Robert Chambers
On August 26, 1986, Jennifer Levin is found dead in New York City’s Central Park less than two hours after she was seen leaving a bar on the city’s Upper East Side with Robert Chambers. The tall, handsome Chambers was soon arrested and charged with murder. The tabloid media dubbed Chambers, who had attended Manhattan private schools, the “Preppy Killer.” The case shocked the city and raised questions about underage drinking, drug use and casual sex among New York’s privileged youth.
Bill Doolin
On August 24, 1896, outlaw Bill Doolin is killed by a posse at Lawson, Oklahoma. Born in Arkansas in 1858, William Doolin traveled west in 1881, finding work in Oklahoma at the ranch of Oscar D. Halsell. Halsell took a liking to the young Doolin and taught him to read and write, and eventually made him a foreman on the ranch. Doolin worked for several other ranchers in the next decade and he was widely considered trustworthy and capable.
Mark David Chapman
On August 24, 1981, Mark David Chapman is sentenced to 20 years to life for the murder of John Lennon. On December 8, 1980, Chapman shot and killed the 40-year-old singer, songwriter and peace activist, outside Lennon’s New York City apartment building, the Dakota, where he lived with his wife Yoko Ono and their young son Sean.
Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti
On August 23, 1927, Italian-born anarchists Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti are executed for murder. On April 15, 1920, a paymaster for a shoe company in South Braintree, Massachusetts, was shot and killed along with his guard. The murderers, who were described as two Italian men, escaped with more than $15,000.
Michael Collins
On August 22, 1922, Irish revolutionary and Sinn Fein politician Michael Collins is assassinated in an ambush in west County Cork, Ireland. In the early part of the century, Collins joined Sinn Fein, an Irish political party dedicated to achieving independence for all Ireland. From its inception, the party became the unofficial political wing of militant Irish groups in their struggle to throw off British rule.
The brutal slaying of an Australian who was attending college in the U.S. on a baseball scholarship has shattered two towns on opposite sides of the globe. Three teens have been arrested charged as adults for the crime.
DUNCAN, Okla. -- With a motive that's both chilling and simple - to break up the boredom of an Oklahoma summer - three teenagers randomly targeted an Australian collegiate baseball player who was attending school in the U.S. and killed him for fun, prosecutors said Tuesday as they charged two of the boys with murder.
Prosecutor Jason Hicks called the boys "thugs" as he described how Christopher Lane, 22, of Melbourne, was shot once in the back and died along a tree-lined road on Duncan's well-to-do north side. He said the three teens, from the grittier part of town, chose Lane at random and that one of the boys "thinks it's all a joke."
Hicks charged Chancey Allen Luna, 16, and James Francis Edwards Jr., 15, of Duncan, with first-degree murder. Under Oklahoma law they will be tried as adults. Michael Dewayne Jones, 17, of Duncan, was charged with using a vehicle in the discharge of a weapon and with accessory to first-degree murder after the fact. He is considered a youthful offender but will be tried in adult court.
Jones wept in the courtroom after he tried to speak about the incident but was cut off by the judge who said it wasn't the time to sort out the facts of the case. Jones faces anywhere from two years to life in prison if convicted on the counts he faces. Read More
Aug. 21, 2013 New York Times
DECATUR, Ga. — A school clerk here on Tuesday stalled a man dressed in black who had sneaked into an elementary school with an AK-47, giving the police time to arrive before he could make his way into classrooms packed with 800 children.
The man, who the police said was Michael B. Hill, 20, and lived near the school, the Ronald E. McNair Discovery Learning Academy, was in a car that the police said they suspected carried some type of explosives along with other weapons.
He most likely followed someone into the secure school, according to an account by police and school officials.
Once inside, he made his way to the main office, said Cedric Alexander, chief of the DeKalb County Police Department. He demanded that someone call a local television station. Antoinette Tuff, a clerk, made the call. Read More
