Introduction

“God will forgive you, the State, not” was the answer to William Heirens’ request for probation. Heirens was about to turn 80, 61 of which he had spent in jail for being found guilty of three murders in 1946. He eventually died in jail on March 5, 2012.

66 years earlier, when his perverse murders became public and Heirens was arrested, a 9-year-old boy named Robert Ressler became interested in the case. Although a boy his age wasn’t capable of investigating the case in depth, this was the beginning of a life devoted to criminological study.

After serving in the army for 10 years, Ressler worked for the FBI for another 20 years. He was the pioneer of the design of psychological profiles as a system of identification and capture of murderers. In the 1970s, Ressler coined the term “serial killer.”

In order to develop the theories that would enable him to create the suspects’ profiles, the criminologist interviewed hundreds of murderers, some of them famous: Ted Bundy, Jeffrey Dahmer, John Wayne Gacy, David Berkowitz, Edmund Kemper and Charles Manson.

In the 1990s, retired from the FBI, he helped the police of several countries solve critical cases. He even collaborated in novels and films about serial killers, such as The Silence of the Lambs and American Psychopath. However, Ressler never agreed with the model of killers presented by Hollywood.

His contribution to crime prevention is embodied in three books, the last of which, Serial Killers, explores this topic that generally gives rise to sensationalism, with a brilliant sobriety.

Another interesting work was conceived by neurologist Jonathan Pincus under the title Basic Instincts. In the book, he thoroughly analyzes the life of numerous serial killers and other violent criminals. Other valuable books on this issue are Monsters Among Us, by Carlos Manuel Cruz Mesa and Serial Killers: The Growing Menace, by Joel Norris.

The opinions expressed in these books do not coincide completely, but some hypotheses can be summarized from the many contact points and the statements of other expert criminologists:

•The sexual factor is essential for interpreting these types of crimes. Recently, it is believed that 90% of serial killers are driven by a motive of sexual nature, and only 10% are driven by other types of motivations.

•Penetration is not necessary for considering a serial killer’s impulses to be sexual. Serial killers’ minds associate sex with death. They are full of fantasies which increase their sexual desire, but its completion is the victim’s death, not necessarily the sexual act.

•Serial killers dissociate the concept of sexuality, which prevents them from maintaining stable relationships. Some of them are impotent in practice, although they may have an erection when they kill.

•Many of them return to the crime scene -- not for regret or for cleaning the trail -- but in order to get excited while evoking the moment of the crime.

•“Trophies” -- objects belonging to the victims, which are kept by murderers -- fulfill the same function. They may be rings, necklaces or handkerchiefs, which they sometimes give to other people, enjoying the real meaning of such objects.

•Social isolation does not necessarily boost the emergence of serial killers. Some of the most brutal ones have lived seemingly normal lives while fulfilling their fantasies in the dark.

•These people have a ritualized behavior which remains unchanged during their sequences of crimes. They will only stop killing if they are captured, get sick, or die.

•The killer instinct is not genetic. Nobody is born a serial killer. The essential period in the formation of the mind is during the first six years of life. In that period, personality is defined, and the ability to relate to other people, distinguish goodness from evil and limit desires is conceived.

•A great number of serial killers were raised in a dysfunctional family where the parents mistreated them, were indifferent to them, or where one of them was missing. There are many cases of unwanted children, or mothers frustrated by not having had a girl, who consequently dress their sons in female clothes. In many cases, parents blame their deceptions and failures on these sons.

•Ressler considers it possible to reverse the killer instinct through some figure of authority up until approximately 12 years of age, whether it is the parents, an older sibling, or a respected friend. However, being born in a dysfunctional family or being unwanted by parents does not automatically trigger a future serial killer.

Some Statistics

There are a series of factors that converge in most serial killers. Historians have said that if not all nationalisms are fascist, then all fascists are nationalist. For example, serial killers are usually white males 20 to 40 years old. But that does not mean that, although rare, some killers are younger or even female.

Some recurrent factors shared by serial killers have been detected: causing small incidents during their youth, violence towards animals and experiencing nocturnal enuresis (involuntary wetting during sleep), up to an advanced age.

A statistical analysis on the presence of serial killers in different countries concludes that more than 70% of serial killers are located in the United States.

The state of California has the highest rate of serial killers in the history of the country. Following it are Texas, New York, Illinois and Florida.

On a global scale, the countries with the greatest number of cases behind the United States are: England, Germany and France.

90% of serial killers around the world are male, 65% of the victims are female and 89% of the total number of victims (both male and female) are Caucasian.

Organized or Disorganized, Always Brutal

In the book Serial Killers, Ressler makes a distinction between organized killers (psychopaths) and disorganized ones (those suffering from another mental illness). This distinction takes into account the crime scene and the type of victims chosen.

• Organized Killers

They plan their crimes. In general they choose low risk victims (prostitutes, homeless people and hitchhikers). They use their own vehicle, whether to go to the crime place or to discard the body. They are not too bloody at the time of killing and have the required equipment to perform the attack.

In fact, Ressler says they carry a “rape kit.” In his own words: “They choose unknown people and capture them following some criteria. They look for someone who fits the type of victim they have in mind in terms of age, appearance, profession and lifestyle. Many of them, when they go ‘hunting’ carry the rape kit in order to avoid problems when subduing the victim and leaving them submissive, an essential element of their fantasy. “

Although serial murderers are usually lonely and introverted men, organized killers are those who can best combine their criminal side with a seemingly normal life.

• Disorganized Killers

These criminals are characterized by unlimited brutality, their lack of control and improvisation. They walk or take the bus to the murder place, choose their victims at random, without thinking about the danger involved for them. They do not care about the traces that may remain at the scene of the crime and are extremely brutal, often practicing mutilation and cannibalism.

A surprising feature of disorganized killers is that they kill their victims quickly to depersonalize them. On the contrary, organized killers find the pleasure of killing in the maximum delay of the realization of death. Disorganized killers cannot control their criminal impulse. Organized ones plan their fantasy and decide precisely when to fulfill it.

On the other hand, mass killers and serial killers are not the same. The behavior of the mass murderer is simultaneous. He kills many people in one action. The behavior of serial killers is successive. They commit chained murders in order to perfect their fantasy.

Ressler’s book does not admit concessions encouraging easy morbidness or the greatness of horror. Ressler demystifies serial killers. He says they are not interesting characters; not people you would share a conversation with. They are tormented outcasts with mental disorders and an exacerbated narcissism.

From his numerous interviews, Ressler concluded that: “Serial killers are useless misfits. They have serious problems to deal with in daily life because they cannot function as individuals. They are incompetent and lack the necessary skills to integrate. If they did, they would be able to cope with the stress that leads them to commit crimes and overcome the obstacles that lead them to cross the line. “

He adds that these individuals “want to be somebody, not through the positive fame, but through infamy. Any type of recognition is important to them, they need attention. These violent criminals start their careers because they are so unfit, so unable to get social recognition that they begin to fantasize about being killers and gaining notoriety.”

Behavior Patterns

The most ruthless serial killers in history, such as Ed Kemper, Ted Bundy or Jeffrey Dahmer, fell on an identical set of behavior patterns. The criminologist Steven Egger states that the following parameters are conclusively present in all serial killers:

•They leave a time gap between crimes -- usually less than six months.

•Their criminal actions are methodical and similar.

•In the time gap between the crimes, killers keep a normal image, which serves to hide their behavior patterns and make it difficult to detect.

•Serial killers are rarely related to their victims.

•Each new killing seems random. They don’t have an obvious connection with the preceding ones.

•These killers are characterized by being cold-blooded, cruel and compulsive.

•They seek to exercise full control over their victims’ will.

•In their childhood they usually experienced situations of abuse, sexual assault or family disintegration, religious fanaticism, or torture of animals.

•They lack the intention to commit revenge or get profit. If they keep objects belonging to victims, it´s because they consider them trophies, not objects of economic value.

•Each of their victims symbolizes an achievement, a pleasant stimulus that will dissolve over time, generating the need to commit a new crime.

•They have a predilection for helpless victims.

•They lack suicidal impulses. Once the crime is committed, they don’t feel any remorse, fear or shame.

•They are usually eager to get media attention when they are judged.

Killers by Nature

Fortunately refuted by more scientifically supported theories, the perspective of Italian physician Cesare Lombroso long dominated the debate and study in forensics. Born in 1835, the specialist concluded that criminals’ occipital lobe was sunk -- a feature that made them resemble animals. According to the doctor, criminal behavior was not a result of a number of social and psychological factors, but was associated with a biological condition.

To reach this conclusion, Lombroso spent ten years studying thousands of criminals’ profiles and found anthropometric traits he considered similar in all cases: small brain cases, large wisdom teeth, sparse hairiness, marked jaws, thick and curly hair, defective ears and asymmetrical faces. The specialist added a psychological trait that would later be evident. He noted that these criminals were “psychopaths incapable of mercy.”

For Lombroso, the criminal is born as such and is destined to kill. It’s a different human species that cannot escape its fate.

His controversial theory completely lacked scientific support and was contradicted by a contemporary: Jean Lacassagne. For this doctor from the University of Lyon, the profile of a person who commits homicide was not determined by genetic traits but by the social environment. Distinguished criminologists like Edmond Locard warn that there are no congenital murderers, but the environment and circumstances cause a compulsion for crime in some people.

In his book Serial Killers: The Growing Menace, Joel Norris describes the cycles of violence as being generational. “Parents who abuse their children both physically and psychologically set up instincts of violence in them, a resource to which they will resort to solve their challenges and personal problems.”

Ressler’s theories about family constitution would eventually end up putting to bed all hypotheses on born criminals.

Development of a Killer’s Profile

To develop a killer’s profile, the criminologist analyzes and evaluates the following:

1.The scene of the crime: Murderers can use multiple sites from the moment they capture their victims. However, the main scene is where death occurs. It’s usually where more psychological and physical evidence is found.

2.Geographical data: This is the topography in which criminals act, based on the experiences they have had in each place. It provides information on their zones of confidence, their territory, their zones of influence, and how they act and move. These factors may indicate where to look for them and where they will act in the future. Like any predator, serial killers attack their victims in a safe territory, so that their preys are less likely to escape from them quickly.

3.Modus operandi: It is the killer’s method to carry out their crimes. It describes the techniques and choices they make. This evaluation can reveal psychological characteristics of great importance like whether they are intelligent and planners, which profession they carry on and whether they are careless or a perfectionist.

4.Signature: Serial killers seek recognition for their crimes, as if they were a work of art, so they keep their signature throughout their criminal career, even if they change their modus operandi.

5.Victimology: The first witnesses of the criminal act are the victims, who are of paramount importance. They witness the crime, suffer the criminal act, and the signature and modus operandi of the murderer is shown on their bodies. If victims survive, they can provide much first-hand information. If they die, an autopsy must be conducted as accurately as possible.

In order to determine whether they are dealing with a serial killer or not, the FBI usually consults international experts. There is a general agreement that indicates that it is required to commit at least three homicides to be the classified as a serial murderer, and there must be “cold” intervals among each other.

In 2005, a symposium was held in the city of San Antonio, Texas, in which the most renowned experts from the FBI, Scotland Yard and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police participated. The meeting concluded that two homicides are enough for someone to be considered a serial killer, as long as the above mentioned interval is present.

Deadly Fictions

Serial killers don’t resemble the ones we see in films, or literary texts. Crime is a fictional genre whose constructive strategies must depart from reality to be effective and catch the audience’s interest. To do this, fiction takes elements of reality and processes them in narrative terms.

The life of a real person is usually not as interesting as the story of a fictional character. This also applies to serial killers. Therefore, Hannibal Lecter or Dexter Morgan narratives are ingenious narrative creations, but not true murderers.

Something similar happens with the image of the savvy FBI detectives that Hollywood portrays from infinite angles. People who actually work on such profiles are not sorcerers who guess even the smallest details of criminals. The job of a criminologist is limited to identifying the psychological traits of the murderer and providing them to the local police, who, with them, will be able to close the net on suspects. In turn, mass murderers do not devote their time and effort to liquidate the FBI agents.

The tabloids are another source of confusion. The need to sell a chilling story distorts the characters, data, modus operandi and even the motives of any crime. Serial killer cases sell thousands of newspapers and magazines and occupy hundreds of hours on major television networks. And everyone knows the profits they generate.

Silent Female Killers

The percentage of female serial killers is minimal. In his book, Serial Murderers and Their Victims, Eric Hickey describes women as “silent killers” and distinguishes two types: black widows and angels of death.

Black Widows: They begin their criminal career at around 25 years old. Their acts include a series of murders where the most frequent victims are husbands, partners, family or people with whom they have engaged in personal relationships. Their method is usually poisoning. They manage to make the victim swallow it and it is frequently degradable, causing enormous difficulty in incriminating them. The motive is usually economical.

Angels of death: They begin to murder at 21 years old, at a particular location, usually hospitals or infirmaries. The motive is the exercise of power over the life and death of someone at a disadvantage. Their essential characteristics are a compulsive need to kill and the account of their crimes, which postulate themselves as heroines.

Is the Death Penalty Effective?

Historically, societies have debated over what to do with serial killers.

Countless studies have concluded that the death penalty is not dissuasive. Those who commit violent crimes are psychopaths, that is, they generalize from their point of view and have zero consideration for what society thinks. They believe they will never be caught, and act accordingly. In this scenario, the death penalty cannot deter them.

Almost all studies agree on the importance of keeping them in custody. They argue that killing them is not a solution, although it is indeed useful to study their behavior during their time of detention. What’s more, and oddly enough, imprisonment for life is often less expensive than an execution.

Ressler expressed his opinion clearly from the Jeffrey Dahmer case: “I was glad that there was no death penalty in Wisconsin, because executing Dahmer would not have done any good. Executing Ted Bundy cost the state of Florida seven or eight million dollars, money that could have been better invested in building a criminal forensic institution devoted to the research and study of people like Bundy, Kemper, Gacy, Berkowitz and Dahmer, who have hideously violated society’s trust. Criminologists have long ago agreed that the death penalty has never deterred violent criminals. It only satisfies the families of the victims and the general desire of society for revenge.”

This lucid expert also cites a quote from Nietzsche: “Whoever fights against monsters should avoid becoming one of them. When you look into the abyss, it also looks into you.”

The Horror List

- 1 -

Gilles De Rais

(September 1405 - October 26, 1440)

Noble, French serial killer of the 15th century. He became a marshal after his participation in the War of 100 years and amassed a vast fortune. His fame in the French towns changed when his atrocities were discovered. He may have suffered from severe schizophrenia. The ruthless nature of his crimes seemed contrary to his exacerbated Christian faith. In 1422, Gilles kidnapped his mother-in-law and locked her, feeding her only on bread and water until she acceded to the punishments he required. The Dauphin Charles gave an army to Gilles and Joan of Arc to release the English siege of Orleans. Gilles went on to say that Joan was God and that if he should kill under her mandate, he would do it. He became her bodyguard and protector, saving her on several occasions during the clamor of battle. He could not prevent Joan of Arc’s death at the stake, although he hired a small army of mercenaries. Gilles took refuge in the castle at Tiffauges and released his most perverse instincts. In order to fulfill his eagerness to obtain victims, their servants would look for children and teenagers, promising them they would make them Mr. de Rais’ pages. Between 1432 and 1440, there were over a thousand missing children, between eight and ten years, in Britain. Gilles and his henchmen tortured, harassed, humiliated and murdered previously abducted children. The Bishop of Nantes, Jean Malestroit investigated the disappearances and discovered the person responsible for the crimes. Gilles de Rais surrendered and was brought to trial. Initially, he pledged innocence, but during one of his personality crises, he ratified his murders. On October 26, 1440, Gilles de Rais, having rejected the royal pardon granted to him for being a peer of France, was hanged at Nantes.

- 2 -

Erzsébet Bathory, the Blood Countess

(August 7, 1560 - August 21, 1614)

Belonging to one of the most powerful families in Hungary, she was an aristocrat who committed a series of crimes which were motivated by her obsession with beauty. Erzsébet has the Guinness record for being the woman who committed the most murders in history, with 630 fatalities. According to some sources, the crimes attributed to the Countess could be inventions of her enemies in a complex political context. Many tortured girls and lots of corpses scattered around the gardens, were found in her castle. In 1612, a trial began against her in Bitcse.

Erzsébet did not appear, making use of her nobility rights. Those who did appear, by force, were her assistants. Her butler testified that he had witnessed at least 37 murders of women between 11 and 26 years old, and that six of them had been personally recruited by him to work at the castle. The prosecution focused on the murders of young nobles, as the servants were unimportant. In the judgment, all of them were convicted. Erzsébet’s assistants were beheaded and their bodies burned. But, by law, her noble status prevented her from being executed. She was consequently sentenced to life imprisonment in solitary confinement. She was locked in the dungeon of her castle. Doors and windows were sealed, leaving a hole to pass the food. After four years, Erzsébet died on August 21, 1614. They tried to bury her in the Church of Čachtice, but local residents objected. She was buried in the village of Ecsed in northeastern Hungary. It was forbidden to talk about her around the country.

- 3 -

Jesse Harding Pomeroy

(November 29, 1859 - September 29, 1932)

He was one of the youngest murderers in the history of crime. It is said that his father was an alcoholic and that, for whatever reason, he would undress his children and beat them to calm himself. Pomeroy’s physical appearance inspired fear. He was too robust for his age. His facial features were unappealing. His right eye had no iris or pupil, which gave him a frightening appearance. Pomeroy’s attacks were directed to children younger than him. He committed atrocities and mutilations, burying needles into his victims’ bodies. Clues to find him were found quickly, because his completely white eye made him easily recognizable. After he was identified by one of his victims, he was arrested. When he was asked to explain, he just said, “I could not help it.” The judgment stated he should be placed in a reformatory until age 18.

But at 14, Pomeroy was conditionally released. Then his brutal murders began. He was arrested again, and his mother had to sell her clothes store because everyone who knew the story avoided her. When renovations began, they found the corpse of a girl buried in a pile of ashes in the basement of the store. Pomeroy was convicted on December 10, 1874 and sentenced to death by hanging, but no governor dared to sign the death sentence of a fourteen-year-old boy. There were no precedents in criminal history. He was given a life sentence in a state of complete isolation. The only person who visited him was his mother. In 1917, after 43 years of isolation, he was allowed to integrate with the rest of the prisoners. He spent the last two years of his life plagued by disease and in absolute agony. He died on September 29, 1932 showing no remorse for the crimes he committed.

- 4 -

H. H. Holmes

(May 16, 1861 - May 7, 1896)

His real name was Herman Webster Mudgett. A Don Juan of crime, he was especially attracted to women with fortunes. In his first stage, he seduced, robbed and led to the disappearance of many wealthy widows. Then he built the “Holmes Castle,” an alleged hotel that was actually a house of crime, with gas taps to choke its visitors, a secret chute for dropping the bodies down to a basement with buckets of sulfuric acid and a room with torture instruments. One of the machines installed caught the attention of reporters: it was an automated machine that tickled the soles of the victims. Holmes chose them carefully. They had to be rich, young, beautiful, and alone and, in order to avoid unexpected visits, their homes had to be located in a state far enough away. When hotel rents fell, Holmes set the top floor on fire to claim insurance, unaware of the fact that the company would do some research before paying it. Exposed, he took refuge in Texas. There he developed another criminal operation. The idea was simple: an accomplice called Pitezel, would buy insurance from a company in Philadelphia. Then they would present an anonymous body disfigured by an accident, pretending it was Pitezel. They would share the insurance money and Pitezel would take refuge for a reasonable time in Latin America. Shortly after their operation began, Holmes changed plans and killed Pitezel for real, avoiding the disfigured corpse and keeping all the money for himself. He later got rid of Mrs. Pitezel and her children. Once arrested, police searched his home, finding the expected results. Holmes was sentenced to death by a court in Philadelphia and hanged on May 7, 1896. He was thirty-six years old.

- 5 -

Jack the Ripper

Five crimes perpetrated in Whitechapel in 1888 revolutionized London and the world. For years, investigators, detectives, police officers and fans have unsuccessfully tried to determine the name of the murderer. Jack the Ripper is the most famous serial killer in history – a true unsolved mystery.

His brief reign of terror began on August 31, 1888, although it is suspected that two previous murders had also been committed by him. His nickname originated in a letter written by someone claiming to be the murderer, who used this alias. As a result of its diffusion through the media, the nickname came to be known by the public. Several sources believe that the letter was written by a journalist to increase the interest in the story. Often, the legend of Jack the Ripper presents a smart, effective, mocking, cunning, cold and obsessive murderer. Attacks attributed to him involved female prostitutes from poor neighborhoods and a distinctive modus operandi consisting of strangulation, beheading and abdominal mutilation. The removal of the internal organs of the victims led to the belief that the murderer had surgical knowledge. Meanwhile, rumors that the murders were connected intensified between September and October 1888, when a large number of letters, written by one or more anonymous subjects, were sent to Scotland Yard and various newspapers. One of the letters included half of a human kidney from one of the victims. Due to the brutal nature of the crimes and the media’s orientation when they decided to spread them, everyone understood that it was a single murderer. The wide press coverage led these crimes to achieve international notoriety. Although it couldn’t be efficiently established that the crimes were connected to each other, the legend of Jack the Ripper spread as if it were true. The murders were never solved. This favored the proliferation of certain details based in part on the research and also in folklore and fiction.

- 6 -

Carl Grossmann

(December 13, 1863 - July 5, 1922)

A German serial killer, protected by his service record in World War II, he killed his victims and sold the meat on the black market, near the railway terminal of Silesia. The war and subsequent economic depression caused increased hunger in Germany. This, added to his past as a butcher, facilitated the sales. In August 1921, he was arrested at his Berlin apartment after neighbors heard screams and sounds of fighting. When they appeared, the police found a woman recently murdered in his bed. Grossmann was arrested and charged with murder. Neighbors reported that he was usually accompanied by young women, who were never seen leaving the house. No one knows for certain how many victims fell prey to Grossmann. According to his own statements, he had annihilated at least 50 women. Grossmann hanged himself in his cell while awaiting the execution of his death sentence.

- 7 -

Henri Landru, the “Bluebeard” from Gambais

(April 12, 1869 - February 25, 1922)

One afternoon in 1909, Landru attended a date with a grieving widow named Madame Izoret, who in a press release, had offered her assets in exchange for the company of a man. Telling her empty promises, he managed to take 20,000 francs from her. The woman reported him and Landru was arrested.

During his detention, he perfected his system for seducing lonely widows, but added murder to avoid the reports. World War I increased the number of widows. Landru published advertisements of this style: “Widower, two children, forty-three years old, solvent, caring, serious and in social ascent wishes to meet widow with matrimonial desires.” Hundreds of women answered his proposal. So, Landru would select the most profitable ones, promise them marriage and when he had assured a certain amount of money, he would murder them. Meanwhile, he lived a normal life and showed himself as an attentive father and a generous husband.

Once the War ended, families began to look for their missing relatives. The net began to narrow. The key was supplied by the sister of a victim who went to the police when she saw her missing sister’s apparent fiancée buying artworks in a store. The police officers questioned the seller and got the address where they arrested the murderer. The evidence began to sprout from the earth. The trial lasted two years and was one of the most memorable in Paris. Landru acknowledged having cheated, but he denied the murders. On November 30, 1921 he was condemned for eleven proven murders, although police estimated that the number of victims exceeded a hundred. The following year, he was guillotined. In 1963, a letter written by Landru, in which he acknowledged to be the perpetrator of the crimes, was discovered by accident. His story was adapted into a film by Claude Chabrol that year. In 1947, Charles Chaplin made a film inspired by the psychopath, called Monsieur Verdoux.

- 8 -

Albert Fish, the Vampire of Brooklyn

(May 19, 1870 - January 16, 1936)

He had a compulsion to dismember and eat children. In 1890, Fish began raping young boys from lower classes in New York. In 1898 he married a woman nine years younger than him and they had six children. He was sentenced to prison on charges of embezzlement. After he was released, while working as a house painter, he raped more than 100 children, most under 6 years. Between 1910 and 1924 he attempted to murder several people, mostly children or mentally deficient people. He did not consummate any of these crimes. Fish said he received instructions from the Apostle John. In 1917, his wife left him. In 1928, Fish, 58, killed a girl -- Grace Budd. Police arrested another man by mistake. Seven years later, Grace’s parents received an anonymous letter in which the murderer described the crime in detail. This led the police to Albert Fish. His trial began in March 1935. Fish claimed that God had ordered him to kill and rape children. Psychiatric reports indicated pedophilia and masochism, but he wasn’t certified to be mentally insane and the judge ordered his execution. At the trial, he admitted that he felt “an overwhelming desire to eat raw meat and dance naked during full moon nights.” He was executed in 1936.

- 9 -

Bela Kiss

(1877 - Unknown)

A Hungarian serial killer, he is believed to have killed 23 people, including his wife and her lover, whose bodies he preserved in metal containers. His crimes were discovered in 1916, while he was on the front lines. Gasoline shortages caused by World War II, led the authorities to confiscate the gasoline Kiss claimed to have stored on his property. But in the containers, they found 24 bodies preserved in alcohol, corresponding to 23 women who had been strangled and a man, who was later proven to be his wife’s lover. They also discovered letters indicating that Kiss seduced women, choosing as victims those who didn’t have a family. When authorities tried to arrest him, Kiss disappeared from the Serbian hospital for war-wounded, where he was convalescing, stealing the identity of a deceased young soldier. It was thought that Kiss had died.

After that, he was believed to have been seen in Budapest, or in the subway in New York. It was rumored that he had died of yellow fever in Turkey, that he was in the Foreign Legion, and even that he had been seen working as a janitor in a building. His ultimate fate is still unknown.

- 10 -

Fritz Haarmann, the Vampire of Hannover

(October 25, 1879 - April 15, 1925)

Born in Hannover, he came from a disastrous family of alcoholics parents, who physically assaulted each other all the time. Haarmann’s mother treated her son like a girl and dressed him in female clothes. At 17, Haarmann was picked up by the police for harassing teenagers. In 1919, when he was 40, he committed his first crime, which was followed by many others. He used to go to the Hannover bus station, where there were dozens of youths looking for work. He promised them work and food. He took them to a dormer near the Leine River, raped them and bit their throats, cutting off their carotid and trachea. He carried out this macabre ritual in the company of his lover, Hans Grans. Once dead, he removed the bones of his victims and sold their meat as pig or horse meat. On May 17, 1924, some children found a skull in the Leine River. Authorities ordered the dredging of the river and found human remains. Once arrested, Haarmann confessed to his crimes.

He admitted having killed and practiced cannibalism on forty children. On April 15, 1925, he was beheaded by order of the judge. The Butcher of Hannover did not apply for clemency, although he claimed to be possessed. His horror mate, Hans Grans, was sentenced to life imprisonment, but his sentence was commuted to 12 years in prison.

- 11 -

Peter Kürten, the Vampire of Düsseldorf

(May 26, 1883 – July 2, 1931)

He was one of the most famous serial killers in Germany. At 9, he committed his first murders when he drowned two classmates while they were bathing in the Rhine. He was hired as dogcatcher, an activity that enabled him to experience the “pleasure” of torturing and killing stray dogs.

In May 1913, Kürten allegedly wandered by a seemingly empty house with the intent to steal. But inside was Khristine Klein, a thirteen year old girl who was sleeping in her room. Peter strangled and beheaded her.

In 1925, Kürten returned to Düsseldorf to start his worst series of crimes. One of his victims, an eight-year-old girl, was stabbed thirteen times and, after drinking her blood, the murderer burned her body with gasoline. The year 1929 was the bloodiest for Kürten, who reached the height of his insanity when he killed a five-year-old girl and sent the map of the tomb to a local newspaper. The murders triggered a massive hysteria in the city of Düsseldorf. No one dared to walk unaccompanied. Authorities offered an enticing reward in exchange for clues about the identity of the murderer, and they received up to 900,000 letters. In May 1930, Kürten strangled a woman to sexually assault her but he left her alive after experiencing an orgasm. Shortly after that, the identity of the most wanted man in Germany was discovered. Deeply frightened, he surrendered and confessed his crimes. He was sentenced to death by guillotine. The sentence was executed in Cologne on July 2, 1931. Kürten’s last words were, “When you have beheaded me, will I be able to hear the noise of my own blood gushing from my neck even for a moment?” The year of his execution, the director Fritz Lang made a film about his life.

- 12 -

Carl Panzram

(June 28, 1891 - September 5, 1930)

He was an American serial killer with countless pseudonyms, such as “Carl Baldwin” in Oregon, “Jeff Davis” in Idaho and Montana, “Jefferson Davis” in California and “Jack Allen,” “King John” and “John O’Leary” in New York. Son of Prussian immigrants, he grew up on the family farm.

People who knew him claimed he was an alcoholic and a thief. He left home at age 14 saying he had been the victim of a gang rape by some homeless men. Panzram was especially known for his ruthless crimes and especially for his habit of raping his victims, both male and female. He was executed at Leavenworth on September 5, 1930. Thomas Gaddis wrote a book about Panzram in 1970 called “Panzram: A Journal of Murder.” This work was adapted into a film in 1996, and the murderer was played by actor James Woods.

- 13 -

Joe Ball, the Butcher of Elmendorf

(January 7, 1896 - September 23, 1938)

After fighting in Europe during World War II, Ball began selling bootleg liquor in the middle of Prohibition. Towards the end of Prohibition, he opened a bar in Texas. Soon after that, the disappearance of a young employee was reported. Two months later, two other girls disappeared. One of them, Hazel Brown, had previously opened an account in the bank. At that time, the Texas Rangers began tracing missing young waitresses. Ball’s neighbor said he had seen him dismembering what appeared to be a human body and that he was throwing the fragments to his hungry pets. On September 24, 1938, the police went to Joe’s bar. While they were conducting the registration, Ball took a gun and shot himself in the head.

- 14 -

Marcel Petiot, Dr. Eugene

(January 17, 1897 - May 25, 1946)

French physician during the German occupation of France in World War II, he claimed to have the means to force people sought by the Germans to leave France. He claimed he could provide them a safe passage to South America through Portugal, in exchange for 25,000 francs per person. Once the victims were under his control, Petiot told them that the Argentine government required that immigrants were vaccinated against various diseases. Using this excuse, he injected them with cyanide. Once dead, he took their possessions. Petiot would submerge the bodies in quicklime or incinerate them. The Gestapo discovered him in April 1943. Under torture, his accomplices confessed that Dr. Eugene was Marcel Petiot, who was arrested and tortured. After escaping, he took refuge in Yonne. In 1944, police went to Dr. Petiot’s house, alerted by a greasy black smoke and an unbearable stench coming out of the fireplace in his home. Petiot proudly explained that these were the remains of Nazi collaborators who had been killed by the French Resistance and had been entrusted to him to be discarded. The agents took for granted that they were German soldiers. By the time they found that it wasn’t true, Petiot was gone. The registration of the house revealed 150 kilos of charred human body tissue and many other bodies in the well of a parking lot containing quicklime. Petiot was arrested after a letter from his own hand sent to the Resistance newspaper was intercepted. He was found guilty of only 24 crimes. Petiot was guillotined on May 25, 1946 in Paris, in the prison of La Santé. Far from being scared, at the time of his execution he said: “Gentlemen, please do not look. What follows will not be pretty.”

- 15 -

John Reginald Halliday Christie

(April 8, 1899 - July 15, 1953)

From English origin, he strangled his victims after leaving them unconscious with gas and raping them. During his arrest, Christie confessed to seven murders. He also admitted being responsible for the murder of Beryl Evans, whose death had been attributed to Timothy Evans, who had been executed for it in 1950. This error contributed to the abolition of capital punishment for murder in the UK, in 1965. Christie was judged only for the murder of his wife Ethel and was found guilty. He did not appeal, and on July 15, 1953 was hanged at Pentonville Prison. After been tied up for execution, Christie complained that his nose itched. The executioner said, “It will not bother you for long.”

- 16 -

Ed Gein

(August 27, 1906 - July 26, 1984)

Killer and grave robber, he was only charged with two murders. But he was famous for his pastime of making furniture and clothing with human remains. In November 1957, police found, in Gein’s house, Bernice Worden’s body hanging from the ankles, beheaded and open at the torso. They also found ten female heads, lampshades and seats made of human skin, soup bowls made of skulls, and a necklace made of human lips and many other macabre items. Ed Gein admitted that he opened the graves of recently deceased women, stealing bodies and tanning skins. He admitted having killed Mary Hogan, but denied having had sex with the dead, arguing that “they smelled really bad.” He was declared mentally ill and spent the rest of his days in a mental institution where he had notoriously good behavior. He died in 1984, at age 77. While Ed Gein was in detention, his van was auctioned. The buyer made a great deal -- he took the vehicle on a tour for several cities, charging those who wanted to see its interior.

- 17 -

John George Haigh, the Acid Bath Murderer

(July 24, 1909 - August 6, 1949)

English murderer during the 1940s, he killed several people to rob them, and then dissolved their bodies in sulfuric acid. Arrested on February 20, 1948, Haigh confessed his crimes, but in exchange for the rights to his story, the News of the World paid his defender to achieve declaring him mentally insane. Based on the reports of the experts, the prosecution claimed that he was faking his insanity and had acted with malice and forethought, moved by greed. The Daily Mirror reported that he drank the blood of his victims, stressing that Haigh was a vampire. The newspaper was sued by Haigh’s lawyers and sanctioned by the court to pay 10,000 pounds, while the editor was sentenced to three months in prison. Nevertheless, Haigh was convicted for the murders of six victims and sentenced to death by hanging.

The execution took place on August 6, 1949 at Wandsworth Prison. In 2002 a British television producer made a TV series called A Is for Acid based on Haigh’s life.

- 18 -

Josef Mengele

(March 16, 1911 - February 7, 1979)

German doctor, anthropologist and officer, he was infamous during World War II. Unlike his genocidal colleagues -- devotees of the global slaughter -- Mengele selected prisoners, isolated them and performed deadly, torturous experiments on them. Covered by the regime, his serial crimes were tried as part of the Jewish genocide. He chose victims with better physique, or pregnant women to experiment with their fetuses. His aberrations, justified as allegedly scientific experiments, were endowed with the sinister appearance of a false kindness. Mengele left Auschwitz on January 17, 1945, shortly before the arrival of the Red Army troops. His amazing ability to escape at the right time made him a fugitive for life. With the help of a network of former SS members, Mengele sailed to Argentina in July 1949. Initially living in Buenos Aires and its surroundings, he then fled to Paraguay in 1959 and Brazil in 1960. Half the world wanted to take him to trial. Despite requests for extradition by the government of then West Germany and Mossad’s clandestine operations, Mengele always managed to avoid his detention. He was drowned while swimming at a beach in 1979 and was buried under a false name. His remains were exhumed and identified by forensic examination in 1985.

- 19 -

Harvey Glatman Murray, the Murderer of the Lonely Hearts

(December 10, 1927 - September 19, 1959)

When Glatman moved to Los Angeles in 1957, he began visiting modeling agencies looking for victims to offer them work in magazines. He then took them home, tied them and sexually abused them while taking pictures. Later, he strangled them and threw their bodies in the desert. Glatman was arrested in 1958, caught as he tried to kidnap who could have been his fourth victim. He confessed to the other three murders. He was charged with two first-degree murders and executed in the gas chamber of San Quentin State Prison on September 18, 1959.

Glatman’s killing career inspired a movie and a TV series. This is one of the dialogues based on Glatman’s own statements: “The reason why I killed those girls was because they asked me to.” The police officer replied, “They asked you?” Glatman concluded, “Sure. They said they would rather be dead than be with me.”

- 20 -

Albert DeSalvo, the Boston Stranglern

(September 3, 1931 - November 25, 1973)

When he was young, he was sold as a slave along with his sister to a farmer in Maine for nine dollars. Later the farmer returned them. Then his father taught Albert to steal. In November 1943, 12-year-old DeSalvo was first arrested for theft. After completing his sentence, DeSalvo joined the Army where he was honorably discharged.

Between June 14, 1962 and January 4, 1964, 13 single women between 19 and 85 years old were killed in the Boston area. Most of them were sexually assaulted in their apartment and then strangled with items of their own clothing. Without any sign indicating forced entry into their homes, it was assumed that they knew the murderer or had voluntarily allowed him to enter. On October 27, 1964, after attacking a young woman in East Cambridge, he suddenly left saying, “I’m sorry.” The description provided by the woman led police officers to identify DeSalvo and when his photo was published, many women identified him as the man who had assaulted them. Only after he was accused of rape did DeSalvo elaborate on the rest of his crimes. Sentenced to life imprisonment in 1967, he escaped with two fellow inmates from Bridgewater State Hospital, triggering an extraordinary chase. The next day, he surrendered. He was transferred to the maximum security prison known as Walpole. Six years later, he was killed in the hospital by an unidentified perpetrator. Despite his confession, the changes in the modus operandi of the murders and other details have raised some doubts about whether DeSalvo was indeed the Boston Strangler. In 1968, a film about his life was released, starring Tony Curtis in the leading role.

- 21 -

Juan Vallejo Corona, Machete Murderer

(August 1934)

This Mexican murderer was diagnosed with schizophrenia in 1956 and subjected to electric shocks. Subsequent reports indicate that Corona was a peaceful man who used to attend Mass on Sundays. But after 1971, graves began to appear in remote locations and traces of blood were found in his vehicle. Once arrested, the police discovered that he had committed 25 murders. The trial was long, costly and complex. Vallejo Corona hired a lawyer who, instead of fees, was offered the exclusivity of the literary rights to his story, relieving him of the duty of confidentiality. In 1973, after 45 hours of deliberation, the jury decided that Corona was guilty of 25 murders and the judge sentenced him to 25 life imprisonment terms. In prison, Corona was stabbed by four inmates and nearly died. On December 5, 2011 his request for parole was refused.

- 22 -

Charles Manson, leader of “The Family”

(November 12, 1934)

His group committed several murders. The most famous one was the murder of Sharon Tate, Roman Polanski’s wife, who was eight months pregnant. She was stabbed sixteen times -- eleven times as torture and five times to kill her. Participants at that meeting were stabbed in the outdoor gardens of the mansion. Even today, the motive for this crime is unclear. One hypothesis states that it was related to the shooting of the film Rosemary’s Baby by Roman Polanski. The following night, Manson and his followers broke into the house of businessman Leno LaBianca and his wife and stabbed them to death. Manson did not execute his victims directly, but used his acolytes. His death sentence in 1971 was commuted to life imprisonment when the California Supreme Court abolished the death penalty.

During his criminal trial, the accused defended himself and turned the hearings into a circus act. His comments during the trial showed the desire for notoriety that drove him.

- 23 -

Andrei Chikatilo, the Butcher of Rostov

(October 16, 1936 - February 14, 1994)

The greatest serial killer in the Soviet Union, he is responsible for at least 52 cases. He lived a double life. On one side he was married, a worker, a member of Communist society and on the other side he was a clever murderer with great skills to gain children’s trust. He acted at railway and bus stations. In 1990, after getting away with murder for twelve years, he was discovered.

Retained by the KGB, the senile looking criminal said: “How can you do this to a person my age?” He finally broke down and ended up confessing and promising to provide evidence of his crimes in exchange for not being interrogated anymore. He hoped that the number of murders he had committed would make him a “specimen of scientific study.” In his statement he said that, since childhood, he had felt worthless as a man and as a person, and that he had not done it for pleasure, but because he needed to find peace. “I am a mistake of nature, a mad beast.” The ruthless murderer tried to allege a mental illness, but psychiatrists considered him a prudent sadist whose actions were premeditated. On October 15, 1992, he was sentenced to death and executed with a single gunshot on February 14, 1994. His awful actions were fictionalized by Tom Rob Smith in the best-seller, Child 44.

- 24 -

John Wayne Gacy, the Killer Clown

(March 17, 1942 - May 10, 1994)

His nickname is due to the costume he wore. He raped and killed 33 young men between 1972 and 1978. No suspicion fell on him until December 1978, when a 15-year-old man who was going to a job interview was last seen with Gacy. The inspection of John’s house revealed evidence of other disappearances. In December of that year, Gacy went to his lawyers and confessed his crimes. He stated that when he stabbed a knife into the body of a young man, the blood pouring from the body excited him. He told police the location of the bodies. The youngest were 14 and the oldest 21. Seven of the victims were never identified. In 1998, when some repairs where being made at the back of Gacy’s mother’s house, they found remains of four other victims.

On February 6, 1980 he pleaded not guilty in the trial, alleging mental impairments, which was refuted by the experts. His lawyer argued temporary insanity at the time of each murder, but this was also rejected. He was found guilty on March 13 and sentenced to 21 life imprisonments and 12 death sentences. His execution by lethal injection took place on May 10, 1994. Gacy’s brain was removed for examination. The results revealed there were no abnormalities.

- 25 -

Manuel Delgado Villegas, El Arropiero

(January 25, 1943 - February 2, 1998)

Known as the worst killer in Spain’s criminal history, he helped his father sell arrope, hence his nickname. He attended school but didn’t learn to read or write. In 1961 he joined the Spanish Legion, where he learned how to administer a mortal blow that helped him in his criminal career. He deserted the army and traveled around Spain, Italy and France, leaving a trail of corpses. He was arrested on January 18, 1971, in Puerto de Santa María. After his arrest, he confessed to so many crimes that the police didn’t take him seriously at first.

It took six and a half years for Manuel Delgado Villegas to get a defense attorney, which constituted a record of preventive detention without legal protection. He was never tried because he was diagnosed with a mental illness, and the Audiencia Nacional (National Court) ordered his detainment in 1978. When he heard on the radio that a Mexican man had killed more people than him, he literally said, “Give me 24 hours and I assure you that a Mexican will not be a better murderer than a Spanish one.” He underwent medical tests which detected a type of mental dysfunction that induced tremendous aggressiveness. Current medical studies do not agree with that theory. El Arropiero was released in 1998 and died soon after that, due to lung disease. The Catalan director Carles Balagué filmed a documentary on his life in 2009.

- 26 -

Dennis Rader, the BTK Murderer

(March 9, 1945)

His alias corresponds to the initials of Bind, Torture, Kill, describing his modus operandi.

By 2004 there was no hope of catching him. Dennis Rader was not even on a list of suspects, but he began sending evidence to be found, boasting an unparalleled arrogance. In the last one, Rader sent a disc containing a single file. The police quickly tracked the document’s metadata and identified him. On February 25, 2005, Dennis Rader was arrested. On June 27, the same year, he pleaded guilty to the “BTK” murders, and on August 18, he was sentenced to 10 consecutive life sentences (one for each crime). Rader was spared the death penalty because the state of Kansas didn’t reinstate it until 1994, three years after the last “BTK” murder.

- 27 -

Arthur Shawcross, the Genesee River killer

(June 6, 1945 - November 10, 2008)

He was convicted of the murder of two children and killed most of his victims after being paroled, which led to a serious questioning of the justice system. For the first murders, he was sentenced to 25 years imprisonment, but he was released on parole having served 14 years. On March 1988, Shawcross began murdering prostitutes. Two years later, he was captured. He was convicted of 11 murders. In November 1990, Shawcross was tried by Monroe County, and convicted and sentenced to 250 years to life in prison. In 2008 Shawcross complained of a pain in his leg. He was taken to Albany Medical Center, where he suffered a cardiac arrest and died a few hours later.

- 28 -

Dennis Nilsen

(November 23, 1945)

He had a difficult childhood as a result of his parents’ messy marriage and his father’s alcoholism. When Nilsen was six, his grandfather died and his mother, without prior notice, took him to see the body. This event fascinated him. At age 8, Nilsen was drowning and was rescued by a young man who allegedly then masturbated on him. In 1961, he enlisted in the British army. He confessed he used to take advantage of the solitude of his room to place a mirror in front of his bed and fantasize that he was a corpse. In 1978, he started killing young men to keep their bodies, bath them and practice necrophilia. Nilsen killed 14 men. After his ritual, he dismembered the bodies and flushed the remains down a lavatory. In mid-1984, neighbors called a plumber to repair clogged drains and remove odor. The plumber found rotting meat in the pipes and called the police. Eventually, on November 4, 1983, Nilsen was tried and sentenced to life imprisonment.

- 29 -

Harold Shipman, Dr. Death

(January 14, 1946 - January 13, 2004)

It is estimated that he killed more than 250 people during the time he worked as a doctor. At 17, his mother suffered from lung cancer. Day after day, Harold would watch how his mother writhed in pain and the only thing that eased her suffering was morphine injections supplied by her doctor. In 1963, his mother died. Several years later, Shipman got his degree in medicine and surgery, with very good grades. His patients were delighted. As Shipman worked in the field of gynecology, getting morphine was easy for him, as it was used to relieve pain during labor. He began to consume this substance frequently. In 1974, his work was questioned when it was discovered that he prescribed morphine to patients who did not need it. The hospital opened an investigation. Not only did they find irregularities in his prescriptions, they also discovered his addiction to the drug. He was expelled from the hospital and sent to a drug rehabilitation clinic. Once rehabilitated, he founded his own surgical practice. His freedom to prescribe drugs freely resulted in mortal consequences. For five years, the number of deaths among elderly people was gigantic. Shipman himself signed the death certificates of patients, indicating natural causes. Then he persuaded relatives of the victims to cremate the bodies as soon as possible. One of his last victims was a wealthy woman. Shipman wrote a fake will, typewritten, which indicated him as the sole beneficiary. The daughter of the deceased woman was a lawyer. She knew her mother had no typewriter, so she sued the doctor and the body was exhumed. After analysis, remains of morphine were found. On September 7, 1998, the doctor was arrested. At his house, they found the proof of the crime: the typewriter that had produced the will. He was sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder of 15 patients. It is estimated that the number of victims was 215. On January 13, 2004, at age 58, Harold Shipman hanged himself in his cell using bed sheets.

- 30 -

Peter Sutcliffe, the Yorkshire Ripper

(June 2, 1946)

A British serial killer, he murdered thirteen women and seriously assaulted seven more. Most of his victims were prostitutes. The court where he was first tried found him sane and sentenced him to life imprisonment. He was imprisoned in May, 1981, for a year and four months. Then a committee of psychiatrists recommended that he be admitted to a mental hospital. He was referred to Broadmoor High Security Hospital in England. The British Supreme Court dismissed his appeal for freedom in 2010.

- 31 -

Ted Bundy

(November 24, 1946 - January 24, 1989)

An irresistible, smart, and handsome seducer, he received hundreds of letters of love with indecent proposals and lipstick kisses, while in prison in Starke, Florida, where he was confined until his execution.

Bundy had a degree in psychology, and was a young promise of the Republican Party. He was handsome and cheerful. Behind his gift of words with which he fascinated people, a ruthless monster was hiding.

When he was imprisoned, in 1976, he fired his attorneys and decided to defend himself. This allowed him access to the library, where he managed to escape by jumping from the second floor. He was captured six days later. On Christmas Eve, he escaped again through the air ducts. He had lost weight in order to get through the hole.

His second escape would include two more crimes. However, the most shocking crime for society was the murder and rape of a 12-year-old little girl, Kimberly Leach.

While defending himself, he questioned witnesses with arrogance, asking them to remember what had happened. The judicial absurdity reached its fever point when Bundy, taking advantage of an old law, married during a court session with a fan named Carole Ann Boone. Bundy exhausted all legal remedies to postpone his own death. He even gained time giving detectives information about unsolved murders. On January 24, 1989, he was finally executed in the electric chair for sadistically killing more than 30 women.

- 32 -

Ottis Elwood Toole

(March 5, 1947 - September 15, 1996)

First, he admitted to charges of murder, rape and cannibalism, and then retracted on several confessions. Toole was convicted of two murders and confessed to four more while in prison. On April 1984, Toole briefly shared a cell with Ted Bundy in Raiford Prison in Florida. Toole died of liver cirrhosis in September 1996 at the penitentiary. At the time of his death, he was writing a script for television about a children’s show, which he hoped to sell to a television network. It was called “Christmas with Ottis Toole.”

- 33 -

Pedro Alonso Lopez, The Monster of the Andes

(October 8, 1948)

A Colombian serial killer, who, after he was captured in 1980, confessed to killing more than 300 girls and young women in Colombia, Ecuador and Peru. Some experts say that no one has committed more serial murders. In his confession, he admitted that he had murdered at least 110 girls in Ecuador, 100 in Colombia, and “many more than 100” in Peru. He described a field in Ambato, Ecuador, where 53 bodies were found, and four more bodies were found around this location. He also noted other places where no bodies were found. In April 1980, a woman was going to a supermarket with her 12-year-old daughter, when Alonso López tried to kidnap the girl. The woman asked for help to stop the man, who was trying to escape with the girl. Several traders intercepted him before he could escape and held him until authorities arrived. He pleaded guilty to multiple murders and was sentenced to life imprisonment. He was imprisoned in Ecuador until 1998 and was delivered to the Colombian authorities due to a request for extradition. He was detained in a psychiatric hospital but, some years later, he was discharged and released. Interpol issued an order to search for, find and capture Lopez. His current whereabouts are unknown, but it is believed that he was executed illegally.

- 34 -

Ed Kemper, The Co-ed Killer

(December 18, 1948)

He had an IQ of 136 and developed a socio-pathological behavior at an early age: he tortured and murdered animals, simulated sexual rituals with his sisters’ dolls and even said that in order to kiss a teacher he felt attracted to, he would have to kill her first. His mother used to force him to sleep in the basement, fearing that he would abuse his sisters. In 1964, at age 15, Ed shot his grandmother as she was finishing reading a book. When his grandfather arrived, he killed him too. He called his mother and asked her to call the police because he had killed his grandparents. The woman told officers that Ed “just wanted to see what it was like to kill his grandmother” and that he had killed his grandfather because “he knew he would be angry.” Once he was admitted to the hospital, he fooled his doctor into discharging him. Between May 1972 and February 1973, Kemper killed several students, which he picked up on the highway and led to isolated rural areas to stab, shoot or strangle them. Then, he practiced necrophilia and dismembered their bodies. He discarded their remains by throwing them off cliffs or burying them in the fields. But on one occasion, he buried the head of a victim in his mother’s garden, as a macabre joke. Eventually, in 1973, Kemper also killed his mother. He beheaded her, raped her and threw her vocal chords in the garbage disposal. In his statement, Kemper said “she screamed too much.” He finally ate part of her organs and slept for four nights with the body in a state of putrefaction. Then, he managed to get one of his mother’s best friends to visit him and strangled her. As he didn’t hear any news on his murders on the radio, he was disappointed and called the police to confess. Although he claimed insanity at his trial, he was charged with eight murders. He intended to receive the death penalty, but as it was suspended, he was sentenced to life imprisonment.

- 35 -

Robert Berdella

(January 31, 1949 - October 8, 1992)

He was arrested in 1988 after one of his victims escaped from the window of the second floor, wearing only a dog collar. Berdella had put it on his victims for his sexual delight. He later confessed that he drugged and tied young men to rape and torture them. Driven by his eagerness for different experiences, he tore a boy’s eye out, to see what would happen. He discarded the bodies by dismembering them in his bathtub and throwing them away in plastic bags. When the case surfaced, no one could believe it, as he was an exemplary man. He received a life sentence and died in prison in 1992 of a heart attack. He complained that the prison staff did not give him the appropriate medicine. His death was never investigated.

- 36 -

Gary Ridgway, the Green River Killer

(February 18, 1949)

He confessed to killing 71 women. Gary would go from house to house talking about the Pentecostal church he attended. During his teenage years, he was about to stab a six-year-old child to death. Ridgway later confessed that he “wanted to know what it felt like to kill someone.” Of humble appearance, his hideous behavior was expressed through merciless hatred towards women. It is presumed that the cause of this hatred was his mother’s abuse of him and his father. After being arrested, he confessed to each of his crimes, describing them in detail. Ridgway used a photo of his child to attract victims. On November 5, 2003, a trial was conducted. He was sentenced to 49 consecutive life imprisonment sentences without parole. He avoided the death penalty by confessing his crimes, including some that hadn’t been attributed to him.

- 37 -

Richard Chase, the Vampire of Sacramento

(May 23, 1950 - December 26, 1980)

He was diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic after shooting, stabbing, dismembering and drinking the blood of six people in 1987.

Chase, at 21, was constantly drugged and became obsessed with the idea that a criminal organization was trying to kill him. Shortly after that, he shaved his head claiming that his skull was slowly deforming and that the bones were piercing his skin. Then, he said he was dying because someone had stolen his pulmonary artery and he noticed that his blood could not run properly. He was admitted to a psychiatric facility for a short time and then released, despite the opinion of some doctors who considered him to be dangerous. Then, the tragedy began. Chase committed six crimes. The most terrible was when he entered a house, shot a couple and a boy and a baby in the head. As he was discovered, he escaped with the baby’s corpse. Then, in his own house, he beheaded the body after drinking its blood and ate its brain. That same afternoon, the police discovered bloodstains, human bones, organs stored in the refrigerator and a dish with remains of brain in Richard’s apartment. The murderer was eventually arrested. “If I ate those people, it was because I was hungry and I was dying,” he said, dismayed. “My blood is poisoned and an acid is corroding my liver. It was absolutely necessary for me to drink fresh blood.” At the trial, he tried in vain to justify his macabre crimes. Sentenced to death, his execution was never carried out. Richard committed suicide in his cell with an overdose of antidepressants in December, 1980.

- 38 -

Kenneth Alessio Bianchi and Angelo Buono

(May 22, 1951)

Bianchi was an American serial killer, kidnapper and rapist. Along with his cousin Angelo Buono, they used fake badges to convince their victims that they were undercover cops. All of them were women aged 12-28 years. Bianchi and Buono arrested a young woman named Catherine Lorre, intending to kidnap and kill her. But when they learned that she was the daughter of actor Peter Lorre (specialist in interpreting murderers), they released her. At his trial, Bianchi convinced the expert psychiatrists that he suffered from a multiple-personality disorder, but investigators consulted other specialists. Bianchi finally admitted he had faked the disease. In order to request clemency, Bianchi agreed to testify against Buono.

Regardless, both of them were sentenced to life imprisonment. In 1992, Bianchi sued Catherine Yronwode for more than eight million dollars for placing his face on cards in her store. He said his face was a registered trademark. The judge dismissed the case claiming that if he had been using his face as a trademark when he committed the murders, he could not have hidden a single day from the police.

- 39 -

Donato Bilancia, the Monster of Liguria

(July 10, 1951)

An Italian serial killer who murdered at least 17 people in the region of Liguria from October 1997 to May 1998. On April 12, 2000, he was sentenced to 14 life sentences and 14 additional years for another attempt to murder.

- 40 -

David Berkowitz, the 44 Caliber Killer

(June 1, 1953)

He would suddenly shoot his victims. Six of those shots were fatal. Shortly after he was arrested, in August 1977, Berkowitz confessed to the crimes and said he had wounded seven other people. He stated that a demon, who had possessed his neighbor’s dog, had commanded him to commit the murders, but he later changed his statement. He said he had only fired twice. The other victims were killed, according to Berkowitz, by collaborators of a violent satanic cult of which he was a member. Although he remains as the only suspect, police found some degree of credibility in his last statement. It was possible that the killings had been committed by more than one person. The case was reopened in 1996. On June 12, 1978 Berkowitz was sentenced to six life sentences.

- 41 -

Aileen Carol Wuornos

(February 29, 1956 - October 9, 2002)

She met Tyria J. Moore, became her lover and when passion faded, they became close friends. The adventures of the couple escalated rapidly. On Christmas Eve 1989, the corpse of Richard Mallory, who was known for his love of alcohol and women, was found in the forests of Daytona Beach, Florida. The body had three shots of a 22-caliber pistol. A year later, six more bodies which had been murdered in a similar way were discovered. All the victims were middle-aged men, whose bodies appeared near a street or road, after being robbed and killed with the same weapon.

In order to support herself, Aileen sold the valuables she had stolen from her victims. While selling Richard Mallory’s camera and radar detector, and a toolbox belonging to another victim, she was discovered.

The police could finally arrest Wuornos when Tyria Moore agreed to cooperate with them. Her friend confessed to six murders and claimed self-defense. Almost immediately, she and her lawyer sold the movie rights to her life. On January 27, 1992, a jury found Aileen Wuornos guilty of first-degree murder and recommended the death penalty. In 2001, the killer announced that she would not seek any appeal of her sentence: “I killed those men. I robbed them as cold as ice. And I would do it again. There’s no reason to keep me alive because I would kill again. There’s hatred crawling through my body . . . I’m so sick of hearing that I’m crazy. I’ve been evaluated so many times. I am competent, sane and I’m trying to tell the truth. I’m someone who hates life and would kill again.” She was executed in 2002.

- 42 -

Javed Iqbal

(October 8, 1956 - October 8, 2001)

He sent a letter to the police and the newspapers of Lahore, where he confessed to have strangled and dismembered his victims, chosen from fugitives and homeless orphans. He also said that he was planning to drown himself in the Ravi River. Police arrested him and launched the biggest manhunt in the history of Pakistan, until they captured his accomplices. One of them died under police custody by jumping from a window. Iqbal said in court that he was innocent and that the whole thing was a joke, planned to draw attention to the lack of control of children in poor families. He claimed that his statements were made under duress. Over one hundred witnesses testified against Iqbal, and he and his accomplices were convicted. Iqbal was sentenced to death by hanging. On the morning of October 8, 2001, Iqbal committed suicide in prison.

- 43 -

Luis Alfredo Garavito

(January 25, 1957)

Born in Colombia, he is known as the beast, the monk, the priest or the madman. He is considered the biggest child serial killer in humanity and the second serial killer in the world. After being captured by the Colombian authorities, Garavito confessed to murdering 172 children. According to psychologists, he committed sexual assaults against minors because his older uncle had repeatedly raped him in his own house, in front of his parents.

Garavito denied having raped his victims. He said he had committed the crimes under Satan’s orders and promised to rehabilitate, after becoming a member of the United Pentecostal Church of Colombia. Although the sentence for his crimes amounted to 1,853 years of imprisonment, the murderer was sentenced under a penal system that, at the time, applied a maximum sentence of 40 years, with possible reductions for cooperating with the authorities and showing a particular interest in studies.

- 44 -

José Antonio Rodriguez Vega, The Old Lady Killer

(December 3, 1957 - October 24, 2002)

A Spanish serial killer, he murdered at least 16 women aged 60 to 93 years between August 1987 and April 1988. On May 19, 1988 he was arrested while walking down the streets. His trial began in 1991 in Santander. At the time of his arrest, he confessed to the crimes, but when testifying in court, he said the women had died of natural causes. He had simply left them unconscious. Rodríguez Vega would identify a victim and follow her, until he became familiar with every aspect of her routine. When he knew her well enough, he impersonated a television delivery man or a builder and offered to make any repairs. He would later visit her and accompany her for a while, to gain her trust and have free access to her home. When he executed his crimes, he took a trophy from each of them. The victims’ relatives identified objects in Vega’s house, linking him to the cases.

He was sentenced to 432 years in prison. But in 2002, while serving his sentence in the prison of Topas, in Salamanca, he was stabbed and killed by two inmates. The next day, he was buried in a common grave.

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Joel Rifkin

(January 20, 1959)

He is considered the worst serial killer in the history of New York. In February 1987, his father committed suicide to end his suffering caused by cancer. At that time, Joel began collecting books about serial killers. Joel liked to change his methods each time, making it difficult to find a pattern to identify him. Joel Rifkin would later confess to a forensic psychiatrist that he had visions and that he knew he would die at age 64, like his father. He said he also knew that victim number 17 would be the last one, since he was 34, which is 17 multiplied by two. He also said that he killed prostitutes so that his father would not feel alone in the afterlife. He was stopped by a traffic inspector because his truck had no plates. He wasn’t driving at high speed, but he didn’t stop as commanded. Ten minutes later, he hit a traffic light. In the back of the truck, they found the decomposed body of a woman. Despite having countless pieces of evidence against him, he pleaded not guilty to the murders. He received a life sentence.

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Anatoly Onoprienko, The Beast of Ukraine

(July 25, 1959 - August 27, 2013)

Onoprienko had an average height and an athletic appearance. He was rational, educated, eloquent and merciless. Onoprienko’s crimes began in the late 1980s. With the police chasing him, Onoprienko emigrated to Austria and then France, Greece and Germany, where, after being arrested for burglary, he would be expelled. Back in Ukraine, he committed an avalanche of crimes. Between October 1995 and March 1996, he killed 43 people. Then, he began to enter houses and massacre entire families. Up to eight families were attacked and killed by Onoprienko in Odessa, Leopoli and Dnipropetrovsk. He entered the houses shortly before dawn, gathered the inhabitants and killed men with a gun, and women and children with a knife, an ax or a hammer. Then he set the house on fire. If someone crossed his path, they also ended up dead. He even killed a three-month-old baby in his cradle, suffocating him with a pillow. The period in which he committed the murders was relatively short and prolific. Police found a stolen gun and 122 items belonging to the victims in his apartment. Once arrested, he confessed to the first eight crimes immediately and then admitted that his list contained 52 victims. His trial was one of the most complex and expensive ones in the history of Ukrainian justice. More than 400 witnesses and hundreds of specialists testified. He was convicted but the death penalty was commuted to life imprisonment. He died of a heart attack in prison in Zhitomir on August 27, 2013, at the age of 54.

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Richard Ramírez, the Night Stalker

(February 29, 1960 - June 7, 2013)

He killed 14 people in Los Angeles between 1984 and 1985. His father was extremely violent with him and his brothers. He witnessed his cousin murder his wife in cold blood with a shotgun. At age 24, he began his serial murders without specific methods, which made it harder to capture him. He killed people regardless of their sex, race or age. His weapons could be baseball bats, knives or guns. His modus operandi also varied. Since he could kill either without leaving a trace or leaving traces everywhere, he believed he was protected by the devil. He was captured thanks to his last victim, who survived the attack and saw Ramirez escape in a van. Los Angeles was filled with posters with the face of the “Night Stalker.” As Ramirez was out of town, he was unaware of his arrest warrant. Upon his return, a group of people, who recognized him on the street, tried to lynch him. He had to be rescued by the police itself.

On October 3, 1989, he was sentenced to death. But Ramirez died in 2013 of liver failure at a hospital in California, while awaiting his execution.

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Jeffrey Lionel Dahmer, The Milwaukee Cannibal

(May 21, 1960 - November 18, 1994)

He is an exception. He was a child loved by his parents who had a good education and a happy social life. He is responsible for the deaths of 17 men and boys, between 1978 and 1991. He is known not only for the number of people he killed, but also for practicing necrophilia and cannibalism.

His strategy was recurring: he invited men to pose for some pictures, put drugs in their drinks, strangled them and had sex with them. Then, he photographed the bodies and he also took pictures detailing their dismemberment. He used acids to dissolve the bodies, but kept their head and genitals as trophies. In May 1991, he made some burr-holes in the skull of a 19-year-old boy to inject acid in his brain. But the boy escaped, running naked through the streets, prompting neighbors to alert the police. The boy could not speak because he was in shock. Dahmer claimed that the young man was his lover and that he was drunk. The murderer managed to confuse the police, who found no proof. On July 22, 1991, another young man escaped in handcuffs. The police decided to make further investigations. They found photographs of corpses, human remains and a head in the refrigerator of his house. Dahmer tried to escape but was arrested. The jury declared him sane and sentenced him to 15 consecutive life terms. He died during a fight in the Portage prison.

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Adolfo de Jesús Constanzo, The Godfather of Matamoros

(November 1, 1962 - May 6, 1989)

He was a Mexican drug trafficker and leader of a cult led by several mafia bosses and police officers. The sect, which was based in Matamoros, Mexico, performed hidden ceremonies. In order to carry them out, they kidnapped different people and made human sacrifices. In 1989, when a 21-year-old American tourist disappeared in Matamoros, during the recess, the police began a thorough investigation. They soon discovered the actions of the sect and after arresting several members, found out that they were responsible for the murder of the young man. On May 6, the same year, they cornered Constanzo and four of his followers. After a couple of hours of confrontation, determined not to go to prison, Constanzo ordered one of his followers to kill him.

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Thierry Paulin, The Beast of Paris

(November 28, 1963 - April 16, 1989)

Paulin was a student who had few friends and was ashamed of his dark-colored skin. In October and November 1984, eight elderly women were murdered in Paris. Beaten to death, their heads were found in plastic bags. According to forensic experts, one of them had been forced to drink drain cleaner. Between December 1985 and June 1986, eight more elderly women were killed. The police could not identify the murderer, but concluded that it was the same as before. In 1986, Paulin learned he was HIV-positive. Knowing that his illness would cause his imminent death, he organized big parties with credit cards and money stolen from his victims. The following year, in just two days, Paulin murdered three women. One of them, which Thierry thought was dead, recovered and was able to provide his description. Paulin was arrested while celebrating his 24th birthday. He admitted everything. Charged with 18 murders, he assumed responsibility for 21 murders and was sent to prison to await trial. A year later, Paulin was hospitalized for his illness in a state of almost total paralysis and died on the night of April 16, 1989. The film J’ai Pas Sommeil (I Can´t Sleep), by Claire Denis, was based on his story.

Gary Lequipe

50 Serial Killers : bloody protagonists of history’s worst murder sprees . - 1a ed. - Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires : Music Brokers, 2014.

E-Book.

ISBN 9789873788567

1st. edition

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Cover Design: Federico Dell’Albani / Music Brokers Art Dept.

Internal Design: Ana Paula Giunta / Music Brokers Art Dept.

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