Benjamin "Ben" Urich is a fictional character appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. The character usually appears in comic books featuring Daredevil and Spider-Man.
The Bufalino crime family, also known as the Pittston crime family, the Scranton Wilkes-Barre crime family, the Northeastern Pennsylvania crime family, the Northeastern Pennsylvania Mafia, or the Scranton Mafia, was an Italian-American Mafia crime family active in Northeastern Pennsylvania, primarily in the cities of Scranton, Wilkes-Barre, and Pittston.
Lisa Pulitzer is an American author and journalist. Pulitzer is a former correspondent for The New York Times newspaper. She is the author/ghostwriter of more than fifteen non-fiction books. In addition to her own books, Pulitzer has written a number of memoirs including several about young women who have escaped fundamentalist religion including Jenna Miscavige Hill, the former Scientologist, Lauren Drain, the ex-member of Westboro Baptist Church, and Elissa Wall, who wrote about her experiences after leaving the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Pulitzer left journalism in 1998 while pregnant with her first child to concentrate on writing books and has had numerous publications on The New York Times Best Seller list.
Robert Alan Durst was an American real estate heir and convicted murderer. The conviction is now vacated due to California law. The eldest son of New York City real estate magnate Seymour Durst, he garnered attention as a suspect in the unsolved 1982 disappearance of his first wife, Kathleen McCormack; the 2000 murder of his longtime friend, Susan Berman; and the 2001 killing of neighbor Morris Black. Acquitted of murdering Black in 2003, Durst did not face further legal action until his participation in the 2015 documentary miniseries The Jinx led to him being charged with Berman's murder. Durst was convicted in 2021 and sentenced to life imprisonment without parole. He was also charged with McCormack's murder shortly after his sentencing, but died in 2022 before a trial could begin.
Francis Joseph Sheeran, also known as "The Irishman", was an American labor union official and enforcer for Jimmy Hoffa and Russell Bufalino. He was accused of having links to the Bufalino crime family in his capacity as a high-ranking official in the International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT), the president of Local 326.
Susan Jane Berman was an American journalist and author. The daughter of mobster David Berman, she wrote about her late-in-life realization of her father's role in organized crime.
Russell Alfred Bufalino was an Italian-American mobster who became the crime boss of the Northeastern Pennsylvania Italian-American Mafia crime family known as the Bufalino crime family, which he ruled from 1949 to 1994. He was a cousin of attorney William Bufalino, the longtime counsel for Jimmy Hoffa.
William "Big Billy" D'Elia is an American former mobster who was the head of the Bufalino crime family and protégé of family namesake Russell Bufalino. Because of his close relationship with Bufalino and his hitman Frank Sheeran, law enforcement had long believed that D'Elia knew many details of Bufalino's long history within organized crime, including his alleged role in the 1975 disappearance of former Teamsters leader Jimmy Hoffa.
Franklin Delano Floyd was an American murderer, rapist, and death row inmate. He was convicted of the 1989 murder of Cheryl Ann Commesso, as well as the kidnapping of 6-year-old Michael Anthony Hughes, who he claimed was his son, from his elementary school in Choctaw, Oklahoma. Floyd was also considered a person of interest in the 1990 hit-and-run death of his second wife and kidnapping victim Sharon Marshall, mother of Michael Anthony Hughes. It was later discovered that before becoming his wife, Sharon had been raised by Floyd from an early age as his daughter and was kidnapped by Floyd as a child.
Cathleen Scott is a Los Angeles Times and New York Times bestselling American true crime author and investigative journalist who penned the biographies and true crime books The Killing of Tupac Shakur and The Murder of Biggie Smalls, both bestsellers in the United States and United Kingdom, and was the first to report Shakur's death. She grew up in La Mesa, California, and later moved to Mission Beach, California, where she was a single parent to a son, Raymond Somers Jr. Her hip-hop books are based on the drive-by shootings that killed the rappers six months apart in the midst of what has been called the West Coast-East Coast war. Each book is dedicated to the rappers' mothers.
Bobbi Bacha is a Texas private investigator portrayed in 2004 TV Sony Pictures Movie Suburban Madness played by actress Sela Ward. Bobbi Bacha also was involved and worked on the case of New York millionaire Robert Durst who was charged with murder in Galveston, Texas for killing his neighbor Morris Black but was found not guilty by a Galveston County Jury.
John Sciandra was an Italian-American crime boss of the Bufalino crime family of Pennsylvania from 1933 until 1949.
A Deadly Secret: The Strange Disappearance of Kathie Durst is the true story of Robert Durst, the heir to a New York real estate dynasty who has been a person of interest in the missing-person case of his wife Kathie since her 1982 disappearance. The book was written by journalist and author Matt Birkbeck, and was published by Berkley/Penguin. A Deadly Secret was released in hardcover in 2002 and in paperback in 2003.
A Beautiful Child (ISBN 978-0425204405) is the best selling non-fiction book by author Matt Birkbeck, published by Berkley/Penguin in 2004 and in paperback in 2005. It tells the story of a young woman known by many names, including Sharon Marshall, who was kidnapped as a toddler and raised by a convicted felon, Franklin Delano Floyd. The book was also published in several foreign countries, including Denmark, Germany and Poland. A Beautiful Child spurred numerous websites dedicated to finding Sharon's true identity. Through suggestions from those sites along with reader suggestions from around the world, Birkbeck, in partnership with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, conducted DNA testing on relatives of several girls who went missing in the early 1970s. World-wide interest in the book kept the Sharon Marshall story alive and led to the discovery by Birkbeck of her biological daughter, who had been placed for adoption in 1989. Sharon's DNA was believed to have been degraded, but testing comparisons to her daughter provided a positive match and her DNA was placed into CODIS, the FBI's database.
Louis DeNaples is an American businessman, banker, and casino owner from Scranton, Pennsylvania. He was the owner of Keystone Landfill Inc., DeNaples Auto Parts Inc. and chairman of the board of the First National Community Bancorp. In January 2008, DeNaples was charged with four counts of perjury related to his ties with the Bufalino crime family in his application for a Pennsylvania state gambling license. The charges were dropped in April 2009 after DeNaples agreed to turn over legal control of Mount Airy Casino resort to his family.
Murder of a Mafia Daughter: The Life and Tragic Death of Susan Berman is a nonfiction book by author and journalist Cathy Scott about the 2000 murder of Susan Berman. Murder of a Mafia Daughter was first released in hardcover in 2002 by Barricade Books. A 2nd edition in trade-size paperback was released in June 2015 following the March 2015 arrest of suspect Robert Durst in Berman's murder. After the trial and conviction of the Durst for Berman's murder, and then Durst's death, a 20th Anniversary updated edition of the book was released.
The Irishman is a 2019 American epic gangster film directed and produced by Martin Scorsese from a screenplay by Steven Zaillian, based on the 2004 book I Heard You Paint Houses by Charles Brandt. It stars Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, and Joe Pesci, with Ray Romano, Bobby Cannavale, Anna Paquin, Stephen Graham, Stephanie Kurtzuba, Jesse Plemons, and Harvey Keitel in supporting roles. The film follows Frank Sheeran, a truck driver who becomes a hitman involved with mobster Russell Bufalino (Pesci) and his crime family before later working for the powerful Teamster Jimmy Hoffa (Pacino). The film marked the ninth collaboration between Scorsese and De Niro, in addition to Scorsese's fifth collaboration with Harvey Keitel, his fourth collaboration with Joe Pesci; his first with Al Pacino; the fourth collaboration between Pacino and De Niro; and the first collaboration between Pacino and Pesci altogether.
The Jinx is an American true crime documentary television series about New York real estate heir Robert Durst, a convicted murderer. The first season, subtitled The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst, debuted on HBO on February 8, 2015, and it consists of six episodes.
Steven Joseph La Torre was an Italian-American crime boss of the Bufalino crime family. He founded what would become the Bufalino crime family, which he ran from 1903 to 1908.
In October 2001, the dismembered remains of 71-year-old Morris Black were discovered floating in Galveston Bay. Black's neighbor, real estate heir Robert Durst, was charged with his murder. Durst testified he shot Black in self-defense and was acquitted due to a lack of forensic evidence to contest his account. Following the acquittal, Durst pled guilty to evidence tampering by dismembering Black's body.
