I think this thread calls for a Charles Manson discussion. He got screwed in my opinion.
While Manson started as a petty criminal, there's reason to believe that he wasn't one any longer by the time he started ordering killings. On July 1st 1969 he shot Bernard Crowe for threatening the Manson family after they had cheated Crowe during a drug deal. Additionally, on July 25th of the same year, Manson ordered to kidnapping of Gary Hinman, a graduate student who he believed had recently come into a significant amount of money. Witnesses disclosed that Manson personally tortured Hinman, and there are accounts that he also ordered Hinman's murder, although these weren't verifiable.
Building off of this, there's actually firm evidence that Manson may have started ordering killings in an attempt at self-protection, not solely because of some twisted political philosophy. After Hinman's murderer Bobby Beausoleil was arrested, Manson interestingly began ordering his followers to commit crimes with an exceedingly similar MO (writing in blood, stabbing attacks, etc.). Beausoleil himself shared the belief that Manson was trying to convince police that Hinman's murder(s) was still at large, in order to get them to release Beausoleil before he could report Manson's actions to the police.
Overall, Manson's behavior in the summer of 1969 shows a rapidly escalating pattern of violence seemingly driven by financial motivation. Manson started by defrauding drug dealers, and then took violent action to protect himself and his followers after this financial crime was detected. Similarly, he kidnapped Hinman in an attempt to take his money, then had him killed and possibly ordered further killings in an effort to cover up his initial crime. While he might not have been ordering murders for the sake of killing alone, Manson was certainly no longer a mere petty criminal by the time the murders began.
www.kltv.com
