Sandy Pearlman (1943 - 2016)

Sandy Pearlman was born in the Rockaway neighborhood of Queens, New York, the son of pharmacy operator Hyman Pearlman. He received his B.A. from the State University of New York at Stony Brook in 1966. In 1967, Pearlman hand-picked musicians for a rock band to perform the lyrics that he was writing, based on his Imaginos […]

Pete Fountain (1930 - 2016)

A talent scout for Lawrence Welk, who saw Pete Fountain performing at the Pier 600, invited him to join the Welk’s orchestra in Los Angeles, where he re-located for two years becoming well-known for his many solos on Welk’s ABC television show, The Lawrence Welk Show. Fountain was rumored to have quit when Welk refused […]

Dean Corll (1939 - 1973)

Between 1970 and 1973, Dean Corll is known to have killed a minimum of 28 victims. All of his victims were males aged 13 to 20, the majority of whom were in their mid-teens. Most victims were abducted from Houston Heights, which was then a low-income neighborhood northwest of downtown Houston. With most abductions, he […]

Earle Nelson (1897 - 1928)

Earle Nelson’s mother and father both died of syphilis before Nelson reached the age of two years. He was subsequently sent to be raised by his maternal grandmother, a devout Pentecostal. Around the age of 10, Nelson collided with a streetcar while riding his bicycle and remained unconscious for six days afterward. After he awoke, his […]

Carl Panzram (1891 - 1930)

In adulthood, Carl Panzram became a thief, stealing anything from bicycles to yachts, and was caught and imprisoned multiple times. While incarcerated, Panzram frequently got into trouble by attacking guards and refusing to follow their orders. The guards retaliated, subjecting him to beatings and other punishments. In 1907, at the age of 15, after getting […]

Gerald Stano (1951 - 1998)

Gerald Stano was born in Schenectady, New York. His given name at birth was Paul Zeininger. His natural mother neglected him to such an extent that when she finally gave him up for adoption when he was six months old, county doctors declared him unadoptable because he was functioning at what they described as “an […]

Lewis Moran (1941 - 2004)

Lewis Moran (7 July 1941 – 31 March 2004) was an Australian organized crime figure and patriarch of the infamous Moran family of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Notable for his involvement in the Melbourne gangland killings, Moran was shot dead in a Melbourne hotel The Brunswick Club in 2004. His murder occurred one week after the […]

Jason Moran (1967 - 2003)

Jason Moran was the son of Lewis Moran and Judy Moran. Mark Moran was his half-brother. Moran attended Penleigh and Essendon Grammar School. He met his future wife, Trisha Kane, at 15 years of age. She is the daughter of Les Kane, a Melbourne painter and docker and reputed criminal who was murdered in his […]

Sian Kingi (1974 - 1987)

Sian Kingi (16 December 1974 – 27 November 1987) was a 12-year-old New Zealand girl of Māori descent who was abducted, raped and killed in Noosa, Queensland, in 1987. Barrie Watts and Valmae Beck, a married couple, were convicted in 1988 of the much-publicised crime and were each sentenced to life imprisonment. Sian Kingi was riding […]

Ralph Stanley (1927 - 2016)

Known in the world of bluegrass music by the popular title, “Dr. Ralph Stanley” (after being awarded an honorary Doctorate of Music from Lincoln Memorial University in Harrogate, Tennessee in 1976), Ralph Stanley was inducted into the International Bluegrass Music Hall of Honor in 1992 and in 2000, and became the first person to be […]

James Still (1906 - 2001)

Lonie, James Still’s mother was sixteen when she moved to Alabama due to a tornado destroying the family home. His father, J. Alex Still, was a horse doctor with no formal training. James Still was born July 16, 1906 near Lafayette, Alabama. Still was considered a quiet child but a hard worker. He along with […]

Jesse Stuart (1906 - 1984)

Jesse Stuart was born near Riverton, Greenup County, Kentucky, to Mitchell and Martha (Hilton) Stuart on August 8, 1907. Stuart served in the US Navy during World War II but did not see combat as his mission in his life. In 1939, Stuart married Naomi Deane Norris, a school teacher. They settled in W Hollow […]

Ebony Simpson (1983 - 1992)

On 19 August 1992, Ebony Simpson disembarked from her school bus. Her mother, who usually met her at the bus stop, was busy so asked Ebony’s older brother to meet her after he got off his bus. But his bus was late and so Ebony started to walk the kilometre to her home. With the house […]

Peter Falconio (1972 - 2001)

Peter Falconio (20 September 1972 – 14 July 2001) was a British tourist from Hepworth, West Yorkshire, who disappeared in the Australian outback in July 2001, while travelling with girlfriend Joanne Lees. Falconio’s body has never been found and he is presumed dead. Peter Falconio and Lees were travelling at night along the Stuart Highway near […]

Anita Cobby (1959 - 1986)

Anita Cobby was born on 2 November 1959, to Garry Bernard Lynch, a graphic artist with the Royal Australian Air Force, and Grace “Peggy” Lynch, a nurse. As a teenager she participated in beauty pageants and had a promising career as a model, but decided instead to follow in her mother’s footsteps and become a […]

Martha Rendell (1871 - 1909)

Martha Rendell killed 7-year-old Annie first. Her method was to put something in the child’s food that would result in a sore throat. It was alleged that she killed the children by swabbing hydrochloric acid on the backs of their throats, claiming it was medicine. This would inflame the throat until the child could no […]

Dennis Ferguson (1948 - 2012)

According to court records, Dennis Ferguson’s pre-1987 criminal history contains “many convictions for false pretences, various assaults on children and indecent assaults on females”, including five convictions for child molestation. In 1987 Ferguson was imprisoned in Long Bay Jail after being convicted on multiple fraud charges. After being released from Long Bay Jail in July […]

Robert Dunn (1941 - 2009)

Robert Dunn (c. 1941 – 11 July 2009) was an Australian convicted child molester. He was a school teacher by profession, working for the Marist Brothers, a Catholic religious order. He began a 20-year jail sentence in 2001 for 24 sexual offences occurring between 1985 and 1995. In 1996, a Royal Commission chaired by Justice James […]

Andrew Chan (1984 - 2015)

Andrew Chan was born in Sydney, New South Wales, the youngest child of Ken and Helena Chan, both first-generation Cantonese-speaking migrants from China. Chan was one of four children, having a brother and two sisters. Chan’s mother had limited English language skills, and Chan did not speak Cantonese. Chan’s brother Michael translated for him when […]

Myuran Sukumaran (1981 - 2015)

Myuran Sukumaran was born on 17 April 1981 in London. He was the eldest child of Sam and Raji Sukumaran who are of Sri Lankan Tamil origin. Sukumaran had a brother (Chintu) and a sister (Brintha). The family moved to Australia in 1985 and lived in Auburn, a western suburb of Sydney. Sukumaran was educated […]

Andrew Veniamin (1975 - 2004)

Andrew Veniamin was born to Greek Cypriot immigrant parents, and was raised in the Western Melbourne suburb of Sunshine. From a child to his early teens, Veniamin was an altar boy at the Greek Orthodox Church in the neighbouring suburb of Sunshine West, where his funeral would later be held. Veniamin worked at the West Melbourne […]

Carl Williams (1970 - 2010)

Carl Williams (13 October 1970[2] – 19 April 2010) was an Australian convicted murderer and drug trafficker from the state of Victoria. He was the central figure in the Melbourne gangland killings. Williams attended Broadmeadows West Technical School, leaving in Year 11. Williams spent much of his childhood in Western Melbourne with his friends and older […]

Victor Peirce (1958 - 2002)

In 2005, Victor Peirce’s widow, Wendy Peirce gave an interview to Australian media detailing how her husband planned and carried out the 1988 Walsh Street police shootings, a crime for which he was acquitted by jury along with three accomplices after she failed to give truthful evidence in court. Victor Peirce was shot dead in a […]

Bruno Hauptmann (1899 - 1936)

Bruno Hauptmann was born Bruno Richard Hauptmann in Kamenz, near Dresden in what was then the German Empire, the youngest of five children. Neither he nor his family and friends used the name “Bruno,” although prosecutors in the Lindbergh kidnapping trial referred to him by that name. He had three brothers and a sister. At […]

David Herold (1842 - 1865)

David Herold and a group of co-conspirators had originally plotted to kidnap Lincoln, but later planned to kill him, Vice President Andrew Johnson, and Secretary of State William H. Seward in a bid to help the Confederacy’s cause. On the night of April 14, 1865, Herold guided Lewis Powell to Seward’s house. Inside, Powell attempted to […]

Margaret Greville (1863 - 1942)

Born as Margaret Helen Anderson, Margaret Greville was the daughter of William McEwan (1827-1913), a brewery multimillionaire, who later was elected as an M.P. (Member of Parliament). Her mother was Helen Anderson (1835/1836–1906), but she was not married to William when Margaret, their daughter was born. In fact, it was not until 1885, when Margaret […]

Josef Jakobs (1898 - 1941)

Josef Jakobs, who was a German citizen, was born in Luxembourg in 1898. During the First World War, he served in the German infantry, rising to the rank of Leutnant, in the 4th Foot Guards. In June 1940, ten months after the outbreak of the Second World War, Jakobs was drafted into the Wehrmacht as […]

Hymie Weiss (1898 - 1926)

Born Henry Earl J. Wojciechowski in present-day Poland, Hymie Weiss grew up on the North Side of Chicago with his Polish-American family. He was nicknamed “Hymie” and “Hymie the Pole”, later in his career. He was Catholic, despite the “Jewish-sounding” moniker (he carried a rosary and a bible). As a teenager, Weiss became a petty […]

John Geoghan (1935 - 2003)

John Geoghan (/ˈɡeɪɡən/; June 4, 1935 – August 23, 2003) was an American Roman Catholic priest who sexually abused children while he was assigned to parishes in the Boston Archdiocese of Massachusetts. He was reassigned several times to parish posts involving children, including after attempted treatment for pedophilia. The investigation and prosecution of Geoghan was one […]

Antonie Dixon (1968 - 2009)

Antonie Dixon attacked both of his partners, Renee Gunbie and Simonne Butler, with a Samurai sword at Pipiroa on 21 January 2003. Before the sword broke, Gunbie’s left hand was completely severed and both of Butler’s arms were partially severed. After stealing a vehicle and travelling to Auckland, Dixon fatally shot James Te Aute in […]