American murder victims

Albert Victor Adamson Jr. (July 25, 1929 – June 21, 1995) was an American filmmaker and actor known as a prolific director of B-grade horror and exploitation films throughout the 1960s and 1970s.
The son of silent film stars Victor Adamson and Dolores Booth, Adamson began his career in the film industry at a young age and began directing in the early 1960s, helming a total of 33 feature films. Many of his films, such as Psycho A-Go-Go, Blood of Ghastly Horror, and Dracula vs. Frankenstein, went on to gain cult status. He cast his wife, actress and singer Regina Carrol, in many of his films.
Adamson retired from filmmaking in the early 1980s to pursue a career in real estate. In 1995, he was murdered by a live-in contractor whom he had hired to work on his house, and he was subsequently buried beneath the floor in his bathroom. Adamson's death and the subsequent trial led to renewed publicity, and was the subject of several true crime television documentaries.

Charles Howard Schmid Jr. (July 8, 1942 – March 30, 1975), also known as the Pied Piper of Tucson, was an American serial killer whose crimes were detailed by journalist Don Moser in an article featured in the March 4, 1966, issue of Life magazine. Schmid's criminal career later formed the basis for "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?", a short story by Joyce Carol Oates.: 9  In 2008, The Library of America selected Moser's article for inclusion in its two-century retrospective of American true crime literature.

Ernesto Arturo Miranda (March 9, 1941 – January 31, 1976) was an American laborer whose criminal conviction on kidnapping, rape, and armed robbery charges based on his confession under police interrogation was set aside in the landmark U.S. Supreme Court case Miranda v. Arizona, which ruled that criminal suspects must be informed of their right against self-incrimination and their right to consult with an attorney before being questioned by police. This warning is known as a Miranda warning.
After the Supreme Court decision invalidated Miranda's initial conviction, the state of Arizona tried him again. At the second trial, with his confession excluded from evidence, he was convicted. He was sentenced to 20–30 years in prison.
On January 31, 1976, Miranda was stabbed to death in Phoenix, Arizona. A Mexican man, Eseziquiel Moreno Perez, was charged with the murder of Miranda, but fled to Mexico and has never been located.

Ben Thompson (November 2, 1843 – March 11, 1884) was a gunman, gambler, and sometimes lawman of the Old West. He was a contemporary of "Buffalo" Bill Cody, Bat Masterson, John Wesley Hardin, and "Wild Bill" Hickok, some of whom considered him a friend, others an enemy. Thompson fought for the Confederacy during the Civil War, and later for Emperor Maximilian in Mexico. After he was hired in 1881 as marshal in Austin, Texas, the crime rate reportedly dropped sharply. Thompson was murdered at the age of 40 in San Antonio, Texas, in the "Vaudeville Theater Ambush."

Bonny Lee Bakley (June 7, 1956 – May 4, 2001) was the second wife of actor Robert Blake, who was her tenth husband. Bakley was fatally shot while sitting in Blake's parked car outside a Los Angeles restaurant in May 2001.
In 2002, Blake was charged with Bakley's murder, solicitation of murder, conspiracy and special circumstance of lying in wait. In March 2005, a jury found Blake not guilty of the crimes. Seven months later, Blake was found liable in a wrongful death lawsuit brought against him by Bakley's children. Officially, Bakley's murder remains unsolved.