The FBI Most Wanted list debuted in 1950. J. Edgar Hoover was the FBI director at the time, and he hoped the program would create public excitement and lead to the capture of dangerous criminals. Over 500 fugitives have been added to the list over the past six decades. However, only 10 women throughout history have been menacing enough to make the cut.
10. Shanika S. Minor – added July 16, 2016; captured July 19, 2016
Shanika S. Minor was 25 years old when she was added to the FBI’s Most Wanted list. Minor’s mother explained the story to the agency: in February 2016, Minor’s mother mentioned to her daughter that the neighbors were playing loud music late at night. Using a semi-automatic weapon, Minor confronted the neighbor in the street, but her mother diffused the situation quickly.
Nevertheless, Minor felt disrespected by her neighbor, who was also pregnant. Just one week later, she confronted the neighbor again, but this time it was 3 a.m. Minor entered her neighbor’s duplex through a common hallway and met her at the rear of her door.
Minor’s mother attempted to come between the two women, but her daughter was able to maneuver enough to shoot her neighbor in the chest. The wound killed her almost immediately. Her unborn child also passed away at the scene of the crime before arriving at the hospital. The baby was due in one week.
From March until July, Minor was on the run, but was captured in a motel in North Carolina only three days after she was added to the FBI’s Most Wanted list.
9. Brenda Delgado – added April 6, 2016; captured April 8, 2016
Known as a jilted lover, Brenda Delgado murdered her ex’s new girlfriend. A native of Mexico, Delgado learned her ex-boyfriend was dating Dr. Kendra Hatcher, a pediatric dentist. Delgado acted on her jealousy after discovering that Hatcher met his parents, and the two planned an upcoming trip to Cancun.
Two other accomplices helped Delgado carry out the crime. She paid them with drugs and money supplied by a Mexican cartel.
Delgado fled after the murder in 2015, but was taken into custody after appearing only two days after appearing on the FBI’s Most Wanted list.
8. Shauntay L. Henderson – added March 31, 2007; captured March 31, 2007
Already a notorious member of the 12th Street Gang in Kansas City, Missouri, Shauntay L. Henderson was connected to five other murders and at least 50 gang-related shootings.
In September 2006, she shot and killed 21-year-old DeAndre Parker in Kansas City. Henderson was 24. She tried to keep a low profile, but gang warfare could not keep her hidden for long.
After being charged with voluntary manslaughter and armed criminal action, she served three years and was released in 2010. Five months later, she violated her probation and was charged with possession of a weapon. The judge sentenced her to ten years for the violation and addition seven for the firearm.
7. Donna Jean Willmott – added May 22, 1987; surrendered December 6, 1994
In 1985, Donna Jean Willmott was charged with buying and transporting explosions with the intent to bomb a Kansas prison. She was a member of the radical group Weather Underground; the organization protested sexism, racism, and the Vietnam War.
The prison plot was an attempt to free Oscar Lopez, a leader of the Fuerzas Armadas de Liberacion Nacional, which was a Puerto Rican separatist organization known for violence.
Claude Daniel Marks was her partner in crime. He bought 37 pounds of explosives from an undercover FBI agent. After discovering a monitoring device in their car, they went underground in hiding.
Wanted as a terrorist by the FBI, she changed her identity to Jo Elliot and lived as a mother and volunteer in Pittsburgh. She even publicly assisted with the Pittsburgh AIDS Task Force and the Children’s AIDS Project. Her accomplice Marks lived just a couple blocks away and went by Greg Peters.
The pair finally turned themselves in 1994 after almost a year of negotiations. They surrendered in Chicago. Willmott received three years in prison and Marks agreed to six.
6. Katherine Ann Power – added October 10, 1970; dropped June 6, 1984
As a senior at Brandeis University, Katherine Ann Power was active in protests against the Vietnam War and other radical events of the time.
However, she also was involved with robbing a National Guard armory and a bank in 1970. Power, her roommate Susan Edith Saxe, and three other ex-cons managed to steal $26,000. The money would be used purchase weapons for the Black Panthers. During the heist, one of the ex-cons killed a police officer.
After the robbery and murder, Power transformed into Alice Louise Metzinger and lived as a cooking and nutrition teacher in Oregon. Also a wife and mother, the praised chef won a Betty Crocker Homemaker Award and opened M’s Tea and Coffee House with a friend.
The FBI did not have any more leads on Power by 1984, so she was subsequently removed from the Most Wanted list. Power still accepted her fate and turned herself over in 1993. She was found guilty of manslaughter and armed robbery and served six years in prison.