There are several famous criminal law cases out there, and many are still occurring daily in the United States and all over the world. The dimensions and character of the crimes and its perpetrator are what makes it famous, most especially if the perpetrator is notorious for unusual crimes. Many famous criminal law cases dot histories but only a handful will be examined here without recourse to legality, but only its unusualness and fame at the time of the incidence are what have made them to be listed here:
a. Ted Bundy: He was a serial killer and was connected to over 30 murders but was eventually captured after several escapes from police detention centers and put to death in 1989. He was first arrested in 1975 after several unsolved murders bore connections to him, and when he was about to stand trial to determine his involvement in these killings he escaped and in 1978 killed three other people. He was finally arrested and there was the evidence of a bite mark on the buttocks of a victim, Lisa Levy which very much could have been made by Bundy’s typical teeth. And much later, he was also connected to murder of Kimberly Leach when fragments of her cloth were found in his van.
b. Wayne Williams: Williams was arrested in 1982 and sentenced to life imprisonment when he was convicted of the murder of two persons and also connected to the murders of about 22 children between 1979 and 1981. Most of the bodies were killed and then dumped in a river and after staking out the river for some days, Williams was arrested was he was seen driving away in his car when another body was recovered from the river. Fiber materials on the victims were matched to items in his house and on several other things that belonged to him, but after the murder of the two persons, he as imprisoned for life and connected with the murder of the 22 children.
c. Clifford Irving: This man became famous for his crime when in 1970 he approached a publishing company with a manuscript he claimed was commissioned by Howard Hughes, the world’s richest man who would not come out of hiding for whatever reasons. The publishing company then paid Irving the sum of $765,000 for publishing rights when he produced documents that were allegedly signed by Hughes commissioning him for the autobiography. The book was published and it made a name because of the subject matter, the recluse Howard Hughes. But the billionaire contacted reporters to denounce ever commissioning anyone for the book, and in telephone calls to reporters, the police analyzed his voice to confirm that it was really Hughes speaking. Irving was jailed for 17 months and he later came out to confess to his crime in another book he wrote, The Hoax, which later became a hot-selling movie all over the world.
There are several famous criminal law cases but these are only the few that can be highlighted in this article; visiting library archives would yield more.