Elena Semander

popular name: José Menéndez

date_of_death: August 20, 1989

age: 45

cause_of_death: Homicide - gunshot wounds

claim_to_fame: Crime and their Victims

best_know_for: José Menéndez was an entertainment executive and was married to Kitty Menendez, a former beauty queen, school teacher and mid-level Beverly Hills socialite. Sadly Kitty and Jose will always be remembered as the murder victims of their two sons - Erik and Lyle. In August of 1989 the couple’s two sons, Lyle and Erik, drove a small white hatchback up to the house, got their weapons from the trunk and entered the house via the French doors. The first shot from a .12 gauge shotgun hit José in the back of the head and killed him instantly. They continued with two more shots, tearing open both arms. Kitty was not so lucky as they pumped 10 shots as she tried to crawl away with the final shotgun blast to the face. Lyle dialed the fake 911 call and told police they had arrived home after a movie to the grisly discovery as smoke from the gunshots still loomed in the air. But as the months passed after the execution-style deaths, police were struck by the sons’ lavish spending sprees: buying Rolex watches, private tennis lessons, expensive clothing, jewelry, a Porsche, and even a chicken wings restaurant. After two hung juries, a third trial found them guilty of murder and sentenced the two sons to life without parole.

popular name: Sam DeStefano

date_of_death: April 14, 1973

age: 63

cause_of_death: Homicide - gunshot wounds

claim_to_fame: Crime and their Victims

best_know_for: Notorious Italian-American gangster with the Chicago Outfit, Sam "Mad Sam" DeStefano was known to be one of its most vicious loan sharks, serial rapists and sociopathic killers in organized crime. DeStefano was too mentally unstable to serve as a boss, but he still gained much respect within the gang and was used as a loan collector, hitman and mob fixer.

popular name: Frank Sheeran

date_of_death: December 14, 2003

age: 83

cause_of_death: Cancer

claim_to_fame: Crime and their Victims

best_know_for: Frank Sheeran was a truck driver, corrupt labor union official and alleged mafia hitman. Sheeran is thought by some to have murdered Teamsters president Jimmy Hoffa, (among dozens of others) and was the subject of the 2019 film "The Irishman" starring Robert De Niro and Joe Pesci. The truth of the matter is that Sheeran, near death struggling with cancer, dictated his life story to writer Charles Brandt who created a book that was adapted into the movie "The Irishman." In the book Sheeran told Brandt that he had committed one of the country's most infamous unsolved crimes: the murder of Jimmy Hoffa, a powerful onetime leader of the Teamsters Union with ties to organized crime. Sheeran also took credit for killing "Crazy Joe" Gallo, a mobster who was taken out at his own birthday party in 1972. Sheeran's claims got even wilder. He portrayed himself as a peripheral character in JFK's assassination, and a minor player in the Bay of Pigs invasion. Somehow, this previously low-profile thug was the lynchpin in every major unsolved, mob-linked hit. In the end, he claimed to have killed more than 25 people yet the FBI has not been able to link Sheeran to a single killing. Upon his death, he was interred at Holy Cross Cemetery in Yeadon, PA.