3,576 articles
John Darwin disappearance case
The John Darwin disappearance case was a British fraud in which John Darwin faked his death canoeing in 2002, collected about £228,000, and was exposed in 2007.
John DiFronzo
John "No Nose" DiFronzo (c. 1929–2018), also called Johnny Bananas, was the reputed boss of the Chicago Outfit from the mid-1990s until his death, never charged despite Spilotro-murder testimony in the 2007 Family Secrets trial.
John Dillinger
John Dillinger (1903-1934), American Depression-era bank robber and head of the Dillinger gang; robbed 11 banks for over $300,000, escaped Crown Point jail with a wooden gun, and was shot by FBI agents outside Chicago's Biograph Theater on July 22, 1934.
John du Pont
John Eleuthère du Pont (1938–2010), du Pont chemical-fortune heir, ornithologist and founder of the Delaware Museum of Natural History, sponsored wrestling at Foxcatcher Farm, killed Dave Schultz in 1996, and died in prison.
John Duffy and David Mulcahy
John Francis Duffy (born 1958) and David Mulcahy (born 1959), the Railway Rapists or Railway Killers, were childhood friends from north London who raped and murdered women near railway stations in southern England, 1982-1986; Duffy was convicted in 1988, Mulcahy only in 2001 after Duffy's prison confession and DNA evidence.
John Edward Robinson
John Edward Robinson Sr. (born 1943), the 'Slavemaster,' is an American serial killer who used online sadomasochistic chat rooms to lure women; convicted in Kansas in 2002 of three murders and sentenced to death, with Missouri life sentences for five more.
John F. Boyle Jr.
John F. Boyle Jr., also called Jack Boyle (1943-2026), was a Mansfield, Ohio osteopathic physician convicted in 1990 of murdering his wife Noreen and abusing her corpse; her body was buried under the basement of his Erie, Pennsylvania house.
John Gambino
John (Giovanni) Gambino, 1940-2017, Sicilian-born captain of the Gambino crime family's 'Cherry Hill Gambinos' faction, relative of Carlo Gambino, key Sicilian-American heroin trafficking link, arrested in Operation Iron Tower.
John Gotti
John Gotti, the Dapper Don and Teflon Don, boss of New York's Gambino crime family from 1985 after the Castellano murder, convicted on all 13 RICO counts in 1992, died in prison in 2002.
John Haigh
John George Haigh (1909–1949), the English "Acid Bath Murderer", dissolves six victims' bodies in sulphuric acid; convicted despite no body and hanged in 1949. Distinguished from the Sussex mathematician John Haigh.
John Henry Carpenter
John Henry Carpenter, American video-equipment salesman, friend of Bob Crane, tried and acquitted in 1994 for Crane's 1978 Scottsdale murder; case remains unsolved; died 1998.
John Hinckley Jr.
John Hinckley Jr., Oklahoma-born, attempted to assassinate President Ronald Reagan outside the Washington Hilton in 1981, to impress Jodie Foster; found not guilty by reason of insanity, confined at St. Elizabeths, fully freed 2022.
John Ibrahim
John Houssam Ibrahim is a Sydney nightclub owner who has run Kings Cross venues since the late 1980s.
John Joubert (serial killer)
John Joubert (1963-1996), American serial killer who murdered three boys in Maine and Nebraska, 1982-1984; identified via FBI profiling and a license-plate tip; executed in Nebraska's electric chair in 1996.
John Leonard Orr
John Leonard Orr, known as the Pillow Pyro, is an American serial arsonist and former Glendale fire captain who set nearly 2,000 fires in the 1980s and early 1990s.
John List (murderer)
John Emil List was an American mass murderer who shot his wife, mother, and children in Westfield, New Jersey, in 2001. He evaded authorities for 18 years.
John Morris (FBI)
John Morris (FBI) was a Boston FBI supervisory special agent, head of the organized crime squad, who admitted taking $7,000 in bribes from Whitey Bulger and testified under immunity against John Connolly and Bulger.
John Palmer (criminal)
John 'Goldfinger' Palmer (c. 1950–2015), English criminal acquitted of handling Brink's-Mat gold in 1987, convicted in 2001 of the largest recorded timeshare fraud (16,000 victims), and shot dead unsolved at his Essex home in June 2015.
John Punch (slave)
John Punch (also Bunch), African servant in Virginia sentenced by the General Court in 1640 to lifelong servitude after running away with two white indentured servants; first documented slave-for-life in the English colonies.
John Roselli
John (Handsome Johnny) Roselli, born Filippo Sacco (1905-1976), was a Chicago Outfit boss on the West Coast, a Hollywood fixer, and the CIA's main underworld contact in plots to assassinate Fidel Castro; he was murdered in 1976.
John Schneeberger
John Schneeberger was convicted of sexual assault and obstruction of justice in Canada in 1999 after falsifying DNA samples. His citizenship was later revoked, and he was deported to South Africa.
John Schrank
John Flammang Schrank (1876–1943), Bavarian-born Milwaukee saloonkeeper, shot Theodore Roosevelt on October 14, 1912; declared insane after a McKinley-ghost delusion, he died institutionalized in Wisconsin.
John Straffen
John Thomas Straffen (1930–2007), English child murderer and Britain's longest-serving prisoner. Killed two Bath girls in 1951, escaped Broadmoor in 1952, killed Linda Bowyer, was reprieved from a death sentence on insanity grounds and died at Frankland prison after 55 years.
John Wayne Gacy
John Wayne Gacy (1942–1994), the Killer Clown, murdered at least 33 young men and boys near Chicago, 1972–1978, was convicted in 1980, executed in 1994; five victims remain unidentified.
John Wojtowicz
John Stanley Wojtowicz, also known as Littlejohn Basso, was the American bank robber whose 1972 Brooklyn Chase Manhattan holdup to fund Elizabeth Eden's surgery inspired Dog Day Afternoon; he died of cancer in 2006.
John Worboys
John Worboys, now John Radford, the black-cab rapist: London taxi driver convicted in 2009 of 19 sexual offences against 12 women, linked to over 105 assaults; his 2018 parole release was quashed and he received two life sentences in 2019.
Johnny Martorano
Johnny Martorano, born John James Vincent Martorano, is a retired American hitman who killed 20 people for Boston's Winter Hill Gang, then became a government witness against Whitey Bulger.
Johnny Ringo
John Peters (Johnny) Ringo (1850-1882), Indiana-born Texas feudist and Tombstone Cowboy, opposed the Earps and died of a gunshot in Turkey Creek Canyon; suicide verdict, disputed gunfighter fame.
Johnny Stompanato
Johnny Stompanato (John Stompanato Jr.), Los Angeles mobster Mickey Cohen's enforcer and bodyguard and Lana Turner's boyfriend, was stabbed to death April 4, 1958 by Turner's 14-year-old daughter Cheryl Crane; a coroner's inquest ruled it justifiable homicide.
Joji Obara
Joji Obara (織原城二), born Kim Sung Jong in 1952, is a Korean-Japanese former property developer serving life for nine rapes, the 1992 death of Carita Ridgway, and the abduction and mutilation of Lucie Blackman's body; courts never convicted him of killing Blackman.