Timothy O'Bryan

popular name: Frank Palermo

date_of_death: May 12, 1996

age: 91

cause_of_death: Natural causes

claim_to_fame: Crime and their Victims

best_know_for: Boxing has a dark history of gangsters, crooked fights and mysterious murders. In the world of boxing at the time, Frank “Blinky” Palermo, a member of the Philadelphia Cosa Nostra crime family, was indeed royalty. Along with his partner, Frankie Carbo, a New York Lucchese crime family member, Palermo managed and controlled many of the professional boxers around the country. Although this Philly hustler was only five feet tall, he was a giant at assault and battery, big at bootlegging, jobbing, racketeering, numbers runner, petty thief, shakedown artist, wiseguy - Blinky was a man of many talents. Palermo's partner was Mafioso Frankie Carbo, a soldier in New York's Lucchese family who had been a gunman with Murder, Inc. During the 1940s, Frankie Carbo became a boxing promoter, working along with Ettore "Eddie" Coco, James "Jimmy Doyle" Plumeri, Frank "Blinky" Palermo, Harry "Champ" Segal, & Felix Bocchicchio. The group was known as "The Combination", together they were highly successful in fixing high-profile boxing matches. Even worse Palermo would cheat his stable of fighters out of their share of the purses of their fights. In 1961, the Feds zeroed in on Carbo and Palermo and were charged, tried and convicted of committing a dozens of crimes. Blinky Palermo was sentenced to fifteen years in prison. Upon his death, he was laid to rest at Holy Cross Cemetery in Yeadon, PA.

popular name: Martha Moxley

date_of_death: October 30, 1975

age: 15

cause_of_death: Homicide by blunt trauma

claim_to_fame: Crime and their Victims

best_know_for: Martha Moxley was a 15-year-old American high school student from Greenwich, Connecticut, who was murdered in 1975. Moxley was last seen alive spending time at the home of the Skakel family, across the street from her home in Belle Haven. Michael Skakel, also aged 15 at the time, was convicted in 2002 of murdering Moxley and was sentenced to 20 years to life in prison. What we do know: On Oct. 31, 1975, the body of Martha Moxley was found under a pine tree at the edge of her family’s property, diagonally across from the Skakel home in the Greenwich enclave of Belle Haven. She had been beaten about the head 15 times with a #6 Toney Penna woman's model golf club with such savagery that the golf club shattered in the attack. She was also stabbed through the neck with the shaft. Police found two of the golf club’s pieces nearby. The third—part of the handle and shaft—was never recovered. Despite the conviction of Michael Skakel not once, but twice he was subsequently released from prison 2013 after a judge ruled a third trial would not justified given the passage of time and many witnesses have since died. What we can say with nearly 100% certainty is that Michael and/or his older brother Tommy, with the possible assistance of their cousin Jimmy Terrien—all of them nephews of Ethel Kennedy—murdered Moxley. Proving once again that there are two justice systems - one for the rich and one for everyone else. Today Michael Skakel is a free man who is believed to be living in Florida while his brother Tommy lives in Massachusetts.

popular name: Charles Lawson

date_of_death: December 25, 1929

age: 43

cause_of_death: Suicide by Gun

claim_to_fame: Crime and their Victims

best_know_for: Charles Lawson was a North Carolina tobacco farmer born on May 10, 1886, who became infamously known for the tragic and shocking murders of his own family on Christmas Day in 1929 in Germanton, North Carolina. Lawson, reportedly a hardworking man, had recently moved his wife, Fannie, and their seven children into a new home and was thought to be relatively prosperous. Just days before the killings, he took his family to town to buy new clothes and have a formal family portrait taken—an unusual gesture that later seemed eerily significant. On December 25, 1929, Lawson brutally murdered his wife and six of their children before turning the shotgun on himself. Only his eldest son, Arthur, survived, as he had been sent into town on an errand. The motive behind the murders has remained a subject of speculation for decades, with theories ranging from financial stress and mental illness to dark rumors of incest. The case has since become a haunting part of North Carolina folklore, inspiring books, songs, and documentaries. Charles Lawson and his entire family were all laid to rest is one large grave at the Browder Family Cemetery in Germantown, North Carolina.