The Most Infamous Crime Committed in Every State

Hawaii is renowned for its beaches and tranquil lifestyle. But the Aloha State was stunned in 1999 when Byran Uyesugi walked into his workplace at Xerox and shot and killed seven people and wounded another. The disgruntled employee was said to be suffering from work-related stress. Convicted of seven counts of first-degree murder and second degree attempted murder, Uyesugi is currently serving a life sentence in prison

Convicted child molester Joseph Duncan III murdered 13-year-old Slade Groene; his mother, Brenda; and the mother’s boyfriend, Mark McKenzie, at the Groene home outside Coeur d’Alene, and abducted two other Groene children, eight-year-old Shasta and nine-year-old Dylan. Dylan’s body was subsequently found in Lolo National Forest in Montana, but Shasta was discovered with Duncan, who claimed he was returning her to her father because he’d decided not to kill her. Although Duncan received the death penalty for his crimes, he died of brain cancer in 2021 before he could be executed.

John Wayne Gacy was known in his suburban Chicago town for performing as a clown at children’s parties – but his costume hid his sinister double life as a serial killer. In the 1970s, he was convicted of killing 33 boys and young men. He had been previously convicted and jailed for the sexual assault of a teenage boy. After his murder spree was uncovered, Gacy was convicted of murder and executed by lethal injection in 1994.

Belle Gunness, aka “Hell’s Belle,” immigrated to America in 1881 from Norway to find wealth. She found it, through schemes to collect insurance claims via mysterious fires and deaths, including those of her two husbands and her children. She also lured other men to her farmhouse by posting advertisements seeking suitors, but they were never seen again. When relatives began to ask questions, her farmhouse burned down, with workers uncovering the bodies of 40 victims, including chidren. A hired hand at the farm was arrested for murder and arson. He was convicted of arson, but not murder. Before he died in prison, he told police about Belle’s crimes and said the body found in the burned building was not hers. Belle had in fact planned the perfect getaway and skipped town with a stash of money from her bank accounts. She was never found and it is not known how and when she died.

After eight people were found bludgeoned to death in their beds with the blunt end of an ax in the town of Villisca, Iowa, suspicion fell on numerous suspects – chief among them Rev. Lyn George Jacklin Kelly. After leaving town on an early train the morning the murders were discovered, he wrote letters to law enforcement officials and family members of the deceased mentioning details of the crime that had not been made public. In 1917, he was arrested for the crime and confessed. He later recanted, and was acquitted at two separate trials. No one else was ever tried for the killings.