10 True Crimes That Changed American Laws

10 True Crimes That Changed American Laws

Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we’re examining ten famous true crime cases that altered or gave rise to new American laws.

Rebecca Schaeffer

This young actress found success on the short-lived CBS sitcom “My Sister Sam,” which ran for two seasons in the 1980s. The show, and especially Rebecca Schaeffer, attracted the attention of one Robert John Bardo, who became obsessed with finding her. He ultimately turned to a detective agency, who found Schaeffer’s home address in California’s DMV records. On July 18, 1989, Bardo walked up to Schaeffer’s front door and shot her in the chest. She was dead at just 21, and her murder led to two new laws. The first is California Penal Code 646.9, which makes it illegal to stalk an individual. The second is the Driver’s Privacy Protection Act, which prohibits the DMV from disclosing a person’s home address.

William Henry Furman

William Henry Furman’s name may not be familiar to you, but he altered how the death penalty is applied in the United States. Furman, a Black man, killed the white William Micke during a home invasion and was sentenced to death. However, his fate went to the Supreme Court, who found that the death penalty was applied inconsistently and was often influenced by racial and economic biases. Basically, if you were Black or poor, you were sentenced to death. The Supreme Court ruled in favor of Furman, requiring new rules to eliminate arbitrary decisions and institute a degree of consistency. This new law invalidated the death sentences of over 600 inmates, and it’s why we now have bifurcated trials to separate the guilt-innocent and sentencing phases.

Jacob Wetterling

On October 22, 1989, 11-year-old Jacob Wetterling was abducted at gunpoint by a masked man while riding bikes with his brother and friend. They were both ordered to run away while the man took Wetterling. He was never seen again, and his fate remained a mystery until 2016, when a man named Danny Heinrich confessed to his murder and led investigators to his remains. They were found buried in a pasture near Paynesville, Minnesota, which was close to where Heinrich lived in 1989. And he’s the reason why America now has a registry for sex offenders. In 1993, Congress passed the Wetterling Act, making it mandatory for a convicted offender to register their home address with the state.

Megan Kanka

Jacob Wetterling is the reason America has a database of registered sex offenders. Megan Kanka is the reason that database is public knowledge. On July 29, 1994, Kanka was lured into her neighbor’s house and murdered. The neighbor, a man named Jesse Timmendequas, had been convicted of sexual assault on two prior occasions. At the time, there was no systematic way for communities to be informed about convicted sex offenders living nearby, even if they had a history of predatory behavior like Timmendequas. That changed with the introduction of Megan’s Law, which enabled law enforcement to notify communities about known offenders living nearby. That public information often includes the offender’s name and home address.

Emmett Till

His name is synonymous with the American civil rights movement, but Emmett Till wasn’t alive to enjoy it. That’s because in August of 1955, Till was mutilated and murdered by two white men in Mississippi. Till was visiting relatives in the state and had reportedly flirted with a local white shopowner named Carolyn Bryant. This act violated local customs, and Bryant’s husband kidnapped and murdered Till with the help of his half-brother J.W. Milam. The crime became national news, and with the help of the Rosa Parks incident later that year, galvanized the wider civil rights movement across the country. And 67 years later, Congress passed the Emmett Till Antilynching Act, which made lynching a federal hate crime punishable by thirty years in prison.

The Chicago Tylenol Murders

Those pill bottles may be a pain to open, but they’re literally saving your life. The story dates back to the fall of 1982, when an unknown perpetrator tampered with Tylenol bottles throughout the greater Chicago area. They had opened the bottles in the store, laced the pills with potassium cyanide, and then put the bottles back, dooming whoever decided to buy it. At least seven people were killed by ingesting poisoned Tylenol throughout September and October of that year, and the perpetrator was never caught. Numerous changes were adopted in response. Pills were altered from traditional capsules to more modern “caplets,” and manufacturers introduced tamper-resistant packaging to their bottles.

Adam Walsh

You may know the name John Walsh, host of “America’s Most Wanted.” Well, he became a renowned activist following the murder of his son, Adam, in 1981. Adam was abducted from Florida’s Hollywood Mall while shopping with his mother, and his death was confirmed two weeks later when remains were found in a drainage canal. The murder has officially been linked to Ottis Toole, although he recanted his confession and was never officially convicted of the crime. Walsh’s death resulted in the Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act, which aims to improve the tracking and management of sex offenders. It requires offenders to continuously register with up-to-date information, increases penalties for crimes against children, and publishes all information through a shared national database.

Ernesto Miranda

Maybe you haven’t heard the name Ernesto Miranda, but you’ve certainly heard of the Miranda rights. You know, “You have the right to remain silent,” and all that. The origin dates back to 1963, when Miranda was arrested for the kidnap and sexual assault of Lois Ann Jameson. Upon his arrest, Miranda was not informed that he could remain silent, and neither was he informed that he could have a lawyer present. As such, he implicated himself and later confessed to the crime after a lengthy police interrogation. Miranda was convicted based largely on this confession. He later filed an appeal, and the subsequent Miranda v. Arizona ruled that all arresting police officers must inform the subject of their rights.

Amber Hagerman

On January 13, 1996, nine year old Amber Hagerman was abducted from a parking lot in Arlington, Texas. Four days later, her body was found dumped behind an apartment complex. While the case remains tragically unsolved, it helped introduce an effective system that has spread beyond the United States. This system, of course, is the Amber Alert. The FCC endorsed the alert in 2002, and by 2005 it was officially implemented in all fifty states. In fact, it was such a good idea that many international countries began implementing their own version of the Amber Alert, and it’s estimated that over 1,000 children have been saved thanks to the famous notifications.

Kitty Genovese

It’s hard to imagine a world without 911. But that was very much the reality through most of human history - even much of the 20th century. At the time, there was no centralized emergency number. Instead, calls went to the local station, and officers handled the calls themselves. So let’s go back to March 13, 1964, when a bartender named Kitty Genovese was stabbed and murdered outside of her apartment. According to The New York Times, dozens of witnesses saw the crime but failed to report it, citing in part the obtuse call system of the time. This has since been largely debunked, but the furor elicited a groundbreaking response. In 1967, the Katzenbach Commission recommended a centralized system, resulting in the now-famous 911 number.


Did you know the story behind these laws? Let us know in the comments below!