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Crime & Notoriety

Assassins, demagogues, gangsters and frauds. Influence is not the same as merit, and this corpus records both.

18 people

Al Capone 1899–1947Notorious FiguresGangster whose criminal empire made him the defining symbol of Prohibition-era organized crime.Ted Bundy 1946–1989Notorious FiguresSerial killer whose multi-state murders and televised trial shaped American criminal profiling and true-crime coverage.Jeffrey Epstein 1953–2019Notorious FiguresFinancier and convicted sex offender whose 2008 plea deal became a national scandal.Charles Manson 1934–2017Notorious FiguresCult leader whose followers’ murders became a lasting symbol of violence and the collapse of 1960s countercultural idealism.Jesse James 1847–1882Notorious FiguresMissouri bandit and ex-Confederate guerrilla whose Robin Hood legend was built for him in the press.Ted Kaczynski 1942–2023Notorious FiguresMathematics prodigy who left academia for a Montana cabin and killed three people in a 17-year bombing campaign that ended when his brother recognized his writing.Harvey Weinstein b. 1952Notorious FiguresFilm producer convicted of sex crimes in New York and CaliforniaTimothy McVeigh 1968–2001Notorious FiguresDomestic terrorist whose Oklahoma City bombing became one of the deadliest attacks in American history.Nathan Bedford Forrest 1821–1877Notorious FiguresConfederate cavalry commander and early Ku Klux Klan leader whose legacy remains central to debates over racial violence and commemoration.Jim Jones 1931–1978Notorious FiguresPeoples Temple founder whose 1978 Jonestown murder-suicide killed over nine hundred followers.Lucky Luciano 1897–1962Notorious FiguresBuilding the Commission that governed the American MafiaPhil Spector 1939–2021Notorious FiguresRecord producer who built the Wall of Sound, convicted of murdering Lana ClarksonJDJeffrey Dahmer 1960–1994Notorious FiguresMurdered 17 young men and boys between 1978 and 1991 in a case whose lasting scandal is how completely Milwaukee police failed his victims.James Earl Ray 1928–1998Notorious FiguresConvicted of the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.John Dillinger 1903–1934Notorious FiguresDepression-era bank robber whose 14-month run was used to build the modern FBI.CBClyde Barrow 1909–1934Notorious FiguresThe West Dallas boy the Eastham Prison Farm turned into a killer bent on revenge.Bonnie Parker 1910–1934Notorious FiguresBarrow Gang member and the most photographed outlaw of the DepressionJohn Gotti 1940–2002Notorious FiguresBoss of the Gambino crime family, convicted of murder and racketeering