List of Famous people who died in 1996

Misa Yamamura , née Kimura (木村), was a Japanese novelist and a mystery writer favored as the queen of both mystery novels and tricks in Japan, often compared to Agatha Christie. Her spouse is Takashi Yamamura, a painter and a retired high school teacher. Her younger brother is Hiroshi Kimura, a professor of Political Science and her daughter is Momiji Yamamura, an actress.

Leonhard Drach was a German jurist and convicted war criminal.

Raymond Earl Hill was an American tenor saxophonist and singer, best known as a member of Ike Turner's Kings of Rhythm in the 1950s. He also recorded as a solo artist for Sun Records and worked as a session musician.

John Wesley Fletcher was an American defrocked Assemblies of God pastor, known for his role in the PTL scandal involving Jessica Hahn and Jim Bakker.

William George Bonin, also known as the Freeway Killer, was an American serial killer and twice-paroled sex offender who committed the rape, torture, and murder of a minimum of 21 boys and young men in a series of killings in 1979 and 1980 in southern California. Bonin is also suspected of committing a further 15 murders. Described by the prosecutor at his first trial as "the most arch-evil person who ever existed", Bonin was convicted of 14 of the murders linked to the "Freeway Killer" in two separate trials in 1982 and 1983. He spent 14 years on death row before he was executed by lethal injection at San Quentin State Prison in 1996.

António Sebastião Ribeiro de Spínola GCTE ComA was a Portuguese military officer, author and conservative politician who played an important role in Portugal's transition to democracy following the Carnation Revolution.

Joseph Elsby Martin Sr., was an American boxing coach who trained two world heavyweight champions, Muhammad Ali and Jimmy Ellis, as well as several national Golden Gloves champions.

Arihiro Hase was a Japanese actor and voice actor.

Yevhen Shcherban was a Ukrainian businessman and politician. As a member of the Liberal Party of Ukraine, he was elected to the Verkhovna Rada from the Volnovakha electoral district in Donetsk Oblast. He became the most widely known for relating to the Shcherban Affair which is used as a political blackmail in Ukraine since 2003.

Thomas Alvin Farr is an American attorney. Farr was nominated by President Donald Trump for a judgeship on the United States District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina in 2017, and again in 2018. Farr was considered a controversial nominee due to his alleged involvement in suppression of African-American voters. On November 29, 2018, Republican U.S. Senators Jeff Flake and Tim Scott announced their opposition to Farr's nomination, together with unanimous opposition of Senate Democrats, made it impossible for Farr's nomination to be confirmed.