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Today in True Crime History: March 21
1963 — Alcatraz, a prison on a small island in the San Francisco Bay, formally closes after 29 years of operation.
1981 — Michael Donald is lynched in Mobile, Alabama. The lynching was carried out by members of the Ku Klux Klan and was one of the last lynchings in the country. One man, Henry Hays, was executed for the crime in 1997. Another, James Knowles, received a life sentence. Two other men were also involved.
2002 — Amanda “Milly” Dowler is kidnapped in the middle of the day as she walks home from school in Walton-on-Thames, England. Her body would be found in September.
2008 — John List dies in prison at the age of 85. He was a long-time fugitive who killed his wife, mother, and three kids in their Westfield, New Jersey home in 1971. He evaded authorities (and even remarried) until 1989 when he was arrested.
