, also known as "Mattress Mack", is an American businessman. He is known for owning and operating the Gallery Furniture retail chain, based in Houston, Texas.
FamilyTreeDNA is a division of Gene by Gene, a commercial genetic testing company based in Houston, Texas. FamilyTreeDNA offers analysis of autosomal DNA, Y-DNA, and mitochondrial DNA to individuals for genealogical purpose. With a database of more than two million records, it is the most popular company worldwide for Y-DNA and mitochondrial DNA, and the fourth most popular for autosomal DNA. In Europe, it is the most common also for autosomal DNA. FamilyTreeDNA as a division of Gene by Gene were acquired by MYDNA, Inc., an Australian company, in January 2021.
Ivory Brandon Harris, known as B-Stupid, is an American gangster from New Orleans, Louisiana, who gained notoriety when police accused him of committing murders in Houston and New Orleans. Following a 2006 arrest and 2007 plea deal, he is incarcerated in the federal prison system as of 2024.
Mara Salvatrucha, commonly known as MS-13, is an international criminal gang that originated in Los Angeles, California, in the 1980s. Originally, the gang was set up to protect Salvadoran immigrants from other gangs in the Los Angeles area. Over time, the gang grew into a more traditional criminal organization. MS-13 has a longtime rivalry with the 18th Street gang.
The United States Penitentiary, Beaumont is a high security United States federal prison for male inmates in unincorporated Jefferson County, Texas. It is part of the Federal Correctional Complex, Beaumont and is operated by the Federal Bureau of Prisons, a division of the United States Department of Justice.
The history of violence against LGBTQ people in the United States is made up of assaults on gay men, lesbians, bisexuals, and transgender individuals, legal responses to such violence, and hate crime statistics in the United States of America. The people who are the targets of such violence are believed to violate heteronormative standards and they are also believed to contravene perceived protocols of gender and sexual roles. People who are perceived to be LGBTQ may also be targeted for violence. Violence can also occur between couples who are of the same sex, with statistics showing that violence among female same-sex couples is more common than it is among couples of the opposite sex, but male same-sex violence is less common.
The Texas Killing Fields is a title used to roughly denote the area surrounding the Interstate Highway 45 corridor southeast of Houston, where since the early 1970s, more than 30 bodies have been found, and specifically to a 25-acre patch of land in League City, Texas where four women were found between 1983 and 1991. The bodies along the corridor were mainly of girls or young women. Furthermore, many additional young girls have disappeared from this area who are still missing. Most of the victims were aged between 12 and 25 years. Some shared similar physical features, such as similar hairstyles.
On July 9, 2014, a mass shooting occurred in a home located in northern Harris County, Texas, near the Spring census-designated place, a suburban area of the Greater Houston area, leaving six family members dead, four children, and a lone survivor. Ronald Lee Haskell, 34, was apprehended after a standoff that lasted several hours. Haskell was related to the victims via his ex-wife.
The murder of Darren Goforth refers to the shooting death of a ten-year deputy sheriff of the Harris County Sheriff's Office on August 28, 2015. Goforth, who was in uniform at the time, was killed by Shannon Miles, a repeat offender with a history of mental illness, who shot Goforth repeatedly in the back of the head with a .40 caliber handgun while Goforth was fueling his car. Miles' mother provided an alibi, but the police found the murder weapon in his garage, and he pleaded guilty to avoid the death penalty; he was sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole in September 2017.
In 2002, a crime spree involving the murders of two women and one teenage girl occurred in the East End area of Houston, Texas. The three perpetrators were two adult men and one teenage boy: Edgardo Rafael Cubas Matamoros, a Honduran citizen; Walter Alexander Sorto, a Salvadoran citizen; and Eduardo Navarro, a 15-year-old boy at the time of the crimes.
On June 18, 2017, Nabra Hassanen, a 17-year-old American girl from Reston, Virginia, was raped and murdered. The killer was Darwin Martinez Torres, an illegal immigrant from El Salvador who was 22 at the time. He was indicted for Hassanen's rape and murder and subsequently pleaded guilty to four counts of capital murder, three counts of rape, and one count of abduction. In March 2019, he was sentenced to eight consecutive life sentences without the possibility of parole for the crimes. Police identified the murder as an apparent act of road rage, and not a hate crime.
Ali Mahmood Awad Irsan is a Jordanian-American convicted murderer held on Texas death row. He was sentenced for the murders of Iranian-American activist Gelareh Bagherzadeh, a friend of one of his daughters; and his son-in-law, Coty Beavers, in Greater Houston.
This section of the timeline of United States history includes major events from 2010 to the present.
Billy Kipkorir Chemirmir was a Kenyan murderer and suspected serial killer accused of the murders of at least 18 elderly women in Dallas, Texas, United States, and its surrounding suburbs. Chemirmir was indicted for 22 murders and convicted of two. Civil suits were also filed accusing him of two other similar murders. In September 2023, Chemirmir was killed in prison.
The murder of Vanessa Guillén, a 20-year-old United States Army soldier, took place inside an armory at Fort Hood, Texas, on April 22, 2020, when she was bludgeoned to death by another soldier, Aaron David Robinson. Guillén had been missing for more than two months before some of her dismembered, burned remains were found buried along the Leon River on June 30. Robinson fled Fort Hood after learning of the discovery. When law enforcement tried to apprehend him in nearby Killeen, Texas, he fatally shot himself.
Patricia Jocelyn Alatorre was a teenager from Bakersfield, California, who was raped and murdered after disappearing on July 1, 2020. Alatorre and her killer met through social media and shared explicit photos of themselves, with the suspect convincing Alatorre to meet up on two occasions. On the second meeting, Alatorre was raped and strangled to death, with the killer having sex with the body before burning it. Armando Cruz was arrested after police found a white pick up truck similar to the one used during the kidnapping. Alatorre's rape and death has been described by the Bakersfield Police Department as one of the worst missing children cases they have ever had.
Kimbra Kathryn Ogg is an American attorney and former prosecutor. From January 1, 2017 to December 31, 2024, she was the District Attorney of Harris County, Texas. As District Attorney, she was the top law enforcement official responsible for overseeing all prosecutions in Harris County. Before being elected District Attorney, she was a Chief Prosecutor under former District Attorney John B. Holmes Jr., the City of Houston’s first appointed Anti-Gang Task Force Director, and the executive director of Crime Stoppers of Houston. She is a member of the Democratic Party.
Steven Alexander Hobbs is an American murderer, rapist and suspected serial killer who is known to have sexually assaulted multiple prostitutes around Harris County, Texas from 2002 to 2011, at least two of which were murdered. After a decade-long delay in his trial, he pleaded guilty to his confirmed crimes and was sentenced to life imprisonment, but remains the prime suspect in at least one additional murder.
On February 15, 2024, 11-year-old Audrii Danielle Cunningham disappeared while traveling to her school bus stop in Livingston, Texas, United States. Her case gained national and significant media attention.
On February 22, 2024, Laken Riley, a 22-year-old Augusta University nursing student, was murdered while she was jogging at the University of Georgia (UGA) in Athens, Georgia. Her body was found in Oconee Forest Park near Lake Herrick; her death was caused by blunt force trauma and asphyxiation.
