The Most Famous Crimes in History

The Most Famous Crimes in History

Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we’ll be discussing the most famous crimes in history.

For this video, we’ll be discussing the most infamous, well-known or covered crimes that spawned media frenzies. We will be omitting mass killings and terrorist attacks.

What are your thoughts on these crimes today? Let us know in the comments.

The MLK Assassination

1968
History, unfortunately, has seen the senseless death of many a good and just man. Martin Luther King Jr. was one such individual, and he paid the ultimate price for his dream on April 4th, 1968. King’s legacy needs no introduction, but the gravity behind this civil rights leader’s assassination is that the world will never know what else King could’ve achieved, had he lived a full life. The assassination may never be fully explained, either, since King’s family maintains, to this day, that his death was part of a government conspiracy and cover-up. And that the man arrested for the killing, James Earl Ray, was a patsy, set up by larger figures at play.

The Kidnapping of Patty Hearst

1974
What happened to Patty Hearst was something out of a movie. Several, in fact, as this granddaughter of William Randolph Hearst actually had her story dramatized several times. Hearst was kidnapped in 1974 by a far-left terrorist group known as the Symbionese Liberation Army. Accounts differ as to what happened after this, with some maintaining that Hearst was a brainwashed prisoner suffering from Stockholm Syndrome. Still others claimed that Hearst ended up a willing participant in the group’s illegal acts. Hearst was ultimately convicted of bank robbery, and did serve jail time. She was released early from prison, and had her case pardoned by former President Bill Clinton in 2001.

The Tate-LaBianca Killings

1969
The crimes of the Manson Family go far beyond the world of headline news - they captured a zeitgeist of the era. This was the comedown period of a post-free love America, a time where rising pessimism, an unpopular war in Vietnam and an overall mistrust of institution created an unfortunate backdrop for the Tate-LaBianca murders. Charles Manson himself may not have directly involved himself with these brutal slayings. However, his specter loomed large over those that did commit these crimes, spellbound under Manson’s cult of personality. The Summer of Love felt decades away, and the hippies would not inherit the earth - these were dark times.

The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum Art Theft

1990
Where is all the art? This is what authorities want to know. Oh, and who exactly committed the heist of the century? The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum was the site of America’s Biggest Art Heist back in 1990, when the thieves made their way into this Boston-based Museum disguised as police officers. The value of the pieces stolen from the museum is worth a pretty penny, too. How much, you may ask? Hundreds of millions of dollars. The museum is so desperate for information, in fact, that they have offered a cool $10 million reward for any information leading to the art’s discovery.

The Mystery of JonBenét Ramsey

1996
Who could possibly kill a child? This question came up again and again within the media frenzy that followed the death of JonBenét Ramsey in 1996. Attention was laid at the feet of Ramsey’s parents, due to the theories that the murder was staged to look as if it came from the outside, when in fact it was alleged that the killer was someone close to JonBenét. The Ramseys never escaped the shadow of these accusations, nor have there been any arrests for the killing. It’s a tragically depressing example of how justice isn’t always done and that killers sometimes get away with their crimes.

The Watergate Break-In

1972
It was one of the most infamous political scandals in the world, a time of reckoning for an American president. The word “Watergate” actually refers to the Watergate complex, where a group was arrested after botching a break-in of the Democratic National Committee headquarters on June 17th, 1972. The subsequent arrests, trials and news coverage dominated American television sets, and it served to underline what we mentioned earlier about rising pessimism and mistrust surrounding nearly every aspect of American life. President Richard Nixon resigned in disgrace in the face of impending impeachment, as it came to light just how involved he was with the break-in.

The Lindbergh Kidnapping

1932
You may be familiar with the term “Trial of the Century,” since it’s often used to describe high-profile court cases. But the one following the Lindbergh Kidnapping in 1932 and the subsequent media circus fit the description. The details are gruesome: a young toddler is abducted from the prestigious Lindbergh couple, and a ransom note is found. Later, the boy’s body is also found, a man is charged and executed. The specifics aren’t as simple, however, as haphazard police work and a chaotic public response led to everything from destroyed evidence and a potential suspect’s self-destruction to the theory that the executed man may have been innocent.

The Deaths of Nicole Brown Simpson & Ronald Goldman

1994
Speaking of “trials of the century,” the O. J. Simpson trial is much more recent than the Lindbergh case, but not less troubling or dramatic. Here, what might have been an ordinary murder case for any other defendant turned into sensationalized media, complete with larger-than-life personalities. Never mind the fact that the defendant was former football megastar O. J. Simpson, accused of murdering his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ron Goldman. Nearly everyone involved in this trial became sensationalized to the point of parody, from judge Lance Ito, to Hollywood witnesses like Kato Kaelin, to lawyers Marcia Clark, Johnnie Cochran and Robert Kardashian.

Jack the Ripper

1888
Our next entry may be the oldest on this list, but its lasting influence is no less infamous. The crimes of Jack the Ripper remain one of history’s best-known cold cases, a gruesome collection of killings that continue to obsess true crimes buffs to this day. It’s the Ripper’s methods that possibly made his crimes so influential to the media that loved to cover his every move. The brutality and surgical precision of the killer’s knife made life in Victorian England perilous, particularly for those working the sex trade. At this point, the identity of the Ripper will probably never be uncovered with any certainty, but his legacy as one of history’s most violent serial killers remains secure.

JFK Assassination

1963
It’s morbidly fitting that we bookend this list with young men cut down in their prime, before the true scope of what they could’ve done came to light. Still, just as Martin Luther King Jr.’s legacy remains with us, so too does John F. Kennedy’s as one of America’s most unique and well-known presidents. Kennedy’s time in office wasn’t without scrutiny, but the manner of his death has arguably been poured over with more detail than perhaps any crime in history. Conjecture and theories persist to this day as to whether or not Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone. We will likely never know the whole truth.