11 Most Notorious Crimes Of Passion
Some critics argue that their term “crime of passion” is misleading, as it relieves some of the blame from the perpetrator and trivializes brutal crimes into something as harmless-seeming as a random burst of uncontrollable emotion. This is especially problematic in situations like domestic abuse, where the intimacy of relationships makes the violence that much more dangerous and insidious. We’ve compiled a list of 20 Notorious Crimes of Passion as a way to remember that love should never hurt.
1. Murder of Selena Quintanilla by Yolanda Saldívar
@carlos.floresr/InstagramIn one of the most notorious and heartbreaking murders in the Latino community in the 20th century, beloved Tejano singer Selena Quintanilla was shot and killed by her friend and fan club president Yolanda Saldívar. In the lead up to the murder, the Quintanilla family had discovered that Saldivar was embezzling money from both Quintanilla’s clothing stores (which she managed) as well as her fan club. After the Quintanilla family confronted her and terminated her employment, Saldívar lured Selena to a motel room under false pretenses and shot her to death. The fan and media response to Quintanilla’s death was unprecedented for a Latin artist. Quintanilla’s death is still regarded as one of the most tragic events in Latin music.
2. Lorena Bobbitt
@horror_nate2/InstagramIn a case that, at the time, captured the nation (and still does), Ecuadorian immigrant Lorena Bobbitt was put on trial in 1993 for cutting off her husband John’s penis while he was sleeping and disposing of it in a field. His penis was later surgically re-attached. The subsequent trial was a media-circus, both for its salacious subject matter and for the attention it brought to the issue of domestic abuse. Bobbitt alleged that she snapped after years of sexual, physical and emotional abuse. A jury acquitted her of all charges due to insanity caused by extreme emotional duress. After the trial, Bobbitt reverted her last name back to her maiden name, Gallo, and has kept a relatively low profile ever since.
3. Laci Rocha Peterson
@coldcasemurdermysteries/InstagramThe murder of Laci Peterson, an expectant 27-year-old mother of mixed Mexican descent, is especially notable for the extended tabloid media coverage that surrounded her missing person’s case and subsequent murder trial. America was fascinated by the story of this beautiful young woman whose life was cut short by her psychopathic partner, Scott Peterson. The case shone a spotlight on the prevalent issue of pregnant homicide at the time. According to much-published statistics at the time, homicide causes twenty percent of pregnancy-associated deaths, making it the leading cause of death for pregnant women. Peterson was convicted and sentenced to death by lethal injection. His case, however, is currently on appeal.
4. Jodi Arias
@jaclynpassaro/Instagram27 year-old Mexican-American Jodi Arias was convicted in 2008 of murdering her ex-boyfriend, Travis Alexander, in a fit of passion after a kinky sexual encounter. He was found dead with multiple stab wounds inflicted on his body as well as a gunshot wound to his head. What made this case even more fascinating was the couple’s involvement in the Mormon Church–an organization that isn’t often seen in headlines due to violent crimes. According to Arias’s testimony, it was Alexander’s repressed sexuality that caused him to be sexually abusive towards her, causing her to fear for her life. The jury wasn’t buying it, however, and in 2015 Arias was convicted and sentenced to life in prison without parole.
5. Sylvie Cachay
@misslesamac/InstagramPeruvian-American swimsuit designer Sylvie Cachay was drowned in a bathtub by her boyfriend of the time, Nicholas Brooks a trust-fund baby and an alleged freeloader. Cachay was murdered after breaking up and reconciling with her Brooks, whom she discovered was both stealing from her and cheating on her with sex workers. She was found drowned in a bathtub in the SoHo House in New York. It was a tragic end to the life of a woman who seemed to have her whole future ahead of her. In 2013, Brooks was convicted of second-degree murder and sentenced to 25 years in prison.
6. Debbie Flores-Narvaez
@christian_oldewolbers/InstagramPuerto-Rican born Las Vegas burlesque dancer Debbie Flores-Narvaez made headlines when she was reported missing in 2010. Both beautiful and highly intelligent, Flores-Narvaez was an interesting personality; both beautiful and highly intelligent, she obtained both a law degree and a master’s in finance. However, she left it all behind to pursue a dancing career in Vegas. After her disappearance, police soon zeroed-in on her recent ex-boyfriend and Cirque du Soleil dancer, Jason Griffith. Griffith was found to have disposed of Flores-Narvaez’s by playing her dismembered in concrete-filled tubs and scattering them in abandoned homes. He was convicted in 2014 with 10 years to life. Flores-Narvaez’s murder transfixed the nation, and even spawned a Lifetime Original Movie entitled “Death of a Vegas Showgirl”.
7. Leonard Rojas
Public DomainLike many of the assailants on this list, this convicted murderer seemed to suffer from intense paranoia. Convinced that his younger brother, David Rojas, and his common-law wife, Jo Ann Reed, were having an affair and plotting to kill him, Mexican-American Leonard Rojas shot and killed both Reed and Rojas in their shared trailer home in Alvarado, Texas in 1994. Rojas was executed by lethal injection in 2002. Before his death, Rojas expressed no remorse at the slaying of his wife and brother, insisting that they were “basically evil” and that they “just wanted [his] money…and wanted to do [him] in”.
8. Martha Freeman and Rafael DeJesus Rocha-Perez
Public DomainIn one of the more bizarre entries on the list, this crime of passion commenced with a woman’s extramarital lover, illegal Mexican immigrant Rafael Rocha-Perez, living in her closet for a month, unbeknownst to her current husband. According to Freeman’s testimony, when her husband discovered her sleeping with Rocha-Perez, he demanded that the young man leave. Instead, Rocha-Perez attacked him, beating him to death. It was later revealed that Martha Freeman herself aided Rocha-Perez in the murder of her husband. Freeman and Rocha-Perez were both charged with first-degree murder and convicted to 51 years each in prison.
9. Áurea Vázquez Rijos
@elnuevodia/InstagramDubbed “The Black Widow” by the media, Áurea Vázquez Rijos, former “Miss Puerto Rico Petite” winner, orchestrated the killing of her husband Adam Anhang. Rijos hired a hitman to kill her husband while they left a restaurant together. Her motive was determined to be completely financial, as she was poised to gain more money from his death (Anhang had a net worth of $24 million) than from a divorce. After being charged with being an accessory to Anhang’s murder, the Puerto Rican beauty queen fled the country to Italy in 2006 and wasn’t found until 2015. She was convicted of being a co-conspirator in her husband’s murder in 2018 and sentenced to life in prison.
10. Irene Garza
@find_gods_children/InstagramFormer Chicana beauty queen and homecoming queen Irene Garza’s body was found at the bottom of a canal in 1960. Her autopsy reported that she was raped and died of asphyxiation due to suffocation. Her death was deeply upsetting to a community that valued her as a grade-school teacher and as an active member of the local Catholic parish. What made the murder case even more unsettling was that the primary suspect was visiting priest, John Feith. Although Mr. Feith had admitted to “killing a woman” in an interview with a Catholic monk, Garza’s death had long been viewed as a cold case before the Hidalgo Country District Attorney reopened the case in 2014. Mr. Feit was finally arrested in 2016 at the age of 83. At the time of his arrest, Mr. Feit was living in a home for “troubled priests” in New Mexico, where he had been moved to by the Catholic Church. Feith was finally arrested in 2016 and convicted of murder in 2017. He was sentenced to life in prison.
11. Carlos Monzón & Alicia Muñiz
@aliciamuniz_55/InstagramAlicia Muñiz’s death was one of the first of many in Argentina that sparked a national conversation about violence against women. Frustrated by the media minimizing domestic violence murders like this as “crimes of passion” in Argentina, feminist activists campaigned to instead to label murders like this as “femicide”. Thrown from a balcony and killed by her famous boxer husband, Carlos Monzón, Muñiz’s death enraged many Argentinian women who felt that Monzón got off easy in both the justice system and the media. Monzón was sentenced to eleven years in prison but ended up being released before serving even a quarter of his sentence. Authorities determined he threw Muñiz over the balcony in an attempt to stage her murder as an accident after murdering her beforehand.
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