
Serial killers tend to be white, heterosexual, males in their twenties
and thirties. Their methodical rampages are almost always sexually
motivated. Their killings tend to be part of an elaborate sexual fantasy
that builds up to a climax at the moment of their murderous outburst. Serial killers
usually murder strangers with cooling off periods between each crime. Many
enjoy cannibalism, necrophilia and keep trophy-like body parts as reminders
of their work. Their violent behavior is mostly directed towards women and
children. However some homosexual killers like to hunt gay men.
Prostitutes, drifters, male hustlers and hitchhikers seem to be their
victims of choice. Most serial killers grew up in violent households,
tortured animals and were bedwetters when they were young. As adults, most serial
killers have some sort of brain damage and are addicted to alcohol or
drugs.
The Archives catalogues its killers by their number of proven hits. Some
killers are suspected of much higher body counts. Others bragged about
crimes they never commited. Check in the morgue for
the latest entries to the Serial Killer Hit List.
Pedro Alonso Lopez (300+) Meet the deadliest
serial killer of the Archives. Pedro was known as the Monster of the Andes
after the impressive numbers of hits he tallied in his three-nation killing
spree. A native of Colombia, his prostitute mother kicked him out of their
home at age eight for fondling his younger sister. Adding insult to injury
he was then picked up by a pedophile and sodomized against his will. By the time
he was eighteen he was gang banged in prison and retaliated by killing
three of his assailants.
Upon his release he started killing young girls with glee and impunity. By
1978 he claimed to have bagged more than 100 girls in Peru. After a brush
with an angry village mob he moved his activities to Colombia and Ecuador
where his bloodlust averaged about three kills a week. He found killing
Ecuadorian girls quite enjoyable because they were "more gentle and
trusting, more innocent." Authorities attributed the rash of
disappearing girls to active slavery or prostitution rings in the area.
In 1980 a flash flood uncovered the first of his victims. When he was
arrested he told his interrogators the frightening tale of his reign of
death. At first authorities were skeptical but all doubts disappeared when
he quickly produced more than fifty graves. It is widely believed that
three hundred hits is a low estimate for this most prolific serial
killer.
Henry Lee Lucas &
Ottis Toole (200+) The Tag Team from Hell: the Sadist King and the
Generalisimo of Pain. The numbers speak for themselves. As a kid, Henry Lee
Lucas lost an eye after a severe beating from his prostitute mother. Years
later, in a drunken binge, Henry stuck a knife in his mother's back and
proceeded to rape her dead corpse. He got 40 years for killing mom, but was out after 10.
Free again, Henry launched his stellar career as the nation's most
notorious random killer.
In 1976 he joined up with a part-time transvestite and deeply psychotic
retard, Ottis Toole, to carry out numerous homicidal escapades. Ottis had a
taste for human flesh and had many of his victims for dinner. Henry,
however, was not a cannibal because, he said, he disliked the taste of
barbecue sauce. He was more of a sadist and a necrophile, preferring sex
with mutilated bodies and live or dead animals. The consummate killer
couple, they enjoyed picking up hitchhikers to satisfy their lust for
blood. Sometimes, when they didn't want to go through the hassle of killing
and disposing of their prey, they would just run over the occasional
hitchhiker and continue on their merry way. These lethal lovebirds parted
ways after Ottis' teen niece, Becky Powell, shacked up with Henry. The
unfortunate lassie was later found dismembered, stuffed in pillowcases and strewn over a field.
After his arrest, Lucas toured the country as a star killer uncovering
evidence of his handiwork for local police departments. In 1985, Dallas
Times-Herald journalist, Hugh Aynesworth, claimed their reign of terror was
a hoax and that overzealous detectives fed the would be killers many
details of their crimes. Henry and Ottis did confess to more than 500
murders. Henry even claimed to have taken the poison to Guyana as a favor
for his good friend Jim Jones. One of his
alleged victims, a Virginia schoolteacher, was found alive and kicking. Henry recanted
on all his murders only to confess again when he became a born-again
Christian. As he awaits execution on Death Row in Texas, Hank still
mentions bits and pieces of evidence linking him to numerous killings in 18
states. Meanwhile in Florida Ottis was diagnosed paranoid schizophrenic and his
death sentence was commuted to six consecutive life sentences.
On September 15, 1996, Ottis died in a prison hospital of cirrhosis of the liver. While in jail Ottis confessed and later recanted killing 6-year-old Adam Walsh whose 1981 disappearance outside a Hollywood, Fla., mall set off a nationwide manhunt. The crime turned Adam's father, John Walsh, into a TV personality and lead to the creation of the Fox television series "America's Most
Wanted."
Walsh, who has criticized the police handling of the case, questioned why investigators did not try to interview Toole on his deathbed or try for another confession. Speaking from prison after Ottis' death, Lucas said Toole killed Adam, then showed him the remains of the boy in a shallow grave. "I got sick about it. I said let's get the hell out of here."
H.H. Holmes (200+) Born Herman Webster Mudgett, Dr.
Holmes started his criminal career as a medical student by stealing corpses
from the University of Michigan. He used the corpses to collect insurance money
from policies taken out under fictitious names.
When he moved to Chicago he started a drugstore empire from which he made a
fortune. He built a hundred-room mansion complete with gas chambers, trap
doors, acid vats, lime pits, fake walls and secret entrances. During the
1893 World's Fair he rented rooms to visitors. He then killed most of his
renters and continued his insurance fraud scheme. He also lured women to
his "torture castle" with the promise of marriage. Instead, he
would force them to sign over their savings, then throw them down
an elevator shaft and gas them to death. In the basement of the castle he
dismembered and skinned his prey and experimented with their corpses. When
police grew suspicious about H.H's activities, he torched the castle and
fled. In the burnt hulk of the building, authorities found the remains of
over two hundred people. H.H. was caught and hanged on May 7, 1896, leaving
behind an impressive trail of blood unequaled for almost eighty years.
Andrei Chikatilo (52+) The
Soviet Hannibal Lecter. He was executed in 1994. As a kid Andrei's brother
was taken by the villagers and eaten during times of famine. Or so he said. As an adult, Andrei, a sexually impotent dirty-old-man from hell, enjoyed killing children with
impunity while he lived a quiet married life as a teacher.
Chikatilo lived in Rostov, 500 miles from Moscow, where he preyed mostly on
children. He stalked many of his victims in train and bus stations and had
a penchant for disembowlment and mutilation. He was also a cannibal and a
sadist. His macabre twelve-year killing spree was finally uncovered in 1982. Chikatilo wasn't exceptionally crafty occulting his crimes. Many blame the imcompetence of Soviet authorities and their refusal to admit the existence of a serial killer in their midst for his 10-year reign of terror. Years before his arrest he was brought in for questioning and let go when police found
that his blood did not match the semen found in the victim. A little known
fact is that the blood and semen of a person does not necessarily have to
match. There are rare exceptions, one of which was Chikatilo. Free again,
he continued on his path of destruction. While he was on trial, his gory
descriptions, psychotic behavior and litany of horrors gave the Soviet
public their first taste of serial mayhem. Andrei was executed in
1994.
Gerald Stano (41) Born in Daytona
Beach in 1951, Gerald tallied a body count of 41 as a result of his deep
resentment towards the world of "bitches". He truly enjoyed the
act of killing. Unlike most others, he never raped his victims. As one of
the investigating officers pointed out, "He thinks about three things:
stereo systems, cars, and killing women."
Elizabeth Bathory (40+) A sixteenth
century Hungarian Countess who enjoyed bathing in blood. This deviant fawn
of royalty believed that regular blood baths would halt the aging process.
Estimates of the number of girls that were slaughtered in her 10 years of beauty
treatments vary from 40 to as much as 600.
The bloody Countess, the widow of a celebrated Hungarian war hero and
descendent of the legendary despot Vlad the Impaler, led a life immersed in
black magic and sadism. She once had the mouth of a servant sewn shut
for being too noisy. In 1612, after countless rumors about her behavior,
troops entered her Castle Csejthe and uncovered a blood-letting
in progress. All the servants that participated in her orgies of horror
were executed and burned. The Countess, being royalty, was put under house
arrest. Three years later, on August 21, 1614, she died sealed in her
bedroom. Perhaps her elixir of youth had been working all
along.
Moses Sithole & David Selepe(40+)
These two South African serial killers, acting separately or in
tandem, are believed to be responsible for the deaths of at least 40 black
women and a child. South African authorities were alarmed by the growing
number of dead women appearing around Pretoria and Johannesburg over
a two year span. At first it was believed that they were the product of
two separate killers. Robert Ressler, the F.B.I. Behavioral Science Unit's
former chief, visited South Africa in 1995 to help with the investigation.
He concluded that the killings in Cleveland, a suburb of Johannesburg, and
Boksburg, a suburb of Pretoria, were linked. In his psychological profile
of the killer he indicated the possibility of two killers acting together.
On October 19, 1995, after a week-long nationwide hunt, police shot and
wounded Moses Sithole, an ax-wielding ex-convict with six aliases. On
February 6, 1996, Sithole appeared in court and was charged with the murder
and sexual assault of 31 women. In 1995 police arrested David Selepe and
charged him with the murders of 11 black women who were found in a mine
dump in Cleveland. Selepe was shot and killed by police when he tried to
escape while visiting the crime scene. It is believed that both men acted
together in at least the Cleveland killings. Their reign of terror started
in 1995 and was centered around black townships near Pretoria and
Johannesburg. One or both of these men is also believed to be the
"Atteridgeville Strangler" who is responsible for the deaths of
15 women and a boy around Pretoria.
Donald Harvey (34+) The most prolific killer nurse of
the trade. Donny, when he was not offing his patients, would hang out in
the morgue and study tissue samples for fun. This nurse from hell was an
amateur Satanist and would joke with the hospital staff about "getting
rid of patients." Little did they know, he wasn't kidding.
He murdered with abandon from the early seventies to 1987 when he was
finally caught. He claimed that his killings were "mercy"
killings even though he sometimes chose horrible substances to bring on
death. He also did not limit his work to those hospitalized. He killed a
neighbor out of spite by lacing her drink with hepatitis. He would also
poison his male lover and then nurse him back to health to win his
affection. On another occasion he poisoned his lover's family, killing the
mother. He was convicted of thirty-four deaths but it is believed that he
actually tallied eighty-seven kills.
"Twin Cities Killer" (34) No one wants
to admit it but evidence points to the existence of one or several serial
killers working the streets of Minneapolis and St. Paul. From 1986 to 1994
there have been 34 corpses littering the streets of the Twin Cities. Most
of them were prostitutes in their twenties and thirties. Several were
mutilated, dismembered, and sometimes even decapitated.
Local prostitutes have suspected the existence of a serial killer preying
on them for quite some time. Police have not been as ready to sound the
alarm. Three scenarios have been posited to explain the growing list of
dead. One: there is a number of serial killers preying on Twin Cities
women. Two: there is one or more serial killers and several murderers who
have killed once or twice. Three: there is a number of nonserial killers
hunting Twin Cities prostitutes. Whatever the case, 34 unresolved killings should not go unnoticed.
John Wayne Gacy (33) Straight out
of the he's-such-a-nice-guy file, Johnny liked to dress in a homemade Pogo
the Clown outfit to entertain kids. This lonely and sadistic contractor
also liked to entertain young boys privately in a very different fashion.
The prototypical organized killer, he had all aspects of the murder worked
out before each kill. Once he entered his murderous fantasy, there was no
turning back.
He enjoyed handcuffing his victims, anally raping them, beating them to a
pulp, offering to make peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, reciting verses
from the Bible and strangling them to death. In 1978 he was tracked down by
the police in Chicago. Thirty bodies were found buried in the crawl space
underneath his house, explaining his wife's complaints about the constant
stench. As a prisoner, Johnny Boy started a new career as an
artist, painting mostly colorful clown pictures, which have been shown in
galleries nationwide. He was executed by lethal injection in 1994.
Vasili Komaroff (33) Vasili, a horse-trader during the
early days of Stalin, was known as "The Wolf of Moscow" for his
reign of terror. A peasant, Vasili mainly killed for money. His first
victim was uncovered in 1921. Many others followed with frightful
regularity. There were 21 in all: strangled, bound, doubled-over and dumped in
vacant lots around the Shabolovki District. Authorities linked the killings to the
horse-trading market that happened every Wednesdays and
Fridays were they became aware of Vasili's strange activities. Anyone who left with him to see his horses never came back. When
police went to his home for questioning they found a body stuffed in a sack
in the stable. "The Wolf" jumped out the window and escaped for a
few days.
When he was picked up again, he confessed to the tune of 33 killings, 11 of
which had not been discovered. Over the next few days he uncovered five new
corpses for the authorities. The other six victims he dumped in the river
and their bodies were never recovered. He also implicated his wife Sofia as
an accomplice. They were both found guilty of multiple homicides and
sentenced to death. On June 18, 1923, they went to the "big horse-show
in the sky" via firing squad.
John Gerard Schaefer (30+) This homicidal Broward
County, Florida, ex-policeman, though convicted in 1973 of only two
mutilation murders, is believed to be responsible for at least thirty
killings. A sadistic sex-beast by nature, Schaefer would lure young women
off the roads with the help of his badge to rape, torture, mutilate and
murder. He enjoyed tying his victims to trees and leaving them there while
he went to work as a police officer. Teeth, jewelry and clothing from
several missing girls and young women were found in a trunk in his mother's
attic. He once gave his wife a suede purse that belonged to one of his
victims. When he was convicted for first degree murder of two teenage girls,
Schaefer's wife divorced him and became engaged to his defense
attorney. Not the resentful type, Gerard give the lovebirds his blessing and retained the attorney to continue
handling his appeals.
Gerard also considered himself a bit of a novelist, publishing while in
prison a collection of lurid tales of sex and gore that he marketed as a
mail-order book called Killer Fiction. Oddly, Sondra London, an old
high school girlfriend who helped Gerard with his writings, subsequently
became engaged to Danny Rolling, another sadistic
killer awaiting execution for killing five students in Gainsville, Florida. On
December 3, 1995, Gerard was found dead in his cell at the Florida State
Prison in Starke. He had been stabbed numerous times around one eye and
slashed across his throat. His sister, Sarah Schaefer, claimed that her
brother was murdered because of information he had obtained on the murder
of Adam Walsh, the 6-year-old Hollywood, Florida, boy whose abduction and
murder led to the passing of new legislation nationwide regarding missing children. It is supected that he was killed by his jailhouse friend, Ottis
Toole, a serial killer and cannibal who once claimed he killed young Adam but later recanted.
Authorities believe Gerard's death was linked to money he collected for his
activities as a jailhouse lawyer. Another report states that Gerard died after getting into a fight with another inmate over who used the last of the hot water.
Micajah & Wiley Harpe (30+) Brothers Big and Little
Harp have been credited by historian Paul I. Wellman with
30+ murders in Kentucky and Tennessee in the 1790's. The wondering type, they enjoyed killing on whim. Once Big Harpe
quieted a crying baby by bashing its skull in. Many victims were disposed by
cutting their abdomen open, stuffing stones within, and then dumping them in the nearest river.
They used a more dramatic methods of killing when
they temporarily joined Sam Mason's river pirates. After the gang had
taken a man prisoner, the Harpes bound him naked to the back of a horse
and goaded it to run over a cliff into the Ohio River. Though
the river pirates had a reputation for being hard cases, this was too
much for them and the Harpes were sent packing. Shortly after that a
posse of citizens caught up with Big Harpe and mounted his severed head
on a tree. Little Harpe, not as psychotic as his brother, met an
uncertain fate, possibly being killed in a riverboat fight.
Patrick W. Kearney (28+) The top
ranked Californian freeway killer. A fastidiously neat and organized
murderer, Pat left his dismembered victims neatly wrapped in trash bags
along the Californian highways. Kearney and his live-in lover, David D.
Hill, both army veterans, lived in a meticulously clean bachelor pad in
Redondo Beach from where they started their homicidal escapades. The
"Trash Bag Murders," as they were known, started in 1975 and
ended on July 5, 1977, when the couple walked into the Sheriff's Information
Center in Riverside, saw a wanted poster of themselves and surrendered.
Hill was subsequently released for lack of evidence. Kearney shouldered the
guilt and confessed that killing "excited him and gave him a feeling
of dominance."
Wayne Williams (28) Suspected of being the Atlanta
Child Murderer, Wayne killed mostly young, black boys and dumped their
bodies in the Chattahoochee River. He was caught when he departed from his
modus operandi and smoked a couple of adults. After his arrest the killings
ceased. Police say the evidence against him was flawed and believe the case
should be reopened. Wiliams' lawyer claimed a Klansman named Charles
Sanders confessed to helping the KKK kidnap and murder twenty-one black
youths. Allegedly, this evidence was suppressed to avoid a race
war. Nevertheless, Wayne still remains in jail.
Fritz Haarmann (27+) Born in 1879,
this perverted German pederast and his lover, Hans Grans, stalked the train
stations of post-WWI Hannover searching for young boys. Always the
enterprising killers, they would sell the flesh and clothing of their
victims for fun and profit. Their deadly trade was first discovered in 1924
when bones from twenty-seven bodies were dredged out of the Leine River. A
coat from one of the missing boys was traced back to the murderous love
birds. Once in custody, Fritz started confessing. Haarmann enjoyed the
attention he received during the trial and boasted of having killed up to
forty people. He was decapitated on April 15, 1925. His lover Grans, who
was not involved in the killings, received a twelve year sentence for
selling stolen merchandise.
Dean Corll (27) Born on Christmas Eve, 1939, this
Texan maniac enjoyed killing young boys in the comfort of his own home.
Dean, also known as "The Candyman," would invite kids into his
house to sniff glue and then, when they passed out, he would slip on the handcuffs and
party in their butts all night long before snapping their life away. Not the shy type, Dean enjoyed
biting his victim's dicks off and kept a collection of them in a bag. In August 1973, one of his teenage helpers, Elmer
Wayne Henley, shot and killed the portly psychopath after saying he would
help him snatch more youngsters. Police found seventeen bodies under the
floor of a boat house Dean rented as well as the bag full of severed
genitalia.
Bruce Lee (26) Not to be confused with the martial
arts legend, but instead a deformed epileptic pyromaniac who legally
changed his name in honor of his Kung-Fu-fighting hero. This British
arsonist once torched an old man after arguing with him over what to feed
the pigeons. He killed eleven more people when he set an old age home
ablaze. In 1980 British police arrested him in a public bathroom frequented
by gay men while he was looking for a blow job. He confessed to all his crimes and is now
locked up in an insane asylum practicing his Kung-Fu kicks.
Leonard Lake & Charles Ng (25+) This pair of survivalists from
hell built a torture chamber and snuff film parlor in a remote Northern
California ranch. Leonard was preparing for what he called "Operation
Miranda," which would be enacted immediately after the WWIII radioactive
dust settled. He was building a system of underground bunkers where
mindless female slaves would cater to every one of his needs. (It's
reassuring to know that even sadists plan to survive the apocalypse.)
In 1985, Lake swallowed a cyanide pill after he was arrested for a bungled
shoplifting attempt. When police reached Lake's ranch they uncovered a
"truckload of bones," and a body stuffed into a sleeping bag. They also found videotapes
and photos documenting their reign of terror. Ng, the only known serial
killer with no vowels in his last name, escaped to Canada where he was
later arrested for another bungled shoplifting attempt. In 1991, fter fighting
extradition for six years, he was returned to California where he
is charged with conspiring in the sadistic killings of 12 people.
Juan Corona (25) Corona, a Mexican labor contractor
in Northern California, was charged with hacking twenty-five men to death.
His handiwork was uncovered in 1971 in a peach orchard near his home. Most
of the victims were drunken transients and migrant workers who no one
missed. The killings bore signs of homosexual assaults, which lead people to
believe that the killer could be Juan's openly gay brother. Corona, a burly
father of four, was linked to the murders through a couple of receipts
found in the clothing of two of the dead. While in prison, Juan lost an eye
when he was attacked by four inmates.
Marcel Petiot (24+) While in medical school Marcel was already
considered a thief. As a young doctor he was no better. It is believed that
he killed three of his patients in Villanueve, France. Forced to leave the
area, he moved to Paris where he continued his career as a swindler and a
crook. During WW2, Doctor Petiot saw a golden opportunity to make lots of
money. He bought a house in Rue Lesueur and customized it to become a
sound-proof killing machine. There he killed up to 63 people, mostly Jews
and others trying to escape the Nazis. The crafty Doctor told his
victims that he was a member of the French Resistance and was able to
arrange for their safe passage to South America for a steep fee. After
receiving the money the doctor gave his victims a lethal
injection saying it was a "vaccination" against foreign diseases.
He would then lead them to a sound-proof room where he told them to wait for their Resistence escort. By then the poison would take over, the good doctor
enjoyed watching their deaths through specially buit peep-holes.
A thorough annihilator, he would mutilate the corpses and drop them into a lime pit. Later he started
incinerating his ever increasing pile of dead. In early 1944 he was arrested and held briefly when he choked the neighborhood with the fetid smell of burning corpses coming from his incinerator. Policemen called to the scene found 27 mutilated bodies in the basement which, he said, were Nazis killed by the
Resistance. Claiming to merely be doing his patriotic duty he convinced the cops to let him go. Free again, Marcel promptly disappeared.
After the war Parisians still remembered the stacks of bodies found in the
Doctor's home. A newspaper accused Petiot of being a Nazi sympathizer and that the dead were patriots killed for the Gestapo. Wanting to clear his name
the doctor sent a letter to the papers claiming that the Nazis had set him
up and planted the bodies in his basement.
He was arrested again in October 1944 and charged with 24 murders. During his trial he claimed to have
killed up to 63 enemies of France. No one believed his ties
to the Resistance. He was found guilty on all counts and sentenced
to death. The deadly doctor was guillotined on
May 26,1946. It is widely believed that Marcel killed many more and dumped corpses into the Seine. Authorities believe that Petiot was also responsible for several dismembered bodies
found in Bois de Boulogne near Paris in 1942.
Helene Jegado (23+) Born in Brittany, France, in 1803,
Helene once complained, "Wherever I go, people died." Sure they
did. Because she enjoyed poisoning them. As a teenager, she started her
career as a domestic and started experimenting with
poison. Eventually she wiped out the family of seven for whom she was working. Most of her subsequent employers suffered the same fate. Curiously, no one suspected her of any wrongdoing because of her pious demeanor.
In 1831, after killing one too many families and fearing arrest, she joined a nunnery and took her vows. There she
was suspected of offing several sisters before renouncing God and returning to her job as a
domestic. As before, people started dying in her wake. Strangely she
kept getting hired for new jobs.
She laid off the arsenic between 1841 to 1849 but then started dipping into it again. After two deaths in the household
where she was working police started suspecting her after her overtly
defensive manner during a routine questioning. Furthermore, traces of arsenic were
found in the bodies of the most recent victims as well as many of her
former employers. However, Helene never admitted her guilt,
In 1851 she was guillotined just the same for her wave of terror.
Ted Bundy (22+) The Picasso of the
serial killing community. Ted was handsome, charming, intelligent,
self-assured, with a brilliant future, and deadlier than a rattlesnake.
Using his good looks, he was able to invisibly abduct and kill his victims and continue with his seemingly charmed life. This law
student and Young Republican liked to wear an arm sling to appear
vulnerable and get women to help him with his groceries. Once he lured his victims to the door of his car he would bludgeon them and take them away to privately enjoy their death. He favored
killing pretty, dark-haired cheerleader types. He would attack his prey
with blunt objects and was fond of raping and biting them. The
bite marks on one of his victims were used as evidence against him at his
trial in Florida.
In December 30, 1977, after a previous failed attempt, Ted escaped from a prison
in Colorado and relocated in Tallahassee, Florida, near Florida State
University. There he perpetrated his blood-soaked "Guernica" of
crime. In January 15, 1978, he set forth on a night of butchery and killed
two girls and wounded two others in and around the Chi Omega sorority house
in Tallahassee. Two weeks later he stole a van and killed 12-year-old
Kimberly Leach in Lake City, Florida, for which, eventually, he was fried.
Poor Kimberly's body was found in a pig trough next to a plaid jacket that
was not Ted's. She was buried in a cemetery near a Purina plant under a
heart-shaped tombstone with her picture on it.
Ted defended himself in trials in Utah, Colorado and Florida as the police
tried to put together a trail of dead girls leading to him. During his
various trials, a very self-possessed Ted Bundy defended himself garnishing
praise and a legion of female admirers. After numerous appeals Bundy was
electrocuted by the state of Florida in 1989. For his last meal he had
steak, eggs, hash browns and coffee.
Arnfinn Nesset (22+) The deadliest Norwegian of the
Archives. A balding, mild mannered nursing home administrator, Arnfinn is believed to have slaughtered up to 138 patients over a 20-year nursing career. In
1977 Arnfinn became the director of the Orkdal Valley Nursing Home. As he
took his post, an unusual number of patients started dying.
No one
suspected anything until 1981 when an employee noticed the purchase of a
large amount of curacit, a derivative of the poisonous curare used as a
muscle relaxant.
Police brought Arnfinn, the man in charge of purchasing the curacit, in for
questioning. First he claimed he bought the drug to kill a pack of wild
dogs around the nursing home. Then, inexplicably, he started confessing to
killing 27 patients. At one point he exclaimed "I've killed so many
I'm unable to remember them all." In 1983 the lethal administrator was
convicted of 22 murders. He was handed a 21-year sentence, the maximum
allowed by Norwegian law, which would put him back on the streets by 2004.
Earl Nelson (22+) This Bible quoting drifter killed
mostly the landladies of the boarding houses where he stayed. After killing
them he stuffed their bodies under his bed before going to sleep. He is
known to have committed twenty-two murders and was suspected of at least
three more. He was captured and hanged in Canada in 1928.
Norman Afzal Simons (22) Norm is believed to be South
Africa's "Station Strangler." He is presently serving a 25-year sentence for the 1994 murder of 10-year-old Elroy van Rooyen. Since 1986 South
African authorities have been stumped by the growing body count of young
boys of mixed race appearing dead around Cape Town. At one point they asked for help
from the Interpol and the FBI. Robert Ressler, the retired FBI expert who
coined the term serial killer was called in to develop a
psychological profile of the killer. With Ressler's profile in hand
authorities believe they have nabbed their suspect. Police think Simons is
the "Station Strangler," South Africa's most notorious serial
killer. I an eight-year murder spree, the "Strangler" is believed to have killed 21 boys and a young man, all of mixed-race.
His moniker comes from having found many of his victims
in train stations. Most were later found in shallow graves around Cape
Town after being sodomized and strangled. One body was found with a note
that read: "One more, many more in store." Elroy, his final
victim, was last seen boarding a train with Simons at Cape Town's Strand
train station. His body was found 10 days later with his hands tied behind
his back. According to police, Simons claimed his brother, who was murdered
in 1991, was living inside him. He also started hearing voices after his brother sodomized
him that ordered him to kill.
Coral Eugene Watts (22) Coral Eugene might have had an
IQ of seventy-five, but he sure knew how to use a knife. Another one from
the I-hate-vaginas school of thinking. He enjoyed killing women on Sunday
morning before going to church. Once he told a psychiatrist that women were
evil and should be exterminated. It seems he practiced what he preached.
Carl Panzram (21) Not from the Mister-Nice-Guy file. The most unrepentant killer of them all. Carl started his
criminal career by getting arrested at age eight for drunk and disorderly
behavior. It was downhill ever since. His killing spree spanned two
continents. While in Africa he hired eight blacks to help him hunt
crocodiles. Instead, he killed his hired hands, sodomized their corpses and
fed them to the hungry reptiles. He boasted of committing thousands of
robberies, larcenies, arsons and having sodomized a thousand men. He was
hanged in 1930 for killing the laundry foreman in prison. Even when he was
at the scaffold he meanly snapped at the executioner, "Hurry it up,
you bastard. I could hang a dozen men while you're fooling
around."
Martha Beck & Raymond Fernandez (12+)
Known in the late 40s as the "Lonely-Hearts Killers" for
their lethal swindling of lovelorn widows answering personal adds. Raymond,
although Hawaiian, billed himself as a sexy Latin Lover. Martha, tipping the
scale at a whooping 280 pounds, was no buttercup of love. Strangely, when
they met, it was love at first sight. Maybe it was because their mutual love for swindling and kinky sex. Together, with Martha posing
as Ray's sister, they bilked elderly spinsters and widows of their
savings before murdering them if they offered resistance.
When they were arrested Martha and Ray confessed to 12 killings, though
it's believed the actual number is closer to 20. At their trial they kept
cooing, holding hands and seemed not to be able to get enough of each
other. Their plead of not guilty by reason of insanity was ignored and on
August 22, 1949 the deadly lovers were sentenced to death. After numerous appeals, on March 8, 1951 they were executed side by side in Sing Sing prison.
Bella Kiss (24) A Hungarian serial killer, Bella's
exploits were immortalized in a play by the surrealist poet Antonin Artaud called 23.
In 1912, after Bella moved with his wife to the village of Czinkota, she started having an affair. Soon the lovers disappeared and Bella told neighbors that
they had eloped. The deadly cuckold then started collecting 55-gallon metal
drums. He told the village constable that they were filled with gasoline as
a precaution for the coming war.
In 1914 Bella was drafted into the military and sent to the battlefield. By
1916 news had returned to the village that Bella died in combat. When
soldiers passed through Czinkota looking for fuel, the constable remembered
the drums of gasoline in the Kiss household. When the soldiers opened the
drums they were startled by the discovery of 24 corpses preserved in alcohol. Apparently Bella, calling himself Hoffman, placed personal adds in newspapers describing himself as
a "lonely widower seeking female companionship." Those who
answered were promptly garroted and stuffed into 55-gallon drums. Not suprisingly, two of the corpses found were those of his wife
and her lover.
After the gruesome discovery, authorities traveled to the hospital were Bella
died. There they were told that the Bella that died there was a young man.
Apparently Bella had switched identities with one of the dying on the battlefield and
was able to escape. There have been subsequent sightings of him in
Budapest and persistent rumors have placed him in New York working as a janitor. But in Hungary he is remembered as the one who got away.
Lucian Staniak (20) The most prolific serial killer of
Poland, Lucian started his reign of terror in 1964. A colorful killer, he
left poetic notes commenting on his behavior. He killed his first known
victim during a national holiday and left a note declaring: "I picked
a juicy flower in Olsztyn and I shall do it again somewhere else, for there
is no holiday without a funeral." Over the next three years, this
sexual deviant killed and mutilated at least twenty women. His reign of
terror was finally uncovered when he slaughtered a fellow member of his Art
Lovers Club. His paintings, done mainly in crimson and focusing on scenes
of mutilation, made the police a tad suspicious. Tracing his itinerary for
the past two years police noticed that it matched perfectly with the string
of slayings. After confessing Lucian was sent to an insane asylum in
Katowice where he still does a lot of painting.
Antone Costa (20) This modern day Marquis de Sade and
wannabe flower child left a trail of blood spanning from Provincetown,
Massachusetts, to California. All his victims were women who he befriended
to get high. Then he killed them and enjoyed having sex with their
mutilated corpses. A police psychiatrist diagnosed him as being
schizophrenic. He was found hanged in his prison cell on May 12,
1974.
Larry Eyler (19) A homosexual killer struggling with
life in the closet. Larry took satisfaction wherever he could and then
disposed of the evidence. At one point, as the police investigated him, he
sued them for half a million dollars for "psychological warfare".
At his first trial the evidence against him was found inadmissible and Eyler walked out on bail to carry on with his deadly forays.
Eventually, his arrogance led to his undoing when he dumped the dismembered
body of a male hustler in his garbage. His handiwork got him the death
penalty.
Paul John Knowles (18+) In 1974, after being released
from jail, Knowles was rejected by a woman he met through an astrology
magazine. That sent him on a one-night, three-body killing spree. He soon
left town , leaving a trail of corpses on his wake. He would choose his
victims randomly, entering their homes at gun point. He strangled his prey
and stole their credit cards. Sometimes he would try to rape his victims, but usually
his sword would go blunt before completing the deed. Using a stolen
cassette recorder, he left a taped confession of fourteen murders with his
lawyer and disappeared. He continued on with his deadly ways and eventually
was hunted down by an FBI agent who shot him dead in Georgia.
Mhlengwa Zikode (18) Known as the "Donnybrook Serial Killer," Zikode murdered 18 people and attempted to murder
another 11 over a period of two years in the rural Natal
midlands town of Donnybrook in South Africa. All his victims were between 20 and 30. His modus operandi was to kick open the door of his victims' house,
shoot the men in the head and drag the women to nearby plantations, where
he would rape them repeatedly - sometimes for as long as five hours - and kill them. If they resisted he would shoot them first and commit necrophilia. Sometimes he would attack women from behind in footpaths in the area. Mhlengwa, 21 was arrested on
September 29, 1995 and is presently awaiting trial.
Joel Rifkin (17+) Joel Rifkin of East Meadow, New
York, killed at least seventeen women, mostly prostitutes in the NY area.
He was caught while driving a pickup with no license plates and a three-day
old corpse sitting next to him.
Robert Hansen (17) A model father and a hard-working baker, Bob turned out to be the most active serial killer in Alaskan history. From 1973 to
1983, this expert pilot and avid hunter would fly hookers and topless
dancers to his remote cabin hideaway in the Alaskan wilderness for rape and
murder. After repeatedly sexually abusing his hapless victims he
would set them free in the freezing woods and hunt them down with his
high-powered hunting rifle.
Bobby had a long police record starting in Iowa
as a teen arsonist. While living in Alaska he had several run-ins with the law involving larceny,
assault with a deadly weapon, rape and kidnapping. However, he managed to get
away with serving hardly any time for his crimes and lived a normal life as
a married man and a hard working and respected member of the community.
Authorities first suspected Bob of being a serial killer when a lucky prostitute dashed naked from his plane to escape certain death. While investigating the incident they discovered several other "women of the night" who had simmilar experiences with him. Soon Anchorage police started piecing together a picture of their prominent baker as a manic-depressive arsonist, kleptomaniac, rapist and possible serial
killer.
When authorities first searched his home they found 30 hidden weapons as well as mementos and maps marking the location of the graves of his victims. Eventually Bob confessed to 17 killings which he referred to as his "summertime project." Profoundly moral, Bob hoped to forcefully teach his prey a lesson for their whoring and stripping ways. Under heavy guard Hansen was flown by helicopter to the Knik River in the Alaskan wilderness where he pinpointed with great accuracy the location of several graves. In 1984 Bob was handed a sentence of life plus 461 years which he is now serving in Spring Creek Correction
Facility in Seward, Alaska.
. There he hopes to "become a writer." Eventually, he says, "I'll write my own story." Two publishing houses have already offered him a contract.
Jeffrey Dahmer (17) The founding father of
Cannibals Anonymous. As a kid, Jeff liked to torture and kill little
animals. As an adult he did the same with humans. This Milwaukee chocolate
factory worker lured gay, black men to his apartment with the promise of sex and drugs and instead killed them
and had them for dinner.
Once his victims were dead, Jeff came to life. He enjoyed sex with corpses
and was conscientious enough to always wear a condom. Sex with live beings
was not as good, he said, because they could get up and leave at any
minute. He also enjoyed mutilation and experimented with different ways of
disposing of his victims. He once tried to turn one of his victims
into a zombie by performing a homemade lobotomy on the man by drilling into his brain and pouring acid
into the holes.
When captured, police found three dissolving bodies in 55-gallon
acid vats in his bedroom. They also found four severed heads, seven skulls,
skeletons in his closet and a penis in a lobster pot. Curiously, he had no food in the
fridge, only condiments. In the freezer he had a heart stashed "to eat
later." Although he enjoyed munching his loved ones, at the time of
his arrest he was rail thin. In jail authorities managed to fatten him
up. Jeff met his end when he was viciously attacked by Christopher Scarver, a convicted killer on antispychotic medication, while
mopping the bathroom floor in maximum security. The lethargic cannibal died with
a mop handle sticking out of his eye socket. At his mother's request, his
brain was preserved in formaldehyde for future study.
A year after his death his parents began battling over the killer's preserved
brain. On December 12, 1995, this absurdist saga came to an end when a judge ruled in favor of his father who wanted to honor his son's request of being cremated. The last chapter of the Dahmer postmortem involved his personal belongings. A lawyer representing the families of some of his victims planned to auction Dahmer's possesions to raise money for his clients. The city of Milwaukee was outraged by the idea. As of May 29, 1996, Thomas Jacobson, the lawyer representing eight of the 11 families announced that Jeff's estate would be going to the incinerator instead of the auction block after a civic group, fearing bad publicity for their fair city, pledged to pay $407,225 for the famed cannibal's household items.
Richard Ramirez (16+) A Los Angeles transient
known as the Night Stalker, Rich was captured in Boyle Heights, a Latino
neighborhood, by an angry mob after he attempted a carjacking. His good
looks made him a crowd favorite. His Metalhead-gone-Satanist image made him
a cult figure. Like Manson, he is
an unrepentant photo-opportunity-type killer with a bevy of female
followers.
He enjoyed breaking into houses and calmly killing, raping and partying all
night long. He would smoke big, fat joints of sinsemilla as he strolled
around his victim's homes playing his AC/DC tapes, spraying satanic slogans
on the wall and raiding the fridge. Once he took out the eyes of a woman
with a spoon and mailed them back to the crime scene the next day. While in
jail he fixed his teeth and tattooed
a pentagram on the palm of his hand to flash during court appearances.
After getting the death penalty, as he was lead out of court, he exclaimed
"See you in Disneyland!"
Randy Kraft (16+) Another in the tradition of
California freeway killer. Randy, a graduate of the prestigious Claremont
Men's College, liked to pick up young men, especially marines, drug them
and strangle them. On May 14, 1983, a highway patrolman stopped Kraft for
suspected drunk driving and noticed the dead marine sitting next to him.
Randy was a "score-card killer," that is, he kept a coded
notebook with a tally of all his kills. Police linked him to sixty-two
deaths spanning three states, but only sixteen have been proven
conclusively.
"El Depredador Psicópata" (16) Since August, 1995, Mexican Federales have been baffled by the growing number of girls and young women appearing dead in the outskirts of Ciudad Juarez. Most victims are dark haired and between 14 and 18. The preferred method of killing is strangulation. Ocassionally the victims are raped, sometimes they are raped postmortem. All indications point to a violent sexual predator on the loose.
The initial victims of the crime spree were attributed to an Egyptian national, Abel Latif Sharif who, in custody, confessed to five of the killings. Since his arrest the slaughter seems to have picked up pace bringing the total to 16. At first police suspected a rash of copycat killings. Some believe that the Egyptian was part of a group of sexual psychopaths stalking the city. Sharif claims that many of the killings were perpetrated by a deadly gang of "coyotes" operating near the U.S./Mexican border.
Dennis Nilsen (16) The British Jeffrey Dahmer. This alcoholic homosexual could not come
to grips with life in the closet and resorted to murder and necrophilia. He
would lure young men to his apartment, render them unconscious with liquor
and strangle them to death. He liked to stash their bodies under the floor
boards. Occasionally he would take one out, bathe and dress it, and pretend
to have a date. He would lay the corpse next to him in bed and masturbate.
Then, return it to the floor boards. Like Dahmer, he killed out of
loneliness. He enjoyed small talk with his friends the cadavers. He kept an
assortment of body parts around the house as company. In 1983 he was
discovered when he tried to flush human remains down the toilet, clogged
the plumbing and complained about the blocked drains.
Elias Xitavhudzi (16) The second in a long tradition of serial slayers in the township of Atteridgeville, South Africa. In the 1960s Elias Xitavhudzi, known as "Pangaman", murdered 16 white women and dumped their bodies around Atteridgeville.
William Burke & William Hare (16)
Possibly two of Scotland's most gruesome imports were the serial killers
William Burke and William Hare. Burke and Hare hailed from Ulster and moved
to Scotland to work as labourers on the Union Canal. Ever aware of needs of the market, Burke and Hare set themselves up as procurers of human bodies to
satisfy the demand of Edinburgh's medical schools.
Originally the two would dig up the graves of the recently departed in the
dead of night, steal the body and then sell it for cash to a doctor for use
during anatomy demonstrations. Tired of digging, the two entrepreneurs started murdering people in Edinburghs old
town and selling their cadavers on an
"ask no questions basis." They killed their victims by strangling them using a method they
had perfected which left no obvious trace of foul play and little evidence
of the murder.
The murder of their 16th victim led to their arrest. Burke's
mistress and Hare's wife were also arrested. Because the courts had little evidence to prosecute them successfully, the Lord Advocate, Sir William Rae,
offered Hare immunity from prosecution if he would turn King's evidence.
The evidence Hare and his wife provided sent Burke to his death on the
gallows on 28 January, 1829 while his mistress Helen MacDougall escaped
when the charges against her were found not proven.
William Hare is said to have died a penniless pauper in London in 1859. Robert Knox - the doctor who bought most of Burke and Hare's bodies
so willingly - was never prosecuted.
Albert Fish (15) Meet the patron saint
of sadomasochism. Albert Fish, the granddaddy of the deranged, enjoyed
implanting needles in his genitalia, stuffing his asshole with flaming
alcohol balls, eating shit, killing children and making stews out of their
remains. The father of six, Albert lost it after his wife left him for another
man. Despondent Al asked his kids to beat him with a nail-studded paddle
until he bled. He thought that he was Christ and that God had ordered him
to castrate boys. Good Al did was he was told, and enjoyed it thoroughly. This dirty old man from hell was in the habit of molesting and killing children
of both sexes.
He was arrested after sending a letter to the parents of one of his victims, Gracie Budd, describing what a delight it had been eating her. He was sentenced to die in Sing Sing in 1936. He said, "What a thrill
that will be if I have to die in the electric chair. It will be the supreme
thrill, the only one I haven't tried." He happily helped his
executioners with the electrodes and died a happy man. Legend says the chair short-circuited at first because of the twenty needles implanted in his genitalia, which is a fascinating, but untrue.
Joseph P. Franklin (15) A former Klansman and
neo-Nazi, Franklin was the embodiment of absolute bigotry. He believed that
interracial marriages where a sin against God and took it upon himself to
punish the guilty. He enjoyed sniper attacks and killed for sport. Once, he
killed two black men and a white woman who were jogging together. He is also
suspected of having shot and crippled Larry Flynt, the publisher of
Husler magazine and pillar of the First Amendment, because he regularly featured pictorials of
interracial couples getting it on.
Elifasi Msomi (15)
Known as South Africa's "Axe Killer", Elifasi Msomi, was hanged
in Pretoria in January 1956 after being convicted of hacking 15 people to
death.
Msomi blamed his victims' deaths on the "tokoloshe" which, he said, would
appear on his shoulder and order him to kill. He killed mostly in the Unkomaas and Umzimkuku valleys in
Natal. Posing as a doctor, Elifasi charmed his victims into
willingly going off with him. At his trial, two leading psychologists told
the court that Msomi was of way above average intelligence and derived sexual
pleasure from inflicting pain on others.
"The Monster of Florence"
(14+) This Eurotrash psychopath has tallied 14 grisly sexual
murders between 1974 and 1985. All killings happened in the outskirts of
Florence All but two of the victims were courting couples. Four were
foreigners. Most female victims were also sexually mutilated. Once the
killer mockingly sent police a portion of the female genitalia from one of
his mutilated victims. This pattern of murder mutilations was repeated with
frightening regularity to the tune of 14 dead baffling Italian authorities
over an eleven year period.
Police have questioned more than 100,000 people and charged seven men with
being the elusive killer. The latest accused, Pietro Pacciani, a
71-year-old farm hand, was arrested on January 17, 1993, and was convicted
of the seven grisly double murders in November, 1994. Pacciani, who has
always maintained that he was "as innocent as Christ on the cross," was set
free on February 13, 1996, when an appeals court overturned his conviction.
The 71-year-old grandfather was cleared "of all crimes of which he was
convicted in the first instance on the grounds that he did not commit
them." -- a ruling which came one week after a public prosecutor
testified that the evidence against the old grandfather was unsound.
Curiously, the decision to clear Pacciani came hours after the arrest of an
alleged accomplice in one of the double murders. Mario Vanni, a friend of
Pietro and former postman (showing that lethal postal workers are not
singularly American), was arrested in connection with the murders of a French
couple in 1985 that were camping in the woods outside the Tuscan capital.
William Bonin (14+) This Downey,
California, truck driver became known as the "The Freeway Killer"
for his rape and murder spree during the late seventies. A sadistic Vietnam vet, Billy boy liked to pick up male, teenage hitchhikers to rape
and strangle along the freeways of Southern California. Like most serial
killers, Bonin was the product of an abusive childhood in the hands of his
alcoholic father and was thought to have been repeatedly sexually assaulted
by his maternal grandfather. He also had brain damage in areas thought to
restrain violent impulses and was manic-depressive.
After spending most of the seventies behind bars for sex attacks on young
men, Willie was paroled in 1978. He moved back to Southern California where
he got a job as a trucker for Dependable Driveaway in Montebello. A year
later, his sexual lust turned deadly. Although he used various methods to
kill, he enjoyed most strangling his prey with their own T-shirts and a
tire iron. William, not being particularly bright, boasted of his killings
and kept his collection of newspaper clippings in his glove compartment.
Billy boy liked killing so much, he brought along his buddies to share the
fun. Vernon Butts, an accomplice in at least five killings, chose to hang
himself after being arrested.
Although only convicted of 14 murders, Billy confessed to killing 21 young
men. In 1982 he was sentenced to death for 10 murders in Los Angeles. A year
later he was sentenced to death again for 4 additional murders in Orange
County.
On February 23, 1996, sixteen years after his deadly rampage,
William became the first man executed by lethal injection in California.
While awaiting death in San Quentin, Bonin enjoyed playing bridge with fellow
serial killers, Doug Clark, Lawrence Bittaker and Randy Kraft
who combined have killed at least 49 people. Billy's last meal consisted of
two pepperoni and sausage pizzas, three coffee ice-creams and fifteen cans
of coke. The 49-year-old killer ate in silence while watching
"Jeopardy" on TV before meeting with the prison chaplain. At
12:00 AM he took 13 steps into the death chamber where at 12:08 he was
injected with sodium pentothal, pancuronium bromide and potassium chloride.
By 12:13 he was declared dead. Sadly for the victims' families, Bonin never
did repent for his murderous frenzy.
Posthumously, it was discovered that Billy had illegally received nearly
$80,000 in Social Security disability benefits while on Death Row. He
started receiving benefit payments for a mental disability in 1972. The
payments should have ended in 1982 when he went to prison, but they
continued. The money kept flowing until after his execution when the
funeral director sent paperwork notifying the Social Security
Administration of Bonin's death. As of March 1996, his family agreed to
repay the money to the state.
Donald Leroy Evans (14+) Don, an army
veteran, drug addict and drifter from Watervliet, Michigan, is another
serial killer with a hefty ego and a taste for blood. A convicted rapist,
he was arrested in Louisiana in 1991 where he confessed to the kidnapping
and murder of a ten-year-old girl in Gulfport, Mississippi. But that wasn't
all he wanted to confess. Donny kept on confessing and confessing to the
tune of more than eighty kills. What he revealed to authorities was a
ten-year killing rampage spanning ten states. Now there is a nationwide
probe to determine the validity of Donny's claims. Presently no bodies have been
uncovered. He was found guilty of the Gulfport killing and is about to be found
guilty of killing a prostitute in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
There are twelve other cases in which he is strongly suspected but for
which he might never be tried. His other confessed killings remain unproved
and, for the most part, have not been investigated. Evans became a local
talk-radio phenomenon in Florida when he became a white supremacist, shaved
his head, began calling himself "Hi Hitler." He spent two weeks
on a talk show extolling the pleasures of murdering the black hooker in Florida.
Belle Gunness (14+)A deadly gold digger, Belle lured
wealthy Chicago men to her house with classified adds. There she would rob
and kill them with the help of Ray Lamphere. The original Lady Bluebeard,
Belle's criminal career started with the accidental deaths of her first two
husbands and two of her children. Coincidentally, with each death she
collected insurance money which kept her afloat until her next rash of bad
luck.
After settling in La Porte, Indiana, she started her deadly
"lonely-hearts" venture. On April 28, 1908, her house was leveled
by fire. Ray, her farm hand and presumed lover, was arrested and accused of
arson and the murder of Belle and her children. Ray said that the female
body found in the embers was not Belle. The body was missing a skull but
next to it they found Belle's dentures. Apparently she had faked her own
death and escaped with a bag full of money. As investigators started
digging up the ranch they found plenty of human bones and dismembered
bodies wrapped in gunny sacks and doused with lye. Many of Belle's suitors
had been fed to the pigs accounting for the numerous bone fragments found
in and around the pig pen. Estimates of her murderous habits put her at
fifty to a hundred hits. We've chosen to count only her proven kills. After
disappearing, Belle was spotted many times throughout the country.
Authorities believe that she was last seen in a bordello in Ohio in 1935.
Joe Ball (14+)
In the 1930s, Joe ran a roadside Texan honky-tonk called The Sociable Inn.
The central attraction was a pit of frenzied alligators who were fed
domestic animals to everyone's delight. In the off hours Joe also fed about
a dozen waitresses and two ex-wives to the hungry gators. By 1937
authorities were suspicious of the many disappearances linked to Joe's
honky-tonk. On September 24, 1938, when police came to investigate the
gator pit's meat barrel, Joe put a bullet through his brain. Later a
handyman and a neighbor said they saw Joe feeding female body parts to the
gators but they remained quiet because Joe threatened to kill them.
Robert Joseph Silveria (14+)
Suspected of being the "Boxcar Murderer", Bob was part of the
Freight Train Riders of America, a boxcar gang that preys upon fellow
rail-riding hobos. Arrested in March, 1995, in a rail yard near Sacramento,
California, he was charged with the murder of transient William Pettit,
found dead in a boxcar in Northern California. Silveria has also been
linked to 13 other boxcar murders in Oregon, Utah, California, Arizona,
Kansas and Washington state spanning from 1981 to 1995. The victims, mostly
drifters, were stabbed or bludgeoned to death and robbed of their meager
possessions. While in custody Bobbie claimed all his kills were gang
related hits. Having betrayed his secret boxcar brotherhood by talking of
the murders, Silveria believes they will have him executed.
Marcelo Costa de Andrade (14)
This mama's boy and religious psychopath of inoffensive appearance is Brazil's most famous serial killer. The son of poor migrants
from the Northeast, Marcelo grew up in the Rocinha
Slum in Rio de Janeiro. He lived without running water and was beaten with regularity by his grandfather, his stepfather and his stepmother. When he was 10 he was sexually abused.
At 14 he began to prostitute himself for a living. He
was sent to a reform school, but escaped. Still hustling at 16, he began a long
lasting homosexual relationship with an older man. At 17 he
tried to rape his 10-year-old brother.
When he was 23 his lover left him and he moved in with
his mother and brothers in Itaborai,
another slum on the other side of the polluted Guanabara Bay. There he found a
a low-paying job distributing flyers for a shop in the district of Copacabana. He also joined the Universal Church of
the Kingdom of God and started going to church four times a week. Despite some
idiosyncrasies and his odd and incoherent laughter, his life seemed
normal. That is, until April 1991, when he started to kill.
Over a nine-month period Marcelo tallied 14 deaths. His victims of choice were poor street urchins whom he attracted to
deserted areas, to rape and strangle. He also practiced necrophilia, decapitated one of the boys, crushed the head of another, and,
on two occasions, drank their blood. Later he confessed his vampiric thirst was merely "to become as beautiful
as them."
Violence in Rio
is common and the daily body count is so high that authorities never suspected the growing number of disappearing street urchins to be the handywork of a serial killer. Usually they are the victims of choice for warped vigilante groups trying to clean up the streets. Quite the humanitarian Andrade later confessed, "I preferred young boys because they are better
looking and have soft skin. And the priest said that children
automatically go to heaven if they die before they're thirteen. So
I know I did them a favor by sending them to heaven."
In December of 1991 his killing spree came to an end when he "fell in love" with ten-year-old Altair de
Abreu and spared his life. Marcello met the young beggar and his six-year-old brother Ivan in the Niteroi bus terminal. He offered them money to help him light candles for a saint in Saint George's church. The lucky survivor later told police, "We were heading for a church, but as we crossed a vacant lot,
Marcelo suddenly turned on Ivan and started strangling him. I was so paralyzed by fear I could not run away. I watched in
horror, tears streaming down my cheeks, as he killed and then raped
my brother. When he was finished with Ivan, he turned to me, hugged me, and said
he loved me."
Then he asked Altair to live with him. Scared to death, the boy agreed to spend the night with Marcelo in the bushes.
The next morning, the lovestruck killer took Altair to work with him. When they arrived the office was closed. While they waited for the office to open, the terrified youngster was able to escape. He hitchhiked his way back home and told
his mother that he had lost his brother. A few days later, pressed by his sister, the boy told
the truth. In the meantime Marcelo, a truly considerate killer, had returned to the crime
scene to tuck the hands of his victim inside his shorts, "so
that the rats couldn't gnaw the fingers."
When young Ivan's family went to the police, Marcelo, who had
maintained his daily routine, was calmly arrested in the Rio shop where he worked. "I
thought you would come yesterday," he told the arresting officers.
At first, police thought Ivan's murder was an isolated case. However, two months
later Marcelo's dotting mother was called to testify about her son's strange behavior. One night, she said, he left home with a machete "to cut bananas." Apparently he returned the next morning with no bananas. Eventually Marcelo did
confess to 14 killings and led police to the remains of his other victims. As Brazil's star killer, he asked police if anywhere in the world there was a case like his, and stated he killed because: "I liked the boys and I didn't want
them to go to hell."
Joachim Kroll (14)
Randall Woodfield (13+) Randy was
a typical all-American boy with a slight problem... he enjoyed exposing
himself. At first everyone ignored it because he was the star of his high
school football team. In 1973 he was drafted by the Green Bay Packers.
After a few "incidents," the Packers sent him back to Oregon. By
the late seventies Randy became known as the "I-5 Bandit" for
blazing down his favorite highway hell-bent on crime. During the holdups,
he would force cashiers to expose their breasts or perform fellatio on him.
The restless type, he also started a side business as a serial killer.
Randy was questioned by the police after his first kill was discovered. He
was released because his semen did not match the type discovered in the
corpse. Upon release he continued killing in his truly disorganized
fashion. On March 1981 the police took him in again and unraveled his trail
of blood.
William Lester Suff (13+) William Suff is
California's latest serial killer. In 1974 Will and his then wife were
convicted of beating their two-month-old daughter to death. Although he was
sentenced to seventy years in the Big House he was out on parole by 1984.
Too bad for the twelve or more prostitutes he subsequently raped, stabbed,
strangled and sometimes mutilated in Riverside County. His alleged killing
spree started in 1986. On January 9, 1993, he was arrested after a routine
traffic stop.
A Doctor Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde type, Suff worked as a government stock clerk
who helped deliver the furniture for the task force investigating his
killing spree. He liked to impersonate police officers and cooked a mean
chili at office picnics. It is rumored that his sometimes added human flesh to his price wining chili. He was also writing a book about dogs that went
berserk and started killing people. Furthermore, he enjoyed vanity plates
and was an avid volunteer in the county's car-pooling program. All this
perhaps explaining his deadly behavior. On July 19, 1995, Willie was
found guilty of killing 12 prostitutes although police think that he might
be responsible for up to 22 deaths. On November 1995, he was condemned to
death by a jury in Riverside, California. After the trial, the prosecuting Mr DA, Paul
Zellerbach, told the foreman and four other members of the jury that they suspected that Suff
used the breast of one of his victims in his prize winning chili.
Peter Sutcliffe (13+) Between 1975 and 1984 Petie was
known as the "Yorkshire Ripper" as he terrorized hookers around
Northern England with his hammer and other instruments of torture. A former
mortuary worker, Pete spoke with God frequently who ordered him to go out
and hunt prostitutes. A true Christian, Pete did as the Lord said. Luckily,
he also enjoyed the job and would cum as he hammered and stabbed his
victims to death. Police were frustrated with numerous false confessions
they received during their search for him. On January 2, 1981, he was
finally caught sitting in a car with a prostitute. While in custody he
confessed everything. Pete is also suspected of having killed and maimed
several other women in France and Sweden during his travels abroad.
Johannes Mashiane (13) Known as "The Beast of Atteridgeville," this South African, slayer sodomised and killed 12
boys by either strangling or stoning them. In October 1989 the lethal sodomite died when he jumped
under a bus in Marabastad while being chased by police. An
intended 13th victim, who Mashiane had left for dead, survived to tell the
tale. Mashiane committed this spate of serial slaughter after serving a five-year sentence for
killing his girlfriend.
Arthur Shawcross (13) This unrepentant cannibal
munched on two Vietnamese girls during his tour of duty in 'Nam. Art
believed that the spirit of one thirteenth-century cannibal,
"Ariemes," possessed his body and taught him the finer points of
eating human flesh. In 1988 he was released from prison after serving
fifteen years for strangling two children. Right about then Ariemes came
back and helped Art with a twenty-month murder spree in which he bagged and
chewed on eleven women. Once in custody Art detailed his cannibalistic
deeds explaining that he was possessed by his shrewish mother's spirit (as
well as Ariemes). Mom, it seems, enjoyed ramming broomsticks up his ass
when he was young. Curiously, in 1990, Art received ten write-in votes
during New York's gubernatorial race.
Herbert Mullin (13) This
acid-dropping, pot-smoking flower child was voted "Most Likely to
Succeed" by his high school class. After a stint in a mental
institution he started hearing voices that told him to do strange things,
like burn his dick with a cigarette. Then the voices started coming from
strangers asking him to put them out of their misery. Good Herb was happy
to comply. After thirteen acts of mercy police arrested him. Herb believed
that the deaths during the Vietnam war worked as sacrifices that kept
California from sliding into the ocean during a cataclysmic earthquake.
With the end of the war, Herb was telepathically told by his father to
continue with the human sacrifice to save California from the big one.
And, of course, Herb did as he was told.
Albert DeSalvo (13) In the mid
sixties Al was known as the Boston Strangler. His great hands, voracious
sex drive and violent nature led him to talk his way into women's houses
where he raped and strangled them. As a child he boasted of being able to
cum five or six times a day. As an adult his frigid wife was no match for
his eternal horniness. What characterized his killing style was that he
left naked corpses carefully and provocatively posed with the strangulating
chords tied in ornamental bows around their necks. Some believe that DeSalvo was not
responsible for the killings and that in fact George Nassar, his cellmate
at Bridgewater, had struck a deal with him so he would take the blame as
DeSalvo was already facing a life sentence for his multiple rape
convictions.
Joseph Christopher (13) Another racist rampager.
Christopher, a mentally disturbed GI started killing black men in upstate
New York in September 22, 1980. By the time he left Buffalo the city was
about to erupt into an all-out race war with black leaders claiming no
police protection and talking about a deadly paramilitary racist force.
Christopher went to Manhattan on December 22 and was able bag four victims
and maim a fifth in less than thirteen hours. He was arrested in Fort
Benning on January 6 after he tried to stab a black GI.
Marie Besnard (13)
Jack Unterweger (12+)
Jack, the son of a streetwalker and an American soldier, received his first
life sentence at age 25 when he strangled a prostitute with her bra.
Subsequently he admitted to the crime explaining "I envisioned my
mother in front of me, and I killed her." While in jail Jack wrote a
series of short stories, plays and an autobiography that made him the
darling of the Viennese intellectuals. Hailed as a model for
rehabilitation, Jack was granted parole in 1990.
A free man, Jack became a knight in shining armor to the literary elite.
Within months of his release his success as a writer translated into
expensive suits, fancy cars and regular appearances in local talk shows.
However, not truly reformed, Jack did keep up with his old habit of
strangling prostitutes for kicks to the tune of at least six dead. In 1991
he was hired to write an article about prostitution in Los Angeles. While
on assignment he got to travel in an LAPD patrol car. He also managed to
squeeze in the murder of three prostitutes before returning back to Vienna.
By February, 1992, police in Austria issued a warrant for his arrest
linking him to the deaths of eight women. By then Jack escaped with his
18-year-old girlfriend to Switzerland, Paris and New York, pausing along
the way to call newspapers and talk shows in Austria to proclaim his
innocence. Following a credit card trail left by the fugitive couple, they
were arrested by Interpol in Miami, Florida. While in custody his
girlfriend explained they sought refuge in Miami because she "liked
Don Johnson."
Unterweger was eventually deported back to Austria where he was indicted
for the slayings of 11 prostitutes, including three from Los Angeles. On
June 28, 1994 a jury in Graz, Austria, found him guilty of nine of the
murders and acquitted him of the two others. The next morning prison guards
found him dead in his cell hanging from a curtain rod.
Southside Slayer (12+) The Southside Slayer has
tallied at least twelve black "strawberries" (crack-addicted prostitutes) in Los
Angeles since 1984. In 1993, after denying the existence of a serial killer
wiping out "strawberries" in South Central, authorities arrested
a black policemen in connection to the killings. The man proved to be
innocent. The whole incident ruined his life and his career in the police
department. No one would blame him if he started his own killing spree.
However, the real killer is still at large and at work in the streets of
Los Angeles. Presently he is at twelve confirmed hits and counting.
"The Cleveland Torso Murderer" (12+)
Also known as the Mad Butcher of Kingsbury Run. Another elusive killer
that was never caught. His official tally was 12, but some believe that he
killed up to 40. His bloody rampage spanned from 1935 to 1938. Some
believe he was active from 1923 to 1950. He decapitated most of his
victims and cut off their limbs. Unwittingly he caused the downfall of
Eliot Ness who failed to capture him. The Mad Butcher apparently was very knowledgeable of anatomy leading many to believe he might have been a surgeon. The Butcher's precise cutting style also linked him to the
Black Dahlia murder in Los Angeles.
Ness believed the Butcher was a medical student from a prominent and politically active Cleveland family. The name of the suspect was never released due to the family's powerful connections. Curiously, the murders stopped in August of 1938 when Ness forced the student doctor into a hospital. The killings resumed briefly in 1950 when he was let out and stopped when he was hospitalized once again n.
In 1939 the sheriff's department extracted a confession from a Bohemian immigrant named Frank Dolezal. When the confession was questioned Dolezal recanted and was soon found hanged in his jail cell. It is believed his apparent suicide was in fact a cover-up for the brutal treatment he recieved from the police.
Rosemary & Fred West (12+)
Rosemary and her husband Fred West, were accused of murdering 10 women and
young girls over a 16 year period ending in 1987. They enjoyed luring
away vulnerable runaways with offers of rides, lodging or jobs as nannies.
Once in their clutches inside their "House of Horrors", the young women were stripped, bound with tape,
raped, tortured, then killed, dismembered and buried.
The killer couple was arrested at their lethal homestead, 25 Cromwell
Street, Gloucester, England in 1994. Police, armed with a search warrant,
dug up the remains of their 16 year old daughter, Heather, who vanished in
1987. Further excavations under the house and in garden produced eight more female bodies, including Rosemary's
stepdaughter, Charmaine.
One more body was found under the kitchen of a former home at 25 Midland Road,
Gloucester. Fred hanged himself in jail New Years Day,
1995. He also faced two further charges of murdering his ex wife and a
baby-sitter and burying them in fields near his former home. Authorities
believe that Fred probably killed more women. Rosemary, an admitted
prostitute, still maintains her innocence. However, on November 22, 1995, she was convicted of 10 murders. Authorities are
investigating the whereabouts of nine other missing women who frequented their home.
Johann Hoch (12+)
Eugene V. Britt (11+) This Gary,
Indiana, convicted rapist charged with the strangling of an 8-year-old girl
confessed to killing the youngster and at least 10 other people. During
his eight-hour confession on the 7 of November, 1995, he told police where
to find three bodies, one of which was discovered immediately. Obviously
this will not be the last we'll hear from Britt. We will update the Archives
as the news reports trickle in.
Jane Toppan (11+)
Joseph Vacher (11+)
Charlie Starkweather & Caril Ann Fugate (11)
Standing at five feet two inches, Charles Starkweather hated everyone he
saw. Everyone except his fourteen year old girlfriend Caril Ann. On January
21, 1958, Charlie got into an argument with Caril's parents and settled it
the only way he knew -- shooting her mother and stepfather. Then he rammed
his gun barrel down Caril's two-year-old sister's throat and choked her to
death while Caril watched the tube. A few days later, after the local
authorities became suspicious, the two went on the run killing with
reckless abandon. After eluding a two-hundred member posse chasing them
through Nebraska, they were captured in Wyoming where they turned on each
other. The movie Badlands with Martin Sheen and Sissy Spacek was
based on their exploits. Charlie was fried in June 1959 and Caril got life.
She was paroled in 1976.
Robert Clifford Olson (11) A Vancouver, British
Columbia, native, this police informer spent most of his life in trouble
with the law. Between 1957 and 1981 he logged ninety-four arrests. His
murderous reign of terror around Vancouver started in November of 1980 with
the abduction and slaughter of a twelve-year-old girl. His specialty was
killing youngsters and enjoyed offing the occasional hitchhiker whenever
the chance arose. In August 1981 Olson was arrested when he picked up two
female hitchhikers. After striking a deal with the prosecution, Cliffy
confessed to a string of killings. Somehow Olson was able to convince
authorities to pay his wife and child $10,000 per proven kill. By
confessing to eleven kills, Cliff's family collected a nice chunk of
change. On January 11, 1982, Clifford was sentenced to eleven concurrent
life terms.
While in jail, Anything-for-a-buck-Cliff announced through his lawyer in March, 1996 that he had registered
with Canada's copyright office to protect his proposed video
series offering psychological insights. Cliff plans
to call the video, "Motivational Sexual Homicide Patterns of
Serial Child Killer Clifford Robert Olson."
Vaughn Greenwood (11) In 1974-75 the LAPD found six
downtown derelicts with their throats slashed and their bodies bearing
signs of ritualistic abuse. They had cups of blood next to them, salt
sprinkled around the outlines of their heads and cryptic marks scribbled
around the slash wounds. When the cops announced that the killer was
probably "a blond, sexually impotent and cowardly homosexual,"
Greenwood, a black man, was obviously not on their list of suspects. Eventually
he was arrested after he axed someone next to Burt Reynold's house. The
police linked him to the skid row murders and four others. Surely he must
have been wearing a blond wig or something when he was committing his
crimes.
Juan Rodriguez Chavez (11) Juan, a
Texan murder parolee, confessed to having killed 11 people for money or
just the "thrill of killing". He was jailed on October 17, 1995,
and charged with six slayings. Prosecutors are now preparing to charge him
with the 5 other deaths. All the killings were committed between March and
July of 1995. Juan was very busy on July 2 when he killed 5 people. Three
of them were shot and ran over by his car, another was shot while talking
on a pay phone and the last victim of the day was shot in a robbery. Two
days later he shot two men in the parking lot of a tire shop and, moments
later, another man was killed outside a nearby apartment building.
Marie Alexandrine Becker (11)
Henry Landru (11)
Arrested in 1919 in France for the murder of 10
women. He professed his love for them and promised to marry them. Instead he would kill, dismember and torch his sweethearts. He was guillotined in 1922
without ever admitting his crimes.
Richard Angelo (10+) A former Boy Scout, Rich always
wanted to be the hero. That's why this portly nurse pumped muscle paralyzer
and other dangerous drugs into the intravenous bottles of his patients in
the emergency room of the Good Samaritan Hospital in Long Island, NY. On
October 11, 1987 his gig ran afoul when he told a patient, "I'm going
to make you feel better," and injected Pavulon in his intravenous
tube. Immediately the man felt numbness and had difficulty breathing.
However, he was able to buzz another nurse who saved his life. The next day
Richard's locker and home were searched and his killing utensils were
found. Ever since Angelo started working the graveyard shift in the Good
Samaritan there had been thirty-seven "Code Blue" emergencies
leaving twenty-five patients dead. Prosecutors have only charged Angelo
with ten of the deaths.
Kenneth Bianchi & Angelo Buono (10+) These killer
cousins started their reign of terror in LA in 1977 and became known as the
"Hillside Strangler." They liked to impersonate cops, pick up
hookers, rape and kill them. They enjoyed leaving their corpses in
provocative positions in hillsides east of Hollywood. When Kenny moved to
Bellingham, Washington, the killings stopped. Bored with the small town
life, Ken decided to get back to his old habits. He proceeded to kill two
more women before being arrested. Bianchi is also suspected of at least
three more killings in Rochester, New York, before his glory days in L.A.
While in custody Ken feigned being possessed by a violent alter ego named
"Steve Walker." In prison he was contacted by a strange
twenty-three year old woman named Veronica Lynn Comton who was seeking
information for a book about a female serial killer. Together they hatched
a plan to free him in which Veronica would take a sample of his sperm, kill
a woman and deposit the sperm sample in her. Though a good idea, it never worked. Instead, it landed Veronica in jail.
Thomas Quick (10+)
Sweden's premiere serial killer. Tommy Boy killed at least 10 people during a two-year rampage. As a child he was raped and abused. Growing up, he always wanted to be a priest. Instead, he became a serial killer. He committed his first murder when he was 14. He enjoyed killing young boys and having sex with their corpses.
He also killed a Dutch family vacationing in the north of Sweden. His permanent residence is now a hospital for the criminally insane in Dalarna, Sweden. While in custody Thomas confessed to six killings in Norway. Police are now investigating the validity of his claims though no bodies have been discovered. Perhaps we will soon see the mad Swede rise in standing in this Serial Killer Hit List.
Martin Dumollard (10+)
Edmund Kemper III (10) Ed Kemper's
mom thought her son was "a real weirdo." He had a near-genius IQ hidden within his lanky body and twisted mind. As a child he liked playing execution and once told his sister that if he were to love someone they would first have to be dead. As a teenager mom forced Ed to live in the basement so he wouldn't scare his sisters.
When he was fourteen he
killed his grandparents to get back at his mother during her second
honeymoon. He said he wanted to see how it felt to kill grandma. Consequently he was sent to Atascadero State Hospital for the criminally insane. There Eddie
grew into a strapping six-foot-nine-inch hate machine.
In the early seventies Ed was
released from the hospital and went to live with his overbearing mother. Mom had moved to Santa Cruz where she was working in the state college. In 1972,
after a particulary vicious argument with mom, Ed left the house knowing he was going
to kill someone. That night, a hapless female hitchhiker was the first to
fall prey to Ed's Oedipal mania.
Over the ensuing years, with the help of his campus pass obtained through his mother, Ed became known as the "Coed Killer" . He
enjoyed decapitating his victims and having sex with their headless
corpses. Sometimes he buried the heads of his victims outside his house facing his mother's bedroom window. He took Polaroid's of his accomplishments and occasionally had one of his girls for dinner. Later he confessed that his acts of cannibalism
were because, "I wanted them to be a part of me- and now they
are." Once he visited his court-appointed psychiatrist with a head in
the trunk of his car. Curiously, the psychiatrist thought he was doing great and he was really well adjusted.
At the time Ed was killing there were two other maniacs, John Lindley Frazier and
Herbert Mullin, operating in proximity. Police were
baffled by the amount of bodies appearing around their peaceful and bucolic
surfer community. Kemper, who always wanted to be a cop, was fascinated with the investigation of his
and the other crimes. He became friendly with the investigating
officers and frequented their favorite haunts to grill them for grissly
details.
Like Ed Gein, Kemper liked killing women who reminded him of his mother. On Easter Sunday 1973 he went after the root of his problem. Ed, the consumate mother's boy, beat her head in, then decapitated her and threw her vocal chords down the garbage disposal. When he turned it on, they chords came flying back out. Kemper later told police, "even when she was dead, she was still
bitching at me. I couldn't get her to shut up!"
Then he decided to use her head as a dart board. Not satisfied, he called mom's best friend, invited her over and killed her too. After, he drove to Colorado where he called his cop friends and confessed. At first they thought he was kidding. What they found at his mom's house made them change their mind. Ed now resides in the Vacaville Prison where he is their model serial killer prisoner with a heart of gold.
Siswanto (10) On August 6,1996, Siswanto, a homeless Indonesian man, confessed to killing 10 boys and leaving their mutilated bodies on the streets. Like many Indonesians, Siswanto uses only one name. After his arrest, he admitted to sexually molesting his victims, ages 9 to 15, before killing them. The dead youngsters were found with their stomachs slashed open, and most were naked. Siswanto told police he enjoyed drinking the blood of his victims and sometimes kept pieces of their skin.
His 18-month killing spree started in December 1994. The last victim was found on July 5, 1996. Eight of the killings took place in Jakarta and two in the city of Pekalongan in central Java.
Gerald & Charlene Gallego (10) In 1955 Gerald's father was
executed in Mississippi's gas chamber for killing two cops. As luck would
have it, Gerald turned out meaner that his pop. When he was thirteen he was
arrested for raping a six-year-old girl. Years later he was arrested for
having sex with his teenage daughter. After four or five marriages he
settled down with Charlene Williams who he told her he was impotent. The
only cure for it, he said, was frequent sex with virgins. All in the name
of love, Charlene helped him out with his misfortune by rounding up
"sex-slaves" who he raped and murdered.
Bobby Joe Long (10) A distant cousin
of Henry Lee Lucas, Bobby suffered from a hereditary
disorder in which he had an extra "X" chromosome which made his
glands produce abnormal amounts of estrogen. In other words, Bobby had
tits. To add to his confusion his mother slept with him until he was
thirteen. After suffering a head injury from a motorcycle accident,
Bobby Joe turned into a lust machine. He masturbated five times a day in addition
to the two daily sessions with his wife. Not satisfied he
began stalking for new dates. From 1980 to 1983 Bobby was busy raping fifty
women in the Miami/Fort Lauderdale area. In 1984 he graduated to murder. His victims of choice were
prostitutes whom he considered scum. He also kept a detailed file with all
the clippings of his crime spree. In November 17, 1984, he was arrested and
in early 1985 he received the death penalty.
David J. Carpenter (10)
In 1961, at age thirty-three, David started demonstrating his psychotic
tendencies when he attacked a woman with a hammer. After a stint in jail, a
prison break, and another stint in jail, he came out a reformed man. In
1978 he relocated to San Francisco to work in a print shop. By August
1979 he was back to his old tricks. He started killing mostly women in
hiking trails in Tamalpais State Park in San Francisco. He cruelly shot and stabbed his victims as they knelt and pled for their lives. By the end of
1980, after six murders by the "Trailside Killer," authorities
linked him with the Zodiac Killer. By 1981 he had moved his hunting grounds
to trails as far away as Santa Cruz. In May 1, 1981, police went to the print shop to
investigate the whereabouts of Heather Scaggs, his ninth victim, who disappeared after he gave her a ride home from work. There they ecognized
him from the "Trailside Killer" police sketches and arrested him.
Evidence linked him to the some of the murder weapons and the murder of another
woman who he knew.
Operation Enigma(9+)
A new predator seems to be on the loose in Britain. The similarities are obvious: nine women all strangled or beaten to death, and their bodies dumped half-clothed or naked on open ground. Nearly all victims were prostitutes. They have died over a seven-year period, each in a different police districts. The common features suggest that the various investigating teams could
be chasing the same killer.
On May 26. 1996, in order to find out whether or not they are dealing with a serial killer, British authorities launched Operation Enigma. The files on the unsolved murders of scores of women over the past decade have been reopened and police will be harnessing
the skills of criminologists at home and abroad, including the psychological profilers of the FBI.
The killings go back to January 1987, when 27-year-old prostitute and heroin addict Marina Monti's partially clothed body was discovered on waste ground near Wormwood Scrubs prison in west London. She had been strangled and beaten. Next was Janine Downes, 22, also a prostitute. Her half-naked body was found in a hedge near the Wolverhampton to Telford road in February 1991. She, too, had been severely beaten and then strangled. The other seven victims followed a similar pattern.
"From the general information, such an individual is likely to be personable and not stand out. He is able to blend in because he can approach and solicit victims," former FBI profiler, Richard Ault told authorities. According to Ault such a man would be employed and probably falls into what the FBI categorises as the "organised" killer-- someone of above-average intelligence, socially competent, often living with a woman and driving a well-maintained car who kills after some stressful event.
However the British police are skeptical of the FBI's profiling and computer referencing techniques. They prefer to find their killers the old fashioned way. James Dickinson, an assistant chief constable of Essex police, who is co-ordinating Enigma, acknowledges some common traits in the nine separate murder inquiries but points out that the investigating teams, having considered all the relevant information, "do not feel that there were sufficient grounds to formally link the nine inquiries."
Calvin Jackson (9+) Calvin did not like to stray away
from home. That's why he did most of his killings in the Park Plaza Hotel
in Manhattan where he lived. He heard voices telling him to kill old people
and was happy to comply. He enjoyed raping his victims before and after
death. He was arrested while he was carrying a stolen TV down a fire
escape. He was also suspected, although never convicted, of five additional
killings in Buffalo.
Peter Kurten (9) Pete was born in 1883 in Germany. A
product of a brutally unhappy childhood, Peter got his kicks by strangling
squirrels and beating off dogs. When he was nine he helped two boys drown
in a boating accident. As a teen-ager he graduated to fucking sheep and
goats and knifing them to achieve orgasm.
From 1905 to 1921 Pete was constantly in jail. Once he was out he was free to
kill with impunity. Pete earned the moniker "The Vampire of
Dusseldorf" because he enjoyed drinking the blood of his victims. He
also killed animals when he was feeling thirsty. On occasion he delighted
in setting fires to abandoned buildings hoping to roast whatever transients
might be sleeping inside.
Like most sexual sadists, Peter also lived a seemingly "normal"
life. His wife never imagined such a mild mannered man could be responsible
for such ruthless killings. When confessed to the police his wife, who was sitting next to him, fainted. Peter proceeded to give police a detailed recounting of 77 criminal acts over ten years. While in jail Peter had many orgasm just thinking about his crimes. He also enjoyed returning to his crime scenes where he would instantly cum' in his pants. His last wish was "to hear his own
blood filling the sack," during his decapitation. His wish came true
on July 2, 1931.
Ian Brady & Myra Hindley (9) Ian and Myra met
while working for a chemical company in Hyde, Greater Manchester, England.
She thought he was quite an intellectual as he sat in the lunch room
reading Mein Kampf in German. As their love blossomed they became more
obsessed with Nazi paraphernalia, pornography and sadism. At first they
enjoyed shooting pictures of themselves in the buff and in S & M drag. They thought they could crack the local porn market with their pictures but failed.
Soon they moved into child abduction and murder.
Most of their victims were
children whom they sexually molested before killing. These sadist lovebirds
liked to document their murderous deeds. They kept an extensive collection
of photographs of their victims as well as a recording of the screams of
one girl's torturous end. They were arrested after Ian bragged about his
killings to Myra's brother-in-law. When the brother-in-law doubted his
ability to kill, Ian smoked a young man right in front of him. The
brother-in-law did not react appropriately. Instead of showing admiration,
he went to the cops. Twenty years after their arrest, Ian confessed to four
new murders the police had never linked to them.
Melvin David Rees (9) Rees was a Benzedrine-popping,
jazz saxophonist with a voracious appetite for sex and death. In the late
fifties he terrorized the roads between Maryland and Virginia. A vicious
sex-slayer, he also had a taste for necrophilia. He kept several cabins
where he collected pornography and autopsy photos. He also wrote journals
detailing his acts of murder and other lurid tales of real and imaginary
sadism. In 1961 the state of Virginia executed him.
Christopher Wilder (8+) Australian
born Chris Wilder was a big-spending, jet-setting, race-car driving, bon
vivant who was always searching for beautiful women to rape and kill. Using
the old I'm-a-photographer-in-search-of-models trick he bagged at least
eight victims in a bi-continental rape and murder spree. He sometimes
enjoyed practicing a type of homemade electroshock therapy on his victims.
Once he glued one of his victims eyes shut. In the spring of 1984 he
kidnapped Tina Marie Risico from a Torrance, California, mall and, after
raping her repeatedly, forced her to assist him with his killings. As they
drove eastward Wilder enjoyed watching the news reports about his crime
spree. When they reached Boston he dropped Tina Marie at the airport and
sent her back home to California. On April 13 he was spotted by a passing
state trooper and accidentally shot himself dead while struggling for his
gun.
Dorothea Puente (8+) Dorothea operated a boarding
house in Sacramento, California where she offered quality lodgings for
elderly people on fixed incomes. She also offered poison and a bed of
flowers to bury their corpses in. As she offed her boarders she kept
cashing their social security checks. In 1988, after too many of her
boarders disappeared, cops showed up with shovels and unearthed seven
corpses from her garden. Curiously, Dorothea's boarding house was six blocks away from the home of Morris Solomon where previously six bodies had been found. Another body discovered in the Sacramento River in
1986 was added to her hit list. It's believed that she might have killed up
to twenty-five others. She was arrested in Los Angeles on November 17, 1988
after she inquired about an acquaintance's disability check and offered to
fix him a nice Thanksgiving dinner with all the trimmings.
Gary & Thaddeus Lewingdon (8+)
David & Catherine Birnie (8+)
The Bender Family (8+)
"I-70/I-35 Killer" (8+) Police are searching
for a man who has killed five women and a man in at least three Midwestern
states and three more women in Texas. Their prime suspect is male in his
mid-20s to early 30s. He is described as thin, 5-foot-7, with sandy blond
hair with a reddish tint and a day-old beard. During a 29-day killing spree
in 1992, the killer preyed on female shop clerks within a mile or two of
the interstates. His male victim had long hair and a earring, leading
authorities to believe the killer thought he was a woman. He robbed most of
his victims, but as an afterthought. Clearly, his main intention was
murder. After 29 days the killer disappeared from the Midwest. Authorities
believed he was in jail or dead until 1993 when he started killing in
Texas. There he bagged between two and four more women.
Gregory Breeden (8+)
Greg, believed to have killed at least 8 prostitutes in and around Kansas City, has only been charged with two. Chatty Greg confessed one of the killings to a cellmate in prison. He is currently being tried in Missouri for two murders.
There have been about 77 prostitutes reported missing in and around Kansas City since
the late '70's. Furthermore, several torsos and other surgically removed body parts have turned up in area rivers
suggesting the existence of other serial killers in the area or a rising body count for busy Greg.
"The I-75 Killers"(8) Two
women, pretending to be damsels in distress, have smoked eight men between
1989 and 1991 on I-75 in Florida. All the victims were middle-aged men
driving alone. All were shot with a .22-caliber gun and their bodies were
dumped in out-of-the-way places. After an accident near the town of Orange
Springs involving the car of the last victim, a paramedic and a fireman
spoke to two women believed to have been the occupants of the car. The
women refused offers of help and promptly disappeared. One of the suspected
killers has shoulder-length blond hair and may have a heart-shaped tattoo
on her arm. The other was described as stocky and dark-haired.
"Colonial Parkway Killer" (8) There is a
serial killer in Virginia that they have yet to catch dubbed the
"Colonial Parkway Killer." To date he has killed four couples-- a
gay female couple in 1986, followed by a couple in 1987 and two in 1988.
One couple is presumed dead and is still missing. The killer likes to
abduct the lovers from their vehicles and kill them, leaving them on I-64
near New Kent County behind a rest area, or on the Colonial Parkway (2 sets
here) in their vehicle or as
the final couple---whereabouts unknown. One couple was left at a remote site at Ragged Island, off the James River near Smithfield. This killer is still at large to this date.
Gregory Clepper (8)
On May 2, 1996, Clepper was charged with strangling eight women. His last victim was found stuffed in the closet of his bedroom. Police said Gregory was waiting for his mother to
help him dispose of the body. Clepper, 28, a resident of Chicago's South Side, preyed on
drug-addicted prostitutes who he killed after they objected to his
refusal to pay for sex.
Clepper, a classic sexual predator,
told detectives when he was arrested at a relative's house, "I knew it was just a matter of time. I'm glad it's over. "
An aquaintance turned him in after he had boasted about one of
the slayings.
The killings began in 1991. Some of the victims were dumped in garbage bins around Chicago's South Side. The most recent corpse, Patricia Scott, 30, was found April 24 in a
trash container behind Calumet High School. She had been sexually assaulted and
strangled.
Clepper apparently killed Scott a day earlier at the home he shared with his
mother, Gladys Clepper, who along with a friend was charged with helping dispose
of the body.
Mrs. Clepper, 46, was charged with one count of concealing a homicide. Eric
Henderson, 30, was charged with two counts of concealing a homicide. Apparently Eric witnessed the murder of an earlier victim and helped dispose of her body too.
With his arrest, Clepper is the third serial slayer arrested in Chicago's South Side in less than a year. The other two killers, Hubert Geralds and Ralph Harris were arrested in 1995.
Reginald Christie (8) Reggie's sexual inadequacies
made him a very angry man. In the 1940s and 1950s this British maniac
killed at least five prostitutes, his wife, another woman and her baby
daughter. He also kept a collection of clipped pubic hairs, some of which did
not match any of his known victims. He liked to render his victims
unconscious and then strangle and fuck them simultaneously. He enjoyed
"a quiet, peaceful thrill" when he was killing. Strangely the
husband of one of the women he killed confessed to the murder but then
recanted and accused Christie. Not knowing who to believe, the police
hanged the confessor. When Christie moved out of his flat, the new tenant
found three corpses hidden in the cupboard, Christie's dead wife under the
floorboards and two more bodies buried in the garden. He was hanged in
1953.
Keith Jesperson (8) This
40-year-old trucker is presently in jail in Washington state awaiting
sentencing for kidnapping, raping and strangling a woman in March, 1995.
Keith, bothered by his guilty conscience, confessed to killing eight women
throughout five states. He was dubbed the "Happy Face Killer" by
authorities after he started sending neatly printed letters to the media
with happy faces drawn at the top in which he boasted of his deeds.
After leading police to the purse of one of his presumed victims,
authorities realized that they had wrongfully convicted two people for the
killing. In 1990, Laverne Pavlinac told police she held a rope around
Taunja Bennett's neck while her boyfriend John Sosnovske raped and killed
her. She then recanted and said that she invented the story to get out of
their abusive 10-year relationship. Nevertheless they were convicted and
jailed for more than four years. On November 27, 1995, they were released
from prison by an Oregon judge. Jesperson, the real killer, cried out of
happiness for their acquittal.
John Norman Collins (8) Believed to have killed 7 women from 1967 to 1969, John Norman Collins was only convicted of one murder and sentenced
to life. As of yet he has not confessed to any other deaths. The "Michigan Murders," as they were called, were very brutal
and occured around Ypsilanti and Ann Arbor area. John is suspected of having murdered more women from Michigan to California during a cross-country trek in a stolen camper.
Alton Coleman & Debra Brown (8) Alton Coleman, a
black man, thought other blacks were forcing him to kill members of his
race. He was diagnosed by a prison psychiatrist as having pansexual
propensities, that is, willingness "to have intercourse with any
object, women, men, children, whatever." In the summer of 1984, he
teamed up with twenty-one year old Debra Brown for a brutal rampage across
the midwest. They were arrested in Evanston, Illinois, after a crime spree
in which they committed a new act of violence each day. Alton was sentenced
to death.
Jean-Baptiste Troppmann (8)
"Lisbon Ripper"(7+) A Portuguese serial killer dubbed the "Lisbon Ripper" is being hunted across Europe. He is being sought by police in Portugal and four countries where he has killed. The "Ripper" is believed to have killed at least seven women since 1992, three in Portugal and one each in Belgium, the Czech Republic, Denmark and The
Netherlands. All his victims, the last of whom was murdered late last year, were
young, drug-dependant prostitutes.
The consistent pattern of the murders has convinced Portuguese police and
Interpol that the killings were committed by the same man. Victims have been
strangled, then disembowelled with a shard of glass. On no occasion has there
been evidence of rape.
The killer is believed to be a white male, between 35 and 40 years-old, tall, with a pathological
hatred of women, and probably suffering from AIDS. Police think that he may be a
truck driver whose work takes him across Europe.
Robert Berdella (7+) Another from the
maniac-with-a-heart-of-gold file. Bob ran a booth in the Westport Flea Market
in Kansas City where he sold earrings that sported human teeth and skulls in it. All his neighbors thought he was a strange but harmless fellow. That is, until April 2, 1988, when
a man lept from the second floor window of Bob's house wearing nothing but a dog collar. That definitely caught the neighbors' attention. A subsequent
police search found two dead bodies inside the house. It seems that Rob liked to
pick up drifters and male prostitutes, take them home and strap them into
his custom-made torture bed. There he would experiment with electroshock
and injected all kinds of household cleaners into their veins. He kept a detailed
log of how his victims responded and had a collection of two hundred
pictures of naked men in different stages of suffering. Bob liked to extend
the life of his victims for a few days before tying a plastic bag over
their heads. On December 19, 1988, Berdella pleaded guilty to murder and
was sentenced to life. A few years later he died in prison of poisoning or
a possible heart attack.
Harrison Graham (7+) This lethal junkie from hell
lived in a fetid two-room apartment in North Philadelphia that was covered
with trash, dirty syringes and a sea of fleas. In the summer of 1987, after
numerous complaints from his neighbors, the police pried his door open and
found six female bodies in different states of decomposition. On the roof of his building
they found a duffel bag full of legs. In the neighbor's
basement they found a torso. All the dead women were black junkies like himself who he invited
over for a fix and a little one-on-one.
Peter Manuel(7+)
"The Tylenol Killer" (7) In 1982 seven
people were killed by cyanide-tainted Extra-Strength Tylenol capsules that
were purchased from drug stores and groceries in and around Chicago. Though
never formally charged with the deaths, an unemployed accountant, James
Lewis, was arrested for a futile attempt at extorting one million dollars
from Johnson & Johnson, the makers of Tylenol. In October, 1995, James
was freed from a federal penitentiary in Reno after serving a 12-year
sentence.
"Ironman" (7)
In the 1970s, a South African serial killer known as "Ironman",
clubbed seven people to death with an iron bar and robbed them as they
walked home late at night. Although the killings have stopped,
"Ironman" was never apprehended.
"The Axeman of New Orleans" (7)
Ivan Robert Marko Milat (7) Suspected
of being Australia's worst serial killer, Ivan is accused of murdering
seven hitch-hikers plucked from the highway stretching from Sydney to
Melbourne. Like convicted Alaskan serial killer Robert
Hansen, Ivan enjoyed hunting down his victims like animals, giving them
a head start before stalking them through the New South Wales bush.
Ivan, 51, a road worker, avid hunter and the son of a Croat immigrant, was
a non-smoking teetotaler, whose pleasures in life were a four-wheel-drive
vehicle, a Harley Davidson motorcycle and a penchant for killing strangers.
He was arrested in 1994 in his home in the outskirts of Sydney where police
found gun parts, ammunition and knives used in the killings, as well as
camping equipment said to have belonged to some of the murdered
hitch-hikers.
From 1989 to 1992, Milat was known as the "Backpack Murderer" .
The brutality of his attacks both captivated and horrified the Australian
public. Some of the victims were shot, others
stabbed, and one was decapitated with a sword found in Ivan's mother's
apartment. He then equiped his rifle with a silencer and used the
victim's head for "target practice". Of the seven killed, five were European tourists in their 20s
lured to Australia by its reputation as a safe haven for budget travelers.
The other two victims were teen-agers from the Australian state of
Victoria. Two of the dead were young British women whose disappearance led
to the grim discovery of Milat's handiwork.
After the discovery of seven bodies, police launched the biggest manhunt in Australian history which eventually led to Milat's arrest. The star witness for the
prosecution was another British tourist who escaped from the madman's car to avoid certain death
after Milat pulled a gun on him. The kind authorities
of New South Wales offered free accommodations and financial
assistance to the relatives of the victims who wished to attend the trial.
On July 27, 1996 , after a four-month trial and three and a half days of deliberation, a jury of
seven men and four women convicted the former road worker of murdering the
seven backpackers. Ivan's lawyer
tried to pin the murders on, first, Ivan's brother Richard, then, his other
brother, Walter. Although his divisionary tactics were not successful, Justice David Hunt, the judge preciding the over the
case, said: "In my view, it is inevitable that the prisoner was not alone in that
criminal enterprise". Police said there were more than a dozen young
hitch-hikers - Australians, Japanese and Europeans - who have disappeared in
the same region over the past 15 years. Perhaps soon we will be adding another Milat brother to the Serial Killer Hit List.
Aileen Wuornos (7) The patron saint of dead
prostitutes, Lee Wuornos is the first hooker to turn the tables on the
serial killing scene. Finally, a hooker who started offing her johns. The
daughter of a child molester who hanged himself in jail, Aileen's hatred
for men went beyond the feelings of any penis-loathing lesbian. In 1990 she
tallied seven dead clients whom she left naked next to their sperm-filled
condoms. The wily prostitute still claims to be innocent. Her killings, she
says, were "just self-defense." She was sentenced to the electric
chair and now, as she patiently awaits her fate, has conveniently found
Christ.
Gerald Parker (6+) Known as the "Bedroom Basher," serial rapist Gerald Parker thought he had gotten away with murder until DNA testing linked him to the murder of five women and an unborn child in Orange County, California. Parker, a former Marine, was linked through genetic evidence to attacks on young women who where raped and bludgeoned in their homes in the late 1970s around El Toro Marine Corps Air Station. Police and Navy officials believe Gerald might be responsible for even more killings, specifically three other dead women in Orange County. During his 7 1/2 years with the Marines Gerald was based in El Toro as well as other bases in North Carolina, Alaska and Mississippi before being convicted of raping a 13-year-old girl in 1980.
That same year another Marine, Kevin Lee Green, was convicted of second degree murder for an attack on his 21-year-old pregnant wife that led to the death of their unborn baby. 16 years later, Parker confessed to the attack on Green's wife. On June 20, 1996 Superior Court Judge Robert Fitzgerald apologized for Green's wrongful incarceration and declared him a free and innocent man. Curiously his ex-wife Dianna D'Aiello still believes he was her attacker.
Using new technology that can match DNA samples of convicted criminals with evidence of unsolved crimes investigators were able to link several unsolved murders of young women to Parker. On June 14 detectives met with Parker in the Avenal State Prison in Central Valley where he was imprisoned for a parole violation. There he confessed to five killings and the assault on Dianna D'Aiello.
D'Aiello was comatose for a month after her 1979 attack and suffered a significant loss of memory. When she regained consciousness she identified her husband as her attacker. Jurors believed her and considered his alibi, that he went to get a cheeseburger, unbelievable. Ever since he was arrested Green proclaimed his innocence. He even passed a defense-administered polygraph test before the trial. While incarcerated he tried to have a DNA test performed on the semen investigators collected at the crime scene. Unfortunately, he could not afford the costly forensic procedure. Luckily, crucial evidence from the D'Aiello attack had not been destroyed and could be tested when his guilt was brought into question. Once exonerated, the ex-Marine corporal went to visit his family in the Midwest and says he does not plan to sue the state for damages resulting from his wrongful conviction.
Carlton Gary (6+)
"BTK Killer" (6+)Another serial killer that was never caught. From 1972 to 1978 the "BTK Killer" --Bind Torture Kill --killed six or more people around Wichita, Kansas. He liked to call the police and talk to them about his crimes. Authorities have his voice on tape, yet no suspects have been arrested. One of his victims was a young girl whom he tied to a pipe in her basement
and murdered. Then he masturbated over her corpse.
Morris Solomon(6+)Another Sacramento celebrity killer.
Morris killed mostly prostitutes. Convicted of six killings, he is
suspected of at least one more. Ever the good sport, he shook hands with
one juror who gave him the death penalty, saying, "At least you made
up your mind." His conviction is being appealed.
Douglas Clark & Carol Bundy(6+)
Doug considered himself the "king of the one-night stands." He
loved sex with prostitutes, especially real young ones from LA's notorious
Sunset Strip. Carol, his girlfriend, was no Mother Teresa. She thought that
murder was fun and liked photographing hookers sucking Doug's dick. He
enjoyed shooting his victims as he came in their mouths. He also liked
chopping their heads off. Once, for kicks, Carol applied make-up to a
severed head and Doug took it to the shower for a little necrophilic
fellatio. Carol told an old boyfriend about Doug's strange habits. When the
old boyfriend threatened to tell police, Carol stabbed him to death and
chopped off his head. She then confessed and blamed Doug for everything.
Doug denied it and claimed that Carol and her former lover were the
killers. Strangely he also begged for the death penalty and taunted the
judge whenever he could. He was sentenced to death on February 15, 1983.
Carol was convicted of two killings.
Michael Ross (6+)
Michael Ross, a sexual sadist with an IQ of 122 and a degree from Cornell
University, stalked, raped and murdered at least 6 girls and young women in
Connecticut in the early 80s. In 1987 he received six death sentences and
two life sentences. He also admitted to killing two women in New York, and
assaulting several women in North Carolina, Ohio and Illinois. Curiously,
Mike has been diligently working with his prosecuting attorney trying to
obtain a quick death sentence. He wants to be certain that there will be no
mitigating circumstances, like mental illness, that might overturn his
execution.
"Zodiac Killer" (6+) The elusive Zodiac is the most
mythical killer on the loose in California. There are numerous theories surrounding his
identity, methods, and reasoning behind his astrological killing spree. His
numbers vary according to sources. Some attribute only six hits to this
faceless maniac. Others believe the Zodiac has tallied up to 49.
Some have settled on 37 after a note he sent to
a San Francisco paper on January 30, 1974 in which he wrote "Me-37;
SFPD-0."
"Zodiac," one of numerous killers obsessed with publicity, sent
twenty-one letters to various newspapers boasting of his crimes. He
obtained his astral moniker after he scribbled zodiac signs around several
of his victims. His killing spree started in 1966 and faded around 1974.
The rare survivors from his attacks have described him as a heavy set man
with glasses and red hair. In one of his letters he explained that he
killed "because it is so much fun." His master plan was to
collect "slaves for the afterlife." He also threatened to
"wipe out a school bus some morning." For a time it was believed that
"Zodiac" had moved to New York where he continued with his deadly habits. However, that astral killer proved to be a copycat. On June 18, 1996, 29-year-old Heriberto Seda, New York's "Zodiac Killer," was arrested after a 3 1/2 hour siege in Brooklyn.
"The Atteridgeville Mutilator" (6) Since 1956 Pretoria's township of Atteridgeville has seen a spate of
gruesome serial killers. Experts cannot explain why this particular area
has bred so many killers. This original mutilator murdered six
boys over five months in 1956. He was never caught or identified.
Ferdinand Gamper (6)
On February, 1996, the sleepy spa town of Merano in northern Italy was
dubbed "the city of fear" by the Italian press after four murders over a three
week period. "We are all living in
fear," said Franz Alber, the Mayor, "we are dealing with a
psychopath." All victims were shot in the head with a .22-calibre
pistol. The killings began on February 8, when a German Bundesbank
official, Hans Otto Detmering, and his companion, a local woman teacher,
were shot dead in a central street. There was speculation at the time that
the "Bundesbank murder" was connected with an international
banking scandal or a tangled love affair. But it was followed a week later
by the murder of a 58-year-old farm laborer on the outskirts of town. He too
was shot in the head at close range.
On March 1, 1996, authorities identified the killer as Ferdinand Gamper, a local
shepherd. After a fifth body was found in a hut near his house, police
stormed his farm two miles from the town. There Ferdinand held two elderly women
hostage whom he freed once the cops tear gassed the farm house. The deadly
shepherd scribbled "You were too late" on a piece of paper and shot
himself . During the assault one policemen died.
Hubert Geralds Jr. (6) Hubert was
arrested in the summer of 1995 and charged with killing six prostitutes and drug addicts in Chicago's South Side.
Rory E. Conde (6) This maniac was
known as the Tamiami Strangler until June 26, 1995, when he was caught by
Metro-Dade police in the Miami area. Rory Conde, a Colombian native, felt
so bad about his nasty habit that he scribbled on the back of his third
victim a message asking police to catch him. His victims were five
crack-addicted prostitutes and a transvestite hooker that looked very much like a woman. The first victim was killed September
17, 1994 and the last one on January 12, 1995.
Police got its big break in the investigation on June 19, when a
prostitute was able to escape from Conde's apartment after he had bound,
beaten and sexually assaulted her. DNA evidence was used to match him to
five of the killings. After a manhunt costing Dade County more than one
million dollars, authorities believe they have finally bagged their man.
David Berkowitz (6) The Son of
Sam. One of the few Jewish murderers of the Archives. Between 1976 and 1977
he terrified lovers on the streets of New York. This former postal worker
killed six and wounded seven after a 6,000-year-old spirit invaded his
neighbor's Labrador and commanded him to do the evil deeds. He sent
numerous letters to Jimmy Breslin of the New York Daily News and the
NYPD exulting his exploits. While in prison Dave was assaulted and had his
throat slit. He survived, but now has a fifty-six stitch necklace
permanently decorating his throat. Some believe that Dave was actually the
fall guy and that his crimes were committed by a Satanic Sect that included
his neighbor Sam and his two sons.
Richard Trenton Chase (6) This maniac
became known as the "Vampire Killer of Sacramento" after a four day blood
binge in January, 1978, in which he claimed six lives. Previously he had
tried to inject rabbit's blood into his veins. When he was
institutionalized he exhibited such strange behavior that the hospital staff
nicknamed him "Dracula". He
complained that someone had stolen his pulmonary artery and that his head
kept changing shape. By 1977 it seemed that his delirium had been kept in check by his medication and he was released from the hospital to make room for more seriously ill patients. Apparently Rich then decided to stop taking his medication.
He started thinking that his blood was turning into powder
and a Nazi crime syndicate that had been haunting him since high school was
paying his mother money to poison him. So he did what any other red-blooded
American would do under such duress. He became a vampire.
A typically "disorganized" killer, Chase picked his victims
randomly and left as much evidence as he could around his home and the
crime scenes. He drained his victim's blood, blended it with body organs and
drank it. It was the only way to stop his own blood from turning into powder, or so the voices in his head said. He also took some
body parts home to munch on later.
Chase was arrested a few days after his 4-day bloody swan song through Sacramento. Authorities brought in FBI superstar and acclaimed author Robert Ressler to help find the killer. After his arrest Richie raved about UFO's and other imagined stalkers that were after him. He died of an overdose of antidepressants in his cell in Vacaville just after Chrismas in 1980.
Cleophus Prince Jr. (6) A former Navy machinist,
Cleophus terrorized San Diego, California, stabbing six women to death and
provoking the largest police manhunt in the city's history. His crime spree
spanned from 1990 to his capture in 1991 and included numerous burglaries, one rape and six murders. Unlike most serial killers,
Cleophus killed women outside his race. He was linked to several of the
deaths by DNA evidence and jewelry in his possession that belonged to his
victims. He also gave his girlfriend a rare opal ring for Christmas that
belonged to his second victim.
FBI experts were called in by the prosecution to find a common thread in all
the killings. The signature that connected all slayings was circles of
blood smeared on all the victim's breasts. Some of the victims were stabbed
up to fifty times. Prince bragged to a friend about "doing a mother
and her daughter," (his last two victims) and took to wearing the
mother's wedding ring on a chain around his neck. Usually Prince stalked
and followed the unlucky women to their homes. There he would break in,
take a knife from the kitchen and attack the women. In 1993 a jury found
Cleophus guilty of six counts of first-degree murder, 20 counts of burglary
and one count of rape.
Gene Rasberry (6)
In 1968 Gene Raspberry was convicted in Kansas City, Mo.
for killing six people.
John Haigh (6) Johnny began his criminal career as a swindler in England
during WW2. He enjoyed inviting his victims to his so-called laboratory where he killed
them and drank their blood. Then, he dropped them in a tank full of acid.
He often robbed
their money and/or valuables. He was hanged in 1949.
Ilfreide Blauensteiner (5+) On
January 11, 1996, this 64-year-old Austrian widow confessed to killing five
people and is believed to be responsible for more deaths in a killing spree
spanning over a decade. Dubbed the "Black Widow" by the press,
she confessed to murdering her husband, two former lovers and two other men
because "They deserved to die." An obsessive gambler, authorities
believe she killed to fuel her expensive addiction.
Her first victim was the janitor of her apartment building who, in 1981,
she "helped commit suicide" because he was abusing his wife and
children. All her victims were poisoned with fatal doses of medication. One
octogenarian would-be-victim died of cancer before she could kill him.
Ever the resourceful criminal, she falsified his will to pocket a
$15,000 inheritance.
Glen Rogers (5+) "The
Cross-Country Killer." A rapidly rising star in the Serial Killer Hit
List. Presently in custody in Kentucky after being turned in by a
relative. A charming, handsome and volatile individual, Glen was the focus
of an all-points national manhunt due to his cross-country rampage that left
at least four women dead in four separate states. The consummate ladies
man, Glen liked to pick up blond and redheaded women in bars and ask them
for a ride home. Then he would try to spend the night with them. All those
charmed by his redneck good looks are now stretched out in the morgue. The
killings came usually as a drunken afterthought. Glen is an example of a
spree killer who, unlike serial killers, does not have cooling off periods
between kills. His killings were the consequence of impromptu bursts of
rage.
His first victim is believed to be a former housemate whose corpse was
found in January 1993 under a pile of furniture in an abandoned house owned
by the Rogers family. His next known kill was a woman he met at a bar in
Van Nuys, California. On September, 1995, she was found raped and strangled
inside her burning pickup truck. The third victim, another barfly, was
found stabbed to death in her bathtub in Jackson, Mississippi on November
3. Yet another woman's body was found in a bathtub in Tampa, Florida on
November 5. His last victim was found stabbed to death in her bedroom on
November 11 in Bossier City, Louisiana.
"He's getting to be like one of your serial killers," said a
Hamilton, Ohio, police detective. Rogers, a construction worker, grew up in
Hamilton where he had frequent run-ins with the law. Once he poked a lit
blowtorch through the peephole of his front door when police came in
response to a domestic violence call. Authorities believe that he might be
linked to as many as twelve deaths. In California, Rogers is a suspect in
four unsolved killings in Ontario and Port Hueneme. Two days before his
arrest he told his sister that he was responsible for more than 70 deaths.
According to authorities Glen was being cooperative during a six-hour
interview after his arrest on November 13. Presently, agents from at least
five states have headed to Kentucky to investigate Glen's connection to any
unsolved murders that fit his deadly traits.
Lawrence Bittaker & Roy Norris
(5+) While in prison Lawrence and Roy decided that when they got out
it would be cool to kill a bunch of teen-age girls and record it
on tape and film. By 1978 they started implementing the plan. They lured
young girls inside their van dubbed the "Murder Mack" and
brutally raped and killed them. On November 20, 1979 they were arrested for
an assault in Hermosa Beach. While in custody Norris cracked and started
babbling insanely about murder. In the "Murder Mack" the police found a tape
recording of the final moments of one of their victims, Jaqueline Lamp, as
well as pictures of five hundred smiling girls. Police identified nineteen
missing girls in their stack of photos and believe that the two ex cons
could be responsible for the murder of thirty or forty women. However, they
were only convicted of five killings.
Lyda Catherine Ambrose (5+)
Abel Latif Sharif(5+) When he was arrested in October, 1995, Abel, a Egyptian national, was suspected of being the dreaded "Depredador Psicópata" of Ciudad Juarez, Mexico. He has been charged with killing five girls and abandoning their bodies in the desert of Chihuahua. Abel was arrested after authorities established links between him and five dead girls he met at nightclubs. A sexual criminal with an extensive rap sheet spanning from Miami to Texas, Abel said that he is not the dreaded "Depredador." As the body count continues rising at a rapid pace, it's become obvious that Abel was not the only one slaughtering girls in Ciudad Juarez.
Daniel Harold Rolling (5+) Known as
the Gainsville Ripper, this monster terrorized the Gainsville, Florida,
community for a short time in August, 1990, with the
mutilation-slayings of four female college students and a male. All victims
were brutally dismembered. One was decapitated. Evidence links Danny to a
similar triple murder of a family in Shreveport, Louisiana, committed in
November, 1989. He now awaits execution on Florida's Death Row and is engaged to Sondra London, and old girlfriend of convicted serial killer
John Schaefer.
George Putt (5+) Physically and emotionally abused as
a child, this Memphis, Tennessee, predator was socially and psychologically
handicapped from the get go. His father was a drifter and a drunk who
enjoyed beating his seven children with regularity. Before he was eighteen
George had already been arrested several times for acts of violence against
women and other assorted crimes. During a football game in reform school
George was kicked on the head and knocked out for several minutes and may
have sustained permanent brain damage. After his accident poor George started sleepwalking with his eyes open and alternately having blackouts and violent seizures. He continued demonstrating his
"sociopathic personality" throughout the sixties. Psychological testing
revealed a "morbid preoccupation with blood and gore" as he
continued with his career as a violent criminal.
By 1967 he married a Mississippi woman from whom he demanded sexual
gratification six to eight time a day. A charming and tactful fellow, in
1969 he tried to rape his own mother-in-law on three different occasions.
Shortly after the third attempted rape, authorities believed George
committed his first murder. By March of 1969 George's deadly habits were
in full swing. He began his killing spree by brutally murdering a couple. He tied the woman to
the bed, raped her and mutilated her vagina and anus with a pair of
surgical scissors. A week and a half later he clobbered to death an
80-year-old widow and mutilated her genitalia with a butcher knife. Four
days later a third woman was bound and stabbed fourteen times. He
attacked his fifth victim in her home on September 11. Neighbors heard her
screams and called the police. After a wild chase through the streets of
Memphis Georgie-Boy was caught smeared in the blood of his last victim. He
was found guilty of all his crimes and given the death penalty. When the
Supreme Court struck down the death penalty, George was handed a 497-year
sentence. Always the good sport, George chuckled when the judge read him
the sentence.
Andre Luiz Cassimiro(5) An ex-con with a taste for older women, Cassimiro confessed to raping and killing four women in Juiz de Fora in the state of Minas Gerais, Brazil. The five dead women were between 58 and 77 years old and lived alone. All victims were tortured, strangled with electrical
chords and some were raped. The town of Juiz de Fora was gripped with fear until May 29, 1996, when Andre Luiz Cassimiro, 31, was arrested. "I entered the houses to rob them," the remorseless killer explained, "but ended killing them. In
those moments I felt hate towards the little old women. Now, I feel
nothing."
Pretending to be a car washer, Cassimiro spent several days observing the
movements and daily routine of his future victims. "Until he got into the house he behaved like a petty thief," said Chief of Police Jose Marcio Carneiro," once inside,
he turned into a psychopath." The women were first bound to their beds and gagged. Then they were raped and strangled. He would then cover their lifeless corpses with a blanket because, "I didn't like to look at them." After his sadistic ritual, he turned the house upside down looking for money and electronics.
When he was arrested Cassimiro was still serving
his 11-year 10-month sentence for six counts of theft on a part-time basis. "In jail, he was a model prisoner," stated
penitentiary director Jairo Cristovam Ferreira. On June 19, 1995, less than five hours after
receiving judicial authorization to spend the Corpus Christi holiday
at home, Cassimiro committed his first murder. The victim was Zilda Araujo Barbuth,
76. "She was sleeping when I entered, but she woke up when I dropped a clock radio." When she tried to scream he gagged her and tied her with electrical chord to the bed post. He then proceeded to rape and strangle her. Before leaving, Cassimiro went to the kitchen and
ate a piece of goiabada (Brazilian guava candy). After the murder he returned to jail and two months later
he was released on parole.
Cassimiro dated Odete Barbosa da Silva, his second victim, for a year and a half. They ended their
relationship in the middle of 1995. Six months later the 62-year-old woman was found strangled in her home. He didn't know his third victim, Aldenira Mello,
58. He met the fourth, Maria Malvina de
Oliveira, 77, at a party for senior citizens. She danced all night long with her young escort before allowing him to walk her home. Her body was found three
days later with her head smashed in. He killed his last victim, Celia Nicolini de
Farias, on May 13, 1996. It is believed that the 74-year-old widow was raped by Andre post-mortem.
Cassimiro was caught because of his gossiping sister,
Joaquina, who was not aware of his crimes. She mentioned to a friend that she had seen a card with
Zilda Araujo Barbuthunder's name under her brother's mattress. The friend informed the police and he was arrested. In custody Cassimiro confessed to all the crimes and claimed that he "was drugged," during his year-long rampage.
Jack the Ripper (5) The father of modern serial killing and one who got away with it. Jack terrorized the streets of London in the late nineteeth century and brutally murdered five helpless women. To date no one knows who Jack the Ripper was. Like the minions that followed his example, Jack enjoyed taunting the police and would send letters to the press boasting of his deeds. He practiced cannibalism and tore apart the internal organs of four of his victims. Once he mailed to a newspaper a piece of the kidney from one of the victims when authorities doubted the authenticity of his correspondence.
"The Toledo Clubber" (5)
Ralph Harris (5) In 1995 23-year-old Ralph Harris was charged with
killing five men, all believed to be robbery victims, in Chicago's South Side.
Robert Shulman (5)
A 42-year-old post office sorter, Robert Shulman confessed to killing five prostitutes between 1991 and 1996 and dumping their dismembered bodies in garbage bins around New York. The sensitive type, Bobby whimpered as he was led to a
police car in Patchogue, Long Island. He said he felt "horrible" and apologized to the families of the victims. Shulman's brother is also being questioned by police in
connection with the murders. It is unclear how the younger brother is involved in the killings.
Shulman enjoyed picking up
prostitutes and taking them back to his apartment for sex and drugs. After satiating his senses he would
beat them to death using a hammer, baseball bat or a set of barbells.
Bobbie would then chop off the dead girls' arms so they couldn't be identified and dumped their remains in garbage containers around Long Island.
Police tracked down one of the victims from a tattoo on her body. Investigators were then able to link Shulman and his blue
Cadillac to the dead prostitute.
First police charged him with killing two women. While
in custody he admitted to three other murders. He claimed that he would smoke tons of crack with his prostitute friends, black out and wake up to find
them dead.
Thomas L.(5) A 27-year-old neo-Nazi,
Thomas L. has confessed to a five-body killing spree. An overzealous
skinhead, Thomas stabbed his first victim 91 times for wearing a
"Nazis Out" badge and killed a fellow neo-Nazi who defected from
the cause. In March, 1996 he was arrested by German authorities. In his
flat police found a fully-armed rocket launcher, pistols, ammunition and
the automatic rifle used to shoot the defector. While in custody, Thomas
conveniently claimed that during his murder spree he was merely carrying
out orders transmitted to him by Odin, the Norse god of
war.
Colin Ireland(5) Known in London as the "Gay
Slayer", Colin strived to be known as a serial killer. For this
purpose he strangled five homosexual men. Robert Ressler states in
"However Fights Monsters" that one has to commit five murders to
become a serial killer. Colin read the book and used it as a manual. He
meticulously planned each murder as he set out to become a famous serial
killer. He chose gay sado-masochistic men because they were willing to get
tied up. Also, he believed that the public would feel
less sympathy for them. Before his arrest he taunted the cops with rambling
calls claiming responsibility for the murders and threatening to keep
striking once a week. He even stated "I have got the book, I know how
many you have to do..."
Jerome Brudos (5) Jerome Brudos started his career by
preying on women and stealing their shoes. This foot fetishist from hell
liked to dress in drag while he stalked his victims. In the late sixties he
turned his innocent escapades into murder. He once removed a breast from
one of his kills, hardened it with preservatives and kept it as a paper
weight. He was also in the habit of removing their shoes, sometimes even
with severed feet inside. He enjoyed taking pictures of himself and his
dead friends dressed up in frilly underwear. And, of course, he kept a
collection of stolen shoes that would have made Imelda Marcos
jealous.
Arthur Bishop (5) A devout Mormon, Arthur Bishop liked
to spend an unnatural amount of time with children. After being charged for
embezzlement in Utah, the former Eagle Scout changed his name and
disappeared. As "Roger Downs" he joined the Big Brother program
and was fond of going on camping trips with the kids. He was also fond of
molesting and sometimes murdering them. When the police took him in for
routine questioning, he confessed to his crimes and admitted to molesting
scores of children and fondling his victims after death. In true Mormon
fashion he stated: "I'm glad you caught me, because I'd do it
again." Bishop died by lethal injection on June 9, 1988.
Marc Dutroux (4+)
The summer of 1996, Marc Dutroux, a 39-year-old pederast and unemployed electrician, was arrested after the bodies of two dead girls were dug up in back garden of his home in the southern Belgian village of
Sars-la-Buissière.
The two eight-year-olds had apparently starved to death. Another corpse - believed to be an adult
male accomplice who wanted to betray the pederast - was also excavated from under
the tiled patio garden.
Dutroux and his five accomplices ran child prostitution ring from a large number of houses. Two other sexually abused girls were found alive in another of his properties.
According to newspaper reports, Mr Dutroux
was jailed for 13 years in 1989 for kidnapping, rape
and sexual abuse.
Three years later he was free and living again in
the Charleroi area. He was subsequently questioned
by police in a separate case last winter, he was freed
without charge. Belgians are outraged that he was not more thoroughly investigated.
Police stumbled on the trail of Dutroux when a
passer-by noted the number of his van as he allegedly
snatched Laetitia Delheze, a 14-year-old girl, who was walking back from a swimming pool on August 9.
The number was traced and a lengthy interrogation
began. Police found Laetitia and Sabine Dardeene, 12,
who had been missing for about three months, in a
hidden concrete dungeon in the basement of the house
near Charleroi. Both girls were drugged and sexually
abused. Dutroux is suspected of ten more deaths, including a dead Slovenian girl.
"OKC Serial Killer" (4+) At least four women have been found dismembered in the Stiles Circle-Lincoln Terrace-Medical Center Area of Oklahoma City. The first body was found dismembered near the Capitol building in 1976. The last body was found in 1985 during a demolition excavation for the construction of the Centennial Expressway. None of the victims have been identified. In addition, on April 22, 1995, the body of a female Hispanic or Native American minus head, feet and hands was found in a shallow grave on an abandoned stretch of highway 50 miles west of Oklahoma City. Due to similarities in the method of dismemberment, authorities believe that the perpetrator could be the same as the "OKC Serial Killer."
"Pomona Strangler" (4+) Authorities in
Pomona, California, are reluctant to confirm the existence of a serial
killer offing black prostitutes in their community. The four dead women
discovered in 1993 frequented the local hooker strip, Holt Avenue, and were
probably picked up there by their killer. Three more dead women surfaced in 1994 and 1995 that have been linked to this elusive killer.
During April of 1994 FBI agents were brought to the area to analyze the
crime scenes and find possible links indicating the existence of a serial
killer, but to no avail. Federal agents never did follow through with
the investigation. For now the four cases sit unsolved and
inactive. Somewhere a killer seems to have gotten away with serial murder and no one is on his/her trail.
Ricardo Caputo (4+) Known to authorities as "The Lady Killer", this suave Argentinian was arrested on March 9, 1994 after a 20-year murderous rampage. His first victim was a young woman in New York who he strangled and stabbed in the early seventies. Caputo was arrested for the murder and placed in a mental hospital from which he subsequently escaped. A smooth-talking con artist, Ricardo left a trail of blood spanning from New York to San Francisco and Mexico City. Although he's only been charged with four murders, it is believed his tally is much higher. One possible victim, Devan Green, a waitress in Los Angeles' Scandia Restaurant, was found dead in 1981. LAPD have linked Caputo to the restaurant where, at the time of the killing, he was working in the kitchen under the alias of Bob Martin.
Francisco del Junco (4) On June 3, 1996, Francisco, a dishwasher in Dan Marino's American Sports Bar and Grill in the tony Coconut Grove neighborhood of Miami, confessed to killing and setting on fire four black crack addicts.
Police were lead to Del Junco by a street woman who was beat on the head by him nine months before. The woman flagged down a patrol car when she spotted him again. Once authorities had Del Junco in custody they just talked to him -- about his childhood in Cuba, his likes and dislikes. The conversation spanned over a weekend and took interrogators and the suspected serial killer to picturesque Key Biscayne. There, looking across the aquamarine of Biscayne Bay, the 38-year-old Del Junco-- a loner who was well-liked at work but kept his distance from the few family members he had in Miami-- confessed to killing and torching four women. Police then took him to the scene of each murder, where he acted out the details of each killing.
Del Junco was charged with the slayings of Vida Hicks 43, Diane Helms 44, Cheryl Lee Ray, 37, and Janice Cox, 37. The victims were killed between August 1995 and March 1996 and were found beaten, burned and partially clothed in or near Miami's inner city. They were all black, but Del Junco said his killing spree was not racially motivated.
More than 500 people were interviewed in the investigation and much time was spent trying to track down a suspect known only as "Dread" (because his dreadlocked hairstyle) before arresting Del Junco, a Cuban refugee who camee to Miami in the 1980 Mariel boat lift. Although authorities think they have their man, they are still looking for "Dread" who might have witnessed one of the slayings.
John Martin Scripps (4) After escaping from prison in 1994, British convict John Martin Scripps went on a globe-trotting, three-nation murder rampage. Johnny was arrested in March, 1995, in Singapore for killing and dismembering a South African tourist. He was also charged with the murder of a Canadian mother and son in Thailand.
Trained as a butcher, after killing his victims he would skillfully sever their corpses at the joints using a pen knife and dispose of their body parts. Not the typical sexual sadist, John killed merely for money and credit cards.
The first serial killer to ever be arrested in Singapore, Johnny was swiftly convicted and sentenced to death. On April 19, 1996, he was hanged by authorities. His mother and sister attended the execution. Before she left Britain, Mrs Scripps said: "These bastards have no right to take my son's life. I brought him into the world. I am the only person who can take him out of it." In a semi-literate scrawl Scripps wrote that he gave himself to a god who had betrayed him. "You may take my life for what it is worth, but grant thows I love, pease and happiness."
London's Scotland Yard believe that John also murdered a British tourist in Central America whose bank account in London was milked by Scripps after he vanished. In Mexico City, his ex-wife, Maria Arellanos, said: "John disappeared on several trips and went to the United States and South-East Asia. I knew something awful was happening, but I could not believe he had started killing people." While in prison Scripps wrote a story about how he escaped his own hanging to fall into the arms of his mother and sister. Unfortunately for John, that never happened.
Jack Barron (4) In 1995 Jack Barron moved from
being a very unfortunate man to become a serial killer. It all started in 1992 when his wife,
Irene, died mysteriously leaving Jack grief stricken. Eight months later his
four year-old son, Jeremy, stopped breathing in his sleep. Jack claimed it
was some genetic link that was killing his family. Next his daughter, also
four, died in her sleep. Family and friends could not believe such tragedy
could strike again. Jack packed up and moved in with his mother. When the
poor lady died in her bed, authorities became a little suspicious. Jack
still maintains his innocence and likes to dwell on his suffering. Now
that he's been charged with four murders, he might be in for a little more
suffering for the next one hundred years.
Michael Lupo (4+) This former choir boy served in an
Italian elite army commando unit before dedicating his life to
sadomasochism and hairdressing. In 1975 Michael moved to London where he
started a career as a hairdresser and worked his way up to owning a styling
boutique. He also racked up about 4,000 gay lovers and developed a taste
for the whip, building a modern torture chamber in his house. It all turned
ugly in March of 1986 when Lupo was diagnosed with having AIDS. He then
started his bloody rampage against the gay night life scene. Over a period
of two months he slaughtered four men who he picked up in gay bars and left
their bodies in the streets of London slashed and smeared with excrement. After two potential
victims escaped, police arrested Mike on May 15. He received four life
sentences and presently police in Berlin, Hamburg, Los Angeles and NYC are
investigating mutilation deaths that might be linked to Lupo's
travels.
Robert Rozier (4+) As a football
player, Rozier was drafted by the St. Louis Cardinals and later did time
with the Oakland Raiders. In 1981, he lost his will to play the game, and
after drifting around the country, he joined a radical black-supremacist
Hebrew Israelite sect called the Temple of Love. The cult, led by Yahweh ben Yahweh is believed to be
responsible for fourteen deaths and a series of firebombings. Rozier,
perhaps due to his football background, was the muscle of the cult. In 1986
he was arrested for the murders of two ex members. Evidence also linked him
to at least two other random killings unrelated to the sect.
Donald Miller (4)
Donald Miller, a prisoner in the Michigan Prison System,
confessed to four rape-murders from 1977 to 1978 in and around East
Lansing, Michigan,. He was arrested while attempting his
5th rape-murder. While in Jackson State Prison in Michigan, he confessed
to four other murders. In exchange for leading prosecutors to the
bodies, the charges were reduced to only four counts of manslaughter. Unfortunately
for the rest of us, he will be released on bail in March of 1997 to carry
on with his deadly ways.
Georg Karl Grossmann (4+) Another post-WWI-German
degenerate that made a living selling human flesh. Georg, a
horrifying individual, was acquainted with every kind of perversion, even
bestiality. A former butcher, after nights of heavy drinking, he would
bring prostitutes home, have sex with them, and chop them into pieces. The next day he would peddle
their flesh as beef or pork. He was arrested in August, 1921, when his landlord
summoned the police to his door following a loud altercation. Inside his
pad they found a freshly murdered lass ready to be chopped up. They also
found evidence of at least three other divvied up girls. The mad butcher
laughed when he was given the death sentence and proceeded to hang himself
in jail. Some believe that one of Georg's victims was Anastasia, the
Russian grand duchess who escaped the Bolshevik firing squad and assumed
the identity of the Polish peasant girl, Franziska
Schamzkovski.
Anthony Balaam (4) TRENTON, N.J. (AP) Anthony, a Trenton, New Jersey crack addict, confessed to raping and strangling four
prostitutes during sex-for-drugs exchanges. Fifth rape victim who escaped after being raped and led police to her attacker ending his 22-month deadly rampage. According to police Balaam showed no remorse and "came off as a nice guy" when he was arrested on August 8, 1996.
The crimes Balaam was charged with ocurred within two miles of his home. Police said he encountered his victims in the predawn hours, while cruising neighborhoods where women regularly swap sex for crack cocaine.
On February 16, when the woman who was raped escaped, police became convincedfrom details of the attack and the weapon used that the rapist was also the strangler they were seeking. DNA from semen taken from the victims and other laboratory results linked two killings. Balaam eventually became a suspect, and the rape victim identified him as her attacker after his arrest.
Eric Elliott & Lewis Gilbert (4)
One for the weekend rampage file. Eric Elliott, 18, and Lewis Gilbert, 24, of Newcomerstown, Oklahoma, bored with their mundane existence, went on a weeklong crime spree in Ohio in 1994 leaving four dead in their wake. In 1996 Gilbert was convicted in the killing of Roxy Ruddell and was sentenced to death. Eric's first trial in May, 1996, ended in a deadlock. In his second trial, moments before jury selection was to begin, Elliot pleaded guilty to participating in the September 1994 slaying of Ruddell because, he said, "he was in fact, guilty." If convicted, the teenager faces the death penalty, life without parole, or a life term that would make him eligible for parole in 15 years.
The victim, 37-year-old Roxy Ruddell was murdered while fishing in a lake. The two boys were arrested with Mrs. Ruddell's truck near Santa Fe, N.M., just days after her body was found. Police believe they also abducted and killed Ruth Loader of Port Washington, who has never been seen again and is presumed dead. Furthermore, they are suspected in the slayings of William and Flossie Brewer, whose bodies were found in their home in Kingdom City, Mo.
Tsutomu Miyazaki (4)
Charged with the kidnapping and murdering four young girls in Tokyo and the Saitama
Prefecture from 1988 to 1989, Tsutomu told the
Tokyo District Court he did not, "have much interest in his trial." At the outset of the hearings in 1990, Miyazaki admitted he
abducted and killed the four girls but said he felt "as if I had done it in a dream."
He later said in court that he "did not remember" the deposition statement in which he owned up to the charges.
Court hearings were suspended on March 1993 when lawyers demanded a second
psychiatric test for Miyazaki.
The first psychiatric tests showed that his mental condition, despite signs of personality disorder, was
sufficient enough to be held responsible for the crimes. But a second test contradicted
the initial one, suggesting that he was either suffering from multiple personality disorder or schizophrenia.
Robert Arguelles (4) While serving a sentence for child molestation, Robert Arguelles, 34, confessed to being a serial killer. On May 2, 1996, four years after the disappearance of three teenage girls from the Salt Lake
City area, Robert confessed to their murders after receiving a letter telling him he was a father.
The repentant slayer said: "I realised
these girls were just little girls like mine.... I started to
understand just how much it would hurt to have someone do what he had done". In
return for fessing up, Arguelles asked for a private cell, a color
TV and the death penalty.
Originally he had been suspected in the deaths of Malisa Roberts, 15, and Lisa Martinez,
16, after he led police to their bodies in a stagnant pond in July, 1995. He
claimed to have merely witnessed the dumping of the bodies, but in a tearful
seven-hour session with his lawyer and the investigator he broke down
and admitted killing the two teenagers, another girl of 13, and a 42-year-old
high school caretaker over a two-month period in 1992.
After confessing, he took police to the shallow grave of the third girl,
Stephanie Blundell, in the mountains east of Salt Lake City.
Anna Zwanzinger (4)
Thomas Piper (4)
Ramon Jay Rogers (3+) Ramon, an
aspiring actor and heavy-metal drummer, was arrested in March of 1996 in
San Diego after the body parts of his visiting ex-girlfriend were found in the
apartment complex he managed. The discovery triggered the reopening of two
other cases involving the mutilation-murder of another old girlfriend and
the disappearance of a friend. Investigators have looked into two
other murders outside San Diego County. The body parts found, reportedly
teeth and fingers, were in a plastic bag inside a storage locker near his
parking space.
Sean Patrick Goble (3+) Sean, a long-distance trucker
from Ashenboro, NC, confessed to the murders of two women in Tennessee
and has been charged with a third in North Carolina. He would pick up his
victims at gas and service stations along the interstate and dump their
bodies further down the road. Authorities in seven other states want to
question Sean about dozens of similar death that occurred along his truck
routes. Many of the victims were prostitutes who were smothered or
strangled. Perhaps we'll see Sean move up the ranks of his peers as he is
linked to more killings. On December 15, 1995, the 29-year-old trucker
received two consecutive life terms for the killings in Tennessee.
Cecile Bombeek (3 +)
"The Double-Initial Killer"
(3): Also known as "The Alphabet Killer" In the early
seventies three girls in and around Rochester, NY, were brutally raped and
strangled and their bodies dumped in neighboring villages that bore the
same first initial as their names. All three victims' first and last names
had matching initials. The three dead girls were Carmen Colon, who was
found dead in Churchville, Wanda Walkowicz, who was found in Webster, and
Michelle Maenza, who was found in Macedon.
More than 800 suspects were questioned. The three girls came from poor
catholic families, were 10 and 11 years old, and all had problems in
school. Due to the odd similarities shared by each victim, authorities
believe the killer worked in a social service agency, school or other
institution that gave him/her access to their family records. On December
8, 1995, a convicted murderer at a maximum-security prison claimed to know the identity of
the elusive killer.
Craig Price (3):
The youngest serial killer of the Archives, Craig was known as the
"Slasher of Warwick" after a brutal series of killings in Rhode
Island in the late 1980s. Craig, a black youth from a working class family, is believed to have committed his first murder when he was
only 14-years-old. The victim was a white female from his neighborhood,
whom he "peeped" on dozens of occasions. He stabbed her to death
with one of her kitchen knives after breaking in to their homes.
The murder went unsolved until a few months after Craig's second killing
frenzy which took place almost 2 years later, when he was 16. The victims were
two more white females in his neighborhood. The slashings were so similar that the FBI was called in to profile a serial killer. They failed
to finger a 16 year old black male as their suspect. It took an observant detective who
noticed Craig with a big cut on his hand to crack the case. He admitted
to committing the murders without any persuasion and, according to the FBI,
goes down in history as the youngest serial killer in US history. Craig is
scheduled to be released from the ACI in Cranston, Rhode Island, in 1998. His sentence for murder having been
served, he is now doing 2 additional years for
contempt. The FBI and local authorities believe it is only a matter
of time that Craig will start killing again.
Joseph & Michael Kallinger (3)
Joseph Kallinger, a cobbler by trade, led a life steeped in madness and crime. As an adopted child he grew up under the constant abuse from his parents.
It is no surprise that when he became a father he was abusive too. On
January 23, 1972 he branded his oldest daughter for running away. He was
arrested for child abuse and found incompetent to stand trial. By mid-1974 he was
constantly hearing voices from a floating head that followed him around. God also spoke to him and told him
to kill young boys and sever their penises. Eager to comply, Joe enlisted
his 13-year-old son, Michael, and proceeded to torture and murder a nine-year-old Puerto
Rican youth. Their next victim was one of his own children, Joe Jr., who had previously accused him of abuse. For such a trangression the hapless youngster was found drowned in an abandoned building.
On Jan. 8, 1975, Kallinger and Mike gained entrance to a house in Leonia, N.J., by posing as salesmen. For the next
several hours, they beat, robbed and terrorized the eight people inside.
One of the eight, a 21-year-old nurse named Maria Fasching, who had stopped at
the house to aid an elderly neighbor and friend, was taken to the basement, tied up, sexually assaulted, and killed. A bloodstained shirt left by one of the intruders was traced by a
laundry mark to Kallinger, who lived with his family in a cramped apartment
above his shoe repair shop in Philadelphia.
Michael, a juvenile, was placed on probation until his twenty-fifth
birthday. He is now free and is believed to have changed his name. After his capture Joseph was pronounced paranoid and
schizophrenic by psychiatrists. During his New Jersey trial,
he sometimes moaned and babbled incoherently.
Nevertheless, the jury concluded that he had known right from wrong and convicted him of murder.
Joe was given 40 years in jail in Pennsylvania for a series of robberies followed by a life
sentence in New Jersey for the murder of Maria Fasching. In jail Joe has expressed repeatedly his desire to
kill every person on earth. Once he slashed a fellow inmate's throat and
poured lighter fluid on himself, torched up, and tried to fry an egg on his head. After that he was moved to the Farview State Hospital for the criminally insane where he would talk to God whom he said he'll
become after death. In recent years, Kallinger has expressed remorse, refused to eat and attempted suicide. On March 26, 1996 the cobbler-turned-killer who terrorized New Jersey
suburbs two decades ago died of a seizure. He was 59 years old. Now we can only wonder if indeed he his assuming the responsabilities of the Man above.
Heriberto Seda (3)
As the notorious "Zodiac," Heriberto Seda, a ponytailed Bible quoting oddball, had to kill his victims because, "they were bad. They were evil people.". He terrorized New York City with two crime sprees -- a short summer ordeal in 1990 and a prolonged one spanning from 1992 to 1993 -- that left three dead and five wounded. A consumate media whore, Heriberto picked his moniker from the elusive "Zodiac Killer" who stalked San Francisco between 1966 and 1974 and claimed to have killed more than 37 people. He also sent letters to the police boasting of a demented plot to slaughter people purposefully selected by their astrological sign, one for each of the dozen signs. At first, the police thought it was a hoax.
On March 8, 1990, he proved them wrong. Heriberto, wearing a ski mask shot Mario Orosco, a Scorpio, in the back and left him for dead. 21 days later, he attacked German Montenedro, a Gemini, who also survived. On May 31, 1990, he attacked Joseph Proce, a Taurus, who died in the hospital three weeks later. A note found near him bore a pie-shaped picture with the symbols for the signs of the first three victims and a message that read: "Zodiac -- Time to die!" The fourth victim, Larry Parham, a homeless man, was shot while sleeping on a bench in Central Park on June 21. Subsequently he told the police that a stranger had asked him about his astrological sign a few days before the shooting. Another note with Parham's astrological sign was found near the crime scene. On that note, police discovered a single fingerprint that was later used to identify Heriberto as the star crossed killer.
After a few letters to the media nothing was heard of "Zodiac" until August 10, 1992 when he stabbed Patricia Fonte, a Leo, 100 times raising his body count to two dead. About a year later, on June 4, 1993, he shot James Weber, a Libra, in the leg while he was walking. On July 20, he crept up on John DiAcone, a homeless Virgo, and shot him to death at point-blank range. On October 2 he shot Diane Ballard, a Taurus, and left her partially paralyzed.
It was not until a letter sent to The New York Post in August of 1994 that these attacks were linked to the "Zodiac" rampage of 1990. At first authorities were dubious that the letter was from the same attacker. However police concluded that it was not a hoax
but were unsure if it was written by the same person or someone who knew of the assaults. Nothing was heard from him again until the June 18, 1996, argument he had with his sister.
Authorities said that Seda, a deeply religious man obsessed with weaponry and the teachings of the Bible, was angry with his 17-year-old sister, Gladys Reyes, for associating with disreputable types. Apparently Gladys wouldn't reason and he shot her in the back. According to Sgt. Joseph Herbert: "He was mad at his sister because she was hanging around with the wrong people, drug dealers, troublemakers -- and he didn't like that." Neighbors said that Seda abhorred drug dealers and used to tip off police officers assigned to the neighborhood about who was trafficking in drugs. They also said that he recently stood in the middle
of the street and declared: "I'm going to start killing. I'm going to start killing because I'm not getting no sex."
During the stand-off, he fired numerous rounds at
police barricades and before giving himself up. When he surrendered he placed13 homemade zip-guns in a bucket lowered from the building's roof. A cache of weaponry, pipe bombs, devil worship books, crossbows, knives and bomb-making manuals was later found at his apartment elsewhere in the city. During the siege, Heriberto wore what appeared to be a helmet or saucepan on his head.
Sergeant Herbert, who had been involved in the intensive manhunt for the "Zodiac" killer, recognized the writing and symbols Seda used after the shootout while writing his confession. At once, he ran a check of his fingerprints through the police computer and matched one to the one found at the scene of the 1990 attack in Central Park, and another one to one found on a1994 letter mailed to The New York Post.
Unabomber (3) Unabom
has been at it since 1978 mailing letter bombs to scientists, computer
industry people and politicians. Although Unabom has only killed three,
many have been severely injured by his lethal postal work. His last victim, a California Forestry Association executive, was killed in 1995, four days after
the Oklahoma bombing.
A intellectual psychopath, Unabom likes to plant references to wood and
forestry in his bombing text. In 1995, in a desperate cry for attention,
the moody bomber threatened to blow up an airliner in Los Angeles
International Airport during the fourth of July weekend. Nothing came to
pass, except that the Unabomber became the hottest publishing commodity in
the nation after he requested that his treatise against technology be
published by the media. Finally, on September 1995, the Washington Post and
the New York Times published his manifesto.
On November 6, 1995, the FBI declared that Unabom no
longer was considered a terrorist and that his profile was more like that
of a serial killer.
On April 3, 1996, Federal Agents arrested Theodore J. Kaczynski, a Harvard
grad and former UC Berkeley math professor, in a remote cabin in the
Montana mountains. Authorities believe Ted is indeed the mysterious
Unabomber. After a 18-year search, Kaczynski's brother David broke the case
when he uncovered old letters in his mother's attic that sounded like
Unabom. Through a lawyer David handed the documents to authorities after
negotiating that they would not pursue the death penalty. Subsequently
Federal Agents set on a three week stakeout around Kaczynski's remote
mountain cabin in the freezing wilderness near the Continental Divide.
The cabin, a Spartan hand-built 10-by-12-foot wood and tar paper structure,
had no electricity, phone or running water. The reclusive ex-professor's
only means of transportation was a red bike he rode into town to buy
supplies when the harsh Montana weather allowed. For more than twenty-five
years he led a hermit's life in the mountains that would have made Saint
Anthony proud. It is unclear how someone living under such austere
isolation could have perpetrated the series of intricate bombings
authorities claimed he did.
To prove their case against the reclusive mountain-man/genius the Feds have
"leaked" information to the press about two partially assembled
bombs discovered in his home. They also stated that one of his three typewriters "might" match the one used to write the serial bomber's 35,000-word
rant against industrialization. They also claim to have found the original manuscript. All in all 700 pieces of evidence were carted away from his cabin before the Feds decided to take the cabin itself to a nearby Airforce base for safekeeping.
On the positive side, after years of
isolation Teddy does not seem troubled by his new living conditions. Being back in civilization, Ted has been showering on a daily basis and is enjoying the fine prison cuisine. Apart from that, his hermit life seems to remain the same. He still reads avidly and his cell is bigger than the cabin in which he lived for more than 25 years. He has been soft spoken and pleasant with everyone he has come in contact with. However he has not said a word regarding the accusations leveled against him. Perhaps he is saving it for the legions of Hollywood agents anxiously waiting by his cell door with
lucrative deals for the exclusive book and film rights to his side of the story.
Theresa Cross (3)
Theresa Cross aka
Jimmie Knorr. A mother of three sons and two daughters, she shot one of her daughters with a gun. The poor girl survived and, after
a few weeks, Theresa tried to remove the bullet by herself. The attempted surgery
left the daughter near death. So Theresa, the kindest of mothers, put the girl in
a closet and told the other children not to feed her. Eventually,
the kid died. Subsequently another daughter was beaten to death. Theresa took the
two corpses up to the mountains with the help
of her teenage sons and burned them in a pile of trash. During her
trial for infanticide it was revealed that she had been previously acquitted of the murder of her former
husband.
Paul Bernardo & Karla Homolka (3) Paul, a serial
rapist, was a man in constant need of a fuck. His good wife, Karla, was always
glad to help her man. She actively sought girls for Paul to rape. The undoing of this
gruesome twosome proved to be Karla's teenage sister, Tammy, whom Paul had always lusted after. In mid-1990 he started pressuring Karla to help him have
sex with Tammy. By December 23, Paul, a sexual psychopath and lousy rap
star, decided the little vixen's time was up. After they drugged Tammy, Karla
videotaped her husband raping her. Later that night Tammy died as she
choked on her own vomit. Her death was found accidental and the Homolka's
carried on to the tune of two more deaths, 14-year-old Leslie Mahaffy and
15-year-old Kristen French, before their arrest.
In 1993 Karla plea-bargained a guilty charge on two manslaughter deaths in
exchange for testifying against her sexually predatory ex husband. The ensuing media
circus surrounding their trial, known as Canada's "Trial of the Century," rivaled the
O.J. feeding frenzy that mesmerized the US public. Even the Internet was
pulled into the fracas when press reports on the case were banned in
Canada and resurfaced in cyberspace. Karla is now serving 12 years for manslaughter. On September 1, 1995, Paul was found guilty of all
charges and declared a "dangerous offender". He is now serving
life with no possibility of parole for 25 years while he works on his rap act.
Charles Meach (3) On November 11, 1957, the day his
parents took him out of reform school, Charlie went out and beat to death a
22-month-old girl. He later told the police he "wanted to know how it
would feel." After serving 17 years in prison he got out on parole
and, two months later, smoked his parents. Now he is serving a life
sentence and hopefully they won't let him out again.
Harvey Murray Glatman (3) As a child, Harvey enjoyed
hanging himself while jerking off. The family physician told his parents
that he would soon get over it and in the mean time they should "try
to keep him busy." As an adult, Harvey never lost his fondness for
ropes. Through classifieds adds he started meeting women using the old
photographer-looking-for-models-trick. When the hopeful models arrived, he
told them that he was shooting an S & M portrait for a pulp magazine.
Once he had tied them up Harvey raped the "models" and drove them to the desert
where he would choke them to death. In 1958 he was arrested when his next
would-be victim seized his pistol after he shot her. In 1959 Glatman was gassed to death in San
Quentin.
William Heirens (3) As a child
William Heirens thought that all sex was dirty. Later he channeled his
sexual desires into dressing up like a woman and masturbating to pictures
of high ranking Nazis. Not surprisingly, he later committed numerous fetish
burglaries and three murders from which he claimed to have derived immense
pleasure. He killed two women who caught him ransacking their homes and
dismembered an eleven year old girl. At one of the crime scenes he wrote on
the wall with lipstick: "For Heaven's sake catch me before I kill
more. I cannot control myself." He was caught on June 26, 1946. In his
trial he said his crimes were perpetrated by his alter ego "George
Murman." To this day, he thinks Murman still exists and writes notes
to him .
Charles Schmid (3) Charles Schmid,
the Pied Piper of Phoenix, was a little imp who dyed his hair black and
drew a mole in his face to look meaner. This bizarre individual became a
cult hero of the disaffected youths of Tucson, Arizona. On March 31, 1964,
after a night of drinking, he proclaimed that he was going to kill a girl
and get away with it. His victim was a 15-year-old girl who he lured to the
desert where he raped and killed her. The next year he killed his
girlfriend and younger sister and dumped their bodies in the desert. A
boastful man, Charlie took his friend Richard Bruns to see the corpses. The
murders became an open secret with a bunch of Tucson teens. No one told
authorities until Bruns, fearing that his girlfriend was next on Charlie's
hit list, spilled the beans.
At first Charlie was given the death sentence which later was commuted to
life in prison when the US Supreme Court declared capital punishment
unconstitutional. In 1972 he escaped with fellow triple-murderer Raymond
Hudgens and was recaptured within days. On March 20, 1975 Schmid was
stabbed 20 times by fellow inmates and died ten days later.
Victor Gant (2+) A New Orleans police
officer, Victor is a suspect in the murders of two out of 24 victims of an unknown serial killer. The dead are mostly prostitutes who were strangled, their
stripped bodies dumped in New Orleans, Jefferson Parish, and swamps further
west of the city. The killings started in 1991. Most of the victims were
abducted in Algiers and Treme, two of the poorest neighborhoods of the
city. Gant has been linked to two death, one of which was his girlfriend.
However, he has not been charged with anything and is still on the force
working a desk job as his fellow officers look for evidence linking him to
22 other killings.
Ed Gein (2+) Meet America's Psychopath
King, Ed Gein. Two movies, precursors to two genres, were made based on his
exploits: Psycho and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Ed once
joked that he had a "collection of shrunken heads" at home but no
one thought he was dead serious.
As a child Ed grew up under the watch of his dominating mom. Once she died,
he masturbated over her cadaver and got busy working on what would turn him
into the Van Gogh of Crime. Ed wasn't too sure about his sexuality. First
he considered cutting off his dick, then thought about a sex change
operation. Finally he settled on grave robbing and a strange type of
transvestite necrophilia. To become a woman he would carve out the
genitalia of female cadavers and wear them over his own.
Ed had a knack for fashion and home decorations. In his farm he built The
Sistine Chapel from Hell. A devout recycler, he found uses for all parts of
the anatomy. He had a belt made out of nipples, a skin vest that he wore on
special occasions, mobiles made out of noses, skulls on his bedposts,
cranial bowls for soup, drums made out of skin, and the beat goes on. His
strangeness was uncovered when police came knocking on his door
investigating the disappearance of Bernice Worden, a local store keeper.
Although he was only officially linked to two murders, a couple of
"fresh" vaginas were found in his house that could not be matched
to his known victims or any cemetery records. He was also suspected of
killing his brother and two other men who disappeared near his farm. Many
have tallied greater numbers than Ed, but few achieved his degree of
weirdness.
They tried it, they liked it, they did it again!
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