Brandon Teena was an American transgender man who was raped and later, along with Phillip DeVine and Lisa Lambert, murdered in Humboldt, Nebraska, by John Lotter and Tom Nissen. His life and death were the subject of the films The Brandon Teena Story and Boys Don't Cry.
James Riddle Hoffa was an American labor union leader who served as the president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT) from 1957 until 1971.
Boys Don't Cry is a 1999 American biographical film directed by Kimberly Peirce, and co-written by Peirce and Andy Bienen. The film is a dramatization of the real-life story of Brandon Teena, an American trans man who attempts to find himself and love in Nebraska but falls victim to a brutal hate crime perpetrated by two male acquaintances. The film co-stars Chloë Sevigny as Brandon's girlfriend, Lana Tisdel.
The Black Liberation Army (BLA) was an underground Marxist-Leninist, black-nationalist militant organization that operated in the United States from 1970 to 1981. Composed of former Black Panthers (BPP) and Republic of New Afrika (RNA) members who served above ground before going underground, the organization's program was one of war against the United States government, and its stated goal was to "take up arms for the liberation and self-determination of black people in the United States." The BLA carried out a series of bombings, killings of police officers and drug dealers, robberies, and prison breaks.
Edgar Ray Killen was an American Ku Klux Klan organizer who planned and directed the murders of James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner, three civil rights activists participating in the Freedom Summer of 1964. He was found guilty in state court of three counts of manslaughter on June 21, 2005, the forty-first anniversary of the crime, and sentenced to 60 years in prison. He appealed the verdict, but the sentence was upheld on April 12, 2007, by the Supreme Court of Mississippi. He died in prison on January 11, 2018, six days before his 93rd birthday.
Michael Iver Peterson is an American novelist who was convicted in 2003 of murdering his second wife, Kathleen Peterson, on December 9, 2001. After eight years, Peterson was granted a new trial after the judge ruled a critical prosecution witness gave misleading testimony. In 2017, Peterson submitted an Alford plea to the reduced charge of manslaughter. He was sentenced to time already served and freed.
Jack Leon Gordon, also known as Samuel Isaac Gordon and Clifford William Johnson, was an American businessman and entertainment manager. Gordon was the manager and husband of American singer–songwriter La Toya Jackson. Gordon also served as the manager of American tabloid subject later turned porn actor John Wayne Bobbitt. Gordon died of cancer on April 19, 2005, at age 65.
The Staircase is a 2004 French-produced, English-language documentary television miniseries directed by Jean-Xavier de Lestrade about the trial of Michael Peterson, convicted of murdering his wife, Kathleen Peterson.
Shanda Renée Sharer was an American girl who was tortured and burned to death in Madison, Indiana by four teenage girls. She was 12 years old at the time of her death. The incident attracted international attention due to both the brutality of the murder and the young age of the perpetrators, who were aged between 15 and 17 years old. The case was covered on national news and talk shows and has inspired a number of episodes on fictional crime shows.
Diane Dimond is an American investigative journalist, author, syndicated columnist, and TV commentator.
Stacy Dittrich, a former police detective from Ohio, is an American mystery novelist and true crime author.
Edward Wayne Edwards was an American serial killer and former fugitive. Edwards escaped from jail in Akron, Ohio, in 1955 and fled across the country, holding up gas stations. By 1961, he was on the FBI's Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list.
Della Faye "Dante" Sutorius was an American woman who was convicted of murdering her husband in 1996.
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.
Jill Lonita Coit is an American convicted murderer. A con artist and serial bigamist who has been married 11 times to nine different men since 1961, Coit was convicted of killing her eighth husband in 1993 and is also suspected of killing her third husband in 1972. Coit is serving a life sentence with no possibility of parole at the Denver Women's Correctional Facility.
Making a Murderer is an American true crime documentary television series written and directed by Laura Ricciardi and Moira Demos. The show tells the story of Steven Avery, a man from Manitowoc County, Wisconsin, who served 18 years in prison (1985–2003) after his wrongful conviction for the sexual assault and attempted murder of Penny Beerntsen. He was later charged with and convicted of the 2005 murder of Teresa Halbach. The connected story is that of Avery's nephew Brendan Dassey, who was accused and convicted as an accessory in the murder of Halbach.
Mindhunter is an American psychological crime thriller television series created by Joe Penhall, which debuted in 2017, based on the 1995 true-crime book Mindhunter: Inside the FBI's Elite Serial Crime Unit by John E. Douglas and Mark Olshaker. The executive producers include Penhall, Charlize Theron, and David Fincher, the latter of whom has served as the series' most frequent director and de facto showrunner, overseeing many of the scriptwriting and production processes. The series stars Jonathan Groff, Holt McCallany, and Anna Torv, and it follows the founding of the Behavioral Science Unit in the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in the late 1970s and the beginning of criminal profiling.
The Brandon Teena Story is a 1998 American documentary film directed by Susan Muska and Greta Olafsdottir. The documentary features interviews with many of the people involved with the 1993 murder of Brandon Teena as well as archive footage of Teena. After its theatrical release, it aired on Cinemax as part of its Reel Life series.
Randall Sullivan is an American author and journalist who has also worked as a screenwriter, film and television producer and on-camera television personality.
Susan Smith was an American FBI informant. She was strangled by her handler and lover, FBI agent Mark Putnam – the first FBI agent to be charged in a homicide.
