Because I like dark topics...and because karen Dai had a good idea.....


Anne Frank


Jon Benet Ramsey  (I admit I thought of Jon Benet before Anne Frank and that makes me sad....)  :\'(


Trayvon Martin



Oscar Grant



Adam Walsh (john walsh also became famous because his son was murdered)



Etan Patz

Nicole Brown Simpson
Ronald Goldman
Leno and Rosemary LaBianca.

Mary Jo Kopechne.

The canonical five Jack The Ripper victims:

Mary Ann Nichols, Annie Chapman, Elizabeth Stride, Catherine Eddowes and Mary Jane Kelly.

Mary Jo Kopechne.




I had to look her up......


that reminded me.... Chandra Levy

I had to look her up......




That's OK, I had to look up Oscar Grant , Adam Walsh  and Etan Patz.
Then I remembered.

Leslie Mahaffy and Kristen French  (killed by Paul Bernardo, Canadian murderer)

That's OK, I had to look up Oscar Grant , Adam Walsh  and Etan Patz.
Then I remembered.

Leslie Mahaffy and Kristen French  (killed by Paul Bernardo, Canadian murderer)



Etan Patz was the first big kidnapping case in the US (the lindberg baby doesn't count)  It was scary to me that someone would just snatch a kid off the street....


then when Adam got taken from the store I started to realize it wasn't as safe to be a kid as I thought... in the 80s and 90s I was obsessed with child abductions... still kinda am but not on the same level as I used to be... didn't help we had a rash of kidnappings in Cali - including Kevin Collins,  Jacyee Lee Duggard, Mikela Garret, Amber Swartz Garcia, Polly Klaas....  the list is long.

- Karen Silkwood

- Jessica Lloyd (killed by Russell Williams)
I still remember seeing Jessica Lloyd's missing poster all over the place.  I never would have thought she would become the victim of a story that would break world wide. 

- Kurt Cobain?  I know this may be stretching it a little.  Considering Grunge music was not everyone's cup of tea, as Nirvana were basically the nucleus of Grunge, when Cobain committed suicide, he became a household name

- Karen Silkwood

- Jessica Lloyd (killed by Russell Williams)
I still remember seeing Jessica Lloyd's missing poster all over the place.  I never would have thought she would become the victim of a story that would break world wide. 

- Kurt Cobain?  I know this may be stretching it a little.  Considering Grunge music was not everyone's cup of tea, as Nirvana were basically the nucleus of Grunge, when Cobain committed suicide, he became a household name




Silkwood was such a good movie!

- Kurt Cobain?  I know this may be stretching it a little.  Considering Grunge music was not everyone's cup of tea, as Nirvana were basically the nucleus of Grunge, when Cobain committed suicide, he became a household name


I can buy this one because I had never heard of him until one of the teens I know said he died. I said "who?" and they said "The singer from Nirvana". I said "The singer from what?" Lol Yeah I paid no attention to grunge, it wasn't really my cup of tea.

Jesus Christ?

Olympic Skier Vladimir Sabich, more famous though as the dude that Claudine Longet snuffed in '76.
http://i.cdn.turner.com/trutv/trutv.com/graphics/photos/notorious_murders/celebrity/claudine_longet/Spider-Sabich150.jpg


Diet guru Dr. Herman Tarnower, who while somewhat well known, went over-the-top, all-freaking-out-famous when his side squeeze Jean Harris "accidentally shot him 4 times while really trying to commit her own suicide" in '80.

http://murderpedia.org/female.H/images/harris-jean/herman-tarnower.jpg

Los Angeles' Wonderland Gang, who were a bunch of unknown dope dealers until they were all clubbed to death one night by agents of LA nightclub magnate Eddie Nash and who were let into the murder scene by porn king John "Johnny Wadd" Holmes, in '81.  Early theories of the murder speculated that it was really an accident, in which a naked Holmes was startled and simply turned around too quickly, but the murder weapons were shown to have been lead pipes.

Etan Patz was the first big kidnapping case in the US (the lindberg baby doesn't count)  It was scary to me that someone would just snatch a kid off the street....

I can't believe that was 35 years ago.  :o

Sarah Jones....  I know most of y'all are gonna say "who?"  but in LA it's a big deal.

Sarah Jones was a Camera Assistant working on a film in Georgia.  She died on the set of the movie due when she was struck by a train. The Director has a history of using unsafe practices and was filming without authorization on heavily used train tracks.    there are production signs all over the city with her name on them...... what's a production sign you ask??? In LA (maybe other areas as well)  crews follow production signs to get to their location shoots....    the signs are yellow with black writing... usually coded with abreviations to keep the public guessing what shows might be filming in certain areas..... the codes are not very clever... anyone with a little TV knowledge can figure them out... 



For example... here I am in front of a GLEE production sign.... WMHS is William McKinley High School....if you watch Glee then it was pretty obvious which base camp I was standing near....(met two actors from Glee that day  ;) )


https://scontent-b.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-prn2/t1.0-9/1185432_10103045129837227_1058479570_n.jpg



Here is one of many signs posted on the street in memory of Sarah Jones.


http://blog.drewprops.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/sarah_jones_location.jpg



virtually every production in hollywood honored her by putting images of her or RIP Sarah Jones on their clapper boards. 

there's a whole FB page dedicated to the tributes... Slates for Sarah

http://nofilmschool.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/Slates-for-Sarah-Person-of-Interest.jpg  http://matteringsofmind.files.wordpress.com/2014/03/slate11.jpg

Keith Blakelock, a London Metropolitan Police constable, was killed on 6 October 1985 during rioting on the Broadwater Farm housing estate in Tottenham, London.

WPC Yvonne Fletcher (15 June 1958 – 17 April 1984) was a British police officer fatally shot during a protest outside the Libyan embassy at St. James's Square, London, in 1984. Fletcher, who had been on duty and deployed to police the protest, died shortly afterwards at Westminster Hospital. Her death resulted in the Metropolitan Police Service laying siege to the embassy for the next eleven days, and the United Kingdom severing all diplomatic relations with Libya. Two years later it became a major factor in Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher's decision to allow US President Ronald Reagan to launch the US bombing of Libya in 1986 from American bases in the United Kingdom.

No one has ever been convicted for the murder of Yvonne Fletcher. However, in 1999, the government of Muammar Gaddafi accepted responsibility for her death and agreed to pay compensation to her family

http://ia.media-imdb.com/images/M/MV5BMTc1Njg3ODY2NV5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTYwNjI4MDI2._V1_SY317_CR15,0,214,317_AL_.jpg

Carl "Alfafa" Switzer

Switzer married in 1954 and had one son before divorcing in 1956. In January 1959, he was fatally shot by an acquaintance over a dispute about money.


But he was already famous when he died.  The "Our Gang" short films were very popular.  I'm not quite sure you read the title of this topic closely  :-\\

Natalee Holloway.

Kitty Genovese

Anyone who's taken an intro psychology course, or anyone who was alive during the 60s or 70s (there was a similar case 10 years later near the exact same spot), has heard of her.

Kitty Genovese

Anyone who's taken an intro psychology course, or anyone who was alive during the 60s or 70s (there was a similar case 10 years later near the exact same spot), has heard of her.



The name sounds familiar but it has been years since I took psychology and I was too young in the 70s to remember much in the real world.  Who is she?

Matthew Shepard (More as a symbol for activism against LGBT hate crimes.)

Emmett Till

The name sounds familiar but it has been years since I took psychology and I was too young in the 70s to remember much in the real world.  Who is she?


That puts you one ahead of me. I took psych 101 but I never heard of her.

Matthew Shepard (More as a symbol for activism against LGBT hate crimes.)

Emmett Till


Those two make me  :\'(

Also
James Chaney
Andrew Goodman
Michael Schwerner

The name sounds familiar but it has been years since I took psychology and I was too young in the 70s to remember much in the real world.  Who is she?


Kitty Genovese was a woman whose murder in New York City in 1964 was supposedly witnessed by many people (37 or 38 by some accounts), but nobody did anything.  Or, at least that was the story many people got (it's the version I heard from my 5th grade social studies teacher in 1975).  However, a few years ago some people researched the story more deeply and found that the media exaggerated the number of witnesses and that the witnesses only saw parts of the incident and couldn't piece together the fact that there was a homicide in progress.  Also, some people did call the police and one person did yell at the attacker.  In any case, the incident focused a lot of attention on the so-called Bystander Effect and my intro psychology class in college did mention the incident as an example of "diffusion of responsibility".

Kitty Genovese was a woman whose murder in New York City in 1964 was supposedly witnessed by many people (37 or 38 by some accounts), but nobody did anything.  Or, at least that was the story many people got (it's the version I heard from my 5th grade social studies teacher in 1975).  However, a few years ago some people researched the story more deeply and found that the media exaggerated the number of witnesses and that the witnesses only saw parts of the incident and couldn't piece together the fact that there was a homicide in progress.  Also, some people did call the police and one person did yell at the attacker.  In any case, the incident focused a lot of attention on the so-called Bystander Effect and my intro psychology class in college did mention the incident as an example of "diffusion of responsibility".



Ah, the bell rings louder now.  Thanks. :)

New York mobster Billy Batts, the dude who was ruthlessly murdered by Jimmy "The Gent" Burke and Tommy "Two Guns" DeSimone.

http://www.catsafterme.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/vincent2.jpg

While the movie Goodfellas implied that Batts was murdered because he told DeSimone to "go get your @#$%-ing shine box", the real reason he was murdered was because Burke had taken over Batts' numbers business when Batts was in prison, but Batts wanted it back.  Jimmy was making too much money to allow that.

Bugsy Siegel was also famous for being murdered.  They don't know who killed him or why. 

Bugsy Siegel was also famous for being murdered.  They don't know who killed him or why.


Of course they know why.

Bugsy Siegel was also famous for being murdered.  They don't know who killed him or why.


wasn't bugsy siegel famous before he was murdered???  well more infamous than famous but still...isn't that a name people just sort of knew already???

wasn't bugsy siegel famous before he was murdered???  well more infamous than famous but still...isn't that a name people just sort of knew already???


Yeah.
According to his IMDB profile, and I don't know how much of that is true, he took over a business and he convinced the mob to invest in his business and when he couldn't pay off his debt to the mob they offed him.

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1179222/bio?ref_=nm_ov_bio_sm

"The Black Dahlia" Elizabeth Short
Rebecca Shaeffer

"The Black Dahlia" Elizabeth Short
Rebecca Shaeffer


Rebecca Schaffer was a star on a popular TV Show when she was murdered by her stalker... she maybe became "more" famous after her murder but I feel like she was murdered because she was famous...

same with Sal Mineo
Dominique Dunne was murdered because her boyfriend was an ass  but she was also relatively well known at the time of her murder.

Rebecca Schaffer was a star on a popular TV Show when she was murdered by her stalker... she maybe became "more" famous after her murder but I feel like she was murdered because she was famous...

I remember exactly where I was when I heard  that Rebecca Schaeffer was murdered.  I was in an airport waiting for the rental car  shuttle to show up.

I was not particularly a fan of Ms. Schaeffer, but I remembering very pissed off about this murder.  And I still am.  :-\\

I remember exactly where I was when I heard  that Rebecca Schaeffer was murdered.  I was in an airport waiting for the rental car  shuttle to show up.

I was not particularly a fan of Ms. Schaeffer, but I remembering very pissed off about this murder.  And I still am.  :-\\


her murderer was a jackass in the truest sense of the word. I still remember that sound he made in his confession when talking about the details of killing her...  :-\\

Yeah.
According to his IMDB profile, and I don't know how much of that is true, he took over a business and he convinced the mob to invest in his business and when he couldn't pay off his debt to the mob they offed him.

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1179222/bio?ref_=nm_ov_bio_sm



He was part of the mob, a founder of Murder, Inc, a big time gangster and a "friend" of Meyer Lansky, who probably gave the OK to kill him.  He is the guy who came up with the idea of Las Vegas, and he hated the nickname Bugsy.


I love this mob stuff

Dominique Dunne was murdered because her boyfriend was an ass  but she was also relatively well known at the time of her murder.


Dominique Dunne's murderer was slapped on the wrist, and was let out of jail after a couple of  years.

He now works for Smith Ranch Homes in California under the assumed name of  John Maura.  He used to be an executive chef, but things got tough for his employer when the Dunnes showed up with protest posters saying (words to the effect) "Your salads were made by the hands that murdered our daughter".

Why anybody would ever hire this dirt bag is beyond me.

He was part of the mob, a founder of Murder, Inc, a big time gangster and a "friend" of Meyer Lansky, who probably gave the OK to kill him.  He is the guy who came up with the idea of Las Vegas, and he hated the nickname Bugsy.

I love this mob stuff


Bugsy rocked.  He was the prototype for the "Moe Green" character in The Godfather Trilogy.  (Much like Meyer Lansky was the inspiration for Hyman Roth).

I've had the pleasure of knowing two (maybe three if you count international) gangsters in my life.  One was a dude on my newspaper route when I was a kid.  Back in the early 1970's, I noticed this airplane that was circling above me and his house any time I went collecting for the papers.  It stopped right after he got busted for importing dope from Lebanon.  I figured the narcs were checking me out to see if I was his bag man.  ;D  His wife was my 4th grade homeroom teacher and a very nice lady, she passed away just last year.  :\'(  I remember her taking my brother to the hospital when he trashed his bicycle doing like 40 mph down the hill that we lived on top of

The other gangster I knew had the nickname of "Two Guns" and "Crazy Tony", and his name came up in the Hoffa disappearance.  I did OK with Tony. He once told me "LB, you're the only person in your company who gave me any RESPECT".  Tony never tried to screw me over, and our business was always on the up-and-up.  Heck I got the job I have now, largely on Tony's recommendation.  But I knew to never screw him over, probably would have been a bad idea.  ;D  Back in those days (about 12 years ago) there was NOBODY who would have screwed with me in that town (which I shall not name).  I was doing business with both the Russkies and the Dagos, and it worked well for all of us.  8)

Dominique Dunne's murderer was slapped on the wrist, and was let out of jail after a couple of  years.

He now works for Smith Ranch Homes in California under the assumed name of  John Maura.  He used to be an executive chef, but things got tough for his employer when the Dunnes showed up with protest posters saying (words to the effect) "Your salads were made by the hands that murdered our daughter".

Why anybody would ever hire this dirt bag is beyond me.



I'd like to find that douche...drag him into the bushes and beat the mess out of him...

Mia Zapata.  She was in the band The Gits.  Nobody knew who she was until she was found brutally murdered on the street after she left a Seattle bar.

http://www.seattlepi.com/local/article/11-years-later-justice-for-slain-singer-Zapata-1140617.php#photo-637719

Caylee Anthony.

Lisa Steinberg and Nixzmary Brown (two seperate cases of horrifying child abuse in NYC that made the news.)  I think Lisa's story was the basis of a fictional novel (of a best selling author whose name I've forgotten now.)

John Lennon.


I think you'll find John Lennon was rather well-known before he was murdered.
::)

Crispus Attucks

Michael Brown


Cat

Michael Brown


Cat


Yeah, after he was murdered, after he committed a strong-arm robbery, and after he broke the eye socket of a cop.  Indeed he got his fame.

Yeah, after he was murdered, after he committed a strong-arm robbery, and after he broke the eye socket of a cop.  Indeed he got his fame.


He broke the eye socket of a cop? How come witnesses say he had his hands up in the air? And whether he did commit the "strong-arm" robbery it is totally irrelevant-he was UNARMED and was shot SIX times!!!



Cat

Selena, the singer, was very popular in the Hispanic community, but wasn't well-known among others until she was murdered by the president of her fan club. I can't believe it's been 20 years since she was killed.

Selena, the singer, was very popular in the Hispanic community, but wasn't well-known among others until she was murdered by the president of her fan club. I can't believe it's been 20 years since she was killed.


Oddly I heard a Selena song on the radio yesterday and I thought wow how long has she been dead? It feels longer than 20yrs to me.