#70 - Darlene Gentry *

The bubbly and beautiful Darlene Gentry was a real-live Texas homecoming queen. After high school, she became a dental assistant and married Keith, a hunky, good-natured, local boy who worked as an electrical engineering assistant. The couple had 3 children and, to many at least, seemed to have the perfect life.

Then she shot him. It was staged as a robbery, but the cops were suspicious from the get-go. After her frantic 911 call, Darlene seemed preternaturally calm and composed, even laughing and joking at Keith’s funeral.

Hidden strains in the marriage (including major debt, run up by Darlene) and almost a million in insurance money didn’t make Darlene look any more innocent. She sealed the deal, for the cops when she was taped trying to retrieve & move the murder weapon.

Darlene's case was depicted in the TV show Deadly Women.

#71 - Amanda Hayes *

Our first movie star! Sure enough, you can find Amanda Hayes under IMdB. It looks, though, as if she’s only got 1 credit to her name. It’s a big one though. She was, in fact, one of the Stepford Wives. Which is kind of ironic, when you consider the rest of her story.

Amanda was married to Grant Hayes, a musician, with whom she had a daughter. Grant also had 2 boys with an ex girlfriend, Laura Ackerson.

Grant, however, wanted full-time custody of the 2. Inviting Laura over to discuss child support, he strangled & stabbed her, then cut her up with an electric saw.

Amanda dutifully helped him pack up the parts, then drive from NC to Texas, where they threw what was left of Laura into an alligator-infested bayou (after first trying to dissolve them with acid). Amanda would later claim that she was forced to do all this by Grant, with him threatening to slit her throat.

In court in NC, Amanda would admit to helping with the clean-up, but was adamant that she had nothing to do with the murder itself. She was convicted of 2nd degree murder and sentenced to 13-16 years. Grant got life.

Texas, though, thought she deserved more, and extradited her. Facing charges of tampering with a corpse there, she would get 20 years on top of her previous sentence. Not too surprisingly, she’s still in the pokey there. In fact, she’ll be there until she’s 82.

2011, NC & Texas

#72 - Vonlee Titlow †*

And now for something completely different …

Namely, Vonlee’s actually a guy. The former stripper and escort was, though, just one final sex change operation away from making the full switch.

And that’s where the murder comes in. Seems Vonlee’s aunt, Billie Rogers, needed some help in getting rid of her millionaire husband, Don. And Billie was willing to give Vonlee $100,000 for just that help.

Seems like Billie had a little gambling problem. In fact, it was enough of a problem that Don threatened to leave her … and Billie to seriously consider getting rid of him.

As for the actual act, Don first passed out from drinking (a regular happening for the notorious alcoholic). Vonlee then poured vodka down his throat to get him to a nice .44 blood level reading. Finally, Billie smothered him with a pillow.

All was good until Vonlee confided in her sometime boyfriend about the crime (as well as her being trans - he didn't know). He would subsequently go to the police. 

Questioned, Vonlee sang, turning state’s evidence against Billie for a reduced sentence. Things got a little weird, however, with Billie getting off (but rather quickly dying of cancer) and Vonlee getting 20 to 40 years. Things got so screwed up, in fact, that the case went all the way to the Supreme Court. I’m afraid I’m not enough of a legal scholar to explain it here, unfortunately, so just Google “Burt vs. Titlow” for all the gory details.

Vonlee would end up in a men’s prison, where she was refused hormone therapy. And that resulted in major trouble with her breasts, which were then removed in a double mastectomy. She has been since transferred to a prison with some history of treating transgender prisoners, where she resides to this day.

Hard to believe, but you can find Vonlee out there on Facebook. Just look her up.

Michigan, 2000

#73 - Donna Moonda *

Ah, the people you meet in rehab …

Donna Moonda seemed to have it all. Perhaps most importantly, she was married to a multi-millionaire urologist, Gulam Moonda. Unfortunately, Donna also had a serious drug problem.

And that’s how she met Damian Bradford. A big-time drug dealer with a veritable stable of girlfriends, Bradford soon added Donna to his harem. Using her husband’s considerable wealth, Donna set him up as her boy toy – paying for his apartment, buying him a Land Rover and Ford Explorer, showering him with cash and expensive jewelry and clothing. 

Unfortunately for the two, one of Bradford’s girls found out about the relationship, then informed Gulam. He threatened divorce, with Donna due to get a prenup settlement of just a couple of hundred thousand.

Solution? Simple - get rid of Gulam and live off his millions.

The plan Donna and Damian came up with was actually pretty clever. While Donna and Gulam set out on a trip on the Ohio Turnpike (in their gold Jaguar), Bradford followed at a reasonable distance. When the couple pulled over to switch drivers, Bradford pulled up, demanded Gulam’s wallet, then shot him in the head. It all appeared to be a botched robbery (with Donna's mom in the car as an extra witness).

And that’s the way things stood, until some tips came in to the cops about the affair. That prompted them to bring in Bradford, who sang like the proverbial canary. Needless to say, Donna turned the tables on him, claiming that Bradford had acted alone. I guess he was more believable, though, as he got 17 years, and Donna got life.

Ohio, 2005

#74 - Isabella Yun-Mi Guzman

Would you believe this lovely young lady stabbed her mother 79 times then beat her with a baseball bat? Isabella Yun-Mi Guzman was all of 18 at the time. Though notoriously difficult and rebellious (but with her parents being strict, possibly abusive, Jehovahs Witnesses), she also seemed to be a pretty normal teenager.

It would be pretty obvious at her trial, however, that things weren’t quite right. Isabella would talk to herself, laugh inappropriately, and generally act crazy. All that on top of the reason she gave for the murder – that her mother was actually an evil entity named Cecelia, who needed to be killed to save the world.

Diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, Isabella is currently locked away in a Colorado state hospital. Interestingly, though, she now claims she is all better, and would like to be released and rejoin society.

2013, Colorado

#75 - Lee Ann Reidel *

You’ve heard of the Keystone Kops? I guess you could call these folks the Keystone Killers.

Lea Anne Reifel was a bartender in a strip club. Paul Reidel was her husband, a bodybuilder who owned a gym on Long Island, and a meth addict to boot. Ralph (“Rocco”) Salierno was Lee Ann’s lover, another body builder, a bouncer at the strip club where Lee Ann worked, and the would-be hitman of Paul.

With Paul

Alex Algieri was Paul’s partner in the gym. Guess who got shot? Yup, Alex.

Supposedly, there was some resemblance, they drove the same car, it was dark and cold, and Ralph lived over 1,000 miles away in Florida (where Lee Ann had fled with the kids, and met Ralph). So, instead of the happy-ever-after of being together, cashing in some insurance checks, and enjoying Paul’s share of the gym, Ralph got life and Lee Ann got 25 to life. 

With Ralph

Though – at least according to Ralph’s defense attorney – there was no physical evidence, Ralph actually did confess (and was also implicated by three other people). At the same time, he also claimed (you pick):

• He was on a date with a stripper at the time
• His road-trip (from Florida to Long Island) buddy did it
• The police beat him into confessing (there were no bruises on his hulking bodybuilder’s body)

Lee Ann, of course, threw Ralph under the bus, claiming he did it all on his own. And that, of course, was another shot that misfired.

The case has featured on 6 TV shows and was the subject of 2 books.

2001, New York

#76 - Tausha Fields *

Love ‘em and leave ‘em. Yup, that was Tausha Fields. By age 30, she had been married no less than 5 times.

Now, did Field also love ‘em and kill ‘em? A subsequent boyfriend, Dewayne Barrentine, thought that just might be the case. Snooping on her MySpace page, he was struck by relatives of her 4th hubby, Mitch Kemp, asking if she knew anything about his disappearance. After digging around a little more, he found an ex-boyfriend who claimed that Fields had drunkenly confessed that her 5th, Gregory Morton, had murdered Kemp. 

Barrentine went to the cops with his suspicions. They then tracked Fields down to Alabama, where she was living with a new boyfriend.

In her interview with them, Fields first claimed that she knew nothing, then admitted that Morton was behind the disappearance, having killed Kemp during a confrontation. Fields claimed that Morton threatened to kill her and her daughter Lexie (who she had with Kemp) if she uttered a word.

Fields also claimed that the confrontation was over Morton’s suspicion that she and Kemp were having an affair (they had actually been married twice before, and were still friends). Morton, on the other hand, said that Fields told him that Kemp had sexually abused her and her daughter.

Fields would eventually point detectives to a shallow grave on Morton’s farm. The autopsy on the decaying corpse showed that Kemp had been shot 6 times. 

n a plea deal, Morton would confess to the crime, but also implicate Fields. He claimed that she arranged the hit (even kicking and spitting on Kemp’s corpse), wanting to have Lexie all to her own. The cops arrested her in Texas, living with a new boyfriend, a sheriff’s deputy.

Morton would get 19 years. Fields would get life without parole.

Their dramatic story has appeared on Snapped and Charmed to Death.

2004, Missouri