Aileen Carol Wuornos was an American serial killer. In 1989–1990, while engaging in street prostitution along highways in Florida, she shot dead and robbed seven of her male clients. Wuornos claimed that her clients had either raped or attempted to rape her, and that the homicides of the men were committed in self-defense. Wuornos was sentenced to death for six of the murders. She was executed on October 9, 2002, by lethal injection after spending more than 10 years on Florida's death row.
The Cuban Five, also known as the Miami Five, are five Cuban intelligence officers who were arrested in September 1998 and later convicted in Miami, Florida of conspiracy to commit espionage, conspiracy to commit murder, acting as an agent of a foreign government, and other illegal activities in the United States. The Five were in the U.S. to observe and infiltrate the Cuban-American groups Alpha 66, the F4 Commandos, the Cuban American National Foundation, and Brothers to the Rescue. They were part of La Red Avispa composed of at least 27 Cuban spies.
Jessica Marie Lunsford was an American nine-year-old girl from Homosassa, Florida, who was murdered in February 2005. Lunsford was abducted from her home in the early morning of February 24, 2005, by John Couey, a 46-year-old convicted sex offender who lived nearby. Couey held her captive over the weekend, during which she was raped and later murdered by being buried alive. The media extensively covered the investigation and trial of Couey.
Chester Dewayne Turner is an American serial killer and sex offender who was sentenced to death for sexually assaulting and murdering fourteen women and an unborn baby in Los Angeles between 1987 and 1998.
Sylvia Marie Likens was an American teenager who was tortured and murdered by her caregiver, Gertrude Baniszewski, many of Baniszewski's children, and several of their neighborhood friends. The abuse lasted for three months, occurring incrementally, before Likens died from her extensive injuries and malnourishment on October 26, 1965, in Indianapolis, Indiana.
Nixzmary Brown was a seven-year-old American girl from Brooklyn, New York, whose physical abuse, parental neglect and murder led to reforms in New York City's Administration for Children's Services.
Griselda Blanco Restrepo was a Colombian drug lord who was prominent in the cocaine-based drug trade and underworld of Miami, during the 1970s through the early 2000s, and who has also been claimed by some to have been part of the Medellín Cartel. She was shot dead in Medellín on September 3, 2012 at the age of 69.
Channon Gail Christian, aged 21, and Hugh Christopher Newsom Jr., aged 23, were from Knoxville, Tennessee, United States. They were kidnapped on the evening of January 6, 2007, when Christian's vehicle was carjacked. The couple were taken to a rental house. Both of them were raped, tortured, and murdered. Four males and one female were arrested, charged, and convicted in the case. In 2007, a grand jury indicted Letalvis Darnell Cobbins, Lemaricus Devall Davidson, George Geovonni Thomas, and Vanessa Lynn Coleman on counts of kidnapping, robbery, rape, and murder. Also in 2007, Eric DeWayne Boyd was indicted by a federal grand jury of being an accessory to a carjacking, resulting in serious bodily injury to another person and misprision of a felony. In 2018, Boyd was indicted on state-level charges of kidnapping, robbery, rape, and murder.
The Deltona massacre was a residential murder which occurred on August 6, 2004, in a home on Telford Lane in Deltona, Florida, United States. Four men broke into the home and bludgeoned six victims to death. The four attackers, apparently inspired by the film Wonderland, tortured and killed four men, two women, and a dog inside the home, making it the deadliest mass murder in Volusia County history. Their primary motive for the murders was revenge on Erin Belanger, who had evicted a squatter, Troy Victorino, from her grandmother's then-vacant house, with the secondary motive of recovering an Xbox game console and some clothing that Victorino had left behind. Victorino was able to further motivate his accomplices by pointing out that the attack would likely allow them to kill an additional person they had grievances with, who ended up not being at the house that night.
Ellis S. Rubin was an American attorney who gained national fame for handling a variety of highly publicized cases in a legal career that spanned 53 years. He was famous for his innovative defenses and his propensity for handling lost causes. Rubin won the first case in Florida using the “battered woman” defense. He also worked to free a man, James Joseph Richardson, who had been wrongly imprisoned for 21 years for fatally poisoning his seven children, and created the nymphomania defense in a case involving prostitution.
Capital punishment is a legal penalty in the U.S. state of Florida.
Jennifer Lee Daugherty was an American woman who was torture-murdered in Greensburg, Pennsylvania as an act of revenge in February 2010. Daugherty, who was mentally disabled, was tortured and murdered before being wrapped in Christmas decorations, put inside a garbage can, and dumped in the parking lot of Greensburg-Salem Middle School.
In February 2009, Heather Strong was kidnapped and murdered in Marion County, Florida. Emilia Lily Carr, a rival for the affections of a man Strong was married to, came under suspicion. Carr denied any guilt and alleged her statements were coerced. Carr was nevertheless found guilty in December 2010 and sentenced to death by lethal injection in February 2011. Carr was one of five women on death row in the state of Florida. On May 19, 2017, Emilia Carr was re-sentenced to life without parole. Joshua Fulgham was similarly convicted of first-degree murder and kidnapping in the death. At a separate trial, where he pled guilty, Joshua Fulgham received two consecutive sentences of life in prison for his involvement in Strong's murder.
Nubia Docter Barahona was a 10-year-old American girl who was abused and murdered on February 11, 2011. Her body was found February 14, 2011, wrapped in a plastic garbage bag in the bed of her adoptive father's pickup truck on the side of I-95 in West Palm Beach, Florida. Her body had partially decomposed from being covered in chemicals, possibly pesticides.
Life imprisonment in Spain was introduced by the Ley Orgánica 1/2015 in March 2015, effective from 1 July 2015. The sentence can be revised, so it is officially called "revisable permanent imprisonment".
In 2009, Bernice Novack and her son, Fontainebleau Miami Beach hotel heir Ben Novack Jr., were murdered three months apart. Narcy Novack, Ben's estranged wife was convicted of orchestrating the murders, and after a highly publicized trial was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
On May 24, 2013, Gabriel Fernandez, an eight-year-old boy from Palmdale, California, who had been abused and tortured over a period of months, died due to a beating from his mother, Pearl Fernandez, and her boyfriend, Isauro Aguirre, two days earlier. Pearl Fernandez and Isauro Aguirre were charged and convicted of first-degree murder with special circumstances of torture. According to prosecutors, Aguirre allegedly abused Gabriel due to his perceived homosexuality. Pearl was sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole and Aguirre was sentenced to death.
Marshall Lee Gore was an American convicted murderer and rapist who was executed by the state of Florida for the 1988 murders of two women. He also raped and attempted to murder a third woman before kidnapping her 2-year-old son. Gore was convicted, sentenced to death, and subsequently executed in 2013 at Florida State Prison by lethal injection.
The Carol City murders were a series of murders that took place predominantly in Carol City, Florida and in and around Miami-Dade County between October 1974 and January 1978. The murders were committed by American mass murderer and serial killer John Errol Ferguson who murdered at least eight people but is believed to have killed up to twelve. He was aided in six of the murders by two accomplices: Marvin Francois and Beauford James White.
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.
