Preface

The book you are about to read is unfinished. Every effort has been made to make it as complete as possible; however, as long as there are people on this earth, murder will continue. One of the earliest recorded murders took place when there were only four people on Earth—back in biblical times when Cain slew Abel.

Although the term “serial killer” is relatively new, the act is not. There have been serial killers almost as long as there have been people on Earth. In 144 BCE, Liu Pengli of China, nephew of the Han Emperor Jing, was crowned King of Jidong. Liu Pengli went out on marauding expeditions, with 20 to 30 slaves, murdering people and seizing their belongings just for sport. It wasn’t until the 29th year of his reign that the emperor learned of these atrocities. It was believed that Lin Pengli had probably murdered more than 100 people. The court requested that Liu Pengli be executed; however, the emperor could not bear to have his own nephew killed, so he made Liu Pengli a commoner and he was banished.

In the first century CE, there was a female poisoner named Locusta. It has been told down through the centuries that Locusta was hired by Agrippina the Younger to supply poison for the murder of Roman Emperor Claudius so Nero would become emperor. After Nero became emperor, he called upon Locusta for poison to murder Britannicus. Locusta was rewarded with a vast estate. When Nero fled Rome and committed suicide; the new Emperor Galba ordered Locusta’s execution in his last year of reign, 69 CE.

In the 15th century, Gilles de Rais of France fought alongside Joan of Arc in several battles, but he also had a dark side, a hobby of Satanism and the rape and murder of children. Historians claim that he sexually assaulted and murdered at least 100 children, mainly boys, whom he abducted from the surrounding villages. He was executed by garrote and thrown onto a pyre, although his family was allowed to remove the body before the pyre was lit.

A serial killer, as defined by the FBI (Federal Bureau of Investigation), is typically an individual who has murdered three or more people over a period of more than a month, with significant down time (or a cooling-off period) between the murders, and whose motivation for killing is largely based on psychological gratification. Serial killers tend to prey on the most vulnerable, i.e., prostitutes, the homeless, hitchhikers, and runaways due to the fact that they are easily accessible and will not be missed quickly. They also prey on those who are the easiest to overpower and control, i.e., children, women, and the elderly.

To most people, the term “serial killer” has a spine-chilling effect with pictures of monsters, vampires, and werewolves. But serial killers do not resemble those creatures; they look like your next-door neighbor, your doctor, your friend, your husband (or wife), or your son or daughter. As Ted Bundy said, “We serial killers are your sons, we are your husbands, and we are everywhere. And there will be more of your children dead tomorrow.”

You are about to enter the world of serial killers, a journey to the very bowels of Hell. These are the monsters of your worst nightmare. They not only murder; they rape, humiliate, torture, and mutilate. Their names are not Frankenstein, Dracula, Wolfman, the Mummy, Nosferatu, or the Boogeyman. They have names like Bill, Jim, Joe, Bob, Tom, or Ted; or they can be Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John. They may also be Juan, Hiroshi, Moses, Nikolai, Bai, Sergei, Marco, Armad, Mohammed, Vladimir, or Tsutomu. They come in all colors and races.

They can be someone you pass on the street, someone sitting at a table next to you in a restaurant, or someone you pass at the mall. They can be someone you know. They can even be a relative.

Some believe that serial killers are not born; they are made by negative circumstances they encounter during their formative years. John Douglas, retired, of the Investigative Support Unit of the FBI and world-famous profiler says: “ . . . criminals are more ‘made’ than ‘born’ which means that somewhere along the line, someone who provided a profound negative influence could have provided a profound positive one instead . . . what we need more of is love. This is not simplistic; it’s at the very heart of the issue.” Others believe that serial killers are just born “evil.”

Serial killers are not just a western problem, as some countries like to believe, they are a problem on every continent, except Antarctica, as you will see.