Elena Semander

popular name: Michael Maggio

date_of_death: March 14, 1959

age: 69

cause_of_death: Natural causes

claim_to_fame: Crime and their Victims

best_know_for: Michael Maggio was one of the original Philadelphia organized crime figures beginning in the 1910s. The leader of "the Greaser Gang" in south Philadelphia, he quickly ascended to a leadership role in the Philly crime family. Known in the city as a wealthy cheese importer, manufacture and businessman, we was also a leader in the criminal underworld who did not hesitate to use violence as a means to the end. In his early 60s. Due to health reasons, he turned the family operations over to his son Peter. He sponsored future Philadelphia Organized Crime Boss Angelo Bruno for membership into the Philadelphia Family during the 1930s who gradually ascended to the role of mafia Don. Michael died of natural causes in Miami, Florida at age 69. After mobster Michael Maggio died in March 1959 his protege Angelo Bruno used the Maggio Cheese Company on 11th and Washington Streets in Philadelphia, PA as headquarters from which the mob boss then ran his numbers racket. Upon his death, he was interred 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: H. H. Holmes

date_of_death: May 7, 1896

age: 34

cause_of_death: Execution by hanging

claim_to_fame: Crime and their Victims

best_know_for: The country’s first serial killer was a smooth-talking doctor who ran a murder hotel in Chicago. The tale of H. H. Holmes and his Murder Castle is perhaps one of the most fascinating cases in American criminal history. Born Herman Webster Mudgett, he was a bright young doctor who had graduated from high school at sixteen and always had a penchant for anything to do with death. While enrolled in the University of Michigan’s Department of Medicine and Surgery, he worked under Professor William James Herdman in the university’s anatomy lab. The pair were said to have aided body snatching to supply bodies as medical cadavers, which Mudgett then burned or disfigured with acid, then planted to it look as if they had been killed in an accident. Mudgett began taking out insurance policies on these people—before he stole, disfigured, and planted them—and would later collect the insurance money once the bodies were discovered. After graduation, Mudgett started a new job working at a Philadelphia drugstore. When a child died after taking medicine purchased from the drugstore Mudgett was employed at, the young doctor denied any involvement and immediately left the city. Before he moved to Chicago, he changed his name to avoid any connection to his previous scams. Herman Webster Mudgett, M.D., donned the name Henry Howard Holmes. In 1893, the bustling city of Chicago won the honor of hosting the World’s Columbian Exposition. While the World’s Fair brought millions of visitors from all over the world, nearby, a clever killer hid in plain sight, capitalizing off of the slaughter of naive tourists. For the next two years Holmes either killed or is suspected of killing around two dozen people using his murder mansion residences to facility cruel and diabolical murder of men, women, and even children. He was finally caught and convicted of murder in 1894 and executed in 1985. Until the moment of his death, Holmes remained calm and amiable, showing very few signs of fear, anxiety, or depression. Despite this, he asked for his coffin to be contained in concrete and buried ten feet deep, because he was concerned grave robbers would steal his body and use it for dissection. Despite popular belief, Holmes's neck did not break; he instead strangled to death slowly, twitching for over fifteen minutes before being pronounced dead. He was buried in Holy Cross Cemetery in Yeadon, Pennsylvania.