The École Polytechnique massacre of December 1989 stands as one of the deadliest acts of gender-targeted violence in Canadian history, and Lépine's expressed motivation — a stated hatred of feminists, whom he blamed for his failures — gave the attack an ideological dimension that shaped subsequent public debate around misogyny and gun control. He separated the women from the men in at least one classroom before opening fire, a deliberate act that underscored the targeting was neither random nor incidental. The event prompted lasting changes to Canadian firearms legislation and remains a reference point in discussions of violence directed at women in institutional settings.

A businessman who built a career straddling legitimate corporate roles and serious financial criminality, Zahoor has remained beyond the reach of Norwegian authorities for well over a decade. His combination of international mobility, executive-level access, and alleged crime connections made him a difficult figure to prosecute and a persistent subject of investigative interest across multiple jurisdictions.

A prominent Liverpool merchant who built his fortune across multiple vessels and Caribbean plantations, Tarleton represents the commercial infrastructure that sustained the transatlantic slave trade at its height — the ship-owners, managers, and civic leaders whose respectability gave the trade its institutional footing. His career spanned ownership stakes in slave ships, plantation holdings across Dominica and the Grenadines, and the mayoralty of one of Britain's busiest slaving ports.

Over the span of roughly six weeks in late 1984 and early 1985, Wimberly carried out a series of robberies in Oakland that escalated to murder, killing three women in quick succession before his arrest. The crimes also included the rape of a child, compounding the scale of harm inflicted in a short period. His case reflects the pattern of rapidly accelerating violence that defines many serial offenders whose criminal activity intensifies before intervention.