September 29, 1959 - Gary Lee Sampson

Gary Lee Sampson (September 29, 1959 – December 21, 2021) was an American bank robber and later spree killer who killed three people and was sentenced to death by a federal jury in Massachusetts.

During three days in 2001, Sampson killed three strangers – retiree Philip McCloskey in Marshfield, Massachusetts, college student Jonathan Rizzo in Abington, Massachusetts, and Robert Whitney in Meredith, New Hampshire. He also attempted to kill a fourth victim and stranger, William Gregory, in Plymouth, Vermont. Sampson killed McCloskey and Rizzo after they picked him up hitch-hiking, stabbing them to death. Shortly after that he strangled Whitney. Sampson pleaded guilty to the three killings on September 9, 2003, and was sentenced to death on December 23, 2003, by a federal jury in Massachusetts. He received the death penalty for the two Massachusetts killings, and a life sentence for the New Hampshire case.

After Sampson pleaded guilty, a federal jury decided whether he should be sentenced to death or life in prison.

Content sourced from en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary Lee Sampson under CC BY-SA 4.0.