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Warm up on Arch Villains
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BadAss
BadAss
Charioteer

Jul-28-2006 17:55

Anxious and impatient about the next feature that will be introduced? How about making ourselves acquainted already with some of the worst crooks history has ever seen.

I suggest each and everyone posts a biography in this thread about the criminal of his/her choice. I'll get this started with the biography of one of the most infamous of the all....

Ladies & Gents, the legendary AL CAPONE!!!!!

Replies

BadAss
BadAss
Charioteer

Jul-28-2006 17:56

but Moran was not in the group. The even, however, changed the public mind about pursuing organized crime.

By now, the IRS had been gathering tax evasion information on Capone for some time through a hired agent, Eddie O'Hare. O'Hare ran Capone's dog and race tracks and told the IRS where they could find Capone's financial records. On November 24, Al Capone was sentenced to 11 years in Federal prison, fined $50,000, charged $7692 for court costs, and $215,000 in back taxes for tax evasion.

He was released in 1939, after serving seven years and paying all of his back taxes. His mental and physical condition had severely deteriorated and he entered Baltimore hospital for brain treatment immediately after his release. He died of a stroke and pneumonia on January 25, 1947, having killed Eddie O'Hare before he died.


sushi kitty
sushi kitty

Jul-28-2006 18:10

wow....that's quite the story, even if it is a synopsis!

biggie528
biggie528
Lucky Stiff

Jul-28-2006 21:46

Ooooh BadAss, great idea....i'll come up witha good one tomorrow (what might seem good now is probably influenced by a few glasses of wine lol)

Rhiemma Moon
Rhiemma Moon
Well-Connected

Jul-28-2006 22:14

Bonnie and Clyde met in Texas in January, 1930. At the time, Bonnie was 19 and married to an imprisoned murderer; Clyde was 21 and unmarried. Soon after, he was arrested for a burglary and sent to jail. He escaped, using a gun Bonnie had smuggled to him, was recaptured, and was sent back to prison. Clyde was paroled in February, 1932, rejoined Bonnie, and resumed a life of crime.

At the time they were killed in 1934, they were believed to have committed 13 murders and several robberies and burglaries. Barrow, for example, was suspected of murdering two police officers at Joplin, Missouri, and kidnaping a man and a woman in rural Louisiana. He released them near Waldo, Texas. Numerous sightings followed, linking this pair with bank robberies and automobile thefts.
Later in 1932, Bonnie and Clyde began traveling with Raymond Hamilton, a young gunman. Hamilton left them several months later, and was replaced by William Daniel Jones in November, 1932.

Ivan M. "Buck" Barrow, brother of Clyde, was released from the Texas State Prison on March 23, 1933, having been granted a full pardon by the Governor. He quickly joined Clyde, bringing his wife, Blanche, so the group now numbered five persons. This gang embarked upon a series of bold robberies which made headlines across the country. They escaped capture in various encounters with the law. However, their activities made law enforcement efforts to apprehend them even more intense.

Rhiemma Moon
Rhiemma Moon
Well-Connected

Jul-28-2006 22:18

FBI Agents followed the trail through many states and into various haunts of the Barrow gang, particularly Louisiana. The association with Henry Methvin and the Methvin family of Louisiana was discovered by FBI Agents and they found that Bonnie and Clyde had been driving a car stolen in New Orleans.

On April 13, 1934, an FBI Agent, through investigation in the vicinity of Ruston, Louisiana, obtained information which definitely placed Bonnie and Clyde in a remote section southwest of that community. The home of the Methvins was not far away and the Agent learned of visits there by Bonnie and Clyde.

Before dawn on May 23, 1934, a posse composed of police officers from Louisiana and Texas, including Texas Ranger Frank Hamer, concealed themselves in bushes along the highway near Sailes, Louisiana. In the early daylight, Bonnie and Clyde appeared in an automobile and when they attempted to drive away, the officers opened fire. Bonnie and Clyde were killed instantly.



jroepel
jroepel
Con Artist

Jul-29-2006 02:43

Although this particular Arch Villain is from a period before our Sleuth-era… No list of Arch Villains is complete without a mention of Jack the Ripper. The famous murderer who terrorized the Whitechapel neighborhood of London in 1888. Jack had 5 Murders officially tallied to him and another 9 murders and 4 attacks are believed or rumored to have been committed by Jack the Ripper, however there is much debate over this fact.

Jack’s victims were (or presumed to be) prostitutes, and were attacked during the night. The most distinctive feature of Jack the Ripper was the misogynistic violence directed at the women’s faces, throats, abdomens, the genital area, and especially the removal of internal organs. Each murder grew progressively more brutal and the mutilations more severe, with the final “official” victim having her entrails hung around the room.

The murders were accompanied by other mysterious occurrences including graffiti and letters from the killer. The graffiti message contained a phrase that pointed either to inflame anti-semitic tensions in the city or another and widely picked up on theory, that the message referred to the killers of Hiram Abif who is a figure deeply important to the rituals of Freemasonry. This has fueled constant debate that somehow the freemasons were involved in the Jack the Ripper murders (Even a recent Johnny Depp movie pushed this theory.) Several letters were also sent from peoples unknown claiming to be the killer. Whether prank or reality, it is from these letters that the name Jack the Ripper comes.

jroepel
jroepel
Con Artist

Jul-29-2006 02:43

Mysteriously, Jack the Ripper was never identified. The killings suddenly stopped. Much debate has gone on for years over the possible identities. A crazy freemason, psychotic surgeon, misogynistic butcher, an American Doctor (American to explain why the killings ceased suddenly-the killer returned home), a man or a woman? We will never know the answer to the riddle. But Jack the Ripper remains one of the truly great Arch Villains of all time.

Rosamund Clifford
Rosamund Clifford
Tale Spinner

Jul-29-2006 02:56

Jack the Ripper is the most notorious serial killer in history. Although there were many murderers who killed more people than he did, he caught the popular imagination because his identity has never been determined.
The murders happened in 1888 in Whitechapel, an impoverished area of London. There were five victims, all of them prostitutes: Mary Ann Nichols, Annie Chapman, Elizabeth Stride, Catherine Eddowes and Mary Jane Kelly. But the police at the time of the murders (and some of the later historians) thought that there might had been many more.
The murders were extremely savage. They all happened in a public place, the victim's throat was cut and the bodies were mutilated. Some of the victims had their internal organs removed, and this led the police to the conclusion that the murderer had some knowledge of surgery.
The police received hundreds of letters from people who claimed to be the killer, but they thought only three of them were genuine. They were signed "Jack the Ripper".
After the death of the fifth victim, the murders suddenly stopped, no one knows why. There were many theories about the identity of the killer, but nothing has ever been proved. The list of the possible (and sometimes impossible) suspects contains more than twenty names. The most prominent among them was prince Albert Victor, Queen Victoria's grandson, although this is highly unlikely. One of the strangest theories came from sir Arthur Conan Doyle who thought that the killer was a woman, probably a midwife.
The last police report about the case dates from 1896.



Al Z
Al Z

Jul-30-2006 11:02

THE CLEVELAND TORSO KILLER:

Throughout the 1930's a killer decapitated 12 vagrants in the Cleveland area. In many cases, the head of the victims was never found.

Eliot Ness was assigned to stop the killings, and became so frustrated in 1938 that he ordered police to arrest hundreds of vagrants and physically burn the area of Kingsbury where most of the murders had occured down.
This stopped the murders.

The likeliest suspect was a man named Sunheim. Sunheim had all the characteristics needed by the killer: He was large (There had been a size 12 footprint found at one of the crime scenes), he had psychological problems, he'd studied medicine -- necessary for how the killer performed the murders, and he lived in a nice house. The theory was that the killer was killing the victims somewhere private and then dumping them afterwards (explaining the missing heads in many cases, and disproportion of blood at the crime scenes.)

When Ness confronted Sundheim and told him he was under suspicion, Sundheim responded with "Prove it." Sundheim checked himself into a mental institution and died within 2 years, before Ness could officially prove it. Thus, the Cleveland Torso Killer's Identity was never truly identified.


Al Z
Al Z

Jul-30-2006 11:03

Er...the suspect's name was Sundheim, I left out the D in my first few spellings of the name.

BAH! I meant to do that. I was..er...testing all you.

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