William Erwin Walker, also known as Erwin M. Walker and Machine Gun Walker (born Erwin Mathias Walker; October 6, 1917− October 7, 2008), was an American police employee and United States Army World War II veteran, known for having committed several thefts, burglaries, and shootouts with police in Los Angeles County, California, in 1945 and 1946, one of which resulted in a fatality. The film He Walked by Night (1948) was loosely based on Walker's 1946 crime spree.
Leslie "Joe Goebbels" Irvin (April 2, 1924 – November 9, 1983) was an American serial killer whose killing spree in the early 1950s terrorized residents of southwestern Indiana and whose Supreme Court case set a precedent for ensuring a fair trial for defendants even in the wake of a great deal of pretrial publicity.
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.
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.
John Edward Robinson (born December 27, 1943), also known as the Slavemaster, is an American serial killer, con man, embezzler, kidnapper, and forger who was found guilty in 2003 for three murders committed in and around Kansas City, receiving the death penalty for two of them. In 2005, he accepted responsibility for five further homicides in Missouri as part of a plea bargain to receive multiple life sentences without possibility of parole and avoid more death sentences. Investigators suspect that more victims remain undiscovered. Because he made contact with most of his post-1993 victims via online chatrooms, Robinson is sometimes referred to as "the Internet's first serial killer".
Roderrick Justin "Rod" Ferrell (born March 28, 1980) is an American murderer and cult leader. He was a member of a loose-knit gang of teenagers from Murray, Kentucky, known as the "Vampire Clan". Ferrell claimed to be a 500-year-old vampire named Vesago, a character he created for himself after becoming obsessed with the role playing game Vampire: The Masquerade. It was his mother, Sondra Gibson, who first introduced this game to Rod. In 1998, Ferrell pleaded guilty to the double slaying of a couple from Eustis, Florida, becoming the youngest person in Florida on Death Row at that time. Originally sentenced to death, Ferrell's penalty has since been reduced to life imprisonment.
Dale H. Maple (September 10, 1920 – May 28, 2001) was a private in the United States Army in World War II who helped two German prisoners of war (POWs) escape in 1943. The POWs were recaptured, and Maple was court-martialed for aiding the enemy and sentenced to death by hanging. He was the first American soldier ever convicted of a crime equivalent to treason. However, his sentence was first commuted to life imprisonment, then to ten years. Maple was released from prison in October 1950.
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.
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.