3,576 articles
Joliet Correctional Center
Joliet Correctional Center (Old Joliet Prison), Illinois State Penitentiary–Joliet, was a Joliet, Illinois state prison operating 1858–2002, built by convict quarry labor, closed by Governor Ryan, now a museum-run National Register historic site.
Jon Roberts
Jon Pernell Roberts (Jon Roberts), American cocaine smuggler for the Medellín Cartel in 1980s Miami, featured in Cocaine Cowboys and memoirist of American Desperado; died 2011, age 63.
Jon Romano
Jon Romano, American who at 16 shot a teacher at Columbia High School, East Greenbush, in 2004, served about 17 years, then became a mental health advocate and survived a 2022 Albany sword attack.
Jonathan James
Jonathan James (cOmrade), American hacker born 1983, first US juvenile sentenced to custody for hacking; breached DTRA and NASA in 1999, downloading $1.7 million ISS software; died May 18, 2008 during TJX investigation.
Jonathan Lee Riches
Jonathan Lee Riches, aka JLR Investigates, an American convicted wire fraudster who filed thousands of frivolous federal lawsuits as a prisoner, drew court injunctions, and later became a true-crime personality covering the Nancy Guthrie case.
Jonathan Wild
Jonathan Wild (c. 1682–1725), English "Thief-Taker General" of London, ran a lost-property office returning stolen goods for profit while organizing the thieves themselves; convicted under 4 Geo. I c. 11, hanged at Tyburn 24 May 1725, later Fielding's satirical hero.
Joran van der Sloot
Joran van der Sloot, Dutch national, prime suspect in the 2005 disappearance of Natalee Holloway in Aruba; convicted in Peru of the 2010 murder of Stephany Flores (28 years), pleaded guilty in 2023 to extorting Holloway's mother and admitted killing Holloway.
Jordan Brown case
The Jordan Brown case: Pennsylvania prosecution of an 11-year-old charged as an adult in the 2009 shooting of Kenzie Houk, adjudicated delinquent in 2012, exonerated by the state Supreme Court in 2018, later suing state troopers.
Jorge Ayala
Jorge "Rivi" Ayala, born 1957 in Cali, Colombia, is a hitman who served as chief enforcer for drug lord Griselda Blanco in Miami, pleading guilty in 1993 to three murders for hire.
Jorge Humberto Figueroa Benítez
Jorge Humberto Figueroa Benítez, alias El Perris or El 27, was a Sinaloa Cartel Los Chapitos security leader and Los Ninis commander, indicted in SDNY in 2023 with a $1 million US reward, killed by the Mexican Army in Navolato on May 23, 2025.
Jorge Ochoa
Jorge Luis Ochoa Vásquez, Colombian drug trafficker and co-founder of the Medellín Cartel with Pablo Escobar and his brothers Juan David and Fabio; controlled Miami distribution, surrendered in the early 1990s, and was released in 1996.
Jorge Salcedo Cabrera
Jorge Salcedo Cabrera, born 1947 in Bogotá, Colombian civil engineer and Cali cartel head of security who became a DEA informant, helped capture Miguel Rodríguez Orejuela in 1995, and lives under witness protection in the US.
Jos Leijdekkers
Jos Leijdekkers, also known as "Bolle Jos," is a Dutch fugitive drug trafficker. In 2024, he was sentenced to 24 years for trafficking nearly 7,000 kilograms of cocaine.
José Gonzalo Rodríguez Gacha
José Gonzalo Rodríguez Gacha, alias El Mexicano (1947–1989), Colombian drug trafficker and co-founder of the Medellín Cartel; oversaw cocaine labs, financed paramilitaries, implicated in the Galán assassination, and was killed by police in Sucre in December 1989.
José Rodrigo Aréchiga Gamboa
José Rodrigo Aréchiga Gamboa, alias El Chino Ántrax (born 1980, Culiacán), was a Sinaloa Cartel lieutenant who founded and led its armed wing Los Ántrax, was arrested in Amsterdam in 2013, prosecuted in San Diego, and killed in Sinaloa in May 2020 after fleeing supervised release.
José Santacruz Londoño
José Santacruz Londoño, alias Chepe, co-founded and was the third-ranking leader of Colombia's Cali cartel, ran its New York cocaine network, was arrested in Bogotá in July 1995, escaped La Picota prison in January 1996, and was killed by police near Medellín in March 1996.
Josef Bühler
Josef Bühler (1904–1948), Nazi state secretary and deputy to Hans Frank in the General Government of occupied Poland; urged the Final Solution at the Wannsee Conference; executed in Cracow in 1948.
Joseph Bonanno
Joseph Bonanno (Giuseppe Bonanno, "Joe Bananas"), 1905-2002, Sicilian-born American Mafia boss who founded and led the Bonanno crime family, one of New York's Five Families, from 1931 to the mid-1960s before exile to Tucson.
Joseph Christopher
Joseph Gerard Christopher (1955–1993), the '.22 Caliber Killer' and 'Midtown Slasher', was a Buffalo-born serial killer who murdered Black men in New York with a sawed-off .22 rifle from September 1980, was convicted in 1982 and 1985, and died in prison in 1993.
Joseph Clarence Smith Jr.
Joseph Clarence Smith Jr. (born 1949), also Joe Clarence Smith, is an Arizona death row inmate sentenced in 1977 for the 1975-1976 asphyxiation murders of hitchhikers Sandy Spencer and Neva Lee; resentenced in 2004, appeals continue.
Joseph Colombo
Joseph Colombo, also known as Joseph Anthony Colombo Sr., was an American crime boss who led the Colombo crime family of the New York Mafia until he was shot in 1971.
Joseph Corcoran
Joseph Edward Corcoran (c. 1975–2024), American mass murderer executed by Indiana for the 1997 Fort Wayne killings of his brother James Corcoran, Robert Scott Turner, Douglas Stillwell, and Timothy Bricker; first Indiana execution in 15 years.
Joseph Edward Duncan
Joseph Edward Duncan III, American serial killer and child molester, killed three members of the Groene family near Coeur d'Alene, Idaho in 2005, abducted Shasta and Dylan Groene, and received three federal death sentences; he died of brain cancer on death row in 2021.
Joseph James DeAngelo
Joseph James DeAngelo Jr., former California police officer identified in 2018 as the Golden State Killer via genetic genealogy (GEDmatch, MyHeritage); pleaded guilty in 2020 to 13 murders and dozens of rapes, sentenced to life without parole.
Joseph Kallinger
Joseph Kallinger, born Joseph Lee Brenner III, was an American shoemaker from Philadelphia who murdered three people and led home invasions with his son in 1974 and 1975.
Joseph Konopka
Joseph Konopka (born 1976), alias Dr. Chaos, an American who led the Realm of Chaos in sabotage of Wisconsin infrastructure 1998–2001 and stored cyanide in Chicago subway tunnels, receiving 23 years in federal prison.
Joseph Paul Franklin
Joseph Paul Franklin (born James Clayton Vaughn Jr., 1950–2013) was an American white supremacist serial killer who killed at least 15 people across 11 states in 1977–1980, shot Vernon Jordan and Larry Flynt, and was executed in Missouri in 2013.
Joseph Valachi
Joseph Michael Valachi (born 1904), aka Joe Cargo, Charles Sanbano, Anthony Sorge, was a Genovese crime family soldier who in October 1963 became the first Mafioso to break omertà publicly, testifying before a Senate subcommittee and revealing the name La Cosa Nostra; his memoir inspired The Valachi Papers.
Joseph-Ignace Guillotin
Joseph-Ignace Guillotin (1738-1814), French physician and Paris deputy who proposed machine decapitation in 1789; the guillotine, designed by Antoine Louis, was named for him, though he did not invent it and died naturally in 1814.
Josh Duggar
Josh Duggar (Joshua James Duggar, born 1988), eldest child of the Duggar family of TLC's 19 Kids and Counting, former FRC Action executive director, convicted in 2021 of receiving child sexual abuse material and sentenced to 151 months in federal prison.