American serial killer from a noted family, the only child of Oscar-winning actress Mercedes McCambridge and her first husband, William Fifield. They married in 1939 and John Lawrence Fifield was born on Christmas Day in 1941. The couple divorced in 1946 after seven years of marriage. In 1950 McCambridge married Canadian Fletcher Markle, an actor/producer/director. John later took Markle’s name, thereafter being known as John Markle. During the marriage and afterward, McCambridge battled alcoholism, often being hospitalized after episodes of heavy drinking. She and Fletcher Markle divorced in 1962, after twelve years of marriage. In 1969, after years with Alcoholics Anonymous, she achieved sobriety.
In 1987, John Markle, a UCLA graduate with a PhD in Economics, joined the Little Rock, Arkansas investment firm Stephens Inc. after working for Salomon Brothers in New York City. Markle was a successful futures trader, and quickly rose through the company’s ranks. McCambridge gave him $604,000 to manage for her, but in the fall of 1987, the company discovered that Markle had opened a secret account in McCambridge’s name. Soon the company found that Markle had been charging trading losses to the Stephens house account, while crediting profitable trades to McCambridge’s account. Markle was later shown to have forged his mother’s signature in opening the account.
Markle was placed on medical leave, then fired from his position at Stephens. McCambridge refused to cooperate with Markle and the company in instituting a repayment scheme that would have kept the matter from becoming public, saying that she had done nothing wrong and that Stephens Inc. owed her money. Shortly thereafter, on 16 November 1987 in Little Rock, John Markle killed his family—his wife Christine (age 45) and daughters Amy (age 13) and Suzanne (age 9)—and then himself.
He left a note taking responsibility for his crimes and a long, bitter letter to his mother. The letter contained the following: “Initially you said, ‘well, we can work it out’ but NO, you refused… You called me a liar, a cheat, a criminal, a bum. You said I have ruined your life… You were never around much when I needed you, so now I and my whole family are dead—so you can have the money… ‘Night, Mother.”
Link to Wikipedia biography