Has anyone been convicted for murder where the motive was business?

August 7, 2008 9:13 AM

Dick Jones from Robocop filter: Has there ever, in real life, been a convicted case of murder where a high profile, multi million/billion businessperson either killed or hired someone to kill a business competitor, either within the company or in another company?

You see it all the time on Law & Order, Monk, and Robocop...a wealthy businessperson has a co-worker killed either to get a promotion, or revenge for being showed up in the boardroom, etc. But has this ever really happened? Has any rich businessperson caused the death of a business competitor (either a co-worker in the same company or another company)? Any recent cases?

(and I'm referring to legal, corporate businesses, not drug dealer businesses, etc)

posted by arniec to human relations (16 comments total)

*and got caught*, right?
posted by arnicae at 9:24 AM on August 7, 2008

The U-Haul Tragedy.
posted by Floydd at 9:25 AM on August 7, 2008

Mickey Thompson
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 9:28 AM on August 7, 2008

Property tycoon Nicholas van Hoogstraten was held responsible in a civil court for the killing of a former business rival, two years after the criminal courts cleared him of any involvement in the crime.

Florida vs. Alan Mackerley.

I am 95% sure that there have been a couple of episodes of American Justice focused on stuff like this.
posted by robocop is bleeding at 9:35 AM on August 7, 2008

I'm not sure about the multi-millionaire angle, but murders over business disputes are relatively common. These two Google News searches turn up tons of articles about them.
posted by burnmp3s at 9:36 AM on August 7, 2008

arnicae: Getting caught and confessing would be nice because it comes as close to "fact" as anything can get in the legal system as opposed to wild speculation.

Floydd: That says it was rumored but the murderer was NOT for hire... Did I miss something?

Cool Papa Bell: Good one... Wiki didn't state the supposed motive? Was there one? Complete ownership of the business, owed debt, etc?
posted by arniec at 9:37 AM on August 7, 2008

robocop is bleeding: That alan Mackerley story is PERFECT. Very similar to the Dick Jones story down to the kinky threesomes. Thank you for that...
posted by arniec at 9:41 AM on August 7, 2008

Ah, crap, you want coworker-rivals, not industry-rivals. Sorry.
posted by robocop is bleeding at 9:41 AM on August 7, 2008

I, mean, uh, yeah, I know! Perfect!
posted by robocop is bleeding at 9:42 AM on August 7, 2008 [2 favorites has favorites]

Cool Papa Bell: Good one... Wiki didn't state the supposed motive? Was there one? Complete ownership of the business, owed debt, etc?

They went into business with each other, putting on big motorsports events, then each accused the other of stealing. Thompson sued the guy, won and bankrupted him.
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 9:52 AM on August 7, 2008

There's the youngest person ever honored with the Medal of Honor, Jack Lucas, whose book "Indestructible" tells how his second wife plotted with her brother, a recent hire, to kill him and take over the family business after he'd caught her (sa the company accountant) cooking the books.

Years later someone set fire to his house when he'd just moved in, apparently the spill-over of a feud with the previous owner. Also, his dad died when he was a child, he threw himself on two grendes on Iwo Jima, the list goes on. You think you've got it hard, you should read this. I listened to it as a book-on-tape while stripping wallpaper from my basement stairway ad then scrubbing, priming, and painting it over a week's evenings, and it sure made me happier about what I was doing.
posted by wenestvedt at 9:55 AM on August 7, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

Yes American Justice has had a bunch of them. Off the top of my head the one I remember is the murder of the guy who started and ran the Cigarette boat company.
posted by spicynuts at 10:30 AM on August 7, 2008

For what it's worth, the guys at Freakonomics recently pointed to a post on Overcoming Bias on just this topic, although they're coming at the question from the other direction: "Why don't business leaders assassinate competitors?".
posted by mhum at 11:58 AM on August 7, 2008

The Billionaire Boys Club.

There's this weird story from China:
Yuan, 40, was convicted in January last year of hiring a hit man in a failed plot to kill a business partner who had caused Yuan's company to lose 90 million yuan (US$11 million; euro8 million) in futures trading, according to earlier news reports.

The man who found the hit man for Yuan then blackmailed him, and Yuan paid his brother and then his cousin to kill the blackmailer. The blackmailer was shot to death in October 2003.

If you browse sites like Rense.com, you will find enough unsolved murders to suggest that assassination IS a regular part of business. There are tales like Inslaw as well. But they share the basic problem that doing it the aboveboard way, the business way, is exponentially easier than going out and hiring a killer who is probably an informant anyway. That route is only for the desperate. Real businessmen know tricks such as bankrupting a vendor and buying them out for pennies.
posted by dhartung at 12:23 AM on August 8, 2008

I knew a guy whose business partner hired someone to shoot him. The guy came on him as he was getting into his car after work, and shot his face off. The victim managed to crawl back into his office and call 911, and make enough noise before he passed out that they sent the police.

In this case, they were unable to gain enough evidence to prosecute the partner, and could not find the shooter. The victim was a pretty messed-up person (which is why I don't say 'friend', it became necessary to terminate contact).
posted by Goofyy at 1:38 AM on August 8, 2008

An ex business partner and key founder of the Glock firearms company attempted to kill Gaston Glock (inventors of the things!) in a parking garage with a blunt object in 1999. It was widely reported in the Austrian press.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaston_Glock
posted by thewalrus at 4:14 PM on August 9, 2008