Famous Black Criminals

Christopher Scarver is a convicted murderer whose physical assault on Jesse Anderson and serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer at the Columbia Correctional Institution resulted in the death of both Anderson and Dahmer. Already sentenced to life for killing a man named Steve Lohman, Christopher Scarver received two more life sentences for killing Anderson and Dahmer.

Lee Boyd Malvo was involved in the Beltway sniper attacks of 2002, which killed 10 people and injured three in the Washington Metropolitan Area. He had befriended his accomplice in the act, John Allen Muhammad, as a juvenile. Malvo is currently serving multiple life sentences at a supermax prison.

Derek Bentley was 19 when he was hanged for murdering a policeman during a burglary attempt. An illiterate, he had the mental age of 11 and also suffered from epilepsy. The controversial case led to a 45-long battle for a posthumous pardon, which was granted, and then a reversal of the murder charge.

Omar al-Bashir is a Sudanese politician who served as the seventh president of Sudan. A former military officer, he is the founder of the National Congress Party that remained the dominant political party in the country until 2019. He was deposed in a coup d'état the same year and subsequently arrested and convicted on multiple corruption charges.

Kody Scott was a criminal who was part of the Los Angeles gang the Eight Tray Gangster Crips. He had a difficult childhood marred by abuse and became involved in crimes early on. He was arrested and imprisoned many times. He eventually joined the Republic of New Afrika movement and became a black nationalist. He died homeless in 2021.

Jacques Plumain is a French serial killer who murdered at least two women in France and Germany between 1999 and 2001. He was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment in 2005. He served 15 years of his sentence before his release in January 2021. The murders inspired a couple of TV documentaries.