List of Famous people who died in 1996

José Santacruz Londoño, also known as Chepe Santacruz, was a Colombian drug lord. Along with Gilberto Rodríguez Orejuela and Miguel Rodríguez Orejuela, Santacruz was a leader of the Cali Cartel.

Janaki Ramachandran, commonly known as V. N. Janaki, was an Indian politician, activist and the first woman Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu. She was the third wife of the actor and politician M. G. Ramachandran.

Marianne Bachmeier became famous in Germany after she shot the alleged murderer of her daughter Anna Bachmeier in an act of vigilantism in the hall of the District Court of Lübeck in 1981.

Richa Sharma also known by her married name Richa Sharma Dutt was an Indian film actress known for her works in Bollywood. Richa married actor Sanjay Dutt in New York City, United States in 1987. The couple has a daughter, Trishala Dutt. Within two years of marriage, she was diagnosed with a brain tumour. Richa died at her parents' home in New York on December 10, 1996.

Pamela Lyndon Travers was an Australian-British writer who spent most of her career in England. She is best known for the Mary Poppins series of children's books, which feature the magical nanny Mary Poppins.

Vijayalakshmi Vadlapatla, better known by her stage name Silk Smitha, was an Indian film actress who worked predominantly in Telugu, Malayalam, Tamil, Kannada and Hindi films. She entered the industry as a sideto supporting actress, and was first noticed for her role as "Silk" in the 1979 Tamil film, Vandichakkaram. She became a major sex symbol and was the most sought-after erotic actress in the 1980s. In a career spanning 17 years, she appeared in over 450 films. Due to uncanny similarities, Silk Smitha was popularly known as Marilyn Monroe of Indian cinema.

Iosif Aleksandrovich Brodsky was a Russian-American poet and essayist.

Rio Reiser, was a German rock musician and singer of rock group Ton Steine Scherben. Reiser supported squatting in the early 1970s and later the green political party Die Grünen. After the German reunification, he joined the Party of Democratic Socialism.

Luis Miguel González Lucas, better known as Luis Miguel Dominguín, was a bullfighter from Spain. His father was the legendary Domingo Dominguín; he adopted his father's name to gain popularity.

JonBenét Patricia Ramsey was an American child beauty queen who was killed at the age of six in her family's home in Boulder, Colorado. A lengthy handwritten ransom note was found in the home. Her father, John, found the girl's body in the basement of their house about seven hours after she had been reported missing. She had sustained a broken skull from a blow to the head and had been strangled; a garrote was found tied around her neck. The autopsy report stated that JonBenét's official cause of death was "asphyxia by strangulation associated with craniocerebral trauma". Her death was ruled a homicide. The case generated nationwide public and media interest, in part because her mother Patsy Ramsey had entered JonBenét into a series of child beauty pageants. The crime is still unsolved and remains an open investigation with the Boulder Police Department.