Cancer Criminals

A gangster of the Great Depression era, John Dillinger led a group known as the "Dillinger Gang". His gang was accused of robbing 24 banks and four police stations. He was a master evader and escaped the police’s attempts to capture him many times. He was finally shot to death by the authorities in 1934.

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.

Popularly known as the Howard Hughes of the Mob, Paul Castellano was the head of the Gambino crime family. He played such a prominent role in the American underworld that he was later portrayed in several films, such as Gotti, Witness to the Mob, and The Big Heist. 

Robert Maudsley is an English serial killer currently serving life imprisonment at Wakefield Prison, England. He committed three of his four murders in prison, forcing the authorities to keep him in solitary confinement. Maudsley's case was sensationalized as it was claimed that he had eaten part of the brain of one of his victims, although the PCC refuted such claims.

Assata Shakur is a former member of the revolutionary organization 'Black Liberation Army'. Sentenced to life for murder, Shakur escaped from the 'Edna Mahan Correctional Facility for Women' and was eventually granted political asylum in Cuba. She is the first woman to be added to FBI's Most Wanted Terrorists list. Her life inspired the documentary film Eyes of the Rainbow.

Semion Mogilevich is an organized crime boss from Russia. Widely described as the boss of bosses, Mogilevich is believed to control the operations of a vast criminal empire. Even though the FBI considers him the most dangerous mobster, Semion Mogilevich lives freely in Moscow, thanks to his close alliances with important Ukrainian and Russian political figures, including Vladimir Putin.

Zerelda Mimms was the wife of bank and train robber Jesse James. She was the daughter of a pastor. Her mother, Mary Elizabeth, and Jesse James' father, Robert S. James, were siblings, making Zerelda and Jesse first cousins. Zerelda married Jesse in 1874. The couple had four children, two of whom died in infancy. 

Willie Sutton was a bank robber with a criminal career spanning four decades. He entered the world of crime at a young age and spent more than half of his adult life in prison. He managed to escape from prison thrice. He was a master of disguise and was also known as “Willie the Actor.” He never killed anyone. 

Barbara Graham was a convicted criminal who was executed in the gas chamber at San Quentin Prison in 1955. She became the third woman in California to be executed by gas. Born to an unwed teenage sex worker, she had a troubled childhood. As a young woman, she became involved with hardened criminals and took to a life of crime. 

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.

Olga Hepnarová was a Czechoslovak rampage killer. On 10 July 1973, she killed eight people with a truck in Prague. She was eventually sentenced to death and was executed in 1975. She was the last woman executed in Czechoslovakia. She was a troubled young woman with psychiatric problems and expressed no regret for the crime at her trial.

Madame de Brinvilliers was a French aristocrat who was sentenced to death by the French government after being accused of killing her father and brothers to inherit their estates. Speculated of having poisoned more than 30 sick people in order to test out her poisons, Madame de Brinvilliers' life, killings, and execution inspired many works of art.

Mullah Krekar is an Islamic scholar and militant. He is credited with founding an Islamist armed group named Ansar al-Islam. Interestingly, he claimed that he was not aware of the various terrorist attacks organized by Ansar al-Islam. He is currently serving his sentence in an Italian prison after having been deported to Italy from Norway in 2020.

Sam Bass was a 19th-century train robber and outlaw. Having lost his parents as a child, he lived with an uncle for a few years before leaving home. He started doing odd jobs but was dissatisfied with the pay. So, he took to a life of crime and participated in numerous train robberies. He was killed by the lawmen. 

Steven Avery is an American murderer who was convicted in 2007 for the murder of Teresa Halbach. He was previously convicted in 1986 of attempted murder, only to be acquitted in 2003. His 2003 exoneration encouraged the enactment of the Criminal Justice Reform Bill, which aims at preventing wrongful convictions. His 2007 murder trial inspired the series Making a Murderer.

Andrea Yates is an American woman who confessed to killing her five children by drowning them in her bathtub in 2001. Although she was initially sentenced to life in prison, she was acquitted in 2006 as she was found not guilty by reason of insanity; it was revealed that she had been suffering from postpartum psychosis, postpartum depression, and schizophrenia.

Carl Panzram was a serial killer, rapist, robber, arsonist, and burglar. He is suspected to have killed more than 100 men in total though only five victims could be confirmed. He was mean and cruel from childhood and began committing serious crimes like burglary, rape, and murder as a young man. He was finally captured and executed.