Timothy O'Bryan

popular name: Rudy Marfeo

date_of_death: April 20, 1968

age: 42

cause_of_death: Gunshot wounds from mob hit

claim_to_fame: Crime and their Victims

best_know_for: In 1968 local bookmaker Rudolph “Rudy” Marfeo had recently defied New England mob boss Raymond Patriarca by refusing to pay his "tribute money" and publicly disrespecting Ray Patriarca. This was not wise considering Patriarca had Rudy’s brother Willie whacked in a Federal Hill restaurant just two years earlier for doing the exact same thing. Patriarca wanted Marfeo, “straightened out,” as soon as possible and ordered the hit on Rudy. On April 20, 1968 Rudy and his bodyguard Anthony Melei were observed shopping at Pannone’s Market on 282 Pocasset Avenue in Providence. Rudolph Marfeo, the bookie, fell near the front door, a drawn .38 in his hand, his left side blown apart. Anthony Melei, the bodyguard, died next to the ice cream freezer, his face shot away by Double OO buckshot. The shopkeeper and his wife dived behind the deli counter as the killers retreated. What makes these murders so important in the history of the New England Cosa Nostra is that subsequent charges and guilty verdicts against Ray Patriarca and his associates signaled the downward spiral of the Patriarca crime family and to their New England operations.

popular name: Judd Gray

date_of_death: January 12, 1928

age: 35

cause_of_death: Executed by electrocution

claim_to_fame: Crime and their Victims

best_know_for: Judd Gray was a corset salesman and Ruth Brown Snyder's lover and accomplice in the badly planned murder of her husband, Albert Snyder. The bored housewife from Queens, New York who, after 7 or so unsuccessful attempts, finally succeeded in killing her husband Albert Snyder with the assistance of her lover Henry Judd Gray using a combination dumb bell beat-down and strangulation. Although found guilt and executed in Sing Sing Prison, that is not what made this pathetic couple famous. During the execution photographer Tom Howard of the Chicago Tribune, with a small plate camera strapped to his ankle, took the infamous picture just as the electricity was running through Ruth Snyder's body that was published the next day in the New York Daily News. As one crime reporter said during the trial, the Snyder-Gray murder was a "cheap crime involving cheap people".

popular name: Bonnie Parker

date_of_death: May 23, 1934

age: 23

cause_of_death: Gunshot wounds

claim_to_fame: Crime and their Victims

best_know_for: Bonnie Parker was part of the infamous criminal couple 'Bonnie and Clyde'. Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow were known for their bank robberies that captured the attention of the American press and public during the "public enemy era" between 1931 and 1934. Although Bonnie and Clyde are often glamorized, they are believed to have murdered at least nine police officers and four civilians. They were killed in May 1934 during an ambush by police near Gibsland, Louisiana.