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.
Gary Lee Sampson (September 29, 1959 – December 21, 2021) was an American bank robber and later spree killer who killed three people and was sentenced to death by a federal jury in Massachusetts.
During three days in 2001, Sampson killed three strangers – retiree Philip McCloskey in Marshfield, Massachusetts, college student Jonathan Rizzo in Abington, Massachusetts, and Robert Whitney in Meredith, New Hampshire. He also attempted to kill a fourth victim and stranger, William Gregory, in Plymouth, Vermont. Sampson killed McCloskey and Rizzo after they picked him up hitch-hiking, stabbing them to death. Shortly after that he strangled Whitney. Sampson pleaded guilty to the three killings on September 9, 2003, and was sentenced to death on December 23, 2003, by a federal jury in Massachusetts. He received the death penalty for the two Massachusetts killings, and a life sentence for the New Hampshire case.After Sampson pleaded guilty, a federal jury decided whether he should be sentenced to death or life in prison. The defense introduced mental health experts to testify that Sampson had dyslexia as a child, had bipolar disorder, and "suffered from a significant mental impairment" during the killings. A psychiatrist called by the government testified that Sampson did not have any mitigating mental impairment; he was intelligent but violent and deeply antisocial, with antisocial personality disorder. The jury of 12 unanimously returned a sentence of death.
In 2011, Sampson's death sentence was thrown out due to juror misconduct, and he was scheduled for a second sentencing trial on September 16, 2015. He was again sentenced to death on January 9, 2017. He died in 2021 at the age of 62, presumably from end stage liver disease.
Griffin Patrick O'Neal (born October 28, 1964) is an American actor. He has appeared in films such as The Escape Artist, April Fool's Day, The Wraith, Assault of the Killer Bimbos, and Ghoulies III.
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.
Jean-Christophe Mitterrand (born 19 December 1946) is the son of former French president François Mitterrand. He was an advisor to his father on African affairs from 1986 to 1992, and earned the nickname Papamadit (which translates as "Daddy-told-me") in Africa.
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.
Giancarlo Parretti (born 23 October 1941) is an Italian financier.In 1989, he took over Cannon Film Group Inc. from Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus. Almost immediately, he made plans to take over the storied French studio Pathé, and changed Cannon's name to Pathé Communications. However, the French government blocked his bid due to concerns about his background.Undaunted, Parretti bought Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in 1990 for $1.2 billion, using money borrowed from a Dutch subsidiary of Crédit Lyonnais and contingent on future profits financing the purchase from mogul Kirk Kerkorian. Parretti then merged the former Cannon with the MGM purchase to create the short-lived MGM-Pathé Communications.
Under Parretti's control, MGM released almost no films (one victim being the James Bond franchise), while Parretti enjoyed a Hollywood mogul lifestyle. He fired most of the accounting staff and appointed his 21-year-old daughter to a senior financial post. He used company money for presents to several girlfriends, including a former runner-up for Miss Universe. His reign at MGM became the basis for the film Get Shorty, which was produced by MGM.
In 1991, his ownership dissolved in a flurry of lawsuits and a default to Crédit Lyonnais, and Parretti faced securities fraud charges in the United States and Europe.In March 1999, he was found guilty of misuse of corporate funds and fraud and he was sentenced in absentia to four years in prison and fined 1 million francs by a Paris court.
Angel Maturino Reséndiz (August 1, 1959 – June 27, 2006), also known as The Railroad Killer, was a Mexican serial killer suspected in as many as 23 murders across the United States and Mexico during the 1990s. Some also involved sexual assault. He had become known as "The Railroad Killer", as most of his crimes were committed near railroads, where he had jumped off the trains which he was using to travel around the country.
On June 21, 1999, he briefly became the 457th fugitive listed by the FBI on its Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list, before he surrendered to the Texas authorities on July 13, 1999. He was convicted of capital murder in Texas, and executed by lethal injection in 2006.
