Crime Library: Criminal Minds and Methods
Infamous Outlaws

Bad company and an abusive home life took their toll on Colton Harris-Moore, even so, he still showed signs of resourcefulness and resolve. A peek inside the mind of the Barefoot Burglar.

How a stripper and her two brothers captivated the media and led police on a nationwide manhunt.

The Queen of the Irish Seas was a legendary woman warrior and respected rebel leader who finally made an alliance with Queen Elizabeth I. The writers of Les Miserables have turned her legend into a Broadway musical.

These killing cousins raped, thieved and their way around frontier-era Tennessee and Kentucky with astonishing cruelty, cutting the throats of babies, bashing in the heads of children, killing more for pleasure than plunder.

A group of former high school friends allegedly robbed some of Hollywood's young A-listers to get the Hollywood lifestyle they craved.

Modern day pirates threaten international shipping and seize the US-flagged Maersk Alabama.

Mid-West Crime Wave

The FBI's pursuit of the last Public Enemy Number One. The true story of Ma Barker and her sons and the capture of this dangerous group of outlaws and kidnappers.

Romeo & Juliet in a getaway car

Childlike mug with a psychopathic soul

The "Pretty Boy" from Cookson Hills

On April 29, 2008, Colton Harris-Moore, then 17, escaped from the halfway house where he was finishing a three-year sentence for burglary. He's was on the run for over two years, eluding police and building an international fan base--but also suspected of committing dozens of burglaries and four airplane thefts. He was apprehended in the Bahamas July 11, 2010 a week after crash-landing a stolen plane in shallow waters off the coast of Great Abaco Island.

Bank-robbing and kidnapping desperado

Folk hero and bank robber meets the Lady in Red. Now with 10 additional chapters

The Wild West

The real story of these glamorous American outlaws who were immortalized in the Hollywood film with Newman and Redford

The Wild West's "Billy the Kid"

The man and the legend

Knight with a six-shooter

Kidnappings & Sensational Heists

The story of a world-class master thief.

The Lindbergh-vintage kidnap/murder of this popular & attractive young man drove the people of San Jose to lynch the suspects.

Famous cat burglar was a master of disguise who embarrassed Scotland Yard with his almost supernatural ability to escape as they closed in on him. Not just a master thief, he was also a virtuoso violinist, now immortalized in a Sherlock Holmes story. His lust for a married woman led him to the gallows.

Affluent trio takes a school bus hostage for $5 million ransom

16-year-old son of Omaha meat-packing baron is kidnapped. Incredibly, the kidnappers, who have pocketed $25,000, are caught but acquitted by 2 different juries.

The "Einstein of Crime" kidnapped daughter of President Nixon's friend and buried her alive in underground capsule.

On Wednesday June 1, 1960, traveling salesman Bazil Thorne of Australia won £100,000 (then approximately $2.2 million) in Australia's 10th Opera House Lottery. As was customary at the time, all the newspapers ran stories on Thorne, making his personal public, and inadvertently exposing the family to predators. On July 7, their son Graeme, 8, disappeared. It was not long before the Thornes got a call from a man claiming to have kidnapped Graeme and asking for £25,000 by 5:00 p.m. They never called back.

Alcoholic couple tricks school into releasing Bobby Greenlease into their custody. A classic murder/kidnap case.

It was a half-baked, amateur plot that, incredibly enough, succeeded. It was only when one of the accomplices couldn't hold his tongue that the gig was up.

It was called the "Crime of the Century." Two incredibly wealthy and brilliant young Chicago men with IQs almost off the chart decided to execute "the perfect crime." Their arrogance convinced them that they were so superior intellectually superior to the that they would never be discovered. Their kidnap victim would be random, the first boy they found walking home from the prep school they had gone to. As it happened, the first boy they saw was a cousin of Dickie Loeb's named Bobby Franks. Bobby willing jumped into the car with his cousin and his friend and took the last ride of his life.

The next day, a ransom note was sent to his terrified parents telling them that to ensure Bobby's safe return, $10,000 a very large sum in 1924 must be produced by noon. "George Johnson" called to give the Franks family instructions on where to leave the ransom money, but in the meantime, Bobby's body had been found in a culvert.

As the investigation of Bobby's brutal murder went into high gear, suspicion increasingly focused on the two young college men. Amazingly, despite their intelligence a few stupid mistakes handed prosecutors a powerful case. Public sentiment in Chicago, exacerbated by anti-Semitism in the heartland, was to hang them.

But then the legendary Clarence Darrow took on their defense, but even so there were very serious doubts that even the great lawyer could save them from the hangman's noose.

Son of an American hero kidnapped and murdered.

Daring, Hollywood-style thefts of the world's great masterpieces.

A look at the world's most daring and outrageous thefts -- diamonds, cash, and personal identity -- in recent history

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