CHAPTER 3

IN ANCIENT ASSYRIA, REBELS WERE SKINNED ALIVE; THE ROMANS LIKED TO FLAY FORGERS; AND IN EARLY AMERICA, DRUNKS WERE SENT TO THE STOCKS.

Although the concept of serial killing is a relatively recent phenomenon, mass slaughter has been a fixture throughout human history. In Biblical times, there were bloodthirsty rulers like King Herod of Judea, who ordered the massacre of all male children under age two in the kingdom, fearing the birth of a usurper. The Greeks, Romans, and Mayans sacrificed men, women, and children to deities, usually for the purpose of nourishing or appeasing them. During the Iron Age, the Celts are thought to have sacrificed prisoners, sometimes for divination purposes: The victim would be stabbed and his death throes scrutinized for clues to the future, according to one account.

In a culture that openly celebrated violence—gladiators fought to the death and Christians were fed to ravenous dogs—it was difficult to achieve fame for murder in ancient Rome. But herbalist and professional poisoner Locusta of Gaul attained that notoriety, going down in history as one of the first recorded serial killers.

Locusta is thought to have murdered for personal pleasure and profit, helping clients eliminate rivals and family members. One well-known patron was Agrippina the Younger, the fourth wife of Emperor Claudius. Evidence suggests that Agrippina, who wanted her son Nero to replace Claudius as ruler, hired Locusta in 54 AD to kill her husband. Locusta fed Claudius poisonous mushrooms, killing him and propelling young Nero to the throne. Nero himself is believed to have had Locusta murder his stepbrother Britannicus. Her payment? Full pardon for previous offenses, among other gifts.

Gilles de Rais was a nobleman and warrior who fought alongside Joan of Arc in the 1400s, and even served in her special guard. He also lived lavishly and was a patron of the arts. But Rais also may have been the most notorious serial killer of the medieval era. An alleged Satanist who engaged in sorcery and wild orgies, Rais was accused of abducting, sexually abusing, and murdering more than 140 children. When he was arrested in 1440, Rais was tortured until he confessed to the crimes of sodomy, homicide, and heresy. He was executed by hanging and burning.

In 1557, Peter Niers, a roving bandit and reputed practitioner of the black arts, was arrested in Gersbach, Germany. After being tortured, he confessed to 75 murders, only to escape in 1577. When he was recognized at an inn a few years later, Niers was arrested again and charged with 544 murders, including those of 24 pregnant women whose fetuses he is said to have ripped from the womb to invoke evil spirits. His execution included being burned with hot oil, tied to a wagon wheel, bludgeoned, and being drawn and quartered.

Emperor Nero with the body of his mother, Agrippina, who was assassinated on Nero’s orders. Painting by Antonio Rizzi, c. late 1800s.

MUSICAL NUMBERS

Peter Niers and other killers have inspired everything from folk ballads to rock tunes.

MUSICIAN/BAND: Elliott Smith Indie singer-songwriter

SONG: Son of Sam, 2000

INSPIRATION: David Berkowitz, aka Son of Sam, who shot 13 people, killing six, in New York City in 1976 and 1977

MUSICIAN/BAND: Pearl Jam Rock band

SONG: Dirty Frank, 1992

INSPIRATION: Jeffrey Dahmer, who murdered and dismembered 17 males in Ohio and Wisconsin from 1978 to 1991

MUSICIAN/BAND: Sufjan Stevens Indie singer-songwriter

SONG: John Wayne Gacy Jr., 2005

INSPIRATION: John Wayne Gacy, who tortured and murdered more than 30 males between 1972 and 1978

MUSICIAN/BAND: Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds Post-punk band

SONG: Jack the Ripper, 1992

INSPIRATION: Jack the Ripper, the still-unidentified serial murderer who killed at least 12 women in London in 1888

MUSICIAN/BAND: Jane’s Addiction Rock band

SONG: Ted, Just Admit It, 1988

INSPIRATION: Ted Bundy, who tortured and murdered at least 36 young women in several states in the 1970s

Priest offering the heart taken from a living human victim to the Aztec sun god and god of war, Huitzilopochtli.

RITES AND WRONGS

Most human sacrifices were offered to the gods in exchange for some form of divine intervention, such as a fertile growing season.

• The Egyptians. The First Dynasty pharaohs (c. 2950—2775 BC) were buried in tombs, surrounded by servants, artisans, and other courtiers whose lives were sacrificed to ensure that the rulers would have company and help in the afterlife.

• The Aztecs. Aztec priests (c. 1345—1521 AD) offered up thousands of human sacrifices each year for the purpose of pleasing the sun god Huitzilopochtli. Their rituals included cutting out their sacrificial victims’ still-beating hearts.

• The Maya. These ancients (500 BC—900 AD) forced captive foes to play a symbolic ball game. At its conclusion, the captain or entire team was sometimes sacrificed, often by decapitation or disembowelment.

• The Carthaginians. Some archaeologists have long suspected that Carthaginians (c. 800—146 BC) sacrificed their own infants as an offering to the gods, then buried them in special cemeteries known as tophets.

ANCIENT ROME VALUED FAMILY, HONOR, RESPECT—AND BRUTAL PENALTIES FOR LAWBREAKERS.

Ancient Roman rulers were deadly serious when it came to punishing transgressors. Depending on their social status, thieves and forgers might be banished or lashed—no more than 40 times so as not to cause accidental death. Citizens found guilty of treason were summarily beheaded. Soldiers convicted of desertion and slaves who attempted to escape their owners were often whipped, then crucified. Anyone found guilty of parricide, or the killing of a family member, received the most gruesome punishment of all: They were blindfolded and beaten, then bound around the arms and feet. The convicts were then sewn into a sack with a viper, and thrown into the river. Later variations added a dog, a monkey, and a rooster for good measure.

As time passed, emperors relied on ever crueler punishments, including torture for enemies of the state. When the first-century Emperor Nero suspected that Epicharis, a woman of ill repute, knew of an assassination conspiracy against him, he sent her repeatedly to the rack—a device that gradually pulled the limbs from its subject. He also began to use gruesome punishments and executions and as entertainment for the masses.

Nero is credited with popularizing the practice of damnatio ad bestias: tossing humans into an arena to fight bears, lions, or other wild animals. To punish Christians, whom he blamed for causing the Great Fire of 64 AD, Nero developed an even more heinous spectacle: He forced the faithful to don a tunica molesta, a garment covered in a flammable material such as pitch, wax, or naphtha. A soldier would ignite the tunic, turning the victim into a human fireball, while the public watched. In some cases, Nero used the practice to light parties he hosted.

After an era of disorder, the military leader Diocletian took power in the third century, stabilized the empire, and introduced some of the most severe punishments in all of Rome for dissenting religious beliefs. In 296, Diocletian ordered Manicheans, who worshiped non-Roman deities, to be burned alive with their scriptures. Seven years later, he imposed edicts calling for the persecution of Christians. Thousands were eventually killed, including Diocletian’s Christian butler, who was stripped, whipped, then had salt and vinegar poured in his wounds before he was boiled alive.

Diocletian’s successor, Constantine, the first Christian emperor of Rome, had some strict ideas of his own. Tax evaders were beaten and tortured, while other small crimes were punished by maiming or eye gouging. Rapists were burned at the stake. Girls who ran away were also burned alive, and anyone who helped them could expect a mouthful of molten lead. Adultery was punishable by death, and Constantine even had his own son killed—allegedly for adultery and treason.

One way a criminal couldn’t die under the Christian Constantine, however, was by crucifixion: he banned the practice in 337.

Nero overseeing the torture of Christians by burning at the stake in ancient Rome

KINDER AND GENTLER GREEKS?

For Athenians, capital punishment could involve the cross, or a poisoned drink.

When the philosopher Socrates was sentenced to death for impiety and corrupting the young, the court allowed him to die by drinking a potion containing the poison hemlock.

It’s not that the Greeks were skittish about using violence to punish wrong doers. A Greek crucifixion involved clamping the offender to a board and tightening a collar around his neck until he strangled.

But in general, the rulers stuck to bloodless methods, to distinguish the acts of a civilized society from the savagery of war. Most capital convicts, like Socrates, were offered the option of drinking hemlock if they paid for the dose themselves. Those who refused sometimes escaped into exile. Socrates himself had an opportunity to do so, but accepted his punishment as part of a social contract. Ethical until the end, his last words were to a dear friend: ”Crito, we owe a rooster to Asclepius. Please don’t forget to pay the debt.‚

The Death of Socrates by Jacques-Louis David, c. 1787. He rejected the options of paying a fine or escaping from prison, and instead submitted to his sentence of death by drinking hemlock.

Execution using a Brazen Bull, a torture traced to 6th-century Sicily.

BRUTAL REALITY

Ancient cultures were savage in meting out punishment for lawbreakers.

• The Elephant. A symbol of royal power in ancient Asia, the animal was trained to place a foot on the offender’s head and slowly bear down, in order to inflict maximum suffering.

• The Brazen Bull. First used in Sicily in the 6th century BC, a hollow bronze statue of a bull was constructed with a door in its abdomen. Victims were locked inside and a fire was set underneath, roasting them alive. Their screams were meant to replicate the sound of a bellowing bull.

• Flaying. This practice dates to the 9th century BC, when the Assyrians used it on rebels to discourage uprisings. The object was to remove the victim’s skin while he was still alive. Techniques varied: Hypatia of Alexandria, a female philosopher, was flayed by a mob with sharpened oyster shells in 415 AD.

• Impalement. The Babylonian Code of Hammurabi from the 18th century BC specifies impalement for murderous adulteresses. This grisly method also found favor with the Romans, Chinese, Greeks, and Turks. It involved inserting a wooden stake into the nether regions, up through the victim’s body, and out the mouth.

LAWS IN COLONIAL AMERICA WERE HEAVILY INFLUENCED BY THE BIBLE. THAT MADE FOR SOME HARSH SENTENCES.

The Landing of the Pilgrim Fathers (Charles Lucy, c. 1868) depicts the arrival of the Mayflower passengers in New England on November 19, 1620.

To the earliest American settlers, there was little difference between crime and sin. Both Plymouth Colony, founded in 1620, and Massachusetts Bay Colony, established in 1630, modeled their criminal laws on Biblical tenets rather than English common law. Those rules, in turn, served as guidelines for later colonists who adapted them to suit their own settlements. Transgressions, no matter how small, were typically treated as crimes against society and God, and therefore deserving of the harshest penalties.

Following the Ten Commandments, murder and theft were classified as punishable offenses. But so were such activities as lying, lewdness, and idleness. Some of the more obviously religious offenses included blasphemy, idolatry, and missing church services. Sabbath Day behavior even had its own set of laws: A couple in Connecticut was once fined for smiling during services; Plymouth children were penalized for playing with chalk at church. Sexual crimes such as adultery, bastardy, masturbation, and sodomy were particularly disturbing to church leadership.

While fines were imposed often, many sanctions were physical and public, intended to shame offenders and make examples of them so they would repent. Flogging was common, as was time in the stocks or pillory for infractions such as drunkenness, forgery, wife-beating, and fortune-telling. Branding was sometimes inflicted for the crimes of adultery or theft.

Murder was a capital crime. When Alice Bishop killed her 4-year-old daughter in 1648, she was sentenced to hanging. Barnett Davenport, who committed the first mass murder in the United States, in Washington, Connecticut, was lashed 40 times then hanged in nearby Litchfield.

As today, punishment was not always meted out uniformly or fairly. Although colonists of all ages and backgrounds—including magistrates and ministers—were known to engage in criminal activity, it was women, children, slaves, and the poor who were punished most often and most harshly. The abuses were legend, but none so much as the Salem Witch Trials of 1692.

When Reverend Samuel Parris moved to Salem in 1690, he brought with him his wife, daughters, niece, and a West Indian slave named Tituba. Two years later, after Parris’s niece and one of his daughters started having spontaneous fits, they were taken to the village doctor, who concluded all three had been bewitched. Under pressure from the local magistrates, the girls, along with a friend who exhibited similar symptoms, accused Tituba of witchcraft. They also claimed that a poor, elderly neighbor and a local beggar had cast spells, thus setting off a wave of hysteria that spread from Salem to its surrounding villages. As accusations flew, authorities extracted false confessions through torture, and by the end of 1692, 150 men, women, and children had been charged with practicing witchcraft. Of these, 28 were convicted and 19 were hanged. One man, Giles Corey, was pressed to death beneath a pile of rocks.

An artist’s rendering of Tituba telling witchcraft tales to children in Salem, Massachusetts, 1690s

END OF LIFE

These crimes brought the death penalty in Plymouth Colony:

• Treason

• Willful murder

• Conversing with the Devil by way of witchcraft, conjuration, or the like

• Willful or purposeful burning of ships or houses

• Rape and other “crimes against nature,” including bestiality, incest, sodomy, and adultery

Stocks and pillories, which were often erected in a public square and locked a person’s head, hands, and/or feet in place in a wooden frame, were common punitive devices.

TIME AND PUNISHMENT

Colonial-era lawbreakers paid a heavy price for their crimes, no matter how small.

Here are some ordinary citizens and their punishments.

• 1638, Samuel Powell, Northampton, Virginia
Crime: Stole a pair of breeches
Punishment: Forced to sit in the stocks for a day with a pair of pants around his neck

• 1648, John Goneere, Maryland
Crime: Perjury
Punishment: Nailed by the ears to a pillory, plus 20 lashes

• 1656, Captain Kemble, Boston
Crime: Kissing his wife on the Sabbath
Punishment: Two hours in the stocks

• 1661, Anna, Mary, and Dorcas Bessey, Plymouth
Crime: Disrespectful to a male relative
Punishment: Anna sentenced to pay a fine or be publicly whipped; Mary and Dorcas sent to the stocks