Allan Pinkerton

popular name: Marilyn Sheppard

date_of_death: July 4, 1954

age: 28

cause_of_death: Homicide - blunt force trauma

claim_to_fame: Crime and their Victims

best_know_for: Marilyn Sheppard was violently murdered in her home of Bay Village, Ohio on July 4, 1954. Her husband Dr. Samuel Sheppard was the primary suspect and convicted of her murder, but after 10 years in prison he was acquitted in 1966 at a second trial. The case was controversial from the beginning, with extensive and prolonged nationwide media coverage. The U.S. Supreme Court determined that the "carnival atmosphere" surrounding Sheppard's first trial had made due process impossible.

popular name: Paul Vario

date_of_death: May 3, 1988

age: 73

cause_of_death: Lung cancer

claim_to_fame: Crime and their Victims

best_know_for: Paul Vario was a prominent New York mobster and high-ranking member of the Lucchese crime family. Born on July 10, 1914, in Brooklyn, he became involved in organized crime at a young age, eventually rising to become a caporegime (captain) in the family. Vario controlled a crew based in Brooklyn that was involved in a wide range of criminal activities, including extortion, loan sharking, illegal gambling, and hijacking. Vario was also involved in legitimate businesses that included a flower shop, a bar, a restaurant, and a taxi stand. One of his businesses, Vario's Bargain Auto Parts Inc., located at 5702 Avenue D, is where Vario conducted illegal business with his associates. At his height, Vario was earning an estimated $25,000 a day from his illegal activities. He gained notoriety through his association with Henry Hill, whose life was chronicled in the book Wiseguy by Nicholas Pileggi and later dramatized in the film Goodfellas, where Vario was portrayed by actor Paul Sorvino. Despite his power and influence, Vario was ultimately brought down by law enforcement, thanks in part to Hill's cooperation with authorities. He was convicted on multiple charges in the 1980s, including extortion and fraud. Paul Vario died of respiratory failure in prison on May 3, 1988, at the age of 73. Paul Vario was laid to rest in the Vario Family plot at St. John Cemetery in Middle Village, New York.

popular name: Mary Lily Flagler Bingham

date_of_death: July 27, 1917

age: 50

cause_of_death: Edema with myocarditis along with high levels of morphine, arsenic and mercury

claim_to_fame: Crime and their Victims

best_know_for: Mary Lily Kenan Flagler Bingham was an American philanthropist and heiress who became notorious when she married one of the richest men of the Gilded Age - Henry Flagler - a founder of Standard Oil with John Rockefeller. Growing up in an affluent household, she soon moved with her family to Wilmington in the late 1870s. Her affluence afforded her education, uncommon for a woman on the cusp of the twentieth century. She first met Henry Flagler in 1891 at a party in Newport, Rhode Island. Kenan was only twenty-three years old; Flagler was sixty-one, and still married to Ida Alice. As they became more romantically involved, Mary Lily’s family grew suspicious of Flagler’s intentions, at least until the tycoon gifted her two million dollars’ worth of jewelry and stock in Standard Oil, along with a mansion in Palm Beach that would come to be known as Whitehall. Flagler also set about divorcing Ida Alice, which resulted in him paying Florida state legislators off in order to have insanity declared a viable reason for initiating divorce proceedings. Two months after the law was passed, Flagler divorced her, and he married Mary Lily, a woman nearly half his age, on the Kenans’ family plantation ten days later in 1901. Henry Flagler and Mary Lily Kenan Flagler by most accounts had a comfortable and loving marriage. Their marriage lasted until May of 1913, as after a fall down the stairs at Whitehall, the 83-year-old Flagler passed away, leaving his massive fortune to her. Mary Lily Kenan thus became the world’s richest woman. Three years later she became reaquinted with and married Robert Worth Bingham. A seemly healthy and active socialite, she slowly succumbed to a mysterious illness and died just 8 months later after her marriage to Bingham.