Serial Killers

Mon, 28 Jun

Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset

Coming of age alongside Adolf Hitler's political rise, Paul Ogorzow took his cue from the Nazi party...

Thu, 24 Jun 2021 07:01:00 -0000

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There are few criminals so reviled as a child killer. David Elliot Penton was one of them. His crime...

Mon, 21 Jun

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A lifelong drifter and con man, Roy Melanson charmed and manipulated his way into his victims’ liv...

Thu, 17 Jun 2021 07:01:00 -0000

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Avoiding capture as Amherst’s terrifying “Bike Path Rapist” emboldened Sanchez to commit his f...

Mon, 14 Jun

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An elusive rapist stalked areas around Buffalo, New York, for decades beginning in the late 1970s. W...

Thu, 10 Jun 2021 07:01:00 -0000

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Harry Powers lived a life shrouded in mystery, so tracing his origins is difficult. But here's what ...

Mon, 07 Jun

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In 1973, 7-year-old Susie Jaeger fell asleep in a tent with her siblings while on a camping trip wit...

Thu, 03 Jun 2021 07:01:00 -0000

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By 1999, Sells had murdered men, women and children in multiple states, and showed no signs of slowi...

Mon, 31 May

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For over 20 years, Tommy Lynn Sells hitchhiked across the U.S., killing indiscriminately and without...

Thu, 27 May 2021 07:01:00 -0000

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By the beginning of 2011, Bruce McArthur had killed and dismembered two men, hiding their bodies in ...

Mon, 24 May

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For most of his life, Bruce McArthur led an unremarkable existence. But in the 1990s, he split from ...

Thu, 20 May 2021 07:01:00 -0000

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After amassing wealth and influence as a spiritual advisor in the 1980s, Adolfo Constanzo set his si...

Mon, 17 May

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Schooled in the darkest corners of his family’s Afro-Carribean religion, Adolfo Constanzo decided ...

Thu, 13 May 2021 07:01:00 -0000

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By 1828, Burke and Hare’s scheme of murdering people and selling their bodies was making them rich...

Mon, 10 May

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When a tenant at their boarding house died in 1827, William Burke and William Hare found a way to ma...

Thu, 06 May 2021 07:01:00 -0000

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Having moved from break-ins to aggressive sexual assault, David Russell Williams carefully planned h...

Mon, 03 May

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As an officer in the Canadian Armed Forces, David Russell Williams had a spotless record for decades...

Thu, 29 Apr 2021 07:01:00 -0000

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After his first murder in San Francisco, Richard Ramirez headed back to Los Angeles to begin a killi...

Mon, 26 Apr

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A troubled relationship with his father, his religion, and the demonic visions he saw during seizure...

Thu, 22 Apr 2021 07:01:00 -0000

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Organized and meticulous, Timothy Wilson Spencer evaded suspicion until a detective began connecting...

Mon, 19 Apr

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Growing up in Arlington, Virginia in the 1960s, Timothy Wilson Spencer displayed an alarming interes...

Thu, 15 Apr 2021 07:01:00 -0000

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Born in 1935, Florencio Fernández grew up in a region of Argentina nicknamed the “fortress of fol...

Mon, 12 Apr

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Salvator Perrone’s early life in the 1950s is a murky mystery, but by the time he was in his 60s, ...

Thu, 08 Apr 2021 07:01:00 -0000

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By the 1980s, Ted Kaczynski had set off several bombs, causing only minor injuries — but for him, ...

Mon, 05 Apr

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Spotting his genius at a young age, Ted Kaczynski’s parents pushed their son to academic excellenc...

Thu, 01 Apr 2021 07:01:00 -0000

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By Thanksgiving 1986, Gary Heidnik had captured a woman and locked her in his basement, where he int...

Mon, 29 Mar

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Estranged from his family, Gary Heidnik’s behavior grew more and more troubling as he grew older. ...

Thu, 25 Mar 2021 07:01:00 -0000

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When a six-year-old girl was brutally murdered in Chicago in 1945, the public and the press demanded...

Mon, 22 Mar

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Growing up in a family that didn’t have a lot of money, William Heirens turned to burglary to ease...

Thu, 18 Mar 2021 07:01:00 -0000

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Herbert Mullin believed he was saving the world. After all, God had told him that murdering people w...

Mon, 15 Mar

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Throughout his childhood in the 1950s and ‘60s, Herbert Mullin's life seemed decidedly idyllic. Bu...

Thu, 11 Mar 2021 08:01:00 -0000

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Having killed and dismembered his first victim, Robert Bordella was anxious to take another person c...

Mon, 08 Mar

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Inspired by a 1965 horror film called The Collector, Robert Berdella harbored dark fantasies about a...

Thu, 04 Mar 2021 08:01:00 -0000

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In November 1997, John Bunting claimed his sixth victim, and successfully passed it off as a suicide...

Mon, 01 Mar

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Arriving in South Australia in the 1980s, John Bunting surrounded himself with people he could easil...

Thu, 25 Feb 2021 08:01:00 -0000

Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset

After his first murder, Steven Zelich couldn't bear to let go of his victim, and kept her body close...

Mon, 22 Feb

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Once a police officer who loved the authority and respect his position brought him, Steven Zelich's ...

Thu, 18 Feb 2021 08:01:00 -0000

Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset

Once a promising intelligence officer, Ray Fernandez transformed into a career conman, swindling lon...

Mon, 15 Feb

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If love makes you do something evil, does that make you evil, too? In the late 1970s, Gerald Gallego...

Thu, 11 Feb 2021 08:01:00 -0000

Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset

Following a whirlwind romance, Alton Coleman and Debra Brown embarked on a violent rampage that turn...

Mon, 08 Feb

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They say that “love is a many-splendored thing.” But for Ray and Faye Copeland, it was a thing o...

Thu, 04 Feb 2021 08:01:00 -0000

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By 1985, the Monster of Florence had claimed 16 lives. Unfortunately, authorities were no closer to ...

Mon, 01 Feb

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One of Italy’s most notorious serial killers has never (definitively) been identified. The mysteri...

Thu, 28 Jan 2021 08:01:00 -0000

Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset

By 1984, Nance had revamped his reputation and settled into a comfortable routine in his hometown. B...

Mon, 25 Jan

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As a teenager, Wayne Nance developed an interest in Satanism that may have led to his first murder. ...

Thu, 21 Jan 2021 08:01:00 -0000

Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset

His victims’ deaths were often ruled “unnatural and accidental,” leaving Gilbert Paul Jordan f...

Mon, 18 Jan

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An alcoholic from his teenage years onward, Gilbert Paul Jordan spent his young adulthood in 1950s V...

Thu, 14 Jan 2021 08:01:00 -0000

Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset

By the 1990s, Ángel Maturino Reséndiz was a seasoned murderer using America’s extensive railroad...

Mon, 11 Jan

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After years of incarceration, rejection, and failure, Ángel Maturino Reséndiz's most violent impul...

Thu, 07 Jan 2021 08:01:00 -0000

Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset

In 1984, Wilder went on a weeks-long killing spree across the U.S., abducting, raping and murdering ...

Mon, 04 Jan

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Posing as a modeling agent in the 1980s, Wilder lured young girls and women to secluded places where...

Thu, 17 Dec 2020 08:01:00 -0000

Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset

By day, Robert Hansen was a devoted husband, devout Christian, and respected member of the Anchorage...

Mon, 14 Dec

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Bullied from a young age, Robert Hansen’s resentment toward the people in his hometown manifested ...

Thu, 10 Dec 2020 08:01:00 -0000

Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset

After his first murder, Keith Jesperson felt unstoppable, and went on something of a killing spree. ...

Mon, 07 Dec

Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset

Always shy and a little curious, Keith Jesperson lived a troubled childhood. Beaten by his father, a...

Thu, 03 Dec 2020 08:01:00 -0000

Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset

By the end of 1993, seven decomposed bodies had been pulled from Australia's Belanglo State Forest. ...

Mon, 30 Nov

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The bodies of two missing backpackers were recovered from Australia’s Belanglo State Forest in 199...

Thu, 19 Nov 2020 08:01:00 -0000

Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset

After killing dozens of people and getting away with it, Alexander Pichushkin got bored with his rou...

Mon, 16 Nov

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One of Russia’s most prolific serial killers was an avid chess player. First introduced to the pas...

Thu, 12 Nov 2020 08:01:00 -0000

Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset

In the final few months of 2006, Ipswich was shaken by the strangling deaths of several sex workers....

Mon, 09 Nov

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He was an unassuming man whose Jekyll and Hyde personality obscured increasingly violent tendencies....

Thu, 05 Nov 2020 08:01:00 -0000

Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset

It was called the crime of the century: In 1966, Richard Speck drifted into Chicago, and unleashed a...

Mon, 02 Nov

Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset

In the early 1980s, emergency services in St. Paul, Minnesota began receiving odd calls from a distr...

Thu, 29 Oct 2020 07:01:00 -0000

Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset

Throughout his shocking rampage that left dozens of people injured or dead, the newly dubbed “Vamp...

Mon, 26 Oct

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Unfulfilled by bestiality, a young Peter Kürten turned to murder — and discovered his body’s re...

Thu, 22 Oct 2020 07:01:00 -0000

Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset

When British heiresses Dora and Claire Williamson reached out to Linda Hazzard, she might have thoug...

Mon, 19 Oct

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In the early 1900s, Linda Hazzard marketed herself as a doctor, and claimed that she could cure any ...

Thu, 15 Oct 2020 07:01:00 -0000

Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset

After spending years in and out of prison, Charles “The Serpent” Sobhraj was determined to make ...

Mon, 12 Oct

Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset

Growing up in Vietnam, India and France in the 1940s and ‘50s, Charles Sobhraj never truly fit in ...

Sun, 11 Oct

Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset

In the years since the Satanic Panic, it's become obvious that the crimes people were accused of nev...

Sat, 10 Oct

Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset

Emboldened by power- and money-hungry conmen, Evangelical doomsdayers set the stage for an epic show...

Fri, 09 Oct

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From Adolfo Costanzo and the Narcosatanists to the gruesome Chicago Rippers, these horrific groups s...

Thu, 08 Oct 2020 07:01:00 -0000

Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset

In the 1980s, “Satanic Panic” was a mass hysteria that consumed communities and ruined lives—a...

Mon, 05 Oct

Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset

In the 1980s, “Satanic Panic” was a mass hysteria that consumed communities and ruined lives—a...

Thu, 01 Oct 2020 07:01:00 -0000

Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset

In the fall of 1977, Los Angeles was on high alert, so 43-year-old Angelo Buono Jr. and 26-year-old ...

Mon, 28 Sep

Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset

These killer cousins terrorized Los Angeles in the late ‘70s. Despite very different upbringings, ...

Thu, 24 Sep 2020 07:01:00 -0000

Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset

After their first brutal murder, Suzan and Michael Carson fled San Francisco, intent on continuing t...

Mon, 21 Sep

Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset

They set out to murder witches in the early 1980s, moving up and down the coast of the Pacific North...

Thu, 17 Sep 2020 07:01:00 -0000

Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset

On the outside, Karla Homolka and Paul Bernardo appeared to be a perfect couple—but they held a da...

Mon, 14 Sep

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When Paul Bernardo met his bride-to-be Karla Homolka in October 1987, he had already raped his first...

Thu, 10 Sep 2020 07:01:00 -0000

Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset

By torturing and killing his fellow inmate, Robert Maudsley won his escape from Broadmoor Mental Hos...

Mon, 07 Sep

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Abused by his parents from a young age, Robert Maudsley spent his childhood bouncing around orphanag...

Thu, 03 Sep 2020 07:01:00 -0000

Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset

In 1959, Eric Cooke committed his first murder in the sleepy city of Perth, Australia. And, having g...

Mon, 31 Aug

Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset

Born in 1931 to a caring mother and alcoholic father, Eric Edgar Cooke had a turbulent home life. Hi...

Thu, 27 Aug 2020 07:01:00 -0000

Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset

While Joseph Swango’s patients died at alarming rates, few people seemed capable of connecting the...

Mon, 24 Aug

Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset

As a teenager in the ‘70s, Joseph Swango had an intense fascination with the macabre, even keeping...

Thu, 20 Aug 2020 07:01:00 -0000

Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset

In the late ‘80s, Aileen trolled the highways outside of Daytona, Florida looking for johns. But t...

Mon, 17 Aug

Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset

More abused than loved, Aileen Wuornos suffered through her childhood in 1960s Michigan. She became ...

Thu, 13 Aug 2020 07:01:00 -0000

Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset

For decades, it seemed like Charlie Brandt's first murder was a shocking, unexplainable anomoly—so...

Mon, 10 Aug

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In January 1971, 13-year-old Charlie Brandt retrieved his father's gun and committed a shocking murd...

Thu, 06 Aug 2020 07:01:00 -0000

Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset

By the early 1980s, Watts had stabbed three women to death. As police closed in on him, setting up t...

Mon, 03 Aug

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Unable to contain his dark fantasies and suppressed rage, Coral Eugene Watts targeted women in Michi...

Thu, 30 Jul 2020 07:01:00 -0000

Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset

Still desperate to ignite a race war in the United States, Joseph Paul Franklin sought more prominen...

Mon, 27 Jul

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He studied Mein Kampf. Changed his name. And joined white supremacist groups across the country. Fue...

Thu, 23 Jul 2020 07:01:00 -0000

Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset

In 1977, Cottingham was married with three kids, two secret girlfriends, and an itch for abusing sex...

Mon, 20 Jul

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He had an idyllic childhood in the 1940s and ‘50s, but as Richard Francis Cottingham grew, he bega...

Thu, 16 Jul 2020 07:01:00 -0000

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In 1979, Lawrence Bittaker and Roy Norris sexually assaulted and murdered five teenage girls. For mo...

Mon, 13 Jul

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They each lived lonely lives, bouncing from jail to jail until a chance meeting in California brough...

Thu, 09 Jul 2020 07:01:00 -0000

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At a young age, Moses Sithole was abandoned by his mother, forcing him to go in and out of a traumat...

Mon, 06 Jul

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In the early ‘70s, a teenaged Dugan had an encounter with one of the most notorious serial killers...