3,576 articles
Running the gauntlet
Running the gauntlet, formerly gantlope, is a corporal punishment in which an offender runs between two rows of men armed with sticks or ropes who strike him.
Russell Bufalino
Russell Bufalino, born Rosario Alfredo Bufalino (1903–1994), was a Sicilian-born American Mafia boss who led the northeastern Pennsylvania crime family from Kingston for over three decades.
Russell family shooting
The Russell family shooting, also called the Russell family murders, was a familicide in which Russell killed family members, then shot himself in the left lung and survived.
Russell Williams (criminal)
David Russell Williams (Russ Sovka), born 1963 in Cardiff, Wales, is the ex-colonel who commanded CFB Trenton and confessed in 2010 to murdering Jessica Lloyd and Cpl. Marie-France Comeau, two sexual assaults, and 82 fetish break-and-enters; sentenced to life with no parole for 25 years.
Russian criminal tattoos
Russian criminal tattoos are the codified prison tattoos of the Soviet and Russian systems, recording crimes, rank, and status in the vorovskoy mir; unearned marks were forcibly removed, documented by Baldaev and Bronnikov.
Russian mafia (Русская мафия)
Russian mafia (Русская мафия) denotes post-Soviet criminal networks, not one organization: Gulag-born vory v zakone with the ponyatiya code, 1990s protection rackets, transnational diaspora groups, and disputed scale figures.
Ruth Ann Moorehouse
Ruth Ann Moorehouse (Ouisch, born 1952), Manson Family member who testified as Rachel Morse before the 1969 grand jury, was convicted in the 1971 Barbara Hoyt LSD poisoning, fled her 90-day sentence, and received no jail time in 1975.
Ruth Ellis
Ruth Ellis, British nightclub hostess born 1926 in Rhyl, Wales; last woman executed in Great Britain, hanged at Holloway Prison 13 July 1955 for murdering David Blakely; granted a posthumous conditional pardon by King Charles in 2026.
Ruth Snyder
Ruth Brown Snyder (1895-1928), Queens Village housewife, murdered her husband Albert with lover Judd Gray in March 1927 for double-indemnity insurance; her Sing Sing electrocution was secretly photographed by Tom Howard for the Daily News.
Ryan W. Ferguson
Ryan W. Ferguson, Missouri man wrongfully convicted in 2005 of the 2001 murder of Columbia Daily Tribune editor Kent Heitholt; exonerated November 2013 after witness recantations, later won $11 million federal judgment and $44 million insurance award.
S-Town
S-Town is a 2017 seven-chapter nonfiction podcast from Serial and This American Life, hosted by Brian Reed, about John B. McLemore of Woodstock, Alabama; released all at once, it drew 40 million downloads in a month and a Peabody Award.
Sabine Dardenne
Sabine Dardenne (born 1983) is a Belgian survivor of the Dutroux case, kidnapped by Marc Dutroux on 28 May 1996 and held 80 days in a cellar in Marcinelle; she testified at his 2004 trial and wrote I Choose to Live.
Sacra Corona Unita
Sacra Corona Unita (SCU), Italy's "fourth mafia," is a mafia-type organization founded in an Apulian prison in the early 1980s by Pino Rogoli, active in smuggling, drug trafficking, and extortion.
Saint Valentine's Day Massacre
The Saint Valentine's Day Massacre: killing of seven Moran North Side gang members in a Chicago garage on February 14, 1929, by gunmen posing as police, generally attributed to Al Capone's mob; solved ballistically but never prosecuted.
Saints Row
Saints Row is Volition's open-world crime-action game series, launched by THQ in 2006 as a Grand Theft Auto rival, later owned by PLAION/Embracer; five mainline games, a poorly received 2022 reboot, and Volition's 2023 closure.
Sal Magluta
Salvador "Sal" Magluta, with Willy Falcon of "Los Muchachos," ran a Miami cocaine empire accused of moving 75 tons worth $2 billion; acquitted in a bribed 1996 trial, he was later sentenced to 195 years for money laundering and obstruction.
Sally Clark
Sally Clark, British solicitor wrongly convicted in 1999 of murdering sons Christopher and Harry after Roy Meadow's 1-in-73-million SIDS statistic; convictions quashed on appeal in January 2003 after undisclosed staphylococcal infection evidence.
Salvatore Maranzano
Salvatore Maranzano (July 1886 – September 10, 1931), Sicilian Mafia boss from Castellammare del Golfo; won the Castellammarese War against Joe Masseria, reorganized New York's Mafia into five families as capo di tutti capi, and was murdered in his 230 Park Avenue office by men posing as police officers.
Salvatore Riina
Salvatore (Totò) Riina, Corleone-born boss of bosses of Cosa Nostra 1982–1993, won the Second Mafia War, ordered the Falcone and Borsellino bombings, served 26 life sentences, and died in Parma in 2017.
Salvatore Tessio
Salvatore "Sal" Tessio is a fictional character in Mario Puzo's novel The Godfather (1969) and its 1972 film, a Corleone family caporegime who betrays Michael Corleone.
Salvatore Testa
Salvatore "Salvie" Testa (1956-1984), son of Philadelphia mob boss Philip "Chicken Man" Testa; Scarfo crime family member who survived a 1982 shooting and was murdered on Nicodemo Scarfo's orders at a South Philadelphia candy store.
Sam Bass (outlaw)
Sam Bass (1851–1878), Texas train robber and gang leader, held up a Union Pacific train at Big Springs, Nebraska in 1877 for $60,000, then robbed Texas trains before being mortally wounded by Texas Rangers at Round Rock on July 19, 1878.
Sam DeStefano
Sam "Mad Sam" DeStefano (1909-1973), Chicago Outfit gangster and juice-loan shark, notorious for torture, mentor of Tony Spilotro, linked to Leo Foreman's murder, slain in 1973.
Sam Giancana
Sam Giancana (Salvatore "Momo" Giancana, 1908–1975), Chicago Outfit boss 1957–1966, known for ties to the Kennedys, Sinatra, and CIA Castro assassination plots; murdered unsolved in Oak Park in 1975.
Sam Sheppard
Sam Sheppard (1923-1970), Ohio osteopathic physician convicted in 1954 of murdering his wife Marilyn; conviction voided in Sheppard v. Maxwell (1966), acquitted at retrial, later subject of wrongful-imprisonment suits and The Fugitive inspiration.
Samantha Cookes
Samantha Cookes, known in Ireland as Carrie Jade Williams, is a British serial fraudster jailed in March 2025 for falsely claiming Huntington's disease to take welfare payments.
Sammy Gravano
Sammy Gravano, born Salvatore "Sammy the Bull" Gravano in 1945, is a former underboss of New York's Gambino crime family who became a government witness against John Gotti.
Samuel Bateman
Samuel Rappylee Bateman (born c. 1976) is an American polygamist sect leader from Colorado City, Arizona, who proclaimed himself an FLDS prophet in 2019, led the "Samuelites," and was sentenced to 50 years in federal prison in 2024 plus 24 years in 2026 for child sexual abuse and kidnapping conspiracies.
Samuel Bowers
Samuel Holloway Bowers Jr., Imperial Wizard of the White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan of Mississippi from 1964, directed Klan murders and bombings including the 1964 Freedom Summer killings; convicted 1967 and 1998, died in prison 2006.
Samuel Lee Smithers
Samuel Lee Smithers (born 1953), the "Deacon of Death," a Florida Baptist deacon convicted in 1998 of the 1996 murders of sex workers Denise Roach and Christy Cowan in Plant City; executed October 14, 2025, Florida's record 14th execution that year.