Since strangling is much in vogue these days, thanks to the widely publicized exploits of the Satin Strangler, tonight's serial killer bedtime story is about Norman Afzal Simons.
Norm is believed to be South Africa's "Station Strangler." He is presently serving a 25-year sentence for the 1994 murder of 10-year-old Elroy van Rooyen.
Since 1986 South African authorities had been stumped by the growing body count of young boys of mixed race appearing dead around Cape Town. At one point they asked for help from the Interpol and the FBI. Robert Ressler, the retired FBI expert who coined the term serial killer was called in to develop a psychological profile of the killer. With Ressler's profile in hand and the sharp work of South Africa's leading profiler, Dr. Micki Pistorious, authorities were able to nab their suspect. Police think Simons, a very well-educated man who speaks seven languages, is the "Station Strangler," South Africa's most notorious serial killer. I an eight-year murder spree, the "Strangler" is believed to have killed 21 boys and a young man, all of mixed-race.
His moniker comes from having found many of his victims in train stations. Most were later found in shallow graves around Cape Town after being sodomized and strangled. One body was found with a note that read: "One more, many more in store." Elroy, his final victim, was last seen boarding a train with Simons at Cape Town's Strand train station. His body was found 10 days later with his hands tied behind his back. According to police, Simons claimed his brother, who was murdered in 1991, was living inside him. He also started hearing voices after his brother sodomized him that ordered him to kill.
Sweet dreams, and may you forever remain Crazy 4 Crazies.
Tuesday, March 1, 2011
Tuesday, February 1, 2011
Serial Killer Bedtime Stories: Earl Nelson
Earl Nelson is the star of tonight's serial killer bedtime story.
This Bible quoting drifter killed mostly landladies of boarding houses. After killing them he stuffed them under his bed before going to sleep. Dubbed the "Dark Strangler" and later "Gorilla Murderer" for his large, powerful hands. He is known to have committed twenty-two murders and was suspected of at least three more. He was captured and hanged in Canada on January 13, 1928. As he stood with the noose on his neck he told spectators "I stand innocent before God and man. I forgive those who have wronged me and ask forgiveness of those I have injured. God have mercy!"
Sweet dreams, and may you forever remain Crazy 4 Crazies.
This Bible quoting drifter killed mostly landladies of boarding houses. After killing them he stuffed them under his bed before going to sleep. Dubbed the "Dark Strangler" and later "Gorilla Murderer" for his large, powerful hands. He is known to have committed twenty-two murders and was suspected of at least three more. He was captured and hanged in Canada on January 13, 1928. As he stood with the noose on his neck he told spectators "I stand innocent before God and man. I forgive those who have wronged me and ask forgiveness of those I have injured. God have mercy!"
Sweet dreams, and may you forever remain Crazy 4 Crazies.
Saturday, January 1, 2011
Serial Killer Bedtime Stories: Arnfinn Nesset
Sit back, sip a warm mug of hot chocolate, and enjoy this serial killer bedtime story about Arnfinn Nesset to bring in the new year.
The deadliest Norwegian of the Archives. A balding, mild mannered nursing home administrator, Arnfinn is believed to have slaughtered up to 138 patients over a 20-year nursing career. In 1977 Arnfinn became the director of the Orkdal Valley Nursing Home. As he took his post, an unusual number of patients started dying.
No one suspected anything until 1981 when an employee noticed the purchase of a large amount of curacit, a derivative of the poisonous curare used as a muscle relaxant.
Police brought Arnfinn, the man in charge of purchasing the curacit, in for questioning. First he claimed he bought the drug to kill a pack of wild dogs around the nursing home. Then, inexplicably, he started confessing to killing 27 patients. At one point he exclaimed "I've killed so many I'm unable to remember them all." In 1983 the lethal administrator was convicted of 22 murders. He was handed a 21-year sentence, the maximum allowed by Norwegian law. Last we heard from him, Arfinn changed his name, became a born-again Christian, and back on the streets.
Sweet dreams, and may you forever remain Crazy 4 Crazies.
The deadliest Norwegian of the Archives. A balding, mild mannered nursing home administrator, Arnfinn is believed to have slaughtered up to 138 patients over a 20-year nursing career. In 1977 Arnfinn became the director of the Orkdal Valley Nursing Home. As he took his post, an unusual number of patients started dying.
No one suspected anything until 1981 when an employee noticed the purchase of a large amount of curacit, a derivative of the poisonous curare used as a muscle relaxant.
Police brought Arnfinn, the man in charge of purchasing the curacit, in for questioning. First he claimed he bought the drug to kill a pack of wild dogs around the nursing home. Then, inexplicably, he started confessing to killing 27 patients. At one point he exclaimed "I've killed so many I'm unable to remember them all." In 1983 the lethal administrator was convicted of 22 murders. He was handed a 21-year sentence, the maximum allowed by Norwegian law. Last we heard from him, Arfinn changed his name, became a born-again Christian, and back on the streets.
Sweet dreams, and may you forever remain Crazy 4 Crazies.
Wednesday, December 1, 2010
Serial Killer Bedtime Stories: Ted Bundy
Tonight's bedtime story is about the Picasso of the serial killer community, Ted Bundy.
The Picasso of the serial killing community. Ted was handsome, charming, intelligent, self-assured, with a brilliant future, and deadlier than a rattlesnake. Using his good looks, he was able to invisibly abduct and kill his victims and continue with his seemingly charmed life. From early 1974 to early 1978, the stranger called "Ted" stalked young women on college campuses, at shopping malls, in apartment buildings and grade schools in Washington, Oregon, Utah, Idaho, Colorado and finally Florida.
This law student and Young Republican liked to wear an arm sling to appear vulnerable and get women to help him with his groceries. Once he lured his victims to the door of his car he would bludgeon them and take them away to privately enjoy their death. He favored killing pretty, dark-haired cheerleader types. He would attack his prey with blunt objects and was fond of raping and biting them. The bite marks on one of his victims were used as evidence against him at his trial in Florida.
As a teen, Bundy was shy and sensitive. At a Seattle crisis center, he counseled the depressed, the alcoholic, and the suicidal. He graduated with a degree in psychology from the University of Washington in 1972, designed a program for dealing with habitual criminals and wrote a pamphlet on rape for the King County crime commission.
Although no one knows for sure how many women Bundy killed, his first victim is believed to be Mary Adams, 18, whose battered body was found in her Seattle bedroom on January 4, 1974. In the next year and a half, police investigated several disappearances and killings of women in the West, some of them since linked to Bundy.
He was arrested in August 1975 and convicted in March 1976 of kidnapping Carol DaRonch in Utah. That fall, he was charged with killing a Michigan nurse in Aspen, Colorado. On December 30, 1977, after a previous failed attempt, Ted escaped from the Denver court house through a window while awaiting trial. He relocated to Tallahassee, Florida, near Florida State University where he perpetrated his blood-soaked "Guernica" of crime. In January 15, 1978, he set forth on a night of butchery and killed two girls, Margaret Bowman and Lisa Levy, and wounded two others, Karen Chandler and Kathy Kleiner, in and around the Chi Omega sorority house in Tallahassee.
Two weeks later, on February 9, he stole a van and killed 12-year-old Kimberly Leach who she abducted outside her school in Lake City, Florida, for which, eventually, he was fried. Poor Kimberly's body was found in a pig trough next to a plaid jacket that was not Ted's. She was buried in a cemetery near a Purina plant under a heart-shaped tombstone with her picture on it. Two weeks later, on February 15, Ted was arrested after he was spotted by David Lee, a Pensacola policeman, in the stolen VW van.
Ted defended himself in trials in Utah, Colorado and Florida as the police tried to put together a trail of dead girls leading to him. During his various trials, a very self-possessed Ted Bundy defended himself garnishing praise and a legion of female admirers. After 11 years of trials and appeals, then-Florida Gov. Bob Martinez signed the final death warrant against Bundy on Jan. 17, 1989. Ted Bundy was electrocuted on January 24, 1989 at Florida State Prison.
On the night before his execution, Bundy talked of suicide, recalled Bill Hagmaier, chief of the FBI's National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crimes. "We had some discussions about morality and the taking of another life and his concerns about trying to explain to God about his actions," Hagmaier added. For his last meal he had steak, eggs, hash browns and coffee.
On September 20. 1999, Ted Bundy's mom held a news conference to say her son didn't commit his first murder at age 14; but the mother 8-year-old Ann Marie Burr of Tacoma believes he did. "I resent the fact that everybody in Tacoma thinks just because he lived in Tacoma he did that one too, way back when he was 14," said his mother Louise Bundy. However, Burrs and several investigators believe young Bundy stole Ann Burr from her bed on Aug. 31, 1961, and killed her.
Bundy denied involvement in Ann's death up until his execution in Florida in 1989. In 1986, he wrote to the Burrs, saying, "I do not know what happened to your daughter Ann Marie. I had nothing to do with her disappearance. "You said she disappeared Aug. 31, 1961. At the time I was a normal 14-year-old boy. I did not wander the streets late at night. I did not steal cars. I had absolutely no desire to harm anyone. I was just an average kid."
Sweet dreams, and may you forever remain Crazy 4 Crazies.
The Picasso of the serial killing community. Ted was handsome, charming, intelligent, self-assured, with a brilliant future, and deadlier than a rattlesnake. Using his good looks, he was able to invisibly abduct and kill his victims and continue with his seemingly charmed life. From early 1974 to early 1978, the stranger called "Ted" stalked young women on college campuses, at shopping malls, in apartment buildings and grade schools in Washington, Oregon, Utah, Idaho, Colorado and finally Florida.
This law student and Young Republican liked to wear an arm sling to appear vulnerable and get women to help him with his groceries. Once he lured his victims to the door of his car he would bludgeon them and take them away to privately enjoy their death. He favored killing pretty, dark-haired cheerleader types. He would attack his prey with blunt objects and was fond of raping and biting them. The bite marks on one of his victims were used as evidence against him at his trial in Florida.
As a teen, Bundy was shy and sensitive. At a Seattle crisis center, he counseled the depressed, the alcoholic, and the suicidal. He graduated with a degree in psychology from the University of Washington in 1972, designed a program for dealing with habitual criminals and wrote a pamphlet on rape for the King County crime commission.
Although no one knows for sure how many women Bundy killed, his first victim is believed to be Mary Adams, 18, whose battered body was found in her Seattle bedroom on January 4, 1974. In the next year and a half, police investigated several disappearances and killings of women in the West, some of them since linked to Bundy.
He was arrested in August 1975 and convicted in March 1976 of kidnapping Carol DaRonch in Utah. That fall, he was charged with killing a Michigan nurse in Aspen, Colorado. On December 30, 1977, after a previous failed attempt, Ted escaped from the Denver court house through a window while awaiting trial. He relocated to Tallahassee, Florida, near Florida State University where he perpetrated his blood-soaked "Guernica" of crime. In January 15, 1978, he set forth on a night of butchery and killed two girls, Margaret Bowman and Lisa Levy, and wounded two others, Karen Chandler and Kathy Kleiner, in and around the Chi Omega sorority house in Tallahassee.
Two weeks later, on February 9, he stole a van and killed 12-year-old Kimberly Leach who she abducted outside her school in Lake City, Florida, for which, eventually, he was fried. Poor Kimberly's body was found in a pig trough next to a plaid jacket that was not Ted's. She was buried in a cemetery near a Purina plant under a heart-shaped tombstone with her picture on it. Two weeks later, on February 15, Ted was arrested after he was spotted by David Lee, a Pensacola policeman, in the stolen VW van.
Ted defended himself in trials in Utah, Colorado and Florida as the police tried to put together a trail of dead girls leading to him. During his various trials, a very self-possessed Ted Bundy defended himself garnishing praise and a legion of female admirers. After 11 years of trials and appeals, then-Florida Gov. Bob Martinez signed the final death warrant against Bundy on Jan. 17, 1989. Ted Bundy was electrocuted on January 24, 1989 at Florida State Prison.
On the night before his execution, Bundy talked of suicide, recalled Bill Hagmaier, chief of the FBI's National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crimes. "We had some discussions about morality and the taking of another life and his concerns about trying to explain to God about his actions," Hagmaier added. For his last meal he had steak, eggs, hash browns and coffee.
On September 20. 1999, Ted Bundy's mom held a news conference to say her son didn't commit his first murder at age 14; but the mother 8-year-old Ann Marie Burr of Tacoma believes he did. "I resent the fact that everybody in Tacoma thinks just because he lived in Tacoma he did that one too, way back when he was 14," said his mother Louise Bundy. However, Burrs and several investigators believe young Bundy stole Ann Burr from her bed on Aug. 31, 1961, and killed her.
Bundy denied involvement in Ann's death up until his execution in Florida in 1989. In 1986, he wrote to the Burrs, saying, "I do not know what happened to your daughter Ann Marie. I had nothing to do with her disappearance. "You said she disappeared Aug. 31, 1961. At the time I was a normal 14-year-old boy. I did not wander the streets late at night. I did not steal cars. I had absolutely no desire to harm anyone. I was just an average kid."
Sweet dreams, and may you forever remain Crazy 4 Crazies.
Monday, November 1, 2010
Serial Killer Bedtime Stories: Helene Jegado
Okay Satin Strangler fans, here's a bedtime story about a femail serial killer, Helene, Jegado.
Born in Brittany, France, in 1803, Helene once complained, "Wherever I go, people died." Sure they did. Because she enjoyed poisoning them. As a teenager, she started her career as a domestic and started experimenting with poison. Eventually she wiped out the family of seven for whom she was working. Most of her subsequent employers suffered the same fate. Curiously, no one suspected her of any wrongdoing because of her pious demeanor.
In 1831, after killing one too many families and fearing arrest, she joined a nunnery and took her vows. There she was suspected of offing several sisters before renouncing God and returning to her job as a domestic. As before, people started dying in her wake. Strangely she kept getting hired for new jobs.
She laid off the arsenic between 1841 to 1849 but then started dipping into it again. After two deaths in the household where she was working police started suspecting her after her overtly defensive manner during a routine questioning. Furthermore, traces of arsenic were found in the bodies of the most recent victims as well as many of her former employers. However, Helene never admitted her guilt, In 1851 she was guillotined just the same for her wave of terror.
Sweet dreams, and may you forever remain Crazy 4 Crazies.
Born in Brittany, France, in 1803, Helene once complained, "Wherever I go, people died." Sure they did. Because she enjoyed poisoning them. As a teenager, she started her career as a domestic and started experimenting with poison. Eventually she wiped out the family of seven for whom she was working. Most of her subsequent employers suffered the same fate. Curiously, no one suspected her of any wrongdoing because of her pious demeanor.
In 1831, after killing one too many families and fearing arrest, she joined a nunnery and took her vows. There she was suspected of offing several sisters before renouncing God and returning to her job as a domestic. As before, people started dying in her wake. Strangely she kept getting hired for new jobs.
She laid off the arsenic between 1841 to 1849 but then started dipping into it again. After two deaths in the household where she was working police started suspecting her after her overtly defensive manner during a routine questioning. Furthermore, traces of arsenic were found in the bodies of the most recent victims as well as many of her former employers. However, Helene never admitted her guilt, In 1851 she was guillotined just the same for her wave of terror.
Sweet dreams, and may you forever remain Crazy 4 Crazies.
Friday, October 1, 2010
Serial Killer Bedtime Stories: Bela Kiss
Tonight's serial killer bedtime story comes complete with a Kiss.
A Hungarian serial killer, Bela's exploits were immortalized in a play by the surrealist poet Antonin Artaud called 23. In 1912, after Bela moved with his wife to the village of Czinkota, she started having an affair. Soon the lovers disappeared and Bela told neighbors that they had eloped. The deadly cuckold then started collecting 55-gallon metal drums. He told the village constable that they were filled with gasoline as a precaution for the coming war.
In 1914 Bela was drafted into the military and sent to the battlefield. By 1916 news had returned to the village that Bela died in combat. When soldiers passed through Czinkota looking for fuel, the constable remembered the drums of gasoline in the Kiss household. When the soldiers opened the drums they were startled by the discovery of 24 corpses preserved in alcohol. Apparently Bela, calling himself Hoffman, placed personal ads in newspapers describing himself as a "lonely widower seeking female companionship." Those who answered were promptly garroted and stuffed into 55-gallon drums. Not surprisingly, two of the corpses found were those of his wife and her lover.
After the gruesome discovery, authorities traveled to the hospital were Bela died. There they were told that the Bela that died there was a young man. Apparently Bela had switched identities with one of the dying on the battlefield and was able to escape. There have been subsequent sightings of him in Budapest and persistent rumors have placed him in New York working as a janitor. But in Hungary he is remembered as the one who got away.
Sweet dreams, and may you forever remain Crazy 4 Crazies.
A Hungarian serial killer, Bela's exploits were immortalized in a play by the surrealist poet Antonin Artaud called 23. In 1912, after Bela moved with his wife to the village of Czinkota, she started having an affair. Soon the lovers disappeared and Bela told neighbors that they had eloped. The deadly cuckold then started collecting 55-gallon metal drums. He told the village constable that they were filled with gasoline as a precaution for the coming war.
In 1914 Bela was drafted into the military and sent to the battlefield. By 1916 news had returned to the village that Bela died in combat. When soldiers passed through Czinkota looking for fuel, the constable remembered the drums of gasoline in the Kiss household. When the soldiers opened the drums they were startled by the discovery of 24 corpses preserved in alcohol. Apparently Bela, calling himself Hoffman, placed personal ads in newspapers describing himself as a "lonely widower seeking female companionship." Those who answered were promptly garroted and stuffed into 55-gallon drums. Not surprisingly, two of the corpses found were those of his wife and her lover.
After the gruesome discovery, authorities traveled to the hospital were Bela died. There they were told that the Bela that died there was a young man. Apparently Bela had switched identities with one of the dying on the battlefield and was able to escape. There have been subsequent sightings of him in Budapest and persistent rumors have placed him in New York working as a janitor. But in Hungary he is remembered as the one who got away.
Sweet dreams, and may you forever remain Crazy 4 Crazies.
Wednesday, August 18, 2010
Kenneth Bianchi Denied Parole
Kenneth Alessio Bianchi was denied parole by a state board in Sacramento, California, today.
Bianchi and his cousin Angelo Buono, Jr., together are known as the Hillside Stranglers. He is serving a term of life imprisonment in Washington. Bianchi is also a suspect in the Alphabet murders, three unsolved murders in his home city of Rochester.
At his trial, Bianchi pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity, claiming that another personality, one "Steve Walker", had committed the crimes. Bianchi even convinced a few expert psychiatrists that he indeed suffered from multiple personality disorder, but investigators brought in their own psychiatrists, mainly the psychiatrist Martin Orne. When Orne mentioned to Bianchi that in genuine cases of the disorder, there tends to be three or more personalities, Bianchi promptly created another alias, "Billy". Eventually, investigators discovered that the very name "Steven Walker" came from a student whose identity Bianchi had previously attempted to steal for the purpose of fraudulently practicing psychology. Police also found a small library of books in Bianchi's home on topics of modern psychology, further indicating his ability to fake the disorder.
Once his claims were subjected to this scrutiny, Bianchi eventually admitted that he had been faking the disorder. To acquire leniency, he agreed to testify against Buono. However, in actually giving his testimony, Bianchi made every effort to be as uncooperative and self-contradictory as possible, apparently hoping to avoid being the ultimate cause of Buono being convicted. In the end, Bianchi's efforts were unsuccessful, as Buono was in fact convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment.
In 1980, Bianchi began a relationship with Veronica Compton, a woman he met while in prison. During his trial, she testified for the defense, telling the jury a false, vague tale about the crimes in an attempt to exculpate Bianchi and also admitting to wanting to buy a mortuary with another convicted murderer for the purpose of necrophilia. She was later convicted and imprisoned for attempting to strangle a woman she had lured to a motel in an attempt to have authorities believe that the Hillside Strangler was still on the loose and the wrong man was imprisoned. Bianchi had given her some smuggled semen to use to make it look like a rape/murder committed by the Hillside Strangler.
Bianchi is serving his sentence at Washington State Penitentiary in Walla Walla, Washington.
Bianchi will be eligible to apply for parole again in 2025.
Bianchi and his cousin Angelo Buono, Jr., together are known as the Hillside Stranglers. He is serving a term of life imprisonment in Washington. Bianchi is also a suspect in the Alphabet murders, three unsolved murders in his home city of Rochester.
At his trial, Bianchi pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity, claiming that another personality, one "Steve Walker", had committed the crimes. Bianchi even convinced a few expert psychiatrists that he indeed suffered from multiple personality disorder, but investigators brought in their own psychiatrists, mainly the psychiatrist Martin Orne. When Orne mentioned to Bianchi that in genuine cases of the disorder, there tends to be three or more personalities, Bianchi promptly created another alias, "Billy". Eventually, investigators discovered that the very name "Steven Walker" came from a student whose identity Bianchi had previously attempted to steal for the purpose of fraudulently practicing psychology. Police also found a small library of books in Bianchi's home on topics of modern psychology, further indicating his ability to fake the disorder.
Once his claims were subjected to this scrutiny, Bianchi eventually admitted that he had been faking the disorder. To acquire leniency, he agreed to testify against Buono. However, in actually giving his testimony, Bianchi made every effort to be as uncooperative and self-contradictory as possible, apparently hoping to avoid being the ultimate cause of Buono being convicted. In the end, Bianchi's efforts were unsuccessful, as Buono was in fact convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment.
In 1980, Bianchi began a relationship with Veronica Compton, a woman he met while in prison. During his trial, she testified for the defense, telling the jury a false, vague tale about the crimes in an attempt to exculpate Bianchi and also admitting to wanting to buy a mortuary with another convicted murderer for the purpose of necrophilia. She was later convicted and imprisoned for attempting to strangle a woman she had lured to a motel in an attempt to have authorities believe that the Hillside Strangler was still on the loose and the wrong man was imprisoned. Bianchi had given her some smuggled semen to use to make it look like a rape/murder committed by the Hillside Strangler.
Bianchi is serving his sentence at Washington State Penitentiary in Walla Walla, Washington.
Bianchi will be eligible to apply for parole again in 2025.
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