FBI Ten Most Wanted Fugitives, 1980s
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The FBI's Ten Most Wanted Fugitives during the 1980s is a list, maintained for a fourth decade, of the
Ten Most Wanted Fugitives The FBI Ten Most Wanted Fugitives is a most wanted list maintained by the United States's Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). The list arose from a conversation held in late 1949 between J. Edgar Hoover, Director of the Federal Bureau of Inv ...
of the United States
Federal Bureau of Investigation The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the domestic Intelligence agency, intelligence and Security agency, security service of the United States and Federal law enforcement in the United States, its principal federal law enforcement ag ...
.


FBI headlines in the 1980s

During the 1980s, the FBI added the names of the two longest-lasting profiles of the Top Ten Fugitives. The current longest member,
Victor Manuel Gerena The name Victor or Viktor may refer to: * Victor (name), including a list of people with the given name, mononym, or surname Arts and entertainment Film * ''Victor'' (1951 film), a French drama film * ''Victor'' (1993 film), a French shor ...
became the 386th fugitive to be placed on May 14, 1984, and is currently still at large. The FBI added,
Donald Eugene Webb Donald Eugene Webb (born Donald Eugene Perkins; July 14, 1931 – December 30, 1999) was an American career criminal wanted for attempted burglary and the murder of police chief Gregory Adams in the small town of Saxonburg, Pennsylvania on Dece ...
, on May 4, 1981, who remained on the list until March 2007 when the FBI, presuming his death, removed his name. Webb the second longest member of the list, remained on 25 years, 10 months and 27 days. The 1980s also brought the first man-and-woman couple listed together, who were FALN terrorist group associates Donna Jean Willmott and Claude Daniel Marks. The couple surrendered together seven years later, then pleaded guilty together to a
Leavenworth prison The Federal Correctional Institution, Leavenworth is a medium-security federal prison for male inmates in northeast Kansas. It is operated by the Federal Bureau of Prisons, a division of the United States Department of Justice. It also includes ...
breakout conspiracy from 1987. Among other prominent fugitives in the decade were
Mutulu Shakur Mutulu Shakur (born Jeral Wayne Williams; August 8, 1950 – July 7, 2023) was an American activist, and a member of the Black Liberation Army who was sentenced to sixty years in prison for his involvement in a 1981 robbery of a Brinks armored ...
, the stepfather of the later famed rapper
Tupac Shakur Tupac Amaru Shakur (; born Lesane Parish Crooks; June 16, 1971 – September 13, 1996), also known by his stage names 2Pac and Makaveli, was an American rapper and actor, regarded as one of the greatest and most influential rappers of all tim ...
, and also appearing was the sociopath
Charles Ng Charles Chi-tat Ng (born Ng Chi-tat) ( zh, t=吳志達, j=ng4 zi3 daat6; born 24 December 1960) is a Hong Kong-born convicted serial killer who committed numerous crimes in the United States. He is believed to have raped, tortured, and murder ...
, who had teamed up with the infamous
Leonard Lake Leonard Thomas Lake (October 29, 1945June 6, 1985), also known as Leonard Hill and a variety of other aliases, was an American survivalist and serial killer. During the mid-1980s, Lake and his accomplice, Hong Kong-born Charles Ng, raped, tortur ...
in as many as 25 sex-slave torture-murders at Lake's ranch in
California California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. It borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and shares Mexico–United States border, an ...
. The boss of the
Colombo crime family The Colombo crime family (, ) is an Italian American Mafia crime family and the youngest of the "Five Families" that dominate organized crime activities in New York City within the criminal organization known as the American Mafia. It was during ...
,
Carmine Persico Carmine John Persico Jr. (; August 8, 1933 – March 7, 2019), also known as "Junior", "The Snake" and "Immortal", was an American mobster and the longtime boss of the Colombo crime family in New York City from 1973 until his death in 2019. He ...
, also made the list in the 1980s. The decade also was marked by the start of the popular Fox television program ''
America's Most Wanted ''America's Most Wanted'' (often abbreviated as ''AMW'') is an American television program whose first run was produced by 20th Television, and second run is under the Fox Entertainment#Fox Alternative Entertainment, Fox Alternative Entertain ...
'' in 1988, which became a major new publicity venue for profiling and then the apprehension of many of the FBI's Top Ten Fugitives.


FBI 10 Most Wanted Fugitives to begin the 1980s

The FBI in the past has 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 their 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 on the FBI list appear below, whenever possible. As the new decade opened, the following Fugitives from prior years still remained at large, as the members of the FBI's Ten Most Wanted list:


FBI Most Wanted Fugitives added during the 1980s

The most wanted fugitives listed in the decade of the 1980s includes (in FBI list appearance sequence order):


1980


1981


1982


1983


1984


1985


1986


1987


1988


1989


End of the decade

As the decade closed, the following were still at large as the Ten Most Wanted Fugitives: One spot on the list of Ten remained unfilled from a capture late in the year 1989. It was filled the next month in 1990.


FBI directors in the 1980s

*
William H. Webster William Hedgcock Webster (born March 6, 1924) is an American retired attorney and jurist who most recently served as chair of the Homeland Security Advisory Council from 2005 until 2020. He was a United States district judge of the United Stat ...
(1978–1987) *
John E. Otto John E. Otto (December 18, 1938 – April 22, 2020) was the acting director of the FBI in 1987. A native of St. Paul, Minnesota, Otto served in the Marine Corps and attended St. Cloud State College, where he earned a B.S. in 1960, followed by ...
(1987) *
William S. Sessions William Steele Sessions (May 27, 1930June 12, 2020) was an American attorney and jurist who served as a United States federal judge, United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Western District of Texas and the four ...
(1987–1993)


References


External links


Current FBI Top Ten Most Wanted FugitivesFBI pdf source document listing all Ten Most Wanted year by year (removed by FBI)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Fbi Ten Most Wanted Fugitives, 1980s 1980s in the United States 1980s-related lists