Number 9 Michael Brea In the early 2010s, actor Michael Brea,
known for his role in the “Ugly Betty” series and “Step Up 3D”, was struggling with money and
a waning career. It’s believed that these aspects caused him to suffer a horrific
mental breakdown. In 2010, Brea used a 3-foot ceremonial Freemason sword to kill his mother,
55-year-old Yannick. The police were called to the woman’s Brooklyn apartment after neighbors
reported screams coming from the residence. They claimed having heard Brea repeatedly shouting
“repent” as well as Bible verses. Officers entered the apartment and were forced to use
a Taser on him. They found Yannick kneeling in a blood-splattered bathroom. She’d nearly been
decapitated after being repeatedly struck with the sword. Brea would later claim that he’d done God’s
work and that he hadn’t killed his mother but “the demon inside her”. Following a psychiatric
evaluation, he was charged with second-degree murder and criminal possession of a weapon.
Number 8 Lil’ Kim On September the 19th of 2005,
Lil’ Kim began serving a 366-day prison sentence at a Federal Detention Center in Philadelphia for
her conviction on charges stemming from a 2001 shootout outside a New York City radio station.
The shootout happened after Lil’ Kim’s entourage crossed paths with a rival rap group,
Capone-N-Noreaga, as they were leaving the WQHT-FM, or Hot 97, radio station. Years earlier,
Foxy Brown, a female rapper from the Capone-N-Noreaga group had insulted Lil’ Kim
in her song “Bang Bang”. When confronted about the insult by Lil’ Kim’s entourage outside the studio,
the shooting started. One man was hurt and several people were arrested. Kim hadn’t fired,
but in an attempt to cover for her own entourage in court, Kim had perjured herself and she was
convicted on 4 counts of perjury and 1 count of conspiracy. Because Kim confessed to her crimes
and admitted that she had lied to a grand jury, she was sentenced to 366 days as opposed to the
maximum of 20 years that the offences carried. Number 7 Salman Khan
Once considered Bollywood’s top leading man and one of the most commercially-successful
Indian actors in history, Salman Khan was convicted of culpable homicide
only to have the charges against him dropped in mysterious circumstances. While driving his car,
under the influence of alcohol, Khan crashed into a bakery in Mumbai, in 2002. A homeless person,
who was sleeping on the pavement outside the establishment, was killed after being run over
and four others were injured. Police constable Ravindra Patil was part of Khan’s security
detail. He was a prime witness in the case and the only one who could have secured Khan’s homicide
conviction. Patil was reportedly pressured by the police and Khan’s lawyers to change his initial
statement that the actor had been driving the car while inebriated. He went missing during
the trial and was fired from the police force in November of 2006, ironically, for failing to
make an appearance during hearings. What happened in the period that Patil had gone missing remains
a mystery. About a year later, he was found on the streets of Sewri. His family had abandoned him and
he was suffering from tuberculosis. The severely emaciated 29-year-old was admitted to a hospital,
where he died. A few days before his passing, he reportedly told a friend that he’d stood by his
words but that his department didn’t stand by him. Due to a lack of evidence, Khan was acquitted of
all charges in December of 2015. Number 6 Howard Hughes
In the late 1920s, eccentric billionaire Howard Hughes gained fame in Hollywood by using his
vast fortune to produce big-budget films. His celebrity status would reach greater dimensions
for his work in aviation. His Hughes H-1 Racer was the last aircraft built by a private individual to
set the world speed record. While at the top of his international fame, Hughes was involved in
a 1936 car accident that, in contrast to other aspects of his life, received very little media
coverage. On July the 11th he fatally struck a pedestrian with his car, in Los Angeles. He was
certified as sober, but an attending doctor noted he’d been drinking. A witness stated that Hughes
had been driving fast and erratically, adding that the pedestrian had been sitting in the safety zone
of a streetcar stop. Hughes was detained on suspicion of negligent homicide but his
lawyer secured his release pending the report of a coroner. By the time it was completed, the witness
had changed his story, claiming that the victim had jumped in front of Hughes’ car. Within just 5
days of the accident, the billionaire was cleared. The suspicious circumstances surrounding the case
have led some to hypothesize that his wealth and celebrity status had, at the very least, expedited
the legal proceedings related to the case. Number 5 Liu Yongbiao
Chinese man Liu Yongbiao became an acclaimed author but it was ultimately revealed that,
in creating his novels, he drew inspiration from the murders he’d committed. In November of 1995,
Yongbiao and accomplice Wang Mouming checked into a guesthouse with the intention of robbing
the place. To cover their tracks, the men then used hammers and clubs to kill a guest
as well as the elderly couple who owned the guesthouse and their teenage grandson.
Yongbiao would live as a free man for more than two decades, during which he reinvented himself
as an award-winning writer and minor celebrity. In the preface to his 2010 novel “A Guilty Secret” he
even wrote that he contemplated a story about a writer who got away with committing a series of
murders. The authorities had recovered a cigarette butt from the 1995 crime scene from which they
took a DNA sample. After looking at thousands of individuals and travelling through 15 provinces,
they arrived at Yongbiao as a suspect. Undercover officers were able to trick him
into providing a saliva sample by claiming they wanted to research his family tree.
A lab test confirmed the match. Both Yongbiao and his accomplice were sentenced to death.
Number 4 Don King During his controversial career as a promoter,
Don King became one of the most famous figures in boxing. He promoted some of the sport’s most
prominent names, such as Muhammad Ali, Mike Tyson, Roy Jones Jr, Bernard Hopkins and many others.
Before he got into boxing, however, Don King killed two people, in incidents 13 years apart.
Shortly after dropping out of university, in the early 1950s, he ran an illegal bookmaking
operation in northeastern Ohio. In 1954, King shot and killed a man who was reportedly trying to rob
one of his gambling houses, an incident that was later ruled as a justifiable homicide. In 1967,
Don King stomped a man to death. His victim was an employee named Sam Garrett, who owed him $600.
He was convicted of voluntary manslaughter and spent three years and 11 months in prison. He
was pardoned by the governor of Ohio, in 1983. Throughout his career, King was investigated
for possible links to organized crime, such as mob boss John Gotti. He pled the 5th amendment
when questioned about his Gotti connection in 1992. He was also sued by a number of fighters,
including Ali and Tyson, who claimed he’d stolen money from them.
Number 3 Johnny Lewis
Actor Johnny Lewis started making TV appearances in his late teens, before landing a role on
the first two seasons of the hit FX series Sons of Anarchy. In the early 2010s, Lewis
suffered head injuries in a motorcycle accident. He declined getting an MRI and, in the aftermath,
he started exhibiting behavior that was described as bizarre and erratic. From 2011 to 2012,
he was arrested for hitting two men in the head with a bottle during a fight as well as for trying
to break into a woman’s house. He was released in September of 2012, but a parole officer expressed
grave concerns that he’d continue to be a threat to the community. 5 days later Lewis killed his
landlady, 81-year-old Carol Davis, by strangling her with his bare hands and striking her in the
head. He also killed her pet cat. Lewis jumped a fence to an adjacent house, where he assaulted the
homeowner and a house painter. He then returned to Davis’ property where he fell or jumped to
his death from the patio, roof or garage. No drugs or alcohol were found in his system and
the sudden spurts of violence were attributed to an undiagnosed psychological disorder.
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Number 2 Big Lurch
Rapper Big Lurch, who’d achieved some mainstream success with the group Cosmic Slop Shop,
was arrested in 2002 for the gruesome murder of his roommate. The rapper, born Antron Singleton,
was living with 21-year-old Tynisha Ysais and her boyfriend at an apartment in LA. A friend
found Ysais at the residence with her chest torn opened and her lungs ripped out. A 3-inch blade
had broken off and become embedded in her shoulder bone. There were also teeth marks on her lungs and
face. The witness saw Singleton standing in the street. He was unclothed, covered in blood and
staring blankly at the sky. After the 26-year-old was arrested, a medical examination found pieces
of human flesh in his stomach that weren’t his own. Singleton claimed that he and the victim’s
boyfriend had smoked PCP the day before and blamed the murder on psychosis induced by the drug. The
insanity defense didn’t hold up and Singleton, who would be known as the “Cannibal Rapper”,
was sentenced to life in prison. The victim’s mother filed a wrongful death lawsuit against him
and his record label. It claimed that the label had provided him with the drugs in
order to purposefully trigger violent behavior so that he’d be more marketable as a gangsta rapper.
Number 1 OJ Simpson
Orenthal James Simpson, known as OJ or The Juice, is often mentioned among the greatest running
backs in NFL history, but his illustrious career was overshadowed by his infamous murder trial.
In 1994, Simpson’s ex-wife Nicole Brown and her friend, Ron Goldman, were found stabbed
to death outside the former’s LA condo. Simpson, who had a history of physically abusing, stalking
and threatening Brown, became the main suspect in the case. On June the 17th, TV stations
interrupted the NBA Finals and millions watched a live-broadcast of a lengthy police chase with
Simpsons’ white Ford Bronco. It was driven by his longtime friend, former NFL player Al Cowlings,
who was later acquitted. Simpson’s trial was one of the most controversial and widely publicized
events in American history. There was massive DNA evidence against him, including his blood
recovered from the scene, which was verified by three separate laboratories with no discrepancies
found. Building a case on DNA evidence was still a novelty at the time. Simpson’s high-profile legal
team, led by Johnnie Cochran, was able to convince the jury that the samples had been corrupted,
planted or mishandled. In the context of racial tensions that permeated the US, the defense
suggested Simpson had been framed. Cochran focused his attention on a bloody glove retrieved from the
scene, which he claimed had been planted by a racist LAPD officer. While still wearing a pair
of latex gloves, Simpson tried on the glove and its pair during the trial, but they didn’t fit,
prompting Cochran to famously utter “If it doesn’t fit, you must acquit”. On October the 3rd of 1995,
the jury reached a “not guilty” verdict. In a 1997 civil suit, initiated by the victims’ families,
Simpson was ordered to pay $33.5 million for their wrongful deaths. He remained a
free man until 2008, when he was convicted of armed robbery and kidnapping. In 2007,
he and accomplices broke into a Las Vegas hotel room and robbed a man of sports memorabilia,
at gunpoint. Simpson claimed that the memorabilia had initially been stolen from him. He was paroled
after serving a mandatory 9-year sentence. Thanks for watching! If you could be roommates
for a month, with any celebrity, who would you choose and why? Let us know in the comments
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