Contract killing is a form of murder in which one party hires another party to kill a targeted person or multiple people. It involves an illegal agreement between two or more parties in which one party agrees to kill the target in exchange for some form of payment, monetary or otherwise. Either party may be a person, group, or organization. Contract killing has been associated with organized crime, government conspiracies, and vendettas. For example, in the United States, the gang Murder, Inc. committed hundreds of murders on behalf of the National Crime Syndicate during the 1930s and 1940s.
Bobby Kent was an Iranian-American man who was murdered by seven people, including his best friend, Martin Joseph "Marty" Puccio, Jr. in Weston, Florida.
Nicodemo Domenico "Little Nicky" Scarfo Sr. was a member of the American Mafia who became the boss of the Philadelphia crime family after the deaths of Angelo Bruno and Phil Testa.
Janice Winblad Nicolich was an American woman who was killed in a car accident by a drunk driver. During the trial Nicolich's daughter wrote that she had forgiven the drunk driver and urged that the court do likewise. The subsequent court case led to a Nebraska Supreme Court decision on the issue of leniency in drunk driving deaths. The story was part of an The Oprah Winfrey Show and the book The Road To Forgiveness: Hearts Shattered by Tragedy, Transformed by Love.
The Colombo crime family is the youngest of the "Five Families" that dominates organized crime activities in New York City, United States, within the nationwide criminal organization known as the American Mafia. It was during Lucky Luciano's organization of the American Mafia after the Castellammarese War, and the assassinations of Giuseppe "Joe The Boss" Masseria and Salvatore Maranzano, that the gang run by Joseph Profaci was recognized as the Profaci crime family.
The rapes and murders of Julie and Robin Kerry occurred on April 5, 1991, on the Chain of Rocks Bridge over the Mississippi River in St. Louis, Missouri. The two sisters were raped and then murdered by a group of four men, who also attempted to murder the sisters' cousin.
Mary Jo Buttafuoco is an American author and motivational speaker. In 1992, she was shot in the face by her husband's lover, Amy Fisher.
Keith Hunter Jesperson is a Canadian-American serial killer who murdered at least eight women in the United States during the early 1990s. He was known as the "Happy Face Killer" because he drew smiley faces on his many letters to the media and prosecutors. Many of his victims were sex workers and transients who had no connection to him. Strangulation was his preferred method of murdering, the same method he often used to kill animals as a child.
Dominick "Skinny Dom" Pizzonia is a New York mobster and captain with the Gambino crime family who was a hitman and loanshark. Pizzonia allegedly participated in several high-profile murders.
This is a list of notable overturned convictions in the United States.
Robert Lee Willie was a Louisiana man who was convicted of the May 28, 1980 kidnap, rape, and murder of 18-year-old Faith Hathaway. He was sentenced to death and held on Death Row at Louisiana State Penitentiary prior to his execution in an electric chair.
The Story of Edgar Sawtelle is the first novel by American author David Wroblewski. It became a New York Times Best Seller on June 29, 2008, and Oprah Winfrey chose it for her book club on September 19, 2008. Winfrey also included the book as one of the few tangible gifts in her recession-themed thrifty Oprah's Favorite Things that year.
Mother Warriors: A Nation of Parents Healing Autism Against All Odds is the fifth book published by New York Times bestselling author, activist and television personality Jenny McCarthy. Her previous book, Louder Than Words, reached #3 on the New York Times bestseller list, and has more than 200,000 hardcovers in print after five printings. Many of McCarthy's assertions within the book, such as that she cured her son's autism and the benefits of chelation are highly disputed within the medical and scientific community, as chelation therapy has been fatal in at least one instance. The foreword was written by her son's pediatrician, Jay Gordon.
The Tanglewood Boys was an Italian-American recruitment gang or "farm team" for the American Mafia, specifically the Lucchese crime family. The gang frequently operated from the Tanglewood Shopping Center in Yonkers, New York.
Queen Sugar is an American drama television series created and executive produced by Ava DuVernay, with Oprah Winfrey serving as an executive producer. DuVernay also directs many episodes. The series is based on the 2014 novel of the same name by American writer Natalie Baszile. Queen Sugar centers on the lives of three siblings in rural Louisiana who must deal with the aftermath of their father's sudden death and decide the fate of his 800-acre sugarcane farm. The mainstream themes in the series often accompany episodes centered on racial profiling, the long reach of chattel slavery in American history and the inequities in the criminal justice system, and other issues related to African Americans.
Queen Sugar is the debut novel of American writer Natalie Baszile, published by Penguin in 2014. Set in contemporary Louisiana, it tells the story of Charley Bordelon, a young African-American widow from Los Angeles, California, who moves to a rural town to manage a sugarcane farm she had unexpectedly inherited there from her father.
Kenneth Bishop is a Canadian truck driver who was a hitman for the Musitano crime family of Hamilton, Ontario. In 1998, Murdock was convicted of three mob hits, sentenced to life imprisonment, but later released on parole in 2011 after he served 13 years in prison.
Thomas Bartlett "Bart" Whitaker is an American convicted of murdering two family members, under the Texas Law of Parties, who spent nearly 11 years on death row at the Polunsky Unit near Livingston, Texas. He was convicted for the December 10, 2003, murders of his mother and brother by gunman Chris Brashear and sentenced to death in March 2007. On February 22, 2018, 45 minutes before the scheduled execution at 6:00 pm, Whitaker had his death sentence commuted to life imprisonment without parole by Governor Greg Abbott, the first time Governor Abbott has done so. He currently resides in the McConnell Unit in Beeville, Texas, in solitary confinement.
The Papalia crime family is a 'Ndrangheta organized crime family based in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, as well as Platì in Southern Italy and Buccinasco in Northern Italy. Antonio Papalia founded the Papalia family in Canada in the 1940s, and is one of three centralized Mafia organizations in Hamilton, with the other two being the Musitano crime family and the Luppino crime family. The Papalias had strong connections with the Buffalo crime family of Buffalo, New York under long-reigning boss Johnny Papalia, who was often called "Pops" or "The Enforcer". The Papalia clan also operate in Italy, and have alliances with the Barbaro 'ndrina.
