Timothy O'Bryan

popular name: Stringbean Akeman

date_of_death: November 10, 1973

age: 58

cause_of_death: Homicide - gunshot wounds

claim_to_fame: Crime and their Victims

best_know_for: David "Stringbean" Akeman was an American singer-songwriter, musician, comedian, actor and semiprofessional baseball player best known for his role as a featured original cast member on the hit television show Hee Haw and as a member of the Grand Ole Opry. Akeman was well-known for his "old-fashioned" banjo-picking style, careful mix of comedy and music, and his memorable stage wardrobe (which consisted of a long nightshirt tucked into a pair of short blue jeans belted around his knees — giving him the comical appearance of a very tall man with stubby legs). Akeman and his wife were shot and murdered by burglars in their rural Tennessee home near Ridgetop in 1973.

popular name: Vincent Flemmi

date_of_death: October 16, 1979

age: 44

cause_of_death: Drug overdose - heroin

claim_to_fame: Crime and their Victims

best_know_for: There's only one Boston mob hitman and psychopath more vicious that Stephen "The Rifleman" Flemmi (long time associate of Whitey Bulger) and that was his brother Vincent "Jimmy the Bear" Flemmi. Suspected or convicted of dozens of murders throughout the greater Boston area, Vincent, along with mob associates Joe "The Animal" Barboza and Johnny “The Butcher” Martorano (whom has over 50 confirmed kills under his belt), was a free-lance hitman, bank robber and muscle for the Winter Hill Gang and the Patriarca crime family. He was also a long-time rat and informant for the FBI and helped pin the murder of Edward "Teddy" Deegan on four rival members of the Patriarca family when, in fact, it was Barboza and Flemmi who murdered Deegan. Shortly after the murder of Deegan he told another associate, "all I want to do now is kill people ... it's better than hitting (robbing) banks." In 1975, while serving an 8-to-18-year sentence for assault with intent to commit murder, Flemmi received one of the state's first weekend furloughs from prison. Vincent had immediately fled, and was not apprehended until three years later in Maryland, Maine. A year later Vincent died of a drug overdose in his prison cell.

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.