American people convicted of attempted murder

Viva Leroy Nash (September 10, 1915 – February 12, 2010) was an American career criminal and one of the oldest prisoners in history as well as one of those longest incarcerated (for a total of 70 years), spending almost 80 years behind bars. He was the oldest American on death row at the time of his death in February 2010.Born in Salt Lake City, Utah, Nash spent much of his life in and out of prison for crimes including transporting stolen vehicles, robbery, and attempted murder. He was first imprisoned in 1930 at 15 years old for armed robbery.
In 1947 at 32 years old, he was sentenced to prison again after shooting a Connecticut police officer. He spent almost 25 years behind bars.
In 1977 he was sentenced to life for having murdered postal carrier David J. Woodhurst, but escaped from a prison work crew in 1982, at age 66, where soon after he went into a coin shop in Phoenix, Arizona, and shot an employee dead.Nash was sentenced to death in 1983. His attorneys claimed that senility had rendered him legally incompetent to be executed, describing him as a "doddering old man, who can't hear, can't see, can't walk, and is very, very loony". The sentence was never carried out; Nash died of natural causes on February 12, 2010, at the age of 94 in the Arizona Eyman State Prison Complex. At the time of his death, he was the oldest person on death row in the US. Sadamichi Hirasawa died on death row in Japan in 1987, nearly one year older with a full 95 years and three months.

Nathaniel Benjamin Levi Bar-Jonah (born David Paul Brown; February 15, 1957 – April 13, 2008) was an American convicted child molester and suspected cannibalistic serial killer who was sentenced to 130 years in prison without the possibility of parole after being convicted of the kidnapping, aggravated assault, and sexual assault of various children.

Edgar Herbert Smith Jr. (1934 – 2017) was an American convicted murderer sentenced to death for his 1957 killing of 15-year-old Victoria Ann Zielinski in Ramsey, New Jersey. On death row, Smith began corresponding with conservative commentator William F. Buckley Jr., and gradually persuaded Buckley that he was innocent. With the help of an elite legal team retained by Buckley, Smith litigated his conviction through multiple court hearings and wrote a book proclaiming his innocence. In 1971, a federal judge vacated Smith's conviction and ordered a retrial. Smith then took a plea deal to time-served, resulting in his 1971 release. Five years later, Smith abducted and tried to kill another woman in San Diego, California. The victim survived and testified against him in court. During that proceeding Smith admitted killing Zielinski in 1957. He was sentenced to life in prison, where he died in 2017 at age 83.

David Joseph Carpenter (born May 6, 1930), also known as The Trailside Killer, is an American serial killer and serial rapist known for stalking and murdering a variety of individuals on hiking trails in state parks near San Francisco, California. He attacked at least ten individuals and was convicted in seven murders and was confirmed to be the killer in an eighth murder; Carpenter is also suspected in two additional killings. Two victims, Steven Haertle and Lois Rinna, mother of television personality Lisa Rinna, survived. Carpenter used a .38 caliber handgun in all but one of the killings. A .44 caliber handgun was used in the killing of Edda Kane on Mount Tamalpais.