These crimes exposed America's deepest fractures and kept millions glued to their screens

The most gripping crime stories of 2025 weren’t just about suspects and victims — they were about free speech, terrorism, trust in the justice system and safety in places once considered secure.

The crimes that drew the most attention this year revealed deep fractures in United States society but kept millions of Americans riveted to their news feeds and social media.

From politically-motivated assassinations to high-profile trials garnering round-the-clock true crime coverage, these cases shaped the national conversation over the past 12 months.

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SILENCED VOICE: The assassination of Charlie Kirk

Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk visited Utah Valley University in Orem on Sept. 10 as part of a campus speaking tour in which he planned to promote free speech and debate hot-button topics.

But 20 minutes into his appearance, a sniper's bullet struck him in the neck, killing him.

"It's just one of those moments that is so shocking to your system and yet it's going to change everything and this is going to be a moment that we're going to think back upon and talk about for years and years to come," said Joshua Ritter, a Los Angeles defense attorney and Fox News contributor. "How shocking it was that it took place in public, and the video of his assassination lives on the internet forever now, in such stark violence. And then to realize that it was entirely motivated because of what this man stood for and how people disagree with that really brings a level of disturbing awareness of how divided we still are as a country."

Suspected assassin Tyler Robinson was arrested days later in his hometown in southern Utah, hundreds of miles away.

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Kirk made a career out of engaging people who disagreed with him. According to prosecutors, Robinson sent text messages to his lover allegedly admitting he "had enough of his hatred" and left a note declaring, "I had the opportunity to take out Charlie Kirk, and I'm going to take it."

IMPORTED HATE: The ISIS-inspired attack in New Orleans

An ISIS-inspired attack on New Year's revelers in New Orleans killed 14 people and underscored the ongoing threat of Islamist extremism.

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Authorities said the suspect was motivated by radical propaganda.

Video shows he flew a black ISIS flag from the back of his rented pickup truck as he sped down Bourbon Street, slamming into pedestrians in the early morning hours of Jan. 1 — reviving fears that global terror networks continue to inspire lone actors to carry out violence on American soil.

Shamsud-Din Jabbar, a 42-year-old Texan blamed for the attack, died in a shootout with police. Months later, authorities in Iraq revealed they had arrested an ISIS member accused of inciting Jabbar to commit the murders.

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COWARD'S WAY OUT: Bryan Kohberger pleads guilty

By pleading guilty, Bryan Kohberger avoided the potential death penalty and a public trial that could have exposed new details about the home invasion murders of four University of Idaho students, three of whom were asleep when he attacked them with a knife on Nov. 13, 2022.

The move brought closure for some of the victims’ families, but others were outraged that prosecutors didn't take him to trial and seek capital punishment.

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The deal spared his life but secured the highest possible punishment aside from the death penalty — four consecutive sentences of life without parole, plus another 10 years.

However, he was not required to explain himself under the terms of the deal, leaving questions about a motive unanswered.

"The Bryan Kohberger case stands out because it's literally the embodiment of every parent's nightmare," said Ritter, who is a father himself. "You send your children off to college hoping they're gonna be safe, and even when you do everything to put them in a safe environment, some absolute maniac can sneak into their home in the middle of the night and kill them in an apparently random attack."

PART DEUX: Karen Read’s second murder trial

Karen Read’s second murder trial reopened one of the most divisive and closely watched legal battles in recent memory. She had fervent supporters, who believed her defense's theory that she had been framed, as well as outspoken critics, who noted that no one but her has been accused by any law enforcement agency of killing John O'Keefe.

"The Karen Read case was about far more than a tragic death outside a Boston-area home," said Royal Oakes, a Los Angeles-based attorney who played a key role in a judge's decision to allow cameras in the courtroom during OJ Simpson's murder trial in the 1990s. "It became a referendum on police credibility, investigative integrity and whether a defendant can get a fair trial when law enforcement itself is accused of circling the wagons."

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With new jurors, renewed scrutiny and sloppy police work, the retrial appeared to put the investigation itself on trial alongside Read.

"The case exploded nationally because it blended true crime with institutional distrust," Oakes said. "The defense didn’t just argue reasonable doubt — they argued a cover-up. That turns a homicide trial into a broader test of public faith in the justice system."

Her first trial, which ended with a hung jury, led to disciplinary action against Massachusetts State Police homicide investigators, an independent review of the local police department and the firing of the lead detective.

The second time around, Read was acquitted of all homicide-related charges in the death of her Boston police officer boyfriend, O'Keefe, and sentenced to a year of probation for drunken driving.

"Karen Read’s trial mattered because it illustrated a growing trend: juries are increasingly skeptical of law enforcement narratives," Oakes said. "This case will be cited for years as an example of institutional doubt in criminal prosecutions."

ONGOING SAGA: Luigi Mangione and Jeffrey Epstein

While Jeffrey Epstein died in 2019 and Luigi Mangione is accused of killing UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson last year, both names continued to dominate headlines in 2025.

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Each case fueled broader debates about power, privilege and accountability — for different reasons.

Epstein, who was accused of sex trafficking and victimizing hundreds of women and girls for himself and his rich and powerful friends, has only one convicted accomplice, his former lover Ghislaine Maxwell. She is still fighting her conviction from inside a Texas prison camp.

Mangione, on the other hand, is accused of killing Thompson to send a message about what his supporters see as corruption in the U.S. health insurance industry.

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Mangione has pleaded not guilty to a slew of charges in New York, Pennsylvania and at the federal level. None of his cases have gone to trial yet.

EVIL AT THE IVIES: The New England university shootings

Claudio Manuel Neves-Valente, a 48-year-old Portuguese national with a green card, killed two Brown University students and injured nine more during a finals week study session, according to police in Providence, Rhode Island.

Then he drove 50 miles away to the home of a leading nuclear physicist who worked at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and gunned him down inside two days later, federal prosecutors said.

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Neves-Valente had briefly attended Brown in the early 2000s and went to the same Portuguese college as Nuno Loureiro before that, but a motive remains unclear. Police found him dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound in a storage unit in New Hampshire on Dec. 18.

The violence reignited debate over security, surveillance and whether open campuses are prepared for modern threats.