Who Am I?
- I was born in Maine in 1945, but my family moved to Watertown, New York, near the Canadian border when I was very young.
- The real truth about my childhood is uncertain, but I spoke of a turbulent family life, and of being sexually abused by an aunt at the age of nine. I had sex with my younger sister and had my first homosexual encounter at age eleven.
- In 1967 I joined the army and served a one-year tour of duty in Vietnam. I related horrendous stories of murder and mutilation in the jungles and villages. I would claim a combat-kill of thirty-nine enemies, but army records showed that the unit in which I served in saw little if any combat.
- Once out of the service I became a serial arsonist and was eventually arrested for trying to break into a service station. I would serve two years of a five-year sentence for this offense.
- In May 1972, the killing began. My first victim was a ten-year-old boy whom I lured into the woods on the promise of going fishing. My second victim was an eight-year-old girl whom I lured to a deserted area while showing her a new bicycle. Both children were strangled and the girl had been sexually assaulted.
- Eyewitnesses had seen me with the children and I was arrested. I confessed to both murders, but in a plea-bargain deal, I was charged with only one case of manslaughter. I would serve fourteen and a half years of a twenty-five-year sentence—I was released early because I was a model prisoner and the authorities thought I had been reformed and could safely return to society as a productive citizen.
- Upon my parole, I found it difficult to find a permanent residence. When newspapers or townspeople found out about my past, there would be an uproar and I would have to move on. In an effort to settle me somewhere, the parole board made the monumentally bad decision to cover my trail and seal my records from any further investigation. This allowed me to finally settle in Rochester, New York, an upstate community situated on the Genesee River.
- About a year after I got out of prison, the bodies of murdered prostitutes began showing up, usually dumped in the Genesee Gorge area. The women had all been asphyxiated and sometimes mutilated. As the body count kept rising and the same MO was seen over and over, Rochester police realized they were dealing with a serial killer. An intense manhunt began.
- One winter day, the police got an incredibly lucky break. A helicopter pilot spotted a body splayed out on the ice below a bridge on the river. I was seen urinating outside my car, which was still parked on the bridge. I was followed and questioned. Subsequent interrogations and mounting evidence finally convinced me to admit to the ten murders
- My lawyers tried a defense of posttraumatic stress disorder resulting from my Vietnam experiences, as well as an insanity defense. The jury didn’t buy it. I’ll be a free man in 250 years.
Answer: I am Arthur Shawcross.
Who Am I?
- I was born in Glasgow, Scotland, the illegitimate child of a young waitress. My girlfriend was born in a suburb of Manchester, England. We met while working together at a chemical plant in the early 1960s.
- Two of my heroes were Adolf Hitler and the Marquis de Sade. In my library I had books on pornography, sexual sadism, torture, and murder. I had intense fantasies relating to bondage and domination. My girlfriend worshipped me and my beliefs and would become a willing participant in our crimes.
- Our victims were all children, three boys and two girls, ranging in age from ten to seventeen. We would lure them into our car using various ploys and drive them out to the moors or to our house, where we sexually assaulted and murdered them. We then buried the bodies in shallow graves on the moors.
- We were turned in by my girlfriend’s eighteen-year-old brother-in-law, who was horrified after witnessing the gory murder of my last victim, a young man whom I bludgeoned with the blunt end of a hatchet while I strangled him to death.
- During the trial, the courtroom sat in stunned silence as they listened to a sixteen-minute tape recording we made of a ten-year-old female victim screaming and pleading for her life before she was raped and murdered.
- Because we were considered the most hated couple in Britain, and police were fearful of a courtroom assassination, we had to sit in a three-sided enclosure surrounded by four-inch-thick bulletproof glass.
- We were both sentenced to life in prison. I have now been behind bars for more than forty years. In 1985 I was transferred to a psychiatric hospital for the criminally insane.
- I have made several efforts to starve myself by going on hunger strikes while in prison. While I believe I have the right to take my own life, the courts will not allow it. I am now kept alive through force-feeding. I have written my autobiography, which I wish to have published upon my death.
- Although many people campaigned for the release of my former girlfriend, stating that she was a changed person, she was never released. In 2002 she died of a heart attack at age sixty after serving thirty-seven years.
- Many in Britain still regard this horrific case as the “trial of the century.”
Answer: I am Ian Brady (my girlfriend was Myra Hindley).
Who Am I?
- I was born to a mixed-race couple on the Caribbean island of Martinique. Two days after I was born, my father abandoned me and my seventeen-year-old unwed mother.
- At eighteen months of age, I was sent to live with my paternal grandmother. At age ten, I was returned to my mother and eventually wound up living with my biological father, who was then in Paris.
- I threatened my teacher with a kitchen knife when I was twelve years old. Although I was something of a social outcast and a homosexual, I joined the military at age seventeen.
- Upon leaving the army, I began working in a transsexual nightclub. I was drawn to the glitz and glamour of the gay nightlife and I dreamed of someday owning my own club. It was at this time that I met a transvestite drug addict and we became lovers.
- My lover and I began targeting elderly women for petty cash. We would rob and kill them, but it was the brutality of the attacks that was shocking. The women would be suffocated, strangled, or beaten to death. Our sadistic behavior included forcing one woman to drink drain cleaner when she wouldn’t reveal where she hid her money.
- As the number of victims mounted, fear gripped Paris and there were demonstrations in the street demanding that the police protect the elderly. The huge police presence and increased security prompted us to flee Paris and move to the town of Toulouse, hundreds of miles away. The killings stopped temporarily.
- We spent the money we made from selling drugs and stealing credit cards lavishly on ostentatious parties and a wild nightlife. Our relationship eventually ended and I returned to Paris about a year later, only to resume my killing ways, but this time on my own.
- One of my last victims, although left for dead, recovered unexpectedly and was able to give the police an accurate description of her attacker. I was apprehended while walking down the street and questioned for forty-three hours without a break. I confessed to more than twenty murders of elderly women ranging in age from seventy-one to ninety-one.
- I was incarcerated and immediately put in isolation. There was fear that I would be set upon by the other prisoners.
- The case would never come to trial. I died in prison from complications related to AIDS. I was twenty-five years old.
Answer: I am Thierry Paulin.
