20th-century American criminals

Carl_Wayne_Buntion

Carl Wayne Buntion (March 30, 1944 – April 21, 2022) was an American man convicted of capital murder in Texas and sentenced to death. On April 21, 2022, at the age of 78, he became the oldest inmate to be executed in Texas and the state's first execution of 2022.

Kristen_Gilbert

Kristen Heather Gilbert (née Strickland; born November 13, 1967) is an American serial killer and former nurse who was convicted of four murders and two attempted murders of patients admitted to the Veterans Affairs Medical Center (VAMC) in Northampton, Massachusetts. She induced cardiac arrest in patients by injecting their intravenous therapy bags with lethal doses of epinephrine, commonly known as adrenaline, which is an untraceable heart stimulant. She would then respond to the coded emergency, often resuscitating the patients herself. Prosecutors said Gilbert was on duty for about half of the 350 deaths that occurred at the hospital from when she started working there in 1989, and that the odds of this merely being a coincidence was 1 in 100 million. However, her only confirmed victims were Stanley Jagodowski, Henry Hudon, Kenneth Cutting, and Edward Skwira.

Mary_Kay_Letourneau

Mary Katherine "Mary Kay" Fualaau (née Schmitz, formerly Letourneau; January 30, 1962 – July 6, 2020), was an American sex offender and teacher who pleaded guilty in 1997 to two counts of felony second-degree rape of a child. Letourneau was 34, and the child, Vili Fualaau, was 12 years old when she initiated the sexual abuse. He was her sixth-grade student at an elementary school in Burien, Washington. While awaiting sentencing, she gave birth to Fualaau's daughter. With the state seeking a seven and a half year prison sentence, she reached a plea agreement calling for six months in jail with three months suspended and no contact with Fualaau for life, among other terms. The case received national attention.
Shortly after Letourneau had completed three months in jail, the police caught her in a car with Fualaau. A judge revoked her plea agreement and reinstated the prison sentence for the maximum allowed by law of seven and a half years. Eight months after returning to prison, she gave birth to Fualaau's second child, another daughter. She was imprisoned from 1998 to 2004. Letourneau and Fualaau were married in May 2005, and the marriage lasted 14 years until their separation in 2019.

Robert_Anthony_Buell

Robert Anthony Buell (September 10, 1940 – September 25, 2002) was an American serial killer, child murderer, serial rapist, and former planning department worker from Akron, Ohio. He was convicted of the July 17, 1982 murder of 11-year-old Krista Lea Harrison.Buell was executed by lethal injection on September 25, 2002. His final meal was a single black unpitted olive. In 2010, eight years after his death, he was found to have also killed Tina Marie Harmon.

Patrick_Kearney

Patrick Wayne Kearney (born September 24, 1939), also known as The Trash Bag Killer and The Freeway Killer, is an American serial killer and necrophile who murdered a minimum of twenty-one young men and boys throughout southern California between 1962 and 1977.

Robert_John_Bardo

Robert John Bardo (born January 2, 1970) is an American man serving life imprisonment without parole after being convicted for the July 18, 1989, murder of American actress and model Rebecca Schaeffer, whom he had stalked for three years.

Leona_Helmsley

Leona Roberts Helmsley (born Lena Mindy Rosenthal; July 4, 1920 – August 20, 2007) was an American businesswoman. Her flamboyant personality and reputation for tyrannical behavior earned her the nickname Queen of Mean.After allegations of non-payment were made by contractors hired to improve Helmsley's Connecticut home, she was investigated and convicted of federal income tax evasion and other crimes in 1989. Although having initially received a sentence of 16 years, she was required to serve only 19 months in prison and two months under house arrest. During the trial, a former housekeeper testified that she had heard Helmsley say: "We don't pay taxes; only the little people pay taxes", a quote which was identified with her for the rest of her life.

Charlene_Gallego

Gerald Armond Gallego (July 17, 1946 – July 18, 2002) and Charlene Adell Gallego (née Williams; born October 10, 1956) were two American serial killers and rapists who were active mainly in Sacramento, California, between 1978 and 1980. They murdered at least eleven victims, mostly teenagers, often kept as sex slaves before killing them.

Caril_Ann_Fugate

Caril Ann Fugate (born July 30, 1943) is the youngest female in United States history to have been tried and convicted of first-degree murder. She was the adolescent girlfriend of spree killer Charles Starkweather, being just 14 years old when his murders took place in 1958. She was convicted as his accomplice and sentenced to life imprisonment. In 1976, she was paroled after serving 18 years.

Tony_Costa

Antone Charles "Tony" Costa (August 2, 1944 – May 12, 1974), sometimes referred to as the Cape Cod Vampire or the Cape Cod Cannibal, was an American serial killer who was active in and around the town of Truro, Massachusetts, during 1968–1969. The dismembered remains of four women were found in or near a forest clearing where Costa grew marijuana. His crimes gained international media attention when the district attorney falsely alluded to cannibalism.