3,576 articles
Wineville Chicken Coop murders
The Wineville Chicken Coop murders were 1928 California child killings by Gordon Stewart Northcott at his Wineville ranch; convicted of three murders, executed 1930; town renamed Mira Loma.
Winter Hill Gang
Winter Hill Gang: Irish-American organized crime group from Somerville, Massachusetts, also called the Irish Mob, led successively by Buddy McLean, Howie Winter, and Whitey Bulger; fought the McLaughlin Gang in the 1960s and collapsed after Bulger's 1994 flight and 2011 arrest.
Wiseguy (book)
Wiseguy is Nicholas Pileggi's 1985 nonfiction book about Henry Hill, a Lucchese crime family associate who became a federal witness, later adapted into the 1990 film GoodFellas.
Wolf family murders
Wolf family murders: the April 22, 1920 killings of eight members of a German-Russian farm family near Turtle Lake, North Dakota; baby Emma survived, neighbor Henry Layer confessed and died in prison in 1925, and the case remains disputed.
Women's fear of crime
Women's fear of crime: the consistent finding that women report more fear of crime than men despite lower victimization, the fear–victimization paradox, its explanations (shadow of sexual assault, vulnerability, feminist geography), and behavioral costs.
Wonderland Gang
Wonderland Gang: Los Angeles drug-dealing group of the late 1970s and early 1980s based at 8763 Wonderland Avenue, Laurel Canyon; led by Ron Launius. Known for the 1981 Eddie Nash robbery and the unsolved July 1, 1981 Wonderland murders.
Wonderland murders
The Wonderland murders were the unsolved 1981 bludgeoning deaths of four people in a Laurel Canyon house in Los Angeles, tied to the Wonderland Gang drug dealers.
Wooden horse (device)
Wooden horse, also called Spanish Donkey or chevalet: a military punishment device, a sharp wooden ridge on legs on which offenders sat astride with weighted limbs, used in European and American armies into the Civil War era.
Woody Allen sexual abuse allegation
Dylan Farrow's allegation that Woody Allen sexually assaulted her in 1992 at age seven; also known as the Allen-Farrow case. Allen denies it; investigations disagreed, no charges were filed, and the 2021 HBO series Allen v. Farrow revived the dispute.
World's End Murders
World's End Murders: 1977 killings of Helen Scott and Christine Eadie, 17, after leaving the World's End pub, Edinburgh. Killer Angus Sinclair convicted at 2014 retrial under the Double Jeopardy (Scotland) Act 2011 after a 2007 acquittal, jailed 37 years.
Wrongful conviction of David Camm
David Camm, a former Indiana State Police trooper, was convicted of the 2000 Camm family murders. The case is a cited example of a wrongful conviction based on flawed bloodstain pattern analysis.
Wrongful conviction of Peter Sullivan
Peter Sullivan was wrongly convicted in 1987 of the 1986 murder of Diane Sindall in Bebington, Merseyside, based on bite mark and circumstantial evidence. His conviction was quashed on 13 May 2025 after DNA testing excluded him, after 38 years in prison.
Wrongful execution
Wrongful execution is the execution of a person wrongly convicted of a capital crime. Key measures: 203 U.S. death-row exonerations since 1973, one exoneration per 8 executions, and DPIC's list of executed people with credible innocence claims.
Xenophobia in South Africa
Xenophobia in South Africa: hostility and recurrent violence against foreign nationals, with major episodes in 2008 (62 dead), 2015, 2019 and the 2026 March and March crisis.
XXXTentacion murder trial
The XXXTentacion murder trial, also called the RIVA Motorsports killing case, ended March 20, 2023 with Boatwright, Williams, and Newsome convicted of first-degree murder; Allen testified; all three got life sentences.
Yakuza
Yakuza (boryokudan, gokudō): Japan's organized crime syndicates, active since the 17th century, structured on oyabun-kobun bonds, led by the Yamaguchi-gumi, Sumiyoshi-kai, and Inagawa-kai, legally never banned but restricted since the 1992 Botaiho.
Yamaguchi-gumi (山口組)
Yamaguchi-gumi (山口組), Japan's largest yakuza syndicate, founded 1915 in Kobe by Yamaguchi Harukichi as a dock labor-broking group; designated bōryokudan since 1992, split in 2015 forming the Kobe Yamaguchi-gumi, with about 3,100 members at end-2025.
Yang Xinhai (杨新海)
Yang Xinhai, also known as Yang Zhiya, was a Chinese serial killer convicted of 67 murders across four provinces from about 2000 to 2003 and executed in 2004.
Yaser Abdel Said
Yaser Abdel Said (ياسر عبد السيد), Egyptian-born American taxi driver convicted of capital murder for the 2008 shooting deaths of his daughters Amina and Sarah in Irving, Texas; FBI Ten Most Wanted fugitive #504, captured 2020, sentenced to life without parole.
Year and a day rule
The year and a day rule was a common law rule barring homicide charges if the victim died more than a year and a day after the act.
Yodok concentration camp (요덕 제15호 관리소)
Yodok (Kwanliso No. 15, 요덕 제15호 관리소) was North Korea's most documented political prison camp in Yodok County, South Hamgyong, with a Total Control Zone and a unique Revolutionizing Zone; documented via testimony and satellite imagery, reportedly closed 2014–2019 and later converted to housing.
Yolanda Saldívar
Yolanda Saldívar (born 1960, San Antonio) is the former nurse, Selena fan club president, and boutique manager who murdered the Tejano singer on March 31, 1995; convicted of first-degree murder in Houston in 1995, serving life in Gatesville, Texas, parole denied March 2025, next review 2030.
Yoo Young-chul (유영철)
Yoo Young-chul (유영철), South Korean serial killer who murdered 20 people in Seoul in 2003–2004, targeting wealthy elderly people then sex workers; sentenced to death in 2005, never executed, still on death row.
Yoshie Shiratori (白鳥 由栄)
Yoshie Shiratori (白鳥由栄, 1907–1979), Japan's "escape king of the Shōwa era," escaped four prisons, Aomori, Akita, Abashiri, and Sapporo, between 1936 and 1947; every freedom ended in recapture, and he was paroled in 1961.
Young offender institution
Young offender institutions (YOIs) are prison-estate custodial establishments in England and Wales for boys aged 15-17 and young adults 18-21, successors to borstals (1902-1982), created by the Criminal Justice Act 1988; girls ceased to be placed there in March 2025.
Youth detention center
Youth detention center, also called juvenile detention center or juvie, is a secure facility holding minors pending court hearings. Covers its 1899 court origins, mental health needs, recidivism, disparities, and alternatives.
YSL Records racketeering trial
The YSL Records racketeering trial (Georgia v. Jeffery Williams et al.) prosecuted the Young Slime Life/Young Stoner Life collective under Georgia's RICO Act from 2022 to 2025, ending with pleas, acquittals, and no murder convictions.
Zakrzewski family murders
Zakrzewski family murders: June 9, 1994 killings of Sylvia, Edward, and Anna Zakrzewski in Okaloosa County, Florida, by Edward J. Zakrzewski II; three death sentences in 1996, execution in 2025.
Zebra murders
The Zebra murders were racially motivated random killings of white victims in San Francisco, October 1973 to April 1974, by a group called the Death Angels; four men, Cooks, Green, Moore, and Simon, were convicted and sentenced to life.
ZeroZeroZero
ZeroZeroZero: eight-episode Sky/Amazon crime drama (2020) adapted from Roberto Saviano's nonfiction book, directed by Stefano Sollima, tracing a cocaine shipment from Mexican cartels through 'Ndrangheta buyers; 94% on Rotten Tomatoes.