Gwen Amber Rose Araujo was an American trans teenager who was murdered in Newark, California at the age of 17. She was murdered by four men, two of whom she had been sexually intimate with, who beat and strangled her after discovering that she was transgender. Two of the defendants were convicted of second-degree murder, but not the requested hate-crime enhancements to the charges. The other two defendants pleaded guilty or no-contest to voluntary manslaughter. In at least one of the trials, a "trans panic defense"—an extension of the gay panic defense—was employed.
Diane Alexis Whipple was an American lacrosse player and college coach. She was killed in a dog attack in San Francisco on January 26, 2001. The dogs involved were two Presa Canarios: a male named Bane and a female named Hera. Paul Schneider, the dogs' owner, is a high-ranking member of the Aryan Brotherhood and is serving three life sentence terms in state prison. The dogs were looked after by Schneider's attorneys, Robert Noel and Marjorie Knoller, a husband and wife who lived in the same apartment building as Diane Whipple. After the fatal attack, the state brought criminal charges against the attorneys. Robert Noel, who was not present during the attack, was convicted of manslaughter. Marjorie Knoller, who was present, was charged with implied-malice second-degree murder and convicted by the jury. Knoller's murder conviction, an unusual result for an unintended dog attack, was rejected by the trial judge but ultimately upheld. The case clarified the meaning of implied malice murder.
Terry Lynn Nichols is an American domestic terrorist who was convicted for his participation in the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing. Prior to his incarceration, he held a variety of short-term jobs, working as a farmer, grain elevator manager, real estate salesman, and ranch hand. He met his future co-conspirator, Timothy McVeigh, during a brief stint in the U.S. Army, which ended in 1989 when he requested a hardship discharge after less than one year of service. In 1994 and 1995, he conspired with McVeigh in the planning and preparation of the truck bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, on April 19, 1995. The bombing killed 168 people.
Leslie Louise Van Houten is an American convicted murderer and former member of the Manson Family. During her time with Manson's group, she was known by various aliases such as Louella Alexandria, Leslie Marie Sankston, Linda Sue Owens and Lulu. Van Houten was arrested and charged in relation to the 1969 killings of Leno and Rosemary LaBianca. She was convicted and sentenced to death. However, the California Supreme Court decision on People v. Anderson then ruled in 1972 that the death penalty was unconstitutional, resulting in her sentence being commuted to life in prison. Her conviction was then overturned in a 1976 appellate court decision which granted her a retrial. Her second trial ended with a deadlocked jury and a mistrial. At her third trial in 1978, she was convicted of two counts of murder and one count of conspiracy and sentenced to seven years to life in prison.
Louise Woodward is a British former au pair, who at the age of 18 was accused of second degree murder but subsequently convicted of the involuntary manslaughter of eight-month-old Matthew Eappen in Newton, Massachusetts, United States.
Thomas and Jackie Hawks were a couple from Prescott, Arizona, United States, who were murdered in 2004.
Robert Dale Rowell was a murderer executed by lethal injection by the U.S. state of Texas. He was convicted of the May 10, 1993 murder of Raymond Davey Mata in a Houston, Texas crack house.
Arnold Ezekiel "Squiggy" Squitieri was an American former acting boss and underboss of the Gambino crime family. He is also known as "Zeke", "Bozey", and "Squitty".
The European Kindred (EK) is a prison and street gang that began in the Oregon prison system.
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 black males and one black 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.
Sean W. Kennedy was a gay American man who was severely punched by a younger man, Stephen Andrew Moller as Kennedy was leaving a bar in Greenville, South Carolina. The punch was so hard that it shattered his facial bones and separated his brain from his brain stem. Kennedy died 17 hours later of his fatal injuries. This attack and Kennedy's death drew attention to South Carolina's lack of a hate crime law and is believed to have contributed to passage of the federal Hate Crime Prevention Act of 2009, for which his mother lobbied. Additionally, Moller served so little time "because of the lack of an applicable Violent Crime Law in South Carolina" at the time, according to the Judge, although this explanation was seen by the LGBT community as merely thinly veiled homophobia.
Jalil Abdul Muntaqim political activist and former member of the Black Panther Party (BPP) and the Black Liberation Army (BLA) who served 49 years in prison for two counts of first-degree murder. In August 1971, he was arrested in California along with Albert “Nuh” Washington and Herman Bell. He was charged with the killing of two NYPD police officers, Waverly Jones and Joseph A. Piagentini, in New York City on May 21. In 1974, he was convicted on two counts of first-degree murder and sentenced to life imprisonment with possible parole after 22 years. Bottom had been the subject of attention for being repeatedly denied parole despite having been eligible since 1993. In June 2020, Bottom was reportedly sick with coronavirus disease. He was released from prison on October 7, 2020, after more than 49 years of incarceration and 11 parole denials.
The Maywand District murders were the thrill killings of at least three Afghan civilians perpetrated by a group of U.S. Army soldiers from January to May 2010, during the War in Afghanistan. The soldiers, who referred to themselves as the "Kill Team", were members of the 3rd Platoon, Bravo Company, 2nd Battalion, 1st Infantry Regiment, and 5th Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division. They were based at FOB Ramrod in Maiwand, from Kandahar Province of Afghanistan.
The FEAR militia was an American terrorist group of between four and eleven individuals that the State of Georgia alleged in 2012 to have planned to destroy a dam and poison apple orchards in Washington State, set off explosives in Forsyth Park in Savannah, Georgia, and assassinate President Barack Obama. Four of the individuals charged were soldiers stationed at Fort Stewart, Georgia. The group killed two people in an attempt to prevent them from revealing their plans to the public. The group used the Army to recruit militia members, who wore distinctive tattoos that resemble an anarchy symbol.
The murder of Renisha McBride, a 19-year-old African American teenager, occurred on November 2, 2013, in Dearborn Heights, Michigan, United States. Renisha McBride crashed her car while intoxicated at a street in Detroit, and then walked to a neighborhood in Dearborn Heights where she knocked on the door of a house. The homeowner, 54 year old Theodore Wafer, shot McBride with a shotgun. Wafer contended that the shooting was accidental and that he thought his home was being broken into after he heard her banging on his door at 4:42 in the morning.
Nicole Nadra Baukus is an American woman convicted of two counts of vehicular manslaughter stemming from an accident on June 29, 2012, in which she was driving intoxicated. Baukus pleaded guilty to the charges and was sentenced to 38 years in prison with the possibility of parole. Highway surveillance cameras showed Baukus' vehicle traveling on the wrong side of Interstate 45 after she had consumed alcohol at a nearby bar. A later request for a new trial was denied. Baukus attended and graduated from Oak Ridge High School in Conroe, Texas.
Lyle and Marie McCann were last seen on July 3, 2010, while on a road trip from their hometown of St. Albert, Alberta, to Chilliwack, in the Canadian province of British Columbia. A few days later, their charred motorhome was discovered, resulting in a search that led to the arrest of Travis Vader. Vader was eventually charged with second-degree murder in the deaths of the McCanns, though their bodies have yet to be discovered. Vader was found guilty on September 15, 2016. On October 31, 2016, the second-degree murder conviction was reversed and Vader was convicted of manslaughter.
Conrad Henri Roy III was an American teenager who died by suicide at the age of 18. His girlfriend, 17-year-old Michelle Carter, had encouraged him in text messages to kill himself. The case was the subject of a notable investigation and involuntary manslaughter trial in Massachusetts, colloquially known as the "Texting suicide case". It involved scores of text messages, emails, and phone calls recorded between Carter and Roy in the lead up to his death, in which Carter repeatedly texted Roy to kill himself; Roy had seen numerous mental health professionals and had been prescribed psychiatric medication.
THOMAS F. "TOMMY" JUNTA - Obituary - Charlestown, MA ...
