Births

Denise Labbe

1908 – Raymond L.S. Patriarca – was an American mobster from Providence, Rhode Island. He became the long-time boss of the Patriarca crime family, whose control extended throughout New England for more than three decades.  Patriarca was born to Eleuterio Patriarca, an Italian immigrant from the village of Arce, Lazio, and Mary Jane DeNubile, an Italian American. At the age of four, Patriarca moved with his family to Providence, Rhode Island, and left school when he was eight to shine shoes and work as a bellhop. During his teenage years, Patriarca was charged with hijacking, armed robbery, assault, safecracking, and auto theft. He was indicted as an accessory to murder before Prohibition’s end in 1933. During the 1930s, the Providence Board of Public Safety named him “public enemy No. 1”. He was sentenced to five years in prison for robbery, but he was paroled in 1938 after serving four months in prison.  In 1939, Patriarca married Helen G. Mandella and had a son, Raymond Patriarca Jr. During the 1940s, Patriarca continued to rise in power. In 1950, mobster Philip Buccola fled the country to avoid prosecution for tax evasion, and Patriarca took control of his criminal operations. In 1956, Patriarca made drastic changes in the crime family, the biggest being to move his base of operations to Providence, Rhode Island. He ran his crime family from the National Cigarette Service Company and Coin-O-Matic Distributors, a vending machine and pinball machine business on Atwells Avenue in the Federal Hill neighborhood of Providence. Every card game, prostitution ring, and illegal business in Providence had to pay a kickback to Patriarca.  Patriarca died on July 11, 1984.

1926 – Denise Labbe – was a French woman who became infamous for a tragic crime. She met Jacques Algarron, an officer cadet at Saint-Cyr School, in May 1954. Algarron essentially treated her as his slave and demanded that she prove her love for him by taking the life of her 2 1/2-year-old daughter, Catherine.  Algarron was a philosophy student and a keen reader of the works of Friedrich Nietzsche. He considered himself to be an example of Nietzsche’s Superman and believed that he and Denise were a super couple. To prove the worthiness of their partnership and his love, he asked Denise to make the supreme sacrifice.  After three unsuccessful attempts, Denise drowned Catherine in a wash basin on November 8, 1954. The police were alerted, and Denise confessed to the crime. She was charged with murder, and Algarron was charged with provoking it.  Their trial began on May 30, 1955. Denise was found guilty with extenuating circumstances and sentenced to life imprisonment. Algarron received a 20-year sentence for having provoked the murder. This tragic event marked a dark chapter in Denise’s life, overshadowing her earlier years of hard work to make a life for herself after being orphaned at the age of 13.

1937 – Frank Calabrese Sr (Frankie Breeze) – He dropped out of school in the fourth grade and sold newspapers on Grand Avenue. His family was so poor that they would eat oatmeal for dinner. Calabrese enlisted in the U.S. Army, however, he went AWOL five days after boot camp.  Calabrese’s arrest record dates from 1954, when he served two years in prison for a violation of the Dyer Act (auto theft). He was a made man who ran major loansharking and illegal gambling operations for the Chicago Outfit. He was the Outfit’s Chinatown, or 26th Street, crew boss who provided loans to hundreds of customers at exorbitant interest rates that varied from one percent to 10 percent per week. The federal government estimates that Calabrese’s crew grossed more than $2,600,000. Calabrese instructed his crew members to, “do anything you have to do”, to collect the loans. If a debtor did not have the money, the Calabrese crew would seize the debtor’s car, home, and business.  Calabrese is best known as a central figure in Operation Family Secrets and the subsequent federal trial. On July 28, 1995, Calabrese, his brother, Nick, and two sons, Frank and Kurt, were all indicted by federal authorities and charged with using threats, violence, and intimidation to enforce their loansharking racket from 1978 until 1992.  Calabrese, who was battling multiple ailments, died on Christmas Day 2012 at the Federal Medical Center, Butner, in North Carolina.

1940 – Nicholas Corozzo – He is an American mobster and a captain in the Gambino crime family. Corozzo’s first headquarters was located in a small candy store on the corner of Eastern Parkway & Atlantic Avenue in the Ocean Hill section of Brooklyn, known as “The Hill” to his crew members. He later opened a social club next to the candy store which became his new headquarters. Corozzo later moved his headquarters to the Canarsie section of Brooklyn.  Nicholas is the older brother of alleged reputed Gambino consigliere Joseph “Jo Jo” Corozzo as well as twin brothers Blaise Corozzo, a Gambino soldier, and Anthony Corozzo, who is an associate of the Gambino crime family. Nicholas Corozzo is the uncle of Joseph Corozzo Jr, a high-profile New York defense attorney. Nicholas’ daughter, Bernadette, is married to Gambino associate Vincent Dragonetti. Before Corozzo’s incarceration, he lived in Bellmore, Long Island. He stands at 5′5″ tall and weighs approximately 170 pounds.  During the early 1980s, Nicholas Corozzo was a bitter rival of Gambino captain John Gotti. When Gotti became boss of the family in 1985, he declined to promote Corozzo to captain. However, since Corozzo was such a good earner for the family, Gotti did not want to get rid of him. In turn, Corozzo professed loyalty to Gotti. It was only after Gotti went to prison in 1992 that Corozzo was finally promoted to captain, along with Gambino soldier Leonard “Lenny” DiMaria. With Gotti in prison, Corozzo, DiMaria, and Nicholas’ brother, Joseph, now the alleged consigliere, formed a ruling panel that unofficially ran the Gambino family. In the mid-1990s, Corozzo was elevated to serve on the ruling panel.  In 1996, Corozzo allegedly ordered the murder of Lucchese crime family associate Robert Arena. Arena had allegedly murdered Anthony Placido, a member of Corozzo’s crew, and had failed to return some stolen marijuana to a drug dealer. On June 26, 1996, the Gambino gunmen found Arena driving with Thomas Maranga, an Arena childhood acquaintance with no criminal connections, in the Mill Basin section of Brooklyn. After forcing Arena to stop the car, the gunmen shot and killed both men. However, until this day there is no concrete evidence that Corozzo ordered the murder of Robert Arena.

1942 – John Wayne Gacy – He was the second of three children and the only son of John Stanley Gacy and Marion Elaine Robison. His father was an auto repair machinist and a World War I veteran, and his mother was a homemaker. Gacy was of Polish and Danish ancestry, and his family was Catholic. He had a difficult relationship with his father, who was an alcoholic and was verbally and physically abusive to his family.  Gacy grew up in a working-class neighborhood of Chicago. As he grew up, he began to develop an identity crisis, doubting his masculinity. Despite his troubled childhood, Gacy was known for his sociability and his performance as a clown at charitable events and children’s parties in his suburban Chicago community. However, Gacy had a dark side. He was an American serial killer and sex offender who targeted teenage boys and young men. He was convicted of sexually assaulting and murdering 33 teenage boys and young men during the 1970s. His crimes received international media attention and shocked his community. He became known as the “Killer Clown” due to his public performances as a clown before the discovery of his crimes.  Typically, Gacy would lure a victim to his home and dupe them into donning handcuffs on the pretext of demonstrating a magic trick. He would then rape and torture his captive before killing them by either asphyxiation or strangulation with a garrote. Twenty-six victims were buried in the crawl space of his home, three were buried elsewhere on his property, and four were discarded in the Des Plaines River.  Gacy had previously been convicted in 1968 of the sodomy of a teenage boy in Waterloo, Iowa, and was sentenced to ten years’ imprisonment, but served eighteen months. He murdered his first victim in 1972, had murdered twice more by the end of 1975, and murdered at least thirty victims after his divorce from his second wife in 1976.  The investigation into the disappearance of Des Plaines teenager Robert Piest led to Gacy’s arrest on December 21, 1978. His conviction for thirty-three murders then covered the most homicides in United States legal history. Gacy was sentenced to death on March 13, 1980. He was executed by lethal injection at Stateville Correctional Center on May 10, 1994.

1951 – Howard Hawk Willis – is a convicted murderer known for the gruesome killing and dismemberment of a newlywed teenage couple from Georgia, Adam Chrismer (17 years old) and Samantha Leming Chrismer (16 years old). The murders took place on October 6, 2002, in Johnson City, Tennessee. The boy’s head was found in Boone Lake, and his severed hands were found nearby. The bodies of both teens were discovered in a rented storage unit.  Willis was arrested four days after the murders. The trial began with the presentation of the victim’s dismembered body parts, which were so horrific that one of the jurors became physically ill. The jury found Willis guilty of first-degree murder and dismemberment of the couple. He was sentenced to death on June 21, 2010.  Before these events, Willis had a history of his family members mysteriously disappearing. His first wife, Nancy Debra Winegar Barr Willis, went missing on December 23, 1986, and his stepfather, Sam Thomas, was found dead just days after the murder of the married couple. Willis had also been arrested and had served time in New York City on a drug-related charge.  As of now, Howard Hawk Willis is on death row.

1953 – Julius Lee Neuschafer – He was a notorious criminal known for his violent crimes. His criminal record includes the rape and murder of two teenagers, Shawn Hofer and Lorie Woodruff, in 1974. While serving his sentence for these crimes, he was convicted and sentenced to death for the strangulation of another inmate, Johnnie Johnson, in 1981.  Neuschafer’s life was marked by a series of legal battles and appeals. He came within hours of execution three times, only to have his date with death postponed. Despite his criminal history, Neuschafer showed a desire to end his life on his terms. He once stated that he would prefer to be executed by firing squad or guillotine, comparing lethal injection to the way mad dogs are put down.  His life ended not by execution but by natural causes. On July 26, 1998, at the age of 45, Neuschafer passed away at the Regional Medical Facility at the Northern Nevada Correctional Center. His death marked the end of a life that had been dominated by crime and violence.

1959 – John William Rook – An American man who kidnapped a 25-year-old nurse by the name of Ann Marie Roche, drove her to an empty field, and raped and murdered her as he was leaving he ran over her body with his car

1961 – Jerry K. Thompson – An American thief who attempted to rob an auto sales company and murdered 68-year-old Melvin Hills and 47-year-old Robert Beeler in the process, he would be given the death penalty but before his sentence could be carried out he was stabbed to death on death row

1962 – Timothy Wilson Spencer – also known as The Southside Strangler, was an American serial killer born on March 17, 1962, in Green Valley, Virginia, U.S. He committed three rapes and murders in Richmond, Virginia, and one in Arlington, Virginia, in the fall of 1987. In addition, he is believed to have committed at least one previous murder, in 1984, for which a different man, David Vasquez, was wrongfully convicted. He was known to police as a prolific home burglar.  Spencer became the first serial killer in the United States to be convicted based on DNA evidence, with David Vasquez being the first to be exonerated following conviction on the basis of exculpatory DNA evidence. His victims included Debbie Dudley Davis, a 35-year-old account executive; Dr. Susan Hellams, a resident in neurosurgery at the Medical College of Virginia in Richmond; Diane Cho, a 15-year-old high school student; and Susan Tucker, 44.  On January 20, 1988, Arlington County police arrested Timothy Wilson Spencer, a 25-year-old Richmond resident, for the rape and murder of Susan Tucker in her Arlington home. He was executed by electrocution on April 27, 1994, at the Greensville Correctional Center, Jarratt, Virginia, U.S. at the age of 32.

1966 – Joseph Peter Smith – is a former auto-mechanic who was born in the United States. He had a troubled life marked by criminal activities and drug addiction. In 2004, he was living near his family home due to marital problems. Despite being a father of three daughters, his actions showed a different side of him. His criminal record was extensive, with at least 13 arrests in the state of Florida since 1993. His previous felony charges included kidnapping and false imprisonment, possession of illegal substances, and attempted fraud.  In 2004, Smith committed a heinous crime that shook the nation. He was identified as the perpetrator in the abduction, rape, and murder of 11-year-old Carlie Jane Brucia in Sarasota, Florida. The case gained national attention, and Smith was arrested and charged with first-degree murder, kidnapping, and capital sexual battery. The evidence against him was overwhelming, including surveillance footage of the abduction and DNA evidence.  During his trial, Smith was found guilty of all charges. In 2006, he was sentenced to death by lethal injection for the murder charge and received two life imprisonment terms for capital sexual battery and kidnapping. Despite his pleas for mercy and claims of guilt, the judge upheld the sentence. Smith remains incarcerated, awaiting his sentence.

1971 – Terrick Terrell Nooner – is a convicted murderer who was involved in a notable legal case in the United States. He was convicted of capital murder and sentenced to death for the murder of Scott Stobaugh. The crime occurred on March 16, 1993, when Nooner shot and killed Stobaugh. The jury found Nooner guilty of capital-felony murder with aggravated robbery and theft of property as the underlying felonies. The jury returned a verdict of death by lethal injection.  Nooner appealed the conviction and sentence, and the Supreme Court of Arkansas affirmed the decision. He filed a petition for post-conviction relief under Arkansas Rule of Criminal Procedure 37, but the trial court denied relief and the Supreme Court of Arkansas affirmed this decision as well.  Nooner also applied for a writ of habeas corpus, arguing that he was mentally retarded and therefore unfit for execution under a Supreme Court ruling that prohibits putting to death people who have mental retardation or are insane. However, the district court dismissed Nooner’s application, finding him competent to withdraw his habeas application and granting his motion to withdraw it.  In a later development, Nooner was granted a second stay of execution along with a rare chance to try to prove his innocence with new evidence – the recent analysis of surveillance tape that Nooner’s attorneys say shows he wasn’t the killer. However, the attorney general responded to the decision by petitioning the U.S. Supreme Court to reinstate Nooner’s execution.

1973 – Damien “Football” Monroe Williams – is a figure of notoriety in the history of Los Angeles. He, along with Henry Watson, Antoine Miller, and Gary Williams, collectively referred to as the “L.A. Four”, were implicated in the assault on truck driver Reginald Oliver Denny during the 1992 Los Angeles riots.  Williams, a former high school football star with a brief stint in a semi-pro league, earned his nickname “Football” and became a recognizable face of the L.A. riots due to the live broadcast of his attack on Denny. The incident involved Williams throwing a cinder block at Denny’s head, rendering him unconscious, after which Williams was seen performing a victory dance and laughing at the injured Denny.  Following the attack, Williams was seen flashing Crips gang signs at a news helicopter filming the scene from above. This led to his arrest by Los Angeles Police Chief Daryl Gates.  Williams faced charges of attempted murder, assault, and mayhem for his actions during the riots. He was eventually convicted of mayhem and misdemeanor assault, resulting in a 10-year sentence.  In 1997, Williams was released for good behavior. However, his freedom was short-lived as he was sentenced to life imprisonment in December 2003 for the murder of Grover Tinner, a 48-year-old drug dealer, committed in July 2000. Williams will not be eligible for parole until he serves 47 years of his sentence.

1982 – Justin Michael Wolfe – is a figure known for his involvement in a high-profile legal case. Born and raised in Centreville, Virginia, Wolfe was a significant member of a lucrative drug ring that operated in Northern Virginia. He began dealing marijuana while attending Chantilly High School.  In 2002, at the age of 21, Wolfe was convicted of orchestrating the murder of his marijuana supplier, Daniel Robert Petrole Jr. The prosecution’s theory was that Wolfe hired Owen Merton Barber IV to assassinate Petrole to erase a debt of nearly $80,000. This led to one of the largest drug investigations in the region’s history.  Wolfe was sentenced to death by lethal injection, marking only the second time in Virginia that a defendant who hired someone to kill had received a death sentence. However, his case took a turn when Barber recanted his testimony. Wolfe’s murder conviction and death sentence were vacated by a federal district judge in Norfolk in the summer of 2011.  Despite having his conviction vacated, Wolfe remained in prison. His case has drawn attention due to the alleged prosecutorial misconduct, including accusations of hiding evidence that would have helped the defense and pressuring a witness into falsely testifying. As of now, the legal proceedings around Justin Michael Wolfe continue to unfold.

1983 – Martin Shkreli – is an American businessman and convicted fraudster. He is the co-founder of the hedge funds Elea Capital, MSMB Capital Management, and MSMB Healthcare. He is also the co-founder and former CEO of pharmaceutical firms Retrophin and Turing Pharmaceuticals, and the former CEO of start-up software company Gödel Systems, which he founded in August 2016.  Shkreli gained notoriety in September 2015 when Turing obtained the manufacturing license for the antiparasitic drug Daraprim and raised its price by 5,455% (from US$13.50 to $750 per pill). This move led to widespread criticism and earned him the label of “the most hated man in America.”  In 2017, Shkreli was charged and convicted in federal court on two counts of securities fraud and one count of conspiracy for activity unrelated to the Daraprim controversy. He was sentenced to seven years in prison and up to $7.4 million in fines. In a civil antitrust case, Shkreli was fined a further $64.6 million to be repaid to victims. On May 18, 2022, he was released early from the low-security federal prison in Allenwood, Pennsylvania.

1983 – Andre Lee Thomas – is an American convicted murderer and death row inmate known for removing both of his eyeballs in separate incidents and ingesting one of them.  In 2004, Thomas killed his estranged wife Laura Boren, his four-year-old son, and her one-year-old daughter in Sherman, Texas. He cut open the chests of all three victims, and he removed the two children’s hearts.  Thomas, whose mental health problems began with auditory hallucinations at about age ten, was in the ninth grade when Boren became pregnant with his child. They married when Thomas was 18, but they separated soon thereafter. In the weeks leading up to the murders, Thomas had suicidal thoughts, drank heavily, and used cold medication as a recreational drug.  In jail a few days after his arrest, Thomas pulled one of his eyes out of its socket. A jury rejected his insanity defense and sentenced him to death on a capital murder conviction. In 2008, he removed his other eye and ingested it.  Thomas was diagnosed with schizophrenia after his arrest, and his case has raised ethical questions about executing the mentally ill. His trial verdict was upheld by a state criminal appeals court in 2008 and by a federal appeals court in 2021. While he is still under a death sentence, Thomas is housed in a Texas prison facility for inmates with psychiatric problems.  Thomas was scheduled to be executed on April 5, 2023. On March 7, 2023, a judge delayed the execution date. Despite his domestic disadvantages, Thomas seemed to thrive for the first few years of his life. He attended a Baptist church in Sherman. A former Sunday school teacher described Thomas as a smart and respectful boy who often answered her questions before she could finish asking them. Family members said that Thomas was a curious person who enjoyed sketching futuristic cars as well as disassembling and reassembling old cars. He was in the gifted and talented program at his school. When Thomas was around ten years old, his behavior changed. He told some of his schoolmates that he heard angels and demons arguing in his head.

1984 – Joshua Earl Phillips – His father, Steve, was an alcoholic drug addict who frequently tormented him and his mother. Phillips had two older half-brothers, Daniel and Benjie, with whom he happily shared his childhood — until the two families suddenly split apart.  Phillips had only just become a teenager when he moved to the Lakewood suburbs of Jacksonville, Florida. The Pennsylvania native found few friends at the A. Philip Randolph Academies of Technology and scarce recreative outlets aside from walking the family dog and occasionally joining local softball games. For his parents, who were both computer specialists, the quiet community of fewer than 7,000 residents was an idyllic change. Phillips, meanwhile, became a lonely C-average student who spent much of his spare time watching porn at home.  However, he did befriend his eight-year-old neighbor, Maddie Clifton — to horrifying results. When she came by to play with Phillips on Nov. 3, 1998, the 14-year-old claimed that he accidentally hit her in the eye with a baseball. Terrified of his abusive father returning home, he said that he dragged the screaming girl into his house and slit her throat. Police spent six full days looking for her until Phillips’ mother found her lifeless body under his bed.  In November 1998, when he was 14 years old, Phillips killed Maddie Clifton, his 8-year-old friend and neighbor. The following year, he was sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. Phillips stated that he killed Clifton to stop her from crying after she was accidentally struck with a baseball while they were playing, and that he feared punishment from his abusive father.  Although elements of Phillips’s story are disputed, officials who were involved in his prosecution have subsequently expressed contrition over the severity of his sentence. Phillips is eligible for re-sentencing in 2023.

1987 – Noura Grace Jackson – was born to Nazmi Hassanieh and Jennifer Jackson. After her parents divorced, she lived with her mother, Jennifer. Tragically, her father, Nazmi, was shot to death at his gas station in January 2004. The authorities believed it was an assassination, but his murder remained unsolved.  Noura was close to her mother, describing their bond as closer due to being a single-parent family. However, their relationship was reportedly turbulent, mainly due to Noura’s alleged drug use and disregard for education.  In June 2005, Jennifer was found brutally stabbed to death, with the authorities initially believing that Noura was responsible. Noura, then 18, always maintained her innocence. She was arrested in September 2005 and was convicted based largely on circumstantial evidence. She was sentenced to 20 years and 9 months with no possibility of parole.  However, in August 2016, her conviction was overturned and she was released from custody. She had spent more than 10 years in prison for the murder of her mother. After her release, Noura dreamed of having a college education and hoped to work in criminal justice reform, especially helping women prisoners. She also hoped to have a family of her own at some point and has continued to raise awareness about wrongful convictions. She previously worked as a receptionist at an auto shop.

Deaths

Giorgio Orsolano

1835 – Giorgio Orsolano – An Italian rapist & serial killer who was given the nickname “The Hyena of San Giorgio” he murdered and raped 3 children in one year starting in 1834.  On the day of his death penalty, the University of Turin sent surgeons to dissect him his testicles were “bulkier than usual”, a cast was taken of his head and is still an exhibit at The Museum of Anatomy in Turin

1896 – Crawford Goldsby – was born to Sgt. George and Ellen (née Beck) Goldsby on February 8, 1876, at Fort Concho in San Angelo, Texas. During 1878 (when Crawford Goldsby was two years old), serious trouble began to occur in San Angela (San Angelo), Texas, between the black soldiers and cowboys and hunters.  By the time he reached his teenage years, Goldsby had developed a bad attitude, associated with unsavory characters, drank whiskey, and rebelled against authority. His foster father put him out of the house, and he fell in with young men who had criminal designs. In the summer of 1894, Goldsby joined with Bill and Jim Cook and others who became known as the Cook gang. Near Tahlequah, Cherokee Bill, as he was then known, killed a Cherokee lawman named Sequoyah Houston in a gunfight. On July 31, 1894, the Cook gang robbed the Lincoln County Bank at Chandler, Oklahoma Territory. Cherokee Bill shot and killed a barber who was trying to warn the town. The gang committed many killings and robberies including trains and stagecoaches. In January 1895 Ike Rogers, a Cherokee freedman and lawman, caught Cherokee Bill. While in the Fort Smith jail, the outlaw killed a guard in an attempted escape. Goldsby was executed in 1896 in Fort Smith and was buried in Fort Gibson, Indian Territory.

1964 – Jose William Aranguren – also known as William Ángel Aranguren, was a Colombian criminal, bandit, sex offender, and serial killer. He was born on March 5, 1935, in Rovira, Colombia, and died on March 17, 1964, in Rosacruz, Venadillo, Colombia. He was known for a wave of ambushes, kidnappings, and murders committed during and after the 1950s.  Aranguren’s first recorded criminal activity was in 1956 when he ambushed a truck from a tobacco company called ‘Compañía Colombiana de Tabaco’. During the robbery, four crew members were killed, and Aranguren stole their money. As a result of this act, he was sentenced to 23 years imprisonment and was incarcerated in the Picota Central Penitentiary, where he managed to escape within a year.  Once he escaped, Aranguren organized a gang in 1960. By mid-1961, he assaulted Venadillo, where he murdered two peasants on a farm. In April, he launched another assault on a new hacienda called ‘La Argentina’, where he murdered 20 peasants. The news generated great consternation at the time, so much so that this event was considered a massacre against the peasant populace. Not long after, Aranguren repeated the act in another hacienda very close to Pulí, where he murdered another seven peasants. The last attack of that year occurred on December 4, when four more peasants perished.  News of Aranguren’s brutality spread, and in April 1962, he murdered several members of the security forces: in this case, a non-commissioned officer and four soldiers, aided by members of other gangs. He was directly responsible for the murders of 39 people in the village of La Italia, in Victoría. However, many newspapers and magazines of the time reported that he was responsible for more. His modus operandi consisted of ambushes on sidewalks, estates, and highways, where he kidnapped and murdered law enforcement officials (such as soldiers and policemen), civilians, peasants, and even minors. He also sexually assaulted female victims and committed thefts whenever he could. At the time, he was known by the alias Desquite, because he exacted revenge for the murders of his father and brother, as well as suffering from the dispossession of his property. In the words of famous journalist Gonzalo Arango, Aranguren was “an assassin who killed simply to kill.”

1987 – Santo Trafficante Jr – was among the most powerful Mafia bosses in the United States. He headed the Trafficante crime family from 1954 to 1987 and controlled organized criminal operations in Florida and Cuba, which had previously been consolidated from several rival gangs by his father, Santo Trafficante Sr.  Trafficante Jr. was born in Tampa, Florida, to Sicilian parents Santo Trafficante Sr. and his wife Maria Giuseppa Cacciatore in 1914. He dropped out of high school before the 10th grade. He maintained several residences in New York City and Florida. His legitimate business interests included several legal casinos in Cuba, a Havana drive-in movie theater, and shares in several restaurants and bars in his hometown of Tampa, Florida. He was rumored to be part of a Mafia syndicate that owned many Cuban hotels and casinos.  Trafficante Jr. was frequently arrested throughout the 1950s on various charges of bribery and of running illegal bolita lotteries in Tampa’s Ybor City district. He escaped conviction all but once, receiving a five-year sentence for bribery in 1954, but his conviction was overturned by the Florida Supreme Court before he entered prison.  During the 1950s, Trafficante Jr. maintained a narcotic trafficking network with Tommy Lucchese, the boss of the Lucchese crime family in New York City. Trafficante Jr. had known Lucchese since the 1940s when his father and Lucchese had trained him in the mafia traditions. Trafficante Jr. would frequently meet with Lucchese in New York City for dinner.  Trafficante admitted his anti-Castro activities to the United States House Select Committee on Assassinations in 1978 and vehemently denied allegations that he knew a plot to assassinate President John F. Kennedy. Federal investigators brought racketeering and conspiracy charges against him in the summer of 1986.

1994 – Ilpo Tapio Larha – He was a Finnish criminal who became famous when he committed the contract murder of 77-year-old crippled businessman Wilhelm Högsten in Jollas, a suburb of Helsinki, on April 24, 1992. Larha was sentenced to life in prison and escaped on February 25, 1994. He was finally embattled at a block of flats in Lahti, where he after 55 hours of negotiations shot himself.

1995 – Ronald Kray – was an English gangster born on October 24, 1933, in Haggerston, East London. He was the identical twin brother of Reginald “Reggie” Kray. The Kray twins were the most notorious organized crime figures in the East End of London from the late 1950s to 1967. They led a gang known as “The Firm,” which was involved in various criminal activities including murder, armed robbery, arson, protection rackets, and assaults.  Ronnie and Reggie were born to Charles David Kray, a wardrobe dealer, and Violet Annie Lee. They had an older brother named Charles James and a sister who died in infancy. The twins contracted diphtheria at an early age, and while Reggie recovered quickly, Ronnie suffered complications that nearly took his life. This illness left a lasting impact on Ronnie, leading to mental health issues in his later life.  The Kray twins first attended Wood Close School, then Daniel Street School. However, their life took a turn when they were inspired by their grandfather to start boxing. They even made it to the finals of the London Schools Boxing Championship. Ronnie was known to be more aggressive and unpredictable than his brother. In one fight against Reggie, he suffered a serious head injury, which was considered a reason for his mental instability later on.  In the 1960s, the Kray twins gained a certain measure of celebrity status by mixing with prominent members of London society. They owned a nightclub in the West End and organized parties attended by celebrities and politicians. Despite their crimes often being committed in plain sight, authorities couldn’t touch them because potential witnesses were too scared to talk.  Their reign ended on May 8, 1968, when Detective Superintendent Leonard ‘Nipper’ Read arrested them. They were convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment. Ronnie, upon being certified insane, was committed to Broadmoor Hospital in 1979 and remained there until his death on March 17, 1995, from a heart attack.

1995 – Nelson W. Shelton – was born on July 20, 1967, in Delaware, United States. He was involved in a notorious crime that took place on January 12, 1992. Along with his brother Steven and their cousin Jack Outten, Nelson was convicted of the murder of Wilson Mannon Jr., a 64-year-old man. The crime involved a brutal beating with the top of a washing machine.  Nelson, his brother, and his cousin were all sentenced to death for their involvement in the crime. However, Nelson chose not to appeal his sentence. He was executed by lethal injection at the Delaware Correctional Center on March 17, 1995. His last words, when asked by the warden if he had any, were simply “No.”  Before his execution, Nelson had wanted to donate a kidney to his ailing mother, Vessa Shelton, but was found to be incompatible. His brother Steven donated one in his place.  Nelson’s life and crimes have been the subject of significant attention. His story serves as a stark reminder of the consequences of violent crime and the finality of capital punishment.

1999 – Andrew Kokoraleis – was a member of the notorious Ripper Crew, an organized crime group of serial killers, cannibals, rapists, and necrophiles that operated in Illinois, United States in the early 1980s. The group was composed of Robin Gecht, Edward Spreitzer, and brothers Andrew and Thomas Kokoraleis. They were suspected in the murders of 17 women in Illinois in 1981 and 1982, as well as the unrelated fatal shooting of a man in a random drive-by shooting.  Andrew Kokoraleis was born on July 18, 1963, in Villa Park, Illinois, U.S. He was convicted of murder, aggravated kidnapping, and rape in the death of Rose Davis. His attorney argued that he had been “a follower … not an organizer, not the prime mover” in Davis’s murder. Despite this, he was sentenced to death in 1987 for the rape, aggravated kidnapping, and murder of Lorraine Borowski in Chicago in 1982 when he was 19. He maintained for many years that he only confessed to the Borowski murder because he was beaten by police.  Andrew Kokoraleis was executed on March 17, 1999, at Tamms Correctional Center, Tamms, Illinois, U.S. He was the last inmate executed in Illinois, almost 12 years before Governor Pat Quinn signed legislation to abolish the death penalty on March 9, 2011, and commuted 15 death sentences to life imprisonment without parole. His execution was carried out by lethal injection.

2006 – Patrick Lane Moody – was born on July 4, 1966. He was a convicted killer who was executed by lethal injection in Raleigh’s Central Prison on March 17, 2006. On September 16, 1994, Moody, who was of marginal intelligence, shot and killed his girlfriend’s husband. His girlfriend, Wanda Robbins, of Davidson County, North Carolina, had convinced him to commit the murder. The motive behind the murder was a $5000 life insurance policy on the life of her husband, Donnie Robbins. Many requests for clemency were made on the grounds of both his marginal intelligence and allegations that the drugs used in North Carolina’s lethal injection mixture could cause “unconstitutional pain and suffering”. However, all requests were denied by North Carolina Governor Mike Easley.

Events

Albert Anastasia

1917 – Italian-American mobster Albert Anastasia is convicted of murder

1976 – Boxer Rubin “Hurricane” Carter is retried in the US after being convicted of murder in 1967 (The sentence is upheld but overturned in 1985)

1977 – Shirley Vian is murdered by BTK

1986 – Haemers gang robs gold transport in Belgium of 35 million BF