Tonight's bedtime story is about Moses. No, not that Moses.
A surprisingly intelligent and gentle mannered Moses Sithole is allegedly South Africa's worst serial killer. The suspected Gauteng serial killer, Sithole was charged in the Pretoria Supreme Court with 38 charges of murder, 40 charges of rape and six of robbery. Between 1994 and 1995 he allegedly strangled women in the Pretoria, Johannesburg and East Rand areas. Most victims were lured to secluded fields where Sithole allegedly assaulted, raped and strangled them with their own underwear or belts.
The series of murders started in June 1994, shortly after Sithole had served house arrest for rape. Between 1994 and 1995 South African authorities were alarmed by the growing number of dead women appearing around Pretoria and Johannesburg. Several of the women were left with their hands tied behind their backs. One woman was blindfolded. Many were found with their heads covered with clothing. Apparently he murdered his first victim because she had shouted at him when he asked her for directions. "I cannot remember her name," he said. "I killed her and left her there. I went straight home and had a shower."
Robert Ressler, the F.B.I. Behavioral Science Unit's former chief, was called in to help with the investigation. Ressler concluded that the killings in Cleveland, a suburb of Johannesburg, and Boksburg, a suburb of Pretoria, were linked. In his psychological profile of the killer he indicated the possibility of two killers acting together.
On October 18, 1995, after a week-long nationwide hunt, police shot and wounded Moses Sithole, an ax-wielding ex-convict with six aliases. When he was arrested, authorities thought Sithole might have been acting in conjunction with David Selepe but no evidence has been uncovered suggesting that both men knew each other. Unfortunately for Selepe, he was killed by police while in custody.
On October 22, 1996, Sithole appeared in court and was charged with 38 murders and 40 rapes. On November 14, Sithole's trial was postponed after the suspect appeared in court looking very pale and with his pants soaked with blood. The HIV positive killer was rushed to the hospital where he was treated for a wound on his knee. According to his defense team, the injury came from a fall he sustained at Pretoria Central Prison.
A jailhouse confession videotape -- made by Charles Schoeman on the condition that Sithole and three other prisoners would get a share of the royalties -- shows a visibly relaxed Sithole in a cell either smoking or chewing on an apple while giving a chilling account one of his victim's lasts moments before death. Sithole -- an avid talker -- was a willing party to a series of video and audio tapes made by fellow prisoners. In them he told fellow prisoners that he hated women and felt he was teaching them "a very good lesson" by murdering them.
Facts contained in the tapes were repeated in a confession to the police and in a phone conversation with a Johannesburg journalist. An unknown caller, identified by voice experts as Sithole, claimed to be the Gauteng serial killer and gave details of where he had left the bodies of several of his victims.
Sithole officially became South Africa's worst serial killer On December 5, 1997. when he was found guilty of 38 murders and 40 rapes. Sithole -- who's overwhelming arrogance had ultimately brought about his downfall -- sat emotionless, taking down notes throughout the three-hour judgment. After the judgment, he gathered up his briefcase and left the courtroom with a smile on his face. The next day, as people in the gallery cheered and applauded, Sithole was sentenced to 2,410 year in jail. Relatives of the victims shouted for his head and called for the return of capital punishment. The judge -- who also made a plea for the restoration of the death penalty -- said he would have sentenced Sithole to death without hesitation.
Sweet dreams, and may you forever remain Crazy 4 Crazies.
Sunday, February 1, 2009
Thursday, January 1, 2009
Serial Killer Bedtime Stories: Richard "Iceman" Kuklinski
Happy New Year! Tonight's serial killer bedtime story is not about the Iceman who stole our hearts in Top Gun.
Richard "Iceman" Kuklinski was a professional hit man by trade with a serial killer passion on the side. Although suspected of at least 40 murders, while in custody Rich said that he only killed to support his family. A regular Mr. Short Fuse, Rich killed an unsuspecting motorist for cutting him off. He ran him off the road, beat him to death, then ran over his body repeatedly.
Not the family type, he is said to have once blown the head off the shoulders of a man over a bet. He also allegedly slit a man too see how long it would take him to bleed to death. He once chopped up a body, put it in a 50 gallon drum and placed the drum outside of his favorite hot dog stand. Rich got life and now sits rotting in a jail cell in New Jersey.
Sweet dreams, and may you forever remain Crazy 4 Crazies.
Richard "Iceman" Kuklinski was a professional hit man by trade with a serial killer passion on the side. Although suspected of at least 40 murders, while in custody Rich said that he only killed to support his family. A regular Mr. Short Fuse, Rich killed an unsuspecting motorist for cutting him off. He ran him off the road, beat him to death, then ran over his body repeatedly.
Not the family type, he is said to have once blown the head off the shoulders of a man over a bet. He also allegedly slit a man too see how long it would take him to bleed to death. He once chopped up a body, put it in a 50 gallon drum and placed the drum outside of his favorite hot dog stand. Rich got life and now sits rotting in a jail cell in New Jersey.
Sweet dreams, and may you forever remain Crazy 4 Crazies.
Monday, December 1, 2008
Serial Killer Bedtime Stories: Gerald Stano
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.
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.
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).
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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.
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