For these famous figures, a prison sentence became the final chapter of their lives.
Rudolf Hess
Rudolf Hess was one of Adolf Hitler’s highest-ranking deputies until he flew solo to Scotland, apparently hoping to negotiate peace with Britain. He was held as a prisoner of war after the flight and stood trial at Nuremberg after World War II.
Hess was sentenced to life imprisonment and spent the rest of his life in Spandau Prison, West Berlin, where he eventually became its last prisoner. On August 17, 1987, Hess’s lifeless body was discovered in a small building in the prison garden with an electrical cord around his neck. His death was determined to be a suicide.
Aaron Hernandez
Aaron Hernandez played tight end in the NFL for the New England Patriots before his downfall due to being arrested for murdering Odin Lloyd in 2013. He was found guilty in 2015 and received a life sentence without parole.
On April 19, 2017, Hernandez, age 27, was found hanging from a bedsheet by correctional officers at Souza-Baranowski Correctional Center in Massachusetts. His death was ruled a suicide.
Slobodan Milošević
Former Serbian and Yugoslav president Slobodan Milošević was imprisoned in the United Nations detention facility in Scheveningen, The Hague, awaiting trial in front of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia.
After years of trial, Milošević died on March 11, 2006, at age 64 in his prison cell. An autopsy confirmed he had suffered a heart attack. Milošević’s death before completion of the trial meant that the tribunal issued no verdict.
Jeffrey Epstein
Jeffrey Epstein was incarcerated at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Manhattan following his July 2019 arrest on federal trafficking charges.
On August 10, 2019, he was found unresponsive in his jail cell and pronounced dead a few hours later. The chief medical examiner for New York City declared Epstein’s death a suicide by hanging.
Bernie Madoff
Bernie Madoff was an American financier who ran the largest Ponzi scheme in history, defrauding thousands of investors out of billions of dollars. He pleaded guilty to 11 federal felonies in 2009 and was sentenced to 150 years in prison.
Madoff died on April 14, 2021, at Federal Medical Center in Butner, North Carolina. He was 82 years old, and his death was ruled a natural death due to chronic kidney disease and other illnesses.
Whitey Bulger
Whitey Bulger was one of the United States’ most infamous organized-crime bosses. After spending 16 years on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted list, he was apprehended in California in 2011. Bulger pleaded guilty to a variety of charges, including participating in 11 murders, and was sentenced to life in prison.
Bulger was transferred to the federal prison at Hazelton, West Virginia, in October 2018. The 89-year-old was beaten to death by inmates less than 12 hours after he arrived at the facility.
John du Pont
John du Pont was an heir to the multi-billion dollar du Pont family fortune and a leading benefactor of American amateur wrestling. He shot and killed Olympic gold medal wrestler Dave Schultz at his Pennsylvania Foxcatcher estate in 1996.
Du Pont was convicted of third-degree murder and sentenced to 13 to 30 years. On December 20, 2010, he was found unresponsive at Pennsylvania’s Laurel Highlands state prison (at 72 years old).
George “Machine Gun” Kelly
American gangster Machine Gun Kelly rose to prominence during the Prohibition era and came to national attention following his involvement in the 1933 kidnapping of oil magnate Charles Urschel. Kelly was arrested, convicted, and sentenced to life in prison.
He spent decades imprisoned at Alcatraz before being transferred to the federal penitentiary in Leavenworth, Kansas. On July 18, 1954, on his 59th birthday, Kelly died of a heart attack while still imprisoned at Leavenworth.
Richard “The Iceman” Kuklinski
Richard Kuklinski gained fame as “The Iceman”, a convicted murderer who went on to boast about killing many more people than authorities could confirm.
Numerous prison interviews, books and documentaries about him have made him one of America’s most famous contemporary criminals. While serving multiple life sentences in New Jersey, Kuklinski’s health declined. He died while in state custody at a hospital in March 2006, at the age of 70.
Samuel Little
Samuel Little only gained notoriety later in life, after the FBI concluded that, based on his confession, he was America’s most prolific serial killer. Investigators later confirmed many of his claims.
Little, who was already serving several life sentences for murder, confessed to killing dozens of women throughout the United States over the course of several decades. He died in prison in California on December 20, 2020, at the age of 80. Little died at a hospital where he was serving his sentence.
Sources: Please see here for a complete listing of all sources that were consulted in the preparation of this article.
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10 historical figures who died in bizarre ways
From freak accidents to unbelievable twists of fate, these historical figures experienced some of history’s strangest endings.
