Real Life Criminals

1. Bonnie Parker

Bonnie Parker was born on October 1, 1910 in Rowena, Texas, USA. She was married to Roy Thornton. She died on May 23, 1934 in Gibsland, Louisiana, USA.

2. Clyde Barrow

Clyde Barrow was born on March 24, 1909 in Telico, Texas, USA. He died on May 23, 1934 in Gibsland, Louisiana, USA.

3. John Dillinger

Self | Dillinger: Public Enemy No. 1

One of the most famous bank robbers in history, he was born John Herbert Dillinger on June 22, 1903, to a grocery store owner named John Wilson Dillinger and his wife Mollie (the family also included an older sister, Audrey). By all accounts the Dillingers were a normal "all-American" family, but ...

4. Lucky Luciano

US gangster and racketeer. Born Charles Salvadore Lucania in Sicily, he emigrated with his family to the US in 1906. In 1907 he started shoplifting. He was given his nickname by childhood friend and fellow gangster Meyer Lansky for his luck with betting on racehorses, but it also could have applied...

5. Al Capone

Infamous Chicago gangster Al Capone was born in the tough Williamsburgh section of Brooklyn, NY, the fourth of nine children of Italian immigrants from Naples. Capone was a born sociopath. In the sixth grade he beat up a teacher and promptly quit school. He picked up his education from the streets,...

6. Meyer Lansky

Polish-born Meyer Lansky emigrated to New York with his family and grew up in the Lower East Side. It was there that he ran into Bugsy Siegel, at the time a teenaged neighborhood gangster, and the two would remain lifelong friends. When Lansky saw the kinds of money Siegel was making from his ...

7. Pretty Boy Floyd

One of seven children of dirt-poor Georgia farmers, Charles Arthur Floyd was born on February 3, 1904. His family moved to Oklahoma shortly after his birth, where they bought a small farm. Their luck was no better in Oklahoma than it was in Georgia, and drought, plagues of insects and devastating ...

8. Bugsy Siegel

Bugsy Siegel (born Benjamin Siegelbaum) came out of the tough Williamsburgh section of Brooklyn, and was involved in criminal activities from an early age. As a teenager he struck up a friendship with another local gangster, Meyer Lansky, that would last the rest of their lives, and in fact one of ...

9. Baby Face Nelson

Lester Joseph Gillis, aka "Baby Face Nelson", began his crime career at an early age in a street gang in the Chicago slums. He was given the nickname "Baby Face" by his gang members because he looked much younger than he actually was (14). His specialties were car theft, bootlegging and armed ...

10. Mickey Cohen

Self | The Mike Wallace Interview

Mickey Cohen was born on September 4, 1913 in Brooklyn, New York City, New York, USA. He was married to Lavonne Weaver. He died on July 29, 1976 in Los Angeles, California, USA.

11. George Moran

Chicago gangster George "Bugs" Moran was born to French immigrants on August 21, 1893 as Adelard Cunin in St. Paul, MN. He left St. Paul at age 19 and moved to Chicago, where he soon hooked up with several of the city's street gangs and got a taste of the criminal underworld. He took to it readily,...

12. Louis Lepke

Louis "Lepke" Buchalter--the nickname Lepke means "Little Louis" in Yiddish)--was one of the top Jewish-American gangsters of the Depression Era and the only major mob boss to ever have been executed by authorities for his crimes. He was born February 6, 1897, on Manhattan's Lower East Side. His ...

13. Frank Costello

Self | Kefauver Investigation

Frank Costello was born Francisco Castiglia in Cosenza, Italy, in 1891. His family moved to New York, and as a young man he joined the local Mafia gang. When the "Castellamarese War" between gang bosses Giuseppe Masseria and Salvatore Maranzano ended, Costello was one of the few who were held in ...

14. Joseph Bonanno

Writer | Bonanno: A Godfather's Story

Joseph Bonanno was born on January 18, 1905 in Castellammare del Golfo, Sicily, Italy. He was a writer, known for Bonanno: A Godfather's Story (1999). He was married to Fay Labruzzo. He died on May 11, 2002 in Tucson, Arizona, USA.

15. 'Legs' Diamond

'Legs' Diamond was born on July 10, 1897 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. He was married to Alice Kenny. He died in December 1931 in Albany, New York, USA.

16. Arnold Rothstein

Self | American Justice: Target - Mafia

Arnold Rothstein was born on January 17, 1882 in Manhattan, New York City, New York, USA. He was married to Mrs. Arnold Robinson. He died on November 6, 1928 in New York City, New York, USA.

17. Dutch Schultz

Dutch Schultz was born on August 6, 1901 in Bronx, New York, USA. He was married to Frances. He died on October 24, 1935 in Newark, New Jersey, USA.

18. Johnny Torrio

Prohibition-era gang boss Johnny Torrio was born Giovanni Torrio in Irsina, Italy. When Johnny was two years old his father died, and his mother left Italy for New York City.

Torrio got his start in the criminal underworld at an early age, working as a bouncer in several Manhattan dives. He ...

19. Charles Dion O'Bannion

Irish-American gangster Charles Dion O'Bannion, nicknamed "Deanie", was, unlike many of his fellow contemporary gangsters, born and raised in the US. From the small Illinois town of Marca, his family moved to Chicago after his mother's death in 1901, settling in an Irish neighborhood on the city's ...

20. John Wayne Gacy

Self | The John Wayne Gacy Murders: Life and Death in Chicago

John Wayne Gacy was born in 1942 and grew up in a working-class neighborhood of Chicago, Illinois. His father, John Stanley Gacy (1900-1969), was an alcoholic and beat him frequently during his violent rages. As Gacy grew up, he began to develop a identity crisis - doubting his own masculinity. At ...

21. Ted Bundy

Self | Murderous Minds: Dennis Nilsen

Theodore Robert Bundy, more commonly known as "Ted", was one of the most prolific serial killers in the USA. He confessed to 36 murders, but nobody really knows how many had been committed or when he began his legacy of horror; the true total could be higher.

Ted was born to Eleanor Louise Cowell (...

22. Jeffrey Dahmer

Self | Dateline NBC

One of the USA's most notorious serial killers, Jeffrey Dahmer was born and raised in Bath Township, Ohio, a middle-class suburb of Akron. Much has been made of his childhood tendencies -including cases of cruelty to animals- but to outward appearances, at least, he seemed to be a normal child. As ...

23. Albert Fish

Albert Fish was born on May 19, 1870 in Washington, District of Columbia, USA. He died on January 16, 1936 in Ossining, New York, USA.

24. Ed Gein

Biography

Ed Gein and his elder brother Henry lived on a rural farm near Plainfield, WI. George Gein, his father, was a tanner and carpenter and was drunk most of the time. Augusta, Ed's domineering mother, was the real power of the house. She was a religious fanatic who constantly warned her sons about the ...

25. H.H. Holmes

Self | The Shocking Truth

Considered to be the first American serial killer and possibly the most prolific, he was also a con-man and bigamist. He was a doctor who studied medicine at Ann Arbor, MI. He then moved to New York where he practiced briefly. His first brush with the law occurred there when some corpses were found...

26. David Berkowitz

Self | Testimony: Profiles in Faith

David Berkowitz was born as Richard David Falco. His mother had him out of wedlock when she had an affair with a married real-estate agent named Joseph Klineman. Her husband Tony Falco had left her a few years before that. His mother gave him up for adoption to Nathan and Pearl Berkowitz who named ...

27. Richard Ramirez

Self | Great Crimes and Trials of the Twentieth Century

Richard Ramirez was a drifter from Texas who ended up in Los Angeles (the serial killer capital of the world) in the early 1980s when 5 serial killers where committing crimes independent of each other.

Ramirez worked as a car mechanic and did odd jobs while in Los Angeles. He was fascinated with "...

28. Charles Starkweather

Charles Starkweather was born on November 24, 1938 in Lincoln, Nebraska, USA. He died on June 25, 1959 in Lincoln, Nebraska, USA.

29. Lizzie Andrew Borden

Writer | Dance Theatre of Harlem: Fall River Legend

Lizzie Borden has mystified and fascinated crime buffs for over a century. Few cases in American history have attracted as much attention as the hatchet murders and the unlikely defendant: a church-going, respectable "spinster" daughter charged with parricide, a crime worthy of Classical Greek ...

30. Albert DeSalvo

Albert DeSalvo came from a violent and abusive home. His father 'Frank DeSalvo' beat his wife and kids frequently. 'Frank DeSalvo' was in jail twice and his parents finally divorced in 1944. As a teenager Albert was arrested for breaking and entering. At 17 he joined the army and was stationed in ...

31. Andrei Chikatilo

Andrei Chikatilo was one of the world's most prolific and barbaric serial killers. Born on October 16, 1936, in the Ukraine, he witnessed the devastation of his country at the onset of World War II. His mother Anna repeatedly told him of an older brother, Stephan, who had been murdered and ...

32. Aileen Wuornos

Self | Aileen: Life and Death of a Serial Killer

Aileen Wuornos was born on February 29, 1956 in Rochester, Michigan, USA. She was married to Lewis Gratz Fell. She died on October 9, 2002 in Raiford, Florida, USA.

33. Peter Sutcliffe

Self | Martin Kemp's Murder Files

British serial killer, Peter Sutcliffe, who is infamous as the 'Yorkshire Ripper' was born under fairly normal surroundings. His father John Sutcliffe was a mill owner. Sutcliffe was very attached to his mother Kathleen. He was a loner in school and his grades were generally poor. Sutcliffe quit ...

34. Henry Lee Lucas

Self | Murder: No Apparent Motive

An unwanted child born to a destitute family in Blacksburg, Virginia, Henry Lee Lucas' mother, 41-year-old Viola, turned tricks in their dirt floor cabin in front of the family. She hated her new son from the time he was born and continually abused him. Her husband Anderson, who had lost his legs ...

35. Dennis Nilsen

Writer | Dennis Nilsen's the History of A Drowning Boy Project

Dennis Andrew Nilsen, 1945 in Strichen, Fraserburgh, Scotland, also known as the Muswell Hill Murderer is a British serial killer who lived and murdered in London. In 1983 he was convicted of six murders and two attempted murders and is believed to have killed at least 15 men and boys between 1978 ...

36. Pedro Alonso López

Self | Encounter with a Killer

Pedro Alonso López is a serial killer. In 1981, he was convicted by an Ecuadorian court of the murders of 57 girls. Despite several extensive confessions, the exact number of victims is unknown but believed to be somewhere between 61 and 300. After spending time at different prison facilities, in ...

37. Gary Ridgway

Self | Seeking Answers

Gary Ridgway who would become infamous as the 'Green River Killer' was born in Utah. He then moved to Washington state where he worked as a truck painter in Renton Washonton for nearly 30 years. Ridgway also worked at a computer company. Ridgway claims to have killed a man as early as 1971 but it ...

38. Charles Cullen

Self | 60 Minutes

Charles Cullen was born on February 22, 1960 in New Jersey, USA.

39. Leonard Lake

Leonard Lake was born on October 29, 1945 in San Francisco, California, USA. He was married to Claralyn Balasz. He died on June 6, 1985 in San Mateo County, California, USA.

40. Charles Ng

Charles Ng was born on November 24, 1961 in Hong Kong.

41. Kenneth Bianchi

Self | Horizon

Along with his adopted cousin Angelo Buono Jr. he was part of "the Hillside Stranglers" pair. Bianchi's mother was a prostitute who gave him up for adoption as an infant. By the age of 11 he was having problems at school with his conduct and frequent tantrums. He tried for the police force but was ...

42. Angelo Buono Jr.

Self | Horizon

Along with his adopted cousin Kenneth Bianchi he was part of "the Hillside Stranglers" pair. When he was young his parents divorced. His mother got custody of him and took him across the country from New York to California. He began stealing cars by 14 and was in a youth reformatory by 16 for grand...

43. Dennis Rader

Self | BTK: Confession of a Serial Killer

Dennis Rader was born on March 9, 1945 in Pittsburg, Kansas, USA. He was previously married to Paula Dietz.

44. Ottis Toole

Self | Ottis Toole, le cannibale de Jacksonville

Ottis Elwood Toole was a self-confessed serial killer and cannibal who admitted to many murders and was the suspect in many more unsolved murders, some of which he committed with his friend Henry Lee Lucas. Toole was convicted of murder twice and confessed to four more murders, for which he was ...

45. Rodney Alcala

Self | The Dating Game

Born 1943 in San Antonio, Texas, he was a convicted sex offender and serial killer, who died while awaiting execution at San Quentin State Prison. He was convicted of five homicides, but is believed to have killed many more. He graduated from UCLA School of Fine Arts, and was charged with the rape ...

46. Gary Gilmore

Self | Norman Mailer: The American

Gary Gilmore was born on December 4, 1940 in Texas, USA. He died on January 17, 1977 in Salt Lake City, Utah, USA.

47. Richard Kuklinski

Writer | America Undercover

Richard Kuklinski was born on April 11, 1935 in Jersey City, New Jersey, USA. He was a writer, known for America Undercover (1983), The Iceman and the Psychiatrist (2003) and The Iceman Confesses: Secrets of a Mafia Hitman (2001). He was married to Barbara Kuklinski. He died on March 5, 2006 in ...

48. Ronald DeFeo

Self | 75A4053: The Ronald DeFeo Interview

Ronald DeFeo was born on September 26, 1951 in Brooklyn, New York City, New York, USA. He was married to Nissa Burkhalter, Tracey Defeo and Barbara Puco. He died on March 12, 2021 in Albany, New York, USA.

49. Richard Speck

Serial killer who single-handedly committed the most number of murders in a single day - 8. He was the 7th of 8 children born to Robert Speck and Gladys Sterner. His father died when he was 6 and his mother moved the family to Dallas. While there he had 37 arrests for drunk and disorderly behaviour...

50. Carlo Gambino

Born in Sicily, Carlo Gambino came from a family that had been involved in the Mafia for centuries. Although he was thin and somewhat frail-looking, he was also single-minded, ruthless and tough as nails and made a name for himself as an enforcer in local Mafia circles before he was out of his ...

51. Albert Anastasia

Albert Anastasia was born February 26, 1903, in Calabria, Italy, famous for its hams and the 'ndrangheta, which was every bit as vicious as the Sicilian Mafia. He was brought to America as a child along with his eight brothers. When he was starting in organized crime, he helped Salvatore Lucania, ...

52. James 'Whitey' Bulger

Self | Whitey: United States of America v. James J. Bulger

James 'Whitey' Bulger was born on September 3, 1929 in Dorchester, Massachusetts, USA. He died on October 30, 2018 in Bruceton Mills, West Virginia, USA.

53. Vito Genovese

Self | Kefauver Investigation

The man once described as the most powerful organized crime gangster in American history was born in Italy in 1897. His first arrest came at the age of 20 in New York City for weapons possession. The coming of Prohibition was a stroke of luck for Genovese, as he graduated from being just a street ...

54. John Gotti

Self | Inside the Mafia

John Gotti was born on October 27, 1940 in Bronx, New York City, New York, USA. He was married to Victoria DiGiorgio. He died on June 10, 2002 in Springfield, Missouri, USA.

55. Paul Castellano

Paul Castellano was born on June 26, 1915 in Brooklyn, New York, USA. He was married to Nina Manno. He died on December 16, 1985 in New York City, New York, USA.

56. Tommy Lucchese

Tommy Lucchese was born on December 1, 1899 in Palermo, Sicily, Italy. He was married to Concetto Vassallo. He died on July 13, 1967 in Lido Beach, New York, USA.