Straight Killers

Ivan Milat was an Australian serial killer responsible for the murders of multiple backpackers in New South Wales between 1989 and 1992. His crimes became one of the most notorious cases in Australian criminal history. Milat targeted travellers and used deception to gain their trust before carrying out violent attacks. He was later convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment without parole, remaining incarcerated until his death in 2019.

Justin Jason Keeding, widely known as the “Little Merchant Killer,” became one of the more notorious robbery-murder offenders of the early twentieth century after being linked to violent attacks against rural merchants and storekeepers. Operating during the 1920s, Keeding allegedly targeted isolated business owners in smaller communities, earning his nickname through repeated attacks connected to robbery and financial gain. The case generated significant regional media attention during the era because of the fear surrounding traveling offenders targeting small-town businesses. Authorities portrayed Keeding as a violent drifter willing to kill during robberies, while newspapers sensationalized the crimes through dramatic reporting common during the period. His eventual death in 1926 closed a violent criminal chapter that remained part of regional crime history for years afterward.

James Toliver Craig, an Aurora, Colorado, dentist, murdered his wife of 23 years, Angela Craig, by poisoning her over a ten-day period in March 2023. Prosecutors established that Craig secretly obtained arsenic, cyanide and tetrahydrozoline while Angela repeatedly became seriously ill and required hospital treatment, ultimately administering a fatal dose of cyanide while she was hospitalised. Investigators uncovered internet searches about lethal and difficult-to-detect poisons, financial difficulties and extramarital affairs, while Craig later attempted to manufacture evidence supporting a suicide narrative and solicited the murder of the lead detective. A jury convicted him of first-degree murder and five solicitation charges in July 2025, and he was sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole.

James “Jimmy” Scandirito Jr. became the focus of a bizarre Florida homicide investigation after his father, former Macomb County District Judge James “Skip” Scandirito Sr., disappeared from his Boca Raton home in March 2018. Scandirito Jr. initially told investigators that his 74-year-old father had gone missing. Police soon identified inconsistencies in his account and began monitoring his movements. On April 3, 2018, investigators followed Scandirito Jr. to the former Ocean Breeze Golf Club in Boca Raton. Human remains were subsequently discovered at the abandoned golf course and identified as those of James Scandirito Sr. His body had been dismembered and parts had been concealed in bags and buried. Scandirito Jr. was arrested and charged with first-degree murder. Prosecutors argued that he killed his father for financial gain, pointing to evidence that he was his father's sole beneficiary and had attempted to access his father's financial accounts after his death. (wpbf.com) At trial, Scandirito Jr. admitted that he had dismembered and disposed of his father's body but denied killing him. He testified that he and his father had been drinking and using drugs on March 28, 2018, and that he discovered his father unresponsive after leaving the room. He claimed that he panicked because he feared being blamed for the drugs and decided to dispose of the body rather than contact police. (lawandcrime.com) The medical examiner could not determine the cause of James Scandirito Sr.'s death because of the condition of the remains. On March 21, 2019, a Palm Beach County jury found Scandirito Jr. not guilty of first-degree murder but guilty of abuse of a dead human body. He was sentenced to 15 years in prison. (wpbf.com)

Jamie Reynolds murdered 17-year-old Georgia Williams in Wellington, Shropshire, on 26 May 2013 after luring his friend to his parents' home under the pretence of taking photographs. Reynolds had meticulously planned the killing around his fascination with hanging and violent pornography, using a ligature to strangle Georgia before sexually abusing her body and abandoning her in woodland near Wrexham. He fled the area but was arrested in Glasgow three days later. Reynolds pleaded guilty to murder in December 2013 and was sentenced to a whole-life prison term, meaning he will never be released.

Jared James Dicus murdered his 21-year-old wife, Anggy Diaz, at their home in Waller County, Texas, on January 11, 2023, less than three months after they were married. After killing Diaz with a kitchen knife, Dicus decapitated and partially dismembered her body before confessing to investigators. He later pleaded guilty to murder, was sentenced to 40 years in prison in July 2024, waived his right to appeal and any insanity defense, and remained incarcerated until his death in prison in January 2026 from a self-inflicted injury.

Jeffrey Spence was convicted of murdering Kirby Carpenter, his daughter's boyfriend, outside Carpenter's home in Mississippi in November 2022. Spence was accused of confronting Carpenter and shooting him during a dispute involving his daughter. Investigators identified Spence as the shooter, and he was subsequently arrested and prosecuted for the killing. A jury ultimately found him guilty of murder, bringing an end to the case.

James "Jimmy" Rodgers became one of Florida's most notorious contract killers after participating in the 2015 murder of Dr. Teresa Sievers in Bonita Springs. Hired through a murder-for-hire plot orchestrated by Teresa's husband, Mark Sievers, Rodgers travelled from Missouri to Florida with Curtis Wayne Wright and fatally attacked the victim inside her home. His conviction, along with those of his co-conspirators, brought an end to one of the state's most widely publicized murder-for-hire investigations.