edgepedia

Crimes against the person

367 articles

Brian Nichols

Brian Gene Nichols, Fulton County Courthouse shooter of March 11, 2005, killed four people including Judge Rowland Barnes during his rape trial, was captured after a 26-hour manhunt, and in 2008 received life without parole.

Candy Montgomery

Candy Montgomery, Candace Lynn Wheeler, is an American woman who killed her friend Betty Gore with an axe in Wylie, Texas, in June 1980, before being acquitted.

Caril Ann Fugate

Caril Ann Fugate, later Caril Ann Clair, was the 14-year-old companion of Charles Starkweather convicted of first degree murder in the 1958 Nebraska-Wyoming killing spree, sentenced to life, paroled in 1976 after claiming hostage status.

Carolyn Warmus

Carolyn Warmus, the "Fatal Attraction" killer, a former Westchester teacher convicted in 1992 of the 1989 murder of Betty Jeanne Solomon, her lover Paul Solomon's wife; paroled in 2019.

Celeste Beard

Celeste Beard Johnson (born 1963) is an American convicted of Texas capital murder in 2003 for orchestrating the 1999 shotgun shooting of her fourth husband, Austin millionaire Steven Beard, by her lover Tracey Tarlton; life sentence, parole eligible 2042.

Child abduction

Child abduction is the unauthorized removal or retention of a child in breach of parental or custodial rights. Covers parental and stranger abduction, the 1980 Hague Convention return mechanism, and criminal laws such as the U.S. IPKCA.

Child murder

Child murder, or child homicide, is the intentional killing of a child (infanticide in the first year of life). Parents are the most common perpetrators; rates are highest in infancy, and legal treatment ranges from distinct infanticide statutes to ordinary murder law.

China P. Arnold

China P. Arnold, also known as China Arnold, is an American woman from Dayton, Ohio, convicted of killing her newborn daughter in a microwave oven in 2005.

Chiong murder case

Chiong murder case: 1997 kidnapping, rape, and murder of sisters Marijoy and Jacqueline Chiong in Cebu City, Philippines; seven men including Paco Larrañaga convicted, sentenced to death, case disputed.

Christian Longo

Christian Michael Longo is an American murderer who killed his wife and three children on the Oregon coast in December 2001 and was sentenced to death.

Christine and Léa Papin

Christine and Léa Papin, French maids who murdered their employer's wife and daughter in Le Mans on 2 February 1933; tried September 1933; the case inspired Genet's The Maids and Lacan's analysis.

Clutter family murders

Clutter family murders: November 15, 1959 quadruple homicide of Herbert Clutter's family in Holcomb, Kansas, by ex-convicts Richard Hickock and Perry Smith, basis of Capote's In Cold Blood.

Colin Howell

Colin Howell, Northern Irish dentist from Castlerock, murdered his wife Lesley Howell and RUC constable Trevor Buchanan in May 1991, staging a suicide pact; confessed 2009, pleaded guilty 2010, minimum 20-year term.

Colorado Springs Planned Parenthood shooting

Colorado Springs Planned Parenthood shooting: Robert Lewis Dear Jr.'s November 27, 2015 attack on a Colorado Springs abortion clinic killed three and wounded nine; he was never tried and died in federal custody in 2025.

Contract killing

Contract killing, also called murder for hire or Auftragsmord, is a murder committed under a paid contract; descriptive term, not a distinct offence, with documented prices, hit rates, and organized-crime roles.

Culpable homicide

Culpable homicide, also called culpable homicide not amounting to murder, is blameworthy killing short of murder in Scots, South African, Indian, New Zealand, and Zimbabwean law; in Canada it is the umbrella for murder, manslaughter, and infanticide.

Curb stomp

Curb stomp (also "bite the curb"): a violent assault forcing a victim's mouth onto a curb edge and stomping the head. Popularized by the 1998 film American History X; biomechanical studies report stomping forces of thousands of newtons causing skull fractures.

Dana Ewell

Dana James Ewell, Fresno heir convicted of hiring college friend Joel Radovcich to murder his parents Dale and Glee and sister Tiffany in 1992 for an $8 million estate; both sentenced to life without parole in 1998.

Daniel Wozniak (murderer)

Daniel Patrick Wozniak, Costa Mesa community theater actor, murdered Army veteran Samuel Herr and student Julie Kibuishi in May 2010 to steal $62,000; convicted 2015, sentenced to death 2016.

David Parker Ray

David Parker Ray (November 6, 1939 – May 28, 2002), the "Toy-Box Killer", was a New Mexico kidnapper and torturer arrested in 1999 near Elephant Butte, sentenced to over 223 years, never convicted of murder, and died in prison in 2002.

Death of Azaria Chamberlain

Death of Azaria Chamberlain: nine-week-old Australian baby taken by a dingo from her family's tent at Uluru on 17 August 1980; her mother Lindy Chamberlain was wrongfully convicted of murder in 1982 and exonerated in 1988, with a dingo finding only in 2012.

Death of Brian Wells

Death of Brian Wells: 2003 collar-bomb killing of Erie, Pennsylvania pizza deliveryman Brian Douglas Wells, who robbed a PNC Bank with a bomb locked to his neck; the device detonated in police custody, later tied to the Diehl-Armstrong conspiracy.

Death of Caylee Anthony

Death of Caylee Anthony, the 2008 unsolved death of an Orlando two-year-old found decomposed near her home; mother Casey Anthony was acquitted of murder in 2011; ruled homicide by undetermined means.

Death of Diane Whipple

Death of Diane Whipple: January 26, 2001 fatal mauling of a San Francisco resident by Presa Canarios Bane and Hera owned by attorneys Marjorie Knoller and Robert Noel, leading to California's first dog-mauling murder conviction.

Death of Nikki Whitehead

Death of Nikki Whitehead: Jarmecca "Nikki" Whitehead, 34, was found stabbed to death in her Conyers, Georgia bathtub on January 13, 2010. Her 16-year-old identical twin daughters Jasmiyah and Tasmiyah Whitehead pleaded guilty in 2014 to voluntary manslaughter, each serving 30-year sentences; Tasmiyah was paroled in 2026.

Death of Tina Watson

Death of Tina Watson: 26-year-old American bride who drowned on 22 October 2003 diving the Yongala wreck off Townsville, Queensland, on her honeymoon with Gabe Watson, who pleaded guilty to manslaughter in Australia and was acquitted of capital murder in Alabama in 2012.

Death of Victoria Martens

Death of Victoria Martens, 10-year-old Albuquerque girl killed on her birthday, 2016; also known as the Victoria Martens case. False confession, dropped murder charges, unidentified fourth suspect, and convictions of Michelle Martens, Fabian Gonzales, and Jessica Kelley.

Debora Green

Debora Green (born Debora Jones, 1951) is an American former oncologist who pleaded no contest to the 1995 arson killing of her children Tim and Kelly in Prairie Village, Kansas, and to ricin-poisoning her husband Michael Farrar; serving a hard 40 sentence.

Dena Schlosser

Dena Schlosser, Plano, Texas woman who killed her infant daughter Margaret in November 2004 during postpartum psychosis tied to Doyle Davidson's Water of Life church; jury deadlocked in 2006, judge then found her not guilty by reason of insanity.

Diane Downs

Diane Downs (Elizabeth Diane Downs), American convicted murderer who shot her three children near Springfield, Oregon, in May 1983, killing Cheryl; convicted 1984, sentenced to life, denied parole four times, appeals and DNA testing requests pending.