Most infamous serial killer

[johnnie]

Poll question: Most infamous serial killer

Who do you find to be the most interesting and infamous serial killer? I think most people are at least a little fascinated by these people, I know I am. The experts say that there are an average of 75 or so serial killers operating in the United States at any given time.

So... who piques your interest the most?
















This thread is also to remind you that we have a True Crime forum here at DU and activity would be nice. I would like to see it stay and if we don't get discussion over there it could be murdered.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topics&forum=313

[Monkey see Monkey Do]

1. I voted other -- for Fred West (& Rosemary)

I was about 15 when the police began discovering bodies in a house not all that far from where I lived. The news was dominated for weeks with the latest stories to emerge of the families perversions. As a teenager, it fascinated me & was probably one of the first 'dark' subject to intrigue me over the years. I recently read Paul Britton's "Jigsaw Man" which covers the case and it brought all those memories back. West's suicide left so many questions of motivation unanswered and there's always been a little controversy over Rosemary's complicity.

Another book I recently read was "The Last Victim" by Jason Moss. What a project!

[fleabert]

63. I think I caught the last half of a show about them!

they had kids right? and he killed one of his daughters and buried her in the front yard? then killed himself after he was caught?

fucking crazy story.

[Monkey see Monkey Do]

91. BBC have a pretty good history

without getting too graphic. As well as the killing, there was also the sexual abuse (including their daughter Anne-Marie from aged eight). Their victims:


1967 - Ann McFall (Scottish nanny and Fred's lover. Was eight months pregnant with his child). Body found in "letterbox field" near Much Marcle
1970 - Rena Costello (Fred's first wife, also Scottish). Body found in "fingerpost field" near Much Marcle.
1972 - Charmaine West, 8 (Rena's eldest child). Body found beneath 25 Midland Road, Gloucester
1973 - Linda Gough, 21 (seamstress from Gloucester). Body found beneath 25 Cromwell Street
1973 - Lucy Partington, 21 (university student, from Gotherington, near Cheltenham). Body found beneath 25 Cromwell Street.
1974 - Carol Cooper,15 (schoolgirl from Worcester). Body found beneath 25 Cromwell Street
1975 - Juanita Mott, 19 (from Newent, Glos) Body found beneath 25 Cromwell Street
1975 - Shirley Hubbard, 15 (schoolgirl from Worcester). Body found beneath 25 Cromwell St
1977 - Therese Siegenthaler, 21 (Swiss hitchhiker). Body found beneath 25 Cromwell St
1977 - Alison Chambers, 17 (originally from Swansea). Body found in garden of 25 Cromwell St
1978 - Shirley Robinson, 18 (lodger and Fred's lover. Heavily pregnant). Body found in garden of 25 Cromwell St.
1987 - Heather West, 16 (Fred and Rose's eldest daughter). Body found in garden of 25 Cromwell St.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/crime/caseclosed/fredwest1.shtml

[Zuni]

84. There used to be a DUer here who had met Fred West

long before he was discovered. He had some sort of business deal with West or something. :shrug: I do not remember who the DUer was or if he is still here.

From what I have read about Senor West, that guy was one of the nastiest creatures to ever walk the earth. Anyone who kills their own daughter...

The Last Victim is a great book. One of my faves. Really, really disturbing though.

[rug]

2. Have to go with Dahmer.

Killing them is one thing, eating them is something altogether different.

[cssmall]

4. Dahmer isn't really all that bad for serial killers.

He is the exact model of how someone becomes a serial killer (they are not insane for the feelings). The reasons why he killed his victims was because he didn't want them to leave, but also, he wanted to keep a piece of them inside of him. Yes, his reasons were strange, but they do play a purpose to his frame of mind.

On Edit: Let me say this before I confuse anyone else. Serial killing is still a horrific, terrible act, because I think that Dahmer isn't all that bad for serial killers doesn't mean I think he's a hunkydory guy.

[johnnie]

5. Not bad?

In what way? He killed 17 that they know of. I'm not being sarcastic, I just wonder what you mean by "not bad".

[cssmall]

7. This is something I've been studying anthropologically.

He was never *truly* violent with his victims and spoke of them with respect and remorse. Ted Bundy and the Zodiac were two of the worst because of their treatment of the victims.

[johnnie]

11. I don't know

Maybe he doped them up before he did what he did, but drilling holes in a person's skull and pouring acid in them seems a bit like torture.

I think Dahmer might have been more mentally ill than a lot of the other ones. Granted he mostly knocked them out before doing his thing while many others kept their victims conscious.

As for the Zodiac, did he torture? From what I remember he seemed to shoot them outright.

[cssmall]

15. Actually, from what I understand, Dahmer's victims were dead.

When he did the acid poruing thing, I still think that Dahmer was a lonely soul that wanted attention and someone to be around and turned to killing to provide that.

Torture isn't the only violent act. Dahmer specifically looked for ways to cause the least amount of pain, according to what the investigator that took his confession said. In fact, I would say that Zodiac, who's victims were shot multiple times went through more pain than some of Dahmer's victims.

[johnnie]

17. Dahmer poured the acid in their brains

..because he wanted to create a zombie that he could use as his personal sex toy. If they were dead or not the point that he wanted to use the acid to turn them into zombies shows that he thought they were still alive.

[cssmall]

18. It proves his loneliness.

You were right when you said further down that all serial killers are pathetic in their own ways. They are. If they would have had their needs met, would they have turned out this way? No.

Dahmer was a repressed homosexual who was forced to be all his life because of his grandmother. His mother was in and out of his life and his father split.

Bundy was a spoiled rich kind who, when he got out on his own, couldn't make it and took his frustrations out on anything around him.

There is a specific event or series of events that lead up to their reasons for destroying human lives in the same manner. It becomes healing through its ritualized process.

[johnnie]

22. There is a difference though

Many of us don't get our needs met but we don't go out and slaughter people.

As for the homosexual part of it, at certain times in the history of man many people had their sexuality suppressed but they also didn't do the sick things Dahmer did. Dahmer was just another person who couldn't handle the bullshit in life and took it out on other people as far as i am concerned.

[cssmall]

23. ANd, you're right.

But, the bullshit was caused by the culture he was socialized and encultured! When that occurs, it causes anomie according to Durkheim, but I believe it can cause far more disturbing things: serial killers and the like.

I am not indicting homosexuality. I am indicting the fundementalist culture that he grew into that would not accept him.

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

57. Dahmer's dad wrote a book about their relationship. He implies that

there seemed to be a side of Dahmer that was antisocial from a very early age, fascination with death. He describes the young Dahmer's reaction to seeing the bones of a dead bird... very very disturbing and sad.

These tendencies only got worse as he hit adolescence.

You do get the impression that Dahmer was truly a "bad seed" of some kind.

When Jeff was four, his father swept out from under their house the remains of some small animals that had been killed by civets. As his father gathered the tiny animal bones, Jeff seemed "oddly thrilled by the sound they made. His small hands dug deep into the pile of bones. I can no longer view it simply as a childish episode, a passing fascination. This same sense of something dark and shadowy, of a malicious force growing in my son, now colors almost every memory."

At the age of six, he was found to be suffering from a double hernia and needed surgery to correct the problem. He never seemed to recover his ebullience and buoyancy. "He seemed smaller, somehow more vulnerable... he grew more inward, sitting quietly for long periods, hardly stirring, his face oddly motionless."

In 1966, Lionel had completed his graduate work in Iowa and got a job as a research chemist in Akron, Ohio. Joyce was pregnant with their second son, David. By that time Jeff was in the first grade and "a strange fear had begun to creep into his personality, a dread of others that was combined with a general lack of self-confidence. He was developing a reluctance to change, a need to feel the assurance of familiar places. The prospect of going to school frightened him. The little boy who'd once seemed so happy and self-assured had been replaced by a different person, now deeply shy, distant, nearly uncommunicative."

http://www.crimelibrary.com/serial_killers/notorious/dahmer/14.html

[Jamastiene]

76. That kind of makes me wonder what happened during that time

when he had the hernia operation. Something had to have happened that changed him. How did he get a double hernia and what happened that sucked the life(humanit) right out of him that way? How come none of the psychoanalysts ever try to answer questions like that? That's what makes him the most fascinating to me.

[sasquatch]

3. The fact the Zodiac was never caught is what still amazes me to this day

The killer had the balls to run his mouth to the newspapers by writing letters to the editors of San Francisco newspapers, but yet the police couldn't track him.
:wow:

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

59. Ya, BTK was going good for a while, but he just couldn't leave the papers

alone...

I wonder if dude had a compulsion to get caught, or just spent too many years out of the limelight and wanted to stir up the media pot again...

[ScreamingMeemie]

6. Ed Gein...nothing comes close to this man who tanned the hides of

his victims and sold the "meat" on the black market. My mother's sometime baby sitter was one of his victims.

[johnnie]

13. Whoa

Your mom knew one of the victims? That's wild. Gein was definitely one of the most sickest of them all. Not only to kill, but then to have people buy the meat and eat it. Yikes.

[ScreamingMeemie]

26. She was just a little tot at the time. But yes, the woman was her

baby sitter. Ed put that little farming community through hell before he was caught.

[JVS]

31. One of my dad's college room-mates in the early 60's grew up there.

He told me that after the trial and all the publicity the farm where it happened was burned down one night so that tourists wouldn't come and look.

[xmas74]

38. One of my great uncles lived in the area at the time.

From what I understand he might have been an officer(never had that completely clarified to my satisfaction and I can't ask him now since he's gone). He's a legend that is often referred to in my family and someone that they use to give small children nightmares.

[Zuni]

85. Ed Gein only killed a few people

but was so warped and beyond the pale of even serial killer behavior that his story is one of the most disturbing of all. Decorating your house with female sexual organs dug up from graveyards is definetly a certain sign of a real ghoul

[caty]

8. A serial killer you never hear about

is H.H. Holmes, who had a building built in Chicago that took up an entire block. It was built with secret passage ways and hidden rooms to accommodate his killing spree and included a walk in safe, that he used to knock out his victims with gas, before he tortured and killed them.

" Psychopath H.H. Holmes murders scores of unsuspecting young women. In one of the first recorded cases of serial murder, Holmes establishes himself in Chicago, building a residence-hotel and using his charms to seduce his victims, many of whom are assistants in his pharmacy or residents in his hotel. When Holmes’ crimes are finally uncovered, people are sickened that such a monster could live in their midst, plucking victims from the many tourists drawn to the wonder of the World’s Fair."

All this took place in the late 1800's as the second world's fair was being built.
http://www.curledup.com/devilin.htm

[johnnie]

9. I have heard of him

They had a name for his building but I can't recall it offhand.

[Aristus]

24. "The Torture Castle" is what they called it.

H.H. Holmes real name was Herman Webster Mudgett.

I don't know why, but that name always struck me as being distinctly and specifically Nineteenth Century; You know what I mean? A name that could not have been bestowed on someone in any other century. Does that make sense?

[AngryAmish]

19. Devil in the White City is about this guy

Bestseller last year.

[flamingyouth]

29. That's a great book

And a very creepy serial killer story. :scared:

[dorktv]

30. He was mentioned in the Alienist by Caleb Carr who then had

his team of characters go after a repressed homosexual killer.

[CanuckAmok]

48. did you like that book?

I thought it was terrible, especially the "serial featurette" part where everybody had everybody else surrounded.

[fudge stripe cookays]

53. I LOVE that book!

I really enjoy novels where they manage to mix fiction with well-researched fact and let you feel like you are there.

FSC

[FizzFuzz]

64. Devil In the White City?

If I remember the name correctly. Great book.

[xultar]

106. Yup, this is who I was thinking of too! H. H. Holmes.

[flamingyouth]

10. For me - the original Night Stalker (not Richard Ramirez)

The guy who had been the East Area Rapist in Sacramento in the mid '70s then began killing in Southern California through the mid '80s.

Cold Case Files did a whole show on him and I have to say it scared the shit out of me.

Also, Bundy just because I grew up in Seattle, lived on Greek Row at the UW where he killed one of his victims and I remember so clearly when he killed those two women at Lake Sammamish State Park in 1974. :scared:

[johnnie]

16. Ramirez to me was one of the most pathetic

They all are in their own way, but he always came across to me as just an idiot. His whimpering and whining when the crowd caught him just shows what he was like.

Bundy is really one of the most interesting to me. I was sort of pissed when they put him to death because I think they could have learned a bit from him.

[flamingyouth]

21. Here's a website on the unsub original Night Stalker

http://www.geocities.com/verbal_plainfield/coldcases/originalnightstalker.html
:scared:

[johnnie]

28. Oh yeah...that one

I misread your first post.

I put a link to that guy you are talking about on the True Crime forum a while ago. There was a link to a phone call he made and just listening to it gave me shivers up my spine. I can't find the link now though.

He or they never got caught, that's what it frightening about it.

[flamingyouth]

33. Yeah - I posted about him when the group first started

That phone call - OMG - I still remember it. :yoiks:

He was so methodical and so "good" - I hope he's dead. The fact that he hasn't killed in almost 20 years must be good news, but both Gary Ridgway and Dennis Rader tooks "breaks" from killing as well.

[Awsi Dooger]

43. Here's the link to the phone call and his voice

Scroll near the bottom: http://www.ear-ons.com/investigate7.html

Incredible this guy is so relatively unknown. Not a single book I'm aware of, and very little mention even in true crime shows. The one A&E program, a segment on MSNBC and a segment very late on Unsolved Mysteries run are all I'm aware of. Yet his rapes and murders spanned at least a 10 year period throughout California and number perhaps in the 70s.

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

60. I think the interviewing of Bundy on the Green River case must have

formed the basis for the concept of Hannibal Lecter being a captive "consultant" in the Thomas Harris novels.

[Zuni]

88. Bundy and Ed Kemper probably the most intelligent

they were among the smartest of the american serial killers, far brighter than say, Gary Ridgeway "The Green River Killer".

Contrary to popular belief, most serials are not above average in IQ.

[ComerPerro]

12. Bush won't get many of these votes. There is nothing interesting about him

[johnnie]

14. Touche'

[cssmall]

20. Besides the fact that he could be exactly like Ted Bundy?

;) Yes, yes, I'm kidding.

[LostInAnomie]

25. Henry Lee Lucas

Killed his own mom, and if half his story can be believed he probably killed around 100 people randomly across the US.

Guess who commuted his death sentence... I'll give you a hint, he's our president now.

Albert Fish was pretty bad too.

[devilgrrl]

44. The Henry Lee Lucas story is the biggest scam ever!!!!!

http://henry-lee-lucas.biography.ms/

Bush is a worse serial killer than Lucas ever was.

[fudge stripe cookays]

54. At one point...

I was terrified I was related to Fish (My GGgranny was a Fish). Doing genealogy, I kept digging up yukky stuff.

But then I read somewhere that it was actually an assumed name of his, not the real thing. Phew!

FSC

[LostInAnomie]

58. Yeah he was a creepy mofo.

He used to stick rose stems up his pee-hole, and shove needles up his crotch.

They X-Rayed him once and found that he had something like 20 needles lodged in there permanently.

[JVS]

27. Gein

[Left Is Write]

36. I don't know if Ed Gein was classified as a serial killer.

He is only known to have killed two people (Mary Hogan and Bernice Worden); he got most of his "parts" by robbing graves. That doesn't mean he didn't kill more people, though, and he was suspected of having engineered the death of his own brother. I just don't know that he was classified as a serial killer. I suppose some view him that way and others don't.

The whole sad life of Ed Gein fascinates and depresses me. Both Buffalo Bill from "Silence of the Lambs" and Norman Bates were modeled after Gein.

[billyskank]

32. Interesting, you didn't put Dr Harold Shipman down

He may have killed more than 100 people.

[Monkey see Monkey Do]

51. more than that, per the inquiry

Harold Shipman killed at least 250 patients and may have begun his murderous career at the age of 25, within a year of finishing his medical training, a report revealed yesterday.

http://society.guardian.co.uk/nhsperformance/story/0,8150,1400696,00.html

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

67. I think Shipman is less compelling to a lot of people because of the

"quiet" nature of his crimes. Mostly shooting up morphine into old people who were sick in many instances. That's why he was able to get away with it so long, if his victims were all in their 40s he would've been raising some eyebrows way before he got to 100.

He's probably the most efficient killer of all, who wasn't a politician in charge of armies or bombs, but since there generally wasn't blood, stranglings, sexual assaults etc. in his killings they're less "spectacular" for the TV movie set.

[FunkyLeprechaun]

34. I kind of like forensic science

I like reading Crime Library

www.crimelibrary.com

it's like a Cliff's Notes of true crime if you can call it that.

[Left Is Write]

35. I remain fascinated most by unsolved murders...

so I'd have a hard time choosing between Jack The Ripper and The Zodiac. The Zodiac, being more contemporary, is a little scarier.

[ghostsofgiants]

37. I've always had a strong interest in the Zodiac...

And the fact that David Fincher is making a film about it is quite exciting.

[MellowOne]

39. My mother was almost a Ted Bundy victim

She lived in Salt Lake City in the mid-seventies. (Ted moved from Seattle to Salt Lake City) She had car trouble late one night, a tan volkswagen pulled up behind her to help. He said his name was Ted, told her to be careful because women were being killed and their bodies dumped in the canyons. (to cause fear) She finally got her car started but he followed her all the way home. She got in the house safely but he parked outside and waited for about ten minutes before driving off. She lived with her parents so she feels if she lived alone he probably would have attacked her.

She said he was very laid back and easy to talk with. She understood why all those girls trusted him cause he seemed just like a regular guy and he was attractive.

[radwriter0555]

41. Bundy is still my all time favorite... he was brilliant, cagey, so extreme

in his manipulation, that while the deeds were grotesque, his techniques were brilliant... just sheer brilliance.

He got caught because he wanted to. But until the very end he tormented his inquisitors, (John Douglas, especially) stringing out his prison life as long as possible by dangling little bits of bodies, stories and information. He was astounding until the very end.

Dalmer I felt genuinely sorry for. He actually killed and kept the boys for companionship. He meant no malice but was so twisted in his inabilities to have relationships that he resorted to murder. He sought his own death.

Wayne Williams, the alleged accused Atlanta Child murderer is a fascinating examination, because upon a close examination of the 'evidence' used to convict him, I don't believe he's guilty.

Another of my favorites is the Night Stalker, Richard Ramirez. Now that was one fucked up dude...

[NNadir]

49. I was afraid to open this thread.

I thought sooner or later someone was going to have a "favorite" serial killer.

[radwriter0555]

73. I spent far too much time studying criminal psychology as it relates to

serial crimes about a decade ago.

And the numbers of serial killers have drastically dropped thanks to modern technology.

With the databases all linked with DNA, patterns, clues, methods, et, etc,. serial criminals are now just caught far, far sooner, disrupting their previous patterns and lower the victim count.

The only truly outstanding case in the world that I know of at the moment is the Juarez MX ongoing string of murders of the hookers.

I suspect a white fellow from the US actually.

[fudge stripe cookays]

56. HOLY SHIT!

That's got to give her nightmares still.

Glad your mom is OK! God how scary was that.
FSC

[MellowOne]

93. She does

She didn't know who he was at the time. She realized it was him when he was arrested in Colorado and his picture appeared in the newspaper, his name was Ted Bundy and he drove a tan Volkswagen. She freaked. He was standing right at her car window just talking to her like a normal guy. If her car had not started, she would have gladly got in his car to ride to a phone booth. YIKES! She saw the movie about him and really freaked because she realized it could have been her.

[FizzFuzz]

61. HOLLLY Shit!

Woa!

[Deja Q]

40. Dahmer, I think... OTOH, without Ted Bundy we'd not have Al Bundy.

:rofl:

[KayLaw]

42. I chose Ted Bundy

I live in Florida and we were terrified before he was caught and fascinated by his trial. I started my own fear of serial killers when, as a young girl, read my mother's copy of The Boston Strangler.

To this day, I believe terrorists are nothing compared to serial killers.

[Baclava]

45. God - he kills everyone

doh

[Tikki]

46. Richard Speck, Charles Schmid,Angelo Buono and Kenneth Bianchi....

Schmid was known as "The Pied-Piper of Tucson" and Bianchi and Buono were "The Hillside Stranglers", I believe...



Tikki

[BigMcLargehuge]

47. H H Holmes (AKA Herman Mudgett)

the first recorded serial killer in the USA. Built "Holmes' Castle" outside chicago, rented room in the labryinthine structure to guests who wanted to visist the worlds fair, and gassed them in their sleep then sold their skeletons to medical school.

Did it too all his wives as well.

Very creeepy dude.

[CanuckAmok]

50. Bernardo is disqualified. I'm going to say the little-known Peewee Gaskins

Bernardo was certainly a serial rapist, but he "only" killed two people. I don't think that qualifies him for "serial killer" status.

Also, he didn't kill for pleasure; he killed to cover his tracks.

Donald "Pee Wee" Gaskins, on the other hand... there's a serial killer:

http://crime.about.com/od/serial/p/gaskins.htm

[mitchum]

82. Gaskins also gets my vote...

I tried and tried to talk my friend with a fanzine into having Peewee do record reviews (Gaskins was only a mile away from us while on death row) No luck.
Gaskins' "Final Truth" is absolutely chilling (and that is coming from someone who has read and dealt in thousands of true crime books)

[DanCa]

52. Charlie Manson cmon almost a beach boy almost a monkee and like gwb

god told him too kill people too.

[FizzFuzz]

55. Charles Ng, and...oh, can't remember the name....

maybe I will check that forum. True crime (psychological especially) is one of my favorite guilty-pleasures reading

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

62. Leonard Lake. Some F'ed up dudes for sure...

http://www.crimelibrary.com/serial_killers/predators/ng/call_1.html

[FizzFuzz]

66. oh yeah, that's right

psychopathy has got to be the freakiest thing ever. Just inconcievable.

[fleabert]

65. oooh, just watched something on them also...

cree-eeee-peee!

that is some scary shit, keeping women as slaves. sick bastards.

[FizzFuzz]

68. yeah, no words for it

I said this upthread-->psychopathy is just so unfathomable. Can't even think of any thing else to say about it. Its. Just. Unfathomable.

[fleabert]

69. yup.

I have moments when I think 'could I be crazy?', but dude, THAT is fucking C R A Z Y. It really is unfathomable the horrors truly crazy humans can do to their fellow man.

[FizzFuzz]

72. mmm hmmmm

I went through a period years ago that was seriously rough---time to face down a shitload of old baggage. Reading true crime was one of my escapes, and I used to reassure myself that at least I wasn't THAT destroyed. I was a mess, but I wasn't evil!

[DanCa]

70. Son of sam the guy who talked to who is dog, and if you scramble

dog it's god.

[DanCa]

71. self delete

[Jamastiene]

74. Jeffery Dahmer, gulp, fascinated me.

Ahem, confession time here. One thing I heard about his reasoning for killing his victims really made me relate to him in some way. I am a lesbian, so cannabalism to me is best enjoyed whilst the person is alive. That's not it. The thing I saw somewhere was that he killed them because he didn't want them to go away. Why he ate them after killing them is the puzzle to me though. I've never had that sort of cannabalistic urge (like I said in a conventional sense, anyhow), but I sure understood the concept of not wanting them to go away.

[Blue_Tires]

75. i don't remember his name

but a college friend of mine did a paper on this russian serial killer who was known as one of the world's worst (something like 120 murders)...she practically idolized him

[fudge stripe cookays]

79. Chikatilo

There's a book and movie about him called "Citizen X."

It was even harder for them to catch him because the Soviet Union was so concerned about its reputation, and the fact that serial killers "were a product of western society."

It was very difficult for the Russians to admit they HAD a serial killer, let alone catch him.

And for most of the victims, the authorities noted that they drank and had "unruly " sex lives or somesuch so they could dismiss them as not being as important. Some of the women were alcoholics. One of the little boys was only like 11 years old.

Most of these happened near Rostov-on-Don.

[GirlinContempt]

77. Definition of a serial killer

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_killer#Defining_serial_murder
just in case anyone was unclear

[HEyHEY]

78. Sadly, when it's all said and done....Willy Pickton will be up there

He's the guy from Vancouver. Killed upwards of 35 hookers taken from teh Downtown eastide of Vancouver. He owned a pigfarm, do the math. His case is in court now.

Sick fuck. The worst part is no-one cared because the girls were not "respectable" there's even a terrible quote from a Vancouver city councillor that the police were not to blame because, "The kind of women that went missing didn't have family and things like that."
Yes, she was ousted the next election.

[CanuckAmok]

107. one of my old tenants is on that case.

She's Richmond RCMP. She's a vegetarian now, because of the details of the case.

[WCGreen]

80. One step closer, and the Cheerio's get it....

Oh that kind of serial killer...

I voted Jack....

Ya gotta admit it, the guy who tops them all...

And don't forget the Torso Killer here in good old Cleveland land...

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

83. The Cleveland Torso Killer gets a nod just for having the best name ever.

Just seems like it was made for a 70's drive in horror movie. I don't even know any of the details of the story, will have to look it up on crimelibrary.com sometime.

[fudge stripe cookays]

87. Happened in the 1920s or 1930s...

I think Elliott Ness was involved in the search for the guy.

FSC

[WCGreen]

95. It proved to be the beginning of a downward spiral of Elliot Ness....

After his days in Chicago, he was hired to be the Safety Director for Cleveland...

He became obsessed with finding out the murderer, but never did....

He then ran for Mayor and was trounced because he never solved the crime spree.....

I think five in all....

They thought it was the son of a prominent family who was studying to be doctor and end up loosing his mind somewhere along the way...

[johnnie]

96. That is still interesting

That case ended Elliot Ness' career. I have a few books that are all about Cleveland's crimes. There were some really wild things that happened here.

[JanMichael]

81. There is someone on DU that went to law school with Bundy

That seriously creeped me out; I was glad when he was finally gone. For some reason I am opposed to the death penalty...except for him.

Stephanie

[fudge stripe cookays]

89. That's the way I felt...

about Kenneth MacDuff.

Killed some people back in the 1960s. They paroled him in the late 80s/early 90s, and the first thing he did was kill a bunch more people.

One of the women, Colleen Reed was abducted from a car wash in Austin. My boyfriend's roommate's mother was her best friend. They were frantic.

I don't think he ever told anyone where he buried her. It was up around Belton/Temple somewhere. But that guy was just innately evil. I was glad they fried him; and it's people like him who keep me from being completely anti-death penalty.

FSC

[Zuni]

86. Albert Fish

child murderer, cannibal, necrophile and all around ghoul. His story is one of the most disturbing things I have ever read

http://www.crimelibrary.com/serial_killers/notorious/fish/index.html

[njdemocrat106]

103. I was about to mention him. This man was beyond sick and demented

Besides what was mentioned, I believe he partook in coprophagy, as well. (If you don't know what coprophagy is, trust me, it's disgusting).

[bettyellen]

90. nobody mentioned Son of Sam??? WTF?

he terrorized NYC for what - 2 years maybe? i know he turned out to seem like a pudgy little schmuck- and his crimes didn't have the kinky sexual violence thing going- but he did get some headlines with his taunting letters.

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

92. Son of Sam is probably up there for peak media/public awareness,

at the height of his spree, up there with Jack the Ripper and Ramirez...

[bettyellen]

94. he chased my aunt in a cemetary at dawn once....

it was after a snowstorm, at dawn at st raymonds cemetary in the Bronx...he was standing over donna lauria's grave and laughing to himself. (my cousin was buried a few rows away and everyone knew exactly where the son of sam's victim was).
my aunt looked freaked out and he caught that. she ran to her car and took off, he had broken into a trot to follow her. she knew it had to be him. sure enough, it was.

[johnnie]

97. I was surprise too

I thought about him after i posted this, but I thought for sure someone would bring him up. There are still some who think he wasn't the only killer.

[newportdadde]

98. What about a serial killer who hunts serial killers?

I always wondered if someone ever did this, what would be more of an interesting challenge then to find and hunt down serial murders.

[johnnie]

99. Whoa

That messed my mind.

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

101. Kind of a profiler vigilante? Or someone a lot sicker?

Would the goal be to bring someone to justice where the law fails, or someone who wants to outdo the killer's last kill by killing them and show them up, purely for the satisfaction of their own psychotic ego? Sounds like the makings of a movie to me.

[CanuckAmok]

104. That's the premise of "Suspect Zero", with Ben Kingsley

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0324127/

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

100. John Wayne Gacy is the most horrifying to me - among all these sickos

I think the clown schtick that he did at children's parties and the 30 some odd men and boys he buried in the crawlspace or under the floorboards of his home make him the most repulsive and grotesque of the lot.

[no name no slogan]

102. Ed Gein

That was one crazy, scary motherfucker. He was one of the "inspirations" for the Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

[johnnie]

105. Ok

104 responses to this thread, we need this over at the True Crime forum. Get your butts over there.