List of Famous people who died at 17

Trayvon Benjamin Martin was a 17-year-old African American from Miami Gardens, Florida, who was fatally shot in Sanford, Florida by George Zimmerman, a 28-year-old Hispanic American. Martin had gone with his father on a visit to his father's fiancée at her townhouse at The Retreat at Twin Lakes in Sanford. On the evening of February 26, Martin was walking back to the fiancée's house from a nearby convenience store. Zimmerman, a member of the community watch, saw Martin and reported him to the Sanford Police as suspicious. While on the call to police, Zimmerman began following Martin. Several minutes later, there was an altercation and Zimmerman fatally shot Martin in the chest.

Juanita Suzanne Coco was an Australian child singer and variety performer who was a regular on the talent and variety television show, Young Talent Time. She appeared from 1987 to 1988, from the age of 11 to 13. Coco was often paired with Joey Dee for duets. She had replaced Vanessa Windsor on the show and was the 35th member to join. After the show's demise, Coco worked with a professional cover band on a regular basis until her final year of high school. She then formed a young band, Milk, who were working on original songs and about to start performing at the time of her death in 1993.

Rachel Joy Scott was an American student and the first victim of the Columbine High School massacre, in which 11 other students and a teacher were also murdered by Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, who then committed suicide.

Junko Furuta was a Japanese high-school student who was abducted, severely tortured, repeatedly raped, and murdered in the late 1980s. Her murder case was named "Concrete-encased high school girl murder case" , due to her body being discovered in a concrete drum. The abuse was mainly perpetrated by four teenage boys, Hiroshi Miyano, Jō Ogura, Shinji Minato, and Yasushi Watanabe.

Mahalakshmi Menon, best known by her stagename Shobha, was an Indian actress best known for her work in Malayalam and Tamil films. At the age of 17, she won the National Film Award for Best Actress for her role in the 1979 Tamil film Pasi. She also received three Kerala State Film Awards: for Best Actress (1978), Best Supporting Actress (1977) and Best Child Artist (1971); and two Filmfare Awards South for Best Actress in Kannada (1978) and Tamil (1979) films. Considered one of the finest talents to have emerged in the Indian film world, her promising career was unexpectedly cut short as she committed suicide in 1980, due to unknown reasons. Her popularity resulted in considerable public scrutiny of the events that led to her death and also various conspiracy theories. The 1983 Malayalam film Lekhayude Maranam Oru Flashback is supposedly based on her life and death.

Abdul Nasser Qardash is an Iraqi-born militant who in 2019 was wrongly reported as the leader of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). He was also nicknamed "The Professor" and "Destroyer". Although his role within ISIL is unclear, he is reported as one of ISIL's top commanders and tipped as a potential candidate for ISIL leadership succession. However days after the death of Al-Baghdadi, ‘Abdul-Rahman Al-Mawlah known as Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurashi was ultimately chosen as the new declared leader of ISIS.

Benjamin Wilson Jr. was an American high school basketball player from Chicago, Illinois. Wilson, a Neal F. Simeon Vocational High School basketball player was regarded as the top high school player in the U.S. by scouts and coaches attending the 1984 Athletes For Better Education basketball camp. Wilson is noted as the first Chicago athlete to receive this honor. On November 21, 1984, Wilson died due to injuries he sustained in a shooting the day before.

Mona Mahmudnizhad was an Iranian Baháʼí who, in 1983, together with nine other Baháʼí women, was sentenced to death and hanged in Shiraz, Iran on the grounds of being a member of the Baháʼí Faith. The official charges ranged from "misleading children and youth" to being a "Zionist", as the Baháʼí World Centre is located in Israel.

Cassie René Bernall was a student killed in the Columbine High School massacre, where 11 more students and a teacher were killed by Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, who then committed suicide. It was reported that Bernall had been asked whether or not she believed in God, and she said "Yes", before being shot during the massacre. However, investigators concluded the person asked about their belief in God was Valeen Schnurr, who survived the shooting.

Gwen Amber Rose Araujo was an American Latina teenager who was murdered in Newark, California. She was killed by four men, two of whom she had been sexually intimate with, who beat and strangled her after discovering that she was transgender. Two of the defendants were convicted of second-degree murder, but not the requested hate-crime enhancements to the charges. The other two defendants pleaded guilty or no-contest to voluntary manslaughter. In at least one of the trials, a "trans panic defense"—an extension of the gay panic defense—was employed. In some contemporary news reports and during the first trial of the perpetrators, Gwen Araujo was misgendered and referred to by her birth name.