CHAPTER 11

CANNIBALISM. ARSON. OBSESSION.

SOME OF SOCIETY’S MOST DISTURBED KILLERS STALK THEN EAT THEIR VICTIMS. OTHERS SET MURDEROUS BLAZES. WHY?

Shattered minds and broken lives: The reasons for some of the most horrific crimes still escape our understanding.

KILLING TO CONSUME

IT’S HARD TO FATHOM WHAT WOULD DRIVE ONE PERSON TO EAT ANOTHER, BUT IT HAS HAPPENED MORE OFTEN THAN YOU’D LIKE TO IMAGINE.

Serial murderer Fritz Haarmann (second from left) after his arrest in 1924

Stories of serial cannibalism have been the stuff of folklore since medieval times, when legendary characters such as the Scotsmen Christie Cleek, a butcher, and clan head Sawney Bean were said to have devoured the flesh of their human victims. But there have also been cannibals who were all too real. Here are some of the more horrifying examples from the last 100 years.

•  IN GERMANY, KARL DENKE WAS ARRESTED IN 1924 after attacking a man with an ax. Police searching Denke’s home found human flesh in huge jars of curing salts, along with a ledger containing records of more than 40 people he had murdered and cannibalized between 1914 and 1918.

•  BETWEEN 1918 AND 1924, FRITZ HAARMANN, a con man and petty thief, committed at least 24 murders near the city of Hanover, Germany. Haarmann was known to tear out young men’s throats to drink their blood before dismembering their bodies and selling their flesh for meat.

•  HAMILTON ALBERT FISH, AKA “THE GRAY MAN,” used a meat cleaver, butcher knife, and saw to torture and kill children. After his victims died, Fish mutilated and cannibalized their remains. In one case, he sent a letter to the parents of a ten-year-old victim, describing which parts tasted the best. He was caught and executed in 1935.

•  JOACHIM KROLL BEGAN RAPING AND MURDERING PEOPLE IN 1955, when he was 22, and continued his spree over two decades in the Duisberg area of Germany. Kroll told officials that he often cooked body parts in order to save money on groceries; he confessed to a total of 14 murders and died of a heart attack in prison in 1991.

•  NIKOLAI DZHUMAGALIEV RAPED AND HACKED TO DEATH seven women in Almaty, Kazakhstan in 1979—80 and ate their remains.

•  IN ANKARA, TURKEY, IN 2007, ÖZGÜR DENGIZ admitted killing one man. He reportedly skinned the victim’s corpse with a cleaver; he ate some of it raw and put the remaining flesh in the refrigerator. After he was caught, Dengiz told the police, “I love to eat human flesh. It makes me ecstatic.”

•  STEPHEN GRIFFITHS BUTCHERED THREE WOMEN and claimed to have consumed two of them in Bradford, England, in 2010.

•  MATEJ CURKO, THE “SLOVAK CANNIBAL,” was killed in a shootout with police in 2011. Investigators found body parts of two missing Slovakian women in his refrigerator.

The legendary Sawney Bean, depicted outside his cave in South Ayrshire, Scotland, circa 1500

H. Albert Fish, 1935

  JAIL HOUSE INTERVIEW  

“Meek, gentle” Albert Fish

Psychiatrist Fredric Wertham met and interviewed the serial cannibal Albert Fish in his jail cell in 1935 and later said he was shocked that Fish seemed “meek, gentle, benevolent and polite.” Wertham added, “If you wanted someone to entrust your children to, he would be the one you would choose.”

Wertham said that Fish explained his motives this way: “I always had a desire to inflict pain on others and to have others inflict pain on me. I always seemed to enjoy everything that hurt. The desire to inflict pain, that is all that is uppermost.”

  CANNIBAL PSYCHOLOGY  

What goes on in the mind of these murderers?

Freudian psychologists suggest that cannibalism may relate to childhood trauma involving profound feelings of anxiety over separation from the mother. These individuals often become verbally aggressive, and in extreme cases, they might act on an urge to literally “absorb” a person by eating him or her. Other psychologists downplay the importance of childhood trauma and posit that extreme stress at any time of life can trigger deviant behavior.

Many of the individuals found to have committed acts of cannibalism are diagnosed with schizophrenia or some other form of personality disorder. In some of the most horrific cases, the perpetrators confess to deriving sexual satisfaction from fantasizing about and consuming humans. For many cannibal killers, who are almost always men, the act of cutting up the meat itself is sexually exciting, making them feel powerful and in control.

For an isolated and resentful loner, cannibalism fills a void. Killing and eating a victim may make an offender feel as if he is no longer alone, that he will always “have” his victims with him. And, having committed the act, it can become addictive; the killer craves a repetition of the feeling. Whatever the cause, this particularly heinous crime remains a subject of horrified fascination.

THE CANNIBAL MILWAUKEE

AFTER JEFFREY DAHMER KILLED HIS VICTIMS, HE SOMETIMES ATE THEM, OR STORED THEIR PARTS IN FILING CABINETS.

Jeffrey Dahmer in a police mug shot, 1982. He was murdered in prison in 1994.

When investigators first searched the Milwaukee apartment of Jeffrey Dahmer, what they found made them gasp. Severed heads and limbs, skeletons, skulls, and other grisly artifacts filled Apartment 213 at 924 North 25th Street. They were Dahmer’s “souvenirs,” remnants of the 17 men and boys Dahmer murdered, dismembered, and sometimes ate between 1978 and 1991.

The Making of a Monster

Born in Milwaukee in 1960, Dahmer was the child of a troubled marriage. His father was a workaholic chemist and his mother was an unhappy teletype instructor. The two quarreled constantly and eventually divorced in 1978. Although Dahmer initially seemed unscathed by his parents’ relationship, when he reached puberty, he became withdrawn and began drinking heavily.

Dahmer committed his first murder in 1978. Unlike the killings that would follow, it was unplanned. Three weeks after graduating from high school, Dahmer invited an 18-year-old hitchhiker to his house for some drinks. When the young man tried to leave, Dahmer impulsively hit him in the head with a 10-pound dumbbell. He then cut up the body, placed the parts in garbage bags, and buried them in the woods.

Not long after, Dahmer enlisted in the Army for a six-year stretch at his father’s urging. Two years into his service, Dahmer was discharged for excessive drinking, which interfered with his performance. He eventually moved in with his grandmother in West Allis, Wisconsin, and found a job working the night shift at Milwaukee Ambrosia Chocolate.

Starting in September 1987, Dahmer began to entice young men to his grandmother’s residence, where he murdered and dismembered them. In 1990, he moved into the apartment on North 25th Street in Milwaukee, accelerating his murderous pace. Of his 17 known victims, 12 were killed there.

Gruesome Pattern

Like most serial killers, Dahmer tended to follow a pattern. He would hone in on his victims at bus stops, bars, malls, and adult bookstores and lure them to his home with promises of alcohol and money if they agreed to pose for photographs. In his apartment, Dahmer would drug his prey and then kill them, usually by strangulation. He liked to collect body parts and sometimes engaged in cannibalism. He also took photos that he could later use for his own pleasure.

Dahmer was finally caught and arrested in 1991, when a prospective victim broke free and ran into the street with a handcuff dangling from his wrist. During his trial, Dahmer pleaded guilty by virtue of insanity, with his lawyers arguing that only an insane person could have committed such atrocious acts. The jury found him guilty on all counts, and the judge sentenced him to 15 consecutive life terms in prison. When asked about his motives, Dahmer said that his compulsion to kill became “an incessant and never-ending desire to be with someone at whatever cost …. It just filled my thoughts all day long.”

Less than three years after he was convicted, Dahmer was beaten to death in prison by Christopher Scarver, a 25-year-old fellow inmate with schizophrenia-like delusions.

  A KILLER’S INVENTORY  

When police officers stormed Jeffrey Dahmer’s apartment, they uncovered:

•  A human head and three bags of organs in a refrigerator

•  Three heads, a torso, and various internal organs inside a free-standing freezer

•  Chemicals, formaldehyde, ether, and chloroform in a closet

•  Three painted skulls, a skeleton, various body parts, and photographs of victims in a filing cabinet

•  Two skulls in a box

•  Acid and three torsos in a 57-gallon vat

•  Driver’s licenses and other identification from the victims

•  A King James bible

CONNING THE LAW

One of Dahmer’s victims escaped, only to be returned to to the killer by the police.

In 1991, Konerak Sinthasomphone was found wandering the streets of Milwaukee, drugged, confused, and bleeding. When the 14-yearold Laotian was questioned by two police officers, he named Dahmer as the perpetrator. Dahmer told the officers that the boy was his 19-year-old lover and that the two had had a fight.

Self-described street minister Jean-Paul Ranieri was one of the few to warn gay men against serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer.

Though the women who had found Sinthasomphone insisted that he was in trouble, the police chose not to run a background check on Dahmer and did not verify the boy’s age. Instead, they allowed Dahmer to take the 14-year-old back to his apartment,where he promptly killed and dismembered the victim. Following news of Sinthasomphone’s murder, there were protests accusing the police of racism and homophobia.

ALARMING FIRES

A DRUNKEN ARGUMENT IGNITED ONE OF THE DEADLIEST BLAZES ON RECORD IN NEW YORK CITY.

The charred facade of the Happy Land social club in the Bronx, New York City, 1990

WHO KNEW?

David Berkowitz—the serial killer also known as Son of Sam—was responsible for setting 1,411 fires throughout New York City. He kept a diary detailing each of them.

Julio Gonzalez, who set the Happy Land fire, during an appearance at the Bronx County Courthouse in New York, 1990

On the evening of March 25, 1990, a 36-year-old Cuban refugee named Julio Gonzalez got into an argument with his ex-girlfriend, Lydia Feliciano. She was working as a coat check clerk at Happy Land, an unlicensed social club in the Bronx, and Gonzalez, newly unemployed, had been drinking. When the club’s bouncer ejected Gonzalez, the immigrant threatened, “I’ll be back!”

Around 3:30 AM, Gonzalez did return, carrying a plastic jug containing about $1 worth of gasoline. He doused the stairway leading up to the club—the only way into or out of the second-floor space—and lit it. Black smoke quickly filled the room upstairs, which was packed with Honduran immigrants celebrating Carnival. The alarm sounded at 3:41, but when firefighters arrived only three minutes later, it was already too late—87 people were dead.

First Deputy Mayor Norman Steisel described the scene as “shocking,” noting that there were almost no burns on the victims—they had all died of smoke inhalation, many in a tangled mass on the dance floor. Some seated victims were still holding their drinks; Richard Harden of Ladder Company 58 said it looked “like they were sleeping.”

Multiple Counts of Murder

Gonzalez’s ex-girlfriend, Feliciano, miraculously escaped the fire, along with two or three others. Acting on her testimony, the police arrested Gonzalez. A psychiatrist declared him not responsible “due to mental illness or defect,” but he was tried on 174 counts of murder—two for each victim.

On August 19, 1991, Gonzalez was convicted of 87 counts of murder and 87 counts of felony murder and given the maximum sentence of 25 years to life for each count—a total of 4,350 years. Since the charges resulted from a single crime, the sentences are being served concurrently; Gonzalez will be eligible for parole in March 2015.

Failure of Regulation

The Happy Land tragedy was one of the deadliest arson cases in U.S. history, resulting in the worst loss of life due to fire since the infamous Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, which coincidentally happened on the same day in 1911.

Though not caused by arson, the Triangle fire, which ended the lives of 146 workers, resulted in the establishment of safer building code regulations. Ironically, the city had ordered Happy Land to close in November 1988 based on those very regulations.

For their role in the 1990 fire, the landlord and lease-owner pleaded guilty to not having an adequate sprinkler system. In a plea bargain, they agreed to perform community service and help pay for a community center.

CRIME VS. DIAGNOSIS

Contrary to popular belief, most arsonists are not pyromaniacs.

The term pyromania is often used in reference to arson, but it’s rarely an accurate description of the crime. Both acts involve fire-setting, but arson is an intentional, malicious act done to satisfy a motive such as revenge or financial gain; fire is just the means. Pyromania, on the other hand, is an impulse disorder, like gambling or substance abuse.

Most arsonists don’t meet the criteria for a diagnosis of pyromania, but compared to homicide offenders, they are more likely to have a history of other psychiatric disorders and treatment, as well as suicidal tendencies and alcohol problems. Studies have also found arsonists to be more socially isolated, less educated, and even less physically attractive than murderers.

John Orr not only set fires and investigated them, he also wrote a novel about arson.

  THE TIME FACTOR  

Years can pass before police can collect enough evidence to arrest serial arsonists.

•  John Orr. Nicknamed the Pillow Pyro for his signature incendiary device—a lit cigarette strapped to a pack of matches wrapped in paper—Orr was an arson investigator for the Glendale, California, fire department. Over time, he set about 2,000 fires, including one that killed four in a hardware store. When Orr was caught in 1991, he got 20 years for arson and murder.

•  Thomas Sweatt. Responsible for at least 350 arsons and two fatalities, Sweat set fires in Washington, D.C., for some 30 years before he was caught. One of the few clues that led police to Sweat was that he often used a plastic jug of gasoline to set his blazes. In 2005, he was sentenced to life in prison.

•  Raymond Lee Oyler. A mechanic who had trained to become a volunteer firefighter, Oyler set the disastrous Esperanza fire in Cabazon, California, in 2006. The blaze ran wild for four days, spread by the Santa Ana winds, and killed five firefighters. Prosecutors alleged that Oyler had set 25 fires in the summer of 2006 alone. He was sentenced to death.

DEADLY, UNWANTED ATTENTION

STALKERS OBSESSED WITH CELEBRITIES MAKE HEADLINES, BUT MOST TARGETED VICTIMS ARE EVERYDAY PEOPLE.

Two-thirds of stalking victims are women, according to government figures.

In 1988, Margaret Mary Ray was arrested for joyriding with her three-year-old son in a stolen Porsche owned by talk-show host David Letterman.

Margaret Mary Ray, who stalked David Letterman, struggles before a competency hearing.

Ray had stalked Letterman for almost ten years, sometimes claiming that he was her husband. On several occasions, she had broken into his home and left him strange gifts. Ray was arrested eight times for trespassing and similar charges; once, Letterman found her asleep on the tennis court at his home in Connecticut. The entertainer made jokes about Ray on his television show, but it was no laughing matter. In 1998, Margaret Mary Ray committed suicide by kneeling in front of an oncoming train.

Ray suffered from erotomania, a type of delusion associated with schizophrenia in which a person believes that someone, usually a stranger or celebrity, is in love with him or her. When you hear about a stalker, it is possible that person is an erotomaniac.

While celebrity stalkers tend to make news, the typical stalker does not harass a famous person. The U.S. Department of Justice estimates that more than 1.5 million people, two-thirds of them women, are the victims of stalkers every year.

Lead-in to Violence

About 60 percent of stalkers have had a prior relationship with the victim and want to continue it, according to government statistics. Their form of passive aggression often leads to violence. Nine out of every ten women killed by husbands or boyfriends were the victims of stalking before they were murdered. According to one estimate, one out of every 12 U.S. women—and one out of every 45 U.S. men—has been or will be stalked.

Stalking is difficult to define precisely, but if a person repeatedly watches, follows, or harasses you, making you feel unsafe or afraid, you can consider yourself stalked. Stalkers often use threats and violence to frighten their victims, and may engage in vandalism. The results of this harassment are predictable; victims of stalking suffer from anxiety, insomnia, and severe depression at a much higher rate than the general population.

Motivations for stalking vary, ranging from an attempt to reassert power over a rejecting partner to an obsessive search for a loving relationship. Most stalkers are older and better educated than the average criminal, but also tend to be unemployed or underemployed, according to government statistics. Most do not experience hallucinations or delusions, although many suffer from depression, substance abuse, and personality disorders. Stalkers are quite adept at rationalizing their behavior. Many see no reason to get help.

Unfortunately, advances in technology have made stalking easier. Computer spyware can send a stalker a copy of every keystroke and password entered on a victim’s laptop, the websites he or she has visited, even personal documents and emails. Stalkers can also use the internet to harass the victim or post things about him or her on message boards and discussion forums.

MOST VULNERABLE

Younger women are prime targets for stalkers.

More than half of female stalking victims are under the age of 25; about one in five of them are between 11 and 17, according to the federal government.

AGE AT TIME OF FIRST STALKING VICTIMIZATION

Source: National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey 2010, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Violence Prevention Division

Jack Jordan leaving criminal court during his trial for stalking Uma Thurman

  RICH, FAMOUS, AND HOUNDED  

When stalkers target a big-name television or film star

It’s easy to envy celebrities, but their fame can also attract dangerous fans.

•  Uma Thurman was stalked by Jack Jordan from about 2004 to 2011. Jordan sent Thurman bizarre letters, called her family, tried to enter her trailer on a movie set, and showed up at her home late at night. He was issued a restraining order and given three years probation.

•  Gwyneth Paltrow was stalked by Dante Soiu for a year. He sent Paltrow hundreds of letters and emails, as well as gifts of flowers and candy. He even located and visited the home of Paltrow’s parents. Soiu was declared legally insane and hospitalized in 2000.

•  Rebecca Schaeffer, a former model and star of the television sitcom My Sister Sam, was stalked for three years, then murdered in front of her home by Robert John Bardo in 1989. Bardo was given life in prison without parole.

•  Jodie Foster was the unwitting fixation of John Hinckley Jr., who was obsessed with the movie Taxi Driver, in which she’d starred. In 1981, Hinckley unsuccessfully attempted to assassinate President Ronald Reagan to capture Foster’s attention. Hinckley was found not guilty by reason of insanity and remains institutionalized.

IN THE LIMELIGHT

THE LINE BETWEEN AN OBSESSED FAN AND A DELUDED KILLER CAN BE A FINE ONE, AS ASSAULTS ON HIGH-PROFILE CELEBRITIES HAVE PROVED.

Mark David Chapman shot Beatle John Lennon in 1980.

Today’s musicians, writers, and artists can be huge media personalities, idolized and scrutinized by millions around the world. But sometimes a fan’s attention can take a wrong turn, swerving from enthusiasm to disillusionment to violence. Stalkers have harassed performing artists like Beyoncé and Miley Cyrus, and a few deluded individuals have gone as far as attempting to harm or even kill their famous targets.

An Attempt on Warhol’s Life

No one understood society’s obsession with celebrity better than the Pop artist Andy Warhol, who presciently observed in 1968 that in the future, everyone would be famous for 15 minutes. What Warhol may not have expected was that he would become a victim of the phenomenon and that his own life would be jeopardized.

On June 3, 1968, radical feminist writer Valerie Solanas entered Warhol’s studio and, as he talked on the phone, shot at him three times, missing twice. Solanas’s third bullet penetrated both of Warhol’s lungs, as well as his spleen, stomach, liver, and esophagus. She also fired at art critic Mario Amaya, hitting him in the hip, and attempted to shoot Warhol’s manager, Fred Hughes, but her gun jammed. Warhol and Amaya both survived the attacks, though Warhol’s friends said the event changed him.

Solanas, who had written that women should “overthrow the government, eliminate the money system, institute complete automation, and eliminate the male sex,” claimed Warhol was trying to control her. She was diagnosed as paranoid schizophrenic and served a three-year prison sentence, including psychiatric hospital time. She drifted into obscurity.

Andy Warhol

John Lennon

Selena

Silencing Lennon

Mark David Chapman, a 25-year-old born-again Christian from Fort Worth, Texas, was obsessed with two things: J.D. Salinger’s coming-of-age novel The Catcher in the Rye, and the former Beatle John Lennon. Chapman had been introduced to the book by a school friend and was said to have wanted to model himself after its protagonist, Holden Caulfield. He likewise idolized Lennon, but turned on him after the singer commented that the Beatles were “more popular than Jesus.” Chapman later said he objected to the fact that Lennon preached love and peace but was very wealthy.

On December 8, 1980, Chapman spent the day in front of The Dakota, the New York City apartment building where Lennon lived. That evening, as Lennon returned home from a recording session, Chapman shot him four times in the back. In the aftermath of the murder, Chapman stayed put, calmly reading The Catcher in the Rye until police arrived. Chapman pleaded guilty to murder and was sentenced to 20 years to life; he has been denied parole seven times since 2000.

A Fan Turns on Selena

The murder of Selena Quintanilla-Pérez, known as Selena, became all the more shocking when it was established that her killer had been president of her fan club. Between 1990 and 1995, the Latina star had 14 top-ten singles on the Latin chart, including seven number-one hits. Her fan club was headed by Yolanda Saldívar, a nurse, who was accused by Selena’s family of embezzling money from the club. Saldívar was fired in early 1995 and arranged to meet Selena at a motel in Corpus Christi to return some financial records. When Selena arrived, Saldívar shot her once in the right shoulder, severing an artery. Selena died at a hospital from loss of blood, two weeks before her 24th birthday.

Saldívar argued that the shooting was accidental, but the prosecution noted that she did not call 911 or use her medical skills to help Selena in any way. Saldívar remains in prison, eligible for parole in 2025.

  THE MURDER OF THEO VAN GOGH  

This controversial director was slain for a film that criticized radical Islam.

In November 2004, Dutch film director and producer Theo van Gogh was assassinated while bicycling to work in Amsterdam. It is believed that his killer, a Muslim fundamentalist named Mohammed Bouyeri, targeted van Gogh for directing a ten-minute short film that criticized violence against women in Islam. The movie, called Submission, aired on Dutch public television and included scenes of an actress clad in a see-through chador, her naked body painted with texts from the Quran. Bouyeri shot van Gogh eight times. At his trial, Bouyeri expressed no remorse. He told van Gogh’s mother, “I don’t have any sympathy for you. I can’t feel for you because I think you’re a nonbeliever.”

THE DARK SIDE OF ARTISTIC FAME

Singers, musicians, fashion designers, and talk-show hosts have been targeted by assassins. Here are some well-known examples.

Alan Berg

TARGET: American radio talk-show host (1934–1984)

THE ASSASSIN: Members of a white nationalist group

LOCATION AND DATE: Denver, Colorado June 18, 1984

THE MURDER: Members of The Order shot Berg in his driveway for being Jewish and liberal.

THE AFTERMATH: Two group members received life sentences for their roles in the killing.

Tupac Shakur

TARGET: American rap artist (1971–1996)

THE ASSASSIN: Unknown assailant

LOCATION AND DATE: Las Vegas, Nevada September 7, 1996

THE MURDER: Shakur was hit multiple times in a drive-by shooting. He died six days later.

THE AFTERMATH: The case remains unsolved.

The Notorious B.I.G.

TARGET: American rap artist (1972–1997)

THE ASSASSIN: Unknown assailant

LOCATION AND DATE: Los Angeles March 9, 1997

THE MURDER: The rapper was killed in a drive-by shooting.

THE AFTERMATH: The case remains unsolved.

Gianni Versace

TARGET: Italian fashion designer (1946–1997)

THE ASSASSIN: Andrew Cunanan

LOCATION AND DATE: Miami Beach, Florida July 15, 1997

THE MURDER: Versace was killed on the steps of his lavish Miami mansion.

THE AFTERMATH: Cunanan’s motive was unknown. He committed suicide days later.