SERIAL by brittanyodom

S E R IA L SERIAL S E R IA L

SERIAL

This is just a colophon I copied from a website and I will edit it to make it sound more personalized. CCA Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts, on view from April 23 through August 9, 2008, in the lower of the Logan Galleries on the San Francisco campus of California College of the Arts. Editors: Grace Kook-Anderson and Claire Fitzsimmons Authors: Ralph Rugoff, John Roberts, and Jill Dawsey Catalog design: Stripe / Jon Sueda Copy editor: Lindsey Westbrook Director of publications: Erin Lampe Project manager: Meghan Ryan Printer: Westcan Printing Group, Winnipeg, Canada Distribution: Distributed Arts Publishing Inc., New York © 2008 by California College of the Arts, 1111 Eighth Street, San Francisco CA 94107. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any manner without permission. All images are © the artists, reproduced with the kind permission of the artists and/or their representatives. Photo credits: p. 10 (top): © 1963 Julian Wasser; p. 10 (bottom): courtesy the Andy Warhol Museum, © 2008 the Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh, a museum of Carnegie Institute, all rights reserved; pp. 11, 19: courtesy the artist and Gagosian Gallery. Every effort has been made to contact copyright holders and to ensure that all the information presented is correct. Some of the facts in this volume may be subject to debate or dispute. If proper copyright acknowledgment has not been made, or for clarifications and corrections, please contact the publishers and we will correct the information in future reprintings, if any. ISBN 978-0-9802055-1-0

THE LIFE AND CRIMES OF THE WORLDâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S MOST NOTORIOUS KILLERS

SERIAL EDITED BY BRITTANY ODOM

PUBLISHED BY RANDOM HOUSE BOOKS

CONTENT INTRODUCTION ED KEMPER TED BUNDY

DENNIS RADER

LAST WORDS

VICTIM PROFILE

ALEXANDFER PICHUSHKIN

ANDREI CHIKATILO

RODNEY ALCALA

FINAL THOUGHTS

JEFFREY DAHMER

KILLER PROFILE

JOHN WAYNE GACY

CHARLES EDMUND CULLEN

AILEEN WUORNOS

HUNTING GROUNDS

H H HOLMES

KARLA HOMOLKA

LUIS GARAVITO

TOOLS

se·ri·al kill·er noun

(1974) a person who commits a series of murders, often with no apparent motive and typically following a characteristic, predictable behavior pattern. Coined by FBI Sp ec ial A gent Rob er t Ke ssl e r

Robert K . Ressler, FBI Agent

John E . Douglas FBI Agent

HOW THEY MADE A KILLING Its hard to think about it now, but the term “Serial Killer” wasn’t identified until the 1970’s by FBI Profi lers John E. Douglas and Robert K. Ressler. This book could not cover every serial killer in history so I chose these killers by the scope of their crimes, their uniqueness, and their coverage in the media and courtroom. While this is a collection of the most truly horrendous and evil subset of humanity, I don’t think that it is a part of our history to be ignored. We need to acknowledge that these people exist and to pretend that they don’t will only add to the problem. This book exists to discuss the history and for the public to learn more about how to identify the different types of serial killers.

10 Victims: 1964-1973 Years Active: California Where:

THE CO-ED KILLER

ED KEMPER

Edmund Kemper was born on December 18, 1948, and lived in Burbank, California, till his parents’ divorce in 1957, he moved with his mother and two sisters to Montana. Kemper had a difficult relationship with his alcoholic mother, as she was very critical of him, and he blamed her for all of his problems. When he was 10 years old, his mother had forced him to live in the basement, away from his sisters, whom she feared he might harm them. Signs of trouble began to emerge early. Kemper had developed a dark fantasy life, sometimes dreaming about killing his mother. He cut off the heads of his sisters’ dolls and even coerced the girls into playing a game he called “gas chamber,” in which he had them blindfold him and lead him to a chair, where he pretended to writhe in agony until he “died.” His first victims were the family cats. At ten he, buried one of them alive and the second, 13 year-old Kemper slaughtered with a knife. He would briefly flip flop between living with his separated parents but ended up back with his mother, who then decided to send the troubled teenager to live with his paternal grandparents in North Fork, California.Kemper hated living on his grandparents’ farm. Before going to North Fork, he had already begun learning about firearms, but his grandparents took away his rifle after he killed several birds and other small animals. On August 27, 1964, Kemper finally turned his building rage on his grandparents. The 15-year-old shot his grandmother in the kitchen after an argument, and when his grandfather returned home, Kemper went outside and shot him by his car and then he had proceeded to hide the body.

Afterward, he called his mother, who told him to call the police and tell them what happened. Later, Kemper would say that he shot his grandmother “to see what it felt like.” He added that he had killed his grandfather so that the man wouldn’t have to find out that his wife had been murdered. For his crimes, Kemper was handed over to the California Youth Authority. He underwent a variety of tests, which determined that he had a very high IQ, but also suffered from paranoid schizophrenia. Kemper was eventually sent to Atascadero State Hospital, a maximum security facility for mentally ill convicts. In 1969, Kemper was released at the age of 21. Despite his prison doctors’ recommendation that he not live with his mother, because of her past abuse and his psychological issues involving her, he rejoined her in Santa Cruz, California, where she had moved after ending her third marriage to take a job with the University of California. While there, Kemper attended community college for a time and worked a variety of jobs, eventually finding employment with the Department of Transportation in 1971. Kemper had applied to become a state trooper, but he was rejected because of his size—he weighed around 300 pounds and was 6 feet 9 inches tall, which led to his nickname “Big Ed.” However, he did hang around some of the Santa Cruz police officers. One gave him a training-school badge and handcuffs, while another let him borrow a gun, according to Whoever Fights Monsters by Robert K. Ressler and Tom Shachtman. Kemper even had a car that resembled a police cruiser. The same year he began working for the highway department, Kemper was hit by a car while out on his motorcycle. His arm was badly injured, and

ED KEMPER

he received a $15,000 settlement in the civil suit he fi led against the car’s driver. Unable to work, Kemper turned his mind toward other pursuits. He noticed a large number of young women hitchhiking in the area. In the new car he bought with some of his settlement money, Kemper began storing the tools he thought he might need to fulfi ll his murderous desires, including a gun, a knife, and a pair of handcuffs. At first, Kemper picked up female hitchhikers and let them go. However, when he offered a ride to two Fresno State students—Mary Ann Pesce and Anita Luchessa—they would never make it to their destination. Their families reported them missing soon thereafter, but nothing would be known of their fates until August 15, when a female head was discovered in the woods near Santa Cruz and was later identified as Pesce’s. Luchessa’s remains, however, were never found. Kemper would later explain that he stabbed and strangled Pesce before stabbing Luchessa as well. After the murders, he brought the bodies back to his apartment and removed their heads and hands. Kemper also reportedly engaged in sexual activity with their corpses. Later that year, on September 14, 1972, Kemper picked up 15 year-old Aiko Koo, who had decided to hitchhike rather than wait for the bus to take her to a dance class. She would meet the same unfortunate demise as victims Pesce and Luchessa. In January 1973, Kemper continued to act on his murderous impulses, picking up hitchhiker Cindy Schall, whom he shot and killed. While his mother was out, Kemper went to her home and hid Schall’s body in his room. He dismembered her corpse there the following day and threw the parts into the ocean. Several parts were later discovered when they washed up on shore. He buried her head in his mother’s backyard.

ED KEMPER

In April 1973, Kemper committed what would be his last two murders. On Good Friday, he went to his mother’s home, where the two had an unpleasant exchange. Kemper attacked his mother after she went to sleep, first striking her in the head with a hammer, and then cutting her throat with a knife. As he had with his other victims, he then decapitated her and cut off her hands, but then also removed her larynx and put it down the garbage disposal. After hiding his mother’s body parts, Kemper called his mother’s, friend Sally Hallett and invited her over to the house. Kemper strangled Hallett shortly after she arrived and hid her body in a closet. Kemper fled the area the next day, driving east until he reached Pueblo, Colorado, where on April 23 he made a call to the Santa Cruz police to confess his crimes. At first, they did not believe that the guy they knew as “Big Ed” was a killer. But during subsequent interrogations he would lead them to all the evidence they needed to prove that he was in fact the infamous “Co-ed Killer.” Charged with eight counts of first-degree murder, Kemper went on trial for his crimes in October 1973. He was found guilty of all of the charges in early November. When asked by the judge what he thought his punishment should be, Kemper said that he should be tortured to death. He instead received eight concurrent life sentences. At present, Kemper is serving his time at California Medical Facility in Vacaville.

When I see a pretty girl walking down the street, I think two things. One part wants to be real nice and sweet, and the other part wonders what her head would look like on a stick ED KEMPER

30+ Victims: 1961- 1978 Years Active: Utah, Florida, Colorado, Where: Oregon, Idaho, California

THE CRAZY NECROPHILE

TED BUNDY

Theodore “Ted” Bundy (November 24, 1946 to January 24, 1989) was a 1970s serial murderer, rapist and necrophiliac. He was executed in Florida’s electric chair in 1989. His case has since inspired many novels and fi lms about serial killers. Ted Bundy admitted to 36 killings of young women across several states in the 1970s, but experts believe that the final tally may be closer to 100 or more. The exact number of women Bundy killed will never been known. On January 24, 1989, Ted Bundy was put to death around 7 a.m. at the Florida State Prison in an electric chair sometimes known as “Old Sparky.” Outside the prison, crowds cheered and even set off fireworks after Bundy’s execution. In February 1980, Ted Bundy married Carole Ann Boone, a mother-of-two whom he’d dated before his initial arrest, in a Florida courtroom during the penalty phase of his trial. When Boone gave birth to a daughter in 1982, she named Ted Bundy as the father of the child. Boone eventually realized Bundy was guilty of the crimes and stopped visiting him during the last two years of his imprisonment. Ted Bundy was born in Burlington, Vermont on November 24, 1946, starting life as his mother’s secret shame. Eleanor Cowell was 22 years old and unmarried when she had her son Theodore, which humiliated her deeply religious parents. She delivered the child at a home for unwed mothers in Vermont and later brought her son to her parents in Philadelphia. To hide the fact he was an illegitimate child, Bundy was raised as the adopted son of his grandparents and was told that his mother was his sister. Eleanor moved with Ted to Tacoma, Washington, a few years later. In 1951, she married Johnnie Bundy and the couple had several children together. From all appear-

ances, Bundy grew up in a content, working-class family. Bundy showed an unusual interest in the macabre at an early age. Around the age of three, he became fascinated by knives. Bundy was a shy but bright child who did well in school, but not with his peers. As a teenager, a darker side of his character started to emerge. Bundy liked to peer in other people’s windows and thought nothing of stealing things he wanted from other people. While a student at the University of Washington, Bundy fell in love with a wealthy, pretty young woman from California. She had everything that he wanted: money, class, and influence. He was devastated by their breakup. Many of his later victims resembled his college girlfriend—attractive students with long, dark hair. His killings also usually followed a gruesome pattern. He often raped his victims before beating them to death. He graduated from University of Washington with a degree in psychology in 1972 and had been accepted to law school in Utah. By the mid 1970s, Bundy had transformed himself, becoming more outwardly confident and active in social and political matters. Bundy even got a letter of

TED BUNDY

MURDER IS NOT ABOUT LUST AND IT’S NOT ABOUT VIOLENCE . IT’S ABOUT POSSESSION. WHEN YOU FEEL THE LAST BREATH OF LIFE COMING OUT OF THE WOMAN, YOU LOOK INTO HER EYES. AT THAT POINT,

IT’S BEING GOD

TED BUNDY

recommendation from the Republican governor of Washington after working on his campaign. While there is some debate as to when Ted Bundy started killing, most sources say that he began his murderous rampage around 1974. Around this time, many women in the Seattle area and in nearby Oregon went missing. Stories circulated about some of the victims last being seen in the company of a young, dark-haired man known as â&#x20AC;&#x153;Ted.â&#x20AC;? He often lured his victims into his car

by pretending to be injured and asking for their help. Their kindness proved to be a fatal mistake. In the fall of 1974, Bundy moved to Utah to attend law school, and women began disappearing there as well. The following year, he was pulled over by the police. A search of his vehicle uncovered a cache of burglary toolsâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;a crowbar, a face mask, rope and handcuffs. He was arrested for possession of these tools and the police began to link him to much more sinister crimes.

TED BUNDY

the Chi Omega sorority house at Florida State University. He attacked four of the young female residents, killing two of them. On February 9, Bundy kidnapped and murdered a 12-year-old girl named Kimberly Leach. These crimes marked the end of his murderous rampage as he was soon pulled over by the police that February.

In 1975, Bundy was arrested in the kidnapping of Carol DaRonch, one of the few women to escape his clutches. He was convicted and received a one-to-15-year jail sentence.Â Two years later, Bundy was indicted on murder charges for the death of a young Colorado woman. He decided to act as his own lawyer in this case. During a trip to the courthouse library, Bundy jumped out a window and made his first escape. He was captured eight days later. In December 1977, Bundy escaped from custody again. He climbed out of a hole he made in the ceiling of his cell, having dropped more than 30 pounds to fit through the small opening. Authorities did not discover that Bundy was missing for 15 hours, giving the serial killer a big head start on the police. He eventually made his way to Tallahassee, Florida. There, on the night of January 14, 1978, Bundy broke into

TED BUNDY

The most damning evidence connecting Ted Bundy to the two Chi Omega murders at FSU were bite marks on one of the bodies, which were a definitive match to Bundy. In July 1979, Ted Bundy was convicted for those crimes. He was given the death penalty twice. He received another death sentence the following year in the murder of Kimberly Leach. Ted Bundyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s charm and intelligence made him something of a celebrity during his trial. Bundy fought for his life, spending years appealing his death sentence. He tried to take his case as high as the U.S. Supreme Court, but he was turned down. He also offered information on some of unsolved murders to avoid Floridaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s electric chair, but he could not delay justice forever. Ted Bundy was finally executed on January 24, 1989 in Florida.

I didn’t know what made people want to be friends. I didn’t know what made people attractive to one another. I didn’t know what underlay social interactions. TED BUNDY

TED BUNDY

147 1992-1999 Columbia

Victims: Years Active: Where:

THE BEAST

LUIS GARAVITO

Inside a maximum security, geographically secret Colombian prison, there is a man named

Luis Garavito

. He lives separately from the other prisoners, for his own protection and only takes food and drinks that are given to him by those he knows. His guards will describe him as relaxed, positive, and respectful. He’s studying to be a politician, and upon his release he hopes to start a career in activism, helping abused children. After all, abused children are something Garavito is an expert on, having abused over 300 of them himself. Before Garavito was known as the relaxed, respectful inmate that the Colombian prison guards so admire, he was known as “La Bestia,” or, the Beast. From 1992 to 1999, the Beast raped, tortured and murdered anywhere from 100 to 400 boys, all between the ages of six and 16. His official number of victims rests at 138, the number he confessed to in court.Police believe the number is closer to 400, and continue to this day to prove it. In 1992, Colombia was in the middle of a decades-long civil war, part of the Colombian conflicts that had begun in the late 1960s. Due to the conflict, thousands of Colombian residents were left homeless, fending for themselves on the streets. Many of those left homeless were children, and their parents were either dead or long gone, ensuring that no one would notice if they started going missing. Luis Garavito knew this and would use it to his advantage for the next seven years. Though there was hardly a reason to be, Garavito was careful about his crimes. He specifically targeted the

downtrodden, the homeless, orphaned boys who roamed the streets looking for food or attention. Once he found one, he would approach him, luring them away from the crowded city streets, promising the younger boys gifts or candy, and the older boys money or employment. He would dress the part when offering a job, impersonating a priest, a farmer, an elderly man, or a street vendor, looking for someone young to help around his house or business. He would rotate his disguises often, never appearing as the same person too often to avoid suspicion. Once he’d lured the boy away, he would walk with him for a time, encouraging the boy to share with Garavito about his life, and earning his trust. In reality, he was wearing the boys down, walking just long enough that they would tire, making them vulnerable and unwary to the situation developing. Then he’d attack. He’d corner the tired boy, binding his wrists together. Then he’d torture them beyond belief. According to police reports, the Beast truly earned his nickname. The bodies of the victims that were recovered showed signs of prolonged torture, including bite marks and anal penetration. In multiple cases, the victim’s genitals were removed and placed in his mouth. Several of the bodies were decapitated. Five years after Luis Garavito murdered his first victim, police began to take notice of the missing children. In late 1997, a mass grave was discovered, prompting police to launch an investigation into their disappearances. In February of 1998, the bodies of two naked children were found on a hillside, lying next

LUIS GARAVITO

to each other. A few feet away, another corpse was found. All three had their hands bound and their throats slashed. The murder weapon was found nearby. While searching the area around the three boys, police came across a note, with an address handwritten on it. The address turned out to be Garavito’s girlfriend, whom he had been dating for years. Though he wasn’t in the home at the time, his things were, and the girlfriend gave the police access to them. In one of Garavito’s bags, police discovered pictures of young boys, detailed journal entries in which he described each of his crimes, and tally marks of the number of his victims. A search for Garavito continued for days, during which known residences of his were searched, as well as local areas where he was known to hang out to look for new victims. Unfortunately, none of the search efforts turned up any information on Garavitos whereabouts. That is, until April 22. Roughly a week after the hunt for Garavito had begun, police in a neighboring town picked up a man on suspicion of rape. A homeless man, sitting in an alleyway, had noticed a young boy being followed and eventually accosted by an older man. Thinking that the situation was dire enough to intervene, the homeless man rescued the boy and alerted authorities. The police arrest-

LUIS GARAVITO

ed the man on suspicion of attempted rape. Unbeknownst to them, they had in their custody a man guilty of far more than attempted rape. In an almost accidental arrest, local police had caught the beast that everyone in Columbia had been looking for, Luis Garavito. As soon as he was interrogated by Colombian national police, Garavito cracked under the pressure. He confessed to abusing 147 young boys, and burying their bodies in unmarked graves, even drawing maps to the grave sites for police. His stories were corroborated when police found a pair of eyeglasses at one of the crime scenes, which matched Garavito’s highly specific condition. In the end, he was convicted on 138 counts of murder, though the others continue to be investigated. The maximum penalty for murder in Colombia is roughly 13 years. Multiplied by the 138 counts he received, Luis Garavito’s sentence came out to 1,853 years and nine days. Colombian law states that people who have committed crimes against children are required to serve at least 60 years in maximum secuirty prison. However, because he helped the police find the victim’s bodies, he was given 22 and is scheduled to be released in 2021.

I RAPE AND MURDER LUIS GARAVITO

LUIS GARAVITO

THE TOP 10 STATES THAT KILLERS ARE ACTIVE Serial Killers are naturally creatures of habit, like animals, they all have their various hunting grounds. Many of these killers have become nicknamed after where they commited their crimes such as Gary Ridgway known most commonly as â&#x20AC;&#x153;The Green River Killerâ&#x20AC;? in Washington, where his victims were eventually found. The place where the killer chooses to commit the crime is as personal as the crime itself. An organized killer will choose their location well ahead of time, while a disorganized killer might kill on a spur of the moment anywhere.

OKLAHOMA Adjusted number of serial killings per 1 million: Total no. of serial killings: 174 Most Famous Killer: Sean Sellers

UTAH Adjusted number of serial killings per 1 million: Total no. of serial killings: 78 Most Famous Killer: Arthur Gary Bishop

TEXAS Adjusted number of serial killings per 1 million: Total no. of serial killings: 793 Most Famous Killer: Rodney Alcala

LOUISIANA Adjusted number of serial killings per 1 million: Total no. of serial killings: 276 Most Famous Killer: Sean Vincent Gillis

OREGON Adjusted number of serial killings per 1 million: Total no. of serial killings: 162 Most Famous Killer: Randy Woodfield

5.86

6.01

6.11

7.35

7.36

WASHINGTON Adjusted number of serial killings per 1 million: Total no. of serial killings: 277 Most Famous Killer: Gary Ridgway

CALIFORNIA Adjusted number of serial killings per 1 million: Total no. of serial killings: 1507 Most Famous Killer: Ed Kemper

FLORIDA Adjusted number of serial killings per 1 million: Total no. of serial killings: 778 Most Famous Killer: Aileen Wuornos

NEVADA Adjusted number of serial killings per 1 million: Total no. of serial killings: 98 Most Famous Killer: Carroll Cole

ALASKA Adjusted number of serial killings per 1 million: Total no. of serial killings: 51 Most Famous Killer: Louis D. Hastings

7.44

7.81

9.92

12.19

15.65

States Created by Freepik

48-64 Victims: 1992-2006 Years Active: Russia Where:

THE CHESSBOARD KILLER

ALEXANDER PICHUSHKIN

Alexander Pichushkin, nicknamed “The

Russian serial killer

Chessboard Killer,” was caught in Moscow and convicted in 2007 of killing 48 people. Following his arrest the police discovered a chessboard with dates on all but two of the squares, apparently connected to the murders he committed. Due to the gruesomeness and number of murders, Russians considered reinstating the death penalty. Serial killer Alexander Pichushkin was born April 9, 1974, in Mytishchi, Moscow. Known as the Chessboard Killer, Pichushkin was convicted of murdering 48 people in Moscow in 2007. He appeared to be in competition with one of Russiaís most well-known serial killers, Andrei Chikatilo, who was convicted of 52 murders in 1992. Little is known of Pichushkin’s early years. He had some type of head injury around the age of four and spent time in an institute for the disabled as a child. Around the time of Chikatilo’s trial in 1992, Pichushkin committed his first murder. He was just a teenager when he pushed

a boy out of a window, according to Pichushkin’s televised confession. While the police did question him in the case, it was later declared a suicide. “This first murder, it’s like first love, it’s unforgettable,” he later said to the officers. Pichushkin’s murderous impulses lay dormant for years until he began killing people in Moscow’s Bittsevsky Park in the early 2000s. Often targeting the elderly or the destitute, he lured his victims to the park to reportedly drink with him at his dead dog’s grave. There appears to be some kernel of truth to this story. After the loss of his grandfather, with whom he shared a close bond, Pichushkin became depressed. He got a dog that he often walked in the park. It is unknown whether the dog is actually buried there, however. Pichushkin waited until his intended victim was intoxicated and then he hit him or her repeatedly with a blunt instrument - a hammer or a piece of pipe. To conceal the bodies, he often threw his victims into a sewer pit. Some of them were still alive at the time and ended up drowning.

It is unclear how many murders Pichushkin actually accomplished as his real life chessboard was f illed out till the spot 61 and has multiple conf licting confessions claiming numbers between 46 - 64

ALEXANDER PICHUSHKIN

As the killings progressed, Pichushkin’s attacks grew even more savage. He left a broken vodka bottle sticking out of some victims’ skulls and seemed to care less about disposing of the bodies, just leaving them out in the open to be discovered. By 2003, Moscow residents – especially those that lived near the park – feared that there was a serial killer on the loose. Newspapers nicknamed Pichushkin the “Bittsevsky Maniac” and Authorities finally caught up with Pichushkin in June 2006 after he killed a woman he worked with at a supermarket. She had left a note for her son to tell him that she was taking a walk with Pichushkin. While he was aware of the risks involved in killing his co-worker, he still murdered her. After his arrest, the police discovered a chessboard with dates on 61 or 62 of its 64 squares. Pichushkin was a fan of the game and had been trying to kill as many people as there were squares on the board. Despite

the date references, the police were only able to charge Pichushkin with 51 counts of murder and attempted murder (three of his victims survived). Pichushkin’s confession was aired on Russian television. In it, he discussed at length his need to kill. “For me, a life without murder is like a life without food for you,” Pichushkin reportedly said. Showing no remorse, he later argued that he should be charged with more murders, keeping with his claim of killing 61 or 63 people (his story varied). “I thought it would be unfair to forget about the other 11 people,” Pichushkin reportedly commented during his 2007 trial. Pichushkin was convicted in October 2007. The jury deliberated for only three hours before finding him guilty of 48 counts of murder and three counts of attempted murder. Shortly after the trial, Pichushkin was sentenced to life in prison. The hideous nature of his crimes has renewed interest in re-instituting Russia’s death penalty.

For me, life without murder is like a life without food. I was the father of these people, since it was I who opened the door for them to another world. ALEXANDER PICHUSHKIN

56+ Victims: 1978-1990 Years Active: Russia Where:

THE RED RIPPER

ANDREI CHIKATILO

Andrei Romanovich Chikatilo was born on October 16, 1936, in Yablochnoye, a village in the heart of rural Ukraine in the USSR. During the 1930s, Ukraine was known as the “Breadbasket” of the Soviet Union. Stalin’s policies of agricultural collectivization caused widespread hardship and famine that decimated the population. At the time of Chikatilo’s birth, the effects of the famine were still widely felt, and his early childhood was influenced by deprivation. The situation was made worse still when the USSR entered World War II against Germany, bringing sustained bombing raids on Ukraine. In addition to the external hardships, Chikatilo is believed to have suffered from hydrocephalus (water on the brain) at birth, which caused him genital-urinary tract problems later in life, including bed-wetting into his late adolescence and, later, the inability to sustain an erection, although he was able to ejaculate. His home life was disrupted by his father’s conscription into the war against Germany, where he was captured, held prisoner, and then vilified by his countrymen for allowing himself to be captured, when he finally returned home. Chikatilo suffered the consequences of his father’s “cowardice”, making him the focus of school bullying. Painfully shy as a result of this, his only sexual experience during adolescence occurred, aged 15, when he is reported to have overpowered a young girl, ejaculating immediately during the brief struggle, for which he received even more ridicule. This humiliation colored all future sexual experiences, and cemented his association of sex with violence. He failed his entrance exam to Moscow State University, and a spell of National Service was followed by a move to Rodionovo-Nesvetayevsky, a town near Rostov, in 1960, where he

became a telephone engineer. His younger sister moved in with him and, concerned by his lack of success with the opposite sex, she engineered a meeting with a local girl, Fayina, whom he went on to marry in 1963. Despite his sexual problems, and lack of interest in conventional sex, they produced two children, and lived an outwardly normal family life. In 1971 Chikatilo changed careers to become a schoolteacher. A string of complaints about indecent assaults upon young children forced him to move from school to school and town to town, before he finally settled in at a mining school in Shakhty, near Rostov. An eyewitness had seen Chikatilo with the victim, shortly before her disappearance, but his wife provided him with an iron-clad alibi that enabled him to evade any further police attention. Alexsandr Kravchenko, a 25-year-old with a previous rape conviction, was arrested and confessed to the crime under duress, probably as a result of extensive and brutal interrogation. He was tried for the slaying Lena Zakotnova, and was wrongly executed for the crime in 1984.

ANDREI CHIKATILO

Perhaps as a result of his close brush with the law, there were no more documented victims for the next three years. Still dogged by claims of child abuse, Chikatilo found it impossible to find another teaching post, when he was made redundant from his mining school post, in early 1981. He took a job as a clerk for a raw materials factory in Rostov, where the travel involved with the position gave him unlimited access to a wide range of young victims over the next nine years. Larisa Tkachenko, 17, became his next victim. On September 3, 1981, Chikatilo strangled, stabbed and gagged her with earth and leaves to prevent her crying out. The brutal force afforded Chikatilo his sexual release, and he began to develop a pattern of attack that saw him focusing on young runaways of both sexes. He befriended them at train stations and bus stops, before luring them into nearby forest areas, where he would attack them, attempt rape and use his knife, to mutilate them. In a number of cases he ate the sexual organs, or removed other body parts such as the tips of their noses or tongues. In the earliest cases, the common pattern was to inflict damage to the eye area, slashing across the sockets and removing the eyeballs in many cases, an act which Chikatilo later attributed to a belief that his victims kept an imprint of his face in their eyes, even after death. At this time serial killers were a virtually unknown phenomenon in the Soviet Union. Evidence of serial killing, or child abuse, was sometimes suppressed by state-controlled media, in the interests of public order. The eye mutilation was a modus operandi distinct enough to allow for other cases to be linked, when the Soviet authorities finally admitted that they had a serial killer to contend with. As the body count mounted, rumors of foreign inspired plots, and werewolf attacks, became more prevalent, and public fear and interest grew, despite the lack of any media coverage.

ANDREI CHIKATILO

In 1983 Moscow detective Major Mikhail Fetisov assumed control of the investigation. He recognized that a serial killer might be on the loose, and assigned a specialist forensic analyst, Victor Burakov, to head the investigation in the Shakhty area. Progress was slow, especially as, at that stage, not all of the victim’s bodies had been discovered, so the true body count was unknown to the police. With each body, the forensic evidence mounted, and police were convinced that the killer had the blood type AB, as evidenced by the semen samples collected from a number of crime scenes. Samples of identical grey hair were also retrieved from the crime scene. When a further 15 victims were added during the course of 1984, police efforts were increased drastically, and they mounted massive surveillance operations that canvassed most local transport hubs. Chikatilo was arrested for behaving suspiciously at a bus station at this time, but again avoided suspicion on the murder charges, as his blood type did not match the suspect profi le, but he was imprisoned for three months for a number of minor outstanding offenses. What was not realized at the time was that Chikatilo’s actual blood type, type A, was different to the type found in his other bodily fluids (type AB), as he was a member of a minority group known as “non-secretors”, whose blood type cannot be inferred by anything other than a blood sample. As police only had a sample of semen, and not blood, from the crime scenes, Chikatilo was able to escape suspicion of murder. Today’s sophisticated DNA techniques are not subject to the same fallibility. Following his release, Chikatilo found work as a traveling buyer for a train company, based in Novocherkassk, and managed to keep a low profi le until August 1985, when he murdered two women in separate incidents. At around the same time as these murders, Burakov, frustrated at the lack of pos-

ANDREI CHIKATILO

When I used my knife, it brought psychological relief. I know I have to be destroyed. I was a mistake of nature.

itive progress, engaged the help of psychiatrist, Alexandr Bukhanovsky, who refined the profi le of the killer. Bukhanovsky described the killer as a “necro-sadist”, or someone who achieves sexual gratification from the suffering and death of others. Bukhanovsky also placed the killer’s age as between 45 and 50, significantly older than had been believed up to that point. Desperate to catch the killer, Burakov even interviewed a serial killer, Anatoly Slivko, shortly before his execution, in an attempt to gain some insight into his elusive serial killer. Coinciding with this attempt to understand the mind of the killer, attacks seemed

to dry up, and police suspected that their target might have stopped killing, been incarcerated for other crimes, or died. However, early in 1988, Chikatilo again resumed his killing, the majority occurring away from the Rostov area, and victims were no longer taken from local public transport outlets, as police surveillance of these areas continued. Over the next two years the body count increased by 19 victims, and it appeared that the killer was taking increasing risks, focusing primarily on young boys, and often killing in public places where the risk of detection was far higher.

ANDREI CHIKATILO

35+ (up to 400) Victims: 1988-2003 Years Active: New Jersey and Pennsylvania Where:

THE ANGEL OF DEATH CHARLES EDMUND CULLEN

CHARLES EDMUND CULLEN

Charles Cullen was born in West Orange, New Jersey, in 1960, and was the youngest of 8 children. His father was a bus driver who died when Cullen was an infant. Cullen describes his childhood as being miserable. He claims that his first of at least 20 attempts at suicide came at 9 years of age when he drank a concoction he created from a chemistry set. At 17, his mother was killed in a car accident while one of his sisters was at the wheel. Distraught after his mother’s death, he dropped out of high school, joined the US Navy, and served as a petty officer third class aboard a ballistic missile submarine, where he was a member of the team that operated the sub’s Poseidon missiles. During this time, Cullen began to display evidence of mental instability, including one incident where he completed a shift while wearing a surgical gown, mask, and gloves that he had stolen from a medical cabinet. He was eventually transferred to a supply ship, where he attempted suicide several times during the next few years, and subsequently received a medical discharge in 1984. After leaving the Navy, Cullen completed his nursing education and began working at St. Barnabas Medical Center in Livingston, New Jersey, in 1987. He married Adrienne Taub that same year, and the couple eventually had 2 daughters. Charles Cullen committed his first murder in 1988 by administering a lethal overdose of intravenous medication to a patient who had suffered an allergic reaction to a drug. Cullen would later admit to murdering 11 patients at St. Barnabas. He quit his job at St. Barnabas in 1992 when hospital authorities began an investigation into tampered bags of intravenous fluid. Cullen then took a job at Warren Hospital in Phillipsburg, New Jersey. He has admitted to killing 3 elderly women there by giving them overdoses of digox-

in. In 1993, his wife, Adrienne, fi led for divorce, and later made 2 domestic violence complaints against Cullen. Cullen says that he wanted to quit nursing at this time, but the need to make child support payments wouldn’t allow him. He attempted suicide several more times that year. In the late 1990s, there was a nationwide nursing shortage, and there were no reporting mechanisms in place to identify health care professionals with mental health issues or histories of suspicious behavior. So, Cullen continued to land nursing jobs. In 1999, he accepted a position at a burn unit in a hospital in Allentown, Pennsylvania, where he killed 1 patient and attempted to murder another. Later that year, Cullen resigned his position and was hired by St. Luke’s Hospital in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, in the cardiac care unit. He murdered 5 more patients there over the next 3 years. In January 2000, Cullen attempted suicide again. He lit a charcoal grill in his bath tub, in the hopes that the carbon monoxide would sufficate him. However, neighbors smelled the smoke and called the fire department. Cullen was taken to a psychiatric facility, but was sent back home the following day. In 2002, vials of unused medications were discovered in a disposal bin by a co-worker at St. Luke’s. An investigation revealed that Cullen had stolen the drugs, and he was fired in June. Soon after, 7 of his coworkers met with the Lehigh County district attorney to voice their suspicions that Cullen had killed patients at the hospital. They noted that in the first half of 2002, Cullen had worked one-fifth of the hours on his unit but was present for nearly two-thirds of the deaths that occurred there. Unfortunately, investigators never looked into Cullen’s work history, and the case was dropped 9 months later for lack of evidence.Cullen found a new job at Som-

CHARLES EDMUND CULLEN

put off informing authorities for 3 months. By then, Cullen had murdered another 5 patients. In August 2003, the hospital was penalized by state officials for failure to report a nonfatal insulin overdose that Cullen had administered. After Cullen’s final victim died of low blood sugar in October, the hospital mercifully alerted state authorities. Their investigation into Cullen’s history revealed past suspicions about his involvement with questionable deaths. Somerset Medical Center fired Cullen in October for lying on his job application. Cullen was kept under surveillance by police while they performed their investigation, and he was eventually arrested on December 12th, 2003.

erset Medical Center in Somerset, New Jersey, in September 2002, where he worked in the critical care unit. He has admitted to murdering 8 patients there via overdoses of his drugs of choice: digoxin and insulin. In the summer of 2003, the hospital’s computer systems revealed that Cullen was accessing the records of patients who were not his, and other employees repeatedly saw him in the rooms of patients to whom he was not assigned. In addition, Cullen was found to be manipulating computerized drug-dispensing cabinets to access medications that had not been prescribed. In July 2003, the New Jersey Poison Information and Education System warned officials at Somerset Medical Center that at least 4 suspicious overdoses at Somerset Medical Center indicated the possibility that patients were being murdered by an employee. However, the hospital

CHARLES EDMUND CULLEN

Two days after his arrest, and 6 hours into the interrogation, Cullen began to tell 2 Somerset County detectives about his 16-year career of carnage. He claimed that he murdered patients to spare them from being “coded” because he could not bear to witness, or hear about, attempts at saving a patient’s life. He also claimed that he overdosed patients to end their suffering; however, many of his patients were not terminally ill and were scheduled for release. He appeared to be unaware of his contradictory statements. He told investigators that he would observe patients suffering for several days while thinking about murdering them, but that the decision to commit each murder was impulsive. He said that he could not recall how many victims there were or the reasons why he had chosen them. Cullen would adamantly deny committing any murders at certain hospitals, but then after being shown medical records, he would eventually admit that he was involved in the patient deaths there.

In a New Jersey court in April 2004, Cullen pleaded guilty to killing 13 patients and attempting to kill 2 others while working at Somerset Medical Center. In May, he pleaded guilty to the murder of 3 additional patients in New Jersey. In November, Cullen pleaded guilty to killing 6 patients and attempting to kill 3 others in Pennsylvania. On March 2, 2006, Cullen was sentenced to 11 consecutive life sentences in New Jersey, and was deemed ineligible for parole for 397 years. Currently, he is incarcerated at New Jersey State Prison in Trenton. Cullen had been able to move freely from hospital to hospital because of the lack of requirements to report on suspicious behavior by health care workers. New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and most other states required health care facilities to report suspicious deaths in only the most egregious cases, and the penalties for failing to report incidents were relatively minor. Many states did

not provide investigators with the legal authority to discover a workerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s employment history. Institutions were afraid to investigate incidents or give a poor employment reference for fear that a lawsuit might be fi led. According to detectives, as well as Cullen himself, several hospitals he worked at suspected he was harming or killing patients, but they neglected to take the appropriate actions. New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and 35 other states have since adopted laws that encourage employers to provide honest appraisals of health care workersâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; job performances and that give employers immunity when they truthfully appraise an employee. The laws make disclosure requirements for health care facilities stronger, add legal protections for facilities that report the improper care of patients, and necessitate that licensed health care professionals undergo criminal background checks and fingerprinting.

I did not want people to see me as this, what I am. CHARLES EDMUND CULLEN

CHARLES EDMUND CULLEN

WHAT TOOLS DID THESE KILLERS USE

SHOT

STRANGLED

STABBED

BLUDGEONED

POISONED

AXED

43.0%

21.7%

14.8%

9.2%

7.2%

1.5%

HOW THEY KILLED

David Berkowitz was a disorganized serial killer in New York City who shot people at random

Nannie Doss was an organized serial killer in Alabama who poisoned 11 people during her

using a .44 caliber bulldog revolver. He became most popularly known as â&#x20AC;&#x153;The .44 Caliber Killerâ&#x20AC;?

time; Her victims include her 4 husbands, mother, sister, and grandson.

DROWNED

SMOTHERED

BURNED

OVERDOSED

RUN OVER

1.0%

0.6%

0.2%

0.2% HOW THEY KILLED

9-200 Victims: 1891â&#x20AC;&#x201C;1894 Years Active: United States and Canada, Where: Chicago

THE HOTEL KILLER

H . H . HOLMES

H. H. HOLMES

In 1861, Herman

Webster

Mudgett was born in New Hampshire. It is said that at an early age he was fascinated with skeletons and soon became obsessed with death. It may have been this interest that led him to pursue medicine. After graduating high school at 16, Mudgett changed his name to Henry Howard Holmes, and later in life would be known as H.H. Holmes. Holmes studied medicine at a small school in Vermont before being accepted into the University of Michigan Medical School. While enrolled in medical school, Holmes stole cadavers from the laboratory, burned or disfigured them, and then planted the bodies making it look as if they had been killed in an accident. The scandal behind it was that Holmes would take out insurance policies on these people before planting the bodies and would collect money once the bodies were discovered. In 1884 Holmes passed his medical exams and in 1885 he moved to Chicago where he got a job working at a pharmacy under the alias Dr. Henry H. Holmes. When the owner of the drugstore died, he left his wife to take over the responsibilities of the store; however, Holmes convinced the widow to let him buy the store. The widow soon went missing and was never seen again. Holmes claimed that she moved to California, but this could never be verified. After Holmes had become the owner of the drugstore, he purchased an empty lot across the street. He designed and built a 3-story hotel, which the neighborhood called the “Castle.” During its 1889 construction, Holmes hired and fired several construction crews so that no one would have a clear idea of what he was

doing; he was designing a “Murder Castle.” After construction was complete in 1891, Holmes placed ads in newspapers offering jobs for young women and advertised the Castle as a place of lodging. He also placed ads presenting himself as a wealthy man looking for a wife. All of Holmes’ employees, hotel guests, fiancés, and wives were required to have life insurance policies. Holmes paid the premiums as long as they listed him as the beneficiary. Most of his fiancés and wives would suddenly disappear, as did many of his employees and guests. People in the neighborhood eventually reported that they saw many women enter the Castle, but would never see them actually exit the hotel. In 1893, Chicago was given the honor of hosting the World’s Fair, a cultural and social event to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Columbus’ discovery of America. The event was scheduled from May to October, and attracted millions of people from all over the world. When Holmes heard that the World’s Fair was coming to Chicago, he looked at it as an opportunity. He knew many visitors would be searching for lodging near the fair and believed many of them would be women whom he could easily seduce into staying at his hotel. After being lured into the hotel, many of these out-of-town visitors would never be seen alive again. The first floor of the Castle had several stores; the two upper levels contained Holmes’ office and over 100 rooms that were used as living quarters. Some of these rooms were soundproof and contained gas lines so that Holmes could asphyxiate his guests whenever he felt like it. Throughout the building, there were trap doors, peepholes, stairways that led nowhere, and

H. H. HOLMES

chutes that led into the basement. The basement was designed as Holmes’ own lab; it had a dissecting table, stretching rack, and crematory. Sometimes he would send the bodies down the chute, dissect them, strip them of the flesh and sell them as human skeleton models to medical schools. In other cases, he would choose to cremate or place the bodies into pits of acids. Through it all, Holmes traveled throughout the U.S. committing insurance scams with his accomplice, Benjamin Pitezel. Once the World’s Fair had ended, Chicago’s economy was in a slump; therefore, Holmes abandoned the Castle and focused on insurance scams – committing random murders along the way. During this time, Holmes stole horses from Texas, shipped them to St. Louis, and sold them – making a fortune. He was arrested for this swindle and finally sent to jail. While in jail, he concocted a new insurance scam with his cellmate, Marion Hedgepeth. Holmes said he would take out an insurance policy for $10,000, fake his own death, and then provide Hedgepeth with $500 in exchange for a lawyer who could help him if any problems arose. Once Holmes was released from jail on bail, he attempted his plan; however, the insurance company was suspicious and did not pay him. Holmes then decided to attempt a similar plan in Philadelphia. This time he would have Pitezel fake his own death; however, during this scam Holmes actually killed Pitezel and collected the money for himself. In 1894, Marion Hedgepath, who was angry that he did not receive any money in the initial scam, told police about the scam Holmes had planned. The police tracked Holmes, finally catching up to him in Boston where they

H. H. HOLMES

arrested him and held him on an outstanding warrant for the Texas horse swindle. At the time of his arrest, Holmes appeared as if he was prepared to flee the country and police became suspicious of him. Chicago police investigated Holmes’ Castle where they discovered his strange and efficient methods for committing tortuous murders. Many of the bodies they located were so badly dismembered and decomposed that it was hard for them to determine exactly how many bodies there really were. The police investigation spread through Chicago, Indianapolis, and Toronto. While conducting their investigation in Toronto, police discovered the bodies of the Pitezel children, who had gone missing sometime during Holmes’ insurance fraud spree. Linking Holmes to their murders, police arrested him and he was convicted of their murders. He also confessed to 28 other murders; however, through investigations and missing person’s reports, it is believe that Holmes is responsible for up to 200 murders. In May 1896, one of America’s first serial killers, H.H. Holmes, was hanged. The Castle was remodeled as an attraction and named the “Holmes Horror Castle”; however, it burned to the ground shortly before its opening.

I was born with the devil in me. I could not help the fact that I was a murderer, no more than the poet can help the inspiration to sing. H.H. HOLMES

H. H. HOLMES

Victims: Years Active: Where:

10 1974â&#x20AC;&#x201C;1991 Kansas

THE BTK KILLER

DENNIS RADER

Born in 1945 in Pittsburg, Kansas,

Dennis Rader went on to live a double life: Devoted family and company man by day, he also terrorized the Wichita, Kansas, area as the “BTK killer”—for “bind, torture, kill”—with 10 murders and brazen correspondence with authorities between 1974 and 1991. Rader’s alter ego resurfaced in 2004, but his penchant for leaving clues led to his arrest and life imprisonment the following year. Dennis Lynn Rader was born on March 9, 1945, in Pittsburg, Kansas, and grew up in Wichita. The oldest of four sons, he enjoyed a seemingly normal childhood, reportedly masking such disturbing behavior as hanging stray animals. Rader dropped out of college and joined the U.S. Air Force in the mid-1960s. After returning to Wichita, he married his wife, Paula, in 1971, and worked for an outdoor-supply company for about a year. In 1974, he began working for ADT Security Services. On January 15, 1974, Rader strangled to death four members of the Otero family in their Wichita home—parents Joseph and Julie, and two of their children, Josephine and Joseph Jr.—before leaving with a watch and a radio. Strangulation and souvenir-taking would become part of his modus operandi, or pattern of behavior. He also left semen at the scene and later said that he derived sexual pleasure from killing. The Oteros’ 15-year-old son, Charlie, came home later that day and discovered the bodies. Rader struck again a few months later: On April 4, 1974, he waited in the apartment of a young woman named Kathryn Bright, before stabbing and strangling her when she returned home. Rader also twice shot her

brother, Kevin, though he survived. Kevin later described Rader as “an average-sized guy, bushy mustache, ‘psychotic’ eyes,” according to a TIME magazine article. In October 1974, Rader placed a letter in a public library book in which he took responsibility for killing the Oteros. The letter ended up with a local newspaper, and the poorly written note gave authorities some idea of who they were dealing with. Rader wrote, “It’s hard to control myself. You probably call me ‘psychotic with sexual perversion hang-up.’” He warned that he would strike again, noting, “The code words for me will be bind them, torture them, kill them, B.T.K.” The initials stuck, and the murderer came to be known by variations of the “BTK killer” moniker, or simply “BTK.” Rader’s next known crimes occurred in 1977. In March of that year, he tied up and strangled Shirley Vian, after locking her children in the bathroom. In December, he strangled Nancy Fox in her home, and then called the police to report the homicide. Shortly afterward, in January 1978, Rader sent a poem to a local newspaper about the Vian killing. Several weeks later, he sent a letter to a local television station stating that he was responsible for killing Vian, Fox and another unknown victim. He also made allusions to several other notorious killers, including Ted Bundy and David Berkowitz, also known as the “Son of Sam.” Despite his cat-and-mouse game with authorities, Rader was able to keep the lid on his secret, murderous life. Reportedly an attentive husband, he and his wife had a son in 1975 and a daughter in 1978. The next year, Rader graduated from Wichita State University with a degree in administration of justice. Still, he continued

DENNIS RADER

to taunt authorities and appeared to be poised to strike again. In April 1979, Rader waited in an elderly woman’s home, but left before she returned. He sent her a letter to let her know that BTK had been there. In an effort to catch him, the authorities released the 1977 recording of his phone call to police, hoping that someone might recognize the voice. After several years without a known crime, Rader killed his neighbor Marine Hedge on April 27, 1985. Her body was found days later on the side of the road. The following year, he killed Vicki Wegerle in her home. His final known victim, Dolores Davis, was taken from her home on January 19, 1991. Over the next several years, BTK dropped off the map as Rader focused on work and family life. He had left ADT in the late 1980s and started working for the Wichita suburb of Park City as a compliance supervisor in 1991. In his new position, Rader was known to be a stickler for the rules. He measured the height of people’s lawns and chased stray animals while toting a tranquilizer gun. According to reports, Rader took pleasure in exerting his limited authority over his neighbors and other members of the community. He was also a Boy Scout troop leader and president of his town’schurch council.

DENNIS RADER

With many news stories marking the 30th anniversary of the Otero murders, BTK resurfaced in 2004. Rader sent local media outlets and authorities several letters fi lled with items related to his crimes, including pictures, a word puzzle and an outline for the “BTK Story.” He also left packages with clues, including a computer disk that ultimately led authorities to Rader’s church. Investigators also noticed his white van on security tapes of some of the package drop-off areas, and cemented their case by obtaining a DNA sample from Rader’s daughter. Rader was arrested on February 25, 2005, and later charged with 10 counts of first-degree murder. His neighbors and fellow church members were stunned by the news, unable to believe that the man they knew was the serial killer that had haunted the area for so long.Rader pleaded guilty to all of the charges on June 27, 2005. As part of his plea, he gave the horrifying details of his crimes in court. Many observers noted that he described the gruesome events without any sign of remorse or emotion. Because he committed his crimes before the state’s 1994 reinstatement of the death penalty, Rader was sent to El Dorado Prison to serve his 10 life sentences.

When this monster entered my brain, I will never know, but it is here to stay. How does one cure himself? I can’t stop it, the mon ster goes on, and hurts me as well as society. Maybe you can stop him. I can’t. DENNIS RADER

DENNIS RADER

D JUST LIKE TO SAY I’M S AND I’LL BE BACK LIKE IN ESUS JUNE 6. LIKE TH HIP AND ALL, I’LL BE B / I ONLY WISH TO SAY T WRONG-DOING IN TAKIN ED IN THE DEATH OF TW NG DIED AT MY HANDS A NAL OPERATIONS. H H H MY BRAINS OUT! THE JA HEM! ANDREI CHIKATILO MY LOVE TO MY FAMILY A EXECUTED BY HANGING

EXECUTED BY FIRING SQUAD

LAST WORD

SAILING WITH THE ROCK NDEPENDENCE DAY, WITH HE MOVIE, BIG MOTHER BACK. AILEEN WUORNOS THAT THE EXTENT OF MY NG HUMAN LIFE CONSIST WO WOMEN, THEY HAV AS THE RESULT OF CRIM HOLMES // DON’T BLOW APANESE WANT TO BUY O // I’D LIKE YOU TO GIVE AND FRIENDS TED BUNDY EXECUTED BY LETHAL INJECTION

EXECUTED BY ELECTRIC CHAIR

LAST WORD

3 1990â&#x20AC;&#x201C;1992 Years Active: Canada Victims: Where:

THE KEN AND BARBIE KILLERS

KARLA HOMOLKA

As one-half of the notorious Ontario serial killing couple nicknamed Ken and Barbie in the me-

Karla Homolka

is not likely dia, to ever live down her reputation. That’s why, when the public got wind that she was volunteering at a Montreal school, the outrage was real. Homolka may have technically done the required time for her crimes, but she’s still a murderer in the public’s eyes—even though legally speaking, she was only convicted of manslaughter.Here’s how Homolka went from a teenager from St. Catharines to Canada’s public enemy number 1. Homolka meets Paul Bernardo Homolka was only 17 years old when she met 23-year-old Paul Bernardo at a restaurant in downtown Toronto while they were both there attending a pet con-

vention. The two had sex that same day and had soon discovered that they shared the same exact sadomasochistic desires. During the summer of 1990, Bernardo become obsessed with Karla’s 15-year-old sister, Tammy. Karla agrees to help Bernardo drug Tammy calling it “an opportunity to minimize risk, take control, and keep it all in the family.” Their first attempt to drug and rape Tammy was cut short when she started to wake up before they expected. Homolka and Bernardo rape and kill Tammy Karla steals the anesthetic agent halothane from her job at a veterinarian clinic and together, she and Bernardo drug Tammy and rape her while she is unconscious. Tammy later chokes on her own vomit and dies. Before calling 911, Bernardo and Homolka hide the evidence and redress Tammy. Bernardo tells police he tried to revive her but failed, and her death is ruled an accident. Bernardo kidnaps 14-year-old Leslie Mahaff y from Burlington, bringing her back to his place with Homolka in Port Dalhousie. Together the pair video tapes themselves raping and torturing her. According to Bernardo, Homolka killed Mahaff y with a lethal dose of Halcion, but Homolka claims Bernardo killed Mahaff y by strangling her. They dismember Mahaff y’s body and encase each body part in cement before dumping them in Lake Gibson, south of St. Catharines. Homolka and Bernardo get married Homolka and Bernardo were married in Niagara-on-the-Lake on June 29th. That same day, boaters and fishermen at Lake Gibson discovered concrete blocks that encased human arms, legs, feet and a head and the next day another man found a human torso floating in the water. The remains were identified as those of Mahaff y. While police undertook the investigation of the Mahaff y murder, Paul and Karla Bernardo were honeymooning in Hawaii.

Tammy Homolka

KARLA HOMOLKA

Homolka and Bernardo kidnap and kill Kristen French. Homolka actively participates in the abduction of 15-year-old Kristen French from a street near her school in St. Catharines. Over the Easter long weekend, the pair videotaped themselves torturing and raping French before killing her and heading over to Homolka’s family’s house for Easter dinner. French’s body is found in a ditch in Burlington on April 30, 1992. Although Homolka and Bernardo have been questioned by police several times in connection with Tammy Homolka’s death, reports of Bernardo stalking young girls and in connection with the ongoing Scarborough rapist case, they are not considered suspects in the deaths of Leslie Mahaff y and Kristen French. The Green Ribbon Task Force is created to investigate the girls’ murders. Homolka fi les charges against Bernardo On December 27, 1992, Bernardo severely beats Homolka with a flashlight. She returns to work after Christmas and claims she was in a car accident, but her co-workers and family are skeptical. Her parents take her to the hospital and the police where she fi les charges against Bernardo. He is arrested and subsequently released. Homolka admits to being involved in murders of French and Mahaff y. After police question Homolka about Bernardo in connection with the Scarborough rapist case, she admits to her aunt and uncle that she and her husband were involved in the rapes and murders of French and

KARLA HOMOLKA

Mahaff y. Homolka seeks immunity in exchange for her cooperation. Through her lawyer, Homolka tells the Crown Criminal Law Office of the rapes and murders, asking for full immunity, which is denied. On February 17th, Bernardo is arrested and a search warrant is obtained for his and Homolka’s home. No videos are found. The government offers Homolka a 12-year sentence plea bargain Since Homolka is the strongest link between Bernardo and the murders of Mahaff y and French, she is offered a plea deal in exchange for her full cooperation. She accepts the deal and begins giving her statements to police. A publication ban is ordered to protect Bernardo’s right to a fair trial but the story is picked up by U.S. news outlets. Homolka pleads guilty to two counts of manslaughter in July of 1993. Homolka testifies against Bernardo at trial. Although the videotapes showing rapes of Mahaff y and French are eventually found and appear to show Homolka had a more active involvement in the crimes than she had said, the Crown sticks to their deal. She is cast as another victim of Bernardo’s abuse and her testimony is the key to convicting him. Bernardo is found guilty of the first-degree murders of Leslie Mahaff y and Kristen French and he is sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole for 25 years. He is later declared a dangerous offender, meaning he will spend the rest of his life in jail. After serving her full 12-year sentence, Homolka

‘Why don’t you leave him?’ You don’t understand. KARLA HOMOLKA

I’m the worst piece of crap on the planet, yet I get up every day.

is released from St. Anne des Plaines prison in Quebec. While in prison, Homolka took courses through nearby Queen’s University and eventually graduated with a Bachelor’s degree in Psychology. A number of restrictions were placed on her upon her release, including being required to notify the police of her home and work addresses and being forbidden to be around people under the age of 16, but they were lifted by November of the same year. During a 2005 interview with Radio Canada, Homolka says she planned to live in Quebec. Since her release, Homolka married her lawyer’s brother Thierry Bordelais, gave birth to three children—two boys and a girl—and relocated to Guadaloupe so her kids could lead “a more normal life.” She also legally changed her name to Leanne Teale.

would be eligible to seek pardon for her crimes. Later that year, an agreement was reached between all federal parties to pass a bill that would prevent notorious offenders like Karla Homolka from obtaining a pardon. In April 2016, a school board south of Montreal reassures parents after reports begin to circulate in the Canadian press that Karla Homolka and her family are living in the community. In May 2017, reports began to surface that Homolka had been spotted several times at the private Christian school her children attend in Montreal. She has reportedly visited classrooms as a volunteer, which has led several parents to approach school administrators with their concerns.

It was during the 2014 first degree murder trial of Luka Magnotta that it was revealed that Karla Homolka was living in Quebec again. In 2010, The Vancouver Sun reported that Homolka KARLA HOMOLKA

7 Victims: 1989â&#x20AC;&#x201C;1990 Years Active: Florida Where:

THE MONSTER

AILEEN WUORNOS

Born on February 29, 1956, in Rochester, Michigan, Aileen Wuornos was sexually abused and thrown out of her home as a teen. Having been involved in previous incidents with the law, she made a living as a sex worker on Florida’s highways, and in 1989 she killed a man who had picked her up. She went on to kill at least five other men and was eventually caught, convicted and placed on death row. Though her sanity was questioned, Wuornos was executed by lethal injection in 2002. In addition to documentaries, books and an opera, her story was depicted in the 2003 fi lm Monster. Aileen Wuornos was born on February 29, 1956 in Rochester, Michigan, growing up in the nearby Troy area to the south. The young Wuornos experienced horrifying tumult during her childhood: Her father killed himself while serving prison time for child molestation, while her mother abandoned Aileen and older brother Keith, leaving them to be raised by their grandparents. Yet Wuornos’s grandmother was alleged to be an alcoholic and her grandfather a terrifying, violent force. Wuornos would later state that she was sexually abused by her grandfather and

had sexual relations with her brother. She became pregnant by her early teens, and the infant was given up for adoption. During her adolescence, Wuornos was also forced out of her home and lived in the woods. Having previously been a ward of the state, Wuornos subsisted on a vagabond existence as an adult, hitchhiking and engaging in sex work to survive. She was arrested during the mid-1970s for charges related to assault and disorderly conduct and eventually settled in Florida, where she met wealthy yachtsman Lewis Fell. The two were married in 1976, but Fell annulled the union shortly thereafter, upon Wuornos being arrested in another altercation. A decade later, having been involved in numerous additional crimes, Wuornos met 24-year-old Tyria Moore in Daytona, Florida, and the two embarked on a romantic relationship. It would later be revealed that from late 1989 into the fall of 1990, Wuornos had murdered at least six men along Florida highways. In mid-December 1989, the body of Richard Mallory was found in a junkyard, with five more men’s bodies to be discovered over

AILEEN WUORNOS

I robbed them, and I killed them as cold as ice, and I would do it again, and I know I would kill another person because Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve hated humans for a long time AILEEN WUORNOS

AILEEN WUORNOS

subsequent months. Authorities were eventually able to track down Wuornos (who had used various aliases) and Moore from fingerprints and palm prints left in the crashed vehicle of another missing man, Peter Siems. Wuornos was arrested in a bar in Port Orange, Florida, while police tracked down Moore in Pennsylvania. To avoid prosecution, Moore made a deal, and in mid-January 1991 she elicited a phone confession from Wuornos, who took full and sole responsibility for the murders sheâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d been accused of. A media frenzy ensued over the case, due in part to the lurid nature of the crimes. During the trial, Wuornos asserted that she had been raped and assaulted by Mallory and had killed him in self-defense. (Though not revealed in court, Mallory had previously served a decade-long prison sentence for sexual assault.) She stated that her killing of the five other men had been in self-defense as well, though she would later retract these statements. On January 27, 1992, a jury found Wuornos guilty of first-degree murder for the Mallory case and she received the death penalty. Over the

AILEEN WUORNOS

ensuing months, Wuornos plead guilty to the murders of the five other men whose murders she was charged with and received a death sentence for each plea. Outside of court, she later admitted to the killing of Siems, whose body has still to this day never been recovered. Spending a decade on death row, Wuornos eventually opted to fire her appeals lawyers, who were working for a stay of execution. But a court-appointed attorney was concerned about comments made by Wuornos that suggested she was profoundly disconnected from reality. In 2002, Florida governor Jeb Bush lifted a temporary stay of execution after three psychiatrists deemed her mentally competent to understand the death penalty and the reasons for its implementation. Aileen Wuornos was executed by lethal injection on the morning of October 9.

67% OF VICTIMS WERE WHITE

51% OF VICTIMS WERE FEMALE

SKINNY WEAK SMALL UNCONFIDENT STRANGERS TRAITS THE KILLER LOOKED FOR

51%

OF VICTIMS UNDER 30

WAS THE MOST COMMON TIME AND PLACE TO BE MURDERED

1987 CALIFORNIA

MOST COMMON ATTRIBUTES FOR THE TARGET OF A KILLER * IN THE UNITED STATES

No one knows for sure why a serial killer will choose a certain individual as their victim. When asked why, serial killers often give a wide range of answers regarding the reasons for their murders. The most common belief is that the killer wants to feel complete control over another person. They thrive on the fear their victims display and see the murder as the ultimate form of dominance over a human being. In order for any person to be defined as a serial killer, they must satisfy a few criteria, specified by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The person in question must have murdered a minimum of three individuals (not simultaneously), there must be a period of time in between the murders (to prove that multiple victims were not killed during a single fit of rage), and the circumstances of each murder should indicate that the killer felt a sense of dominance over the people they have killed. The victims must also be vulnerable to the killer in some way, a characteristic which indicates that the killer has sought to achieve a feeling of superiority.

ten seem to be completely random at first – each victim may have something in common that only the killer easily recognizes. It is generally accepted that most serial killers feel a strong urge to commit acts of murder. They are, however, thought to be extremely cautious people who will not choose a victim unless they feel the chances of success are very high. For this reason, the first murder victim is very often a prostitute or homeless person, someone the killers can attack without drawing a lot of attention. These factors make it even more difficult to establish patterns in a series of slayings and to track down the responsible culprit. Statstics: vox.com

Many experts agree that serial killers have a vision in mind of their victim. This person would be thought of as their “ideal victim” based on race, gender, physical characteristics, or some other specific quality. It is rarely possible for the killers to find people who meet these exact qualifications, so they generally seek out people with similar traits. This is why serial killings of-

VICTIM PROFILE

Victims: Years Active: Where:

33-34 1972â&#x20AC;&#x201C;1978 Illinois

THE KILLER CLOWN

JOHN WAYNE GACY

John Wayne Gacy, also known as the “Serial Killer Clown,” killed 33 boys and young men, the majority of whom had been buried under the house and garage. Others would be recovered from the nearby Des Plaines River. Gacy was a clown performer at children’s parties; when he killed, he sometimes dressed as his alter ego “Pogo the Clown.” He lured his victims with the promise of construction work, and then captured, sexually assaulted and eventually strangled most of them with rope.While imprisoned at the Menard Correctional Center, Gacy took up visual art. His paintings were shown to the public via an exhibition at a Chicago gallery. On October 17, 2017, Mullock’s Auctions in Shropshire, U.K., auctioned off a number of Gacy’s artwork as well as crime scene pictures from Gacy’s trial. Three of Gacy’s paintings, including two originals of “I’m Pogo the Clown” and “They Call Him Mr. Gacy,” sold for £4,000 and £325, respectively. Eight other works went unsold. There have been lingering concerns that Gacy may have been responsible for the deaths of others whose bodies have yet to be found. The

Cook County sheriff ’s office has pushed to search a Chicago apartment building where Gacy once worked as a maintenance employee. Cook County authorities are also using DNA evidence to try to identify six of Gacy’s victims, who remain unidentified. On August 1, 2017, one of those men, “Victim No. 24,” was identified as 16-year-old James “Jimmie” Byron Haakenson. Haakenson had left home in St. Paul, Minnesota, and traveled to Chicago to begin life in the city. On August 5, 1976, he called his mother to let her know he had arrived; however police believe Gacy killed him shortly thereafter. In 1979, Haakenson’s mother had contacted authorities to find out if her son was one of Gacy’s victims, but she didn’t have dental records and the department lacked sufficient resources to identify him as a victim. Haakenson’s mother died in the early 2000s, but other family members provided DNA samples in 2017, and authorities made an immediate match to “Victim No. 24.” Notorious serial killer John Wayne Gacy was born on March 17, 1942, in Chicago, Illinois. The son of Danish and Polish parents, Gacy and

JOHN WAYNE GACY

his siblings grew up with a drunken father who would beat the children with a razor strap if they were perceived to have misbehaved; his father physically assaulted Gacy’s mother as well. Gacy’s sister Karen would later say that the siblings learned to toughen up against the beatings, and that Gacy would not cry. Gacy suffered further alienation at school, unable to play with other children due to a congenital heart condition that was looked upon by his father as another failing. He later realized he was attracted to men, and experienced great turmoil over his sexuality. Gacy worked as a fast-food chain manager during the 1960s and became a self-made building contractor and Democratic precinct captain in the Chicago suburbs in the 1970s. Well-liked in his community, Gacy organized cultural gatherings and worked as a clown. He was married and divorced twice during his lifetime and had biological children and stepchildren. In 1968, Gacy was convicted of sexually assaulting two teen boys and given a 10-year prison sentence. He was released on parole in the summer of 1970, but was arrested again the following year after another teen accused Gacy of sexual assault. The charges were dropped when the boy didn’t appear during the trial.

JOHN WAYNE GACY

The only thing they can get me for is running a funeral parlor without a license. JOHN WAYNE GACY

JOHN WAYNE GACY

By the middle of the decade, two more young males accused Gacy of rape, and he would be questioned by police about the disappearances of others. On December 11, 1978, 15-year-old Robert Piest went missing. It was reported to police that the boy was last seen by his mother at the store he worked at as he headed out to meet Gacy to discuss a potential job. On December 21, a police search of Gacy’s house in Norwood Park Township, Illinois, uncovered evidence of his involvement in numerous horrific acts, including murder. It was later discovered that Gacy had committed his first known killing in 1972, taking the life of Timothy McCoy after luring the young teen to Gacy’s home. Gacy’s trial began on February 6, 1980, with a prosecution team headed by William Kunkle. With Gacy having confessed to the crimes, the arguments were focused on whether he could be declared insane and thus remitted to a state mental facility. Gacy had told police that the murders

JOHN WAYNE GACY

had been committed by an alternate personality, while mental health professionals testified for both sides about Gacyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s mental state. After a short jury deliberation, Gacy was ultimately found guilty of committing 33 murders, and he became known as one of the most vicious serial killers in U.S. history. He was sentenced to serve 12 death sentences and 21 natural life sentences. Gacy was imprisoned at the Menard Correctional Center for almost a decade and a half, appealing the sentence and offering contradictory statements on the murders in interviews. Though he had confessed, Gacy later denied being guilty of the charges and had a 900 number set up with a 12-minute recorded statement of his innocence. As both anti-death penalty forces and those in favor of the execution made their opinions known, John Wayne Gacy died by lethal injection on May 10, 1994, at the Stateville Correctional Center in Crest Hill, Illinois.

JOHN WAYNE GACY

8-130 Victims: 1971â&#x20AC;&#x201C;1979 Years Active: California, New York, Where: Washington, and Wyoming

THE DATING GAME KILLER

RODNEY ALCALA

For most people, September 13, 1978 was an ordinary Wednesday. But for Cheryl Bradshaw, the bachelorette on the soon to be infamous TV matchmaking show The Dating Game, that day was momentous. From a lineup of “eligible bachelors,” she chose handsome bachelor number one,

Rodney Alcala. But at that very moment, he was keeping a deadly secret: he was an unrepentant serial killer. Bradshaw, if not for a healthy jolt of women’s intuition, would almost certainly be remembered today as one of Alcala’s victims. Instead, after the show ended, she conversed with Alcala backstage. He offered her a date she’d never forget, but Bradshaw got the feeling that her handsome potential suitor was a little off in some way.

“I started to feel ill,” Bradshaw told the Sydney Telegraph in 2012. “He was acting really creepy. I turned down his offer. I didn’t want to see him again.” Another one of the episode’s bachelors, actor Jed Mills, recalled to LA Weekly that “Rodney was kind of quiet. I remember him because I told my brother about this one guy who was kind of good-looking but kind of creepy. He was always looking down and not making eye contact.” Had the popular dating show performed background checks on their bachelors, they would have discovered that this “kind of good-looking but kind of creepy” guy had already spent three years in prison for raping and beating an eight-year-old girl, which landed him on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted Fugitives List. As you can probably imagine, Cheryl Bradshaw’s rejection likely only fueled Alcala’s fire. In total, before and after his television appearance, the sadistic “Dating Game Killer” claimed that he killed between 50 and 100 people during his lifetime.

Rodney Alcala was born in San Antonio, Texas in 1943. His father moved the family to Mexico when Alcala was eight years old, only to abandoned them there three years later. His mother then moved Alcala and his sister to suburban Los Angeles. At age 17, Alcala entered the Army as a clerk, but after a nervous breakdown, he was medically discharged due to mental health issues. Then, the intelligent young man with an IQ of 135 went on to attend UCLA, but he wouldn’t stay on the straight and narrow for long. Like many serial killers, Rodney Alcala had a style. His signatures were beating, biting, raping, and strangling. On his first known attempt at killing, he was successful at only two of these things. The victim was Tali Shapiro, an eight-year-old girl he’d lured into his apartment. Shapiro had just barely survived her rape and beating; her life saved by a passerby who had reported a tip to the police on a possible abduction. Alcala fled his apartment when the police arrived and remained a fugitive for years afterward. He moved to New York and used the alias John Berger to enroll in fi lm school at New York University where, ironically enough, he studied under Roman Polanski. After being recognized thanks to an FBI poster, Alcala was finally identified as the perpetrator in the rape and attempted murder of Tali Shapiro. He was arrested in 1971, but only sent to prison on charges of assault. After spending three years behind bars, he soon spent another two years in prison for assaulting a 13-year-old girl. Then, authorities regrettably let parolee and flight risk Alcala travel to New York to “visit relatives.” Investigators now believe that within seven days of his arrival there, he killed a college student named Elaine Hover who was the daughter of a popular Hollywood nightclub owner and goddaughter of both Sammy Davis Jr. and Dean Martin.

RODNEY ALCALA

Soon after all of this, Alcala somehow got a job at the Los Angeles Times as a typesetter in 1978, under his real name, which was now attached to a substantial criminal record. A typist by day, by night he lured in young girls to be part of his professional photography portfolio — some of them never to be heard from again. The year after the Dating Game appearance, 17-year-old Liane Leedom was lucky enough to walk away unscathed from a photoshoot with Rodney Alcala, and she remarked how he “showed her his portfolio, which in addition to shots of women included spread after spread of naked teenage boys.” Police have since released parts of Alcala’s “portfolio” to the public to aid in victim identification (the photos are still available to view). Over the years, a few have stepped forward to reveal their horrifying moment with this predator. The case that would finally break Rodney Alcala’s killing spree was that of 12-year-old Robin Samsoe. She’d disappeared from Huntington Beach, California on her way to ballet class on June 20, 1979.Samsoe’s friends said that a stranger approached them on the beach and asked if they’d want to do a photoshoot. They declined and Samsoe left, borrowing a friend’s bike to hurriedly get to ballet. At some point between the beach and class, Samsoe disap-

RODNEY ALCALA

peared. Nearly 12 days later, a park ranger found her animal-ravaged bones in a forested area near the Pasadena foothills of the Sierra Madre. Upon questioning Samsoe’s friends, a police sketch artist drew up a composite and Alcala’s former parole officer recognized the face. Between the sketch, Alcala’s criminal past, and the discovery of Samsoe’s earrings in Alcala’s Seattle storage locker, police felt confident that they had their man. But beginning with the trial in 1980, Samsoe’s family would have to follow a rather long and winding road to justice. The jury found Alcala guilty of first-degree murder and he received the death penalty. However, the California Supreme court overturned this verdict due to the jury being prejudiced, they felt, by learning of Alcala’s past sex crimes. It took six years put him back on trial. At the second trial in 1986, another jury sentenced him to death. This one didn’t stick either; a Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals panel overturned it in 2001, LA Weekly wrote, “in part because the second trial judge did not allow a witness to back up the defense’s claim that the park ranger who found Robin Samsoe’s animal-ravaged body in the mountains had been hypnotized by police investigators.” Finally, in 2010, 31 years after the murder, a third trial was held. Just before the trial, Orange County Senior Deputy District Attorney Matt Murphy told LA Weekly, “The ’70s in California was insane as far

as treatment of sexual predators. Rodney Alcala is a poster boy for this. It is a total comedy of outrageous stupidity.” During the years he spent incarcerated, Alcala self-published a book called “You, the Jury” in which he proclaimed his innocence in the Samsoe case. He fiercely contested the DNA swabs done on prisoners periodically for the police department’s evidence bank. Alcala also brought two lawsuits against the California penal system; one for a slip and fall accident, and another for the prison’s refusal to provide him with a low-fat menu. Alcala announced to much surprise that he would be his own lawyer in his third trial. Even though now, 31 years after Samsoe’s murder, investigators also had concrete evidence against him on four different murders from decades past — thanks to the prison’s DNA swabs. The prosecution was able to combine these new murder charges along with Robin Samsoe in the 2010 trial.

We are gonna have a lot of fun tonight Cheryl RODNEY ALCALA

RODNEY ALCALA

17 Victims: 1978â&#x20AC;&#x201C;1991 Years Active: Wisconson Where:

THE MILWAUKEE CANNIBAL

JEFFREY DAHMER

THE ONLY MOTIVE THAT THERE EVER WAS WAS TO COMPLETELY CONTROL A PERSON; A PERSON I FOUND PHYSICALLY ATTRACTIVE. AND KEEP THEM WITH ME AS LONG AS POSSIBLE, EVEN IF IT MEANT JUST KEEPING A PART OF THEM. Jeffrey Dahmer was an American serial killer who took the lives of 17 males between 1978 and 1991. Over the course of more than 13 years, Dahmer sought out men, mostly African-American, at gay bars, malls and bus stops, lured them home with promises of money or sex, and gave them alcohol laced with drugs before strangling them to death. He would then engage in sex acts with the corpses before dismembering them and disposing of them, often keeping their skulls or genitals as souvenirs. He frequently took photos of his victims at various stages of the murder process, so he could recollect each act afterward and relive the experience. Dahmer was captured in 1991 and sentenced to 16 life terms. He was killed by fellow prison inmate Christopher Scarver in 1994. Dahmer’s killing spree ended when he was arrested on July 22, 1991. That day, two Milwaukee police officers picked up Tracy Edwards, a 32-year-old African American man who was wandering the streets with a handcuff dangling from his wrist. They decided to investigate the man’s claims that a “weird dude” had drugged and restrained him. They arrived at Dahmer’s apartment, where he calmly offered to get the keys for the handcuffs. Edwards claimed that the knife Dahmer had threatened him

JEFFREY DAHMER

with was in the bedroom. When the officer went in to corroborate the story, he noticed Polaroid photographs of dismembered bodies lying around. Dahmer was subdued by the officers. Subsequent searches revealed a head in the refrigerator, three more in the freezer and a catalog of other horrors, including preserved skulls, jars containing genitalia and an extensive gallery of macabre Polaroid photographs of his victims. Dahmer’s refrigerator and Polaroid photographs became inextricably associated with his notorious killing spree. In 1996, following Dahmer’s death, a group of Milwaukee businessmen raised more than $400,000 to purchase the items he used for his victims — including blades, saws, handcuffs and a refrigerator to store body parts. They promptly destroyed them in an effort to distance the city from the horrors of Dahmer’s actions and the ensuing media circus surrounding his trial. Notorious serial killer Jeff rey Dahmer was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on May 21, 1960, to Lionel and Joyce Dahmer. He was described as an energetic and happy child until the age of 4, when surgery to correct a double hernia seemed to effect a change in the boy. Noticeably subdued, he became increasingly withdrawn following the birth of his younger brother and the family’s frequent moves. By his early teens, he was disengaged, tense and largely friendless. Dahmer claims that his compulsions toward necrophilia and murder began around the age of 14, but it appears that the breakdown of his parents’ marriage and their acrimonious divorce a few years later may have been the catalyst for turning these thoughts into actions. Dahmer’s first murder occurred just after graduating high school, in June 1978, when he picked up a hitchhiker named Steven Hicks and took him home to his parents’ house. Dahmer proceeded to get the young man drunk; when Hicks tried to leave, Dahmer killed him by

JEFFREY DAHMER

striking him in the head and strangling him with a barbell. He dismembered the corpse of his first victim, packed the body parts in plastic bags and buried them behind his parents’ home. He later exhumed the remains, crushed the bones with a sledgehammer and scattered them across a wooded ravine. By the time of his first killing, Dahmer’s alcohol consumption had spun out of control. He dropped out of Ohio State University after one quarter term, and his recently remarried father insisted that he join the Army. Dahmer enlisted in late December 1978, and was posted to Germany shortly thereafter. His drinking problem persisted, and in early 1981, the Army discharged him. Although German authorities would later investigate possible connections between Dahmer and murders that took place in the area during that time, it is not believed that he took any more victims while serving in the Armed Forces. Following his discharge, Dahmer returned home to Ohio. An arrest later that year for disorderly conduct prompted his father to send Dahmer to live with his grandmother in Wisconsin, but his alcohol problem continued and he was arrested the following summer for indecent exposure. He was arrested once again in 1986, when two boys accused him of masturbating in front of them, and he received a one-year probationary sentence. It wasn’t until September 1987 that Dahmer took his second victim, Steven Tuomi. They checked into a hotel room and drank, and Dahmer eventually awoke to find Tuomi dead, with no memory of the previous night’s activities. He bought a large suitcase to transport Tuomi’s body to his grandmother’s basement, where he dismembered and masturbated on the corpse before disposing of the remains. Only after Dahmer killed another two victims at his grandmother’s home did she tire of her grandson’s late nights and drunkenness — although she had no knowledge of his other activities — and she forced him to move out of the premises

If I was killed in prison. That would be a blessing right now. JEFFREY DAHMER

JEFFREY DAHMER

in 1988. That September 1989, Dahmer had an extremely lucky escape: An encounter with a 13-year-old Laotian boy resulted in charges of sexual exploitation and second-degree sexual assault for Dahmer. He pleaded guilty, claiming that the boy had appeared much older. While awaiting sentencing for his sexual assault case, Dahmer again put his grandmother’s basement to gruesome use. In March 1989, he drugged, sodomized, photographed, dismembered and disposed of Anthony Sears, an aspiring model. At his trial for child molestation in May 1989, Dahmer was the model of contrition, arguing eloquently, in his own defense, about how he had seen the error of his ways, and that his arrest marked a turning point in his life. His defense counsel argued that he needed treatment, not incarceration, and the judge agreed, handing down a one-year prison sentence on “day release” — allowing Dahmer to work at his job during the day and return to the prison at night — as well as a five-year probationary sentence. Years later, in an interview with CNN, Lionel Dahmer stated that he wrote a letter to the court that issued the sentence, requesting psychological help before his son’s parole. However, Jeff rey Dahmer was granted an early release by the judge, after serving only 10 months of his sentence. He briefly lived with his grandmother following his release, during which time he does not appear to have added to his body count, before moving back into his own apartment. Over the following two years, Dahmer’s victim count accelerated, bringing his total from four to 17. He developed rituals as he progressed, experimenting with chemical means of disposal and often consuming the flesh of his victims. Dahmer also attempted crude lobotomies, drilling into victims’ skulls while they were still alive and injecting them with muriatic acid. He was careful to select victims on the fringes of society, who were often

JEFFREY DAHMER

itinerant or borderline criminal, making their disappearances less noticeable and reducing the likelihood of his capture. On May 27, 1991, Dahmer’s neighbor Sandra Smith called the police to report that an Asian boy was running naked in the street. When the police arrived, the boy was incoherent, and they accepted the word of Dahmer — a white man in a largely poor African-American community — that the boy was his 19-year-old lover. In fact, the boy was 14 years old and a brother of the Laotian teen Dahmer had molested three years earlier. The police escorted Dahmer and the boy home and, clearly not wishing to become embroiled in a homosexual domestic disturbance, took only a cursory look around before leaving. Once the police left the scene, Dahmer killed the boy and proceeded with his usual rituals. Had they conducted even a basic search, police officers would have found the body of Dahmer’s 12th victim, Tony Hughes. Before he was finally arrested, on July 22, 1991, he killed four more men. Jeff rey Dahmer’s trial began in January 1992. Given that the majority of Dahmer’s victims were African American, there were considerable racial tensions and so strict security precautions were taken, including an eight-foot barrier of bulletproof glass that separated him from the gallery. The inclusion of only one African American on the jury provoked further unrest, but was ultimately contained and short lived. Lionel Dahmer and his second wife attended the trial throughout. Dahmer initially pleaded not guilty to all charges, despite having confessed to the killings during police interrogation, but he eventually changed his plea to guilty by virtue of insanity. His defense then offered the gruesome details of his behavior, as proof that only someone insane could commit such terrible acts. The jury chose to believe the prosecution’s assertion

that Dahmer was fully aware that his acts were evil and chose to commit them anyway. On February 15, 1992, they returned after approximately 10 hoursâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; deliberation to find him guilty, but sane, on all counts. He was sentenced to 15 consecutive life terms in prison, with a 16th term tacked on in May. Dahmer reportedly adjusted well to prison life, although he was initially kept apart from the general population. He eventually convinced authorities to allow him to integrate more fully with other inmates. He found religion in prison in the form of books and photos sent to him by his father, and he was also granted permission by the Columbia Correctional Institution to be baptized by a local pastor. On November 28, 1994, in accordance with his inclusion in regular work details, Dahmer was assigned to work with two other convicted murderers, Jesse Anderson and Christopher Scarver. After they had been left alone to complete their tasks, guards returned to find that Scarver had brutally beaten both men with a metal bar from the prison weight room. Dahmer was pronounced dead after approximately one hour. Anderson succumbed to his injuries days later.Â In 2015, Christopher Scarver spoke to the New York Post about his reasons for killing Dahmer. Scarver alleged that he was disturbed not only by Dahmerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s crimes, but by a habit Dahmer had developed of fashioning severed limbs from prison food to antagonize other inmates. After being endlessly taunted by Dahmer and Anderson during their work detail, Scarver said that he confronted Dahmer about his crimes before beating the two men to death. He also claimed that prison guards allowed the murders to happen by leaving them alone in the room.

JEFFREY DAHMER

HOW THE FBI FINDS THEIR KILLERS

Serial killers are typically classified in two ways one based on motive, the other on organisational and social patterns. The motive method is called Holmes typology, for Ronald M. and Stephen T. Holmes, authors of textbooks on serial murder and violent crime. The FBI explained that not every serial killer falls into a single type, and these classifications don’t explain what leads someone to become a serial killer. According to Holmes typology, serial killers can be act-focused, and kill quickly, or process-focused, and kill slowly. For act-focused killers, killing is about the act itself. Visionary murders in this group hear voices or has visions that direct him to do so, while Missionary murders believe they are meant to get rid of a particular group of people. Alternatively, process-focused serial killers get enjoyment from torture and the death of their victims. Lust killers derive sexual pleasure from killing, Thrill killers get a ‘thrill’ from it and Gain killers murder because they believe they will profit in some way. Power killers wish to be in charge of life and death. The FBI explained: ‘Psychopathy is a personality disorder manifested in people who use a mixture of charm, manipulation, intimidation, and occasionally violence to control others, in order to satisfy their own selfish needs.’ Psychotic: Bodysnatcher Ed Gein believed he needed the parts of the woman he killed in order to become a woman himself by comparison, psychosis is when a person loses sense of reality. The conditions share certain traits, but typically

psychopaths are manipulative and know right from wrong, while psychotics suffer from delusions. Bodysnatcher Ed Gein believed he needed the parts of the woman he killed in order to become a woman himself. Recently, Nicholas Salvador, 25, was put on trial for beheading a woman he believed was ‘Hitler back from the dead’. He was suffering from paranoid schizophrenia at the time. Although not a serial killer, this highlights the differences in the types of killers. All of these findings fail to reveal why other people with similar brain abnormalities or personality traits aren’t serial killers. Furthermore, the cause of this brain damage is also not known or confirmed. The FBI concluded: ‘The relationship between psychopathy and serial killers is particularly interesting. ‘All psychopaths do not become serial murderers. Rather, serial murderers may possess some or many of the traits consistent with psychopathy. Psychopaths who commit serial murder do not value human life and are extremely callous in their interactions with their victims. ‘Th is is particularly evident in sexually motivated serial killers who repeatedly target, stalk, assault, and kill without a sense of remorse. However, psychopathy alone does not explain the motivations of a serial killer.’

KILLER PROFILE

SOURCES https://www.biography.com/people/edmund-kemper-403254 https://www.biography.com/people/ted-bundy-9231165 http://allthatsinteresting.com/luis-garavito https://www.biography.com/people/alexander-pichushkin-396824 https://www.biography.com/people/andrei-chikatilo-17169648 https://www.medicalbag.com/despicable-doctors/charles-cullen-the-killer-nurse-a-deeper-evil/article/472332/ https://www.crimemuseum.org/crime-library/serial-killers/hh-holmes/ https://www.biography.com/people/dennis-rader-241487 http://www.complex.com/life/2017/06/karla-homolka-timeline-events/ https://www.biography.com/people/aileen-wuornos-11735792 https://www.biography.com/people/john-wayne-gacy-10367544 https://www.statisticbrain.com/serial-killer-statistics-and-demographics/ http://www.businessinsider.com/a-surprising-look-at-the-average-serial-killer-2015-5 http://www.clarkprosecutor.org/html/death/US/bonin322.htm https://www.suecoletta.com/serial-killers-by-state/ https://www.buzzfeed.com/annakopsky/creepy-serial-killers-from-each-state-guaranteed-to-make?utm_term=. umz254pb1e#.wr7Q0xj7zZ https://www.vox.com/2016/12/2/13803158/serial-killers-victims-data

GLOSSARY attributional bias

mass murder

interpreting ambiguous or neutral peer actions as being hostile and aggressive

killing of 4 or more persons at one time with in a few min. or hours

brawner rule

modus operandi

also known as substantial capacity test. a rule used to test insanity, shows lack of substantial capacity instead of total impairment

a particular way or method of doing something, especially one that is characteristic or well-established.

cognitive dissonance

neurosis

in labeling theory, a state in which a person feels the stress of being labled and thus feels the need to right the wrongs and restore balance

variety of mental disorders of less violent nature than occur in cases of psychotic behavior; high anxiety, ocd

pseudo commando dissociative disorder

a person with an obsession for guns and a fantasy for murder

abrupt, temporary changes in consciousness, identity and motor activity

psychotic killer

incompetency

a person suffering from acute or chronic psychosis who is considered to be legally insane

a state of mind at the time of the offense which renders a defendant unable to stand trial and is placed in mental institution until considered competent to stand trial

insanity a legal term to define the state of mind of an offender at the time of the offense; offenders may be deemed insane at the moment of the crime and only for that period of time

lust murders an offender sexually involved with his victims

psychopath a non diagnostic label used to describe a potpourri of individuals determined by societal standards to possess characteristics at variance with general community standards and practices

serial killer a person who commits a series of murders, often with no apparent motive and typically following a characteristic, predictable behavior pattern.

S E R IA L SERIAL S E R IA L