- 6 weeks ago
These shocking cases left the world in disbelief... Join us as we examine the most horrific celebrity murders from across the globe that shook nations and changed cultures forever. From politically-motivated assassinations to domestic violence tragedies, these cases continue to haunt fans and remind us of the dark realities behind fame and stardom.
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00Rob Reiner was a brilliant actor and director, an iconic force in our entertainment industry for a decade.
00:08Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we're reflecting on notorious homicides to befall prominent entertainers and shock a nation.
00:15Miss Tate, who starred in Valley of the Dolls, was eight months pregnant.
00:20Kyoto Animation Artists
00:22A man has been sentenced to death in Japan following a deadly arson attack on an animation studio in Kyoto, which killed 36 people.
00:31Shinji Aoba had previously admitted to setting the building on fire in 2019.
00:37His lawyers had sought an acquittal on the grounds of mental incompetence, but the judge rejected their arguments.
00:43Many prominent artists worked for the beloved Japanese studio and publisher Kyoto Animation,
00:48But they were not beloved by Shinji Aoba, a struggling writer who accused the company of plagiarizing books he submitted.
00:54So, on July 18th, 2019, he entered their Studio One building and set fire to it.
01:00It is a case that shocked the nation.
01:02It broke the hearts of thousands and thousands of anime fans here in Japan and around the world.
01:08And it started a period of mourning after it happened.
01:13And the late Shinzo Aoba, the then-prime minister, had called it too appalling for words at the time.
01:18It was the first massacre ever to occur within the animation industry.
01:22Among the 36 people killed were filmmakers Yoshiji Kagami, Futoshi Nishia, and Yasuhiro Takemoto.
01:29Aoba himself barely survived his injuries, only to receive the death penalty for the senseless killing of so many innocent and talented people.
01:36Family members of those who were killed were also present at the court.
01:40They were wiping tears.
01:41It was an extremely charged moment with so many people watching it, including anime fans who were tweeting,
01:49saying that while they felt sorry for him, knowing how troubled he was, this was the right verdict.
01:55Dariush Mehrjui
01:57Now, in a shocking incident, one of Iran's most prominent filmmakers, Dariush Mehrouchi, was found dead alongside his wife at their home near Tehran.
02:07As one of the pioneers of the Iranian New Wave movement, Dariush Mehrjui was a controversially honest filmmaker even before the revolution.
02:14He documented the shift from an unstable monarchy to a regime that he found to be even more repressive.
02:19The local police said that there were no signs of forced entry at the crime scene.
02:24However, they said that traces have been found at the scene, which they believe to be related to the murderer.
02:31As of now, four suspects have been identified for their links with the case, and two have been arrested.
02:37In 2022, after decades of fighting censorship of his art, Mehrjui famously put out a public statement demanding that the state give him free speech or kill him.
02:46Just over a year later, he and his wife were stabbed to death in their home after reporting a series of threats.
02:52A disgruntled former employee was ultimately convicted, but unsettling rumors surrounding the grief of activists in and beyond Iran.
02:59Considered one of the founders of Iranian New Wave cinema, Mehrjui was best known for his neorealistic films.
03:09He gained global fame for his film, The Cow.
03:12Gulshan Kumar
03:13The sordid saga of the Gulshan Kumar murder case continues to throw up new twists.
03:19The relationship between movies and music in India was never the same after Gulshan Kumar founded T-Series in 1983.
03:26Countless knew the producer's name, but none tried to help when multiple assailants shot him a total of 16 times in August of 1997.
03:33He succumbed to his injuries only after bystanders retreated to their homes.
03:36The popular theory is that Kumar was assassinated by the crime syndicate D Company for withholding protection money.
03:43This had come in the wake of the Mumbai police's allegations that the main suspect in the case is music director, Nadeem.
03:50The police also claimed to have confirmed Taurani's role in the conspiracy before taking him into custody.
03:55Taurani was the co-producer of last year's biggest box office grocer, Raja Hindustani, for which the music was scored by Nadeem Shravan.
04:04Some even believe that superstar composer Nadeem Saifi took out a murder contract over a dispute with the victim.
04:11Abdul Ralph Merchant confessed to the murder a few years later, but neither his acting or even profession as a contract killer was formally confirmed.
04:19Whether the killing was part of a no-holds-barred fight for business domains or a personality clash or both of these is yet far from clear.
04:27The key to the ultimate solution to the case still seems to be with Nadeem, whose extradition and interrogation may bring the story to a logical denouement.
04:36Bergen
04:37Belgian Saro MuÅŸa's stage name was synonymous with Turkish pop music in the 80s for her talent and style.
04:50In fact, Bergen's luxurious bangs helped cover scars from the 1982 acid attack by her husband that blinded her right eye.
04:57It wasn't until 89 that she had the financial stability to divorce the violently obsessive Halas Serbest.
05:16Shortly thereafter, he shot Saro Miser and her mother, killing the former.
05:27The survivor was so devastated that she had a cage built around her daughter's grave to protect her in death.
05:49This came to also symbolize feminism and the crisis of domestic violence in Turkey.
05:54Of course, Bergen's martyrdom doesn't take away from her classic art.
06:06Marie Trenginon
06:07Coming from a large film family in France, actress Marie Trenginon stood out for her charisma and beauty.
06:14The five-time César Award nominee was also known for her volatile affair with Noir Desir frontman Bertrand Cantat.
06:21His jealousy over Trenginon's husband culminated in a vicious assault on July 26, 2003.
06:26Bertrand Cantat, the lead singer of the band Noir Desir, is accused of assaulting his partner in Lithuania.
06:32He has been placed in custody and he faces three to fifteen years in prison.
06:37She died in a coma six days later and Cantat served three years of an eight-year prison sentence for manslaughter.
06:44Whether he intended to kill Trenginon, the tragedy raised serious discussions about violence against women
06:49and Cantat's shocking career resurgence out of prison was an indictment of how French pop culture treats the issue.
06:55Kandiyo Balik
06:56I'm like a, open a book and you can say that people want to know me and they don't know me.
07:02Everyone knows me. I'm like a, I'm not a fake person.
07:06And whoever I do in my personal life, whoever I do, they update me on social media.
07:10After her campy breakout on Pakistan Idol, actress and model Kandiyo Balik claimed fame as the country's first major social media influencer.
07:19She used this platform to support feminist messages with a glamorous image.
07:23I think there are two things which make her extremely significant.
07:26A, she's a badly behaved woman.
07:30There's, there's no two ways about that.
07:31And B, she's using the internet to communicate her bad behavior, so to speak.
07:38And oddly enough, those are two things that Pakistan does not deal well with as a society.
07:43The internet and badly behaved women.
07:45This proved to be controversial even within her own conservative home.
07:49In July of 2016, Balik was sedated and strangled to death by her own brother.
07:53The state had to file the charges so they couldn't be dropped by the family, who were still able to overturn the killer's life sentence in 2022 with a formal statement of forgiveness.
08:14This elevated an international spotlight on the continued practice of honor killings, among other social issues that Balik lived and died to promote.
08:22You think you've seen Kandiyo's husband's wife?
08:25Wow, wow, wow, wow.
08:27Wow, wow, wow, wow, wow.
08:29Wow, wow, wow, wow.
08:31That's what we don't understand.
08:33That's what we don't understand.
08:35That's what we don't understand.
08:37Theo Van Gogh.
08:38Besides the distinguished lineage of his family, Theo Van Gogh claimed fame as a versatile filmmaker and hard-heading writer.
08:45He claimed infamy for his views on the growing influence of Islam in parts of the world, epitomized in the short film series, Submission.
08:52Only the first installment was completed before Van Gogh was shot and stabbed to death by an Islamic extremist on November 2nd, 2004.
09:00His body was left in public in Amsterdam, with a death threat to a colleague pinned to the stomach.
09:05This disturbing scene only boosted public debate about Van Gogh's divisive perspective of religion.
09:10Certainly, it has haunted the body of work he left behind.
09:13Pierre Paolo Pasolini.
09:15The macabre surrounded this iconoclastic Italian filmmaker image to the gruesome end.
09:32On November 2nd, 1975, Pierre Paolo Pasolini died from injuries sustained by bludgeoning and his own stolen car.
09:39I have only one question to ask. Who killed Pasolini?
09:44Who did not want to know who killed Pasolini?
09:5117-year-old Giuseppe Pelosi confessed to committing this brutal killing with claims of self-defense.
09:56Nearly three decades later, he affirmed long-standing speculations that his confession was coerced by men believed to be the real killers.
10:03The popular theory is that Pasolini was killed by right-wing terrorists as a prominent figure in Marxist art.
10:09A formal plea to investigate evidence of political and criminal conspiracy was rejected in 2023.
10:15Whoever was responsible for Pasolini's murder, it's one of the most high-profile true crime cases in modern Italian and film history.
10:22A current and exemplary case, in other terms, homosexuality leads to crime.
10:30And there are similar occasions, such as to use Pasolini's name to repeat this concept, very rarely exist.
10:42Sharon Tate.
10:43Two years ago, the hippie commune led by Charles Manson moved it into this old Wild West film set just outside Los Angeles.
10:50And it was here that they were living on the night the alleged murders took place.
10:55Any illusions about Southern California in 1969 were shattered on the night of August 9th.
11:00Members of Charles Manson's twisted hippie cult broke into the home of actress Sharon Tate and filmmaker Roman Polanski,
11:06while the latter was out scouting locations.
11:08Two bodies inside, two bodies outside.
11:11Among the other victims were Hollywood hairstylist Jay Sebring and coffee heiress Abigail Folger.
11:17Authorities would allow no one in an unofficial capacity inside the posh $200,000 home in the hills overlooking Los Angeles.
11:24The pregnant Tate and her four guests were all viciously stabbed and shot to death before the Manson family killed Leno and Rosemary LaBianca the following night.
11:33The owner of a small supermarket chain found in his home, his head covered by a white hood.
11:37It's believed that these killings were part of a plot to frame black Americans for high profile crimes and spark an apocalyptic race war.
11:45Instead, Manson and his disciples were eventually convicted for their part in one of the most harrowing tragedies in Hollywood history.
11:52Abby Choi.
11:53A seventh person has now been arrested in the gruesome death of Hong Kong model Abby Choi.
11:59CBS News reports the 29-year-old woman allegedly helped out the other suspects before fleeing to mainland China.
12:06Choi's grisly death last month shocked people around the globe.
12:10From her family's fortune and her own budding career, Abby Choi was poised to become one of Hong Kong's biggest influencers.
12:16But mere days after she was declared missing in February of 2023, Choi was discovered dead and horrifically mutilated at age 28.
12:24During their initial investigation, authorities found Choi had financial disputes involving tens of millions of Hong Kong dollars,
12:31which amounts to millions of U.S. dollars with her ex-husband and his family.
12:37Police soon arrested her ex-husband, his brother, and their parents on charges of murder over financial matters.
12:43The patriarch's mistress and two other associates were eventually linked to the conspiracy.
12:47The failure of this bizarre and brutal scheme gave the victim an international profile that she fell just short of light.
12:53Choi thus represents the particular importance in recognizing what was left behind by stars taken too soon and so cruelly.
13:01Police also arrested two others, including a 41-year-old man.
13:05Choi left behind four children, all ages 10 and younger.
13:09Before we continue, be sure to subscribe to our channel and ring the bell to get notified about our latest videos.
13:15You have the option to be notified for occasional videos or all of them.
13:19If you're on your phone, make sure you go into your settings and switch on notifications.
13:25Rob Reiner
13:26The son of legendary comedian Carl Reiner built an incredible career of his own.
13:40After his acting breakout on the sitcom All in the Family, Rob Reiner directed a number of classic films across many genres.
13:46He was also a respected political activist. Alas, the multiple generations touched by this artist were devastated by the news that he and his wife Michelle Singer were murdered in their home on December 14, 2025.
13:59Their son Nick was soon charged with homicide.
14:01These charges carry a maximum sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole or the death penalty.
14:10No decision at this point has been made with respect to the death penalty.
14:16We have requested and currently Nick Reiner is being held without bail.
14:21Rob had made great strides to support his son through his struggles with substance use disorder and the volatile behavior that came with it.
14:27Rob and Michelle Reiner's deaths represents a loss for countless families in and beyond America.
14:33We now ask for respect and privacy, for speculation to be tempered with compassion and humanity,
14:39and for our parents to be remembered for the incredible lives they lived and the love they gave.
14:48That is referenced indirectly, Adam, to the tremendous public interest.
14:52What other high-profile deaths haunt the world?
14:55Pay your respects in the comments.
14:57Pay your respects!
15:02Pay your respects in the comments.
Comments