From chilling courtroom testimonies to unsettling near misses, these celebrities found themselves wrapped up in some of the most terrifying true crime cases of the last century. 

1. Naomi Campbell testifies at the Hague 
2. Ashton Kutcher testifies in the ‘Hollywood Ripper’ trial 
3. Crime author Michelle McNamara, late wife of actor Patton Oswalt, helped bring the Golden State Killer to justice 
4. Lisa Rinna’s mother narrowly escaped a serial killer 
5. Angela Lansbury and Doris Day saved their children from Charles Manson
6. Woody Harrelson’s father was a notorious hitman 

Naomi Campbell testifies at the Hague 

During Liberian dictator Charles Taylor’s 2010 war crimes trial at the Hague, British supermodel Naomi Campbell was called to testify about an alleged gift of blood diamonds she received from Taylor after both attended a Cape Town, South Africa charity dinner in 1997. 

Campbell was initially uncooperative with international authorities who were investigating Taylor, only coming to testify after being served a subpoena. The supermodel described being called to testify as a “big inconvenience.”  

Crucially, Taylor was accused of funding a violent civil war throughout Sierra Leone via the trade of blood diamonds like those allegedly given to Campbell in 1997. 

During her testimony, Campbell denied knowingly receiving diamonds from Taylor, but she told the court that two henchmen had come to her room in the middle of the night to present her with a bag of what she described as “dirty-looking stones” unlike the diamonds she was accustomed to seeing. 

Campbell testified that after she received the diamonds, she gave them to Jeremy Ratcliffe, former head of The Nelson Mandela Children’s Fund, as a donation. Still, Campbell denied knowing who the diamonds had come from. 

Despite this, actress and activist Mia Farrow, a fellow attendee at the charity dinner Campbell attended in 1997, later testified that the supermodel had spoken to her about the diamonds she’d received, allegedly expressing excitement in having received the gift from Taylor. 

In 2012, Taylor was convicted by the Special Court for Sierra Leone on all charges and was sentenced to 50 years in prison. He is currently serving his sentence in the United Kingdom after being denied a transfer to a prison in Rwanda back in 2015. 

Ashton Kutcher testifies in the ‘Hollywood Ripper’ trial 

On the evening of February 21, 2001, actor Ashton Kutcher arrived at the home of fashion student Ashley Ellerin, a 22-year-old woman he had been romantically involved with. Kutcher and Ellerin had planned to meet for a date that evening, but when Kutcher arrived late to Ellerin’s Hollywood home, she did not answer the door. Kutcher said he peered through the home’s window, spotting what he then thought to be spilled wine before leaving Ellerin’s house and adding that he assumed she had already gone out.

The next morning, Ellerin’s roommate returned to the home and discovered Ellerin’s body. An autopsy performed on Ellerin concluded she had been stabbed more than 40 times in what was believed to be a targeted attack. Shortly after the authorities interviewed Ellerin’s friends and neighbors, including Kutcher, the case went cold, remaining unsolved until 2019 when investigators linked Ellerin’s murder to a string of others committed by Michael Gargiulo, the so-called “Hollywood Ripper.” 

Following Kutcher’s testimony, Gargiulo was convicted of the murders of Tricia Pacaccio, Ashley Ellerin, and Maria Bruno, alongside the attempted murder of his neighbor, Michelle Murphy. Following his conviction, Gargiulo was given a death sentence, but has remained on death row since California Governor Gavin Newsom placed a moratorium on all executions in 2019. 

Kutcher’s name found its way back into the courtroom in 2023 when he and his wife, actress Mila Kunis, both penned controversial letters of support for their That ‘70s Show co-star Danny Masterson during his sexual assault trial. 

Crime author Michelle McNamara, late wife of actor Patton Oswalt, helped bring the Golden State Killer to justice 

In 2002, journalist Michelle McNamara met her future husband, actor Patton Oswalt, at a Los Angeles comedy club after approaching the King of Queens actor following his performance. The two became romantically involved shortly thereafter, tying the knot in 2005 and welcoming their daughter, Alice, in 2009. 

McNamara had a lifelong fascination with true crime, later turning her morbid fixation into a full-fledged career through her blog True Crime Diary. McNamara chronicled and researched countless cold cases on her blog, later taking a keen interest in a string of unsolved assaults and murders across California in the mid-70s and 80s. Through her dogged research and reporting, McNamara helped reignite interest in the mysterious case of the “Original Night Stalker,” later coining the moniker “Golden State Killer” for the then-unidentified perpetrator. 

She wound up penning an article on the murders for Los Angeles magazine, and life was quickly overtaken by her pursuit of the killer. Just as McNamara felt her investigation was starting to make real headway, she passed away unexpectedly on April 21, 2016 at the age of 46. An autopsy performed confirmed McNamara had died from a combination of the effects of multiple prescription medications like Xanax and Adderall paired with a previously undiagnosed cardiovascular disorder. 

Following McNamara’s death, Oswalt worked with writers Paul Haynes and Billy Jensen to complete McNamara’s unfinished book on the case, publishing it in 2018 as I’ll Be Gone in the Dark: One Woman’s Obsessive Search for the Golden State Killer. The book quickly became a New York Times bestseller and was later adapted into a documentary miniseries by HBO. 

In April 2018, just two years after McNamara’s death, 72-year-old Joseph James DeAngelo was charged with eight counts of first-degree murder and was identified as the Golden State Killer. Along with coining the name “Golden State Killer,” McNamara has been widely credited with renewing interest in the case and bringing it back to the attention of authorities. 

Lisa Rinna’s mother narrowly escaped a serial killer 

During a 2019 episode of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, castmate and soap star Lisa Rinna sat down with her mother, Lois, to hear a harrowing recount of an attack Lois survived in 1960. 

While working in San Francisco, Lois befriended a colleague by the name of David Carpenter. One morning, while waiting for the bus, Lois was approached by Carpenter, who then invited her to come meet his newborn child. After joining Carpenter in his car, Lois grew uneasy when Carpenter began driving them down a deserted road. After driving for a few miles, Carpenter attacked Lois with a knife and hammer, lacerating her hands and fracturing her skull in multiple places. The attack was interrupted by a military police officer who’d been following Carpenter’s car, saving Lois’s life. 

Following the attack, Lois spent three months in the hospital recovering and lost her sense of taste and smell as a result of the neurological damage she sustained in the attack. 

After his arrest, Carpenter was sentenced to 14 years in prison, but was released in 1969. Upon his release, Carpenter would go on to commit a notorious slew of assaults and murders, earning him the nickname “the Trailside Killer.” Following his arrest in 1981, Carpenter was convicted on seven counts of first-degree murder and given a death sentence. Carpenter, now 95 years old, remains on death row to this day, continuing to serve his sentence at a Stockton, California prison. 

Angela Lansbury and Doris Day saved their children from Charles Manson

While living in Los Angeles during the 1960s, Murder, She Wrote star Angela Lansbury and her husband, producer Peter Shaw, started growing concerned that their children, Deirdre and Anthony, had begun to fall in with the wrong crowd. Both children had started using hard drugs, and far from the typical rough and tumble teenage crowd one might expect, Deirdre had started hanging around with none other than cult leader Charles Manson and his notorious “family.” Eager to pull Deirdre from Manson’s noxious influence, Lansbury and Shaw decided to relocate their family to the bucolic County Cork, Ireland in an effort to right their children’s paths. 

During a 2014 interview with the Daily Mail, Lansbury spoke at length about the experience, stating she had “no doubt” she would have lost one or both of her children to drugs and Manson’s influence had the family not decided to move. 

Similarly, actress Doris Day reportedly pulled her son, record producer Terry Melcher, away from Manson after the two began spending time together in the late 1960s. Melcher was introduced to Manson through Dennis Wilson, drummer and co-founder of the Beach Boys, with whom Melcher had worked. 

Manson was occasionally invited to the Benedict Canyon home that Melcher was sharing with his then-girlfriend, actress Candice Bergen. Shortly thereafter, Melcher and Wilson grew wary of Manson and cut ties with him. When Melcher told his mother, Doris Day, about severing ties with Manson, Day insisted Melcher and Bergen relocate on account of Manson’s knowing where they lived in Benedict Canyon. 

After Melcher moved out, the home was leased to director Roman Polanski and his pregnant wife, actress Sharon Tate. Manson later chose the Benedict Canyon home as one of the targets in the notorious Tate-LaBianca murders, possibly in part to frighten Melcher. 

Woody Harrelson’s father was a notorious hitman 

In May 1979, Charles Harrelson, father of Cheers star Woody Harrelson, shot and killed federal judge John H. Wood Jr. outside his San Antonio home. Harrelson had allegedly been hired to kill Wood by drug trafficker Jamiel Chagra ahead of Chagra’s scheduled court appearance before the Texas judge. Harrelson was quickly apprehended by the FBI and charged with Wood’s murder, receiving two lifetime prison sentences as a result. 

Charles had abandoned his family when his son, Woody, was around 7 years old, leaving Woody’s mother, Diane, to raise the Hunger Games actor and his brother on her own. 

Prior to his conviction for Wood’s murder, Charles had been accused of murdering Houston carpet salesman Alan Harry Berg on the orders of a rival. Shortly after he was acquitted in Berg’s murder trial, Harrelson was charged with murder once more in 1968 related to a murder-for-hire plot targeting a man from Hearne, Texas named Sam Degelia Jr. 

Harrelson’s first trial for the murder of Degelia resulted in a mistrial, but he was eventually retried and sentenced to fifteen years in prison for being an accomplice to the murder. After serving just five years, Harrelson was released in 1978 and assassinated Judge John H. Wood Jr. just a year later. 

Though Charles was absent for much of Woody and his brothers’ childhood, the brothers reconnected with their father later in life, dedicating considerable resources toward advocating for his retrial. After attempting to escape in 1995, Charles was transferred to a maximum security prison in Colorado where he died in 2007 at the age of 68. 

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