On September 6, 1943, 28-year-old World War II veteran Howard Unruh ate the breakfast his mother made him, then armed himself with a Luger pistol and walked calmly through his Camden, New Jersey, neighborhood, shooting everyone in sight. He told police afterward he'd had a kill list of specific...

While the grift he deployed had been named for another man, Bernie Madoff took the concept of a Ponzi scheme and pumped it full of steroids, allowing it to keep him -- and plenty of others -- filthy rich for literally decades. In the end, Madoff bilked some $65 billion from thousands of clients,...

Italian-born Charles Ponzi had grown up hearing from his mother that he was destined for greatness, so it was no surprise to her when she visited him in America to find him wealthy beyond her wildest dreams. Ponzi had come up with a get-rich-quick scheme that he insisted was legal. To his credit,...