FBI Ten Most Wanted Fugitives
The FBI Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list arose from a conversation held in late 1949, during a game of Hearts between FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover and William Kinsey Hutchinson, International News Service (the predecessor of the United Press International) Editor-in-Chief, who were discussing ways to promote capture of the FBI's "toughest guys." This discussion turned into a published article that received so much positive publicity, on March 14, 1950, the FBI officially announced the list to increase law enforcement's ability to capture dangerous fugitives.
The list itself has no particular ranking. However, the FBI has in the past identified individuals by the sequence number in which each individual has appeared on the list. Some individuals have even appeared twice, and often a sequence number was permanently assigned to an individual suspect who was soon caught, captured, or simply removed, before his or her appearance could be published on the publicly released list. In those cases, the public would see only gaps in the number sequence reported by the FBI. For convenient reference, the wanted suspect's sequence number and date of entry appear below, whenever possible.
The list is commonly posted in public places such as post offices. Listed fugitives have been known to turn themselves in upon becoming aware of their listing. As of May 6, 2006, 482 fugitives have been listed (seven of them women), and 452 captured or located, 148 of them due to public assistance.
Fugitive Oregon dad in Mexico, FBI says / Suspect in slayings is one of 10 most wanted - This January 12, 2002 article with AP photo of the FBI press conference announcement of the listing of fugitive Christian Michael Longo, on January 11, 2002 shows an enlarged blowup of his wanted poster with the modern blue header prominently displayed on a side easel.
The FBI also maintains a list of Most Wanted Terrorists, along with FBI Crime Alerts, Missing Persons, and other fugitives.
Current most wanted list
The current most wanted fugitives includes (in order of when added to the list, oldest first):
Donald Eugene Webb
May 4 1981 #375
Donald Eugene Webb is wanted in connection with the murder on December 4, 1980, of the police chief in Saxonburg, Pennsylvania who was shot twice at close range after being brutally beaten about the head and face with a blunt instrument. On the list since 1981, no person has been on the FBI's Ten Most Wanted list longer in its history.
Webb's FBI Top 10 Most Wanted Fugitive Alert
Victor Manuel Gerena
May 14 1984 #386
Victor Manuel Gerena is wanted in connection with the armed robbery of approximately $7 million from a security company in Connecticut in 1983. He allegedly took two security employees hostage at gunpoint and then handcuffed, bound and injected them with an unknown substance in order to further disable them.
Gerena's FBI Top 10 Most Wanted Fugitive Alert
Glen Stewart Godwin
December 7 1996 #447
Glen Stewart Godwin is being sought for his 1987 escape from Folsom State Prison in California, where he was serving a lengthy sentence for murder.
Godwin's FBI Top 10 Most Wanted Fugitive Alert
Osama bin Laden
June 7 1999 #456
Osama bin laden is the leader of Al Qaeda, and is wanted in connection with the August 7, 1998, bombings of the United States embassies in Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania, and Nairobi, Kenya. These attacks killed over 200 people. Osama and Al-Qaeda are also responsible for the October 12, 2000, attack on the USS Cole off the coast of Yemen, which killed 17.
Although bin Laden also later appeared on the first publicly released FBI Most Wanted Terrorists list on Oct. 10, 2001, he was listed there for the 1998 embassy attack, and not for his alleged role in the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks that killed nearly 3,000, because the most wanted lists name fugitives charged with a crime by a prosecutor or under indictment by a grand jury. Bin Laden was named as an unindicted co-conspirator in, for instance, the federal indictment against convicted terrorist Zacarias Moussaoui, but has not been formally indicted for his role in the September 11 attacks.
Bin Laden is the subject of a $25 million reward through the State Department's Rewards for Justice program targeting international fugitives, especially terrorists, plus $2 million through a program developed and funded by the Air Line Pilots Association and the Air Transport Association.
Osama Bin Laden's FBI Most Wanted Fugitive Alert
Rewards for Justice Wanted Terrorist Osama bin Laden
James J. Bulger
August 19 1999 #458
James J. Bulger is wanted for his role in numerous murders (18 counts) committed from the early 1970s through the mid-1980s in connection with his leadership of an organized crime group that allegedly controlled extortion, drug deals, and other illegal activities in the Boston, Massachusetts, area. He has a violent temper and is known to carry a knife at all times.
Bulger' s FBI Top 10 Most Wanted Fugitive Alert
Richard Steve Goldberg
June 14 2002 #474
Richard Steve Goldberg is wanted for allegedly engaging in sexual activities with several female children under the age of ten in Long Beach, California, from January through May of 2001.
Goldberg's FBI Top 10 Most Wanted Fugitive Alert
Robert William Fisher
June 29 2002 #475
Robert William Fisher is wanted for allegedly killing his wife and two young children and then blowing up the house in which they all lived in Scottsdale, Arizona in April of 2001.
Fisher's FBI Top 10 Most Wanted Fugitive Alert
Diego Leon Montoya Sanchez
May 5 2004 #478
Diego Leon Montoya Sanchez is being sought in connection with the manufacture and distribution of multiple tons of cocaine, knowing or intending that it will be imported into the United States. Montoya is reputedly one of the principal leaders of the Colombian North Valley Drug Cartel. The North Valley Cartel is believed to be the most powerful and violent drug trafficking organization in Colombia. The cartel reportedly relies heavily for protection on illegal armed groups, taking help from right-wing paramilitaries as well as leftist rebels.
Montoya's FBI Top 10 Most Wanted Fugitive Alert
Jorge Alberto Lopez-Orozco
March 21 2005 #480
Jorge Alberto Lopez-Orozco is wanted in connection with the murders of a woman and her two young children, ages 2 and 4, in Elmore County, Idaho. The victims' charred remains were found on August 11, 2002, inside a burned-out vehicle. He may be travelling with his brother, Simon Lopez-Orozco, and Simon's wife, both of whom have been charged as accessories in the crime. Reward of up to 100,000 dollars.
Lopez-Orozco's FBI Top 10 Most Wanted Fugitive Alert
Warren Steed Jeffs
May 6 2006 #482
Warren Steed Jeffs is wanted in Arizona and Utah on criminal charges of sexual conduct with a minor.
He is accused of arranging marriages between underage girls and older men. Federal authorities also have added a charge of unlawful flight.
There is a reward for his capture, raised from $50,000 to $100,000.
Jeffs is a church elder within the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, which is based in Colorado City, Arizona, and Hildale, Utah. Polygamy is practiced openly in Colorado City, a remote enclave in Arizona on the state line with Utah.
The sect split from mainstream Mormonism after the broader church renounced polygamy more than a century ago.
Jeffs' FBI Top 10 Most Wanted Fugitive Alert
See also all past entries
- FBI Ten Most Wanted Fugitives by decade, 2000's
- FBI Ten Most Wanted Fugitives by decade, 1990's
- FBI Ten Most Wanted Fugitives by decade, 1980's
- FBI Ten Most Wanted Fugitives by decade, 1970's
- FBI Ten Most Wanted Fugitives by decade, 1960's
- FBI Ten Most Wanted Fugitives by decade, 1950's
Some infamous past entries
- Clayton Waagner - anthrax letters, 2001 #467
- Eric Robert Rudolph - Centennial Olympic Park bombing, 2 abortion clinic bombings, bombing a LGBT nightclub, 1998 #454
- Andrew Cunanan - spree killer, Gianni Versace murder, 1997 #449
- Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi - Pan Am Flight 103 bombing, 1995 #441
- Ramzi Ahmed Yousef - WTC bombing, 1993 #436
- Mutulu Shakur - father of famed rappers Tupac and Mopreme, 1982 #380
Ted Bundy
February 10 1978 #360
serial killer
status: deceased in prison
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Leonard Peltier
December 22 1975 #335
now American Indian Movement (AIM) infamous cause celébre
execution-type murders of two US FBI Agents
status: in prison
Angela Yvonne Davis
August 18 1970 #309
now department head at University of California, Santa Cruz
kidnapping and homicide of judge during Black Panther Party trial
status: exonerated on all charges in 1972
April 20 1968 #277, & also June 11 1977 #351
assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
status: deceased in prison
Infamous, but not Ten Most Wanted
The following infamous suspects may often be mistaken to have been listed among the FBI Ten Most Wanted Fugitives, but despite their notorietry, they did not formally make that list. Below is a listing of the year they attained their notoriety, the act for which they are notorious, and their last known status:
Ted Kaczynski
1995
"Unabomber," multiple murder
in prison
- Timothy McVeigh - 1995 - Murrah Federal Building bombing, Oklahoma - executed 2001
- Margaret Rudin - 1994 - murder of husband, Nevada - in prison
- David Koresh - 1993 - weapons violations, child abuse, Waco, Texas - killed during arrest
- Richard Ramirez - c. 1990 - "Nightstalker" serial killer, California - in prison, awaiting execution
- Jim Jones - c. 1979 - Peoples' Temple cult mass murder, Guyana - suicide
- David Berkowitz - c. 1978 - "Son of Sam" serial killer, New York City - in prison
- Patty Hearst - 1975 - SLA bank robberies, California - released 1979, pardoned 2001
D. B. Cooper
1971
skyjacking of Northwest Orient Boeing 727 from Portland, Oregon
unknown, presumed dead
- Edward Bunker - c. 1970 - bank robbery, California - released 1975, died 2005
- Charles Manson - 1969 - "Helter Skelter" cult murders, California - in prison
- Sirhan Sirhan - 1968 - murder of Robert F. Kennedy, California - in prison