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The figures born on this date share no common cause or era, but several made violence a profession. Fred Burke, one of Prohibition-era Chicago's most feared contract killers, is believed by many historians to have pulled the trigger in the St. Valentine's Day Massacre. Tommy Gagliano rose through the New York underworld to lead one of the city's five major crime families for two decades, running his operation with unusual discretion. Decades later, Gary Ridgway — the Green River Killer — would be convicted of more murders than nearly any other convicted serial killer in American history, his crimes spanning years before investigators closed in. The record here spans organized crime, contract killing, and predatory violence across much of the twentieth century.

May 29, 1968 - Silvo Plut

The Wikipedia source provided describes only a single murder conviction and one attempted murder — a serious crime, but not one that establishes the pattern of scale or historical significance typically warranting inclusion on a site cataloging broadly notorious figures. The available record does not support commentary framing this person alongside subjects of wider historical consequence.

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May 29, 1893 - Fred Burke

A contract killer who operated across the Midwest and beyond during Prohibition, Burke was most effective when working within the structured networks of organized crime — first Egan's Rats in St. Louis, then as part of Al Capone's inner circle in Chicago. His apparent normalcy — described as honest-looking, capable of sustained aliases and domestic cover — made him a reliable instrument for operations requiring discretion alongside violence. The Saint Valentine's Day Massacre of 1929, in which seven men were executed in a Chicago garage, brought him lasting notoriety; ballistic evidence later tied his weapons directly to the scene.

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May 29, 1884 - Tommy Gagliano

Among the Five Families that shaped organized crime in New York City, Gagliano stands out for the quiet efficiency with which he held power — leading what would become the Lucchese family for roughly two decades while maintaining an unusually low profile by the standards of his contemporaries.

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May 29, 1949 - Gary Ridgway

Ridgway operated across more than sixteen years, targeting women in vulnerable circumstances — many of them runaways or sex workers — whose disappearances drew little initial attention and whose remains were often not found for months or years. That prolonged obscurity, along with investigators' inability to build a case despite his being a suspect from nearly the beginning, allowed the crimes to continue long past what might otherwise have been possible. It was ultimately advances in DNA technology, not a break in investigative leads, that ended his freedom. "Gary Leon Ridgway (born February 18, 1949), known as the Green River Killer or the Green River Strangler, is an American serial killer who was convicted of murdering forty-nine women between 1982 and 1998 in the northwestern United States. At the time of his arrest in 2001, he was believed to be the most prolific serial killer in United States history, according to confirmed murders." — Wikipedia

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