Sammantha Allen-On July 12, 2011, police officers were called to Ame Deal's home, where she was found dead in a small footlocker, having suffocated. Ame lived with a number of relatives, including her aunt and legal guardian, Cynthia Stoltzmann. Allen was Stoltzmann's daughter. The family first told the police officers that Ame was playing hide-n-seek and locked herself in the trunk the night before, after the adults went to sleep. During interrogation, Sammantha and her husband John confessed to locking Ame in the trunk as a form of punishment, because she took a popsicle without permission.

Wendi Andriano-Andriano was convicted of the murder of her husband Joe Andriano. Her 33-year-old husband Joe was bludgeoned and stabbed to death in the couple's apartment. His autopsy revealed that he had sustained 23 blows to the skull, and traces of sodium azide (a toxin similar in activity to cyanide) were also found in his system.

Shawna Forde-Shawna Forde and her accomplices entered the Flores home by claiming they were officials looking for fugitives. The suspects had the expectation of finding money and drugs that could be sold to finance Forde's vigilante nativist group, Minutemen American Defense (MAD), which patrolled Arizona's border with Mexico. When they found no drugs, the intruders took inexpensive jewelry and fatally shot 29-year-old Raul Flores Jr. and his daughter, nine-year-old Brisenia Ylianna Flores.