10 Infamous Assassins That Committed Terrible Killings

(8th September, 1841 – 30th June, 1882)

Charles was an American writer and lawyer who was one of the assassins who assassinated Presidents of the U.S. He assassinated James A. Garfield who was the 20th president of the United States at the Baltimore and Potomac Railroad Station in Washington D.C. The man falsely believed that he had played a major role in Garfield’s victory so he deserved a reward of the consulship.

After the president rejected his applications to serve in Vienna or Paris, he decided to kill Garfield. Back then, presidents didn’t hire armed guards at all which made it much easier for his assassination plan. He shot the president in the back twice, then attempted to leave the building in a cab. On the way, policeman Patrick Kearney caught and arrested him after seeing what had happened. The president died two months later from infections related to the wounds, and the authorities hung the assassins 5 months later.

(25th July, 1894 – 28th April, 1918)

Gavrilo was a Bosnian Serb member of Yong Bosnia which was a Yugoslavist organization seeking an end to Austro-Hungarian rule. He and 6 more members assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria and his wife, Sophie on 28th June, 1914. That my friends, is the beginning of other chains of events that led to World War I.

On that day, his uncle who was the Emperor of Austria-Hungary told him to oversee military training in Bosnia. He knew that the visit would be dangerous because his uncle had been the subject of an assassination attempt. That was true. When he was there, one of the seven assassins threw a bomb at Ferdinand’s car but the man managed to escape.

After everything, Ferdinand decided to go to the hospital to visit the victims of the attack that he had survived. The thing was that he met Gavrilo along the way to the hospital, and that was when everything happened. The driver realized that he had driven the wrong way, so he hit the break and began to reverse. Doing so, the engine stalled and the gears locked which gave the opportunity for Gavrilo to do his job.

He shot Ferdinand in the neck with his pistol then shot his wife in the abdomen after she covered his body. The assassin then attempted suicide with a cyanide pill but it was out of date, so he tried to shoot himself. He was 19 at that time and was too young to receive the death penalty. But he died 3 years later of skeletal tuberculosis that ate his bones so badly his right arm had to be amputated.

(10th March, 1928 – 23rd April, 1998)

James Earl Ray was an American fugitive and felon as well as one of the infamous assassins for killing Martin Luther King Jr. Ray was standing in a bathtub with his rifle pointing out of the window while King was on his balcony. He killed Martin Luther King Jr. with a single shot from his Remington rifle. After the assassination on the 4th of April, 1968 in Memphis, the FBI chased him for 2 months across 5 countries. That was also the FBI’s biggest and most expensive manhunt in history as well.

The FBI finally caught him in England, and he confessed to the crime on 10th March, 1969 which was his 41st birthday. After pleading guilty, he received a sentence of 99 years in prison which he escaped from 8 years later. Ray and 6 other convicted were recaptured, and Ray got another year to his previous sentence which increased to 100. Ray died at the age of 70 due to kidney disease and liver failure caused by hepatitis C.

(10th May, 1838 – 26th April, 1865)

This man was the American actor who assassinated President Abraham Lincoln at Ford’s Theater in Washington, D.C on 14th April, 1865. John famously assassinated Present Lincoln not long after he had won the American Civil War. At first, a group of co-conspirators and him plotted to kidnap President Lincoln and hold him hostage.

They wanted to do that until the Confederate prisoners were released, but later changed the plan to kill him instead. John shot President Lincoln once in the back of the head, and the President died the next morning. Two hours before killing him, John even performed for Lincoln on stage so that no one would know his plot.

After the assassination, he fled on horseback to southern Maryland before he was tracked down 12 days later. His companions gave him up, but he refused which led to a shot by Union soldier Boston Corbett. However, 8 of his companions were convicted while the other 4 were hanged shortly after.

(18th October, 1939 – 24th November, 1963)

Here we have another man who had huge guts to assassinate the president, President John F. Kennedy to be exact. As many of us may have been aware of, President Kennedy was riding in the car when this happened. Lee was an American Marxist and former U.S Marine, and we can tell he had some good shooting skills.

There were five government investigations, and they concluded that he used a sniper rifle to complete the assassination. He fired 3 shots and killed President Kennedy from the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository. About 45 minutes after the assassination, he also shot and killed a Dallas police officer on a local street. He was also involved in some assassinations before as well due to his skills in the marine.

The man himself also died in an assassination by Jack Ruby who was an operator of a Dallas nightclub. He approached Lee from the side of the crowd and shot him once in the abdomen at close range. Lee died two hours later of a hemorrhage from a gunshot wound that caused damage to many parts of his internal organs. The bullet went through his spleen, stomach, aorta, vena cava, kidney, liver, diaphragm, and 11th rib before coming to his right side.

(5th May, 1873 – 29th October, 1901)

Leon Frank Czolgosz was a Polish-American anarchist and former steelworker who assassinated U.S President William MacKinley in September 1901. He shot the president twice inside the Temple of Music where he had no security available to him. He felt that the president was a symbol of oppression which he should deal with, and he went on to the plans.

President McKinley liked talking with the general public, and he was greeting the public when that happened. The assassin reached the front of the line, and the President extended his hand to greet him. Leon slapped the hand aside and pulled out his gun to shoot the President twice in the abdomen. One bullet lodged in his jacket while the other seriously wounded him in his stomach, and he died 8 days later.

As for Leon, his last words were “I killed the President because he was the enemy of the good people. I am not sorry for my crime. I am sorry I could not see my father.” This assassin received execution via electric chair with 3 jolts with 1800 volts each time.

(10th May, 1955 – Today)

Was once a fan of John Lennon, but he assassinated him anyway because he felt offended by Lennon’s comment. John said that the Beetles were bigger than Jesus, so Mark shot and killed John at the entrance to the Dakota apartment. Mark fired 5 times at Lennon that hit him 4 times in the back which killed him immediately.

Instead of fleeing the scene, Mark simply sat down and began to read The Catcher In The Rye. When the police arrived and asked him for a statement, he said that novel was his statement. His lawyer wanted to defend him but he wanted to plead guilty saying what he had decided was the will of God.

Mark also said that he had an alternate hit list of potential targets in mind like David Bowie, Johnny Carson, etc. However, Lennon seemed to be the easiest for him to find, so he started planning to kill John 3 months prior. He then killed John Lennon on the 8th of December in 1980, and he received twenty-years-to-life imprisonment.

Mark was in a special handling unit for violent and at-risk prisoners, with other 105 prisoners who weren’t fans of Lennon. He had his own cell, but he spent most of his time outside the cell working on housekeeping and in the library. He then worked in the prison as a legal clerk and kitchen helper, and became eligible for parole in 2000.

(8th March, 1978 – Today)

Mohammed is a Moroccan-Dutch Islamic terrorist who is now serving a life sentence without parole for his assassination of a Dutch film director. He assassinated Theo van Gogh in the early morning of 2nd November 2004 in front of the Amsterdam-Oost borough office. Mohammed shot van Gogh 8 times with a handgun while he was biking to work, he also wounded 2 bystanders.

Wounded, van Gogh ran to another side of the road and fell to the ground on the cycle lane. Mohammed walked up to him and shot him several more times at close range before cutting his throat with a large knife. He also stabbed van Gogh deep in the chest reaching his spinal cord, then attached a note to the body before leaving.

According to eyewitnesses, van Gogh’s last words were: “Mercy, mercy! We cant talk about it, can’t we?” Mohammed brutally assassinated Theo van Gogh because he made a film that criticized Islam’s treatment of women. During the trial, Mohammed appeared before the court carrying a Quran under his arm, expressing no remorse for the murder.

(19th May, 1910 – 15th November, 1949)

He was a right-wing advocate of Hindu nationalism who assassinated Mahatma Gandhi in New Delhi on 30th January, 1948. Nathuram shot Gandhi in the chest three times at the point-blank range, and he was sentenced to death for that. He believed that Gandhi favored the political demands of India’s Muslims during the partition of India.

The man approached Gandhi during the evening prayer when one of the girls flanking and supporting Gandhi tried to put him off. He then pushed her aside and shot Gandhi before a man grasped him and span him into some military personnel. Millions of Indians mourned Gandhi’s assassinations, and people hung him at Ambala Central Jail.

(11th April, 1935 – 5th March, 2006)

Known as The Iceman, Richard was one of the Gambino family’s most famous assassins; and he had this unique strategy. He was also an American hitman and serial killer as well with his method of freezing his victims. That was to mask the time of death to make sure that no one knows when he killed them. He was eventually convicted of 5 murders but claimed to have killed 250 people.

In criminal life, Richard was involved in narcotics, pornography, arms dealing, money laundering, and many more. The thing was that he was living happily with his wife and children who were aware of his double life. He also went by other nicknames like The One-Man Army, Big Rich, or The Devil Himself due to his fearsome reputation.

His first kill was in 1949 when he was a young teen because that neighborhood boy kept on bullying and teasing him. By 1986, the police finally brought him to justice after months of an undercover investigation. After 18 years in prison, Richard was diagnosed with blood vessel inflammation in 2005 and died in 2006.

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