Timothy O'Bryan

popular name: Anthony Spilotro

date_of_death: June 14, 1986

age: 48

cause_of_death: Murdered - mob hit, blunt force trauma, asphyxia

claim_to_fame: Crime and their Victims

best_know_for: Anthony "Tough Tony" Spilotro started out as an enforcer for the Chicago Outfit. He later ran a burglary ring known as The Hole In The Wall gang and took over Outfit operations in Las Vegas. Things were problematic for Spilotro in Vegas. In addition to being blacklisted from all Las Vegas casinos by Harry Reid, he also had an affair with fellow Outfit Vegas controller Frank "Lefty" Rosenthal's wife, which is a big no-no according to mafia ethics (such as they are.) Tony's mishaps in Vegas piled up, creating all kinds of noise and attention that accumulated into a mess that eventually sent boss Joey Aiuppa and Jackie Cerone to prison. Plus, it's been reported that Aiuppa was incensed that Tony was sleeping with Lefty's wife. The Outfit boss decided it was time for The Ant to die. In 1986 Spilotro and his brother Michael were lured to a home in Bensenville, IL and murdered in the basement. They were buried in an Indiana cornfield.

popular name: Velma Barfield

date_of_death: November 2, 1984

age: 52

cause_of_death: Execution by lethal injection

claim_to_fame: Crime and their Victims

best_know_for: Velma Barfield was an American female serial killer and is remembered for being one of the first women to be executed in the United States after the death penalty was reinstated in 1976. Barfield was 1 of 9 children born in South Carolina into abject poverty. As the eldest girl, she was expected at a young age to cook, clean and mend clothes for the entire family (no easy task in a house with no electricity, no running water and no toilet facilities). A childhood marked by abuse and a difficult relationship with her family, she met and married Thomas Burke in 1949 and had two children. It was during her marriage to Burke that she developed a debilitating addiction to narcotics to treat depression and pain from several surgeries. Over a period of 16 years, Velma Barfield poisoned several victims when they discovered she was forging checks to fund her drug habit. Those victims include her own mother, her fiancé, and her mother-in-law, among others. She used arsenic to kill them, often claiming they had died from natural causes. After the death of Stuart Taylor (Barfield's boyfriend and a relative of victim #6 Dollie Edwards) the local police were tipped-off by Barfield's sister in 1976, thus investigators were able to link the deaths to her through forensic evidence. Upon her arrest and without a lawyer present, she confessed initially to 3 of the murders. In 1978 she was convicted of the death of her fiancé, Stuart Taylor, and sentenced to death. After 2 appeals and 6 years on death row, the "Death Row Granny" Velma Barfield was executed on November 2, 1984, by lethal injection in North Carolina. Her execution was notable because she was the first woman to be executed in the U.S. since 1962 and one of the few women executed in the 20th century. She was buried next to her first husband in a grave that remains unmarked in Parkton Cemetery in Raleigh, North Carolina.

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.