Timothy O'Bryan

popular name: Ludlow Skinner

date_of_death: February 21, 1903

age: 32

cause_of_death: Murdered - gunshot wounds

claim_to_fame: Crime and their Victims

best_know_for: Ludlow Skinner was a quiet, soft-spoken young man who was the son of one of the most respected ministers in the southern region. The murder of Ludlow Skinner begins with Mrs. Gertrude Tucker, Skinner's sister-in-law and one of the most beautiful women in all of North Carolina at the time. Seems while doing work for Mrs. Tucker, her attorney Ernest Haywood had a thing for the beautiful widow and they began a secret affair (which in 1903, was a very big deal). And while there was ample evidence to their marriage, Haywood refused to acknowledge the legality of their marriage or the bastard son born out of wedlock. On February 21, 1903, Saturday afternoon, the young lawyer Haywood met Ludlow Skinner, his mistress's brother-in-law, on the steps of the Fayetteville Street Post Office. After a brief argument Haywood pulled out a pistol and shot at Skinner one time and missed. He then chased Skinner briefly and shot him dead in the street with 100 witness. The murder and subsequent trial achieved nationwide attention and rocked the foundations of turn-of-the-century Raleigh society. As a lawyer and founding member of the Raleigh Bar Association, he was found innocent by a jury of his peers after only 15 minutes of deliberation.

popular name: Sam Battaglia

date_of_death: September 7, 1973

age: 64

cause_of_death: Natural Causes

claim_to_fame: Crime and their Victims

best_know_for: Sam "Teets" Battaglia joined the Torrio-Capone gang at the age of 16, right at the beginning of the Beer Wars of the 1920s. As a high-level member of the Chicago Outfit criminal organization, Sam Battaglia quickly rose in the ranks of the gang, and was known as a brutal loan shark. He became head of the Chicago Outfit in 1966 but was convicted and sent to federal prison that same year and died at his home shortly after his release.

popular name: Meyer Lansky

date_of_death: January 15, 1983

age: 80

cause_of_death: Lung cancer

claim_to_fame: Crime and their Victims

best_know_for: Meyer Lansky was one of the most important figures in the development of organized crime in New York, nationwide and worldwide in the 20th century. Known as "The Mob's Accountant" Lansky’s work spanned the pre-Prohibition days of the New York City rackets, where he had an early partnership with Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel, to the consolidation of the New York Mob under Charlie “Lucky” Luciano, and on to the development of Las Vegas and Havana, Cuba, as “open cities” for the Mob. He controlled casinos in the Bahamas and in London, as well as, reportedly, a Swiss-based bank through which he laundered profits. The authorities described him as a genius of finance who applied his Midas touch to bootlegging in the Prohibition era, to gambling in Cuba, the Bahamas and the United States and to loan-sharking, stock manipulation and underworld penetration of legitimate businesses throughout the United States. Upon his death, he was laid to rest at Mount Nebo Miami Memorial Gardens in West Miami, Florida.