Risk Management: Fame as a motive for crime

English: John Wilkes Booth. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

[Abraham Lincoln, Congressman-elect from Illinois. Three-quarter length portrait, seated, facing front] (LOC) (Photo credit: The Library of Congress)

During my daily commute, I've been listening to Bill O'Reilly read his "Killing Lincoln."  John Wilkes Booth's inability to match his father and brother as an actor and his desire to go down in history led him to forfeit his chance to make a clean escape from Ford's Theatre.  His dramatic leap onto the stage, after shooting Lincoln, went awry when a spur got caught on the flag draping the Lincolns' box.  The rest, as they say, is history.

http://www.billoreilly.com/killing-lincoln

From the history changing to the mundane and rather ridiculous, here's the story of a shoplifter, who stripped nude and got herself tazed, just so she could get a good story about herself int he newspaper's police blotter:

http://onlineathens.com/local-news/2012-05-28/accused-shoplifter-wanted-story-newspaper

From reality TV to the assassin's bullet: people who seek fame above all else... what motivates them?

"Money and power are handy, but millions of ambitious people are after something other than the corner office or the beach house on St. Bart’s. They want to swivel necks, to light a flare in others’ eyes, to walk into a crowded room and feel the conversation stop. They are busy networking, auditioning, talking up their latest project — a screenplay, a memoir, a new reality show — to satisfy a desire so obvious it is all but invisible."

More: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/22/health/psychology/22fame.html?pagewanted=all 

More on this topic:

http://www.amazon.com/Look-Me-Motive-Childhood-Death/dp/0472050702

http://articles.cnn.com/2009-10-28/health/psychology.fame.celebrity_1_richard-heene-falcon-heene-balloon?_s=PM:HEALTH

http://www.allthingshuman.net/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=307:how-the-fame-motive-makes-you-want-to-be-a-star&catid=61:why-because&Itemid=62