Thomas Blood (1618 - 1680)

As part of the expression of discontent, Thomas Blood conspired to storm Dublin Castle, usurp the government, and kidnap James Butler, 1st Duke of Ormonde and Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, for ransom. On the eve of the attempt, the plot was foiled. Blood managed to evade the authorities by hiding with his countrymen in the […]

Vasili Blokhin (1895 - 1955)

Soviet Secret Police Commander. As chief executioner of Josef Stalin’s security forces (variously named the OGPU, NKVD and MGB) he supervised and participated in the mass killings of “enemies of the Soviet state” during the 1930s and 1940s. In 2010, Guinness World Records listed him as the “most prolific executioner” in history. Blokhin was born […]

George Birdwell (1894 - 1932)

George Birdwell’s first recorded robbery was on March 9, 1931, when he and Floyd joined William “Billy the Killer” Miller in robbing a bank in Earlsboro, Oklahoma, for $3,000. Five months later, they raided another bank in nearby Shamrock but managed to get only $400. They fared better several days later when they raided a […]

Mary Lily Kenan Bingham (1867 - 1917)

Socialite. Born Mary Lily Kenan, she met Henry Morrison Flagler, a founding partner of Standard Oil in 1891, at the home of mutual friends in Newport, Rhode Island when he was 61and she 23. Married, he set about obtaining a divorce from his wife who eventually had to be confined to an asylum. Although it […]

Osama Bin Laden (1957 - 2011)

Osama Bin Laden Osama bin Laden, the mastermind of the most devastating attack on American soil in modern times and the most hunted man in the world, was killed in a firefight with United States forces in Pakistan, President Obama announced on Sunday. In a late-night appearance in the East Room of the White House, Mr. Obama declared that “justice […]

Laleh Bijani (1974 - 2003)

Medical Figure. She was the second of 29-year-old craniopagus twins to pass away after a 50-hour surgical procedure to separate them. Although the twins were successfully separated, her sister Ladan Bijani died first and Laleh died 90 minutes later, due to loss of blood during surgery. The twins were from a family of 11 children […]

Rainey Bethea (1909 - 1936)

Criminal. He was the last person to be publicly executed in America.  Born ca. 1909-1913 in Roanoke, Virginia, Bethea, a young African-American, moved to Owensboro, Kentucky, in order to find work in the tobacco fields.  Local police charged him with various petty offenses, but in 1935, he was convicted of stealing a purse and sentenced […]

David Berman (1970 - 1957)

Organized Crime Figure. Known as “Davie the Jew”, Berman was an American mobster in Iowa, New York and Minnesota before becoming one of the pioneers of gambling alongside Bugsy Siegel at The Flamingo Hotel in Las Vegas. As a child, his family departed Russia for America and settled in South Dakota then moved to Sioux […]

Lavrenty Pavlovich Beria (1899 - 1953)

Soviet Secret Police Chief. He was the former head of the Soviet NKVD, forerunner of the Russian KGB. He joined the Bolshevik Party in 1917 and rose to prominence in the Russian Republic of Georgia. He served as head of the local Georgian secret police, and was awarded the Order of the Red Banner for […]

Derek Bentley (1933 - 1953)

Execution Victim. Considered the victim of one of the greatest miscarriages of British justice. He suffered from epilepsy, had been injured during the War when a bomb fell on his house, was unable to read or write, had an I.Q. of 66 and the mental age of a four year old. He had never been […]

Lawrencia “Bambi” Bembenek (1958 - 2010)

Crime Figure. Convicted of murdering her husband’s ex-wife, Christine Schultz, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on May 28, 1981. Her story garnered national attention after she escaped from Taycheedah Correctional Institution and was recaptured in Canada, an episode which inspired a TV movie and the slogan “Run, Bambi, Run”. Upon winning a new trial, she pled no […]

Charles Bellinger (1875 - 1937)

Businessman, Political Leader. As a boy, he learned the art of dealing a deck of cards and became so good at it he was hired to work as a dealer in a gambling establishment. There he worked until he made his boss wealthy. With a little money he then moved to San Antonio. His luck […]

Byron De La Beckwith (1920 - 2001)

White supremacist convicted of the June 12, 1963, murder of NAACP field secretary Medgar Evers in Mississippi. In 1964, Beckwith was tried twice for the murder, but both trials ended with hung juries, both juries being all-white. In 1989, at the insistence of Evers’ widow Myrlie Evers Williams, Hinds County, MS, Assistant District Attorney Bobby […]

Jereboam O. Beauchamp (1970 - 1826)

Convicted Murderer, Figure In The Beauchamp-Sharp Tragedy. From a fairly prominent family Beauchamp was a respectable law student before the murder. In the early hours of November 7, 1825, he fatally stabbed Colonel Solomon Sharp, a former attorney-general of Kentucky at Sharp’s home in Frankfort, Kentucky. During an 1824 political campaign a handbill had been […]

Hans Peter Baur (1897 - 1993)

Adolf Hitler’s personal pilot, author. He was a decorated WWI flyer and a leading commercial aviator during the pioneer, fledging days of Lufthansa Airlines in the late twenties. Hitler became the first head of state to use air travel extensively. He personally selected Hans Baur to be his official pilot. “Luftwaffe One” was a reliable […]

Margaret Batten (1970 - 1970)

Said to have died at the age of 136. Native of Lochborough in Paisley, reputed to have been brought to England to prepare Scotch broth for King James II. Though after his death she fell into poverty and died in St.Margaret’s workhouse. (bio by: Kieran Smith) Cause of death: Extreme old age.

Sam Bass (1851 - 1878)

Western Outlaw. Born on a farm near Mitchell, Indiana, he was orphaned before he was thirteen and spent five years at the home of an uncle. In 1870, he arrived in Denton, Texas, handled horses in the stables and became interested in horse racing. Acquiring a fleet mount, he won most of his races when […]

Dr James Barry (1970 - 1865)

British Army Surgeon, Folk Figure. Served in the British Army for 40 years, and upon death was discovered to be a woman.  It was reported in the “Manchester Guardian” on August 21, 1865, that James Barry had entered the British Army in 1813, and had passed through the ranks of Assistant Surgeon and Surgeon in […]

Arthur T. Barry (1896 - 1981)

Master jewel thief and “second-story man” of the roaring 20s. Subject of March 12, 1956 Life magazine article and 1961 book by Neil Hickey “The Gentleman was a Thief”. Ingratiated himself into New York society by befriending Prince Edward, Harry Houdini and Jimmy Hines of the Monagahelka Democratic Club. Instrumental in the Auburn Prison riot […]

Marvin Ivan “Buck” Barrow, Sr (1905 - 1933)

Outlaw.  Born in Jones Prairie, Marion County, Texas, the third child of Henry and Cumie Barrow. At 18 or 19 Marvin, better known as “Buck” went to Dallas, to work for his brother repairing cars, but he quickly became part of the West Dallas petty-criminal underworld.  He married twice and divorced twice during this time, […]

Clyde Barrow (1909 - 1934)

Clyde Barrow Outlaw. Even though he lived on the edge of the law as a youngster, Clyde Chestnut Barrow’s first crime was not until an auto theft in 1926 at the age of 17. Clyde, one of several sons of a poor East Texas sharecropper, had little formal education, but had learned “street smarts” from […]

George W. Barrett (1970 - 1936)

Criminal. Barrett was the first person to receive the death penalty by hanging under a congressional act that made it a capital offense to kill a federal agent. Barrett shot and killed special agent Nelson B. Klein, a special agent of the Justice Department’s Bureau of Investigation (which was renamed to become the FBI). On […]

Seaborn Barnes (1854 - 1878)

Train and Bank Robber.  The “Lieutenant” of the Sam Bass Gang. Called “Seab” or “Nubbin’s Colt”, he was born in Cass County, Texas. His father died when Seaborn was an infant and his widowed mother took her 5 children to Handley, near Fort Worth, to raise them near her relatives. He worked as a cowboy […]

Barney Isaacs Barnato (1851 - 1970)

Financier and rogue. Born Barnett Isaacs in 1852, he made his first fortune in diamonds in South Africa and returned to England to become king of the market in gold shares (‘kaffirs’). His visiting card bore the inscription ‘I’ll stand you a drink but I won’t lend you a fiver’. Took to drink and commited […]

Lloyd William Barker (1898 - 1949)

Criminal. Son of Ma Barker. After being paroled from Leavenworth Prison where he was serving a 25 year prison term, he worked as a cook in a POW Camp at Ft. Custer, Michigan during WWII and received an Honorable Discharge from the army.  He married and worked as assistant manager of a bar and grill […]

Kate “Ma” Barker (1873 - 1935)

Criminal. Known as “Ma,” she and her sons, Herman, Lloyd, Arthur and Fred, teamed up with Alvin Karpis (whom Fred had met in the penitentiary) and several other criminals to lead a life of crime. Born in Ash Grove, Missouri, her given name was Arizona Clark, but her close friends knew her as “Arrie” or […]

Herman Barker (1893 - 1927)

Criminal. Born in Aurora, Missouri to George and Kate Barker. Herman’s life of crime began at an early age, when he and brother Lloyd Barker organize a youth gang, which dedicates itself to petty burglaries. Herman is arrested for robbery in Joplin, Missouri and is released to the care of his mother in 1915. After […]

Fred Barker (1903 - 1935)

Criminal. The Barker Gang is rooted in the family of Arizona “Ma” Clark Barker (1873-1935) and her four sons, Herman (1894-1927), Lloyd (1896-1949), Arthur “Dock” (1899-1939), and Fred (1903-1935). In 1927 Herman Barker apparently committed suicide after he was wounded by Kansas police. In 1932 Lloyd began serving a twenty-five-year term for mail robbery at […]

Bernard Leon Barker (1917 - 2009)

Watergate Figure. A man who lived much of his life in the shadows, he was one of the five arrested for the June 17, 1972 break-in at Democratic National Committee (DNC) headquarters in Washington. Raised in Havana by his American father and Cuban mother, Barker, who held dual citizenship, came to the United States in […]

Margie Velma Bullard Barfield (1932 - 1984)

The subject of Jerry Bledsoe’s 1998 book, “Death Penalty,” Velma Barfield was the first woman executed in the United States since 1962 for the arsenic murder of Stuart Taylor, her fiance. It was later discovered that she had also killed her own mother, Lillie Bullard; three people for whom she served as caretaker, Montgomery Edwards […]