3,576 articles
Mark Hofmann
Mark William Hofmann (born 1954, Salt Lake City) is a Utah rare-documents dealer and master forger of Mormon and American historical documents, including the Anthon Transcript and Salamander Letter; his 1985 pipe bombings killed Steven Christensen and Kathy Sheets, and he is serving five years to life in Utah prison.
Marshalsea
Marshalsea: London debtors' prison in Southwark under the Knight Marshal of the Royal Household, jurisdiction 12 miles round Whitehall; housed Ben Jonson and Dickens's father (1824), closed 1842 under the Queen's Prison Act, setting of Little Dorrit.
Marsy's Law
Marsy's Law, or the Victims' Bill of Rights Act of 2008 (California Proposition 9), is a model state constitutional amendment granting crime victims enforceable rights; first passed in California in 2008 and adopted in twelve states, named for murder victim Marsy Nicholas.
Martin Cahill
Martin Cahill, "The General" (1949–1994), Dublin crime boss behind the 1983 O'Connor's jewellery robbery and 1986 Russborough House art theft; shot dead by the IRA in Ranelagh, Dublin, in 1994.
Martin family disappearance
Martin family disappearance: Kenneth, Barbara, Barbie, Virginia, and Susan Martin of Portland, Oregon, vanished December 7, 1958, during a Columbia River Gorge greenery trip; their 1954 Ford station wagon was found near Cascade Locks in 2024 and DNA identified three members in 2026.
Marvin Gabrion
Marvin Charles Gabrion II, Michigan murderer convicted in 2002 of drowning Rachel Timmerman in Oxford Lake in the Manistee National Forest in 1997, receiving the first federal death sentence in a non-death-penalty state, commuted to life by Biden in 2024.
Marvin Heemeyer
Marvin John Heemeyer was an American welder who, on June 4, 2004, drove a homemade armored bulldozer through Granby, Colorado, destroying 13 buildings before killing himself.
Mary Ann Cotton
Mary Ann Cotton (née Robson, 1832–1873), English woman hanged at Durham Gaol for the arsenic murder of her stepson Charles Edward Cotton; suspected in up to 21 family deaths, often called Britain's first female serial killer.
Mary Bell
Mary Bell, full name Mary Flora Bell, is an English woman convicted in 1968, aged 10 or 11, of the manslaughter of two young boys in Newcastle upon Tyne.
Mary Brunner
Mary Theresa Brunner (born 1943, Eau Claire, Wisconsin) was the first recruit of the Manson Family, mother of Manson's son Valentine Michael, testified under immunity at Beausoleil and Manson trials, and served prison time for the 1971 Hawthorne robbery before her 1977 parole.
Mary Corleone
Mary Corleone is Michael Corleone's daughter in The Godfather Part III (1990), played by Sofia Coppola; she loves her cousin Vincent and dies by a bullet meant for Michael.
Mary Ellen Wilson
Mary Ellen Wilson, also Mary Ellen McCormack (1864-1956), an American abused child whose 1874 New York rescue and testimony led to the first child protection society, the NYSPCC.
Mary Jane Kelly
Mary Jane Kelly (Marie Jeanette Kelly, Fair Emma, Black Mary), c. 1863 to 9 November 1888, final canonical Jack the Ripper victim, killed indoors at 13 Miller's Court, Spitalfields; youngest at about 25, most mutilated, life story resting on Joseph Barnett's unverified testimony.
Mary Kay Letourneau
Mary Kay Letourneau (born Mary Katherine Schmitz, 1962-2020), American teacher convicted of second-degree child rape of 12-year-old student Vili Fualaau in 1997; later married him in 2005 after prison; died of colon cancer.
Mary Prince (nanny)
Mary Prince, known before 1979 as Mary Fitzpatrick, is an American woman wrongly convicted of murder in Georgia in 1970 who became Amy Carter's White House nanny.
Mary Surratt
Mary Surratt, boardinghouse owner at 541 H Street, Washington, D.C., convicted of conspiring in Lincoln's assassination and hanged July 7, 1865; first woman executed by the U.S. federal government, tried by military tribunal, guilt still disputed.
Mary Winkler
Mary Carol Winkler, Tennessee woman who killed her minister husband Matthew Winkler in Selmer on March 22, 2006; convicted of voluntary manslaughter in April 2007 on an abuse defense, serving about two months.
Marybeth Tinning
Marybeth Tinning (born 1942), American murderer from Schenectady, New York; convicted 1987 of second-degree murder for smothering her 4-month-old daughter Tami Lynne; nine children died 1972-1985, one conviction, paroled 2018.
Mass shootings in the United States
Mass shootings in the United States: multi-victim firearm attacks counted under competing definitions (FBI active shooter, GVA 4+ shot). Key facts: under 1% of US gun deaths, disputed international share, 2025 record-low mass killings.
Matchstick Men
Matchstick Men is a 2003 crime-comedy-drama directed by Ridley Scott. Nicolas Cage plays an OCD con artist whose life is upended by a girl posing as his daughter.
Matricide
Matricide is the killing of one's mother, a rare crime (under 2% of known-relationship U.S. homicides), usually by adult sons, often linked to psychosis; also a central theme in Greek tragedy and psychoanalytic theory.
Matteo Messina Denaro
Matteo Messina Denaro (U siccu, Diabolik), Cosa Nostra boss of Castelvetrano and Trapani province, fugitive 1993-2023, convicted for the Falcone and Borsellino bombings, arrested January 2023 at a Palermo clinic, died in custody September 2023.
Matthew Charles Johnson
Matthew Charles Johnson, an Australian prisoner with more than 150 prior convictions, murdered gangland boss Carl Williams with an exercise bike stem at Barwon Prison in April 2010; sentenced in 2011 to life with a 32-year non-parole period.
Matthew Cox
Matthew Bevan Cox, American former Tampa mortgage broker and FBI most-wanted con man, committed an estimated $55 million in mortgage fraud using forged documents and stolen identities, pleaded guilty in 2007 to a 316-month sentence later cut to 234 months.
Matthew Falder
Matthew Falder, British geophysicist and Cambridge graduate, blackmailed 46 victims online as "Liz" and "666devil"; admitted 137 offences, jailed 32 years in 2018, reduced to 25 on appeal.
Matthew Muller
Matthew Muller, disbarred Harvard-trained attorney and former Marine, kidnapped Denise Huskins from Vallejo, California in 2015; Vallejo police called it a hoax until his arrest. Serving 40-year federal, 31-year state, and additional sentences.
Maurice Audin affair
The Maurice Audin affair is the 1957 disappearance of Maurice Audin, a French mathematician at the University of Algiers arrested by French paratroopers during the Battle of Algiers.
Maurice Boucher
Maurice "Mom" Boucher (1953–2022) led the Hells Angels' Nomads chapter in Quebec, ordered the 1997 murders of prison guards Diane Lavigne and Pierre Rondeau during the biker war, was convicted in 2002, and died of throat cancer in prison.
Maury Travis
Maury Troy Travis (born 1965, died June 10, 2002) was an American suspected serial killer of 12-20 women around St. Louis, caught via an Expedia.com map he mailed to a newspaper, which was traced through Microsoft and WorldCom logs to his IP address; he hanged himself in jail three days after arrest, never tried.
Max Clifford
Max Clifford (Frank Maxwell Clifford, 1943-2017), British celebrity publicist and founder of Max Clifford Associates, king of tabloid kiss-and-tell PR; convicted in 2014 of eight counts of indecent assault and jailed for eight years.