Curated playlist

American male criminals

Nikolas CruzNikolas Cruz told a psychologist that he chose Valentine's Day for his attack because he believed no one loved him. On the 14th of February 2018, Cruz walked into Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, where he had once been a student, and…
Eric Harris and Dylan KleboldEric Harris and Dylan Klebold carried out the Columbine High School massacre in Littleton, Colorado, on the 20th of April 1999. They killed 13 students and one teacher and wounded 23 others. Then both died by suicide in the school library.…
Charles MansonOn the first day of testimony in his 1970 murder trial, Charles Manson arrived with an X carved into his forehead.
Cary StaynerCary Stayner is an American serial killer whose crimes began to surface in March 1999, when police near Yosemite National Park received an anonymous note. It held a hand-drawn map, and across the top someone had written, "We had fun with…
John Wayne GacyOn the 21st of December 1978, an evidence technician named Daniel Genty crawled into a space measuring 28 by 38 feet beneath a ranch-style house outside Chicago. He worked his way to the southwest corner and began to dig. Within minutes he…
Dean CorllDean Corll was the man whose death a frightened caller reported to the Pasadena Police Department at 8:24 on the morning of the 8th of August 1973. The operator who answered was named Velma Lines. The caller was a teenager, and he blurted…
Ted BundyIn June 1974, Ted Bundy walked into the middle of an active Seattle police investigation to collect evidence he had left behind. Bundy would murder dozens of young women and girls in 1974-1975 and 1978. On the night of the 11th of June…
Phil SpectorPhil Spector's first number one song came from his father's gravestone.
Derek ChauvinDerek Michael Chauvin joined the Minneapolis Police Department in 2001, and on the 25th of May 2020 he became one of the most scrutinized defendants in the world. That day he was among four officers who arrested George Floyd, a 46-year-old…
Dzhokhar TsarnaevDzhokhar Tsarnaev and his older brother Tamerlan planted two pressure cooker bombs at the 117th Boston Marathon. The bombs exploded at 2:49 in the afternoon on the 15th of April 2013, Patriots' Day. One had been placed at the finish line,…
Harvey WeinsteinHarvey Weinstein was thanked by name in 34 Academy Award acceptance speeches. That is as many times as God was thanked, and only Steven Spielberg, with 43 mentions, was thanked more often. The tally comes from an analysis of speeches made…
Charles HarrelsonCharles Harrelson went to prison for the murder of federal judge John H. Wood Jr., who was shot dead on the 29th of May 1979 in the parking lot outside his townhouse in San Antonio, Texas. No federal judge in the 20th century had been…
Elmer Wayne HenleyAt 8:24 on the morning of the 8th of August 1973, Elmer Wayne Henley Jr. phoned the Pasadena Police Department from Dean Corll's home in Pasadena, Texas. He was seventeen years old. He told the operator: "Y'all better come here right now!…
Tupac ShakurTupac Shakur wrote and recorded the album The Don Killuminati in three days. Mixing took four more.
James Burke (gangster)James Burke, nicknamed Jimmy the Gent, spent his criminal life beside the Lucchese crime family without ever being allowed to join it. He was born on the 5th of July 1931. He is believed to have organized the 1978 Lufthansa heist. His…
Jim JonesJim Jones was an American preacher who founded the Peoples Temple. On the 18th of November 1978, 912 people died at his jungle commune in Jonestown, Guyana. Among them were 304 children. Jones called the event "revolutionary suicide," a…
Meyer LanskyShortly after The Godfather Part II reached theaters in 1974, Meyer Lansky picked up the telephone and called the actor Lee Strasberg. Strasberg had played Hyman Roth, a gangster based on Lansky, and had earned an Oscar nomination for it.…
Sam Bankman-FriedSam Bankman-Fried played League of Legends while pitching investors. Sequoia later put in more than $200 million.
John Allen MuhammadJohn Allen Muhammad was pronounced dead at 9:11 p.m. on the 10th of November 2009. The place was the Greensville Correctional Center, near Jarratt, Virginia. Seven years earlier, in 2002, shootings attributed to him and a young partner…
Charles CullenCharles Cullen told detectives that he had killed as many as 40 patients, and that figure marks only the beginning of the uncertainty around him. Investigators have confirmed at least 29 of those deaths. Researchers who studied his career…
Jeffrey DahmerJeffrey Dahmer killed seventeen men and boys between 1978 and 1991. He became known as the Milwaukee Cannibal and the Milwaukee Monster. On the night of the 22nd of July 1991, police officers in a Milwaukee apartment pinned him to the…
Timothy McVeighTimothy McVeigh was driving on Interstate 35 in Noble County, Oklahoma, when state trooper Charles J. Hanger noticed his yellow 1977 Mercury Marquis had no license plate. Hanger also noticed a bulge under the driver's jacket. McVeigh…
Jack RubyAt 11:21 on Sunday morning, the 24th of November 1963, Jack Ruby stepped out of a crowd of reporters in the basement of Dallas Police Headquarters. Ruby, a Dallas nightclub owner, was holding a revolver. A few feet away stood Lee Harvey…
Larry NassarLarry Nassar, whose full name is Lawrence Gerard Nassar, was born on the 16th of August 1963 and trained as an osteopathic physician. For decades, parents and athletes trusted him with the care of young bodies. In 2016, after an…
Keith RaniereKeith Raniere was addressed by his followers as Vanguard, and for twenty years he led a company in Albany, New York, called NXIVM. The company sold personal development seminars. From 1998 to 2018 it drew 700 members at its height, among…
Chris BrownChris Brown, born Christopher Maurice Brown, has sold more than 140 million records worldwide. That total places him among the best-selling music artists in the world. Across his career he has collected 219 awards from 566 nominations, and…
R. KellyBeneath the Chicago "L" tracks, at the Jackson stop on the Red Line in the Loop, a young school dropout named Robert Kelly sang for passing commuters. Decades later, as R. Kelly, he had sold more than 75 million albums and singles…
Mike TysonBy age 13, Mike Tyson had been arrested 38 times. At 20 he became the youngest heavyweight champion ever.
Steve BannonSteve Bannon still earns money every time Seinfeld airs. His bank took a stake in five shows instead of a fee.
Franklin Delano FloydFranklin Delano Floyd died of natural causes on the 23rd of January 2023, at the age of 79, while still on death row. He was an American murderer and child sex offender, and he spent most of his life moving under borrowed names. For years,…
Ted KaczynskiTed Kaczynski wrote a letter to The New York Times in 1995 and attached a promise to it. If the Times or The Washington Post printed his essay in full, he would "desist from terrorism." The essay ran to roughly 35,000 words and carried the…
Bernie MadoffBernie Madoff told his own sons in December 2008 that the fund he ran was "just one big lie." Bernard Lawrence Madoff was an American financier, born in 1938, who had once served as chairman of the Nasdaq stock exchange. He admitted to…
Al CaponeAl Capone always turned the left side of his face away from the camera. Three knife slashes had scarred that cheek, and he told people they were war wounds. The nickname they earned him, Scarface, was one he loathed. His closest friends…
Lyle and Erik MenendezLyle and Erik Menendez became known to the public through a telephone call placed late on the 20th of August 1989. Lyle told a 9-1-1 operator, "Someone killed my parents!" He said he had just come home and found their bodies. Erik could be…
Lucky LucianoLucky Luciano, born Salvatore Lucania, was arrested 25 times between 1916 and 1936 and spent no time in prison. The charges ranged from assault and illegal gambling to blackmail and robbery. Then a trial over a prostitution racket ended…
Gary RidgwayOn the 30th of November 2001, police arrived at the Kenworth truck factory in Renton, Washington, to arrest a spray painter as he was leaving work. The man was Gary Leon Ridgway, born on the 18th of February 1949. For years the press had…
Rodney AlcalaRodney Alcala walked onto the set of the television game show The Dating Game in 1978, and host Jim Lange introduced him as a successful photographer. Lange promised that between takes he might be found skydiving or motorcycling. The…
Dylann RoofDylann Storm Roof, born on the 3rd of April 1994, is an American white supremacist and neo-Nazi who carried out the Charleston church shooting. On the evening of the 17th of June 2015, a routine Bible study was under way at Emanuel African…
Richard RamirezRichard Ramirez was an American burglar, sex offender and serial killer who terrorized Los Angeles and the San Francisco Bay Area. A California judge, upholding nineteen death sentences against him, said his deeds showed "cruelty,…
Frank LucasFrank Lucas liked to ask one question when he explained how he moved heroin. "Who the hell is gonna look in a dead soldier's coffin?" He put it that way in an interview for a New York magazine article published in 2000. Lucas operated in…
Stephen PaddockStephen Paddock spent the night of the 1st of October 2017 in a hotel room above a crowd of about 22,000 people. They had gathered for a country music festival on the Las Vegas Strip. By the end of that night, 60 of them were dead and…
Robert Eugene BrashersRobert Eugene Brashers died in January 1999, and while he lived, no investigator ever named him as a suspect in any of his murders. Investigators now link him to at least eight murders in Kentucky, Missouri, South Carolina and Texas…
Andrew CunananAndrew Cunanan killed five people in the space of three months in 1997. Four of them had been his friends, lovers, or strangers who simply owned something he wanted. The fifth was one of the most famous fashion designers in the world. For…
Richard KuklinskiRichard Kuklinski, born in 1935 and later known as the Iceman, lived in the New Jersey suburb of Dumont with his wife and children. His wife Barbara described him as a wholesale distributor who employed an accountant. Neighbors saw a…
Frank CostelloFrank Costello, an Italian-American crime boss, tried to keep his face off television during the Senate's organized crime hearings. The attempt backfired. Cameras settled on his hands instead, and his fidgeting and evasive answers played…
Robert HansenBehind the headboard of a bed in an Anchorage home, investigators found an aeronautical chart marked with thirty-seven handwritten x symbols. The home belonged to Robert Hansen, a baker nicknamed the Butcher Baker. Between 1971 and 1983 he…
Edmund KemperEdmund Kemper stood in a phone booth in Pueblo, Colorado, in the spring of 1973 and confessed to murder. The police officer who answered did not believe him. Kemper was told to call back later. He had just driven more than 1,000 miles,…
Paul CastellanoPaul Castellano, head of the Gambino crime family of New York City, was shot dead outside Sparks Steak House in Manhattan at around 5:26 pm on Monday, the 16th of December 1985. He had run the family since 1976. By any measure, he was one…
Mark David ChapmanMark David Chapman, who killed John Lennon, was once a beloved summer camp counselor nicknamed "Nemo."
Sam GiancanaSam Giancana, who once ran the Chicago Outfit, died on the night of the 19th of June 1975 in the basement kitchen of his house in Oak Park, Illinois. At around 11 p.m., his caretaker, Joseph DiPersio, found the body on the floor. A gunman…