There is no defending the actions of murderers.They are deranged and disturbed individuals who take the life of others in cold blood. Serial Killers are the worst of the lot. As it is said, the path of infamy is paved with blood.
Today we will take a look at those chilling real-life serial killers who are the inspiration behind many blockbuster horror and thriller films.
This article can surely make you skeptical about the jolly next-door-neighbor you thought you knew so well, but it sure will open your eyes to the cryptic minds some people are carrying around!
Aileen Wuornos: The Monster
She was one of the very few female serial killers who became infamous because of the 7 terrible murders that she committed.
She was being abused and neglected from an early childhood. She had an incestuous relationship with her brother. She conceived a baby at the age of 14 after being raped by her grandfathers’ friend, so it’s safe to say, Ailleen had one hell of a life.
In order to support herself, she eventually became a prostitute only to begin killing her clients in 1989. Even though she claimed all of the clients she murdered tried to harm her, this statement is doubted by many.
She was finally convicted of 7 murders in 1993 and was executed by lethal injection nine years later in 2002.
A year later, in 2003, Aileens’ life story was made into a movie for the silver screen with the beautiful Charlize Theron playing the role of Aileen, the monster; for which she received an Academy award for best actress.
The Zodiac Killer: The Ever Unsolved Mystery
The zodiac killer was active in northern California between December 1968 and October 1969. The zodiac killer claimed to have murdered 37 people between the ages of 16 and 29 by stabbing and gunning.
He adopted the incognito Zodiac but his real identity was undetermined. He wrote several taunting letters including four cryptograms to the press and police challenging them to catch him. Of the four cryptograms he sent, only one had been definitely solved.
Several suspects were named and investigated in the last 39 years but the case is still open and the identity of zodiac killer remains a mystery.
The most prominent suspect in this case was Arthur Leigh Allen who died of kidney failure in 1992. Many films and serials have been made on his story among which the 2007 crime thriller made by acclaimed director David Fincher is the most famous one.
Jeffrey Dahmer: The Milwaukee Cannibal
With his hazel deep eyes and well-dressed appearance, young Jeffrey Dahmer would give you nothing but a boy-next-door vibe. But behind that mask of good boy, there was hiding a monstrous creature.
Jeffrey was first known as a registered sex offender to the police. However the murders began in 1978. Supposedly gay, Jeffrey would often pick up his male victims from gay bars and lead them to his appartment where he would then rape them, drug them, kill them, dismember them and often even eat and play with their body parts.
When his final would-be victim managed to escape in 1992, police found dismembered human body parts and skeletons and evidences of Jeffreys’ heinous tortures on his victims in his apartment.
He was convicted with 17 deranged murders and was sentenced to 16 life terms but was beaten to death by his fellow inmate in the jail in 1994.
Dennis Rader: The BTK killer
The most blood curling story of a serial killer who was distorted enough to not only killing his victims in the most demonic way but also to send notes about the whole killing process to police and media outlets.
Between 1974 and 1991, Dennis Rader killed at least ten people at the Wichita Kansas metro area. He sent letters to the police under the incognito BTK which stood for “Bind, Torture, Kill” taunting them for not catching him. According to his letters, he used to bind his victims, strangle them to faint only to let them wake up and repeat the near death experience and getting sexual gratification from it. He would eventually strangle them to death and then masturbate with their body parts. His last known murder was in 1991; eventually the case went cold with no probable suspect.
Disappearing in 1991, he re-emerged after almost 15 years later, in 2005. But as it seemed, the decent job holder, cold-blooded serial killer Dennis lost his touch and made some mistakes which turned him in to the police.
He sent a floppy disk to the press which was then traced and he was convicted. He is still serving in jail a life sentence without any possibility of parole.
Moses Sithole: The ABC Murders
Moses Sithole is seen as the most infamous serial killer of South Africa. He is known as the ABC murders since his murders began in a town starting with A, Atteridgeville, then moved to Bolksburg and finally Cleveland.
He would lead victims into abandoned fields under false pretenses and overpower them, usually by trying to rape them and subsequently kill them. After he was captured in 1995, Sithole was found guilty of 38 murders and 40 rapes.
In his conviction in 1997, his sentence was set to more than 2000 years with a possible parole in just under a 1000 years.
Ted Bundy: The Lady Killer
A countdown of the most infamous serial killers and it won’t have Ted Bundy- that is impossible.
The friendly handsome law student, Ted used his good looks and charming nature to lure ladies, often impersonating some authoritative figure. Sometimes his psychopathic impulses would get so strong that he would just sneak inside the houses of random people only to stab them in their sleep, rape them and cut off their heads and body parts as souvenir.
Ted was the most infamous in history of criminals. His modus operandi included kidnapping, burglary, rape, necrophilia- you name it!
Finally after he was caught in 1979, he confessed, blaming prolonged habits of watching pornography for his distorted mentality, that he had killed at least 30 women while many believe the number to be much higher.
Ten years later, in 1989 he was executed by the electric chair.
Ed Gein: The Plainfield Ghoul
Here comes the most notorious and most prolific serial killer of all time who also happened to have inspired the creation of many hollywood blockbuster horror films ranging from Silence of the Lambs to The Texas Chainsaw Massacre to Psycho.
A Wisconsin native, Geine grew up with a deep attachment to his abusive mother. Effeminate Geine idolized his mother and eventually decided that he wanted to be like her.
While he was charged for gruesome murders of only 3 women, he was a psychopath possessing many eerie things who robbed graves and raised corpses to peel their skin off and to make women suits, clothes and other household items with them.
Geine spent most of his later life in mental asylums and psychiatric hospitals and eventually died of cancer in 1984 in one such mental institute.
Andrei Chikatilo: The Butcher of Rostov
One of the most deranged serial killers of all time, Andrei Chikatilo from Russia was someone you could tell is a cold-blooded psychopath by merely looking at his face. But his looks were not the only thing to judge him for; given he had this weird fetish that he could only achieve orgasm through killing women.
Between the years 1978 and 1990, Chikatilo assaulted, murdered and mutilated over 50 young women and children. His first victim was a nine year old girl who also made him known of his eerie fetish. He had been in and out of jail but due to the lack of enough evidence it was hard to put him away for good.
But finally, in 1990, a well-orchestrated group of police caught him under severe surveillance and charged him with killing 53 women and children. Later he was convicted of 52 murders in 1992. Two years later he was executed by a single gunshot wound behind the right ear.
John Wayne Gacy: The Killer Clown
John Wayne Gacy was the reason we are afraid of jokers today. He was a popular political and local figure of his time. A family man, Gacy had a profession of playing Pogo the clown at local childrens’ parties in Chicago Illinois.
Even though earlier in his life he was arrested once for sexually assaulting boys but later was released after just 18 month due to his good behavior. Once released from jail in 1972, he began the murders and during the six years before finally getting caught in 1978, he murdered an astounding 33 young men. He would usually lure teenage young boys to his home, torture, rape, sodomize, kill and then bury them in his crawlspace.
Gacy confessed and was executed by lethal injection in 1994.
Pedro Rodrigues Filho: The Cannibal Who Ate His Own Fathers’ Heart
Now this guys’ story is intense and shocking. Pedro comes from a background of terrible violence which later shaped his infamous career as a serial killer.
Before Pedro was even born his father beat his pregnant mother, causing the fetus a head injury and by the time he turned 18 years of age, he had already killed 10 people. Then he killed his father and ate some pieces of his heart before he was sent to prison where he killed at least 70 people.
Because his home country, Brazil has a maximum sentence rule, Pedro was released and is still around to this day!
Although Pedro Filho, a medically diagnosed psychopath, had no remorse for whatsoever he had done before and even boasted for killing the criminals in the period of his imprisonment, as of late he says that he is sorry for his diabolic crimes and wants to make amends by uploading videos on his youtube channel admonishing young people away from crime! He has even converted to Christianity and is writing an autobiography!
Conclusion
From funny clown killers sodomizing small children to death to the psychopaths who killed his own father and ate his heart, human history has seen almost every face of brutality.
And from an American Ted Bundy to African Moses Sithole, they beat the boundary of place.
As Aileen wuornos said, “we all are evil, one way or the other” there are some among us who are more evil than the others.