Elena Semander

popular name: Nicole Brown Simpson

date_of_death: June 12, 1994

age: 35

cause_of_death: Stabbed seven times in the neck and scalp; 5.5 inch slit across her throat which severed both carotid arteries and breached her jugular veins

claim_to_fame: Crime and their Victims

best_know_for: Nicole Brown Simpson was the ex-wife of former professional football player and occasional actor O. J. Simpson, to whom she was married from 1985 to 1992, and the mother of their two children, Sydney and Justin. She was killed in front of her condo in Los Angeles, California, on June 12, 1994, along with her friend, restaurant waiter Ron Goldman. Simpson, who had a legal history of physically abusing, stalking and making death threats toward Brown, was arrested and charged with both killings. Despite a controversial and highly publicized criminal trial with both circumstantial and physical evidence that linked Simpson to the killings, Simpson was acquitted of all charges, though he was later found liable for both deaths in a civil lawsuit in 1997.

popular name: Angelo Bruno

date_of_death: March 21, 1980

age: 69

cause_of_death: Shotgun blast to the head

claim_to_fame: Crime and their Victims

best_know_for: Known as the “Docile Don,” his time at the top of Philadelphia’s criminal hierarchy was marked by a relative lack of violence, and like Bufalino, he kept a low profile. His organization ran gambling and loan sharking enterprises, and owned stakes in multiple legitimate businesses including an extermination company in New Jersey, an aluminum products company in Florida and a share in the Plaza Hotel in Havana, Cuba. Bruno was a powerful figure, and was reportedly a member of the mob’s all-powerful national commission. But he was considered something of an old-fashioned don and riled his underlings by refusing to allow them to be directly involved in drug trafficking and the considerable profits that accompanied it. This old-fashioned approach worked—the FBI didn’t make the Philadelphia mafia a priority during Bruno’s reign. But it also may have cost the crime lord his life. “He wasn't making any new members,” one investigator told the New York Times in 1982. “They say he was 'the gentle don.' That's bull. But he was conservative. He was cautious. He was old, and he didn't want to go to jail. These young guys were getting restless because they weren't making any money.” He prohibited his family’s involvement in narcotics trafficking and focused on traditional Costa Nostra operations like bookmaking and loan sharking. Some family members were discontent with this decision and suspected Bruno of profiting from the narcotics business secretly. This will ultimately lead to his murder. Upon his death, he was interred at Holy Cross Cemetery in Yeadon, PA.

popular name: Sean Collier

date_of_death: April 18, 2013

age: 26

cause_of_death: Multiple gunshot wounds to the head and torso

claim_to_fame: Crime and their Victims

best_know_for: Three days after the horrific Boston Marathon Bombings in April 2013 and with the two perpetrators still at large, Officer Sean Collier was on patrol on the campus of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) when the two perpetrators came behind Officer Collier's patrol car and shot him five times without any hesitation. And thus, at the young age of 26, this event made Sean Collier the 4th victim of the Boston Marathon Bombings.