Tonight's bedtime story is about Gerald Stano, a serial killer with an attitude.
Born in Daytona Beach in 1951, Gerald tallied a body count of 41 as a result of his deep resentment towards a world of "bitches." A former short order cook, this misogynist killer truly enjoyed the act of killing. He did it with glee and impunity. His decade-long crime spree began in 1969 and spanned across three states -- Florida, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. His victims of choice were generally prostitutes, runaways and hitchhiking teen agers.
Unlike most other serial killers, he never raped his victims -- instead he submitted them to slow, painful deaths. As one of the investigating officers pointed out, "He thinks about three things: stereo systems, cars, and killing women." Stano was arrested 1978 and charged with the December, 1973, murder of Cathy Lee Scharf, a 17-year-old hitchhiker from Port Orange, Florida.
Stano confessed picking up the teen ager while she was hitchhiking on U.S. 1 in Port Orange and choking her repeatedly over several hours. After finally killing the girl, he dumped her body in a drainage ditch, cleaned up and went roller skating. Hunters found her decomposed body at the Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge near Titusville on January 19, 1974.
In 1983 Stano was convicted and sentenced to Old Sparky, Florida's temperamental, three-legged electric chair. He also was condemned for the murders of Susan Bickrest, 24, and Cathy Muldoon, 23, in Volusia County. He got life sentences for six other slayings. After 25 years of appeals, Gerald was executed at 7:00 AM, March 23, 1998. For his last meal, Stano ordered a Delmonico steak, baked potato with sour cream and bacon bits, some French bread with butter and a tossed salad topped with blue cheese dressing. He finished the meal with half gallon of mint chocolate chip ice cream and two liters of Dr. Pepper.
Stano was the first death row inmate to die in Florida's 75-year-old, oak chair since the March 25, 1997 flaming execution of Pedro Medina. After a foot-long flame leaped from the head of Medina -- the second malfunction by the chair within seven years -- State authorities imposed a one-year moratorium on electrocutions. Investigators eventually determined the malfunction was caused by the executioners' failure to properly apply electrically conducting sponges in the chair's headpiece. With a heavily backed-up execution schedule and coming elections, the state's Senate voted unanimously to reinstate electrocution and scheduled four within an eight-day period.
The first on the block was Stano. The unrepentant killer made no final statement and stared straight ahead as he was strapped in. Following his death -- which, unlike in previous executions, no smoke or flames came shooting out of his head -- his attorneys distributed a written statement in which he thanked his friends and supporters: "Know that I love you all and cherish your love. Thanks for staying with me when people ridiculed you... I am innocent."
Sweet dreams, and may you forever remain Crazy 4 Crazies.
Monday, December 1, 2008
Saturday, November 1, 2008
Serial Killer Bedtime Stories: Ahmad Suradji
Which doctor is the witch doctor? Ahmad Suradji, star of tonight's serial killer bedtime story.
On May 2, 1997, authorities arrested self-described Indonesian witch doctor Ahmad Suradji after three bodies were found buried in a sugarcane plantation near his home on the outskirts of Medan, the capital of North Sumatra.
Ahmad, also known as Nasib Kelewang or Datuk Maringgi, initially confessed to killing 16 women over a five-year period. A search of Ahmad's property revealed clothes and watches belonging to 25 missing women. Under further questioning the 48-year-old cattle breeder increased the body count of his 11-year rampage to 42. Ahmad's three wives, all sisters, were also arrested for helping him commit the murders and hide the corpses. The oldest wife, Tumini, was tried as his accomplice in his 11-year rampage.
The sorcerer was revered by locals who believed he had paranormal powers, and often asked him for medical and spiritual advice. Many women would hire him to cast magic spells to ensure the faithfulness of their husbands or boyfriends. Neighbors said that many women sought the sorcerer's help believing they would make themselves richer, healthier and more sexually attractive to men. Police believe the victims -- whose ages ranged from 11 to 30 -- may have been too embarrassed to tell their families of their seeking the sorcerer's help so their disappearances were not linked to him. A large amount of them were also prostitutes.
After charging each victim $200 to $400, he would take them to a sugarcane plantation near his home and bury them in the ground up to their waist as part of a ritual. Once in the ground he strangled each woman with electrical cable. Then he drank their saliva, undressed their corpses and reburied them with their heads pointing to his home so to enhance his magical powers. Suradji told police that nine years ago he had a dream in which the ghost of his father told him to kill 70 women and drink their saliva so he could become a dukan, or mystic healer, he said.
The sorcerer was said to be widely respected in his village. Neighbors said he was often willing to help sick villagers and contribute to charitable causes. Nasib, who led police to the bodies in the field next to his home, told officers he needed to kill up to 70 women to gain supernatural powers. Now that the unearthing of 40 corpses testifies to Nasib's true mania, police have asked local residents to report any more missing women and children. About 80 families in the area have reported female relatives missing, leading to fears that more bodies could be uncovered.
During their trials both Suradji and Tumini denied the slayings, saying they confessed because they could no longer bear torture by interrogators. On April 27, 1998, an Indonesian court in North Sumatra found the sorcerer guilty of Indonesia's worst killing spree. As the last of the 42 bodies was being unearthed, the deadly sorcerer was sentenced to death by firing squad.
Sweet dreams, and may you forever remain Crazy 4 Crazies.
On May 2, 1997, authorities arrested self-described Indonesian witch doctor Ahmad Suradji after three bodies were found buried in a sugarcane plantation near his home on the outskirts of Medan, the capital of North Sumatra.
Ahmad, also known as Nasib Kelewang or Datuk Maringgi, initially confessed to killing 16 women over a five-year period. A search of Ahmad's property revealed clothes and watches belonging to 25 missing women. Under further questioning the 48-year-old cattle breeder increased the body count of his 11-year rampage to 42. Ahmad's three wives, all sisters, were also arrested for helping him commit the murders and hide the corpses. The oldest wife, Tumini, was tried as his accomplice in his 11-year rampage.
The sorcerer was revered by locals who believed he had paranormal powers, and often asked him for medical and spiritual advice. Many women would hire him to cast magic spells to ensure the faithfulness of their husbands or boyfriends. Neighbors said that many women sought the sorcerer's help believing they would make themselves richer, healthier and more sexually attractive to men. Police believe the victims -- whose ages ranged from 11 to 30 -- may have been too embarrassed to tell their families of their seeking the sorcerer's help so their disappearances were not linked to him. A large amount of them were also prostitutes.
After charging each victim $200 to $400, he would take them to a sugarcane plantation near his home and bury them in the ground up to their waist as part of a ritual. Once in the ground he strangled each woman with electrical cable. Then he drank their saliva, undressed their corpses and reburied them with their heads pointing to his home so to enhance his magical powers. Suradji told police that nine years ago he had a dream in which the ghost of his father told him to kill 70 women and drink their saliva so he could become a dukan, or mystic healer, he said.
The sorcerer was said to be widely respected in his village. Neighbors said he was often willing to help sick villagers and contribute to charitable causes. Nasib, who led police to the bodies in the field next to his home, told officers he needed to kill up to 70 women to gain supernatural powers. Now that the unearthing of 40 corpses testifies to Nasib's true mania, police have asked local residents to report any more missing women and children. About 80 families in the area have reported female relatives missing, leading to fears that more bodies could be uncovered.
During their trials both Suradji and Tumini denied the slayings, saying they confessed because they could no longer bear torture by interrogators. On April 27, 1998, an Indonesian court in North Sumatra found the sorcerer guilty of Indonesia's worst killing spree. As the last of the 42 bodies was being unearthed, the deadly sorcerer was sentenced to death by firing squad.
Sweet dreams, and may you forever remain Crazy 4 Crazies.
Wednesday, October 1, 2008
Serial Killer Bedtime Stories: Anatoly Onoprienko
Tonight's serial killer bedtime story about Anatoly Onoprienko is a bit of an epic, but we didn't want to leave out any of the good stuff.
On April 16, 1996, police arrested Anatoly Onoprienko, a 37-year-old former forestry student, sailor and mental hospital outpatient, putting an end to the Ukraine's worst killing spree. Anatoly, a native of Zhitomir, was arrested at his girlfriend's house where he had a 12-gauge shotgun matching the one used in the 40 murders. He also had jewelry and video equipment belonging to some of his victims. While in custody Comrade O. immediately confessed to eight killings between 1989 to 1995. At first he denied other charges, but soon admitted to being the maniac dubbed, "The Terminator" who tallied up to 52 victims in a six-year killing spree.
Onoprienko's rampage began in 1989, when he and accomplice Serhiy Rogozin robbed and killed nine people. The former sailor resumed the killings in late 1995, murdering 43 people in less than six months before police arrested him in April 1996.
On March, 1996, a manhunt was launched across western Ukraine after eight families were brutally murdered in their homes. Most of the victims were in remote villages in the Lvov region near the border of Poland. His blood lust climaxed with a three-month rampage in which he killed more than 40 people in the Ukrainian villages of Bratkovichi and Busk. Panic was so widespread in the two villages that an army division was mobilized and armed personnel carriers patrolled the streets. Trying to put a stop to the killings, police imposed a security cordon around Bratkovichi. Undaunted, "The Terminator" moved to nearby villages where he continued his serial killings.
The killings followed a set pattern. "The Terminator" chose isolated houses in the outskirts of villages. He would enter the houses before dawn, round up the family and shoot them all -- including children -- close range with a 12-gauge shotgun. Then he would torch the place and kill whoever crossed his path during his murderous outbursts. He often stole valuables from his victims and sometimes scattered family photographs about the floor. Police arrested Citizen O. in his girlfriend's apartment in April, 1996, after a nationwide manhunt.
On November 23, 1998, the trial of Nasty O. began in the city of Zhytomyr, 90 miles west of Kiev. The accused claimed he felt like a robot driven for years by a dark force, and argued he should not be tried until authorities determine the source of this force. A former forestry student, sailor and soldier, Mr. O claimed his mother died when he was four and his father and brother gave him to an orphanage at seven, and that he had heard voices telling him to do the murders. Dressed in running shoes, an oversized jacket, a knitted hat, and handcuffs, Onoprienko sat calmly inside an iron cage surrounded by police exuding arrogance and boredom.
Hundreds of people huddled in coats and fur hats in the unheated courtroom were angered by his behavior. "Let us tear him apart," shouted a pensioner at the back of the court just before the hearing started, her voice trembling with emotion. "He does not deserve to be shot. He needs to die a slow and agonizing death."
In previous interviews Nasty O has rambled endlessly about the CIA and Interpol, unknown powers and future revelations. Psychiatrists, however, ruled him fit to stand trial. "I perceive it all as a kind of experiment," he said. "There can be no answer in this experiment to what you're trying to learn."
Sitting in his cell the Ukranian serial killer that came to be known as the Terminator told Reuters and a regional newspaper: "I have never regretted anything and I don't regret anything now." In the bizarre and emotional hour-long interview he added that cosmic forces planned to destroy humanity and replace it with "bio-robots." With the guards sitting in a row on a green couch just a foot away, Onoprienko looked his interviewers in the eye and spoke in an intense, rapid voice, at times almost fierce, of his early discovery of special telepathic powers.
Claiming hypnotic powers and saying he had information "nobody, not even the president" had access to, he said he had received "permission" to kill, but did not explain what drove him to destroy his victims. "I love all people and I loved those I killed. I looked those children I murdered in the eyes and knew that it had to be done," he said. "For you it's 52 murders, but for me that's the norm." He said he would have been prepared to kill his own son.
While in court, he had very little to say. Asked if he would like to make a statement he shrugged his shoulders, slowly sauntered to the microphone and said: "No, nothing." Informed of his legal right to object to the court's proceedings, he growled: "This is your law, I consider myself a hostage." Asked to state his nationality, he said: "None." When Judge Dmitry Lipsky said this was impossible, Onoprienko rolled his eyes and replied: "Well, according to law enforcement officers, I'm Ukrainian."
Though Onoprienko has remained completely silent during court hearings, when it comes to the media he's a veritable gadfly. The daily Fakty newspaper published a long interview with Citizen O from his jail cell in the central town of Zhytomyr in which the 39-year-old terminator was quoted as saying: "Naturally, I would prefer the death penalty. I have absolutely no interest in relations with people. I have betrayed them." The misunderstood killer added that he was shaken by people's indifference to his crimes. As he slaughtered his victims in one village, "people screamed so loudly that they could be heard in neighboring villages. But nobody came to help them. Everybody went into hiding, like mice."
On February 12, 1999, a Ukrainian court ruled that Anatoli Onoprienko was mentally competent and could be held responsible for his crimes. The regional court in Zhytomyr said that Onoprienko "does not suffer any psychiatric diseases, is conscious of and is in control of the actions he commits, and does not require any extra psychiatric examination." With the latest psychiatric examination showing Onoprienko mentally healthy, he will most likely be convicted and sentenced to death. But he will not be executed because Ukraine has pledged as a member of the Council of Europe to suspend capital punishment and eventually ban it.
Dressed in the same track suit and drab duffel coat he has worn throughout the more than three months of hearings, Anatoly Onoprienko, 39, sat impassively in a metal cage at the front of the provincial courtroom and refused to speak at the end of his trial. Onoprienko's co-defendant Sergei Rogozin, accused of helping in the first nine murders, did speak and proclaimed his innocence.
But while the start of the trial attracted hordes of angry spectators, prosecutor Yuri Ignatenko made his demand for the death sentence on March 3, 199, before a practically empty chamber. And the half-filled court consisted mainly of other judges attached to the court and their staff, whose main emotion was relief at the end of the ordeal. "Thank goodness that's over!" said a secretary leaving the hearing.
"My defendant was from the age of four deprived of motherly love, and the absence of care which is necessary for the formation of a real man," Onoprienko's lawyer Russian Moshkovsky told the court. Ignatenko said an examination of Onoprienko's mental health during the investigation had overturned an independent diagnosis of schizophrenia made before his arrest, and a further test ordered by the court confirmed his current mental health.
"Onoprienko's statements about mental seizures, being spied on, voices, and the influence of higher powers...are a simulation of mental illness and a reaction to the situation he is in," Ignatenko said. The prosecutor added that O's motives lay in his own violent nature, unchecked due to what he said was the incompetence of the police force. "In every society there have been and are people who due to their innate natures can kill, and there are those who will never do that," he added.
Two weeks after sentencing, Nasty O. granted an interview to Mark Franchetti, a writer for the London Times: It took the Ukrainian guard a full two minutes to unlock the heavy metal door to Anatoly Onoprienko's small cell. Even the toughest guards on death row at the 19th-century prison in Zhitomir, 80 miles west of Kiev, are wary of Onoprienko and take no risks. Peering through a narrow opening in the door, one of them shouted at him to stand up and face the wall with his hands behind his back.
Anatoly Ivanuik, the prison's deputy governor, searched the outer corridor meticulously before giving the order for the last bolt to be released. Slowly the door opened. Onoprienko, who once proposed to his girlfriend with a ring he had chopped from the finger of one of his victims a few hours earlier, was ready to grant an audience.
Three years after his arrest, following the largest manhunt ever mounted in Ukraine, Onoprienko showed no remorse as he described wiping out entire families in cold blood, battering children and raping a woman after shooting her in the face. Still defiant, Citizen O takes pride in what he calls the "professionalism" of his crimes. Clearly relishing his notoriety, he often stared at me, trying to make me avert my eyes while insisting that he was a good-natured person and a sensitive music-lover.
"The first time I killed, I shot down a deer in the woods," he said, in a flat monotone, as if reading from his curriculum vitae. "I was in my early twenties and I recall feeling very upset when I saw it dead. I couldn't explain why I had done it, and I felt sorry for it. I never had that feeling again."
"To me killing people is like ripping up a duvet," he said, his piercing blue eyes fixed on mine. "Men, women, old people, children, they are all the same. I have never felt sorry for those I killed. No love, no hatred, just blind indifference. I don't see them as individuals, but just as masses."
Onoprienko's crimes have caused such revulsion in Ukraine, however, that the Ukrainian president is considering temporarily lifting a moratorium on capital punishment that was imposed on March, 1997, in accordance with the rules of the Council of Europe, to execute him. The alternative, to commute the serial killer's sentence to 20 years in jail, would outrage most Ukrainians.
On one occasion he confronted a young girl who was huddled on her bed, praying. She had seen him kill both her parents. "Seconds before I smashed her head, I ordered her to show me where they kept their money," he said. "She looked at me with an angry, defiant stare and said, 'No, I won't.' That strength was incredible. But I felt nothing."
He blew the doors off homes on the edges of villages, gunning down adults and battering children with metal objects. He stole money, jewelry, stereo equipment and other items before burning down the houses.
"He is driven by extreme cruelty," said Dmitri Lipski, the judge who sentenced him, poring over photographs of Onoprienko's crimes. "He doesn't care about anything - only about himself. He is egocentric and has a very high opinion of himself."
A manhunt involving 2,000 police and more than 3,000 troops eventually led to Onoprienko's arrest in April 1996 at his girlfriend's house near the Polish border following an anonymous tip-off. Investigators fear his tally of victims may be higher than 52, as there was a long gap between murders when he roamed illegally around several European countries.
To me it was like hunting. Hunting people down," mused Onoprienko with a wry smile as he handed me his autograph scribbled on the back of a magazine.
"I would be sitting, bored, with nothing to do. And then suddenly this idea would get into my head. I would do everything to get it out of my mind, but I couldn't. It was stronger than me. So I would get in the car or catch a train and go out to kill."
Onoprienko's first victims were a couple, standing by their Lada car on a motorway: "I just shot them. It's not that it gave me pleasure, but I felt this urge. From then on, it was almost like some game from outer space."
He said he had derived no pleasure from the act of killing. "Corpses are ugly," he said with distaste. "They stink and send out bad vibes. Once I killed five people and then sat in the car with their bodies for two hours not knowing what to do with them. The smell was unbearable."
Some experts view the fact that he grew up without parents and was given up to an orphanage by his elder brother as a clue to his destruction of entire families. Strangely, his most vicious spree coincided with the time when he moved in with the woman he intended to marry and with her children - towards whom, she claimed, he was always very loving.
Onoprienko, however, claimed he was possessed. "I'm not a maniac," he said, without a hint of self-doubt. "If I were, I would have thrown myself onto you and killed you right here. No, it's not that simple. I have been taken over by a higher force, something telepathic or cosmic, which drove me.
"For instance, I wanted to kill my brother's first wife, because I hated her. I really wanted to kill her, but I couldn't because I had not received the order. I waited for it all the time, but it did not come.
"I am like a rabbit in a laboratory. A part of an experiment to prove that man is capable of murdering and learning to live with his crimes. To show that I can cope, that I can stand anything, forget everything."
Onoprienko was adamant last week that he would not appeal to Kuchma to commute his sentence. Instead, he insisted that he should be executed. Suddenly animated, his speech quickened. "If I am ever let out, I will start killing again," he said. "But this time it will be worse, 10 times worse. The urge is there.
"Seize this chance because I am being groomed to serve Satan. After what I have learnt out there, I have no competitors in my field. And if I am not killed I will escape from this jail and the first thing I'll do is find Kuchma and hang him from a tree by his testicles."
It was time to leave.
Sweet dreams, and may you forever remain Crazy 4 Crazies.
On April 16, 1996, police arrested Anatoly Onoprienko, a 37-year-old former forestry student, sailor and mental hospital outpatient, putting an end to the Ukraine's worst killing spree. Anatoly, a native of Zhitomir, was arrested at his girlfriend's house where he had a 12-gauge shotgun matching the one used in the 40 murders. He also had jewelry and video equipment belonging to some of his victims. While in custody Comrade O. immediately confessed to eight killings between 1989 to 1995. At first he denied other charges, but soon admitted to being the maniac dubbed, "The Terminator" who tallied up to 52 victims in a six-year killing spree.
Onoprienko's rampage began in 1989, when he and accomplice Serhiy Rogozin robbed and killed nine people. The former sailor resumed the killings in late 1995, murdering 43 people in less than six months before police arrested him in April 1996.
On March, 1996, a manhunt was launched across western Ukraine after eight families were brutally murdered in their homes. Most of the victims were in remote villages in the Lvov region near the border of Poland. His blood lust climaxed with a three-month rampage in which he killed more than 40 people in the Ukrainian villages of Bratkovichi and Busk. Panic was so widespread in the two villages that an army division was mobilized and armed personnel carriers patrolled the streets. Trying to put a stop to the killings, police imposed a security cordon around Bratkovichi. Undaunted, "The Terminator" moved to nearby villages where he continued his serial killings.
The killings followed a set pattern. "The Terminator" chose isolated houses in the outskirts of villages. He would enter the houses before dawn, round up the family and shoot them all -- including children -- close range with a 12-gauge shotgun. Then he would torch the place and kill whoever crossed his path during his murderous outbursts. He often stole valuables from his victims and sometimes scattered family photographs about the floor. Police arrested Citizen O. in his girlfriend's apartment in April, 1996, after a nationwide manhunt.
On November 23, 1998, the trial of Nasty O. began in the city of Zhytomyr, 90 miles west of Kiev. The accused claimed he felt like a robot driven for years by a dark force, and argued he should not be tried until authorities determine the source of this force. A former forestry student, sailor and soldier, Mr. O claimed his mother died when he was four and his father and brother gave him to an orphanage at seven, and that he had heard voices telling him to do the murders. Dressed in running shoes, an oversized jacket, a knitted hat, and handcuffs, Onoprienko sat calmly inside an iron cage surrounded by police exuding arrogance and boredom.
Hundreds of people huddled in coats and fur hats in the unheated courtroom were angered by his behavior. "Let us tear him apart," shouted a pensioner at the back of the court just before the hearing started, her voice trembling with emotion. "He does not deserve to be shot. He needs to die a slow and agonizing death."
In previous interviews Nasty O has rambled endlessly about the CIA and Interpol, unknown powers and future revelations. Psychiatrists, however, ruled him fit to stand trial. "I perceive it all as a kind of experiment," he said. "There can be no answer in this experiment to what you're trying to learn."
Sitting in his cell the Ukranian serial killer that came to be known as the Terminator told Reuters and a regional newspaper: "I have never regretted anything and I don't regret anything now." In the bizarre and emotional hour-long interview he added that cosmic forces planned to destroy humanity and replace it with "bio-robots." With the guards sitting in a row on a green couch just a foot away, Onoprienko looked his interviewers in the eye and spoke in an intense, rapid voice, at times almost fierce, of his early discovery of special telepathic powers.
Claiming hypnotic powers and saying he had information "nobody, not even the president" had access to, he said he had received "permission" to kill, but did not explain what drove him to destroy his victims. "I love all people and I loved those I killed. I looked those children I murdered in the eyes and knew that it had to be done," he said. "For you it's 52 murders, but for me that's the norm." He said he would have been prepared to kill his own son.
While in court, he had very little to say. Asked if he would like to make a statement he shrugged his shoulders, slowly sauntered to the microphone and said: "No, nothing." Informed of his legal right to object to the court's proceedings, he growled: "This is your law, I consider myself a hostage." Asked to state his nationality, he said: "None." When Judge Dmitry Lipsky said this was impossible, Onoprienko rolled his eyes and replied: "Well, according to law enforcement officers, I'm Ukrainian."
Though Onoprienko has remained completely silent during court hearings, when it comes to the media he's a veritable gadfly. The daily Fakty newspaper published a long interview with Citizen O from his jail cell in the central town of Zhytomyr in which the 39-year-old terminator was quoted as saying: "Naturally, I would prefer the death penalty. I have absolutely no interest in relations with people. I have betrayed them." The misunderstood killer added that he was shaken by people's indifference to his crimes. As he slaughtered his victims in one village, "people screamed so loudly that they could be heard in neighboring villages. But nobody came to help them. Everybody went into hiding, like mice."
On February 12, 1999, a Ukrainian court ruled that Anatoli Onoprienko was mentally competent and could be held responsible for his crimes. The regional court in Zhytomyr said that Onoprienko "does not suffer any psychiatric diseases, is conscious of and is in control of the actions he commits, and does not require any extra psychiatric examination." With the latest psychiatric examination showing Onoprienko mentally healthy, he will most likely be convicted and sentenced to death. But he will not be executed because Ukraine has pledged as a member of the Council of Europe to suspend capital punishment and eventually ban it.
Dressed in the same track suit and drab duffel coat he has worn throughout the more than three months of hearings, Anatoly Onoprienko, 39, sat impassively in a metal cage at the front of the provincial courtroom and refused to speak at the end of his trial. Onoprienko's co-defendant Sergei Rogozin, accused of helping in the first nine murders, did speak and proclaimed his innocence.
But while the start of the trial attracted hordes of angry spectators, prosecutor Yuri Ignatenko made his demand for the death sentence on March 3, 199, before a practically empty chamber. And the half-filled court consisted mainly of other judges attached to the court and their staff, whose main emotion was relief at the end of the ordeal. "Thank goodness that's over!" said a secretary leaving the hearing.
"My defendant was from the age of four deprived of motherly love, and the absence of care which is necessary for the formation of a real man," Onoprienko's lawyer Russian Moshkovsky told the court. Ignatenko said an examination of Onoprienko's mental health during the investigation had overturned an independent diagnosis of schizophrenia made before his arrest, and a further test ordered by the court confirmed his current mental health.
"Onoprienko's statements about mental seizures, being spied on, voices, and the influence of higher powers...are a simulation of mental illness and a reaction to the situation he is in," Ignatenko said. The prosecutor added that O's motives lay in his own violent nature, unchecked due to what he said was the incompetence of the police force. "In every society there have been and are people who due to their innate natures can kill, and there are those who will never do that," he added.
Two weeks after sentencing, Nasty O. granted an interview to Mark Franchetti, a writer for the London Times: It took the Ukrainian guard a full two minutes to unlock the heavy metal door to Anatoly Onoprienko's small cell. Even the toughest guards on death row at the 19th-century prison in Zhitomir, 80 miles west of Kiev, are wary of Onoprienko and take no risks. Peering through a narrow opening in the door, one of them shouted at him to stand up and face the wall with his hands behind his back.
Anatoly Ivanuik, the prison's deputy governor, searched the outer corridor meticulously before giving the order for the last bolt to be released. Slowly the door opened. Onoprienko, who once proposed to his girlfriend with a ring he had chopped from the finger of one of his victims a few hours earlier, was ready to grant an audience.
Three years after his arrest, following the largest manhunt ever mounted in Ukraine, Onoprienko showed no remorse as he described wiping out entire families in cold blood, battering children and raping a woman after shooting her in the face. Still defiant, Citizen O takes pride in what he calls the "professionalism" of his crimes. Clearly relishing his notoriety, he often stared at me, trying to make me avert my eyes while insisting that he was a good-natured person and a sensitive music-lover.
"The first time I killed, I shot down a deer in the woods," he said, in a flat monotone, as if reading from his curriculum vitae. "I was in my early twenties and I recall feeling very upset when I saw it dead. I couldn't explain why I had done it, and I felt sorry for it. I never had that feeling again."
"To me killing people is like ripping up a duvet," he said, his piercing blue eyes fixed on mine. "Men, women, old people, children, they are all the same. I have never felt sorry for those I killed. No love, no hatred, just blind indifference. I don't see them as individuals, but just as masses."
Onoprienko's crimes have caused such revulsion in Ukraine, however, that the Ukrainian president is considering temporarily lifting a moratorium on capital punishment that was imposed on March, 1997, in accordance with the rules of the Council of Europe, to execute him. The alternative, to commute the serial killer's sentence to 20 years in jail, would outrage most Ukrainians.
On one occasion he confronted a young girl who was huddled on her bed, praying. She had seen him kill both her parents. "Seconds before I smashed her head, I ordered her to show me where they kept their money," he said. "She looked at me with an angry, defiant stare and said, 'No, I won't.' That strength was incredible. But I felt nothing."
He blew the doors off homes on the edges of villages, gunning down adults and battering children with metal objects. He stole money, jewelry, stereo equipment and other items before burning down the houses.
"He is driven by extreme cruelty," said Dmitri Lipski, the judge who sentenced him, poring over photographs of Onoprienko's crimes. "He doesn't care about anything - only about himself. He is egocentric and has a very high opinion of himself."
A manhunt involving 2,000 police and more than 3,000 troops eventually led to Onoprienko's arrest in April 1996 at his girlfriend's house near the Polish border following an anonymous tip-off. Investigators fear his tally of victims may be higher than 52, as there was a long gap between murders when he roamed illegally around several European countries.
To me it was like hunting. Hunting people down," mused Onoprienko with a wry smile as he handed me his autograph scribbled on the back of a magazine.
"I would be sitting, bored, with nothing to do. And then suddenly this idea would get into my head. I would do everything to get it out of my mind, but I couldn't. It was stronger than me. So I would get in the car or catch a train and go out to kill."
Onoprienko's first victims were a couple, standing by their Lada car on a motorway: "I just shot them. It's not that it gave me pleasure, but I felt this urge. From then on, it was almost like some game from outer space."
He said he had derived no pleasure from the act of killing. "Corpses are ugly," he said with distaste. "They stink and send out bad vibes. Once I killed five people and then sat in the car with their bodies for two hours not knowing what to do with them. The smell was unbearable."
Some experts view the fact that he grew up without parents and was given up to an orphanage by his elder brother as a clue to his destruction of entire families. Strangely, his most vicious spree coincided with the time when he moved in with the woman he intended to marry and with her children - towards whom, she claimed, he was always very loving.
Onoprienko, however, claimed he was possessed. "I'm not a maniac," he said, without a hint of self-doubt. "If I were, I would have thrown myself onto you and killed you right here. No, it's not that simple. I have been taken over by a higher force, something telepathic or cosmic, which drove me.
"For instance, I wanted to kill my brother's first wife, because I hated her. I really wanted to kill her, but I couldn't because I had not received the order. I waited for it all the time, but it did not come.
"I am like a rabbit in a laboratory. A part of an experiment to prove that man is capable of murdering and learning to live with his crimes. To show that I can cope, that I can stand anything, forget everything."
Onoprienko was adamant last week that he would not appeal to Kuchma to commute his sentence. Instead, he insisted that he should be executed. Suddenly animated, his speech quickened. "If I am ever let out, I will start killing again," he said. "But this time it will be worse, 10 times worse. The urge is there.
"Seize this chance because I am being groomed to serve Satan. After what I have learnt out there, I have no competitors in my field. And if I am not killed I will escape from this jail and the first thing I'll do is find Kuchma and hang him from a tree by his testicles."
It was time to leave.
Sweet dreams, and may you forever remain Crazy 4 Crazies.
Sunday, September 14, 2008
Are Serial Killers All Loners?
They arrested the Satin Strangler tonight.
The classic serial killer was once depicted as a social monster living alone and trolling the streets for victims. That story became overplayed, though, and in many cases was total BS. The media also learned that monsters don’t sell as much as mainstream killers. It’s a cinch for the public to dismiss a monster as a freak of nature, something unlike the rest of us. But what happens when the serial murderer actually resembles us in many ways? They are just as frightening, but far more disturbing.
Tonight’s media coverage has been about Destiny Blande being the quintessential girl next door. No surprise there. But who is she really? Is she America’s sweetheart, a psychopath, or something in between? Can a serial murderer really live among us at work, in a family, and as an interactive member of society, all while accumulating a pile of corpses?
Many serial murderers have lived and worked in normal settings, and some have supposedly had normal family situations. These are the most intriguing killers, after all. A shiver runs down our spine when a killer’s friends and family report how shocked they were to hear of the news. We stare at our televisions into the peaceful face concealing the monster within. These are the most successful serial killers, the ones we all overlook as the body count rises. These are also the ones who sell the most Crazy 4 Crazies memorabilia – Mug Shot Mugs, t-shirts, and victim calendars.
Robert Yates, killer of as many as 17 prostitutes in the state of Washington in the 1990’s, was married with 5 children and lived in a middle class neighborhood. He was even a decorated US Army National Guard helicopter pilot. The neighbors never would have suspected that a body was buried right outside Yates’ bedroom window.
Another Washington state favorite, Gary Ridgeway, aka the Green River Killer, was a truck painter for over 32 years and was married at the time of his arrest. He was a church-going bible reader, professing religious beliefs while killing at least 48 women in his spare time over a 20-year period.
BTK killer Dennis Rader was married with two children in Wichita, Kansas. He was a Boy Scout leader, a government official, president of his church group, and a US Air Force veteran. His favorite hobby, however, was killing victims and sending taunting communications to the press.
We want to think of Destiny Blande, the Satin Strangler, as the girl next door. A raving lunatic would hardly be as interesting. Instead, she is in control enough to conceal her pathology, keeping it buried just far enough from the surface to lure in, not just her victims, but the public. Her fans. It is easy to see how she seduced and killed so many men.
The first news stories are breaking, and we are already falling for her because we’re Crazy 4 Crazies. Let’s face it; this luscious lady had us at “hello.”
-----
This is post #10 in The Satin Strangler Blogs (TSSB).
The classic serial killer was once depicted as a social monster living alone and trolling the streets for victims. That story became overplayed, though, and in many cases was total BS. The media also learned that monsters don’t sell as much as mainstream killers. It’s a cinch for the public to dismiss a monster as a freak of nature, something unlike the rest of us. But what happens when the serial murderer actually resembles us in many ways? They are just as frightening, but far more disturbing.
Tonight’s media coverage has been about Destiny Blande being the quintessential girl next door. No surprise there. But who is she really? Is she America’s sweetheart, a psychopath, or something in between? Can a serial murderer really live among us at work, in a family, and as an interactive member of society, all while accumulating a pile of corpses?
Many serial murderers have lived and worked in normal settings, and some have supposedly had normal family situations. These are the most intriguing killers, after all. A shiver runs down our spine when a killer’s friends and family report how shocked they were to hear of the news. We stare at our televisions into the peaceful face concealing the monster within. These are the most successful serial killers, the ones we all overlook as the body count rises. These are also the ones who sell the most Crazy 4 Crazies memorabilia – Mug Shot Mugs, t-shirts, and victim calendars.
Robert Yates, killer of as many as 17 prostitutes in the state of Washington in the 1990’s, was married with 5 children and lived in a middle class neighborhood. He was even a decorated US Army National Guard helicopter pilot. The neighbors never would have suspected that a body was buried right outside Yates’ bedroom window.
Another Washington state favorite, Gary Ridgeway, aka the Green River Killer, was a truck painter for over 32 years and was married at the time of his arrest. He was a church-going bible reader, professing religious beliefs while killing at least 48 women in his spare time over a 20-year period.
BTK killer Dennis Rader was married with two children in Wichita, Kansas. He was a Boy Scout leader, a government official, president of his church group, and a US Air Force veteran. His favorite hobby, however, was killing victims and sending taunting communications to the press.
We want to think of Destiny Blande, the Satin Strangler, as the girl next door. A raving lunatic would hardly be as interesting. Instead, she is in control enough to conceal her pathology, keeping it buried just far enough from the surface to lure in, not just her victims, but the public. Her fans. It is easy to see how she seduced and killed so many men.
The first news stories are breaking, and we are already falling for her because we’re Crazy 4 Crazies. Let’s face it; this luscious lady had us at “hello.”
-----
This is post #10 in The Satin Strangler Blogs (TSSB).
“Like” TSSB on Facebook.
If you are enjoying this free and unique online reading experience, please tell your friends.
If you are enjoying this free and unique online reading experience, please tell your friends.
Monday, September 8, 2008
Serial Killer Bedtime Stories: Jane Toppan
Based on the emails we received after the post about female serial killers, and with the Satin Strangler media coverage once again proving that female serial killers are smoking hot, we thought you'd enjoy this bedtime story about Jane Toppan, another sizzler.
Born in Boston as Nora Kelly to typical future serial killer misery in 1854. When she was still an infant her mother died and her tailor father was institutionalized for trying to stitch his eyelids shut. After a brief stint in an orphanage, Nora was adopted by the Toppan family and changed her name to Jane. From then on she led a very normal life until, as a young woman, she was jilted by her fiancee, had a nervous breakdown and unsuccessfully tried to commit suicide.
Although she excelled as a student in Nursing School, she raised some eyebrows with her morbid curiosity for autopsies. Eventually she was unceremoniously dismissed after two patients died mysteriously under her care. Not the passive type, Jane forged her nursing degree and went out looking for a job as a private nurse.
Jane was a considered a kind and sensitive nurse who regularly took care of the sick and elderly for Boston's best families. However, most of her patients and their families died mysteriously after ingesting some of her "special" potions. Over two decades, Jane blazed through the homes of New England society with her trusty morphine cocktails to the tune of a least 31 deaths.
America's premiere female "Angel of Death," Jane's deadly trail unraveled in the summer of 1901 when all four members of the Davis family dropped dead. Suspicious of the kindly nurse who had treated them, the husband of the fourth victim ordered the Massachusetts State Police to perform an autopsy on his wife. Authorities confirmed that a lethal dose of morphine and atropine killed his wife. Jane fled Boston and was finally arrested in Amherst on October 29, 1901.
In custody Jane confessed to 31 kills. It is believed her true body count is somewhere between 70 to 100 deaths. In her 1902 trial, doctors said Jane was "born with a weak mental condition." In true serial killer madness, Jane declared in court, "That is my ambition. To have killed more people -- more helpless people -- than any man or woman who has ever lived." Having fulfilled her wish, she was found insane and sent to the state asylum in Tauton, Massachusetts where she died in August, 1938, at the ripe age of 84.
Although she was remembered by the hospital staff as a "quiet old lady," she still had murderous fantasies permeating her brain. Orderlies remember how she would say, "Get some morphine, dearie, and we'll go out in the ward. You and I will have a lot of fun seeing them die."
Sweet dreams, and may you remain forever Crazy 4 Crazies.
Born in Boston as Nora Kelly to typical future serial killer misery in 1854. When she was still an infant her mother died and her tailor father was institutionalized for trying to stitch his eyelids shut. After a brief stint in an orphanage, Nora was adopted by the Toppan family and changed her name to Jane. From then on she led a very normal life until, as a young woman, she was jilted by her fiancee, had a nervous breakdown and unsuccessfully tried to commit suicide.
Although she excelled as a student in Nursing School, she raised some eyebrows with her morbid curiosity for autopsies. Eventually she was unceremoniously dismissed after two patients died mysteriously under her care. Not the passive type, Jane forged her nursing degree and went out looking for a job as a private nurse.
Jane was a considered a kind and sensitive nurse who regularly took care of the sick and elderly for Boston's best families. However, most of her patients and their families died mysteriously after ingesting some of her "special" potions. Over two decades, Jane blazed through the homes of New England society with her trusty morphine cocktails to the tune of a least 31 deaths.
America's premiere female "Angel of Death," Jane's deadly trail unraveled in the summer of 1901 when all four members of the Davis family dropped dead. Suspicious of the kindly nurse who had treated them, the husband of the fourth victim ordered the Massachusetts State Police to perform an autopsy on his wife. Authorities confirmed that a lethal dose of morphine and atropine killed his wife. Jane fled Boston and was finally arrested in Amherst on October 29, 1901.
In custody Jane confessed to 31 kills. It is believed her true body count is somewhere between 70 to 100 deaths. In her 1902 trial, doctors said Jane was "born with a weak mental condition." In true serial killer madness, Jane declared in court, "That is my ambition. To have killed more people -- more helpless people -- than any man or woman who has ever lived." Having fulfilled her wish, she was found insane and sent to the state asylum in Tauton, Massachusetts where she died in August, 1938, at the ripe age of 84.
Although she was remembered by the hospital staff as a "quiet old lady," she still had murderous fantasies permeating her brain. Orderlies remember how she would say, "Get some morphine, dearie, and we'll go out in the ward. You and I will have a lot of fun seeing them die."
Sweet dreams, and may you remain forever Crazy 4 Crazies.
Sunday, August 3, 2008
Female Serial Murderers
The Satin Strangler is getting a lot of press lately. And why not? She’s been seducing and killing at a Ted Bundy pace. Makes me tingle all over. How about you?
In response to countless reader requests, here are some of the most notorious female serial killers in history. They are few in number, but juicy in body count.
Erzebet Bathory: The Hungarian “Blood Countess” who killed as many as 650 victims in the 1600’s is the mother of all female serial killers, and her record is unlikely to be broken. We are running a two-for-one sale on her Mug Shot Mugs this week.
Belle Gunness: The belle of the ball killed more than 20 men and all of her children in the 1800’s. She disposed of some husbands and burned down her own homes, all for the insurance money. Never one to give up on a hobby, she began luring suitors through a newspaper advertisement, killing them, and burying their bodies on her farm.
Mary Ann Cotton: This Mary Mary Quite Contrary had a bad habit of dropping arsenic into her pots of soup. She killed 20 people in England, including her own children, and collected their insurance money. She was hanged in 1873.
Nannie Doss: The "Giggling Granny” killed 11 people in the early 1900’s. Victims included her two sisters, her mother, a grandson, a nephew and four husbands. After running out of guests for family reunions, she was convicted in 1955 and died in prison. Look for her smiling face in our on-line t-shirt store.
Rosemary West: This English serial killer was convicted of 10 murders committed with her husband Fred in 1995. Several bodies, including that of their daughter Heather, were found buried on their property. How romantic that they shared the same hobby in an era where half of all marriages end in divorce.
Marybeth Tinning: She was a nurse’s aid sentenced to life in prison in 1987 after strangling 9 of her own children and bringing them to the hospital, faking a deadly genetic disease. The doctors and the police finally caught on, but she will forever remain one of our website reader favorites.
Dorothea Puente: As a not-so-frail old lady, she killed elderly disabled people in her boarding house, and then forged and robbed their benefit checks. In 1988 she was sentenced to serve two life terms for the murders of at least 9 people.
Aileen Wuornos: This prostitute was put to death by lethal injection in 1992 for the shooting of 7 male victims in Florida. Her body count wasn’t much to write home about, but she was later immortalized when played by actress Charlisse Theron in the film Monster. The other esteemed women on our list should have been so lucky.
The Satin Strangler: Little is known about this sexy lady, except for the growing trail of more than 15 victims from Atlanta up to New York City. She leaves no calling card. No taunts for the police. No leads at all. Just strangled male victims. She seems more in control than her lady predecessors. Is she smarter, or just lucky? Either way, there’s no doubt that she’s a different breed of female serial killer. Finally we have a hot and steamy MO to warm up to. Like her victims, we are lured in closer to her, perhaps too close. But that’s probably no surprise, since we’re all a little Crazy 4 Crazies.
-----
This is post #4 in The Satin Strangler Blogs (TSSB).
“Like” TSSB on Facebook.
If you are enjoying this free and unique online reading experience, please tell your friends.
In response to countless reader requests, here are some of the most notorious female serial killers in history. They are few in number, but juicy in body count.
Erzebet Bathory: The Hungarian “Blood Countess” who killed as many as 650 victims in the 1600’s is the mother of all female serial killers, and her record is unlikely to be broken. We are running a two-for-one sale on her Mug Shot Mugs this week.
Belle Gunness: The belle of the ball killed more than 20 men and all of her children in the 1800’s. She disposed of some husbands and burned down her own homes, all for the insurance money. Never one to give up on a hobby, she began luring suitors through a newspaper advertisement, killing them, and burying their bodies on her farm.
Mary Ann Cotton: This Mary Mary Quite Contrary had a bad habit of dropping arsenic into her pots of soup. She killed 20 people in England, including her own children, and collected their insurance money. She was hanged in 1873.
Nannie Doss: The "Giggling Granny” killed 11 people in the early 1900’s. Victims included her two sisters, her mother, a grandson, a nephew and four husbands. After running out of guests for family reunions, she was convicted in 1955 and died in prison. Look for her smiling face in our on-line t-shirt store.
Rosemary West: This English serial killer was convicted of 10 murders committed with her husband Fred in 1995. Several bodies, including that of their daughter Heather, were found buried on their property. How romantic that they shared the same hobby in an era where half of all marriages end in divorce.
Marybeth Tinning: She was a nurse’s aid sentenced to life in prison in 1987 after strangling 9 of her own children and bringing them to the hospital, faking a deadly genetic disease. The doctors and the police finally caught on, but she will forever remain one of our website reader favorites.
Dorothea Puente: As a not-so-frail old lady, she killed elderly disabled people in her boarding house, and then forged and robbed their benefit checks. In 1988 she was sentenced to serve two life terms for the murders of at least 9 people.
Aileen Wuornos: This prostitute was put to death by lethal injection in 1992 for the shooting of 7 male victims in Florida. Her body count wasn’t much to write home about, but she was later immortalized when played by actress Charlisse Theron in the film Monster. The other esteemed women on our list should have been so lucky.
The Satin Strangler: Little is known about this sexy lady, except for the growing trail of more than 15 victims from Atlanta up to New York City. She leaves no calling card. No taunts for the police. No leads at all. Just strangled male victims. She seems more in control than her lady predecessors. Is she smarter, or just lucky? Either way, there’s no doubt that she’s a different breed of female serial killer. Finally we have a hot and steamy MO to warm up to. Like her victims, we are lured in closer to her, perhaps too close. But that’s probably no surprise, since we’re all a little Crazy 4 Crazies.
-----
This is post #4 in The Satin Strangler Blogs (TSSB).
“Like” TSSB on Facebook.
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Friday, August 1, 2008
Serial Killer Bedtime Stories: Michael Swango
Michael Swango, the star of tonight's serial killer bedtime story, makes Nurse Ratched from One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest look like Florence Nightingale.
Authorities suspect Michael Swango, 43, may have poisoned and killed as many as 60 patients under his care over the past 10 years when he worked in Ohio, Quincy, Massachusetts, Virginia, South Dakota, New York and Zimbabwe. In all these places the affable doctor had been suspected in a number of deaths and sudden illnesses. Although he was never charged in connection with any, he was either fired or left his respective jobs while under a cloud of suspicion.
Authorities became aware of alleged career as an "Angel of Death" in 1984 when he worked in Quincy, Illinois, as a paramedic. As with others in his line of mayhem, many of his co-workers complained that they became ill every time he brought them food or drinks such as doughnuts, cool drinks or iced tea. When one of his colleagues found ant poison mixed with sugar among Swango's belongings, police went to search his home.
There they found "how-to" books on homemade weapons and mass destruction as well as books on the occult, several guns, bottles with different concentrations of ant poison, a range of insecticides and rodent killers; and castor beans, from which the almost untraceable poison, ricin, can be obtained. He was tried, convicted and sentenced to five-years' jail for aggravated battery because none of his colleagues had died from the poisonings. "I don't think he intended to kill them," said Judge Dennis Cashman. "I think he wanted to take them to the edge of death. They were like a lab experiment."
While he was serving his sentence, investigators combed the Ohio State University Hospital in Columbus, where Swango had been a medical intern. Nurses told investigators that they had become suspicious because he was seen in several patients' rooms right before they died unexpectedly. "I do not think the evidence was clear one way or the other. I am glad he is not here," said Ohio State University's Larry Carey.
Swango was paroled in 1987 after serving two-and-a-half years of his five-year sentence. Curiously, after leaving prison he continued his career in the health care business with increasingly lethal results. He hopped from job to job and was fired at least three times after he was suspected of wrongdoing or someone learned about his past.
In the early 1990s Swango landed a job at a State University of New York hospital. There, Federal of Bureau Investigation agents investigated 147 patients Swango treated and died. Autopsies were performed on several former patients, but the results were inconclusive. By 1993 -- as police started piecing together his poisonous path -- he disappeared to re-emerge in Zimbabwe. There he worked at a rural hospital where he was suspended after five patients under his care died in suspicious circumstances.
After his suspension he travelled to South Africa, the modern mecca for serial killings, where he contacted Saudi Arabian health authorities, who offered him a job. Finally in July, 1997, Swango was arrested when he re-entered the United States to pick up a visa en route to his job as a physician in Saudi Arabia. Though he has been arrested for relatively minor fraud charges and illegally prescribing narcotics to patients, authorities hope to uncover enough evidence to expose him as a viscous serial killer.
Sweet dreams, and may you forever remain Crazy 4 Crazies.
Authorities suspect Michael Swango, 43, may have poisoned and killed as many as 60 patients under his care over the past 10 years when he worked in Ohio, Quincy, Massachusetts, Virginia, South Dakota, New York and Zimbabwe. In all these places the affable doctor had been suspected in a number of deaths and sudden illnesses. Although he was never charged in connection with any, he was either fired or left his respective jobs while under a cloud of suspicion.
Authorities became aware of alleged career as an "Angel of Death" in 1984 when he worked in Quincy, Illinois, as a paramedic. As with others in his line of mayhem, many of his co-workers complained that they became ill every time he brought them food or drinks such as doughnuts, cool drinks or iced tea. When one of his colleagues found ant poison mixed with sugar among Swango's belongings, police went to search his home.
There they found "how-to" books on homemade weapons and mass destruction as well as books on the occult, several guns, bottles with different concentrations of ant poison, a range of insecticides and rodent killers; and castor beans, from which the almost untraceable poison, ricin, can be obtained. He was tried, convicted and sentenced to five-years' jail for aggravated battery because none of his colleagues had died from the poisonings. "I don't think he intended to kill them," said Judge Dennis Cashman. "I think he wanted to take them to the edge of death. They were like a lab experiment."
While he was serving his sentence, investigators combed the Ohio State University Hospital in Columbus, where Swango had been a medical intern. Nurses told investigators that they had become suspicious because he was seen in several patients' rooms right before they died unexpectedly. "I do not think the evidence was clear one way or the other. I am glad he is not here," said Ohio State University's Larry Carey.
Swango was paroled in 1987 after serving two-and-a-half years of his five-year sentence. Curiously, after leaving prison he continued his career in the health care business with increasingly lethal results. He hopped from job to job and was fired at least three times after he was suspected of wrongdoing or someone learned about his past.
In the early 1990s Swango landed a job at a State University of New York hospital. There, Federal of Bureau Investigation agents investigated 147 patients Swango treated and died. Autopsies were performed on several former patients, but the results were inconclusive. By 1993 -- as police started piecing together his poisonous path -- he disappeared to re-emerge in Zimbabwe. There he worked at a rural hospital where he was suspended after five patients under his care died in suspicious circumstances.
After his suspension he travelled to South Africa, the modern mecca for serial killings, where he contacted Saudi Arabian health authorities, who offered him a job. Finally in July, 1997, Swango was arrested when he re-entered the United States to pick up a visa en route to his job as a physician in Saudi Arabia. Though he has been arrested for relatively minor fraud charges and illegally prescribing narcotics to patients, authorities hope to uncover enough evidence to expose him as a viscous serial killer.
Sweet dreams, and may you forever remain Crazy 4 Crazies.
Tuesday, July 1, 2008
Serial Killer Bedtime Stories: Bruno Ludke
Once upon a time there was a serial killer named Bruno Ludke . . .
A German laundry delivery man, Bruno offed at least 80 women between 1928 and 1943. When Nazi officials finally caught up with his lethal hobby, they shipped him off to a research hospital in Vienna where he was used as a human guinea pig by Nazi doctors. When they were done with their experiments, Bruno was executed by lethal injection.
That was a short story, but punishment by guinea pig-ization seems to qualify it as a goody.
Sweet dreams, and may you forever remain Crazy 4 Crazy.
A German laundry delivery man, Bruno offed at least 80 women between 1928 and 1943. When Nazi officials finally caught up with his lethal hobby, they shipped him off to a research hospital in Vienna where he was used as a human guinea pig by Nazi doctors. When they were done with their experiments, Bruno was executed by lethal injection.
That was a short story, but punishment by guinea pig-ization seems to qualify it as a goody.
Sweet dreams, and may you forever remain Crazy 4 Crazy.
Sunday, June 1, 2008
Serial Killer Bedtime Stories: Javed Iqbal
Enjoy tonight's serial killer bedtime story about Javed Iqbal.
On March 16, 2000, a Pakistani court in Lahore sentenced serial child killer Javed Iqbal to death, saying he would be strangled in front of the parents whose children he was convicted of murdering. Judge Allah Baksh Ranja added that Iqbal's body "will then be cut into a 100 pieces and put in acid the same way you killed the children." His three accomplices, including a 13-year-old boy identified only as Sabir, also were found guilty. Sabir was sentenced to 42 years in jail; the other two accomplices were sentenced to death.
Iqbal, 42, initially confessed to the killings in a letter last year to police. He said he strangled the children, dismembered their bodies and placed them in a vat of acid. He later recanted his confession.
Police found the remains of two bodies in a blue vat in his home after his arrest. Police also found pictures of 100 children whom Iqbal in his letter confessed to having killed. They also found clothes belonging to the young victims. Previously, the worst killing in Pakistani history was in mid-1980s when dozens of people were killed in the Punjab, Sindh and North West Frontier provinces in a series of mysterious night attacks that police blamed on a so-called "hammer group." The attackers broke into houses and bludgeoned victims to death with hammers. They were never found.
Parents of missing children were contacted to sort through clothes and pictures to try to identify their missing children. Most were identified, but police did not recover any bodies. The search for Iqbal was one of the largest manhunts in Pakistan. On December 30 Iqbal walked into the Lahore office of a leading newspaper and turned himself in. He refused to go directly to the police, saying he feared for his life. During his trial, the child killer testified that he was only a witness to the killings. He said his earlier confession was sent as a message to the parents of the missing children, whom he accused of neglect.
Iqbal wrote in his letter to the police that he killed the children, who were mostly beggars, in retaliation for the abuse they inflicted on him following a previous arrest when he was accused of sodomy. He claimed he had been wrongly picked up and badly beaten while in police custody. Curiously, and I guess generously, he also claimed to have killed the street children to highlight their plight. During his six-month killing spree, Iqbal kept a detailed account of the murders, listing his victims' names, ages and the dates of their deaths. He also kept their shoes and bundles of their clothing. He also recorded the exact cost of disposing of each kid. "In terms of expense, including the acid, it cost me 120 rupees ($2.40) to erase each victim," he wrote.
A week after his sentencing, a Pakistan's top religious said the planned execution of serial killer Javed Iqbal went against Islamic tenets. Though the sentence of the killer called for his body to be cut into 100 pieces and dissolved in a vat of acid, the Council of Islamic Ideology said that would desecrate the killer's body, which would go against the Islamic teaching of respect for the body of the deceased.
On October 25, 2001, the Iqbal and Sabir were found dead in their cell from apparent poisoning. Their apparent suicides -- as declared by prison authorities -- came just four days after the country's highest Islamic Court had agreed to hear their appeal against the death sentence. Iqbal had voiced fears after his conviction that police would kill him. His lawyer said Iqbal was victim of a police conspiracy. Jail officials said Iqbal had twice made abortive suicide attempts in the past.
Sweet dreams, and may you forever remain Crazy 4 Crazies.
On March 16, 2000, a Pakistani court in Lahore sentenced serial child killer Javed Iqbal to death, saying he would be strangled in front of the parents whose children he was convicted of murdering. Judge Allah Baksh Ranja added that Iqbal's body "will then be cut into a 100 pieces and put in acid the same way you killed the children." His three accomplices, including a 13-year-old boy identified only as Sabir, also were found guilty. Sabir was sentenced to 42 years in jail; the other two accomplices were sentenced to death.
Iqbal, 42, initially confessed to the killings in a letter last year to police. He said he strangled the children, dismembered their bodies and placed them in a vat of acid. He later recanted his confession.
Police found the remains of two bodies in a blue vat in his home after his arrest. Police also found pictures of 100 children whom Iqbal in his letter confessed to having killed. They also found clothes belonging to the young victims. Previously, the worst killing in Pakistani history was in mid-1980s when dozens of people were killed in the Punjab, Sindh and North West Frontier provinces in a series of mysterious night attacks that police blamed on a so-called "hammer group." The attackers broke into houses and bludgeoned victims to death with hammers. They were never found.
Parents of missing children were contacted to sort through clothes and pictures to try to identify their missing children. Most were identified, but police did not recover any bodies. The search for Iqbal was one of the largest manhunts in Pakistan. On December 30 Iqbal walked into the Lahore office of a leading newspaper and turned himself in. He refused to go directly to the police, saying he feared for his life. During his trial, the child killer testified that he was only a witness to the killings. He said his earlier confession was sent as a message to the parents of the missing children, whom he accused of neglect.
Iqbal wrote in his letter to the police that he killed the children, who were mostly beggars, in retaliation for the abuse they inflicted on him following a previous arrest when he was accused of sodomy. He claimed he had been wrongly picked up and badly beaten while in police custody. Curiously, and I guess generously, he also claimed to have killed the street children to highlight their plight. During his six-month killing spree, Iqbal kept a detailed account of the murders, listing his victims' names, ages and the dates of their deaths. He also kept their shoes and bundles of their clothing. He also recorded the exact cost of disposing of each kid. "In terms of expense, including the acid, it cost me 120 rupees ($2.40) to erase each victim," he wrote.
A week after his sentencing, a Pakistan's top religious said the planned execution of serial killer Javed Iqbal went against Islamic tenets. Though the sentence of the killer called for his body to be cut into 100 pieces and dissolved in a vat of acid, the Council of Islamic Ideology said that would desecrate the killer's body, which would go against the Islamic teaching of respect for the body of the deceased.
On October 25, 2001, the Iqbal and Sabir were found dead in their cell from apparent poisoning. Their apparent suicides -- as declared by prison authorities -- came just four days after the country's highest Islamic Court had agreed to hear their appeal against the death sentence. Iqbal had voiced fears after his conviction that police would kill him. His lawyer said Iqbal was victim of a police conspiracy. Jail officials said Iqbal had twice made abortive suicide attempts in the past.
Sweet dreams, and may you forever remain Crazy 4 Crazies.
Saturday, May 10, 2008
The Satin Strangler
A female serial killer dubbed the Satin Strangler has been hard at work during the last few months, seducing and strangling as many as 12 men along the east coast of the United States. Here are the details on three of her victims to whet your appetite:
Phillip Stewart was a bartender at the Peachtree Bistro in Atlanta. He disappeared after closing on January 16th. His body was found the next day in a nearby dumpster. Autopsy reports confirmed the cause of death to be asphyxiation due to ligature strangulation. Police have eliminated Stewart’s girlfriend and family members as suspects.
Preston Jones was a real estate agent murdered in Charleston, SC. His wife found his body in their bedroom upon returning from a business trip on February 15th. Multiple dark ligature marks varying in width were visible on the neck. The coroner’s cause of death was asphyxiation due to ligature strangulation.
Grant Leighton, a physical trainer from Atlantic City, was last spotted at 3AM on March 2nd on a Garden State Parkway toll booth surveillance camera. A woman sitting in the darkness of the passenger seat remains unidentified. Two days later, fishermen further north along the Jersey Shore found Leighton’s body bundled inside an industrial sized garbage bag and wedged into an antique traveling trunk. Ligature marks were found on his neck, wrists, and ankles. Both forearms had been broken and both pinkies amputated. The cause of death was asphyxiation due to strangulation.
Who is the Satin Strangler, and what is the secret to her seductive power? Are there more bodies out there somewhere, and how many more victims will she lure in?
For now there are more questions than answers. We’ll keep watching for news on the Satin Strangler because we’re Crazy 4 Crazies.
-----
Phillip Stewart was a bartender at the Peachtree Bistro in Atlanta. He disappeared after closing on January 16th. His body was found the next day in a nearby dumpster. Autopsy reports confirmed the cause of death to be asphyxiation due to ligature strangulation. Police have eliminated Stewart’s girlfriend and family members as suspects.
Preston Jones was a real estate agent murdered in Charleston, SC. His wife found his body in their bedroom upon returning from a business trip on February 15th. Multiple dark ligature marks varying in width were visible on the neck. The coroner’s cause of death was asphyxiation due to ligature strangulation.
Grant Leighton, a physical trainer from Atlantic City, was last spotted at 3AM on March 2nd on a Garden State Parkway toll booth surveillance camera. A woman sitting in the darkness of the passenger seat remains unidentified. Two days later, fishermen further north along the Jersey Shore found Leighton’s body bundled inside an industrial sized garbage bag and wedged into an antique traveling trunk. Ligature marks were found on his neck, wrists, and ankles. Both forearms had been broken and both pinkies amputated. The cause of death was asphyxiation due to strangulation.
Who is the Satin Strangler, and what is the secret to her seductive power? Are there more bodies out there somewhere, and how many more victims will she lure in?
For now there are more questions than answers. We’ll keep watching for news on the Satin Strangler because we’re Crazy 4 Crazies.
-----
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Thursday, May 1, 2008
Serial Killer Bedtime Stories: Pee Wee Gaskins
Out of sleeping pills? Try tonight's serial killer bedtime story about Pee Wee Gaskins.
When he was a young boy Pee Wee watched a cobra eat a live rat at a carnival. According to a later confession he penned, that was the first time he felt attracted to violence. Dubbed America's meanest killer, Pee Wee was always in trouble with the law. He spent most of his youth in and out of reform school and later prison. Because of his pint-size, Pee Wee had to be the "girlfriend" of older, more powerful prisoners. He soon put an end to it by killing a highly regarded inmate while the man was taking a shit, making him a jailhouse legend for the rest of his stay.
In 1969, after being released from prison, Pee Wee got back to killing at an alarming rate. He made a distinction between his "coastal kills," -- people he found while driving around the roadways of the American South that he killed for pleasure -- and his "serious murders," -- people he knew that he killed for specific reasons. Aside from killing, Pee Wee had a thriving business fencing stolen cars. He operated his fencing business out of several properties around the Carolinas. There he also slaughtered many of his prey. His other favorite hunting grounds were the coastal highways, where every six weeks, he went hunting to quell his feelings of "bother-someness."
In the early '80s, Pee Wee was named the "Meanest Man in America" for killing another inmate while in Maximum Security. For his fearless homicidal stunt, Pee Wee was given the death penalty. He was fried on September 6, 1991. His total hits might well have been over two hundred, but law enforcement sources found it impossible to verify all his claims. In the excellent post-mortem auto-biography, "Final Truth," Pee Wee waxed poetic about how he had "a special mind" that gave him "permission to kill."
Sweet dreams, and may you forever remain Crazy 4 Crazies.
When he was a young boy Pee Wee watched a cobra eat a live rat at a carnival. According to a later confession he penned, that was the first time he felt attracted to violence. Dubbed America's meanest killer, Pee Wee was always in trouble with the law. He spent most of his youth in and out of reform school and later prison. Because of his pint-size, Pee Wee had to be the "girlfriend" of older, more powerful prisoners. He soon put an end to it by killing a highly regarded inmate while the man was taking a shit, making him a jailhouse legend for the rest of his stay.
In 1969, after being released from prison, Pee Wee got back to killing at an alarming rate. He made a distinction between his "coastal kills," -- people he found while driving around the roadways of the American South that he killed for pleasure -- and his "serious murders," -- people he knew that he killed for specific reasons. Aside from killing, Pee Wee had a thriving business fencing stolen cars. He operated his fencing business out of several properties around the Carolinas. There he also slaughtered many of his prey. His other favorite hunting grounds were the coastal highways, where every six weeks, he went hunting to quell his feelings of "bother-someness."
In the early '80s, Pee Wee was named the "Meanest Man in America" for killing another inmate while in Maximum Security. For his fearless homicidal stunt, Pee Wee was given the death penalty. He was fried on September 6, 1991. His total hits might well have been over two hundred, but law enforcement sources found it impossible to verify all his claims. In the excellent post-mortem auto-biography, "Final Truth," Pee Wee waxed poetic about how he had "a special mind" that gave him "permission to kill."
Sweet dreams, and may you forever remain Crazy 4 Crazies.
Tuesday, April 1, 2008
Serial Killer Bedtime Stories: Luis Alfredo Garavito
Tonight's serial killer bedtime story is about Luis Alfredo Garavito. Buenas noches.
On October 30, 1999, Colombian announced that Luis Alfredo Garavito confessed to raping, torturing and killing 140 children in a five-year killing spree. "Luis Alfredo Garavito has admitted the murder of about 140 children of which we have so far found 114 skeleton," chief prosecutor Alfonso Gomez told a news conference.
Drawing a battered notebook from his pocket, Garavito showed the interrogating judge and psychologist his tally of the killings he claimed during a four-hour confession. Across the pages were 140 lines, each symbolizing one murdered youngster.
The mutilated corpses of the mostly male victims aged between eight and 16 years old have been discovered near more than 60 towns in at least 11 of Colombia's 32 provinces. "The bodies were beheaded and bore signs of having been tied up and mutilated," Gomez said.
The nationwide murder investigation was triggered after 36 decomposing corpses were found near the city of Pereira in 1997. At the time investigators said the children may have been murdered in a black magic ritual. Authorities also considered social cleansing, organ trafficking and pedophilic mayhem as reasons behind the butchery. After an 18-month investigation, Garavito was arrested in the eastern plains city of Villavicencio in April on charges of attempting to rape a child.
Born in Colombia's western coffee-growing region, Gararito was the oldest of seven children. He was repeatedly beaten by his father and raped by two male neighbors. Garavito was also a heavy alcoholic, and was treated for depression and suicidal tendencies. He said he committed most of the murders after heavy drinking.
Garavito had just five years of schooling and left home at 16, working first as a store clerk, then as a street vendor who sold religious icons and prayer cards. Prosecutors said Garavito found most of his victims on the streets, gaining their confidence by giving them soft drinks and money.
Garavito apparently committed his first murder in 1992. Authorities were unaware of the alleged serial killer until 25 bodies were found in the western city of Pereira. The victims -- mostly boys between eight and 16 -- were found with their throats slit. Some showed signs of torture and rape.
The victims were mostly poor. Many of them were children of street vendors or homeless kids. Garavito -- who was known as "Goofy", "El Loco" and "The Priest" -- passed himself off as "a street vendor, monk, indigent, disabled person or a representative of fictitious foundations for the elderly and children's education, in that way gaining entrance to schools as a speaker," Gomez said.
Garavito moved around the country frequently after the killings began in 1994, and also spent time in Ecuador, where investigations are trying to determine whether he might be linked to child slayings there too.
The most killings took place in the western state of Risaralda, and its capital, Pereira. Forty-one bodies have been found in Pereira and another 27 have turned up in neighboring Valle de Cauca.
Previously authorities charged one Pedro Pablo Ramirez with 29 of the slayings. It is unclear whether Ramirez and Garavito are the same person, or if Ramirez was released or is still in custody.
On December 31, 1998, Colombian police arrested Ramirez in connection with the murder of 29 children. The children's bodies - many missing body parts and showing signs of torture - were found in two separate mass graves. The first grave, found on 12 November, was discovered when a boy walking through an overgrown lot saw a skull in the bushes.
Authorities who dug up the lot, found several incomplete skeletons and 13 skulls. The second discovery was made less than a week later in a river-bed below a city highway. Investigators have linked Ramirez -- who had previously been in prison for sex crimes -- to at least three killings in Pereira and possibly three others in the nearby town of Armenia.
Sweet dreams, and may you forever remain loco 4 locos.
On October 30, 1999, Colombian announced that Luis Alfredo Garavito confessed to raping, torturing and killing 140 children in a five-year killing spree. "Luis Alfredo Garavito has admitted the murder of about 140 children of which we have so far found 114 skeleton," chief prosecutor Alfonso Gomez told a news conference.
Drawing a battered notebook from his pocket, Garavito showed the interrogating judge and psychologist his tally of the killings he claimed during a four-hour confession. Across the pages were 140 lines, each symbolizing one murdered youngster.
The mutilated corpses of the mostly male victims aged between eight and 16 years old have been discovered near more than 60 towns in at least 11 of Colombia's 32 provinces. "The bodies were beheaded and bore signs of having been tied up and mutilated," Gomez said.
The nationwide murder investigation was triggered after 36 decomposing corpses were found near the city of Pereira in 1997. At the time investigators said the children may have been murdered in a black magic ritual. Authorities also considered social cleansing, organ trafficking and pedophilic mayhem as reasons behind the butchery. After an 18-month investigation, Garavito was arrested in the eastern plains city of Villavicencio in April on charges of attempting to rape a child.
Born in Colombia's western coffee-growing region, Gararito was the oldest of seven children. He was repeatedly beaten by his father and raped by two male neighbors. Garavito was also a heavy alcoholic, and was treated for depression and suicidal tendencies. He said he committed most of the murders after heavy drinking.
Garavito had just five years of schooling and left home at 16, working first as a store clerk, then as a street vendor who sold religious icons and prayer cards. Prosecutors said Garavito found most of his victims on the streets, gaining their confidence by giving them soft drinks and money.
Garavito apparently committed his first murder in 1992. Authorities were unaware of the alleged serial killer until 25 bodies were found in the western city of Pereira. The victims -- mostly boys between eight and 16 -- were found with their throats slit. Some showed signs of torture and rape.
The victims were mostly poor. Many of them were children of street vendors or homeless kids. Garavito -- who was known as "Goofy", "El Loco" and "The Priest" -- passed himself off as "a street vendor, monk, indigent, disabled person or a representative of fictitious foundations for the elderly and children's education, in that way gaining entrance to schools as a speaker," Gomez said.
Garavito moved around the country frequently after the killings began in 1994, and also spent time in Ecuador, where investigations are trying to determine whether he might be linked to child slayings there too.
The most killings took place in the western state of Risaralda, and its capital, Pereira. Forty-one bodies have been found in Pereira and another 27 have turned up in neighboring Valle de Cauca.
Previously authorities charged one Pedro Pablo Ramirez with 29 of the slayings. It is unclear whether Ramirez and Garavito are the same person, or if Ramirez was released or is still in custody.
On December 31, 1998, Colombian police arrested Ramirez in connection with the murder of 29 children. The children's bodies - many missing body parts and showing signs of torture - were found in two separate mass graves. The first grave, found on 12 November, was discovered when a boy walking through an overgrown lot saw a skull in the bushes.
Authorities who dug up the lot, found several incomplete skeletons and 13 skulls. The second discovery was made less than a week later in a river-bed below a city highway. Investigators have linked Ramirez -- who had previously been in prison for sex crimes -- to at least three killings in Pereira and possibly three others in the nearby town of Armenia.
Sweet dreams, and may you forever remain loco 4 locos.
Saturday, March 1, 2008
Serial Killer Bedtime Stories: Gilles de Rais
Here's out latest serial killer bedtime story to help you go beddy bye.
A Fifteenth Century French war hero, Gilles de Rais was also one of medieval Europe's worst killers. An ally of Joan of Arc during the Hundred Year War, de Rais was instrumental in driving the English out of France. In his later years, after he was named Marshal of France by King Charles VII, he settled in his estates in Brittany, where he turned his heroic impulses towards torture and murder. He enjoyed killing mostly young boys, whom he would sodomize before and after decapitation. When he wasn't feeling up to the task he enjoyed watching his servants butcher the boys and masturbated over their entrails.
Because he was a baron, no one took note of the disappearing children around his castle. A great patron of the arts, Gilles also enjoyed practicing black magic and alchemy. His reign of terror came to an end when the Duke of Brittany dug up the mutilated remains of 50 boys in his castle. He confessed to 140 killings but it is believed that the body count could have been as high as 300. On October 26, 1440, Gilles was simultaneously burned and hanged. His two servant accomplices were simply burned alive.
Sweet dreams, and forever remain Crazy 4 Crazies.
A Fifteenth Century French war hero, Gilles de Rais was also one of medieval Europe's worst killers. An ally of Joan of Arc during the Hundred Year War, de Rais was instrumental in driving the English out of France. In his later years, after he was named Marshal of France by King Charles VII, he settled in his estates in Brittany, where he turned his heroic impulses towards torture and murder. He enjoyed killing mostly young boys, whom he would sodomize before and after decapitation. When he wasn't feeling up to the task he enjoyed watching his servants butcher the boys and masturbated over their entrails.
Because he was a baron, no one took note of the disappearing children around his castle. A great patron of the arts, Gilles also enjoyed practicing black magic and alchemy. His reign of terror came to an end when the Duke of Brittany dug up the mutilated remains of 50 boys in his castle. He confessed to 140 killings but it is believed that the body count could have been as high as 300. On October 26, 1440, Gilles was simultaneously burned and hanged. His two servant accomplices were simply burned alive.
Sweet dreams, and forever remain Crazy 4 Crazies.
Friday, February 1, 2008
Serial Killer Bedtime Stories: H. H. Holmes
Here's our latest bedtime story. Once upon a time, there was a serial killer named H.H. Holmes . . .
Born Herman Webster Mudgett, Dr. Holmes started his criminal career as a medical student by stealing corpses from the University of Michigan. He used the corpses to collect insurance money from policies taken out under fictitious names.
When he moved to Chicago he started a drugstore empire from which he made a fortune. He built a hundred-room mansion complete with gas chambers, trap doors, acid vats, lime pits, fake walls and secret entrances. During the 1893 World's Fair he rented rooms to visitors. He then killed most of his lodgers and continued his insurance fraud scheme. He also lured women to his "torture castle" with the promise of marriage. Instead, he would force them to sign over their savings, then throw them down an elevator shaft and gas them to death. In the basement of the castle he dismembered and skinned his prey and experimented with their corpses.
When police grew suspicious about H.H's activities, he torched the castle and fled. In the burnt hulk of the building, authorities found the remains of over two hundred people. H.H. was caught when one of his insurance schemes was unravelled by Pinkerton detectives. He was hanged on May 7, 1896, after one the first sensational crime trial in America. Not only was Herman the first American serial killer he was also, according to author Scheckter, the first "celebrity psycho." Although he never had the historical presence of his contemporary Jack the Ripper, he did leave behind an impressive trail of blood unequaled for almost eighty years.
Sweet dreams, and forever remain Crazy 4 Crazies.
Born Herman Webster Mudgett, Dr. Holmes started his criminal career as a medical student by stealing corpses from the University of Michigan. He used the corpses to collect insurance money from policies taken out under fictitious names.
When he moved to Chicago he started a drugstore empire from which he made a fortune. He built a hundred-room mansion complete with gas chambers, trap doors, acid vats, lime pits, fake walls and secret entrances. During the 1893 World's Fair he rented rooms to visitors. He then killed most of his lodgers and continued his insurance fraud scheme. He also lured women to his "torture castle" with the promise of marriage. Instead, he would force them to sign over their savings, then throw them down an elevator shaft and gas them to death. In the basement of the castle he dismembered and skinned his prey and experimented with their corpses.
When police grew suspicious about H.H's activities, he torched the castle and fled. In the burnt hulk of the building, authorities found the remains of over two hundred people. H.H. was caught when one of his insurance schemes was unravelled by Pinkerton detectives. He was hanged on May 7, 1896, after one the first sensational crime trial in America. Not only was Herman the first American serial killer he was also, according to author Scheckter, the first "celebrity psycho." Although he never had the historical presence of his contemporary Jack the Ripper, he did leave behind an impressive trail of blood unequaled for almost eighty years.
Sweet dreams, and forever remain Crazy 4 Crazies.
Tuesday, January 1, 2008
Serial Killer Bedtime Stories: Henry Lee Lucas and Ottis Toole
Happy New Year! Having trouble sleeping after all that partying last night? Well here's a Serial
Killer Bedtime Story to help bring in the Sandman. Tonight's story features Henry Lee Lucas & Ottis Toole, AKA The Tag Team from Hell, AKA the Sadist King and the Generalissimo of Pain.
The numbers speak for themselves. As a kid, Henry was the poster child of the "Future Serial Killer Club." His alcoholic father, called "No Legs" because of a chance encounter with a freight train, killed himself after repeatedly being humiliated by his abusive wife. When little Henry sliced an eye while playing with a knife with his brother, his bootlegging, prostitute mother -- Viola Lucas -- left his gashed orb unattended for days until it eventually withered and had to be removed by a doctor.
Once mom beat him so severely with a piece of wood that he lay in a semi-conscious state for three days before Viola's boyfriend decide to take him to a local hospital. Another time, she cruelly decided to send Hank to school in a dress and with his hair curled.
Years later, in a drunken binge, Henry stuck a knife in his mother's back and proceeded to rape her dead corpse. Later, like on many other occasions, he recanted his act of incestuous necrophilia. He got 40 years for matricide, but was out after 10. Free again, Henry launched his stellar career as the nation's most notorious random killer.
In 1976, after a chance meeting in a Jacksonville soup kitchen, he joined up with a part-time transvestite and deeply psychotic retard, Ottis Toole, to carry out numerous homicidal escapades. Ottis had a taste for human flesh and had many of his victims for dinner. Henry, however, was not a cannibal because, he said, he disliked the taste of Ottis' barbecue sauce. He was more of a sadist and a necrophile, preferring sex with mutilated bodies and live or dead animals.
The consummate killer couple, they enjoyed picking up hitchhikers to satisfy their lust for blood. Sometimes, when they didn't want to go through the hassle of killing and disposing of their prey, they would just run over the occasional hitchhiker and continue on their merry way. These lethal lovebirds parted ways after Ottis' niece, Becky Powell, shacked up with Henry at the age of seven. The unfortunate lassie was found at the age of fifteen dismembered, stuffed in pillowcases and strewn over a field.
After his arrest, Lucas toured the country as a star killer uncovering evidence of his handiwork for local police departments. In 1985, Dallas Times-Herald journalist, Hugh Aynesworth, claimed their reign of terror was a hoax and that overzealous detectives fed the would-be killers many details of their crimes. Henry and Ottis confessed to more than 600 killings in 26 states. Henry even claimed to have carried the poison to Guyana as a favor to his good friend Jim Jones.
Many investigators still believe that Lucas -- a fifth-grade dropout -- was responsible for just a couple of murders and the real criminals were the officers who fed him information on unresolved cases and coerced confessions. Serial killer expert Robert Ressler believes Henry might be responsible for as little as five killings. The truth probably lies somewhere in the middle.
To many investigators' surprise one of Henry's earliest alleged victims, a Virginia schoolteacher, was found alive and kicking as he was charged with her murder. Not one to hold back his most outrageous boasts, he claimed to have committed murders in Spain and Japan even though there's no evidence suggesting he ever left the United States.
Some of the crimes, he said, were committed under orders from the Satanic cult, the "Hand of Death." After confessing to over 300 hits, Hank recanted it all only to confess again when he became born-again. As he awaits execution on Death Row in Texas, Hank still mentions bits and pieces of evidence linking him to numerous killings in 18 states.
Meanwhile back in Florida, Ottis was diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic and his death sentence was commuted to six consecutive life terms. In prison Ottis confessed and later recanted killing 6-year-old Adam Walsh, whose 1981 disappearance outside a Hollywood, Florida, mall set off a nationwide manhunt and launched the TV career of his father, John Walsh, as the creator and host of the Fox television series "America's Most Wanted."
On September 15, 1996, Ottis died in a prison hospital of liver failure. Walsh, who repeatedly criticized the police handling of his son's case, questioned why investigators did not try to interview Toole on his deathbed or try for another confession. Speaking from prison after Ottis' death, Lucas said Toole killed Adam and later showed him the remains of the boy in a shallow grave. "I got sick about it. I said let's get the hell out of here."
On March 31, 1998, Texas State District Judge John Carter set June 30 as the execution date for Henry Lee. Although his many confessions, he was sentenced to death for the 1979 murder of a female hitchhiker known as "Orange Socks" for the only item of clothing left on her body. During many of his detractions Lucas claimed that he was working as a roofer in Florida when the hitchhiker was killed. No execution date had been set for Lucas until now. He was granted a stay in September 1995 so his claims of false confessions could be investigated. The stay was lifted a year later.
On June 27, 1998 Governor George W. Bush spared Henry's life because of overwhelming evidence proving that Henry was not in Texas when "Orange Socks" was murdered. Although Lucas confessed to killing her, work records and a cashed paycheck indicated he was in Florida at the time of the murder. Bush issued the reprieve on the recommendation of the state parole board. "I can only thank them for believing the truth and having guts enough for standing up for what's right," Lucas said from death row.
"Henry Lee Lucas is unquestionably guilty of other despicable crimes which he has been sentenced to spend the rest of his life in prison," said Bush, in Brownsville for a conference of U.S.-Mexico border state governors. "However, I believe there is enough doubt about this particular crime that the state of Texas should not impose its ultimate penalty by executing him."
Sweet dreams, and forever remain Crazy 4 Crazies.
Killer Bedtime Story to help bring in the Sandman. Tonight's story features Henry Lee Lucas & Ottis Toole, AKA The Tag Team from Hell, AKA the Sadist King and the Generalissimo of Pain.
The numbers speak for themselves. As a kid, Henry was the poster child of the "Future Serial Killer Club." His alcoholic father, called "No Legs" because of a chance encounter with a freight train, killed himself after repeatedly being humiliated by his abusive wife. When little Henry sliced an eye while playing with a knife with his brother, his bootlegging, prostitute mother -- Viola Lucas -- left his gashed orb unattended for days until it eventually withered and had to be removed by a doctor.
Once mom beat him so severely with a piece of wood that he lay in a semi-conscious state for three days before Viola's boyfriend decide to take him to a local hospital. Another time, she cruelly decided to send Hank to school in a dress and with his hair curled.
Years later, in a drunken binge, Henry stuck a knife in his mother's back and proceeded to rape her dead corpse. Later, like on many other occasions, he recanted his act of incestuous necrophilia. He got 40 years for matricide, but was out after 10. Free again, Henry launched his stellar career as the nation's most notorious random killer.
In 1976, after a chance meeting in a Jacksonville soup kitchen, he joined up with a part-time transvestite and deeply psychotic retard, Ottis Toole, to carry out numerous homicidal escapades. Ottis had a taste for human flesh and had many of his victims for dinner. Henry, however, was not a cannibal because, he said, he disliked the taste of Ottis' barbecue sauce. He was more of a sadist and a necrophile, preferring sex with mutilated bodies and live or dead animals.
The consummate killer couple, they enjoyed picking up hitchhikers to satisfy their lust for blood. Sometimes, when they didn't want to go through the hassle of killing and disposing of their prey, they would just run over the occasional hitchhiker and continue on their merry way. These lethal lovebirds parted ways after Ottis' niece, Becky Powell, shacked up with Henry at the age of seven. The unfortunate lassie was found at the age of fifteen dismembered, stuffed in pillowcases and strewn over a field.
After his arrest, Lucas toured the country as a star killer uncovering evidence of his handiwork for local police departments. In 1985, Dallas Times-Herald journalist, Hugh Aynesworth, claimed their reign of terror was a hoax and that overzealous detectives fed the would-be killers many details of their crimes. Henry and Ottis confessed to more than 600 killings in 26 states. Henry even claimed to have carried the poison to Guyana as a favor to his good friend Jim Jones.
Many investigators still believe that Lucas -- a fifth-grade dropout -- was responsible for just a couple of murders and the real criminals were the officers who fed him information on unresolved cases and coerced confessions. Serial killer expert Robert Ressler believes Henry might be responsible for as little as five killings. The truth probably lies somewhere in the middle.
To many investigators' surprise one of Henry's earliest alleged victims, a Virginia schoolteacher, was found alive and kicking as he was charged with her murder. Not one to hold back his most outrageous boasts, he claimed to have committed murders in Spain and Japan even though there's no evidence suggesting he ever left the United States.
Some of the crimes, he said, were committed under orders from the Satanic cult, the "Hand of Death." After confessing to over 300 hits, Hank recanted it all only to confess again when he became born-again. As he awaits execution on Death Row in Texas, Hank still mentions bits and pieces of evidence linking him to numerous killings in 18 states.
Meanwhile back in Florida, Ottis was diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic and his death sentence was commuted to six consecutive life terms. In prison Ottis confessed and later recanted killing 6-year-old Adam Walsh, whose 1981 disappearance outside a Hollywood, Florida, mall set off a nationwide manhunt and launched the TV career of his father, John Walsh, as the creator and host of the Fox television series "America's Most Wanted."
On September 15, 1996, Ottis died in a prison hospital of liver failure. Walsh, who repeatedly criticized the police handling of his son's case, questioned why investigators did not try to interview Toole on his deathbed or try for another confession. Speaking from prison after Ottis' death, Lucas said Toole killed Adam and later showed him the remains of the boy in a shallow grave. "I got sick about it. I said let's get the hell out of here."
On March 31, 1998, Texas State District Judge John Carter set June 30 as the execution date for Henry Lee. Although his many confessions, he was sentenced to death for the 1979 murder of a female hitchhiker known as "Orange Socks" for the only item of clothing left on her body. During many of his detractions Lucas claimed that he was working as a roofer in Florida when the hitchhiker was killed. No execution date had been set for Lucas until now. He was granted a stay in September 1995 so his claims of false confessions could be investigated. The stay was lifted a year later.
On June 27, 1998 Governor George W. Bush spared Henry's life because of overwhelming evidence proving that Henry was not in Texas when "Orange Socks" was murdered. Although Lucas confessed to killing her, work records and a cashed paycheck indicated he was in Florida at the time of the murder. Bush issued the reprieve on the recommendation of the state parole board. "I can only thank them for believing the truth and having guts enough for standing up for what's right," Lucas said from death row.
"Henry Lee Lucas is unquestionably guilty of other despicable crimes which he has been sentenced to spend the rest of his life in prison," said Bush, in Brownsville for a conference of U.S.-Mexico border state governors. "However, I believe there is enough doubt about this particular crime that the state of Texas should not impose its ultimate penalty by executing him."
Sweet dreams, and forever remain Crazy 4 Crazies.
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