Anna Viktorovna

Robert Joseph Long was born on October 14, 1953, in Kenova, West Virginia. Parents Louella and Joe split when Bobby Joe was a young boy, and he spent most of his childhood with his mother in Florida.

Long's early years were marked by troubling incidents: He failed the first grade, and was injured in a couple of accidents. He also developed a hatred for women, beginning with his mother, Louella, who worked in a bar, often wore racy clothing to work and brought different men home with her. Making matters worse, he shared a bed with her until he was 12 or 13 years old.

Long met his future wife, Cynthia, at age 13. They married in 1974 and soon had two children, but the stress of parenthood added a level of volatility to the marriage. Additionally, around this time, Long was involved in a serious accident: He was hit by a vehicle while riding his motorcycle, and was subsequently hospitalized for several weeks. Cynthia later claimed that Long's temperament changed following the accident; while he was always short tempered, he became physically violent with her and impatient with their children. Long had also developed a strangely overt, compulsive and often dangerous sex drive—crime analysts would later attribute his violent character to a sexual obsession, labeling him as a sexual sadist.

Serial killer Bobby Joe Long brutally murdered 10 women in 1984. He was executed in May 2019.

Who Was Bobby Joe Long?

Born in West Virginia in 1953, Bobby Joe Long endured a troubled childhood. In the early 1980s, he raped dozens of women after using newspaper ads to find victims. He began an eight-month killing spree in 1984, and was arrested that November after allowing one potential victim to go free. Long received two death sentences, but his execution has been delayed by several appeals.

In early November 1984, Long spotted 17-year-old Lisa McVey on her bicycle in northern Tampa. After dragging McVey to his car, he forced her to perform oral sex and then brought her to his apartment, where he raped her repeatedly, and even showered with her. However, unlike his other victims, Long let McVey live after treating her like a sex slave for more than 24 hours. It was McVey's testimony that would finally lead police to Long.

In early November 1984, Long spotted 17-year-old Lisa McVey on her bicycle in northern Tampa. After dragging McVey to his car, he forced her to perform oral sex and then brought her to his apartment, where he raped her repeatedly, and even showered with her. However, unlike his other victims, Long let McVey live after treating her like a sex slave for more than 24 hours. It was McVey's testimony that would finally lead police to Long..

Bobby Joe Long

Biography

(1953–2019)

APR 27, 2017

COMMENT

Younger Years

Early Crimes

Born in West Virginia in 1953, Bobby Joe Long endured a troubled childhood. In the early 1980s, he raped dozens of women after using newspaper ads to find victims. He began an eight-month killing spree in 1984, and was arrested that November after allowing one potential victim to go free. Long received two death sentences, but his execution has been delayed by several appeals.

Robert Joseph Long was born on October 14, 1953, in Kenova, West Virginia. Parents Louella and Joe split when Bobby Joe was a young boy, and he spent most of his childhood with his mother in Florida.

Long's early years were marked by troubling incidents: He failed the first grade, and was injured in a couple of accidents. He also developed a hatred for women, beginning with his mother, Louella, who worked in a bar, often wore racy clothing to work and brought different men home with her. Making matters worse, he shared a bed with her until he was 12 or 13 years old.

Long met his future wife, Cynthia, at age 13. They married in 1974 and soon had two children, but the stress of parenthood added a level of volatility to the marriage. Additionally, around this time, Long was involved in a serious accident: He was hit by a vehicle while riding his motorcycle, and was subsequently hospitalized for several weeks. Cynthia later claimed that Long's temperament changed following the accident; while he was always short tempered, he became physically violent with her and impatient with their children. Long had also developed a strangely overt, compulsive and often dangerous sex drive—crime analysts would later attribute his violent character to a sexual obsession, labeling him as a sexual sadist.

Bobby Joe Long

Biography

(1953–2019)

APR 27, 2017

COMMENT

Serial killer Bobby Joe Long brutally murdered 10 women in 1984. He was executed in May 2019.

Who Was Bobby Joe Long?

Born in West Virginia in 1953, Bobby Joe Long endured a troubled childhood. In the early 1980s, he raped dozens of women after using newspaper ads to find victims. He began an eight-month killing spree in 1984, and was arrested that November after allowing one potential victim to go free. Long received two death sentences, but his execution has been delayed by several appeals.

Younger Years

Robert Joseph Long was born on October 14, 1953, in Kenova, West Virginia. Parents Louella and Joe split when Bobby Joe was a young boy, and he spent most of his childhood with his mother in Florida.

Long's early years were marked by troubling incidents: He failed the first grade, and was injured in a couple of accidents. He also developed a hatred for women, beginning with his mother, Louella, who worked in a bar, often wore racy clothing to work and brought different men home with her. Making matters worse, he shared a bed with her until he was 12 or 13 years old.

Early Crimes

Long met his future wife, Cynthia, at age 13. They married in 1974 and soon had two children, but the stress of parenthood added a level of volatility to the marriage. Additionally, around this time, Long was involved in a serious accident: He was hit by a vehicle while riding his motorcycle, and was subsequently hospitalized for several weeks. Cynthia later claimed that Long's temperament changed following the accident; while he was always short tempered, he became physically violent with her and impatient with their children. Long had also developed a strangely overt, compulsive and often dangerous sex drive—crime analysts would later attribute his violent character to a sexual obsession, labeling him as a sexual sadist.

When Cynthia filed for divorce in 1980, Long moved in with a female friend, Sharon Richards, who would later accuse him of rape and battery. In the fall of 1983, Long was charged with sending an inappropriate, sex-infused letter and photographs to a 12-year-old Florida girl, earning him a short jail sentence and probation.

During this time, Long also made the criminal leap to becoming a rapist. His method was to scout out "For Sale" signs on houses and hunt through classified ads for furniture and other items, leading to an opportunity to enter an unsuspecting woman's home and force himself on her. According to police, Long committed more than 50 rapes during this period.

By the spring of 1984, Long had made another criminal jump: He committed his first murder. Initially just looking to fulfill his sexual needs, Long picked up a young prostitute named Artis Wick in March 1984. After assaulting and raping Wick, he decided that he wasn't fulfilled, so he strangled and killed her.

In May 1984, while driving on Nebraska Avenue in Tampa, Long spotted a young woman walking named Lana Long. He pulled up to Lana and offered her a ride, which she accepted, but he soon pulled his car off the road and took out a knife. When Lana began screaming and attempting to fight Long, he tied her up and drove to a more remote road, where he raped and strangled her. According to police, Lana Long's body was found face down a few days later, her hands bound behind her back and her legs spread far apart (officers measured five feet from one heel to the other).

Long's next victim was Michelle Simms, a 22-year old prostitute. After luring her to his car, Long beat and raped her, before slashing her throat repeatedly. Detectives connected Simms's murder to Lana Long's when the same material—a red nylon fiber—was found on both women. Police then discovered Long's fourth victim, Elizabeth Loudenback, some 17 days after she was killed. Loudenback's body was badly decomposed when detectives found her; she was lying on her back, fully clothed. According to police, Loudenback was different from Long's other victims, as she was not a drug user, prostitute or stripper.

Long's fifth victim, a young prostitute named Chanel Williams, had been walking along a Tampa street when Long picked her up. After raping and attempting to strangle Williams, Long pulled out his gun and shot her in the neck. Two more murders followed, with police soon finding the bodies of Karen Dinsfriend and Kimberly Hopps.

In early November 1984, Long spotted 17-year-old Lisa McVey on her bicycle in northern Tampa. After dragging McVey to his car, he forced her to perform oral sex and then brought her to his apartment, where he raped her repeatedly, and even showered with her. However, unlike his other victims, Long let McVey live after treating her like a sex slave for more than 24 hours. It was McVey's testimony that would finally lead police to Long.

After releasing McVey, Long killed two more women, Virginia Johnson and Kim Swann. However, McVey had provided a brief description of her assailant and his car, and on November 16, 1984, Long was arrested at a movie theater not far from his Tampa home. The mysterious red fibers, which had helped police connect the murder victims, was found to match the interior carpeting of his car. Once in custody, Long was also connected to the recently discovered murder of Vicky Elliot.

In April 1985, Long was convicted of first-degree murder in the Virginia Johnson case and was sentenced to death. Later that year, Long pleaded guilty to eight Hillsborough County murders. (Wick's body wasn't found until several days after Long's arrest, and because Long had not pleaded guilty to murdering Wick until long after submitting his original confession, he was never formally charged with her murder.)

Long was convicted of the other eight murders in Hillsborough County, among several other charges. He was handed more than two dozen life imprisonment sentences and, in the summer of 1986, was sentenced to death by electrocution for the murder of Michelle Simms. While Long confessed to committing 10 murders, he alluded to the possibility of others during police interviews.

Long was executed by lethal injection on May 23, 2019. The execution was witnessed by McVey, who sat in the front row. “I wanted to be the first person he saw,” she said.

Richard Ramirez was an American serial killer who killed at least 14 people and raped and tortured at least two dozen more, mostly during the spring and summer of 1985. After developing epilepsy as a child, he became a heavy drug user and cultivated an interest in Satanism, which became a calling card for investigators at his crime scenes. Apprehended in August 1985, Ramirez was sentenced to death at the conclusion of his trial in 1989. He spent the remainder of his days at California's San Quentin Prison, before dying from cancer on June 7, 2013, at age 53.

Ramirez was born Ricardo Leyva Muñoz Ramírez on February 29, 1960, in El Paso, Texas, the fifth child of Mexican immigrants Mercedes and Julian Ramírez. Known as Richard or Ricky, Ramirez reportedly sustained multiple head injuries at an early age; after he was knocked unconscious by a swing at age 5, he began experiencing epileptic fits.

As an adolescent, Ramirez was heavily influenced by his older cousin, Miguel, who had recently returned from fighting in the Vietnam War. The two smoked marijuana together as Miguel told Ramirez about the torture and mutilation he had inflicted on several Vietnamese women, corroborating these stories with photographic evidence. At age 13, Ramirez witnessed his cousin murder his wife.

Dropping out of school in the ninth grade, Ramirez was arrested for the first time in 1977, for marijuana possession. He soon moved to California, progressing to cocaine addiction and burglary, and cultivating an interest in Satanism. He was arrested twice in the Los Angeles area for auto theft, in 1981 and again in 1984, and noticeably began to neglect his personal hygiene.

Theft turned to violence with Ramirez's (then) first known murder on June 28, 1984; the victim was 79-year-old Jennie Vincow, who was sexually assaulted, stabbed and killed during a burglary in her own home. What followed was a spree of brutal murders, rapes and robberies, leaving dozens of victims in its wake.

Ramirez next struck nearly nine months later. On March 17, 1985, he attacked Maria Hernandez, who managed to escape, and then killed her roommate, Dayle Okazaki. Not satisfied with these assaults, he also shot and killed Tsai-Lian Yu the same evening, spurring a media frenzy that saw Ramirez dubbed the "Valley Intruder" by the press.

Just 10 days later, on March 27, Ramirez murdered 64-year-old Vincent Zazzara and Zazzara's 44-year-old wife, Maxine, using an attack style that would become a pattern for the killer: The husband was shot first, then the wife was brutally assaulted and stabbed to death. In this case, Ramirez also gouged out Maxine Zazzara's eyes.

A full-scale police operation yielded no concrete results, and Ramirez repeated his attack pattern on pensioners William and Lillie Doi in May 1985. Over the next few months, his murder rate escalated, claiming another dozen victims in a frenzy of burglary, assault and brutal violence, complete with Satanic rituals. The Los Angeles Police Department responded by putting together a dedicated task force, with the FBI stepping in to assist.

The relentless media and police pressure, aided with descriptions from his surviving victims, forced Ramirez to leave the L.A. area that August. He journeyed north to San Francisco, where he took two more victims, Peter and Barbara Pan, on August 17. His unmistakable M.O., complete with Satanic symbolism, meant that the "Valley Intruder" moniker was no longer applicable; the press quickly coined a new name, the "Night Stalker," as most of his assaults took place at night in his victims' homes.

Ramirez's actions on his final night of terror, on August 24, 1985, soon led to his capture. First, he was spotted outside a Mission Viejo home, where he unwittingly left a footprint, before the witness took note of his car and license plate. Later, after Ramirez raped another woman at her home (and shot her fiance), the victim provided a detailed description of her assailant, who had forced her to swear her love for Satan.

Ramirez's abandoned car was found a few days later, complete with enough of a fingerprint to make a match, and his criminal record enabled the police to finally put a name to the "Night Stalker." National TV and print media coverage featuring his prison photo, along with a series of clues from witnesses and survivors, led to Ramirez's capture on August 31, after he was badly beaten by East L.A. residents while attempting two carjackings.

Ramirez waited in jail as his trial was continuously pushed off, the delay marked by a series of motions and bickering between the prosecutors and defense attorney. Because the geographical spread of the crimes also complicated the scope of the trial with jurisdictional issues, some of the charges against Ramirez were dropped in order to expedite what was becoming a long journey to justice.

The jury selection process finally moved forward on July 22, 1988, and the trial itself commenced the following January. During this time, Ramirez attracted a cult-like following of supporters, many of whom were black-clad Satan worshipers. Ramirez himself often dressed in black, along with dark shades, for his courtroom appearances.

Yet another delay occurred when one juror was found murdered on August 14, 1989, but rumors that Ramirez had orchestrated her death proved unfounded. On September 20, 1989, the jury finally returned a unanimous guilty verdict on 43 charges, including 13 counts of murder, five counts of attempted murder, 11 sexual assault charges and 14 burglary charges.

Two weeks later, the same jury recommended the death sentence on 19 counts. Leaving the courtroom, Ramirez responded, "Hey, big deal, death always comes with the territory. I'll see you in Disneyland." The convicted murderer was formally sentenced to death in the gas chamber on November 7, 1989, and was sent to San Quentin Prison in California to spend the remainder of his days.

While incarcerated, Ramirez married one of his supporters, 41-year-old Doreen Lioy, in 1996. His long-awaited appeal finally made it to the California State Supreme Court in 2006, before being rejected.

Ramirez eventually was linked to more vicious crimes. In 2009, a DNA sample connected him with the April 10, 1984, rape and murder of a 9-year-old girl in San Francisco.

After nearly 24 years on death row, Ramirez died on June 7, 2013, at the age of 53, from complications related to B-cell lymphoma. According to San Quentin corrections officers, Ramirez's death came shortly after he was taken to Marin General Hospital in Greenbrae, California.

Israel Keyes was an American serial killer who typically traveled to different locations and selected victims of opportunity, rather than having a preferred victim type. To finance his actions he robbed banks and burglarized homes. He was arrested in March 2012. While in custody Keyes said he'd killed "less than a dozen" people, though only three of his victims were definitively identified. His December 2012 suicide left law enforcement with more questions than answers about his crimes.

Keyes was born in Cove, Utah, on January 7, 1978. He's the second of 10 children born to Heidi and John Jeffrey Keyes, a couple who didn't believe in government interference, public schools or modern medicine. Keyes was a toddler when his family left Utah for Colville, Washington. They lived an isolated existence in the woods, where Keyes grew up without heat or electricity.

While in Washington, Keyes' parents left the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and became fundamentalist Christians and joined a white supremacist church. In the late 1990s the family relocated to Maupin, Oregon. They next moved across the country, settling close to an Amish community in Maine.

Growing up, Keyes broke into neighbors' homes to steal guns, loved hunting, would pursue "anything with a heartbeat" and torture animals, behavior that has been linked to psychopathy. While in custody Keyes himself said, "I've known since I was 14 that … there were things that — that I thought were normal and that were OK that nobody else seemed to think were normal and OK."

After a teenaged Keyes told his family he no longer shared their faith, his father cut ties, though he remained close to his mother.

In July 1998, Keyes joined the U.S. Army. He did well as a soldier, spending time in Egypt, at Fort Hood in Texas and Fort Lewis in Washington. After his honorable discharge in July 2001, he lived on the Makah Reservation with the mother of his daughter.

Keyes received a DUI while in the army but otherwise had had no trouble with the law.

As a serial killer, Keyes targeted victims who happened to cross his path, rather than sticking to a specific profile. He would often wait to accost people in places like parks, cemeteries or campgrounds. "Not as much to choose from, in a manner of speaking," he confessed to law enforcement about his methods, "but there's also no witness, really. There's no one else around."

Keyes also traveled to kill. In 2011 he flew to Chicago before driving to Vermont, where he murdered Bill and Lorraine Currier. He had a history of trips that covered a lot of ground in the United States, meaning he had many opportunities to seek out victims. Foreign journeys — such as visits to Canada, Mexico and Belize — may have played another part in Keyes' killing spree. While on the road Keyes would pay in cash and take the battery out of his cell phone to lessen his chances of being tracked.

Keyes' serial killing incorporated detailed planning. He crisscrossed the country to hide caches of murder equipment that consisted of guns, ammunition and chemicals for the destruction of bodies. When he wanted to kill, Keyes would dig up a cache.

Keyes studied the work of FBI profilers and learned about serial killers like Ted Bundy. In Maureen Callahan's 2019 book about Keyes, American Predator, she noted that he'd been fitted with a gastric band and had visited a plastic surgery clinic in Mexico. She speculated that Keyes might have been trying to become a better killer: A lap band could mean he wouldn't get hungry as often, and he might have changed his fingerprints or removed body hair to lessen the chances of leaving evidence behind.

Before killing Samantha Koenig, Keyes acquired her cell phone, ATM card and PIN. After taking the time to go on a cruise, Keyes staged a ransom demand with Koenig's dead body. Her family, hoping Koenig was still alive, deposited money into her account.

Keyes used Koenig's ATM card to withdraw funds in Alaska, then continued these transactions while traveling in New Mexico, Arizona and Texas. He disguised his appearance but a security camera recorded an image of his rental car in Arizona. Texas law enforcement was notified and in March 2012 stopped Keyes. A search of his car revealed, among other incriminating items, Koenig's license.

Shortly before being captured, Keyes spent time with his mother and some siblings (his father had died years earlier) in Texas. During this visit a sister tried to get him to reconsider his atheism. A pastor present at the time has said that Keyes answered, "You don't know the depths of darkness that I've gone to. You don't know what I've done."

Keyes was arrested and eventually brought back to Alaska. Confronted with evidence tying him to Koenig's disappearance, he confessed to the crime. The killing was at odds with his usual careful planning, but he told law enforcement that he'd been feeling out of control and noted, "Back when I was smart, I would let them come to me."

According to Keyes, his first planned attack took place in Oregon in 1997 or 1998. He abducted a teenage girl, then raped her. His intent was to murder her, but she convinced him to let her leave. "I wasn't violent enough," Keyes told investigators of the crime. "I made up my mind I was never going to let that happen again."

Keyes spoke of killing "less than a dozen." While in jail he used his own blood to draw 12 skulls, which may represent 11 victims and Keyes himself. In 2020, an FBI agent told 48 Hours, "We believe that 11 is the total number of victims." Yet only three of Keyes' victims have been definitively identified.

One known victim is Koenig, an Anchorage barista who was abducted by Keyes on February 1, 2012. Keyes raped and killed her within hours, then weeks later dismembered her body and dropped the pieces into a lake north of Anchorage. Koenig's remains were recovered in April 2012. Keyes also confessed to murdering the Curriers in Essex, Vermont in June 2011. The couple was selected at random as they fit Keyes' criteria of having no children, no dog and a house with an attached garage. He broke into their home, subdued them and then transported the pair to an abandoned farmhouse. Keyes killed Bill, then raped Lorraine before murdering her.

Keyes claimed he took at least five other lives but never named these victims. Per his account, he killed four people in Washington state: a couple sometime between 2001 and 2005, and two separate victims in 2005 and 2006. Keyes also stated that in 2009 he murdered someone on the East Coast, then left the body in New York state. The FBI is "relatively confident" that this victim was Debra Feldman, a New Jersey resident who went missing in April 2009.

Speculation about other possible Keyes victims has included a girl named Julie Harris who disappeared in Colville in 1996 – her prosthetic feet were found a month after she vanished and her remains came to light in 1997. Keyes was in the area when Harris went missing but denied any involvement. Keyes has also been posited as responsible for other unsolved crimes, such as the murders of 56-year-old Mary Cooper and her 27-year-old daughter Susanna Stodden, who were shot while hiking in Washington state in 2006.

Keyes also said he'd next intended to leave Alaska and travel through storm-ravaged regions to find new victims while working as a contractor. He'd dreamt of later building a house where he could imprison his victims.

While in custody, Keyes shared some details about his crimes with investigators, though he seemed to take pleasure in limiting the flow of information. He also expressed his desire for a quick execution date, saying he dreaded languishing behind bars for years and he didn't want his mother or his daughter to suffer because of his crimes. Keyes offered details about the Currier killings as a bargaining chip with law enforcement.

Keyes committed suicide in his Anchorage jail cell on the night of December 1, 2012. Despite warnings not to provide Keyes with a razor blade, he had been given one. He slit his wrist and also strangled himself with a sheet while lying in bed. His body was not discovered until the morning of December 2.

His mother, four sisters, and three brothers-in-law were the sole attendees at Keyes' funeral on December 8, 2012.

Keyes' last interrogation session took place a few days before his suicide. Some of his interrogation recordings have been shared with the public.

In 2000, Keyes became involved with a woman who lived on the Makah Reservation in Washington. Their daughter was born circa 2001.

In 2007, Keyes moved to Alaska to live with a nurse practitioner he'd been dating.

While in custody, Keyes expressed his desire to prevent his daughter from suffering due to his actions: "I want my kid to have a chance to grow up ... you know ... she's in a safe place now, she's not going to see any of this. I want her to have a chance to grow up and not have all this hanging over her head."

Serial killer Rodney James Alcala murdered at least nine women and girls across the United States in the 1970s, though his true death toll could number more than 100. He spent time in prison for sexual assault and other crimes in the 1970s but continued to rape and kill when he was free. Autopsies of some Alcala victims revealed that he would strangle women, then wait for them to regain consciousness before the final kill. Alcala also sometimes arranged the corpses of women he'd murdered in poses. In 2010, photos taken by Alcala decades earlier were made public to try to identify other victims. He has been behind bars since his July 1979 arrest for the abduction and murder of a 12-year-old girl. Alcala was sentenced to death in California but died of natural causes in 2021.

Alcala was born as Rodrigo Jacques Alcala-Buquor in San Antonio, Texas, on August 23, 1943. He moved to Mexico with his family when he was around 8 years old and his father abandoned the family while they were in Mexico. Alcala, his siblings and mother later relocated to Los Angeles.

At the age of 17, Alcala joined the army. He was discharged in 1964, after suffering a breakdown and being diagnosed with an antisocial personality disorder.

He attended California State University, then transferred to UCLA. He graduated with a fine arts degree in 1968. After fleeing California that year, Alcala used his John Berger alias to enroll in New York University, where he took a class with Roman Polanski.

After fleeing the scene of his 1968 attack on 8-year-old Tali Shapiro, Alcala traveled to the East Coast. In 1971 he was included on the FBI's Most Wanted list. Some girls at an arts camp in New Hampshire recognized their counselor, who was using the name John Berger, from this list. They told the camp's dean and Alcala was soon arrested, though he was able to plead to the lesser charge of child molestation and served just 34 months.

Though he was a registered sex offender, Alcala managed to land a job with The Los Angeles Times as a typesetter in September 1977.

His past conviction for sexual assault prompted California police to interview Alcala in March 1978 as a potential suspect in the Hillside Strangler killings, another set of serial murders that occurred in California in the 1970s. Alcala was cleared of those crimes, and police did not realize they had actually spoken with a different serial killer.

In September 1978, Alcala appeared as Bachelor No. 1 on The Dating Game, a TV show that had men and women cheekily interview prospective dates, sight unseen. At the time he was a convicted child molester but the show did not run a background check.

Alcala was introduced as "a successful photographer, who got his start when his father found him in the darkroom at the age of 13, fully developed." When asked by Cheryl Bradshaw, his prospective date, to describe what kind of meal he'd be, he answered, "I'm called 'The Banana' and I look really good... Peel me."

Alcala's use of charm and innuendo won him a date with Bradshaw. However, when they met face-to-face she felt Alcala was "acting really creepy" and opted not to go out with him.

Alcala was a tall and good-looking man who often told women he was a fashion photographer who wanted to take photos for a contest. His intelligence and charm could make him persuasive. A woman who missed a date with Alcala because he'd been arrested in 1979 later told People, "He was so easy to trust. He had a way of talking to people that really put them at ease."

In the 1970s, Alcala killed Cornelia Crilley, 23, and Ellen Hover, 23, both residents of New York City. Crilley was raped and strangled with her own stockings in her apartment in June 1971. Hover disappeared on July 15, 1977, leaving behind a calendar that stated she was meeting with "John Berger." Her remains were discovered in New York's Westchester County in 1978. Alcala pleaded guilty to these murders in 2012. He received a sentence of 25 to life, though it will only be served if California releases him from custody.

Alcala was arrested in July 1979 for the abduction and murder of 12-year-old Robin Samsoe of Huntington Beach, California. He was convicted on these charges in 1980. Four years later this conviction was overturned as the jury had improperly been told about Alcala's criminal record. Another trial in 1986 resulted in a second guilty verdict, but in 2001 this was also overturned on a technicality. While in custody Alcala wrote the book You, the Jury (1994), in which he argued he was innocent.

Before Alcala was re-tried a third time for Samsoe's death, advances in the world of DNA and other crime scene analysis provided evidence tying him to more crimes (he'd been forced to provide a DNA sample). At his next trial, which took place in 2010, Alcala was again charged with killing Samsoe. Part of the case against him was a pair of gold earrings linked to Samsoe that had been found in his Seattle storage locker. Alcala played clips from The Dating Game that he said proved he was already wearing gold earrings in 1978, but these didn't convince the jury.

In addition, he faced charges for assaulting and strangling four women in California in the late 1970s: 18-year-old Jill Barcomb, who was killed in November 1977, 27-year-old Georgia Wixted, 27, who was raped, beaten and strangled in December 1978, 32-year-old Charlotte Lamb, who was killed in June 1978 and 21-year-old Jill Parenteau, who was killed in June 1979. Alcala opted to represent himself during the court proceedings. In February 2010 he was found guilty of all five murders. He was sentenced to death in March 2010.

In 2016 Alcala was charged with the 1977 killing of Christine Ruth Thornton in Wyoming, though prosecutors opted not to extradite him to stand trial. Authorities also believe he killed Pamela Lambson in the San Francisco Bay Area in the fall of 1977. However, DNA collected at that crime scene was too degraded to test, so he was not charged with the crime.

Some Alcala victims survived his attacks. In 1968, a witness spotted Alcala driving off with Shapiro. Concerned, he followed them to an apartment and called the police. The responding officer discovered Shapiro, who'd been raped and beaten with a steel bar but was still alive. In February 1979, Monique Hoyt, then 15, managed to escape after Alcala raped her.

Alcala's exact death toll is unknown. Some authorities believe he murdered around 50 people, others think he may have taken as many as 130 lives.

Following the disappearance of Samsoe, a sketch of a suspect was issued. Alcala's parole officer saw it and recognized him. Police tracked down Alcala, who was arrested on July 24, 1979.

Following Alcala's arrest in July 1979, police found hundreds of his photographs in a Seattle storage locker. These images, some of which were explicit, may include other Alcala victims.

In 2010 police shared many of these photos with the public in the hopes of identifying those in the pictures. Some people were alive and came forward. The photos aided in identifying Thornton as one of Alcala's victims.

Alcala died on July 24, 2021, in California while awaiting execution. He was 77.

Raised in Camden, England, Daniel Kaluuya developed his acting skills through local theater programs. He became a writer and cast member of the teen comedy-drama Skins and earned acclaim for his stage theatrics in Sucker Punch, before emerging in the United States as the lead of the horror hit Get Out. Kaluuya has since cemented his big screen stardom with prominent roles in Black Panther, Widows, Queen & Slim and Judas and the Black Messiah.

Kaluuya was born on February 24, 1989, in London, England. The son of Ugandan parents Damalie Namusoke and Stephen Kaluuya, he grew up with his mother and an older sister on a council estate in Camden and attended the all-boys St. Aloysius College.

Kaluuya wrote his first play at age 9 and saw it performed locally at Hampstead Theatre, though he soon abandoned his potential in that area in favor of playing soccer. Still, his mom had registered him for a program at the Anna Scher Theatre, and after a four-year waiting period, the restless teenager found an outlet for his creative energy via improvisation classes.

Kaluuya continued his development as an actor and playwright through a youth program at Hampstead Theatre and took another step toward a career in show business by becoming an assistant at a shopping channel at age 16.

'Skins'

Kaluuya landed his first screen role in the drama Shoot the Messenger (2006), though he soon became involved in a more buzzworthy project as a writer and cast member of the teen comedy-drama Skins. A mainstay of the popular show through two seasons as the urban wanna-be Posh Kenneth, Kaluuya displayed a charismatic presence alongside fellow up-and-coming stars like Dev Patel and Nicholas Hoult.

'Psychoville,' 'Doctor Who,' 'Black Mirror'

The visibility of Skins led to offers for films like Chatroom (2010) and regular appearances on shows like Psychoville, Harry and Paul and The Fades. Kaluuya also stood out in one-off roles in Doctor Who and Black Mirror, the latter eventually paving the way for his ascent in Hollywood.

'Johnny English Reborn,' 'Kick-Ass 2,' 'Sicario'

Kaluuya continued making headway on the big screen with roles in the comedies Johnny English Reborn (2011) and Kick-Ass 2 (2013), before appearing in the lone season of the police comedy-drama Babylon. He then joined his first full-fledged American film production with a part in the crime thriller Sicario (2015), alongside Emily Blunt.

Academy Award Nomination for 'Get Out'

After comedy writer Jordan Peele watched Kaluuya's episode of Black Mirror, he tapped the largely unknown Londoner to headline his directorial debut, Get Out (2017). The racially charged horror flick became a cultural phenomenon, grossing more than $250 million on a $4.5 million budget, and made a star of its leading man, who showed the full range of his acting gifts as fish-out-of-water photographer Chris Washington. Kaluuya earned Oscar, Golden Globe and SAG nominations for his performance, and claimed a BAFTA Rising Star trophy, though the success didn't insulate him from criticism, with Samuel L. Jackson among those who questioned the casting of a British actor for an African American character.

'Black Panther,' 'Widows,' 'Queen & Slim'

Kaluuya followed Get Out with the role of ally-turned-antagonist W'Kabi in Black Panther (2018), helping to make the Black-led superhero feature a global hit, and another memorable supporting effort in Widows (2018), as ruthless gangster Jatemme Manning. He then returned to leading man material alongside Jodie Turner-Smith in Queen & Slim (2019), their titular duo seeking refuge from the law following a date gone wrong.

'Judas and the Black Messiah'

Next up for the actor was the challenging role of Fred Hampton, the Black Panther Party chairman who met his death in 1969 at the hands of law enforcement, in Judas and the Black Messiah (2021). While he again faced pushback as a foreign-born actor portraying an iconic Black American, Kaluuya drew glowing reviews for his impassioned performance, eventually winning the 2021 Golden Globe for Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role, Critics Choice award for Best Support Actor and SAG award for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Supporting Role. He was also won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role.

'Sucker Punch,' 'Blue/Orange'

After getting his start in theater, Kaluuya earned some of his earliest acclaim by playing a boxer in a 2010 stage production of Sucker Punch, a role that required him to get in peak shape and deliver monologues while jumping rope. Critics were less impressed with his showing in 2013's Trelawny at the Wells, but he rebounded later that year with his portrayal of military leader Joseph Mobutu in A Season in the Congo, before effectively mining his background among the colorful characters of his Camden housing project to play a psychiatric patient in 2016's Blue/Orange.

In May 2019, Kaluuya announced the launch of his production company, 59%, and its first-look deal with Paramount Players. "Over the years, I've been blessed to make work that speaks to audiences I identify with whilst pushing the envelope on what's possible," the actor said. "59% will be the home to continue that in a producorial capacity, to bridge the gap between the next wave of storytellers and studios."

Although he won't publicly comment on his love life, Kaluuya is believed to be romantically involved with actress and producer Amandla Crichlow, who has accompanied the big-screen star to major Hollywood events like the 2018 Black Panther premiere and that year's Academy Awards ceremony.

After attending Howard University and the University of California's Hastings College of the Law, Kamala Harris embarked on a rise through the California legal system, emerging as state attorney general in 2010. Following the November 2016 elections, Harris became just the second African American woman and the first South Asian American to win a seat in the U.S. Senate. She declared her candidacy for the 2020 U.S. presidential election on Martin Luther King Jr. Day 2019 but dropped out of the race before the end of the year. In August 2020, Joe Biden announced Harris as vice presidential running mate and after a close race, Biden and Harris were elected in November 2020.

Kamala Devi Harris was born on October 20, 1964, in Oakland, California. Reared in a predominantly African American neighborhood of Berkeley, she was brought to civil rights demonstrations as a toddler and sang in a Baptist choir.

Harris' mother, Shyamala, emigrated from India to attend the University of California, Berkeley, where she met Harris' Jamaican-born father, Donald. Shyamala carved out a career as a renowned breast-cancer researcher, while Donald became a Stanford University economics professor. Her mother also ensured that Harris and her younger sister, Maya, maintained ties to their Indian heritage by raising them with Hindu beliefs and taking them to her home country every couple of years.

Harris' parents divorced when she was seven years old, and at age 12 she moved with her mother and sister to Montreal, Quebec, Canada. She learned to speak some French during her time in Quebec and demonstrated her burgeoning political instincts by organizing a protest against a building owner who wouldn't allow neighborhood kids to play on the lawn.

Harris attended Westmount High School in Quebec, where she founded a dance troupe with a friend. Returning to the States to enter Howard University in Washington, D.C., she was elected to the liberal arts student council and joined the debate team, en route to a B.A. in political science and economics. Harris then enrolled at the University of California, Hastings College of the Law, earning her J.D. in 1989.

After earning admittance to the State Bar of California in 1990, Harris began her career as a deputy district attorney in Alameda County. She became managing attorney of the Career Criminal Unit in the San Francisco District Attorney's Office in 1998, and in 2000 she was appointed chief of its Community and Neighborhood Division, during which time she established the state's first Bureau of Children’s Justice.

In 2003, Harris defeated incumbent Terence Hallinan, her former boss, to become San Francisco district attorney. Her accomplishments in this role include the launch of the "Back on Track" initiative that cut recidivism by offering job training and other educational programs for low-level offenders.

However, Harris also drew criticism for adhering to a campaign pledge and refusing to seek the death penalty for a gang member convicted of the 2004 killing of police officer Isaac Espinoza.

Harris continued her political ascent by narrowly beating Los Angeles County District Attorney Steve Cooley for California attorney general in November 2010, making her both the first African American and the first woman to hold the position.

She quickly made an impact in her role by pulling out of negotiations for a settlement from the country's five largest financial institutions for improper mortgage practices, eventually scoring a $20 million payout in 2012 that was five times the original proposed figure for her state.

The attorney general also made waves for her refusal to defend Proposition 8, a 2008 California ballot measure that was deemed unconstitutional by a federal court. After the U.S. Supreme Court dismissed an attempt to appeal the ruling in 2013, Harris officiated the first same-sex marriage in California since Prop 8 was initially enacted.

Additional accomplishments include a successful lawsuit against the false advertising of the for-profit Corinthian Colleges chain, as well as continued legal pursuit of the classified advertising service Backpage, which led to its CEO pleading guilty to facilitating prostitution and money laundering after Harris moved on to the Senate.

In November 2016, Harris handily defeated Congresswoman Loretta Sanchez for a U.S. Senate seat from California, thereby becoming just the second African American woman and the first South Asian American to enter the Senate.

Harris has since joined the chamber's Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, Select Committee on Intelligence, Committee on the Judiciary and Committee on the Budget. She has supported a single-payer healthcare system and introduced legislation to increase access to outdoor recreation sites in urban areas and provide financial relief in the face of rising housing costs.

Harris has also made a name for herself from her spot on the Judiciary Committee, particularly for her pointed questioning of Brett Kavanaugh, who faced accusations of sexual assault after being nominated for Supreme Court justice in 2018, and of then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions during a 2017 hearing that delved into alleged collusion between the Trump team and Russian agents.

On January 21, 2019, during a Martin Luther King Jr. Day interview on Good Morning America, Harris announced she was running for president in 2020.

One of the top Democratic candidates, Harris joined a field that already included Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren and New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand in a bid to push President Donald Trump from the White House after one term.

One week after her GMA announcement, Harris formally kicked off her campaign before an estimated 20,000 supporters at Frank Ogawa Plaza in Oakland, California. She remained near the top of the Democratic polls over the following weeks, withstanding the brouhaha that ensued when she admitted to smoking marijuana in a February interview, and another when an animal rights activist confronted her onstage at a political event in June.

Harris stood out as one of the top performers of the first Democratic primary debate in late June, garnering headlines for taking Joe Biden to task over his history of opposing federal busing for school integration. She found herself a target of attacks during the second debate the following month, with Biden and the rest criticizing her healthcare plan and aspects of her record as California attorney general.

Her support in the polls slipping by fall 2019, Harris sought to thrust herself back into the top tier by calling for the impeachment of Trump over his dealings with Ukraine and a focus on women's access to reproductive health care. Meanwhile, her campaign staff reportedly bickered over strategy and the chain of command, the dysfunction noted in a resignation letter from the state operations director that became public via The New York Times.

In early December 2019, Harris announced that she was ending her once-promising presidential campaign.

On August 11, 2020, presidential hopeful Biden announced that he chose his former rival Harris as his running mate. "I have the great honor to announce that I’ve picked Kamala Harris — a fearless fighter for the little guy, and one of the country’s finest public servants — as my running mate," Biden said. "Back when Kamala was Attorney General, she worked closely with [my son] Beau. I watched as they took on the big banks, lifted up working people, and protected women and kids from abuse. I was proud then, and I'm proud now to have her as my partner in this campaign."

"I'm honored to join him as our party's nominee for Vice President, and do what it takes to make him our Commander-in-Chief," Harris said.

Harris is the first Black woman and person of South Asian descent to be nominated for a national office by a major party. She is also the fourth woman in history to compete on a major party's presidential ticket.

One week after a highly contentious debate between Biden and Trump, Harris and Mike Pence engaged in a far more civil vice presidential debate on October 7, 2020. Still, Harris kept the heat on her opponent by repeatedly attacking his administration's handling of the coronavirus, which had resulted in more than 210,000 American deaths to that point, as well as Republican attempts to ram through the confirmation of Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett shortly before Election Day. Harris also pushed back against Pence's assertions that a President Biden would ban fracking and immediately raise taxes, and defended her own record as California attorney general.

On November 7, 2020, four days after election day, Biden was declared as the 46th president-elect after winning Pennsylvania, making Harris the first female vice president and first Black person and Asian American to hold the position.

That evening, a beaming Harris took the stage at a victory rally in Wilmington, Delaware, her suffragette white pantsuit a nod to the efforts of her predecessors. Harris thanked the voters, her running mate and her family, with a special acknowledgment to her mother.

"She maybe didn't imagine quite this moment," the vice president said. "But she believed so deeply in America where a moment like this is possible, and so I am thinking about her and about the generations of women, Black women, Asian, white, Latina, Native American women — who throughout our nation's history have paved the way for this moment — women who fought and sacrificed so much for equality and liberty and justice for all."

On December 14, 2020, all 538 electors in the Electoral College cast their vote, formalizing Biden’s victory over President Trump in the 2020 presidential election. Biden received 306 votes and Trump received 232.

Harris published two books in early 2019: The Truths We Hold: An American Journey reflects on her personal relationships and upbringing, and Superheroes Are Everywhere, another memoir rendered in picture-book form for kids.

She first became an author in 2009 with Smart on Crime: A Career Prosecutor's Plan to Make Us Safer, which explores her philosophy and ideas for criminal-justice reform.

Harris married lawyer Doug Emhoff on August 22, 2014, in Santa Barbara, California. She is the stepmother of his two children, Ella and Cole, who affectionately call her "Mamala."

Politician, lawyer, author and activist Stacey Abrams served in the Georgia House of Representatives from 2006-2017. She became the first woman to lead either party in the Georgia General Assembly in 2010, occupying the role for her last seven years in office. Following an unsuccessful run for Georgia governor in 2018, she founded Fair Fight, an organization that helped register at least 800,000 new voters in Georgia ahead of the 2020 general election. In addition to her political career, she’s also published eight romantic suspense novels under the pen name Selena Montgomery.

Born on December 9, 1973, in Madison, Wisconsin, Stacey Yvonne Abrams is the second oldest of Carolyn and Robert Abrams’ six children: Andrea (born in 1970), Leslie (1974), Richard (1977), Walter (1979) and Jeanine (1982). Her parents — who met while working together as teen lifeguards at a racially segregated Hattiesburg, Mississippi swimming pool at the height of the civil rights movement — lived in Madison temporarily so that Carolyn could earn a master’s degree in library science from the University of Wisconsin. However, the couple raised Abrams in Gulfport, Mississippi, where she lived through middle school until the family, in 1989, moved to Atlanta, Georgia, where Carolyn and Robert attended Emory University to pursue graduate studies in divinity and become United Methodist ministers.

Abrams graduated as the first Black valedictorian from Avondale High School in DeKalb County, Georgia, before earning a magna cum laude undergraduate degree in interdisciplinary studies (political science, economics and sociology) with a minor in theater from Atlanta’s historically Black women’s college, Spelman. She later graduated from the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin with a Master of Public Affairs in public policy and received her J.D. from Yale Law School.

At 17 years old, Abrams began her political career as a speechwriter when a congressional campaign committee became impressed with edits she made while typing for them. After Maynard Jackson — Atlanta's first Black mayor, with whom Abrams had challenged over issues relating to social justice during a televised 1992 town hall at Spelman — created an Office of Youth Services in 1993, he hired her as the only undergrad college student on staff.

Upon graduating with her Yale law degree, Abrams began working as a tax attorney at Atlanta’s Sutherland Asbill & Brennan law firm, where she focused on tax exemptions, healthcare, and public finance. By the time Abrams turned 29, Mayor Shirley Franklin appointed her as Atlanta's deputy city attorney.

In 2006, Abrams was elected as a Georgia state representative, and within four years, she became the House Minority Leader. After ascending to the highest state legislative role in 2010, Abrams earned the distinction of becoming the first woman to lead either party in the Georgia General Assembly, as well the first African American to lead in the House of Representatives.

During her 11 years in the Georgia House (seven as Democratic leader), Abrams served on the Appropriations, Ethics, Judiciary Non-Civil, Rules, and Ways & Means committees. As Georgia’s then-top-ranking Democrat, she traveled to and met with leaders in South Korea, Israel and Taiwan, and her international policy travel included Australia, Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Canada, France, Israel, Italy, the Netherlands, South Korea, Switzerland, Taiwan and the United Kingdom.

After leaving her state representative position, Abrams launched a 2018 run for governor of Georgia, becoming the first Black woman to earn a major party’s gubernatorial nomination in the United States. Despite winning more votes than any Democratic candidate in the state’s history (including former President Barack Obama), she lost to Georgia Secretary of State Brian Kemp by fewer than two percentage points and just over 50,000 votes of the more than four million cast.

The election eventually became a study in alleged voter suppression efforts. Aside from running in the race, Kemp’s office oversaw the election, cutting nearly 700,000 names from the rolls in the two years leading to the election, and more than 200 polling places were closed, primarily in poor and minority neighborhoods, according to The Washington Post. Abrams further claimed that thousands of ballots were left uncounted.

Ten days after the election, Abrams ended her bid for governor but chose not to concede to Kemp, citing her belief that voters were disenfranchised. “Let’s be clear: This is not a speech of concession," she said in a speech from her campaign headquarters, according to the Associated Press. “Because concession means to acknowledge an action is right, true or proper. As a woman of conscience and faith, I cannot concede that.” In the same address, Abrams also announced she intended to file a federal lawsuit to challenge the way Georgia’s elections are run.

Following her election loss, Abrams, in 2018, founded Fair Fight, a voter protection and education organization, which aims to "promote fair elections in Georgia and around the country, encourage voter participation in elections, and educate voters about elections and their voting rights.” Through her efforts, she helped register at least 800,000 new voters in Georgia ahead of the 2020 general election, per NPR, and as a result, Democrat Joe Biden won the state’s electoral votes for President in 2020. (Democrats Reverend Raphael Warnock and Jon Osoff also flipped Georgia’s two Republican-held Senate seats in a January 2021 special runoff race.)

Abrams had previously founded the New Georgia Project, which submitted more than 200,000 registrations from voters of color between 2014 and 2016. “I started my voting rights activism at Spelman College. I started a voter-registration drive even before I was old enough to vote,” she told students before an early February 2020 town hall meeting in Miami, per The Washington Post. “I was probably the only person who turned 18 in college and got excited to go register and nothing else. But for me, the issue of voter registration is the beginning of the conversation because it is a conversation about power.”

Abrams also helped create the Southern Economic Advancement Project (SEAP), which aims for equality of opportunity, and Fair Count, which seeks to get communities of color, rural populations and other marginalized groups counted in the 2020 Census.

Abrams co-founded two businesses: Nourish, Inc., a bottled-water company with a focus on infants and toddlers, as well as NOW Account, a financial services firm that helps small businesses grow. The idea for the latter sprung from her experience with her beverage company, which couldn’t afford to wait for payment after filling orders, per Time.

Under the pen name Selena Montgomery, Abrams has written eight romantic suspense novels: Rules of Engagement, The Art of Desire, Power of Persuasion, Never Tell, Hidden Sins, Secrets and Lies, Reckless, and Deception. She’s also published her own political non-fiction books, 2019's Lead from the Outside: How to Build Your Future and Make Real Change and 2020's Our Time Is Now.

Born in Encino, California, in 1963, Lisa Kudrow worked as a medical researcher before pursuing an acting career. She enjoyed early success on the TV comedy Mad About You, before achieving fame as Phoebe Buffay on the wildly popular sitcom Friends. Kudrow went on to appear in such films as Romy and Michele's High School Reunion, The Opposite of Sex and Analyze This. She has also starred on the improvisational web-turned-TV series Web Therapy and the HBO comedy show The Comeback.

Kudrow was born on July 30, 1963, in Encino, California. Her father, Lee, was a physician with a specialty in studying headaches, and her mother, Nedra, was a travel agent. The youngest of three children, she grew up in a middle-class Jewish family. As a teenager, Kudrow excelled at tennis and played on the varsity team at Taft High School in Los Angeles.

After earning a degree in biology from Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, New York, Kudrow returned to Los Angeles to work with her father and follow a career in research. Her brother's childhood friend, comedian Jon Lovitz, encouraged Lisa to perform, and she tried to break into acting while continuing to work for her father as a medical researcher. Eventually Kudrow became a member of the renowned Los Angeles improv comedy troupe The Groundlings. She honed her comedic skills there and with other improv groups, including Unexpected Company, alongside Conan O'Brien, and the Transformers Comedy Group.

Kudrow's early foray into television comedies was marked by ups and downs. She unsuccessfully auditioned for Saturday Night Live in 1990, but did land the role of Ursula, the spacey waitress on the sitcom Mad About You in 1992. She then appeared on a few episodes of the Bob Newhart show Bob in 1993. However, after being cast that same year for the role of Roz in Frasier, she was replaced during the filming of the pilot episode by Peri Gilpin.

Kudrow's biggest break came when she was cast as Phoebe Buffay, the lovable folk-singing massage therapist, on the sitcom Friends. The show became an instant hit after premiering in 1994, and Kudrow went on to earn an Emmy Award in 1998 and a Screen Actors Guild Award in 2000 for her work on the prime-time comedy. She also reprised her role as Ursula from Mad About You, who appeared on Friends as Phoebe's twin sister. During the ninth and 10th seasons of Friends, Kudrow, along with her female castmates and friends Courteney Cox and Jennifer Aniston, became the highest paid TV actresses of all time, receiving $1 million per episode.

Leveraging the fame from her top-rated TV show, Kudrow transitioned to the big screen in movies such as Romy and Michele's High School Reunion (1997), The Opposite of Sex (1998), Analyze This (1999), Happy Endings (2005) and P.S. I Love You (2007). She also performed as a voice actor, taking on the roles of Aphrodite in Hercules: The Animated Series, student Alexandra Whitney in The Simpsons and Ava the bear in Dr. Dolittle 2 (2001).

In 2005, Kudrow starred in the premiere of The Comeback, an HBO comedy she also co-created and co-wrote with Michael Patrick King, an executive producer of Sex and the City. A satirical look at the entertainment industry, The Comeback featured Kudrow as Valerie Cherish, a washed-up sitcom actress attempting to make her return to the business. The show aired for 13 episodes and was canceled, only to be revived in 2014 for a second season.

In 2008, Kudrow also launched Web Therapy, a successful improvisational web series, in which she starred as a self-centered therapist Fiona Wallice. The show, which featured guest stars such as Jane Lynch, Molly Shannon and Selma Blair, was picked up by Showtime as a TV series in 2011, and aired for four seasons.

Kudrow has also served as an executive producer of Who Do You Think You Are?, a genealogy-themed documentary series in which celebrities trace their family roots. In a 2010 episode, Kudrow explored her own family tree of ancestors who immigrated from Belarus, Germany and Hungary. In an emotional scene, she discovered that her great-grandmother was murdered during the Holocaust.

Kudrow has since appeared on the big screen in the Seth Rogen comedy Neighbors (2014), as well as on the small screen with a recurring role on the popular drama Scandal. Proving she retains the innate ability to make audiences laugh, she earned the 10th Emmy nomination of her career in 2015, for her work on The Comeback.

Kudrow is married to Michel Stern, a French advertising executive. They have one son, Julian, who was born on May 7, 1998.

Larry King was born November 19, 1933 in Brooklyn, New York. In 1978 he started a nightly coast-to-coast radio talk show, The Larry King Show, on the Mutual Radio Network. This work caught the attention of Ted Turner, who hired King to host his own talk show, Larry King Live, on CNN in 1985. In 2010, King announced he'd be ending his reign as host after 25 years.

Born as Lawrence Harvey Zeiger on November 19, 1933, in Brooklyn, New York, King was the child of Jewish immigrants Edward Zeiger, a bar owner, and Jennie Gitlitz, a garment worker. When King was 9 years old, his father died of heart disease at the age of 44. King's mother had to go on welfare to support him and his younger brother, Marty. From an early age, King dreamed of a career in radio, but his father's death greatly affected his emotional stability, causing him to lose interest in school. He barely finished high school, and had little prospect of having a steady career. At this time, he went to work as a mail clerk to help support his mother.

A chance meeting with a CBS television announcer set King on the pathway to a career in radio. The announcer told him to go to Florida, a state with a growing media market that was hiring inexperienced broadcasters. King got his first break on Miami radio station WAHR (now WMBM) in Miami Beach. Initially, the job was to clean up the station and perform odd jobs. But when one of their male announcers quit in May of 1957, King was put on to replace him. He must have impressed his manager, because King was immediately put on the 9:00 AM to noon shift. He also did two afternoon newscasts and a sportscast. Doing all this while receiving a $55 a week salary made the young King feel he was fulfilling his long-time dream.

The name he was going by at the time, Larry Zeiger, didn't sit well with the station's general manager since he thought it sounded too too ethnic and was hard to remember. Minutes before the young King was to go on air, he chose the last name "King" after seeing an advertisement for King's Wholesale Liquor. King soon found popularity in the South Florida radio scene. In 1960, he premiered his first program on Miami television and built up a strong local following, adding a newspaper column in the entertainment sections of the Miami Herald and Miami News to his radio and television duties. During the 1960s, he met television legend Jackie Gleason, who was producing a national television variety show in Miami Beach at the time. King later credited Gleason for teaching him much about television production and called him a mentor.

In December 1971, King was charged with grand larceny by a former business partner, which immediately led to the loss of his broadcast and newspaper jobs. He was acquitted of all charges in 1972 but was deeply in debt and publicly disgraced. Over the next several years he worked to rebuild his career, writing magazine articles and working in West Coast radio. By the late 1970s, the incident had blown over, and he was able to return to Miami broadcasting. He was rehired by WIOD in 1978, starting a nightly coast-to-coast talk show, The Larry King Show, on the Mutual Radio Network. The show featured guest interviews and call-ins from the listening audience and became very successful, growing to over 500 affiliate stations. This work caught the attention of media mogul Ted Turner, who hired King to host his own talk show on the then-fledgling Cable News Network (CNN) in 1985.

Larry King Live became the first international TV call-in show. Over the course of the next 25 years, King developed a loyal audience who tuned in to watch the talk show host interview presidents, athletes, actors, national heroes, foreign dignitaries and obscure individuals who were thrust into the limelight. The show soon became the highest-rated talk show on air, and a requisite stopover for celebrities plugging any project. King's direct, non-confrontational interview style proved to be a hit with audiences and guests alike. As a testament to the show's influence, Ross Perot chose to announce his 1992 presidential bid on Larry King Live. In addition, King has also used his show as a portal for other fundraising events, including disaster relief in New Orleans and Haiti.

In June 2010, King announced he'd be ending his reign as host of the CNN talk show after 25 years. In September the same year, CNN named British media personality, Piers Morgan, as King's successor.

Outside his career as talk show host, King has appeared as himself in several movies and television shows. He's also done voice work in such animated films as Shrek 2 (2004), Shrek the Third (2007), and Bee Movie (2007). He's also written several books on heart disease after he suffered a heart attack in 1987. King's autobiography, My Remarkable Journey, was published in 2009.

In 2012 King launched his own web series, Larry King Now, that is in the same vein as his TV talk show on CNN.

King passed away on January 23, 2021. Though no cause of death was announced, it was revealed a few weeks prior that he had COVID-19. “With profound sadness, Ora Media announces the death of our co-founder, host, and friend Larry King, who passed away this morning at age 87 at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles,” King’s Twitter posted. "Whether he was interviewing a U.S. president, foreign leader, celebrity, scandal-ridden personage, or an everyman, Larry liked to ask short, direct, and uncomplicated questions, he believed concise questions usually provided the best answers, and he was not wrong in that belief."

King also became well known for his repeat trips to the altar, marrying a total of eight times — twice to the same woman. King has been in and out of marriages most of his adult life, beginning with his marriage to his high-school sweetheart Freda Miller when he was 19. During his subsequent seven marriages, he has fathered four children. In 1997, King married his seventh wife, Shawn Southwick, a former singer and television host, in King's Los Angeles hospital room three days before he underwent heart surgery. Southwick is 26 years King's junior. The couple has two children together, Chance and Cannon. Southwick has a son, Danny, from her former marriage. The couple announced their separation, and impending divorce, on April 14, 2010. The couple has since stopped proceedings, however, claiming they did so for the sake of the children.

Bree Newsome is an artist and activist who seeks to end structural racism and violence against Black bodies. On June 27, 2015, ten days after a white supremacist shot and killed nine Black parishioners in a church in Charleston, South Carolina, Newsome climbed a flagpole at the South Carolina Capitol grounds to remove a Confederate battle flag; she was arrested for this and became the focus of media attention. A Christian, Newsome finds her faith provides her with both guidance and the strength to do her work.

Born Brittany Ann Byuarim Newsome in Durham, North Carolina in 1985, Newsome grew up in a diverse community in Columbia, Maryland. Her father was dean of the School of Divinity at Howard University (he later became president of the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center), and her mother was an educator.

Her parents instilled in their daughter the belief that if she wanted to be a responsible citizen, she should develop political awareness. Newsome also learned, as she said while on a panel in 2014, "The space that exists for many of us, as a young Black girl, is so extremely limited that you really can’t go very far without being an activist, without being in defiance of something."

Growing up in the 1990s, Newsome loved Disney movie musicals and studied them to get a sense of storytelling, which she demonstrated when she began writing her own plays. She also expressed an early interest in music and was composing by the age of seven, a talent that continued to develop as she progressed in school. (Musical ability seems to run in her family, as she's related to jazz musician McCoy Tyner.)

When her school system instituted a "Gifted and Talented" program for advanced students, Newsome witnessed bigotry in action as she was one of just a few Black students in this group — and her educator mother had to push for access.

Then going by Brittany, Newsome excelled at Oakland Mills High School, where her interests ranged from school musicals and choir to student politics (she was class president and became student body president her senior year). While in school she also made an animated short called The Three Princes of Idea (this resulted in a scholarship from the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences). Newsome graduated in 2003.

Newsome next became a film student at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts. There, she helmed an award-winning 20-minute short, Wake. While at Tisch she also created a PSA called "Your Ballot, Your Voice" to encourage young voters; it won the grand prize in a competition set up by her school and MTV.

Newsome considers herself to be both an artist and an activist, and has said that artists telling the truth about the world is itself a form of activism. After college, she became an artist-in-residence at Saatchi & Saatchi, a New York advertising agency. She also guest taught high schoolers for a film program in the Bronx.

Newsome played in a funk band called Powerhouse and writes songs, including ones that incorporate her interests in politics and activism. She created a popular rap video called "Shake It Like an Etch-a-Sketch" about Mitt Romney and his switch from a hard-right stance in the Republican presidential primary to a more moderate mien intended to woo voters in the 2012 election.

Though Newsome marched with Occupy Wall Street, the death of Trayvon Martin, a Black teenager killed in 2012 while walking in his father's neighborhood, and the subsequent acquittal of George Zimmerman — with a claim of self-defense — in his 2013 trial spurred her to do more. Among other efforts, she went to Florida to demand justice for Trayvon, took part in marches and became active in the Black Lives Matter movement.

Newsome was shocked when North Carolina's legislature sought to restrict access to voting (such as ID requirements that didn't accept student IDs and cutting back on early voting). In 2015, she said, "It was the attack on voting rights in North Carolina that 'activated' me and I moved from being a sideline supporter to an activist."

In 2013 she joined with the Moral Monday movement in North Carolina, in which members of various groups came together to protest. In an attempt to confront Thom Tillis, then North Carolina's speaker of the house, about the voter suppression measures being put into place, Newsome participated in a sit-in at his office. It ended with the group's arrest, which was Newsome's first.

Early in the morning on June 27, 2015, Newsome got into climbing gear at the South Carolina Capitol. Given word the coast was clear, she received a boost from a fellow activist and began ascending the 30-foot flagpole displaying the Confederate flag. Though police arrived at the scene, she successfully took the flag down, saying, "You come against me with hatred, oppression and violence. I come against you in the name of God. This flag comes down today."

Supporters often claim the Confederate flag honors Southern heritage and soldiers. However, for many the fact that it is a symbol of the Confederacy makes it a powerful emblem of racism, as the Confederate goal in the Civil War was to forestall the elimination of slavery (the four million Black people who were enslaved when the war started had an economic value of about $3 billion to their white "owners"). The Confederate belief in the justness of slavery was clearly stated at the time; when South Carolina outlined its causes of secession, the document bemoaned "an increasing hostility on the part of the non-slaveholding States to the institution of slavery." (Some of Newsome's ancestors were held in bondage in South Carolina at the time this declaration was made.)

Pictures of racist Charleston murderer Dylann Roof posing with a Confederate flag were publicly available, and after the shooting, lawmakers had begun debating whether to take the flag down. At the service for Reverend Clementa Pinckney, a shooting victim and South Carolina state senator, President Barack Obama called for this to happen, saying the battle flag served to remind people "of systemic oppression and racial subjugation." Newsome acted the day after Obama spoke, although plans for what she did had already been in motion.

Though she was the one on the flagpole, there were about ten people who worked together to render Newsome's feat possible. This group agreed that, as Newsome was one of those physically capable of climbing the flagpole, having a Black woman take down the Confederate symbol would make a powerful statement. She then was tutored by a Greenpeace activist on how to scale the pole. Knowing she would be arrested, Newsome prepared for that — and steeled herself for the risk that someone might shoot at her while she was exposed in the air.

After her descent, the police arrested Newsome (and James Ian Tyson, a white male ally who'd assisted her, and whose presence demonstrated that people of different races opposed the flag's presence). They were released on bail, but she and Tyson initially faced misdemeanor charges of defacing a monument on Capitol grounds, which could have resulted in a fine of up to $5,000 and/or a prison term of up to three years. These charges were later dropped.

Another Confederate flag was up less than an hour after Newsome came down, in time for a rally of supporters. However, legislators ended up voting to remove the flag and then-Governor Nikki Haley signed the bill authorizing this. The flag was taken down on July 10, 2015, and sent to a museum.

The Confederate flag had been on display there since 1961 (the official reason it went up was to commemorate the centennial of the start of the Civil War, but the flag remained aloft as the civil rights movement grew in strength). After objections, in 2000 it was moved away from the dome of South Carolina's State House and placed next to a soldiers' monument. Newsome feels that what she and her group did helped push the government to finally remove the flag.

Newsome's goal was to make a stand for racial justice and equality, but her climb also resulted in her becoming a public icon. Inspired by the image of her on the flagpole, artists portrayed her as a superhero, people donated to her defense and she gained numerous Twitter followers. Celebrities also voiced their support; director Ava DuVernay tweeted, "Yes. I hope I get the call to direct the motion picture about a Black superhero I admire. Her name is @BreeNewsome."

Newsome received the NAACP's Chairman's Award in 2016, which the organization offers "to individuals and organizations who have used their distinct platforms to be agents of change."

With her elevated profile, she's able to address different groups, including with a talk called "Tearing Hatred from the Sky."

For Newsome, increased awareness of racial injustice is of the utmost importance, as she wants more people to try to effect positive change. In 2017, she wrote in the Washington Post, "Our nation faces a fork in the road and a decision to either continue down the same path of systemic racism or to confront our past honestly. It will increasingly fall upon everyday people to do the right thing."

Newsome married Marcus Bass in October 2018.

Tulsi Gabbard has served in the U.S. House of Representatives on behalf of Hawaii's 2nd congressional district since 2012. Having been deployed to Iraq (2004-2005) and Kuwait (2008-2009) as part of the Hawaii Army National Guard, Gabbard is one of the first female combat veterans and the first Hindu to be elected to Congress.

Gabbard was the Democratic National Committee's vice chair from 2013 to 2016, but she left her post due to friction with the committee as well as her desire to endorse Senator Bernie Sanders' 2016 presidential bid. Known for her vehement stance against U.S. military interventionism and a champion of veterans' rights, Gabbard announced her candidacy for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination in February 2019, before dropping out of the race in March 2020.

Gabbard was born on April 12, 1981, in American Samoa, on the main island of Tutuila. Her parents, Mike and Carol Gabbard, moved the family to Hawaii when Gabbard was two years old. Hailing from a multi-racial background, Gabbard is a mix of Polynesian, Asian and European ancestry. She has four other siblings and is second to the youngest.

Influenced by her father, Mike, who is a Democratic state politician, Gabbard was initially against gay rights, but she later changed her stance after her military experience and now advocates for the LGBTQ community.

For most of her high school years, Gabbard was home-schooled. She then studied business administration at Hawaii Pacific University and graduated with her bachelor's degree in 2009.

In 2002, Gabbard enlisted in the Hawaii Army National Guard. At the same time, she served in the Hawaii State Legislature as its youngest member at age 21. In 2004, she was deployed to Iraq, where she worked in a combat zone as a specialist in a medical unit.

After her first tour in Iraq, she worked for Hawaii Democrat Senator Daniel Akaka as a legislative aide and furthered her military training by graduating from Alabama Military Academy's Accelerated Officer Candidate School in 2007. In 2008, Gabbard volunteered for her second overseas deployment — this time, to Kuwait, where she trained soldiers of the Kuwait National Guard.

In 2011, Gabbard became a chair and vice chair at the Honolulu City Council, overseeing economic development and the budget committees, among other areas. The following year, she was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, representing her state's 2nd congressional district. Since then, she has been re-elected three times.

From 2013 to 2016, Gabbard served as vice chair of the Democratic National Committee (DNC). However, she quickly became displeased with her role as tensions ramped up between her and chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz, whom she felt was in favor of 2016 presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. That February, Gabbard left her vice-chair role at the DNC and endorsed Senator Sanders for the Democratic presidential nomination.

In October 2019, Gabbard declared that she would not seek a fifth term in Congress and would instead focus her efforts as a 2020 presidential candidate. Her campaign endured until March 2020, when she announced that she was throwing her support behind the candidacy of Joe Biden.

2020 Presidential Platform and Policies

Perhaps best known for being a strong anti-interventionist, Gabbard emphasized the need for the United States to pull out of Syria and Afghanistan and stop being involved in continuous "regime change wars."

In a tweet she wrote in October 2019, Gabbard asserted: "Foreign policy can’t be separated from domestic policy because the waging of regime change wars, the new cold war, and the nuclear arms race is costing American lives and wasting trillions of $ that should be invested in domestic needs like health, education, infrastructure, etc."

Among some of her controversies in this area, Gabbard met with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in 2017 and concluded that he was "not the enemy of the United States." However, as a presidential candidate, she took a stronger stance against Assad, claiming he is a "brutal dictator."

Criminal Justice

Gabbard called for decriminalizing marijuana and reducing mass incarceration and co-sponsored a variety of legislation to combat these issues. As part of efforts to tackle criminal justice, she said the country would need to address the systemic racism that disproportionately imprisons African American men.

Healthcare

Aligned with fellow presidential candidate Sanders' "Medicare for All" plan, Gabbard was a proponent of universal healthcare and for lowering drug costs.

Climate Change

Although Gabbard expressed her support for the Green New Deal, she also pointed out that some of its policy proposals needed further clarification.

In 2015, Gabbard introduced a bill that would ban fracking, end fossil fuel subsidies and require the United States to obtain 100% of its electricity through clean energy sources by 2035.

Immigration

While Gabbard supported immigration reform and President Barack Obama's DACA program, she ran into controversy after she voted with Republicans on a bill that would require "extreme vetting" on Syrian and Iraqi refugees who want to enter the United States.

Presidential Debates

Although Gabbard mostly polled in the low single digits among Democratic voters, she drew a lot of attention during the first set of 2020 Democratic presidential primary debates and was one of the most Googled candidates.

During the second debate in July 2019, Gabbard attacked Senator Kamala Harris' record as a prosecutor in California, saying Harris should apologize to those who "suffered under your reign." Harris later jabbed back at Gabbard, bringing up her low numbers in the polls, and also telling CNN's Anderson Cooper: "Listen, I think that this coming from someone who has been an apologist for an individual, Assad, who has murdered the people of his country like cockroaches. She has embraced and been an apologist for him in the way she refuses to call him a war criminal. I can only take what she says and her opinion so seriously, so I'm prepared to move on."

Although Gabbard initially threatened to not appear at the fourth debate, saying it was "rigged," she ultimately agreed to attend but not without eviscerating the media. "Just two days ago, The New York Times put out an article saying that I'm a Russian asset and an Assad apologist and all these different smears," Gabbard said, attributing the attacks to her anti-interventionist foreign policy. "This morning, a CNN commentator said on national television that I'm an asset of Russia. Completely despicable."

Gabbard went on to participate in the fifth Democratic debate, in November, but failed to qualify for the debates that followed.

Hillary Clinton Controversy

During a podcast interview in October 2019, Clinton suggested that the Republicans were grooming a third party candidate with the implication that it was Gabbard. (Gabbard has made many appearances on Fox News.) Outraged by Clinton's remarks, Gabbard hit back by tweeting that the former 2016 presidential candidate is “the queen of warmongers” and the “personification of the rot that has sickened the Democratic Party for so long.”

In January 2020, Gabbard filed a defamation lawsuit against Clinton in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. Seeking $50 million in damages, Gabbard claimed that Clinton had "carelessly and recklessly impugned" her reputation and intentionally damaged her presidential campaign.

Gabbard dropped the lawsuit in May 2020, citing the importance of focusing on other issues like defeating President Trump's reelection bid.

Gabbard was married to Eduardo Tamayo from 2002 to 2006. In 2015, she married cinematographer Abraham Williams in a Vedic ceremony.