Timothy O'Bryan

popular name: Ruth Snyder

date_of_death: January 12, 1928

age: 32

cause_of_death: Execution by electric chair

claim_to_fame: Crime and their Victims

best_know_for: Ruth Brown Snyder was a bored housewife from Queens, New York who, after 7 or so unsuccessful attempts, finally succeeded in killing her husband Albert Snyder with the assistance of her lover Henry Judd Gray. Although found guilt and executed in Sing Sing Prison, that is not what made her famous. During the execution photographer Tom Howard of the Chicago Tribune, with a small plate camera strapped to his ankle, took the infamous picture just as the electricity was running through her body and was published the next day in the New York Daily News. Upon her execution Ruth Brown Snyder grave was dug in the Brown family plot in Woodlawn Cemetery, Bronx, NY and she was buried under her maiden name.

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: John Philip Nichols

date_of_death: March 17, 2001

age: 71

cause_of_death: Heart attack

claim_to_fame: Crime and their Victims

best_know_for: John Philip Nichols, 76, was the controversial patriarch of the family and former CIA agent that brought the Cabazon Indians into the gambling era. After Nichols became financial advisor in 1978, the tribe launched business ventures including a poker club and bingo hall and the sale of tax-free cigarettes and discount liquor. Under his leadership, the Cabazons established health insurance plans and opportunities in education and employment. However despite all the promises, no actual money was transfered to the Cabazons. In actuality the tribe continued to go deeper in debt as the years went by and the casino was flush with visitors and gamblers. The morning he was supposed to meet with an attorney to transfer documents showing embezzlement, money laundering and illegal arms dealings, Cabazon Band of Mission Indians tribal Councilmember Fred Alvarez and his friends, Ralph Boger and Patricia Castro, were found dead on July 1, 1981. The case has remained unsolved for decades but it is strongly suspected that John Philip Nichols either hired the triggerman or was the actual gunman who committed the murders. In addition, Nichols pleaded no contest in 1985 to two felony counts of soliciting the murder of two people he believed were dealing drugs. The killings were never carried out and he spent almost two years in prison.