Eric Conn, once self-proclaimed as the "Mr. Social Security" of eastern Kentucky, orchestrated the largest Social Security fraud in United States history, totaling over $550 million in redirected government funds. Between 2004 and 2011, Conn utilized a network of bribed officials- including an Administrative Law Judge and complicit doctors- to systematically approve thousands of fraudulent disability claims based on falsified medical evidence.

Heather Stephenson-Snell was a professional psychotherapist and leader of an all-female biker gang who became obsessed with revenge after her former partner, Adrian Sinclair, ended their relationship to be with another woman, Diane Lomax. Following an 18-month campaign of harassment, she drove from York to Radcliffe on Halloween night in 2003 disguised in a "Scream" mask and ghostly white sheet, carrying a sawn-off shotgun with the intent to kill her rival. When her knocking at Lomax's door disturbed the neighborhood, a 43-year-old neighbor named Robert Wilkie confronted her and attempted to remove her mask; Stephenson-Snell shot him at point-blank range, killing him almost instantly.

In 1981 in Kansas, Melinda Raisch became the center of a deadly love triangle that ended in brutal betrayal. Unhappy in her marriage to David Harmon, Raisch began an affair with Mark Mangelsdorf, and together the two conspired to eliminate Harmon rather than pursue divorce.

In early 2017, William "Billy" Boyette and accomplice Mary Rice led law enforcement on a violent, week-long manhunt across the Florida Panhandle and South Alabama. The spree began on January 31 with the double homicide of Boyette's ex-girlfriend and her friend in Milton, Florida, followed by two more fatal shootings during carjackings and home invasions in Alabama and Beulah, Florida.

In 1992, the movie American Me directed by Edward James Olmos portrayed a fictionalized rise of a Mexican Mafia leader inside California’s prison system, aiming to expose the brutality and cyclical violence of gang culture. But its stark realism angered members of the real Mexican Mafia, who reportedly saw it as a humiliating portrayal. After the film’s release, several people connected to the production, including consultant Ana Lizarraga, were murdered in what many believed were acts of retaliation. Danny Trejo, who appeared in the film and had real-life prison experience, later revealed that he warned Olmos during production that certain scenes could provoke serious backlash from gang leadership, and he has spoken publicly about the tension and fear surrounding the fallout.

Robert Hendy-Freegard is a British con artist who, in the 1990s and early 2000s, posed as an undercover MI5 agent to manipulate, isolate, and financially exploit multiple victims across the UK. Presenting himself as a secret operative hunting the IRA, he convinced young professionals and students that they were in danger and needed to go into hiding under his direction, extracting hundreds of thousands of pounds from them while controlling their movements, relationships, and even identities.

Chad Ollinger, a 41-year-old reality TV personality best known for appearing on the Discovery Channel’s Mystery at Blind Frog Ranch with his father, has been charged with open murder in the December 26, 2025 death of his cellmate, Christopher Kelly, at the Clark County Detention Center in Las Vegas.

Christopher and Raquelle Judge, a married couple from Fort Worth, Texas who built an online lifestyle and renovation following, pleaded guilty to federal wire fraud conspiracy charges in late 2025 for orchestrating a nearly $5 million home-building scam that defrauded more than 40 homeowners between August 2020 and January 2023. Through their company Judge DFW LLC, they promoted themselves on social media as custom home builders and designers, even falsely claiming Christopher was a licensed architect, then took large installment payments for construction and renovation projects that were never completed, often leaving families with unfinished or unsafe homes

Sante Kimes was a calculating con artist whose life read like a blueprint for manipulation, fraud, and ultimately murder. Alongside her younger accomplice and son, Kenneth Kimes, she spent decades drifting across the United States, spinning elaborate schemes that ranged from check fraud and insurance scams to exploiting wealthy older men. Their crimes escalated in 1998 with the murder of 82 year old Irene Silverman, a wealthy Manhattan widow whom Sante befriended before killing her in a bid to seize her townhouse and fortune; Silverman’s body was never recovered. Investigators later tied the pair to the 1998 killing of Los Angeles businessman David Kazdin, whose body was found in a dumpster.

Dawn Bennett was a Washington, D.C.–based luxury sportswear entrepreneur and former financial advisor who built a glittering public persona while secretly running what prosecutors later described as a multimillion-dollar Ponzi scheme. Through her company she marketed high-end alpaca and vicuña apparel and promised investors sky-high returns, claiming their money would fund inventory and expansion, but instead she used much of it to bankroll an extravagant lifestyle that included designer goods, jewelry, and personal expenses.