3,576 articles
White torture
White torture is psychological torture via sensory deprivation and prolonged solitary confinement; the term (Persian enferadi) originated among Iranian political prisoners and is documented by HRW, Rejali, and UN 15-day solitary thresholds.
White van speaker scam
White van speaker scam: parking-lot fraud selling cheap speakers and electronics at inflated prices using fake MSRPs, surplus-stock stories, and cash demands; documented in the US, Australia, and New Zealand, now also online and with projectors.
White-collar crime
White-collar crime is occupational or corporate lawbreaking involving fraud, deception, or breach of trust, a term coined by Edwin Sutherland in 1939 and still contested between offender-based and offense-based definitions.
Whitechapel murders
Whitechapel murders: unsolved killings of women in London's East End, 1888-1891; five canonical victims including Mary Ann Nichols and Mary Jane Kelly attributed to Jack the Ripper; Metropolitan Police never charged anyone.
Whitehall Mystery
Whitehall Mystery: unsolved 1888 London murder in which a headless female torso was found in a vault of the new New Scotland Yard construction site, with an arm in the Thames at Pimlico; victim unidentified, verdict Found Dead.
Whitey Bulger
James "Whitey" Bulger (1929–2018) was a Boston crime boss who led the Winter Hill Gang and was an FBI informant before his 2013 murder conviction.
Whodunit
A whodunit is a mystery story that hides the criminal's identity until the end, usually a detective solving a murder; the term also names a branch of crime fiction.
Wichita Massacre
Wichita Massacre (Carr brothers case), December 2000 crime spree in Wichita, Kansas, in which Reginald and Jonathan Carr robbed, raped, and executed five people on a soccer field, killing four; death sentences upheld after Kansas v. Carr (2016).
Wild Bill Hickok
Wild Bill Hickok (James Butler Hickok, 1837-1876), American frontiersman, Kansas lawman, and gambler; famous for the 1865 Tutt shootout, the 1867 Harper's legend, and his 1876 murder in Deadwood.
Willem Holleeder
Willem Holleeder, Dutch organized crime figure nicknamed De Neus, took part in the 1983 Heineken kidnapping and was sentenced to life in 2022 for instigating five underworld murders.
William and Zachary Zulock
William Dale Zulock and Zachary Jacoby Zulock, a married Oxford, Georgia couple, were sentenced in December 2024 to 100 years in prison without parole for sexually abusing their two adopted sons and producing child sexual abuse material.
William Bentvena
William "Billy Batts" Bentvena (1933–1970) was a New York mobster tied to the Gambino family, a defendant in the 1960 federal Bentvena narcotics conspiracy case, and the real-life model for Billy Batts in Goodfellas.
William Bonin
William George Bonin (1947-1996), the "Freeway Killer," murdered 14 teenaged boys in Southern California, 1979-1980, with four accomplices; twice-paroled sex offender, sentenced to death twice, first executed by lethal injection in California, 1996.
William Brocius
William "Curly Bill" Brocius (Brocious, Brosius), outlaw leader of the Clanton Gang or Cowboys in Tombstone, Arizona Territory, 1878–1882; killed Marshal Fred White in 1880, acquitted; death at Wyatt Earp's hands in 1882 disputed.
William Brodie
William "Deacon" Brodie (1741–1788) was an Edinburgh cabinetmaker, locksmith, guild deacon, and town councillor who secretly led a burglary gang, robbed the Excise Office in 1788, was hanged 1 October 1788, and inspired Stevenson's Jekyll and Hyde.
William Buckley (convict)
William Buckley (1780–1856), the "Wild White Man", English convict transported for life on the Calcutta, escaped Sullivan Bay in 1803 and lived about 32 years with the Wathaurung people until 1835.
William Edward Wells
William Edward Wells is the name of several unrelated men, including a Florida man sentenced to death whose case reached the United States Supreme Court in 2023.
William Heirens
William George Heirens, the "Lipstick Killer," confessed at 17 in 1946 to three Chicago murders, pleaded guilty, got three consecutive life terms, recanted, earned Illinois' first prisoner BA degree, and died in prison in 2012 after 65 years.
William Kemmler
William Kemmler (William Francis Kemmler), Buffalo vegetable vendor convicted in 1889 of murdering Matilda Ziegler; first person executed by electric chair, Auburn Prison, August 6, 1890, in a botched two-jolt electrocution upheld in People ex rel. Kemmler v. Durston and In re Kemmler.
William King Hale
William King Hale (1874–1962), the "King of the Osage Hills," was a Texas-born Oklahoma cattleman who orchestrated murders of Osage Nation members for oil headrights; convicted of Henry Roan's murder in 1929, paroled 1947.
William Leonard Pickard
William Leonard Pickard (born 1945) is an American chemist, once a Harvard and UCLA drug policy researcher, convicted in 2003 in the largest DEA LSD lab seizure (Wamego, Kansas) and granted compassionate release in 2020.
William Pierce (serial killer)
William Joseph "Junior" Pierce Jr., American serial killer of nine victims in Georgia and South Carolina, June 1970 to January 1971, paroled May 1970, convicted of murdering Peg Cuttino, died in prison 2020, portrayed in Mindhunter.
William Poole
William Poole, known as Bill the Butcher, was a New York City butcher and leader of the Bowery Boys gang who was shot dead in 1855.
William Suff
William Lester Suff, the "Riverside Prostitute Killer," a California death-row serial killer convicted in 1995 of murdering 12 women in Riverside County after serving 10 Texas prison years for his infant daughter's 1973 murder.
William Vandiver
William Carl Vandiver, American murderer executed in Indiana's electric chair on October 16, 1985 for the 1983 murder of his father-in-law Paul Komyatti Sr.; his electrocution took 17 minutes and five jolts, a noted botched execution.
Willie Crain Jr.
Willie Seth Crain Jr. (born 1946) is a Florida death row inmate convicted in 1999 of the first-degree felony murder of seven-year-old Amanda Brown, whose body was never found; his kidnapping conviction was reduced to false imprisonment on appeal.
Willie Francis
Willie Francis, Louisiana Black teenager who survived a botched 1946 electrocution; his case, Francis v. Resweber (1947), let the state execute him again on May 9, 1947.
Willie Pye
Willie James Pye (c. 1964–2024), Georgia death row inmate executed March 20, 2024, for the 1993 kidnapping, rape, and murder of Alicia Lynn Yarbrough; first Georgia execution in over four years, after contested intellectual-disability and ineffective-counsel claims.
Willie Sutton
Willie Sutton (William Francis Sutton, Jr., 1901-1980), 'The Actor' or 'Slick Willie,' American bank robber famed for disguises, six prison escapes, FBI Ten Most Wanted capture in 1952, and the disputed 'where the money is' quote.
Willy Falcon
Willy Falcon (Augusto Guillermo Falcon), Cuban-born Miami trafficker who with Sal Magluta ran Los Muchachos, importing 75 tons of cocaine; acquitted in 1996 amid jury bribery, later imprisoned for money laundering and released in 2017.