Elena Semander

popular name: Julius and Ethel Rosenberg

date_of_death: June 19, 1953

age:

cause_of_death: Execution by electric chair

claim_to_fame: Crime and their Victims

best_know_for: It was a case that mesmerized the country and the world. On June 19, 1953, at the height of the Cold War, New York City–born Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were put to death in the electric chair. Convicted of conspiring to pass atomic bomb secrets to the Soviet Union, they were the first civilians to be executed by the United States on espionage charges. Their conviction of spying for the Soviet Union included providing top-secret information about American radar, sonar, jet propulsion engines, and nuclear weapon designs. Convicted of espionage in 1951, they were executed in 1953 at Sing Sing in Ossining, New York. For decades, many people, including the Rosenberg's sons (Michael and Robert Meeropol), maintained that Julius and Ethel were innocent of spying on their country and were victims of Cold War paranoia. Several years after their execution, top nuclear scientist Boris V. Brokhovich stated the Soviets had developed their own bomb by trial and error. "You sat the Rosenbergs in the electric chair for nothing", he said. "We got nothing from the Rosenbergs." The notes allegedly typed by Ethel Rosenberg as dictated by her husband apparently contained little that was directly used in the Soviet atomic bomb project. According to Julius's contact Feklisov, the Rosenbergs did not provide the Soviet Union with any useful material about the atomic bomb: "He [Julius] didn't understand anything about the atomic bomb and he couldn't help us."

popular name: Frank Nitti

date_of_death: March 19, 1943

age: 57

cause_of_death: Suicide by gunshot

claim_to_fame: Crime and their Victims

best_know_for: Frank Nitti, nicknamed “The Enforcer,” was an Italian-American gangster and one of Al Capone‘s top henchmen, Nitti was in charge of all money flowing through the operation and upon Capone's arrest and conviction on tax charges, Nitti succeeded Capone as boss of the Chicago Outfit. Intensely claustrophobic and facing serious charges from the feds, Nitti shot himself three times (3rd time was the charm) and committed suicide rather than spend years in a jail cell.

popular name: Dr. Sam Sheppard

date_of_death: April 6, 1970

age: 46

cause_of_death: Wernicke's encephalopathy and liver failure

claim_to_fame: Crime and their Victims

best_know_for: Dr. Sam Sheppard was an attractive and well-liked doctor who tended to hundreds of patients throughout his career at Bay View Hospital in Ohio. In the early morning hours of July 4, 1954 the nightmare began for the Sheppard family when Sam's wife, Marilyn, was discovered brutally murdered. Mrs. Sheppard was found lying on her bed in their master bedroom in a provocative manner. She had been “chopped 25 times in the head and chest.” There was never any hard evidence found that directly tied Dr. Sam Sheppard to the death of his wife, Marilyn. Nonetheless he was found guilty of second degree murder at his first trial. After over a decade in prison the murder conviction was overturned on June 6, 1966 due to a lack of evidence. Dr. Sam Sheppard was a free man from that time until he passed away in 1970. His experience inspired the hit TV show and movie The Fugitive.