Darryl Hunt was an African-American man from Winston-Salem, North Carolina, who, in 1984, was wrongfully convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment for the rape and the murder of Deborah Sykes, a young white newspaper copy editor. After being convicted in that case, Hunt was tried in 1987 for the 1983 murder of Arthur Wilson, a 57-year-old black man of Winston-Salem. Both convictions were overturned on appeal in 1989. Hunt was tried again in the Wilson case in 1990; he was acquitted by an all-white jury. He was tried again on the Sykes charges in 1991; he was convicted.
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.
Oba Chandler was an American serial killer and mass murderer who was convicted and executed for the June 1989 murders of Joan Rogers and her two daughters, whose bodies were found floating in Tampa Bay, Florida, with their hands and feet bound. Autopsies showed the victims had been thrown into the water while still alive, with ropes tied to a concrete block around their necks. The case became high-profile in 1992 when local police posted billboards bearing enlarged images of the suspect's handwriting recovered from a pamphlet in the victims' car. Chandler was identified as the killer when his neighbor recognized the handwriting.
Robert Joseph "Bobby Joe" Long was an American serial killer and rapist who was executed by the state of Florida for the murder of Michelle Denise Simms. Long abducted, sexually assaulted, and murdered at least eight women in the Tampa Bay area in Florida during an eight-month period in 1984.
John Floyd Thomas Jr. is an American serial killer, serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole for the murders of seven white women in the Los Angeles area during the 1970s and 1980s. Police suspect Thomas committed 10 to 15 more murders.
Colette Aram was a 16-year-old British trainee hairdresser who was abducted, raped and strangled as she walked from her home to her boyfriend's house in Keyworth, Nottinghamshire, on 30 October 1983. The murder was the first case to be featured on the BBC television series Crimewatch when it began in June 1984. However, despite receiving over 400 calls as a result of the programme, Nottinghamshire Police were unable to catch the killer, and it was not until 2008 and following advances in forensic technology that police were able to develop a DNA profile of the suspect. Paul Stewart Hutchinson was finally charged with the murder in April 2009. He initially pleaded not guilty, but changed his plea to guilty on 21 December 2009 and was sentenced to life imprisonment on 25 January 2010. Following his sentencing, Crimewatch ran a recap of the murder and investigation on BBC TV on 27 January 2010 exposing several inaccuracies reported in the press about his background, notably a lie about being a psychology graduate.
Robert Anthony Buell was an American child murderer, serial rapist, suspected serial killer, and former planning department worker from Akron, Ohio. He was convicted of the July 17, 1982 murder of 11-year-old Krista Lea Harrison.
CeCe Moore is an American genetic genealogist who has been described as the country's foremost such entrepreneur. She has appeared on many TV shows and worked as a genetic genealogy researcher for others such as Finding Your Roots. She has reportedly helped law enforcement agencies in identifying suspects in over 300 cold cases using DNA and genetic genealogy. In May 2020, she began appearing in a prime time ABC television series called The Genetic Detective in which each episode recounts a cold case she helped solve. In addition to her television work, she is known for pioneering the genetic genealogy methodologies used by adoptees and others of unknown origin for identifying biological family.
Bruce Everitt Lindahl was an American serial killer and rapist who committed a series of rapes and murders in the late 1970s and early 1980s. In 2020, 39 years after his death, on the basis of DNA profiling, Lindahl was connected to the death of 16-year-old Pamela Maurer, who was killed on January 13, 1976, in DuPage County, Illinois. He has been declared a suspect in at least 12 murders and 9 rapes committed in different Chicago suburbs from 1974 to 1981, which are currently being investigated.
Anthony McKnight was an American serial killer, rapist, kidnapper, and sex offender who killed five women and assaulted five others in Oakland, California, over a period of five months in late 1985 and early 1986. In 2008, he was found guilty of these murders and sentenced to death, but died awaiting execution in 2019.
William "Billy" Mansfield Jr. is an American serial killer, child molester and sex offender, responsible for the murders of five women and girls between 1975 and 1980. He buried the bodies of four victims at the family home in Spring Hill, Florida, and later traveled with his brother to California, where he raped and strangled a Watsonville woman. He was convicted of the latter homicide, and later pleaded guilty to the previous murders to avoid the death penalty in Florida, receiving four life sentences.
Franklin Lynch is an American serial killer who is currently housed at San Quentin State Prison's death row. Convicted of the murders of three elderly women in successive months during the summer of 1987, Lynch is the prime suspect in 10 other murders of elderly women that took place in San Leandro, which were called publicly "The Day Stalker Murders." Circumstantial evidence links him to a total of 13 murders.
Alvin Johnson is an American serial killer linked to three murders across three states from 1972 to 1983. Officially convicted in two homicides in Oregon and Utah, he was later linked to a third one committed with fellow serial killer Wilbur Lee Jennings in California, but was not charged due to his current life sentence in Utah.
Clifton Lee Ray Jr. is an American serial killer, responsible for at least three murders in Kansas City, Missouri between 1987 and 1992, and is suspected in six other murders. Ray was convicted of murdering his neighbor in 1995, and was soon going to be eligible for parole until DNA profiling exposed his responsibility in the murders of Deborah Taylor and Joycie Flowers. In October 2007, Ray was convicted of both murders and was sentenced to life imprisonment.
Edwin Bernard Kaprat III, known as The Granny Killer, was an American serial killer, rapist, and arsonist who committed six murders in Tampa and Hernando County, Florida from 1991 to 1993, with a majority of his victims being elderly women. Convicted for two of the killings and sentenced to death, he and another inmate were stabbed to death during a dispute in prison.
Linwood Earl Forte, known as The Nightstalker, is an American serial killer and rapist who was linked via DNA to a series of rapes and murders committed in Goldsboro, North Carolina in 1990, and is the prime suspect in an unrelated murder in 1994. He was convicted of his confirmed crimes and subsequently sentenced to death, and is currently awaiting execution.
Edward Castro was an American serial killer. An unemployed drifter from California, Castro fatally stabbed three men across Florida between 1986 and 1987. Tried for two of the murders, he was given a life sentence for one of them and sentenced to death for the other. He waived all of his appeals and dropped his defense team to advocate for his own execution. Castro was executed at Florida State Prison by lethal injection in 2000.
James Delano Winkles was an American murderer, kidnapper and self-confessed serial killer. Initially sentenced to life imprisonment on kidnapping charges, he admitted responsibility for two murders committed in Pinellas County, Florida during the 1980s, for which he was convicted and sentenced to death. Winkles claimed that he had killed a total of 62 people during his lifetime, but no other murders were definitively corroborated, and he died awaiting execution in 2010.
Steven Washington Jr. was an American serial killer who was sentenced to life in prison for the murders of three elderly women in St. Petersburg, Florida. Dubbed the Window-Screen Rapist by the press, Washington's crimes were committed between August and December 1963 when he was only 15 years old, which makes him one of the youngest serial killers in history. He died while in prison 2004.
Jerry Jerome Spraggins is an American murderer, rapist and suspected serial killer. Convicted and sentenced to a 40-years-to-life imprisonment for the 1983 murder of a woman at an apartment in Montclair, New Jersey, he was also suspected, but ultimately acquitted of two similar murders that occurred in that same apartment from 1981 to 1983. Spraggins remains incarcerated for his single murder conviction.
