35 Serial Killers the World Wants to Forget
The official definition of a serial killer is someone who kills three or more people. But do they have more in common than just a statistic? The series looks deeply into contemporary serial killers, to the most meticulous killer of modern times, Sacramento's Dorothea Puente, the owner of the 'House of Horrors'. Then there are the educated killers, like Dr Harold Shipman, who is thought to have killed nearly 300 people who were his patients and Ted Kaczynski, the Unabomber, who held a PhD in Mathematics. At the other end of the scale, Los Angeles serial killer Lonnie Franklin was organised but not smart, his reign of murder led to the deaths of so many disadvantaged women.
Episodes
The Hillside Stranglers, tortured and murdered women before dumping their bodies around the Los Angeles hillsides. No one was off limits to Richard Ramirez, the Night Stalker's, rapes, assaults and murders around California. paranoid schizophrenia Peter Sutcliffe, the Yorkshire Ripper, committed sexual homicide against women in the north of England.
Chester Turner, according to LAPD, is the most prolific serial killer in the history of Los Angeles. Joanna Dennehy became only the third woman in UK history to be jailed forever without parole for her brutal murders of three men. In Sydney, the most vulnerable of residents were at risk from the "Granny Killer".
Fostering an image as a kindly medical professional, Dr Shipman had for years cunningly disguised his addiction to drugs and killing his patients. Dorothea Puente appeared to be a mild care home manager. So when police detective John Cabrera knocked on her door it was for information and not the haul of bodies he would eventually find.
Between 1986 and 1987, the bodies of missing young women were dug up around Sacramento,California. The locations all shared a trait: handyman Maurice Solomon Jr had either worked or lived there. For 13 months, violent ex-con Mark Goudeau murdered, kidnapped, sexually assaulted and robbed around Baseline Road in Phoenix, Arizona.
Richard Chase was labelled the Vampire of Sacramento by police. He had a lust for blood whose depravity would include rape, murder, mutilation, cannibalism and necrophilia. Roger and Verna Stafford were armed robbers responsible for what would be the worst killings in the State of Oklahoma for nearly 20 years.
Army veteran and ex-police officer, Dennis Nilsen asphyxiated young men, stored their bodies before dismembering them. Rodney Alcala was a sadistic rapist and serial killer who had murdered 4 women by the time he appeared on the popular television show, the Dating Game. Thrill Killer J R Chavez terrorised Dallas, shooting dead 5 people in one night.
With his IQ of 155, Michael Bruce Ross desire for power and control would lead to the violent murder of eight young women and teenagers, seven of them sexually assaulted before, during or after they were killed. Michael Ross' immediate admission to several murders was only part of his story. Prompted by criminologist Christopher Berry-Dee, he spilled the final details with alarming candour, allowing police to uncover the full extent of his serial killing. Detectives closed in on Phoenix Serial Shooters, Dale Hausner and Samuel Dieteman, who were vying for airtime ...
Gerald Gallego and Charlene Williams were a toxic mix that led to the rape, bludgeoning and murder of 10 people in just over two 2 years. During LA's crack epidemic, there were few clues to hint that neighbourhood 'go-to-guy', Lonnie Franklin would be 'The Grim Sleeper' who raped and murdered women over three decades.
The hand written list of 61 initials found in Randy Kraft's car was in fact a scorecard of men he had murdered. For over a decade, Kraft hunted young men, drugging them with his charm, alcohol and pills. What followed were shockingly sadistic acts of torture, sodomy then murder. Eric Royce Leonard took his father's pistol and shot dead 3 people at a convenience store with apparently no motive. Seven days later he shot dead another 3 people at a pizza parlour. Detective Ray Biondi recounts the hunt to capture him. The lethal combination of Douglas Clark and Carol Bundy...
The Bittaker and Norris case that lawyer Stephen Kay prosecuted in 1981 was the worst murder case he ever handled owing to the brutality against the five teenage victims. The sadistic pair, who abducted young women from the street and tortured in their van, used pliers, a sledgehammer and ice picks to slowly murder their victims - while recording their screams. During one London winter, a small studio flat belonging to Anthony Hardy, a sexually dysfunctional sadist, turned into a slaughter house. Hardy was obsessed with controlling women, starting with his wife who he...
In a three month spree, 5 women were slain and mutilated on the impoverished streets of London. An inexperienced police force were hunting for the world's first serial killer. Just as news of 'Jack the Ripper' travelled the world, so did investigators' prime suspect: conman Frederick Deeming who had already slaughtered two of his wives and four children. Those invited into the Manson Family cult were easy-pickings for its leader, Charles Manson. The Family, inspired by Manson, murdered nine people. Manson claimed to have been wrongly convicted, arguing he had played ...
Roger Kibbe roamed California's major freeway in his urge to rape and strangle unsuspecting young women. A London Summer was stained when murderer and necrophiliac, Kenneth Erskine preyed on the city's elderly. Cannibal, Jeffrey Dahmer strangled, dismembered and ate 17 boys and men, before serving them to guests.
Two cities either side of the globe lost their innocence after the harrowing crimes of serial killers. Myra Hindley actively sought children for her sadistic paedophile boyfriend, Ian Brady. The couple tortured and murdered five children, burying four of them among the Saddleworth Moors outside of Manchester. But when the depraved cruelty of their crimes were revealed in an audio recording, their actions outraged a city and a nation. During the steaming hot summers of the sleepy Australian coastal city of Perth, the unpredictable and opportunistic Eric Edgar Cook ...
