Famous People Who Were Murdered a to z

Joy Adamson was a conservationist who pioneered the movement to preserve African wildlife. She won renown with her books about raising the lion cub Elsa.

Kay Amin was the fourth wife of Ugandan dictator Idi Amin, and was mysteriously and brutally murdered.

Mob boss Albert Anastasia started out as a hitman and became one of the most powerful crime bosses of the 20th century. He helped run Murder Inc.

Ma Barker is best known for supposedly leading the criminal behavior of her four sons.

Biggie Smalls, also known as Notorious B.I.G., was a revered hip-hop artist and face of East Coast gangsta rap. He was shot and killed on March 9, 1997.

Steve Biko spearheaded the Black Consciousness Movement in South Africa. He died in 1977, from injuries sustained while in police custody.

Infamous drug trafficker Griselda Blanco is suspected of committing more than 200 murders while transporting cocaine from Colombia to the U.S. She was murdered in Colombia in 2012.

Sitting Bull was a Teton Dakota Indian chief under whom the Sioux tribes united in their struggle for survival on the North American Great Plains.

Venustiano Carranza was a revolutionary during Mexico's civil war and became the Mexican Republic's first president in 1917.

Paul Castellano is best known for becoming the boss of the Gambino crime family in New York City.

Sam Cooke, commonly known as the King of Soul, was an African-American gospel, R&B, soul, and pop singer and songwriter. He had 29 top-40 hits from 1957-1964.

Nicknamed "the Black Dahlia," Elizabeth Short was brutally murdered in Los Angeles in 1947, her body cut in half and severely mutilated. The Black Dahlia's killer was never found, making her murder one of the oldest cold case files in L.A. to date, and the city's most famous.

Notorious sex offender and serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer killed 17 men between from 1978 to 1991. He was sentenced to 15 consecutive life terms, and then murdered by a fellow prison inmate in 1994.

The arrest and trial of Larry Davis, arrested after a 1986 shootout with the NYPD, drew national interest and ignited racial tensions in New York City.

While searching for the mythical fountain of youth, Juan Ponce de León founded the oldest settlement in Puerto Rico and discovered Florida.

Alberto DeSalvo is best known for confessing to be the Boston Strangler.

Jack "Legs" Diamond was a Prohibition-era mob leader, hit man and bootlegger who was based in New York.

Medgar Evers was a civil rights activist who organized voter-registration efforts, demonstrations and boycotts of companies that practiced discrimination.

Alexandra Feodorovna was consort of the Russian Czar Nicholas II. Her rule precipitated the collapse of Russia's imperial government. She was murdered, along with her entire family, in 1918.

Dian Fossey was a zoologist best known for researching the endangered gorillas of the Rwandan mountain forest from the 1960s to the '80s, and for her mysterious murder.

Organized crime boss, Sam Giancana climbed to the top of Chicago's underworld and became a player on the national stage through shadowy ties to the Kennedys.

Canadian-born American actor Phil Hartman is best known for his performances on Saturday Night Live.

Wild Bill Hickok was an American frontiersman, army scout and lawman who helped bring order to the frontier West.

Jesse James was a bank and train robber in the American Old West, best known as the leading member of the James-Younger gang of outlaws.

Jezebel was a Phoenician princess, later the wife of King Ahab of Israel. She became known for putting on makeup before her death and being a wicked woman.

Musician Robert Johnson is best known as one of the greatest blues performers of all time, a recognition that came largely after his death at age 27.

John Lennon, pop star, composer, songwriter and recording artist, founded the Beatles, a band that impacted the music scene like no other before or since.

Viola Gregg Liuzzo was an activist in the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s. She was murdered by members of the Ku Klux Klan for her efforts.

Richard Loeb, of Leopold and Loeb, is best known for murdering 14-year old Bobby Franks with Nathan Leopold in an attempt to carry out the 'perfect crime'.

Journalist Elijah Lovejoy staunchly defended his right to publish abolitionist material in his newspaper, and died at the hands of a proslavery mob in 1837.

Playwright, poet. Christopher Marlowe was a poet and playwright at the forefront of the 16th-century dramatic renaissance. His works influenced William Shakespeare and generations of writers to follow.

Billy the Kid is best known for his time as a thief and gunfighter, constantly on the run from law enforcement.

Sal Mineo was an American was best known for playing a key role in the classic teen film Rebel Without a Cause alongside James Dean.

Huey P. Newton was an African-American activist best known for founding the militant Black Panther Party in 1966, along with co-founder Bobby Seale.

Alexei Nikolaevich was the only son of Nicholas II, the last tsar of Russia, and the tsarina Alexandra. He was killed with his family during the Russian Revolution.

Lee Harvey Oswald was a former U.S. Marine who was accused of killing President John F. Kennedy. While in police custody, Oswald was murdered by Jack Ruby.

New York City resident Etan Patz disappeared in 1979, when he was 6 years old. Nearly 33 years later, in May 2012, New Jersey resident Pedro Hernandez confessed to the murder.

JonBenet Ramsey was a 6-year-old beauty queen who was found murdered in her parents' Boulder, Colorado, home on December 26, 1996.

Rasputin is best known for his role as a mystical adviser in the court of Czar Nicholas II of Russia.

Saint Bartholomew was one of the Twelve Apostles of Jesus Christ who was martyred in the 1st century AD.

A hip-hop legend, with explicit and controversial lyrics, Tupac Shakur was embroiled in a feud between East Coast and West Coast rappers.

Iconic mobster Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel built the Flamingo casino in Las Vegas, igniting an era of glamour, gambling and gangsters in the desert.

Tony Spilotro is best known as a mob representative in Las Vegas from the 1970s to the '80s. He was brutally beaten and murdered by mob members in 1986.

Reeva Steenkamp was a South African model and television personality who was shot and killed on February 14, 2013, by her boyfriend, paralympian and Olympian Oscar Pistorius.

Dorothy Stratten was a Playboy model and actress before she was murdered at the age of 20.

Model and actress Sharon Tate is best remembered for her tragic and untimely death at the hands of serial killer Charles Manson.

Sean Taylor was the No. 5 NFL draft pick in 2004 and played with the Washington Redskins until he was murdered in 2007.

The murder of 14-year-old Emmett Till on August 28, 1955 galvanized the emerging civil rights movement.

Rafael Trujillo was a dictator of the Dominican Republic for decades. He was assassinated in 1961.

Giovanni da Verrazzano was an Italian explorer who chartered the Atlantic coast of North America between the Carolinas and Newfoundland, including New York Harbor in 1524. The Verrazano-Narrows Bridge in New York was named after Da Verrazzano.

A designer to celebrities and royalty such as Princess Diana, Gianni Versace brought vitality and art to an industry considered out of touch with the street.

Sonny Boy Williamson, originally John Lee Curtis Williamson, was a blues singer and harmonica player. He was the first musician to use the nickname Sonny Boy.