WPeter Connelly was a 17-month-old English boy who died in London in 2007 after suffering more than fifty injuries over an eight-month period, during which he was repeatedly seen by the London Borough of Haringey Children's services and National Health Service (NHS) health professionals. Baby P's real first name was revealed as "Peter" on the conclusion of a subsequent trial of Peter's mother's boyfriend on a charge of raping a two-year-old. His full identity was revealed when his killers were named after the expiry of a court anonymity order on 10 August 2009.
WNubia Docter Barahona, a ten-year-old American girl, was abused and murdered on February 11, 2011. Her body was found February 14, 2011, wrapped in a plastic garbage bag in the bed of her adoptive father's pickup truck on the side of I-95 in West Palm Beach, Florida. Her body had partially decomposed from being covered in chemicals, possibly pesticides. Her twin brother, Victor Docter Barahona, was in the cab of the truck with his father, suffering seizures from chemical burns and inhalation of toxic gas.
WAsunta Yong Fang Basterra Porto was a Chinese-born Spanish girl whose body was found in Teo, A Coruña, Galicia, Spain on 22 September 2013, shortly before her 13th birthday. The coroner determined she had died by asphyxiation, and had been given at least 27 Lorazepam pills on the day of her death, more than nine times a high dosage amount for an adult. The investigation into her death became known as the Asunta Basterra case.
WOn June 14, 2015, sheriff's deputies in Greene County, Missouri, United States, found the body of Clauddine "Dee Dee" Blanchard facedown in the bedroom of her house just outside Springfield, lying on the bed in a pool of blood from stab wounds inflicted several days earlier. There was no sign of her daughter Gypsy Rose, who, according to Blanchard, suffered from leukemia, asthma, muscular dystrophy, along with several other chronic conditions and had the "mental capacity of a 7-year-old due to brain damage" she had suffered as a result of her premature birth.
WAnjelica Castillo, previously known for 22 years as Baby Hope, was a Mexican-American four-year-old girl from New York City who was murdered in 1991. Her body was not identified until 2013. The case received national attention due to the young age of the victim and the manner of her death. After her identification, Castillo's paternal cousin, Conrado Juarez confessed to murdering the girl. Juarez died in custody in November 2018, after changing his plea to "not guilty," claiming the confession was coerced.
WThe Collingswood Boys are four boys who were starved by their adoptive parents, Raymond and Vanessa Jackson, while living in Collingswood, New Jersey. The Jacksons were arrested in October 2003 and indicted by a grand jury on 8 counts of aggravated assault and 20 counts of endangerment for failing to provide adequate nutrition, medical and dental care, and a clean environment for the four boys, who ranged in age from 10 to 19 as of May 2004.
WJeffrey Lionel Dahmer, also known as the Milwaukee Cannibal or the Milwaukee Monster, was an American serial killer and sex offender who committed the murder and dismemberment of 17 men and boys from 1978 to 1991. Many of his later murders involved necrophilia, cannibalism, and the permanent preservation of body parts—typically all or part of the skeleton.
WJoseph James DeAngelo Jr. is an American serial killer, serial rapist, burglar, and former police officer who committed at least 13 murders, 50 rapes, and 120 burglaries across California between 1973 and 1986. DeAngelo was responsible for at least three crime sprees throughout California, each of which spawned a different nickname in the press, before it became evident that they were committed by the same offender. In the San Joaquin Valley, he was known as the Visalia Ransacker before moving to the Sacramento area, where he became known as the East Area Rapist and was linked by modus operandi to additional attacks in Contra Costa County, Stockton, and Modesto. DeAngelo committed serial murders in Santa Barbara, Ventura, and Orange counties, where he was known as the Night Stalker and later the Original Night Stalker. DeAngelo is believed to have taunted and threatened both victims and police in obscene phone calls and possibly written communications.
WWestley Allan Dodd, was an American convicted serial killer and sex offender. In 1989, he sexually assaulted and murdered three young boys in Vancouver, Washington. He was arrested later that year after a failed attempt to abduct a six-year-old boy at a movie theater.
WLawrence Gerard Nassar is an American convicted serial rapist and sex offender, former USA Gymnastics national team doctor, former osteopathic physician, and former professor at Michigan State University College of Human Medicine. Nassar's cumulative sexual assault crimes were the basis of the USA Gymnastics sex abuse scandal that began in 2015, in which he was accused of assaulting at least 250 young women and girls dating back to 1992. His victims included numerous Olympic and United States women's national gymnastics team gymnasts, and he has admitted to 10 of those accusations.
WTerrence Peder Rasmussen was an American serial killer. Rasmussen killed at least six people in a crime spree that spanned decades and stretched across the continental United States. Due to his use of many aliases, most notably "Bob Evans", Rasmussen is known as "The Chameleon Killer".
WYaser Abdel Said is an Egyptian-American former taxi driver who was accused of murder. For 12 years, Said evaded arrest for the January 1, 2008, fatal shootings of his two daughters, Amina (18), and Sarah (17). Their bodies were found in his abandoned taxi cab in Irving, Texas, on the property of the Omni Mandalay Hotel.
WThe Sheffield incest case concerns the conviction in November 2008 in Sheffield Crown Court of a 54-year-old English man who, undetected over a period of 25 years, committed repeated rapes of his two daughters and fathered seven surviving children with them. Apparently unrepentant, he received 25 concurrent life sentences and is required to serve a minimum of fourteen and a half years in prison. His original sentence was life with a minimum period of 19 years 6 months, but this was overturned on appeal having been ruled excessive. After this and a similar incest case in Swindon in 2003, independent inquiries were set up to examine the way in which the case was dealt with by local authorities, the medical profession, and child help agencies.
WOttis Elwood Toole was an American drifter and serial killer who was convicted of six counts of murder. Like his companion Henry Lee Lucas, Toole made confessions he then later recanted, which resulted in murder convictions. The discrediting of the case against Lucas for crimes for which Toole had offered corroborating statements created doubts as to whether either was a genuine serial killer or, as Hugh Aynesworth suggested, both were merely compliant interviewees whom police used to clear unsolved murders from the books.
WThe Turpin family came to the attention of the police and public in 2018 as a severe case of child maltreatment. On January 14, a Turpin child escaped from the home of David and Louise Turpin in Perris, California and contacted police who then raided the house and found disturbing evidence of prolonged abuse and torturous living conditions. Given the number of dependents involved, 13 siblings, the degree of abuse and the protracted nature occurring over decades, the story garnered significant national and international interest in the press. Experts in family abuse considered the case to be "extraordinary" for a number of reasons.
WThe USA Gymnastics sex abuse scandal relates to the sexual abuse of female athletes—primarily minors at the time of the abuse—over two decades in the United States, starting in the late 1990s. More than 368 persons alleged that they were sexually assaulted "by gym owners, coaches, and staff working for gymnastics programs across the country". Particularly, longtime USA Gymnastics (USAG) national team doctor Larry Nassar has been named in hundreds of lawsuits filed by athletes who said that Nassar engaged in sexual abuse for at least 14 years under the pretense of providing medical treatment. Since the scandal was first reported by The Indianapolis Star in September 2016, more than 265 women, including former USAG national team members Jessica Howard, Jamie Dantzscher, Morgan White, Jeanette Antolin, McKayla Maroney, Aly Raisman, Maggie Nichols, Gabby Douglas, Simone Biles, Jordyn Wieber, Sabrina Vega, Ashton Locklear, Kyla Ross, Madison Kocian, Amanda Jetter, Tasha Schwikert, Mattie Larson, Bailie Key, Kennedy Baker, and Alyssa Baumann, have accused Nassar of sexually assaulting them. It is one of the largest sexual abuse scandals in sports history.
WWilliam James Vahey was an American expatriate schoolteacher and convicted child molester.
WAdam John Walsh was an American boy who was abducted from a Sears department store at the Hollywood Mall in Hollywood, Florida, on July 27, 1981. His severed head was found two weeks later in a drainage canal alongside Highway 60 / Yeehaw Junction in rural Indian River County, Florida. His death garnered national interest and was made into the 1983 television film Adam, seen by 38 million people in its original airing. His father, John Walsh, became an advocate for victims of violent crimes and was the host of the television program America's Most Wanted and currently, In Pursuit with John Walsh. Convicted serial killer Ottis Toole confessed to Adam's murder but was never convicted for this specific crime due to loss of evidence and a recanted confession. Toole died in prison of liver failure on September 15, 1996. No new evidence has come to light since then, and police announced on December 16, 2008, that the Walsh case was closed, as they were satisfied that Toole was the killer.