DIRECTORY 337
thousands called for her death
penalty to be suspended. However,
on 13 July 1955, as crowds lobbied
for her life, Ellis became the last
woman to be executed in Britain.
Her case was a landmark in the
movement to abolish capital
punishment in the UK. In 2003, her
family appealed to posthumously
reduce her offence to manslaughter,
due to the abuse Ellis had endured.
The request was denied on the
grounds that this distinction did
not exist at the time Ellis
committed the crime.
See also: Madame Caillaux 217
■ O.J. Simpson 246–51CHARLES STARKWEATHER
AND CARIL ANN FUGATE
December 1957–January 1958After Starkweather, aged 18, killed
14-year-old Fugate’s mother,
stepfather, and half-sister, the
couple ran off together. Over the
next two months, they carried out
another eight murders before they
were captured. Starkweather was
executed in the electric chair in
1959, furious that Fugate did not
meet the same fate. The youngest
person in the US to be tried for
first-degree murder, Fugate served
17 years in jail. Doubt remains over
whether Fugate was a willing
participant in the killing spree, or
a captive of her abusive boyfriend.
See also: Ian Brady and Myra
Hindley 284–85DICK HICKOCK AND
PERRY SMITH
14 November 1959Convicts Dick Hickock and Perry
Smith met in jail. After they were
released, the pair decided to robthe home of the Clutter family, in
the rural city of Holcomb, Kansas.
Smith and Hickock had been told
by a fellow inmate that the Clutter
home had a safe containing $10,000
(£8,000). When the pair discovered
this was not true, they murdered
Herbert and Bonnie Clutter, as well
as their two youngest children.
Smith and Hickock were captured
after a six-week manhunt, and
executed on 14 April 1965. Inspired
by an article about the murders in
The New York Times, fiction writer
Truman Capote visited Holcomb
with fellow writer Harper Lee. He
amassed thousands of pages of
notes on the victims, the suspects,
and the community. His work was
published in September 1965 as
“nonfiction novel” In Cold Blood- the first and most celebrated work
in the true crime genre.
See also: The Stratton Brothers
212–15
FRANK LUCAS
1960s–early 1970sA native of North Carolina, Lucas
came to New York City in the
1960s. His great innovation was
to import drugs directly from the
Golden Triangle (Myanmar, Laos,
Thailand), rather than buying from
Asian gangs. Lucas used military
contacts to smuggle heroin from
southeast Asia via military planes
and bases. Legend has it that he
even smuggled drugs in the coffins
of dead servicemen. After a long
investigation, Lucas was sentenced
to 70 years in jail in 1976. His
sentence was drastically reduced
after he gave up the names of his
accomplices – family members, the
Mafia, and even corrupt members
of New York’s police department
and Drug Enforcement Agency.raids and escaped from prison
twice before he was shot dead by
FBI agents. The shooting of such
a high-profile figure was an early
triumph for J. Edgar Hoover’s
reformed investigative bureau.
See also: Bonnie and Clyde 26–29
■ Escape from Alcatraz 80–85HAN VAN MEEGEREN
1937A failed artist who became an
extremely successful forger, van
Meegeren specialized in the
“Golden Age” art of his native
Netherlands. Forgeries of works by
Franz Hals, Pieter de Hooch, and
other greats were well-received,
but his triumph was a “Vermeer”,
acclaimed as the 17th-century
master’s finest work. This painting
proved to be van Meegeren’s
undoing, when it was discovered
among the possessions of Nazi
Hermann Goering. To avoid
prosecution for selling Dutch
property to the enemy, van
Meegeren confessed to the lesser
crime of forgery, but died of a heart
attack about a month into his one-
year prison sentence.
See also: Theft of the Cellini Salt
Cellar 56 ■ Elmyr de Hory 74–77RUTH ELLIS
10 April 1955A 28-year-old former model and
London nightclub hostess, Ellis
achieved infamy when she shot and
killed her lover, David Blakely. Her
trial lasted for just 14 minutes and
returned a guilty verdict. Ellis did
not appeal the conviction, and she
received the death penalty. Stories
soon surfaced about Blakely’s
violent behaviour towards Ellis, and332-343_Directory.indd 337 13/01/2017 15:20