#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

#77 - Melanie McGuire *

You’re on a beach and find a suitcase washed up onto the shore. What would you do? Would you open it?

In this particular case, no less than 3 people did just that. And in doing so, they found one suitcase with legs, another with arms, and a third with a head and torso. 

For the last one, police identified 3 bullet holes, one in the head and two in the torso. They then used the decaying head to produce a facial reconstruction sketch, which was in turn identified by a friend of the victim, one Bill McGuire.

Bill was a navy vet and computer programmer, and was married to Melanie, a fertility nurse. The couple had been married for 5 years, had 2 sons, and had just bought a new home.

Suspicion, of course, fell on the spouse. Indeed, Melanie managed to leave enough circumstantial evidence to make the cops’ jobs pretty easy. I’m talking a gun & ammo purchased just before the shooting, incriminating Internet queries, missing designer luggage, fiber evidence, and E-Zpass evidence to the location where the body parts had been dumped.

Motive? Well, it turns out Melanie was having an affair with a coworker, the doctor who ran the fertility clinic where she worked. She, though, claimed that Bill was a compulsive gambler, and had probably run afoul of the mob. 

The jury wasn’t buying it, however, and would find Melanie guilty. She would receive a life sentence, but with a possibility of parole at age 100.

Media have eaten this one right up, with a book by well-known true-crime author John Glatt, a Lifetime movie, and appearances on Snapped, 48 Hours, Forensic Files, & more.

2004, New Jersey

#78 - Megan Martzen

I really debated including this one. First of all, it’s just so sad. Megan Martzen was accused of killing her 17-month-old babysitting charge, Ella VanLeeuwen. Megan herself was all of 19 at the time.

Second, she did get off, with her trial resulting in a hung jury. As you can probably imagine, the trial itself was a circus of battling doctors, with one side arguing deliberation on Megan’s part, and the other that it was all just an accident. Megan did, subsequently, take a plea deal for involuntary manslaughter, resulting in 3 years probation (she had already spent 52 days in jail).

Third, Megan gave birth in prison, with her baby, of course, being immediately taken away from her. And we can’t, of course, forget the fact that Megan was actually forgiven, very publicly, by the family.

Finally, that prison baby, who was reunited with Megan later, was killed in a crash with a drunken driver. The crash occurred 10 years to the day that Ella VanLeeuwen died. Sheesh!

All in all, not our typical killer babe. 

2009, California

#79 - Patricia Columbo *

It certainly wasn’t what the cop was expecting. Going to the Columbo home to investigate a car theft, he found the door open, and the family sprawled dead inside. Father Frank, mother Mary, and 13-year-old son Michael were all shot, bludgeoned, and stabbed to death, laying in their own blood.

There was one family member who was missing, 19-year-old daughter Patricia, but she lived with her boyfriend, 39-year-old Frank DeLuca. The pair had actually started their affair 4 years earlier, when Patricia was all of 15 years old. At the time, DeLuca, who managed a drug store, was married with 5 kids. Patricia’s family was none too happy about the relationship, and Patricia’s dad had actually assaulted DeLuca and threatened to kill him. 

The case broke when a former lover of Patricia’s, Lanyon Mitchell, told cops she had solicited him for the murder of her family. He had refused, and it seemed that Patricia and DeLuca had carried out the hit themselves. It sounds like a little insurance money was involved as well.

Both were convicted, getting sentences of 200 to 300 years. In some ways, though, the fun was only starting. Patricia became something of a prison madam, organizing sex parties between the guards and inmates in exchange for privileges. Though the killings occurred in 1976, Patricia stays in the news by getting denied for parole year after year after year. DeLuca died in prison just a couple of years ago.

The lovers’ story has appeared on Deadly Women, been a popular topic with podcasters, and has been the subject of 2 books.

1976, Illinois

#80 - Christina Marcum

Christina Marcum and Jason Singleton were quite the pair.

She was a spoiled & rebellious 25-year-old, with expensive tastes. He was a slightly older man, a successful computer exec who had already been married & divorced twice. Both were passionate and spontaneous.

When the Richmond, KY natives met, the sparks flew. I’m talking passion, obsession, jealousy, fights, and violence. A fight that landed Jason in the hospital and Christina in jail convinced him to call off their recent engagement.

Both immediately went into rebound relationships, with Christina marrying an old high-school sweetheart and Jason tying the knot with Angela Frazier, a single mom with 2 kids who he had only known for 2 weeks.

The two, though, simply couldn’t quit each other. Christina was soon showing up regularly at Jason and Angela’s house. She also harassed Angela – calling her, throwing rocks through her window, peeing on the front steps (!?!?) & attacking Angela’s car. After the last incident, Jason took Christina’s side (!?!?), deciding to ditch Angela for his old fiancee.

And then came a series of odd events:

• First, some cops found Angela’s car abandoned on the Interstate, on fire, and with someone running from it into the woods
• Angela’s mother reported her missing
• A nearby farmer found 6 garbage bags tossed in his field, with different body parts in each one (tattoos would later help identify them as Angela’s)
• Finally, Jason was caught shoplifting, pulled a gun on a security guard, ran, took some employees in a nearby office hostage, then got himself tazed

Questioned afterwards, Jason spilled the beans about the murder, saying Christina had strangled Angela when Jason stepped outside while the two were arguing.

When confronted, Christina – not too surprisingly – turned the tables and blamed Jason. Unable to pin the murder on either one for sure, the state agreed to 30 years for both, for complicity to commit murder.

Their tale would appear on Killer Couples.

2011, Kentucky

#81 - Courtney Schulhoff

Just like Romeo and Juliet …

Courtney Schulhoff was a 16-year-old in Altamonte, FL. She had just dropped out of high school, but was making an attempt to earn her GED.

Michael Morin was 5 years older, and on probation for car theft. He met Courtney at a local dog track (not sure what a 16-year-old was doing there), and the two hit it off.

Stephen Schulhoff was Courtney’s dad, who she lived with after her parents got divorced. He  objected to her dating Morin. According to Courtney, he was also physically abusive

Solution? Why not bludgeon dad to death with a baseball bat?

After the dirty deed was done, the victim was discovered by Stephen’s girlfriend, one Elaine Bouck. She also came upon Courtney and Michael as they fled the apartment.

Though it seemed that it was Morin who had actually done the killing, Courtney’s part in it was very much up in the air. She initially claimed to have nothing to do with it, but eventually copped to giving Morin the baseball bat, waiting calmly for him to finish the deed, then helping him clean up later. Morin, conveniently, claimed to have blacked out.

Courtney was the first to go to trial, and prosecutors effectively showed her to have been the mastermind. Ineligible for the death penalty because she was only 16, she got life without parole instead.

Morin went next. He admitted he was the one who did it, and expressed some genuine regret. That, and the fact that Courtney gave a deposition where she claimed to have been the perpetrator, netted Morin life as well (with that later being reduced to 40 years).

Courtney has been a popular interview subject on TV. The case has also been featured on Snapped.

2004, Florida

#82 - Julene Simko *

Perhaps they just needed a safe word …

This one starts with a frantic 911 call from Julene Simko. Turns out her husband, Jeremy, had just been shot by some unknown intruder. Or was he? 

Julene claimed she was sleeping in another room (Jeremy snored) when she was awakened by a loud noise. Going to Jeremy, she found him lying on the bed, covered in blood and unresponsive. Hearing something in the hallway, Julene grabbed a pistol and fired two random shots toward whomever or whatever might be there. 

At the same time, though, police found no sign of forced entry, nothing on the security cameras, no reports of barking dogs (the Simkos had 4), and no foreign DNA. The same issues would resurface days later when Julene claimed the house had been broken into (she had been staying at her mom’s in the interim).

The police, however, moved no further. And that’s the way the case rested for another 4 whole years.

Revisiting the evidence at that time, the cops were struck by the unusual relationship between Julene and Jeremy. Pics, videos and even a 14-page master/slave contract showed that the couple were seriously into BDSM. Julene claimed that the relationship was strictly consensual, but there were, however, hints of abuse. Did Julene snap? She had been sexually abused as a child …

At the same time, a nurse who treated Julene after the shooting came forward claiming she thought she heard Julene say she had shot Jeremy.  The cops also had experts analyze the 911 call, with those experts finding 10 “markers of a guilty caller.”

Though the evidence was still very circumstantial, Julene was finally indicted. Surprisingly, she opted for a bench trial (i.e., before only a judge, and with no jury). The judge would subsequently find Julene guilty, giving her a sentence of 28 years to life.

Would a jury trial have gotten resulted in a guilty verdict as well? Was it Julene who actually pulled the trigger?

2009, Ohio

#83 - Elisa McNabney & Sarah Dutra *

Our first two-fer … 

Elisa McNabney (r) and Sarah Dutra (l) worked together at a law firm. Elisa was married to the owner, Larry McNabney, and worked as the COO. Sarah was a part-time secretary.

The two hit it off big time. To such an extent, in fact, that they conspired to knock off Larry.

Now, Larry wasn’t the nicest guy in the world. He was a notorious drunk, and may have been abusive as well.

Elisa

At least he seemed to be forgiving though. Elisa, before she was Mrs. McNabney, had embezzled thousands of dollars from him. Not only did he forgive her, he asked her to marry him (his 5th, her 3rd).

Turns out Elisa, though, was hiding a pretty checkered past from her new hubby. In fact, she had a 113-page criminal record, had used 38 different aliases (her birth name was Laren Sims), and had actually met Larry when she cut off an ankle monitor & fled to Vegas. (They would move to Sacramento after Elisa’s little embezzling to-do.)

Purely for monetary needs, Elisa and Sarah decided to do Larry in. In particular, they injected him with some horse tranquilizer (Larry was one of those horsey types). Elisa did the injecting, and Sarah just kind of helped out.

Not knowing quite what to do with him, they put him on ice (literally) for a few months. While Larry cooled, they made up all sort of stories about where he was – he was in rehab, he had moved to Costa Rica, he had joined a cult … At the same time, they helped themselves to half a million of the law firm’s assets.

Finally, they buried him in a vineyard. Not too soon after, though, he was discovered by some workers. 

And that was Elisa’s cue to take her teen-aged daughter, a little more money, and go on the lam. On the other side of the country, in Florida, her daughter eventually turned her in. In prison there, Elisa hung herself, confessing to everything in a suicide note, implicating Sarah as well. 

Sarah

Sarah would get 12 years for voluntary manslaughter and being an accessory to murder. She’s out now, but keeping a very low profile. God only knows what she’s up to.

The case has appeared on Snapped, Dateline, Deadly Wives & Evil Stepmothers. It also inspired a TV movie, Lies My Mother Told Me.

2001, California