Peter William Sutcliffe was the first of six children born to John and Kathleen Sutcliffe, on 2 June 1946, in Bingley, Yorkshire. As a boy he was reserved, and preferred spending time with his mother, finding it difficult to make friends at school, and he was often bullied. He left school aged fifteen, with no clear career focus, and his early working life was spent in a number of short-lived, menial occupations, which included a stint as a gravedigger. Between November 1971 and April 1973 Sutcliffe worked at the factory of Baird Television Ltd, on the packaging line. He left when he was asked to go on the road as a salesman.

Outwardly he presented as a diligent, likeable individual, if a little reserved, and, in 1966, he met the daughter of Czech immigrants, Sonia Szurma, whom he courted and eventually married in August 1974. They moved in with her parents, as his chequered work history meant that they had insufficient funds to buy their own home. During the time of their courtship, Sutcliffe had developed an obsession with prostitutes that he indulged together with a friend, Trevor Birdsall, and they spent a large portion of their spare time cruising red-light districts in the Yorkshire area. This obsession continued after their marriage and the acquisition of his HGV licence in June 1975, and his subsequent work as a lorry driver, took him away from home more than ever, enabling him to indulge his obsession without fear of detection. There is speculation that a bad experience with a prostitute, during one of these forays, which he was believed to have been conned out of money, it was said to be the fuel of his violent hatred of these women that resulted in the death of thirteen women, and the vicious attack of seven others.

Sutcliffe committed his first assault on an older prostitute whom he had met whilst searching for the woman who had previously tricked him out of money. He had left his friend’s mini-van and walked up Saint Pauls Road, Bradford, until he was out of sight. When he came back, he was out of breath, as if he had been running. He told his long-term friend Trevor Birdsall, who was the driver of the vehicle that he was in, to drive off quickly. Sutcliffe said that he had followed a prostitute into a garage and hit her over the head with a stone in a sock. According to his statement, Sutcliffe stated, “I got out of the car, went across the road and hit her. The force of the impact tore the toe off the sock and whatever was in it came out. I went back to the car and got in it”. When the police visited his home the next day, they informed him that the woman, who bore no resemblance to the prostitute who had tricked him out of £10, had noted down Birdsall’s mini-van vehicle registration plate. Sutcliffe admitted that he had hit her over the head, but claimed that it was only with his hand. The police told him he was “very lucky” as the prostitute did not want anything more to do with the incident, she was a known prostitute and hercommon-law husband was serving a sentence for an assault. Sutcliffe committed his second assault on the night of 5 July 1975 in Keighley. He attacked Anna Rogulskyj, who was walking alone, striking her unconscious with a ball-peen hammer and slashing her stomach with a knife. Disturbed by a neighbour, he left without killing her. Rogulskyj survived after extensive medical intervention but was emotionally traumatised by this attack.

Sutcliffe attacked Olive Smelt in Halifax in August. Employing the same modus operandi he struck her from behind and used a knife to slash her, though this time above her buttocks. Again he was interrupted, and left his victim badly injured but still alive. Like Rogulskyj, Smelt suffered emotional scars from the attack, including clinical depression. On 27 August, Sutcliffe attacked 14 year old Tracy Browne in Silsden. He struck her from behind and hit her on the head five times while she was walking in a country lane. Sutcliffe was not convicted of this attack, but confessed to it in 1992. The first victim to lose her life was Wilma McCann, on 30 October. McCann was a mother of four from the Chapeltown district of Leeds. Sutcliffe struck her twice with a hammer before stabbing her 15 times in the neck, chest and abdomen. Traces of semen were found on the back of her underwear. An extensive inquiry, involving 150 police officers and 11,000 interviews, failed to uncover the culprit. One of McCann’s daughters committed suicide in December 2007, reportedly after suffering years of torment over her mother’s death.

Sutcliffe committed his next murder in January 1976, when he stabbed Emily Jackson 51 times in Leeds. In dire financial straits, Jackson had been using the family van to exchange sexual favours for money, a fact which shocked family and neighbours when it was revealed after the murder. Sutcliffe hit her on the head with a hammer and then used a sharpened screwdriver to stab her in the neck, chest, and abdomen. Sutcliffe also stamped on her thigh, leaving behind an impression of his boot. Sutcliffe attacked Marcella Claxton in Roundhay Park, Leeds, on 9 May. Walking home from a party, she was given a lift by Sutcliffe. When she later got out of the car to urinate, Sutcliffe hit her from behind with a hammer. She was left alive and was able to testify against Sutcliffe at his trial. On 5 February 1977 he attacked Irene Richardson, a Chapeltown prostitute, in Roundhay Park. Richardson was bludgeoned to death with a hammer. Once she was dead, he mutilated her corpse with a knife. Tyre tracks left near the murder scene resulted in a long list of possible suspect vehicles. Two months later, on 23 April 1977, Sutcliffe killed Bradford prostitute Patricia “Tina” Atkinson in her flat, where police found a bootprint on the bedclothes. Two months later Sutcliffe committed another murder in Chapeltown, claiming his youngest victim, 16-year-old Jayne MacDonald, on 26 June. She was not a prostitute. In the public perception, her death showed that every woman was a potential victim. Sutcliffe seriously assaulted Maureen Long in Bradford in July. He was interrupted and left her for dead. A witness misidentified the make of his car. More than 300 police officers working the case amassed 12,500 statements and checked thousands of cars, without success. On 1 October 1977 Sutcliffe murdered Manchester prostitute Jean Jordan. Her body was found ten days later and had obviously been moved several days after death. In a later confession, Sutcliffe stated he had realised that the new £5 note he had given her was traceable. After hosting a family party at his new home, he returned to the wasteland behind Manchester’s Southern Cemetery, where he left the body, to retrieve the note. Unable to do so he mutilated Jordan’s corpse and moved the location of the body. The following morning, Jordan was discovered by actor Bruce Jones, who at that time was a local dairy worker. He had an allotment on the land adjoining the site where the body was found and was searching for disused house bricks when he made the discovery.The £5 note, hidden inside a secret compartment in Jordan’s handbag, offered a valuable piece of evidence. The note was new, allowing it to be traced to branches of the Midland Bank in Shipley and Bingley. Police analysis of bank operations allowed them to narrow their field of inquiry to 8,000 local employees who could have received it in their wagepacket. Over three months the police interviewed 5,000 men, including Sutcliffe, whom they did not connect to the crime. On 14 December Sutcliffe attacked another Leeds prostitute, Marilyn Moore. Moore survived and provided police with a description of her attacker. Tyre tracks found at the scene matched those from an earlier attack.

The police discontinued the search for the person who received the £5 note in January 1978. Although Sutcliffe was interviewed about the £5 note, he was not investigated further (he would ultimately be contacted, and disregarded, by the Ripper Squad on several further occasions). That month, Sutcliffe killed again. His victim was 21-year-old Bradford prostitute, Yvonne Pearson. Sutcliffe hid her body under a discarded sofa and it was not found until March. He killed 18-year-old Huddersfield prostitute Helen Rytka, on the night of 31 January. Her body was found three days later. On 16 May, Sutcliffe killed again after a three-month hiatus. The victim was Vera Millward whom he killed during an attack in the car park of Manchester Royal Infirmary.

Almost a year passed before Sutcliffe attacked again. During this period, in November 1978, his mother Kathleen died, aged 59. On 4 April 1979 Sutcliffe killed a 19-year-old building society clerk, Josephine Whitaker. He attacked her on Saville Park Moor, Halifax, as she was walking home. Despite new forensic evidence, police efforts were diverted for several months following receipt of a taped message purporting to be from the murderer. The message taunted Assistant Chief Constable George Oldfield who was leading the investigation. The tape contained a man’s voice saying “I’m Jack. I see you’re having no luck catching me. I have the greatest respect for you, George, but Lord, you’re no nearer catching me now than four years ago when I started.” Based on the recorded message police began searching for a man with a Wearside accent, which was narrowed down to the Castletown area of Sunderland. The message was much later revealed to be a hoax. The hoaxer, dubbed “Wearside Jack”, sent two letters to police in 1978, that boasted of his crimes. The letters, signed “Jack The Ripper”, claimed responsibility for the murder of 26-year-old Joan Harrison in Preston in November 1975. (On 20 October 2005,John Samuel Humble, an unemployed alcoholic and long-time resident of the Ford Estate area of Sunderland, a mile from Castletown, was charged with attempting to pervert the course of justice for sending the hoax letters and tape. He was remanded in custody. On 21 March 2006 Humble was convicted and sentenced to eight years in prison.) On 1 September Sutcliffe murdered 20-year-old Barbara Leach. Leach was a Bradford University student killed and her body dumped at the rear of 13 Ash Grove, under a pile of bricks, close to the university and her lodgings. It was his sixteenth attack. The murder of a woman who was not a prostitute again alarmed the public and prompted an expensive publicity campaign, which emphasised the Wearside connection. Despite the false Wearside lead, Sutcliffe was interviewed on at least two further occasions in 1979. Despite matching several forensic clues and being on the list of 300 names in connection with the £5 note, he was not strongly suspected. In total, Sutcliffe was interviewed by the police on nine occasions.

In April 1980 Sutcliffe was arrested for drunk driving. While awaiting trial on this charge, he killed two more women. In April 1980 Sutcliffe was arrested for drunk driving. While awaiting trial on this charge, he killed two more women. He murdered 37-year-old Marguerite Walls on the night of 20 August, and 20-year-old Jacqueline Hill, a student at theUniversity of Leeds, on the night of 17 November. He also attacked two other women who survived. They were Dr. Uphadya Bandara, attacked in Leeds on 24 September, and 16-year-old Theresa Sykes, attacked in Huddersfield on the night of 5 November. On 25 November, Trevor Birdsall, an associate of Sutcliffe reported him to the police as a suspect. This information vanished into the enormous amount of paperwork already creates. Hill was to be the Ripper’s last victim. Over the second half of 1980, police became increasingly sceptical of the accuracy of the “Wearside Jack” profile, and forces were instructed not to discount potential suspects purely on the grounds of their accents.

Millgarth Police Station in Leeds city centre, where the Yorkshire Ripper police investigation was conducted. On 2 January 1981, Sutcliffe was stopped by the police with 24-year-old prostitute Olivia Reivers in the driveway of Light Trades House, Melbourne Avenue, Broomhill, Sheffield, in South Yorkshire. A police check revealed the car was fitted with false number plates and Sutcliffe was arrested for this offence and transferred to Dewsbury Police Station, West Yorkshire. At Dewsbury he was questioned in relation to the Yorkshire Ripper case as he matched so many of the physical characteristics known. The next day police returned to the scene of the arrest and discovered a knife, hammer and rope he had discarded when he briefly slipped away from the police after telling them he was “bursting for a pee”. Sutcliffe had hidden a second knife in the toilet cistern at the police station when he was permitted to use the toilet. The police obtained a search warrant for his home at 6 Garden Lane in the Heaton district of Bradford and brought his wife in for questioning. When Sutcliffe was stripped of his clothing at the police station he was wearing a V-neck sweater under his trousers. The sleeves had been pulled over his legs and the V-neck exposed his genital area. The front of the elbows were padded to protect his knees as, presumably, he knelt over his victims’ corpses. The sexual implications of this outfit were held to be obvious, but it was not communicated to the public until the 2003 book, Wicked Beyond Belief: The Hunt for the Yorkshire Ripper, written by Michael Bilton. After two days of intensive questioning, on the afternoon of 4 January 1981 Sutcliffe suddenly declared he was the Ripper. Over the next day, Sutcliffe calmly described his many attacks. Weeks later he claimed God had told him to murder the women. He displayed emotion only when telling of the murder of his youngest victim, Jayne MacDonald, and when he was questioned about the murder of Joan Harrison, which he vehemently denied. He was charged at Dewsbury on 5 January.

At his trial, Sutcliffe pleaded not guilty to 13 counts of murder, but guilty to manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility. The basis of this defence was his claim that he was the tool of God’s will. Sutcliffe first claimed to have heard voices while working as a gravedigger, that ultimately ordered him to kill prostitutes. He claimed that the voices originated from a headstone of a deceased Polish man, Bronisław Zapolski,and that the voices were that of God. He also pleaded guilty to seven counts of attempted murder. The prosecution intended to accept Sutcliffe’s plea after four psychiatrists diagnosed him with paranoid schizophrenia. However, the trial judge, Mr Justice Boreham, demanded an unusually detailed explanation of the prosecution reasoning. After a two-hour representation by the Attorney-General Sir Michael Havers, a 90-minute lunch break and a further 40 minutes of legal discussion, he rejected the diminished responsibility plea and the expert testimonies of the four psychiatrists, insisting that the case should be dealt with by a jury. The trial proper was set to commence on 5 May 1981. The trial lasted two weeks and despite the efforts of his counsel James Chadwin QC, Sutcliffe was found guilty of murder on all counts and sentenced to life imprisonment.The trial judge said that Sutcliffe was beyond redemption, and that he hoped that he would never leave prison. He recommended a minimum term of 30 years to be served before parole is considered. This recommendation meant that Sutcliffe would have been unlikely to be freed until at least 2011, at the age of 65. On 16 July 2010 this sentence was extended to a full life term, meaning that Sutcliffe will not leave prison alive, barring any judicial developments to the contrary.

After his trial, Sutcliffe admitted two further attacks to detectives. It was decided at the time that prosecution for these offences was “not in the public interest”. West Yorkshire Police have made it clear that the female victims wish to remain anonymous.

Kaspars Petrovs (born 1978) is a Latvian serial killer. He was convicted of the murder of thirteen elderly women by the Riga Regional Court on May 12, 2005 and sentenced to life in prison. He was also convicted of robbery and inflicting serious bodily injury.

He had been charged with robbing and strangling 38 women between 2000 and 2003, but the Riga Regional Court said murder could only be proved in 13 of the cases. Many of the other women were initially thought to have died of natural causes and were buried without undergoing autopsies, Vitolina said. During the trial, Petrovs admitted robbing the women but said he strangled them only so they would lose consciousness. It was not immediately clear whether he would appeal. Investigators said Petrovs, who had been homeless in Riga for three years, followed his victims home and entered their apartments by force or by posing as a worker with the country's state-owned natural gas company. Once inside, they said, Petrovs would kill his victims and rob them. At several of the crime scenes, there were no obvious signs of struggle and police initially assumed some victims had died of natural causes. He apologized to victims' families in court Thursday and asked for their forgiveness, Baltic news agency BNS reported. "I can not return the victims to life by words, but I wish they were still alive, that nothing had happened and I wasn't here. I would rather be sitting on the street, subsisting on bread and water," he was quoted as saying.

The Mad Butcher of Kingsbury Run remains unidentified to this day, as do the majority of his victims, but the first canonical victim was found on September 23, 1935, and it was estimated that he had been killed three to four weeks earlier. The last two canonical victims were found on August 16, 1938. All of the victims had been at their dump sites for various periods of time before being found. The first outstanding suspect was Dr. Francis E. Sweeney, the alcoholic first cousin of Congressman Martin L. Sweeney. Though the authorities felt that he was a viable suspect, Congressman Sweeney found out about it and, it has been suspected, made a deal with the investigating sheriff to find a better suspect. At this point, Frank Dolezal, a Cleveland resident, was arrested. He confessed to having killed Flo Polillo, the third victim, in self-defense, but later recanted on the grounds that he had been beaten into confessing by the sheriff’s jailer. As of today, the case remains unsolved.

A profile made by the original investigators said that the offender was a psychopath, though probably not obviously insane. He would have had some knowledge of anatomy, maybe having worked as a physician, butcher, or hunter, and the cuts showed that he would have been very skilled at cutting flesh. As decapitations are very messy, it was believed that he had access to some private space where the murders were performed. If this was correct, the fact that the bodies would then have been carried for a long distance indicated that the killer was probably very large and strong. The killer may also have been familiar with the Kingsbury Run area. It was also theorized that the choice of victims and gruesome mutilations were a way to ensure that the victims were never identified. If this was true, the killer would profile as an organized offender.

The age and sex of all the Butcher's victims varied, but they were typically drifters or people from the lower class of society. He would usually kill them by decapitating them, sometimes after tying them up, and then mutilate the body severely post-mortem, sometimes dismembering the arms and/or legs, cutting off the genitals and removing organs, and then burn the bodies, either by using oil as an accelerant or using acid or some chemical. It was believed by the investigators that, since decapitations are very messy, the killer performed the murders someplace private and then carried the bodies to their dump sites and burned them there. In some cases, the heads were never recovered, making it possible that the Butcher kept them as a trophy or for some other purpose.

Belle Gunness was a physically strong woman and a Serial Killer reported to have murdered more than 40 people between 1884 and 1908 before disappearing without a trace. When she immigrated to the U.S. in 1881. A series of suspicious fires and deaths, mostly resulting in insurance awards, began. Belle also began posting notices in lovelorn columns to entice wealthy men to her farm, after which they were never seen again. Authorities eventually found the remains of over 40 victims on her property.

Born Brynhild Paulsdatter Strseth on November 22, 1859 in Selbu, Norway. The daughter of a stonemason, Belle Gunness immigrated to America in 1881 in search of wealth. What followed were a series of insurance frauds and crimes, escalating in size and danger. Not long after Gunness married Mads Albert Sorenson in 1884, their store and home mysteriously burned down. The couple claimed the insurance money for both. Soon after, Sorenson died of heart failure on the one day his two life insurance policies overlapped. Though her husband’s family demanded an inquiry, no charges were filed. It is believed the couple produced two children whom Gunness poisoned in infancy for the insurance money.

Several more unexplained deaths followed, including the infant daughter of her new husband, Peter Gunness, followed by Peter Gunness himself. Her adopted daughter Jennie’s body would also be found on Belle’s property. Gunness then began meeting wealthy men through a lovelorn column. Her suitors were her next victims, each of whom brought cash to her farm and then disappeared forever: John Moo, Henry Gurholdt, Olaf Svenherud, Ole B. Budsburg, Olaf Lindbloom, Andrew Hegelein, to name just a few.

In 1908, just when Hegelein?’s brother became suspicious and Gunness’ luck seemed to be running out, her farmhouse burnt to the ground. In the smoldering ruins workmen discovered four skeletons. Three were identified as her foster children. However the fourth, believed to be Gunness, was inexplicably missing its skull. After the fire, her victims were unearthed from their shallow graves around the farm. All told, the remains of more than forty men and children were exhumed. Ray Lamphere, Gunness’ hired hand, was arrested for murder and arson on May 22, 1908. He was found guilty of arson, but cleared of murder. He died in prison, but not before revealing the truth about Belle Gunness and her crimes, including burning her own house down to hide the body that was recovered was not hers. Gunness had planned the entire thing, and skipped town after withdrawing most of her money from her bank accounts. She was never tracked down and her death has never been confirmed.

Jake Bird was a convicted murdererand self-confessed serial killer. He started roaming in his nineteenth year and never settled anywhere for long, spending much of his time as a manual laborer and "gandy dancer" on various railroads. It was backbreaking work, but it built up Jake's strength and kept him in motion, trolling for human targets. By the time of his arrest in 1947, he would claim a body-count approaching one victim for each year of his life. On October 30, 1947, Bird was prowling through Tacoma, Washington, when he stopped at the home occupied by Bertha Kludt, 52, and her teenage daughter Beverly. Finding an ax in the woodshed, Bird reportedly stripped off his clothes before breaking into the house and hacking both victims to death. Their dying screams alerted neighbors, and police were just arriving on the scene as Bird emerged from the backyard, shoes in hand. Violently resisting arrest, he slashed two officers with a knife before he was finally beaten into submission and dragged off to the county hospital for treatment of various injuries. In custody, Bird first pled innocence, then dropped his pose when blood and brain tissue were found on his trousers. Sentenced to die for the slayings, he stalled execution for nearly two years, regaling police with his intimate knowledge of 44 deaths nationwide. At least eleven crimes were solved through Bird's confessions , starting with the ax murders of two women at Evanston, Illinois, in 1942. Other victims were confirmed in Louisville, Kentucky; Omaha, Nebraska; Kansas City, Kansas; Sioux Falls, South Dakota; Cleveland, Ohio; Orlando, Florida; and Portage, Wisconsin. Police in Houston suspected Bird of murdering Mrs. Harry Richardson there, and Chicago authorities were curious about a weighted body retrieved from Lake Michigan, five miles south of Kenosha. Los Angeles detectives had their eyes on Jake for murdering a black youth and a Jewish grocer, while in New York City he was tentatively linked to the robbery and murder of a delicatessen owner. Psychiatrists examined Bird in jail and labeled him a psychopath , deriving satisfaction from the sight of women cowering in terror. In the verified cases, most of his victims were female, most were white, and the majority had been killed with hatchets or axes in their homes. (Bird also put a "hex" on several enemies from prison, journalists reporting that some half a dozen of them subsequently died.) Inevitably, Jake ran out of stories, and he climbed the gallows on July 15, 1949, in the Washington state prison at Walla Walla.

Amir Qayyum was born in Pakistan. As a child, Qayyum was abandoned by his father and went to live with his uncle Dr. Shahid. Qayyum displayed violent tendencies at a young age and was thrown out of school. He would also be thrown out of his house by his brothers and sisters after he would beat them up. On September 25, 2003, Shahid and a friend were murdered by unidentified assailants. On February 28, 2004 a suspect named Hafiz Abid was arrested but shot and killed himself in a police van after taking a gun from a sleeping policeman. His uncle's murder caused Qayyum to want to take revenge against society. From June to July 2005, Amir Qayyum killed 14 homeless men with bricks or stones and was known as "The brick killer". He was caught after assaulting a man with a stone. He was sentenced to death on May 10, 2006.

Hua Ruizhuo was a Chinese serial killer who was convicted of killing 14 female prostitutes from July 1998 to June 2001 in Chaoyang District, Beijing. He picked his victims up from the The Great Wall Sheraton Hotel in Beijing, handcuffed them in his van, raped them, beat them to death and left their bodies in garbage dumps. He began killing when he discovered that his girlfriend was a prostitute. He was executed by a single gunshot to the head on January 31, 2002.

Marcelo Costa de Andrade, "The Vampire of Niterói", is a Brazilian serial killer convicted of raping and killing 14 boys. This mama’s boy and religious psychopath of inoffensive appearance is Brazil’s most notorious serial killer. The son of poor migrants from the Northeast, Marcelo grew up in the Rocinha slum in Rio de Janeiro. He lived without running water and was beaten with regularity by his grandfather, his stepfather and his stepmother. When he was 10 he was sexually abused. At 14 he began to prostitute himself for a living. He was sent to a reform school, but escaped. Still hustling at 16, he began a long lasting homosexual relationship with an older man. By 17 he tried to rape his 10-year-old brother. When he was 23 his lover left him and he moved in with his mother and brothers in Itaborai, another slum on the other side of the polluted Guanabara Bay. There he found a low-paying job distributing flyers for a shop in the district of Copacabana. He also joined the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God and started going to church four times a week. Despite some idiosyncrasies and his odd and incoherent laughter, his life seemed normal. That is, until April 1991, when he started to kill.

Over a nine-month period Marcelo tallied 14 deaths. His victims of choice were poor street urchins whom he attracted to deserted areas, to rape and strangle. He also practiced necrophilia, decapitated one of the boys, crushed the head of another, and, on two occasions, drank the victim’s blood. Later he confessed his vampiric thirst was merely an attempt “to become as beautiful as them.” Violence in Rio is common and the daily body count is so high that authorities never suspected the growing number of disappearing street urchins were the handywork of a serial killer. Usually street children are the victims of choice for warped vigilante groups trying to clean up the streets. Quite the humanitarian Andrade later confessed, “I preferred young boys because they are better looking and have soft skin. And the priest said that children automatically go to heaven if they die before they’re thirteen. So I know I did them a favor by sending them to heaven.” In December of 1991 his killing spree came to an end when he “fell in love” with ten-year-old Altair de Abreu and spared his life. Marcello met the young beggar and his six-year-old brother Ivan in the Niteroi bus terminal. He offered them money if they helped him light candles for a saint in Saint George’s church. The lucky survivor later told police, “We were heading for a church, but as we crossed a vacant lot, Marcelo suddenly turned on Ivan and started strangling him. I was so paralyzed by fear I could not run away. I watched in horror, tears streaming down my cheeks, as he killed and then raped my brother. When he was finished with Ivan, he turned to me, hugged me, and said he loved me.” Then he asked Altair to live with him. Scared to death, the boy agreed to spend the night with Marcelo in the bushes.

The next morning, the lovestruck killer took Altair to work with him. When they arrived the office was closed. While they waited for it to open, the terrified youngster was able to escape. He hitchhiked his way back home and told his mother that he had lost his brother. A few days later, pressed by his sister, the boy told the truth. In the meantime Marcelo, a truly considerate killer, had returned to the crime scene to tuck the hands of his victim inside his shorts, “so that the rats couldn’t gnaw the fingers.” When young Ivan’s family went to the police, Marcelo, who had maintained his daily routine, was calmly arrested in the Rio shop where he worked. “I thought you would come yesterday,” he told the arresting officers. At first, police thought Ivan’s murder was an isolated case. However, two months later Marcelo’s dotting mother was called to testify about her son’s strange behavior. One night, she said, he left home with a machete “to cut bananas.” He returned the next morning with no bananas and the machete covered in blood. Eventually Marcelo did confess to 14 killings and led police to the remains of his other victims. As Brazil’s star killer, he asked police if anywhere in the world there was a case like his, and stated he killed because: “I liked the boys and I didn’t want them to go to hell.”

On January 24, 1997, Marcelo escaped from the Heitor Carrilho Psychiatric Hospital Rio de Janeiro when a guard accidentaly left a door open while sunbathing. He then hitchhikked and begged his way to the town of Guaraciaba do Norte to see his father on his way to the Holy Land. He was rearrested on February 5 carrying a bag with toiletries, a piece of cheese and a bible under his arm. According to the arresting officer, Andrade told him that he “was going to the Holy Land because he was purified by killing and raping children and drinking their blood.”

The Doodler is an unidentified serial killerbelieved responsible for 14 slayings and three assaults of men in the gaycommunity of San Francisco, California between January 1974 and September 1975. To the extent the case has been written about, the Doodler has been credited with fourteen victims. One encounters this figure in the era’s press accounts and books of recent vintage. But it is far more likely there were, in fact, five or six. (The larger figure may be due to the frequency with which gay men were murdered in those years; it’s possible that several distinct cases were conflated and the Doodler given too much credit.) Five men were contemporaneously identified in the newspapers as Doodler victims, but the count shouldn’t be considered definitive. It’s a fool’s errand to say any single victim is definitely the work of the Doodler, or to rule out the possibility of others. As a veteran detective once said, “Anyone in my position who tells you otherwise, especially when there hasn’t even been an indictment, is either untrustworthy or lying.” Forty years after the fact, the story of the Doodler killings has not been even cursorily told. Unlike cases with similar body counts this one was quickly forgotten. It was, perhaps, somewhat a matter of timing. When the killings began, it had been just a year since the American Psychiatric Association Board of Trustees ceased classifying homosexuality as a disorder. Most media outlets, just maybe, did not consider gay men sufficiently sympathetic to rate coverage. And then, four and half years after the killings ended, San Francisco’s own Ken Horne, a ballet school dropout, was reported to the Centers for Disease Control with Kaposi’s Sarcoma. Five murdered men would become, relative to what followed, a statistical blip.

It is believed the Doodler would sketch his victims nude before murdering them. Though 3 victims survived, and a suspect was identified, none were willing to "out" themselves in open court in order to convict the suspect. This is one of the reasons gay men have been the focus of several serial killers, not only are they gay and needed to be secret about it, but often would the serial killer also be gay and quite uneasy about it and being secret about it. Easy prey when they have nowhere to go. Sad and scary, almost the same scinario with many prostitute serial killings.

Arthur Shawcross was an American serial killer, also known as the Genesee River Killer in Rochester, New York. His parents dispute his claims that he was molested as a child, but it's clear that he was troubled. In 1972, he confessed to killing two children and went to prison. His records were sealed so he could settle in a new town without causing a panic. But from 1988 to 1990, Shawcross killed 11 women in upstate New York, earning the nickname "The Genessee River Killer." He died in prison.

He was born on June 6, 1945, and died on November 10, 2008 while serving a life sentence for the murder of 11 women. From his birthplace of Kittery, Maine, his family moved to Watertown, a small town near Lake Ontario in New York State, when he was still a child. Shawcross claims that his adolescence was turbulent, and cites a difficult relationship with both parents, particularly his domineering mother, for his later troubles. He says he also exhibited behavioral problems at an early age, including bed-wetting and bullying. He also made extreme reports about his early sexuality. He claimed his aunt sexually molested him when he was 9, and that he had sexual relations with his younger sister. He also admitted to his first homosexual encounter at the age of 11, which he says was followed by experimentation with bestiality.

In contrast to these claims, however, his parents and siblings maintain that he had a normal childhood, and the described events were largely the product of his imagination. There is no way of knowing whose version represents the reality of his upbringing, but what became clear, later on, was that Shawcross would change his stories at will, as he was interviewed by various professionals in the course of their investigations. From school records it can be independently verified that he was an inveterate truant, with a particularly low IQ, a tendency to bullying and violence and that he came under suspicion for a series of juvenile arson attacks as well as burglaries. He dropped out of school after failing to pass the ninth grade, and the next few years were punctuated with violence and jail sentences. He received his first probationary sentence in December 1963 for smashing a shop window.

Shawcross married first wife, Sarah, in September 1964. The couple produced a son in October 1965. But another probationary charge for unlawful entry in November 1965, proved the last straw for his marriage and he was divorced soon after. His second marriage, following drafting into the Army in April 1967, was also tainted by violence and was equally short-lived. He served a tour of duty in the Vietnam War in October 1967, and he later claimed that he murdered and cannibalized two young Vietnamese girls and several children while there. There is no corroborating evidence to support this, however. He also claimed a "combat kill" total of 39 which, when investigated later, was also discounted as fabrication; authorities claim he killed no one on his tour of duty.

On his return from military duty in 1968, he landed in trouble yet again when he was caught and convicted for an arson attack. Shawcross served two years of a five-year jail term. He was released in October 1971 and returned to Watertown again. A year later, on April 7, 1972, he claimed his first victim: 10-year-old neighbor Jack Blake. Shawcross took him fishing just a few days before he disappeared, but denied any knowledge of the disappearance. Several weeks later on April 22, 1972, he married his third wife, Penny Sherbino, who was pregnant with his child. Five months later, his victim's body was finally located. He had been sexually assaulted and suffocated, but police had no leads to the identity of the killer. Jack Blake would be the first of many more victims.

In September 1972, the body of 8-year-old Karen Ann Hill was found under a bridge. She had been raped and murdered. Police found mud, leaves and other debris had been forced down her throat and inside her clothing. Neighbors remembered that Shawcross had been seen with Karen in the vicinity of the bridge before her disappearance, and he had a history of minor run-ins with local children. Shawcross came under immediate suspicion. He was arrested on October 3, 1972, and finally confessed to both killings, although he was only charged with Karen Hill's killing, given the lack of evidence tying him to Jack Blake's death. He received a 25-year jail sentence, and third wife Penny divorced him shortly thereafter.

After serving less than 15 years of this sentence, he was released on parole in April 1987. The well-publicized resettlement of a child killer in the Binghamton area of New York State was greeted by a public outcry, and he was forced to leave the area after a few months along with his new girlfriend, Rose Whalley. His past meant that he would be unwelcome almost anywhere, and the authorities made the decision to seal his criminal record in order to prevent a recurrence of the public alarm in Binghamton. They moved Shawcross and Whalley to Rochester, New York, where she became his fourth wife. In Rochester, Shawcross took on a succession of menial jobs. His lackluster marriage to Whalley meant that he was soon seeking solace elsewhere, both from prostitutes as well as his new girlfriend, Clara Neal.

It did not take long for Shawcross to return to his murderous ways. Hunters discovered his next victim, 27-year-old prostitute Dorothy Blackburn, on March 24, 1988. Her body was found in the Genessee River, dumped there following a vicious attack, which included bite marks in the groin area and strangulation. With little evidence, and no public impetus to solve the murder of a prostitute, her case languished for over a year. There were other murders of prostitutes in that time but, given the danger of the profession, nothing untoward was noticed that linked any of the cases. The discovery of the body of another prostitute, Anna Steffen, on September 9, 1989, linked several of the victims. She died of asphyxia, and her body had been dumped in a similar manner to Blackburn's corpse. Her body, however, was found far from the original murder scene, so again the possibility that a serial killer was at work was not recognized.

On October 21, 1989, the body of homeless woman Dorothy Keeler, aged 59, was discovered followed six days later by another prostitute, Patricia Ives, in the same area. Both had been asphyxiated and the press started to show an interest as the cases were linked. They nicknamed the offender "The Genessee River Killer." In all the previous cases at least some attempt at concealment had been made, which police felt indicated previous criminal or military experience. They began to advise prostitutes working in the area to exercise caution, and sought as much information as possible about strangers operating in the area. They also began checking criminal records for offenders who might be living in the immediate area. Shawcross' sealed criminal record meant that he shielded him from police scrutiny.

As prostitutes continued to disappear, it became apparent that the killer must be someone familiar to the women who worked in the area. Police were able to piece together a description of a regular client called "Mitch" or "Mike." Women said this particular john was prone to violence. Then the body of 26-year-old June Stott, who was neither a prostitute nor drug user, was found on Thanksgiving Day. She had been strangled, anally mutilated after death, had her labia removed, and was gutted from throat to crotch like a wild animal.

With the body count mounting, the police sought assistance from FBI profilers. They divided the 11 unsolved prostitute murders into sub-groups according to method and position. They developed a profile that described the killer as a white male in his 20s or 30s, who was strong, probably with a previous criminal record, familiar with the area, and comfortable enough with the victims that they would enter his vehicle without question. The lack of sexual interference indicated it might be someone with sexual dysfunction. The post-mortem injury inflicted on June Stott, and not on any other victim, indicated that the killer was becoming more comfortable around corpses, probably returning to the crime scene again later to relive the attack.

The discovery of the body of Elizabeth Gibson, on November 27, brought a breakthrough: suspect "Mitch" had been seen with her shortly before her disappearance, but they seemed no closer to establishing his identity. Police tried various tactics, including canvassing all the local bars, to no avail. When a pair of discarded jeans was discovered near the river on December 31, 1989, containing an ID card for a girl named Felicia Stephens, police began an aerial search of the surrounding area. On January 2, 1990, a helicopter spotted what appeared to be a naked female body lying on the ice surface of the river by a bridge in the forest. The body was not Felicia Stephens but that of missing prostitute June Cicero. She had also been mutilated post-mortem, as well as sawn practically in half.

Even more importantly, the helicopter spotted a man standing on the bridge next to a small van. He appeared to be either masturbating or urinating. Fortunately for the authorities, Shawcross had, as speculated, returned to the scene of one of his crimes to relive the pleasure of the attack. Patrol teams on the ground were alerted to the vehicle, which had sped away. They finally tracked down Shawcross via the car's registration, which was in the name of his girlfriend Clara Neal. When approached, Shawcross agreed to assist the police with their enquiries. When they asked for his driver's license, he admitted he did not have one and then revealed that he had been in jail for manslaughter.

Police were confident they had their killer, and further questioning revealed the earlier child deaths and a grandiose account of his Vietnam War service, which was later discounted. A photo taken of him during the initial questioning soon confirmed his identity as "Mitch," and official enquiries unearthed the reason for Shawcross' sealed record, which prevented the police from tracking him down sooner. Still, police were unable to get Shawcross to admit to the murders—until they confirmed that a piece of jewelery he had given to Clara Neal previously belonged to victim June Cicero. When police threatened to implicate her in the killings, Shawcross capitulated and admitted to most of the murders, giving detailed excuses about why he had been "forced" to kill each one. He even admitted to the killing of two undiscovered bodies, those of prostitutes Maria Welsh and Darlene Trippi, leading investigators to their bodies. His formal confession was nearly 80 pages long.

In November 1990, Shawcross went on trial for the 10 murders that had occurred in Monroe County. The last victim, Elizabeth Gibson, had been killed in neighboring Wayne County. The trial was a national media event, extensively televised and widely viewed. Shawcross' defense team tried to build a case based on an insanity plea, citing various mitigating factors, such as his upbringing, post-traumatic stress as a result of military service, a cyst on the brain and a rare genetic defect. The prosecution was quick to dispute the claims about his childhood and military service, casting doubts on Shawcross' testimony. The physiological evidence about brain science and genetic factors was, at best, spurious and beyond the understanding of the jury. It was also hindered by poor presentation on the part of the expert witnesses called to testify. Shawcross was declared sane—and guilty of 10 instances of second-degree murder. The judge sentenced him to 25 years for each count, a total of 250 years imprisonment. A few months later, Shawcross was taken to Wayne County to be tried for Elizabeth Gibson's murder. Rather than claim insanity this time, he pleaded guilty and received a further life sentence. Shawcross was held at the Sullivan Correctional Facility in New York State until November 10, 2008, when he complained of pain in his leg. He was transferred to a hospital where he died later that day of cardiac arrest.

Joachim Georg Kroll was a German serial killer,child molester and cannibal. He was known as the Ruhr Cannibal, and was very particular about where he killed, only killing in the same place on a few occasions years apart. This, and the fact that there were a number of other killers operating in the area at the time, helped him to evade capture. Kroll would surprise his victims and strangle them quickly. Afterward he would strip the body and have intercourse with it, often masturbating over it again. He would then mutilate and cut off pieces to be eaten later. Upon returning home, he would have intercourse again with a rubber sex doll he had for the purpose. Kroll said that he often sliced portions of flesh from his victims to cook and eat them, claiming that he did this to save on his grocery bills.

A small class of serial killers are the mentally retarded who usually are caught quickly by authorities because they are unable to conceal their crimes sufficiently. But Joachim Kroll of was an extreme example of a man suffering from mental retardation who was able to evade police discovery for nearly twenty one years. The classification of the mentally retarded offender is described as one who has limited vocabulary, difficulty answering questions, prefers young children as friends, acts impulsively, is incapable of understanding consequences, and has limited ability of recalling events that might have taken place. Notoriously incompetent, mentally retarded serial killers cannot commit their crimes without an accomplice who can help them rape victims, hide bodies and construct a viable alibi. Most killers with low IQ’s, such as Otis Toole, are able to commit their crimes primarily with another smarter and more capable person, such as Henry Lee Lucas. Joachim Kroll, one of the few exceptions, was able to do all of these things by himself, perhaps out of sheer luck. Police investigations were looking for a multitude of killers who were intelligent enough to kill for twenty years without being caught. This is a classic example of police searching for someone they believed was very smart, but in fact, they were seeking a seriously below average individual who was of a third grade intelligence. Once in custody, he believed that he was going to get a simple operation to cure him of his homicidal urges and would then be released from prison. Instead he was charged with eight murders and one attempted murder. In April 1982, after a 151-day trial, he was convicted on all counts and was given nine life sentences.

He was born in 1927 to a lower-class family. His father went through five marriages in which four children were born - three brothers and a sister - all of whom were later charged along with Zdzisław for criminal conspiracy, robbery and obstructing justice. He committed all of his killings in the following areas: in the neighbourhoods of Czeladź, Będzin, and adjoining towns in Zagłębie Dąbrowskie and Upper Silesia. The murders started in 1964 and continued, with occasional breaks, until late 1970. Having been arrested in early 1972, Marchwicki was charged with the murder of fourteen women and the attempted murder of another six, but one attempted murder charge was not proven. After a highly publicized show trial which lasted for 10 months, Marchwicki received the death sentence in July 1975. His execution took place in 1977. His brother Jan Marchwicki also received the death penalty, while his third brother Henryk was sentenced to 25 years for taking part in a conspiracy to commit murder. The half-sister, Halina, got a three-year prison sentence for receiving stolen things such as watches and pens that she knew came from Zdzisław's victims. Criminal penalties were given out to Halina's son, also called Zdzisław, for failing to inform the police about the murder conspiracies.

In the course of the trial, and afterwards, there was much dispute whether Marchwicki was the real vampire. He did not show typical serial killer behaviour, remaining rather passive and demure during the criminal trials. While in prison waiting for the results of the appeal, he reputedly wrote a diary in which he described the killings in minute details, along with all the associated emotional ups and downs. It is firmly established today that the diary was dictated to him by police officers through a fellow prisoner. It seems barely possible that Marchwicki, who dropped out of school at an early age and had a low IQ, would write using a style that used complex sentences and included police slang terms. One of Marchwicki's murder victims was the niece of Edward Gierek, who was then the Upper Silesian communist party leader. However, the prosecution and the police investigators denied being pressured by political forces in the criminal prosecution of Zdzisław Marchwicki.

Carl Eugene Watts, also known by his nickname Coral, was an American serial killer dubbed "The Sunday Morning Slasher". Watts is now suspected to have killed more than 100 women, which would make him the most prolific serial killer in American history. He obtained immunity for a dozen murders as a result of a plea bargain with prosecutors in 1982; at one point it appeared that he could be released in 2006. He died of prostate cancer while serving two sentences of life without parole in a Michigan prison for the murders of Helen Dutcher and Gloria Steele.

Carl Eugene Watts was born in Killeen, Texas to Richard Eugene Watts and Dorothy Mae Young. His father was a private first class in the Army, and his mother was a kindergarten art teacher. When Watts was less than two years of age, his parents separated and he was raised by his mother. Watts and his mother moved to Inkster, Michigan, and in 1962, Dorothy Mae married a mechanic named Norman Caesar with whom she had two daughters.

As a child, Watts was described as being strange. Around the age of twelve, Watts claimed that this was when he started to fantasize about torturing and killing girls and young women. During adolescence, Watts began to stalk girls and is believed to have killed his first victim before the age of 15.

When Watts was 13, he was infected with meningitis which caused him to be held back in the eighth grade. Upon his return to school, Watts had difficulty keeping up with other students. At school, he would often receive failing grades, and was reading at a third grade level by age 16. He also suffered severe bullying at school. On June 29, 1969, Watts was arrested for sexually assaulting 26-year-old Joan Gave. When Watts was tried, he was sentenced to the Lafayette Clinic, a mental hospital in Detroit. According to a psychiatric assessment, Watts was revealed to suffer from mild mental retardation, with a full scale I.Q. of 68, and to have a delusional thought process, though a police officer interrogating Watts after his arrest later stated that he appeared to be "very, very intelligent" with an "excellent memory". He was released from the Lafayette Clinic on November 9, 1969. Despite his poor grades, Watts graduated from high school in 1973, and received a football scholarship to Lane College in Jackson, Tennessee. He was expelled from Lane College after only three months because he was accused of stalking and assaulting women. Another reason he was expelled was because many people at Lane College believed Watts was a suspect in the brutal murder of a female student; however, there was not enough evidence to convict him of the murder. After his expulsion he moved to Houston, Texas.

Watts' career as a serial killer began when he was 20 years old in 1974, by kidnapping his victims from their homes, torturing them, and then murdering them. On October 30, 1974, Watts tortured and brutally murdered 20-year-old Gloria Steele, who was believed to be his second victim. Watts, who was African American, almost always killed young white women. Watts killed females between the ages of 14 and 44 using methods such as strangulation, stabbing, bludgeoning, and drowning. Watts had murdered dozens of women between 1974 and 1982, and despite the many women he murdered, Watts was not discovered as a serial killer for almost eight years. There were several reasons for this. He attacked in several different jurisdictions and even different states. Even with the advent of DNA testing it was still nearly impossible because he rarely performed sexual acts on his victims, unlike most serial killers of women and girls, and his crimes were not thought to be sexually motivated. Watts was also not suspected to be involved with any of the murders by the people who knew him, and was not a police suspect in any of the murders until his arrest in 1982.

On May 23, 1982, Watts was arrested for breaking into the home of two young women in Houston, and attempting to kill them. While in custody, police began to link Watts with the recent murders of a number of women. Until early 1981, he had lived in Michigan, where authorities suspected him of being responsible for the murders of at least 10 women and girls there. Watts was previously questioned about the murders in 1975, but there had not been enough evidence to convict him. At that time, Watts had spent a year in prison for attacking a woman, who survived. Prosecutors in Texas did not feel they had enough evidence to convict Watts of murder, so in 1982 they arranged a plea bargain. If Watts gave full details and confessions to his crimes, they would give him immunity from the murder charges and he would, instead, face just a charge of burglary with intent to murder. This charge carried a 60-year sentence. He agreed with the deal and promptly confessed in detail to 12 murders in Texas. However, Michigan authorities refused to go in on the deal so the cases in that state remained open. Watts later claimed that he had killed 40 women, and has also implied that there were more than 80 victims in total. He would not confess outright to having committed these murders, however, because he did not want to be seen as a "mass murderer". Police still consider Watts a suspect in 90 unsolved murders.

Watts was sentenced to the agreed 60 years. However, shortly after he began serving time, the Texas Court of Appeals ruled that he had not been informed that the bathtub and water he attempted to drown Lori Lister in was considered a deadly weapon. The ruling reclassified him as a nonviolent felon, making him eligible for early release. At the time, Texas law allowed nonviolent felons to have three days deducted from their sentences for every one day served as long as they were well behaved. Watts was a model prisoner, and had enough time deducted from his sentence that he could have been released as early as May 9, 2006. The law allowing early release was abolished after public outcry, but could not be applied retroactively according to the Texas Constitution. In 2004, Michigan Attorney General Mike Cox went on national TV asking for anyone to come forward with information in order to try and convict Watts of murder to ensure he was not released. Joseph Foy of Westland, Michigan, came forward to say that he had seen a man fitting Watts' description murder Helen Dutcher, a 36-year-old woman who died after being stabbed twelve times in December 1979. Foy identified Watts by his eyes, which he described as being "evil" and devoid of emotion. Although Watts had immunity from prosecution for the 12 killings he had admitted to in Texas, he had no immunity agreement in Michigan. Before his 2004 trial, law enforcement officials asked the trial judge to allow the Texas confessions into evidence, which he agreed to. Watts was promptly charged with the murder of Helen Dutcher. A Michigan jury convicted him on November 17, 2004, after hearing eyewitness testimony from Joseph Foy. On December 7, he was sentenced to life imprisonment. Two days later, authorities in Michigan started making moves to try him for the murder of Western Michigan University student Gloria Steele, who was stabbed to death in 1974. Watts' trial for the Steele murder began in Kalamazoo, Michigan on July 25, 2007; closing arguments concluded July 26. The following day the jury returned a guilty verdict. Watts was sentenced to life imprisonment without parole on September 13. He was incarcerated at a maximum security prison in Ionia, Michigan. He died of prostate cancer on September 21 in a Jackson, Michigan hospital. The case is featured in episodes of Cold Case Files and truTV series The Investigators.

Childhood Years: Carl Eugene Watts was born in Fort Hood, Texas on November 7, 1953, to Richard and Dorothy Watts. His parents divorced in 1955 and Carl began spending a lot of his time with his grandmother. When his mother relocated to Detroit, Carl remained with his grandmother for awhile. She told the Houston Chronicle that even as a young child, Carl enjoyed hunting and skinning rabbits. During his childhood, he developed meningitis and suffered high fevers, resulting in learning disabilities. By the 1960s, Watts was described as a polite and soft-spoken young man. He had athletic ability and participated in the Golden Gloves boxing program, although academically he was considered below average. By the age of 15, he demonstrated violent behavior. While doing his paper route, he knocked on the apartment door of a woman and attacked her when she opened the door. When arrested he told police, "He just felt like beating someone up." In September 1969, prompted by his lawyer, Watts was institutionalized in a hospital in Detroit. Within three months, he was evaluated and placed on outpatient treatment by Dr. Gary Ainsworth. In his final review of Watts, Dr. Ainsworth stated, "This patient is a paranoid young man who is struggling for control of strong homicidal impulses. His behavior controls are faulty, and there is a high potential for violent acting out. This individual is considered dangerous." Watts continued high school after his release from the hospital. He was involved in sports but continued to decline academically. He was a drug user, a loner, and was often disciplined by school officials for his volatile behavior with female classmates. He graduated at age 19. During this time, he rarely attended outpatient treatment. He was accepted to Lane College on a football scholarship, but due to injuries he was unable to complete his first year, and returned home to Detroit.

Watts returned to college after being accepted into a special scholarship and mentoring program sponsored by Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo. Prior to attending the program, Watts was again evaluated at the outpatient facility, where it was determined that he was still a danger and had a "strong impulse to beat up women," yet due to the right to confidentiality policies, staffers were unable to alert authorities or the college Watts was attending. On October 25, 1974, Lenore Knizacky answered her door and was attacked by a man who said he was looking for Charles. She fought back and survived. On October 30, Gloria Steel, 19, was found dead with 33 stab wounds to her chest. A witness reported speaking with a man at Steele’s complex, who said he was looking for Charles. Diane Williams reported being attacked on November 12, under the same circumstances. She survived and managed to see the attacker's car and make a report to the police. Watts was picked out in a line-up by Knizacky and Williams and arrested on assault and battery charges. He admitted to attacking 15 females, but refused to talk about the Steele murder. His attorney arranged for Watts to commit himself into the Kalamazo State Hospital. The hospital psychiatrist investigated Watts' background and learned that at the previous institution, Watts was said to have possibly killed two women by choking them. He diagnosed Watts with an anti-social personality disorder.

Prior to Watts' trial, he had a court ordered evaluation at the Center for Forensic Psychiatry in Ann Arbor. The examining doctor described Watts as dangerous and felt he would most likely attack again and was found competent to stand trial. Carl, or Coral as he now called himself, pled 'no contest,' and received a one year sentence on the assault and battery charges but was never charged in the murder of Steel. In June, 1976, he was out of jail and back home in Detroit with his mother. Ann Arbor is 40 miles west of Detroit and the home of the University of Michigan. In April 1980, the Ann Arbor police were called to the home of 17-year-old Shirley Small. She had been attacked and repeatedly cut with an instrument resembling a scalpel. She bled to death on the sidewalk where she fell. Glenda Richmond, 26, was the next victim. She was found by her doorway, dead from over 28 stab wounds. Rebecca Greer, 20, was next. She died outside her door after being stabbed 54 times. A task force was formed, led by Detective Paul Bunten, to investigate the murders that occurred within five months of each other. The task force was dealing with no evidence and no witnesses. Sergeant James Arthurs contacted the task force after reading about the murders. He told them of his past experience with Watts and the similarities of Watts' previous crimes to those now under investigation. By this time, Watts was working with his stepfather at a trucking company, had a child, then later met another woman who he married. In October, 1979, Watts was arrested for prowling around in Southfield, Detroit suburb. The charges were later dropped. Investigators did note, however, that during the previous year, five women in the same suburb were assaulted on separate occasions, but with similar circumstances. None were killed, nor could any of them identify their attacker. By 1979 and 1980, attacks on women in Detroit and surrounding areas became more frequent and violent and similar in style. By May 1980, Watts was divorced. His wife stated that it was due to his strange behavior, which included his habit of leaving their home for hours, immediately after they engaged in sex. Within months, attacks in neighboring Wisteria, Ontario were being reported that were of the same nature as those in Ann Arbor and Detroit.

Bai Baoshan was a Chinese serial killer and robber who was executed for killing 15 people. Described in official dispatches as China’s most prolific serial killer to date, with 15 known victims, Bai Baoshan apparently committed his first murder in the early 1980’s, during a poorly planned holdup. Convicted of murder and robbery in that case, he served 13 years in prison and emerged with a brooding desire for revenge against society at large. His payback rampage began in March 1996, when he attacked a police sentry in Beijing and stole a semi-automatic weapon, later used to kill one person and wound 6 others ( including 4 patrolman ). Authorities believe he robbed and killed a Beijing cigarette vendor before leaving town and traveling to the northern Chinese province of Hebei. There, Bai killed another policeman and stole his automatic rifle, moving on to Urumqi, the capital of Xinjiang province. In Urumqi, authorities say Bai and 2 accomplices murdered 10 persons - including police officers, security guards, and civilians - while stealing 1.5 million yuan (about $180,000). Unhappy with the prospect of sharing his loot, Bai killed one of his cohorts and kept the money for himself. By that time, Bai had earned the dubious honor of being labeled China’s Public Enemy Number 1. Returning to Beijing in October 1997, the 39-year-old gunman was traced by police and arrested on October 16, charged with 14 homicides and various related felonies. A local newspaper reported his confession, and he was returned to Xinjiang province for trial, where most of his victims were slain. Convicted on all counts and sentenced to death, Bai Baoshan was executed on May 6, 1998.

Chester D. Turner is no stranger to murder or the punishment that comes with it. He squeezed the life out of more than a dozen women during a decade of terror, and two juries decided he should die for his crimes. So it was merely a formality Friday that Turner, already on death row for 10 murders, was given four more death sentences for what a prosecutor called the city's most prolific serial killing. Turner, 47, looked straight at Judge Robert Perry as he handed down the penalty for the string of inner-city killings during the crack cocaine epidemic. As Turner was led from court, he cursed at the prosecution and said, "I'll be back." Turner is one of at least three men blamed for a series of killings once thought to be the work of a solo killer dubbed the "Southside Slayer." More than 100 women in South Los Angeles were killed during the violent era when highly addictive crack made people desperate enough to turn to prostitution to support their habit or led to other crimes.

Turner was convicted of 14 of those slayings, plus the killing of a pregnant victim's fetus, from 1987 and 1998, making him the city's most prolific killer, prosecutor Robert Grace said. Family members of the victims were relieved the case was closed. They joked and laughed as they rode the courthouse elevator with prosecutors after the brief hearing. "It's judgment day," said Gwendolyn Cameron, whose sister Cynthia Johnson was a victim in the most recent case. "He got what he had coming. The sooner they execute him, the better we'll all be. He's a menace to society." Turner was serving time for rape when genetic evidence connected him to 10 killings in South Los Angeles. The victims had been sexually assaulted and strangled. Their bodies were dumped in alleys, a burned-out garage and a portable toilet.

Most were suspected prostitutes, some were crack users and some were just snatched off the streets. A grainy surveillance tape played at his first trial showed the 6-foot-3, 260-pound Turner in the act of killing Paula Vance, whose body was found at a vacant office building in February 1998. Turner was convicted and sentenced in 2007 to death in those 10 cases, plus an additional term of 15 years-to-life for the death of the viable fetus. Evidence emerged later that linked him to the killings of Elandra Bunn, 33, in June 1987; Deborah Williams, 28, in November 1992; Mary Edwards, 42, in December 1992; and Cynthia Annette Johnson, 30, in February 1997. All were choked to death, mostly by hand.

Another man, David Allen Jones, served 11 years for three of those killings. Jones, a former janitor with the mental capacity of an 8-year-old, was freed after DNA evidence pointed to Turner and prosecutors determined Jones' confessions were coerced by police. Defense lawyers acknowledged that Turner had sex with women in exchange for drugs, but they argued he wasn't a killer. "He denies to this day that he killed anybody," defense lawyer Kieran Patrick Brown said. After the death sentences were delivered Friday, Turner asked the judge why prosecutors had insisted on capital punishment after they once offered him the chance of life in prison without parole for the four murders. The judge didn't answer.

Outside court, Deputy District Attorney Beth Silverman explained that prosecutors had offered the plea deal before trial, but Turner rejected it. "He's never taken responsibility for any of these crimes. So what are we going to do, give him four freebies? Those are four lives," Silverman said. "He's a remorseless animal." Whether Turner is ever executed is another question. There are 745 inmates on death row at San Quentin State Prison. More than 160 have been sentenced to die since executions were put on hold in 2006 because of court challenges over the lethal injection method. Turner has been sentenced to die twice since then.

Known as South Africa's "Axe Killer", Elifasi Msomi, was hanged in Pretoria in January 1956 after being convicted of hacking 15 people to death. Msomi blamed his victims' deaths on the "tokoloshe" which, he said, would appear on his shoulder and order him to kill. He killed mostly in the Unkomaas and Umzimkuku valleys in Natal. Posing as a doctor, Elifasi charmed his victims into willingly going off with him.

A Zulu man, Msomi was an unsuccessful young sangoma (shaman). Seeking professional assistance, he consulted with another sangoma. Msomi claims that during this exchange he was co-opted by an evil sprite, a tokoloshe. In August 1953, under the instruction of the tokoloshe, Msomi began an 18 month killing spree in the southern KwaZulu-Natal valleys of South Africa. He initially raped and murdered a young woman in the presence of his mistress, whose blood he kept in a bottle. Unimpressed with his 'new' powers, his mistress alerted the police who arrested Msomi. He escaped shortly afterwards, giving credit for his escape to the all-powerful tokoloshe, he returned to his murderous ways, killing 5 children before being re-arrested. He duly escaped again. Msomi was arrested a month later for petty theft. The stolen items turned out to belong to his victims and he was soon fingered as the murderous culprit. Msomi readily assisted the police in finding some of his victims remains, including a missing skull. Whether he gained further satisfaction from revisiting his crime scenes or felt diminished responsibility in light of the tokoloshe's influence is unclear. During his trial, Msomi claimed that he was merely a conduit for the evil tokoloshe. Two psychologists disagreed, stating that Msomi was in fact of much higher than average intelligence and further that he derived sexual pleasure from inflicting pain. Msomi was sentenced to death by hanging at Pretoria Central Prison.

Dennis Nilsen was born November 23, 1945 in Fraserburgh, Scotland. Though Nilsen recognized his homosexual desires, he was never comfortable with them and began acting on them through murder and dismemberment. Nilsen's first victim was in 1978, he went on to kill, upon his confession, twelve young men and dissect their bodies. Dennis Nilsen killed, defiled and dismembered 15 young men between December 1978 and February 1983, practically under the noses of his neighbors. When police finally arrested him in 1983, it quickly became apparent that, had they linked a series of reported incidents from lucky escapees over the previous five years, they might well have halted his ghoulish killing spree considerably sooner. His parents' marriage was an unhappy one and, as a result he lived (along with his mother and siblings) with his maternal grandfather, whom Nilsen adored. Nilsen claimed that his beloved grandfather's unexpected death, when he was just six years old, and the traumatizing viewing of his corpse at the funeral, led to his later behavioral psychopathology. His mother went on to remarry and have four more children, leaving Nilsen a withdrawn and lonely child. Aware of his homosexual attractions, he claimed no sexual encounters as an adolescent, and at 16 he enlisted in the army. He became a cook, serving as a butcher in the Army Catering Corps, learning the skills that served him so well during his five-year killing spree.

Upon leaving the army in 1972 he took up police training, where he discovered a fascination with morgue visits and autopsied bodies. Despite the obvious advantages that police work gave to develop his morbid tastes, he resigned and went on to become a recruitment interviewer. Nilsen's first official brush with the police came in 1973. David Painter, a young man whom Nilsen had met through his work, claimed that Nilsen had taken pictures of him while he was asleep. Painter was so incensed that he required hospitalization as a result of their confrontation. Nilsen was brought in for questioning about the incident, but was subsequently released without charge. In 1975, he took up cohabitation with David Gallichan in a garden apartment situated at 195 Melrose Avenue, in North London, although Gallichan denied that they had a homosexual relationship This lasted two years and, when Gallichan left, Nilsen's life began a downward spiral into alcohol and loneliness, that culminated in the first murder 18 months later.

Nilsen became increasingly disturbed by his sexual encounters, which only seemed to reinforce his loneliness when they were over. He met his first young victim in a pub on December 29, 1978, and invited him home, as he had on previous occasions. The next morning, overcome by a desire to prevent the man from leaving, he first strangled him with a tie, before drowning him in a bucket of water. Taking the corpse to his bathroom to wash it, he then placed it back in his bed, later remarking that he found the corpse beautiful. He attempted to have sex, unsuccessfully, then spent the night sleeping next to the dead man. He finally hid the corpse under his floorboards for seven months, before removing it and burning the decaying remains in his back garden. His second brush with the police came in October 1979, when a young student accused Nilsen of trying to strangle him during a bondage-play session. Despite the student's claims, no charges were pressed against Nilsen.

He encountered his second victim, Canadian tourist Kenneth Ockendon, at a pub on December 3, 1979. Following a day of sightseeing and drinking, which ended at Nilsen's apartment, Nilsen again succumbed to his fears of abandonment and strangled Ockenden to death with an electrical cable, before cleaning up the corpse as before, and sharing a bed overnight. He took photos, engaged in sex and finally deposited the corpse under the floorboards, removing it frequently and engaging in conversation, as if Ockenden were still alive. His third victim, some five months later, was Martyn Duffey, a homeless sixteen year old, who was invited to spend the night on May 13, 1980. As with his first victim, Nilsen strangled then drowned him, before bringing him back to bed and masturbating over the teenager's corpse. Duffey was kept in a wardrobe for two weeks, before joining Ockenden under the floorboards.

His next victim was prostitute Billy Sutherland, 27, who had the misfortune of following Nilsen home one night. He too was strangled. Malcolm Barlow, 24, was an orphan with learning disabilities, who was soon dispatched by strangulation. By 1981, Nilsen had killed 12 men in the apartment, of whom only the above four could be identified. Given his penchant for preying on the homeless and the unemployed in a large city, this is probably less surprising than it might be in a smaller community.

Nilsen claimed he went into a killing trance and on seven occasions, actually freed the men rather than complete the act, because he was able to snap out of it. The majority of his victims were not so lucky. By the time Malcolm Barlow was killed, Nilsen was forced to stuff him under the kitchen sink, as he was rapidly running out of storage space, what with half a dozen bodies hidden around the apartment. He was forced to spray his rooms twice a day, to be rid of the flies that were hatched from the decomposing bodies. When neighbors complained about the smell, he convinced them they stemmed from structural problems with the building. To get rid of the corpses, he would remove his clothing and dismember them on the stone kitchen floor with a large kitchen knife, sometimes also boiling the skulls to remove the flesh, also placing organs and viscera in plastic bags for disposal. He buried limbs in the garden and in the shed, and stuffed torsos into suitcases until he could burn the remains in a bonfire at the end of his garden. On occasions he would burn fires all day, without raising any suspicion from neighbors. He generally crushed the bones once the fire had consumed the flesh, and police found thousands of bone fragments in the garden during later forensic examinations.

In 1982, in a desperate attempt to stifle his homicidal behavior, Nilsen moved into a top-floor apartment at 23 Cranley Gardens, Muswell Hill, also in North London, which had no garden and no convenient floorboards. Still unable to quell his impulses, a further three victims were killed in this apartment between his arrival and February 1983. These victims were identified as John Howlett, Archibald Graham Allan and Steven Sinclair, and presented Nilsen with much greater disposal challenges, given the apartment's lack of direct access outdoor space. He overcame these obstacles by boiling the heads, feet and hands, and dissecting the bodies into small pieces that could be flushed down the toilet, and disposed of in plastic bags. There were five other tenants at Cranley Gardens, none of whom knew Nilsen very well and, in early February 1983, one of them called out drain specialists Dyno-Rod to investigate a drain blockage. In the presence of the tenants, including Nilsen, the technician discovered rotting human remains when he descended via the outdoor manhole, and it was decided that a full inspection would be conducted the next day, after which the police would be called in to investigate. Nilsen, increasingly aware of the prospect of capture, tried to cover his tracks by removing the human tissue from the drains that night, but was spotted by the downstairs tenant, who became suspicious of his actions. It was reported that, on the morning of February 9, 1983, he told a work colleague laughingly, "If I'm not in tomorrow, I'll either be ill, dead or in jail."

Nilsen was met on the evening of February 9 by Detective Chief Inspector Jay, who informed him that they wished to question him in relation to the human remains that had been discovered in the drains. On entering the apartment, Jay noticed the pervasive foul odor, and asked Nilsen what it was, at which point he calmly confessed that what they were looking for was stored in bags around the apartment, which included two dismembered heads and other larger body parts.

Ángel Maturino Reséndiz a.k.a. "The Railroad Killer", was a serial killer and rapist active in several U.S. states, all of which he entered through stowing away on trains. Reséndiz in Izúcar de Matamoros, Mexico in 1960 and was very physically small. His mother, Virginia Resendiz de Maturino, never married his father and frequently abused him physically. At the age of six he was sent to live with his maternal uncle, who raped him, and was also sexually assaulted by a local pedophile. At the age of eleven, he ran away from home and spent some time living on the street, where he took up glue sniffing. At the age of 16, he tried to enter Texas, but was deported. It became the first of his many entries into the United States. In 1988, he spent some time living in St. Louis, where he worked for a temp agency. In adulthood, he spent a total of 11 years in American prisons for crimes such as assault, auto theft, firearm possession and burglary. After finishing each sentence he would be deported back to Mexico, only to return every time. At the time of his arrest he was married to a woman named Julieta Dominguez Reyes, with whom he had a daughter, Liria.

Reséndiz's first known murder was in 1986, when he killed a homeless woman and her boyfriend. In 1991, he committed his first known murder on U.S. soil, killing 33-year-old Michael White in Kentucky by beating him to death with a brick. Over the course of the following eight years, he continued traveling by train in the U.S., during which time he killed at least a dozen people. When the crimes were connected forensically and by VICAP, a manhunt started. He was nicknamed "The Railroad Killer" because all the killings occured near train tracks. In June of 1999, after being identified as the killer, he was placed in the Top Ten of the FBI's Most Wanted list and a reward of $50,000, which just some days later was raised to $125,000. The same month, a Texas Ranger, Drew Carter, contacted Manuela, Reséndiz's sister who lived in Albuquerque, New Mexico and to whom he was close. He promised her that Reséndiz would be granted personal safety in jail, regular visitation rights for his family and a psychological evaluation. At the time, he had been tracked down to Mexico.

After the promised deal was put into writing, the sister convinced him to turn himself in to U.S. authorities. On July 13, Reséndiz met with Drew Carter and surrendered himself. He was tried for first-degree murder with damning evidence to back the charges up, found guilty and sentenced to death. On June 27, 2006, he was executed by lethal injection in Huntsville, Texas. His last words were: "I want to ask if it is in your heart to forgive me. You don't have to. I know I allowed the Devil to rule my life. I just ask you to forgive me and ask the Lord to forgive me for allowing the devil to deceive me. I thank God for having patience in me. I don't deserve to cause you pain. You do not deserve this. I deserve what I am getting."

He found his victims, all of whom were randomly picked, while travelling by train. They were attacked, sometimes through burglaries, near the railways and were usually bludgeoned to death with some incidental object. A few female victims were also raped, though it was usually only a secondary intent. After the murders he would spend some time in their houses. He also took jewelry, cash, valuables and other items and gave them to his wife in Mexico. Most victims were found covered with something or obscured from view in some other way.

Hansen was born in Estherville, Iowa, in 1939. His parents were Christian, a Danish immigrant, and Edna Hansen. His father, with whom he had a difficult relationship, was very strict and often made him work long hours at the family-owned bakery. During his childhood, he was often bullied for his stutter and severe acne. In school, he had no close friends. After graduating high school in 1957, he enlisted in the U.S. Army Reserve, where he became a skilled marksman, serving one weekend a month and working at the bakery the rest of the time, sometimes volunteering as an assistant drill sergeant at the police academy in the town of Pocahontas. In 1960, he fell in love with and married a local girl. On December 7 the same year, he burned down the school bus garage of the local high school, but was caught when a friend turned him in. During his three-year sentence in prison, he divorced. After only 20 months, Hansen was paroled even though he had been diagnosed as having an "infantile personality". In 1963, he remarried a woman with whom he had two children. In 1967, after several jail sentences for petty theft, he moved to Anchorage, Alaska with his family. Well-liked by people who knew him, he became an avid hunter, breaking several hunting records (his records were nullified after his conviction). His weapons of choice were rifles or bow and arrow. The year after his last record breaking, he was convicted of raping a prostitute and attempting to rape a housewife, but only served six months in prison. In 1977, he was imprisoned again for stealing a chainsaw and was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. He was prescribed lithium, but wasn't required by law to actually take it. He was released after only a year. In the early 1980s, he reported a burglary on his home, which he had actually staged. With the money he got from the insurance company, he opened up a bakery of his own and established himself as a well-liked family man. In January 1982, he bought himself a Piper Super Cub bush plane, even though he had been denied a license due to his medication.

During later questioning, Hansen claimed that starting in 1973, after finishing his rape sentence, he became a serial rapist, picking up prostitutes from Anchorage's tenderloin district and taking them by his bush plane to the wilderness, where he would rape and torture them. He later claimed that the ones who complied, he would return to Anchorage alive, and those who didn't, he would kill. From 1973 to 1983, he abducted and raped at least 30 women that way and let them go. At least 17 women picked up during the years 1980-1983 were less fortunate. After raping them, he released them in the woods and hunted them with a hunting rifle. His crimes first became known in 1982, when the body of exotic dancer Sherry Morrow was found near the Knik River by two off-duty police officers. It took two weeks to identify her. A spent .223 shell casing was found in the dirt near the body. Two years prior to that, two other women had been found in similar circumstances. The first was found by construction workers near Eklutna Road and has never been identified; the investigating officer nicknamed her "Eklutna Annie". The second was topless dancer Joanne Messina.

On June 13, 1983, a young prostitute named Cindy Paulson was spotted with a handcuff on her wrist by a trucker. He gave her a ride to a motel, where she waited for her pimp, and called the police. When an Anchorage Police Officer, Gregg Baker, arrived, Paulson told him how a man (Hansen) had offered her $200 for oral sex, handcuffed her and forced her at gunpoint into his car. He then drove her to his house (Hansen's wife and children were vacationing in Europe at the time) and brutally raped and tortured her. Afterwards, he drove her to an airport and put her in his bush plane, presumably to take her to the wilderness and kill her as well. While he was loading it with supplies, she fled. Paulson made a formal statement to the police and not only identified the make and color of the plane, but also remembered its tail number. Hansen turned out to be the owner and was identified by Paulson as her attacker, but two of Hansen's friends gave him a false alibi for the night of the attack, so no formal charges were filed. On September 2, the body of another victim of Hansen, Paula Golding, turned up and the case was brought up again. The Alaskan investigators began looking into Hansen again and contacted the FBI, who sent in their profiler, John Douglas (some sources say it was Roy Hazelwood). He profiled the killer as having low self-esteem, a history of rejection by women, and being an experienced hunter. He also correctly predicted that he would take souvenirs from his victims and would have a stutter. When the two men who gave Hansen an alibi for the night he attacked Cindy Paulson confessed that they had been lying, the investigators focused on him. They brought him in for questioning while executing search warrants on his house, plane and cars. In his house, they found a collection of weapons, including the .223 Ruger Mini-14 he had used to commit his murders, IDs and jewelry taken from his victims and an aviation map with several marked locations. When an FBI forensic lab matched the shell casings found near the victims to the Mini-14 found in Hansen's house, he made a plea bargain. He was charged with the four murders whose victims had been found and with the abduction and rape of Cindy Paulson and agreed to confess to all of them, give details about his victims and show the burial sites marked on his map in exchange for serving his sentence in a federal prison and avoiding media publicity. He showed the police 17 of his burial sites, but refused to help them with the other four; it has been theorized that he wouldn't confess to killing them because they were neither prostitutes nor strippers and he couldn't justify their murders to himself. The victims that were found were exhumed and returned to their families. On February 18, 1984, Hansen was convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison plus 461 years. He was initially incarcerated at the United States Penitentiary in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania, before being moved back to Alaska and jailed at Lemon Creek Correctional Center, then Spring Creek Correctional Center. On May 11, 2014, he was moved to the Anchorage Correctional Center to receive medical attention for undisclosed, lingering health conditions. Hansen died on August 22 of the same year at Alaska Regional Hospital. Hansen had a "do not resuscitate" order on his file.

Hansen targeted prostitutes and topless dancers. After soliciting them, he would abduct them and take them to a meat shack by bush plane. He later stated that he would let them live if they submitted to his sexual fantasies. The ones who didn't, he would rape anyway, strip naked and then set loose in the wilderness and hunt with a .223 hunting rifle. After finally killing them, he would take pieces of jewelry from them as souvenirs and bury the bodies in the area, marking the burial sites on a map.

On July 1, 1911, a 20-year-old woman named Emma Lou Sharpe sat in her house on Hanover Street in Atlanta and waited for her mother to come home. It was a Saturday evening, and Emma Lou was worried. Her mother had left an hour before to fetch some groceries and still had not returned. Usually, this wouldn't be a cause for concern, but these were unusual times. Just two weeks before, a neighbor of the Sharpes named Addie Watts was hit on the head with a brick. Then, as the local papers described in a mysterious understatement, "a coupling pin was brought into play." Watts' attacker then dragged her into a clump of bushes and slit her throat. Watts' murder had been just the latest in a string of attacks that left the local African-American population on edge. All the victims had been of black or mixed race. All had been young, around 20 years old. All had been women. Emma Lou Sharpe fit that description almost exactly, but she was more concerned about her mother, whose name was Lena. Frantic with worry, Emma Lou set out in search of her mother. At the market, she learned that Lena had never showed up. Emma Lou started back for home. In the area that now separates Inman Park from Reynoldstown, she was approached by a stranger, who she described later, according to The Atlanta Constitution, as "tall, black, broad-shouldered and wearing a broad-brimmed black hat."

Vladimir Mirgorod was born in 1979 in Moscow, Russia. In 2005-2010 he was in prison for a robbery & rape. Mirgorod was rearrested after investigators checked his fingerprints and discovered they were identical to those that were left at the crime scenes of 4 murders. From 2002 to 2004, Mirgorod strangled 15 women and one teenage boy to death. Several of the victims had been raped. He had been imprisoned from January 2005 to July 2010 for the rape and robbery of a woman. He was later rearrested after his fingerprints matched those that were found at the crimes scenes. He was sentenced to life imprisonment on January 30, 2012.

When the drought ended and the rains came, Saeed Hanaei believed that it was a sign from God that his killing spree had divine approval. "I realised God looked favourably on me. That he had taken notice of my work," Hanaei said. With 12 prostitutes already dead by his hands, Hanaei carried on his "work" and strangled at least four more women after luring them to his house in the Iranian city of Mashhad. And Along Came a Spider, which had its UK premiere at the Edinburgh festivalyesterday, tells the disturbing tale of a murderous psychopath who found an alarming degree of ideological sympathy among Islamic militants in Iran. The serial killer and his trial attracted a media frenzy in Iran and exposed deep divisions in a society where a conservative-minded minority feels threatened by social change. The director of the documentary, Maziar Bahari, says he believes Hanaei was a murderer by nature who was catapulted to folk-hero status by religious extremists. "Hanaei was living in a very claustrophobic environment and he could somehow justify his killings through ideological slogans that are acceptable in that environment," Bahari says. "He is basically a terrorist. He's not as technologically advanced as some, but the result is the same."

Bahari's documentary provides an extraordinary glimpse into the attitudes of a working-class district in Mashhad and the desperate world of prostitutes entrapped by drug addiction, poverty and patriarchal cruelty. Newspapers dubbed the murders the "spider killings" because of the way victims were drawn into Hanaei's home and then strangled with a scarf. He then dumped the bodies by the roadside or in open sewers, wrapping them in their chadors, the long, flowing black garments that cover a woman from head to toe. Hanaei confessed to the killings, smiled for news photographers and proudly told the court that he was fighting a crusade against moral corruption and vice. He and his lawyer cited an ambiguous provision in Iranian and Islamic law that refers to sinners as a "waste of blood", arguing that Hanaei deserved lenient treatment. The case provoked a debate between reformers who condemned the authorities for failing to catch him earlier and some conservatives who shared the killer's disgust with a rise in prostitution.

"Who is to be judged?" wrote the conservative newspaper Jomhuri Islami. "Those who look to eradicate the sickness or those who stand at the root of the corruption?" Such sentiments are expressed by the killer's merchant friends at the Mashhad bazaar, one of whom says with a laugh: "He did the right thing. He should have continued." The argument over the spider killings represented a kind of microcosm of a wider battle still being waged in Iran over the proper role of Islam in society. Reformists in parliament and government have tried to push for a relaxation of the country's theocratic system, advocating what they call a "democratic interpretation of Islam". Their opponents fear the reformists will only undermine Islam and open the floodgates to secular, western influences. The most disturbing defence of Hanaei comes from his own 14-year-old son, Ali, who says his father was cleansing the Islamic republic of the "corrupt of the Earth". "If they kill him tomorrow, dozens will replace him," Ali says. "Since his arrest, 10 or 20 people have asked me to continue what my Dad was doing. I say, 'Let's wait and see.' "

Those who sympathise with Hanaei remain powerful and vocal, but the majority of Iranians want to see a more tolerant, less ideological society, according to Bahari. "I think they are in the minority, and their numbers are decreasing," he said. Between the scenes of Hanaei recounting his crimes in a matter-of-fact tone, we see haunting photos of the victims before and after they were killed and we meet two children whose mothers were murdered. Interviews with 10-year-old Sahar and eight-year-old Sara provide some of the documentary's most powerful moments. Firoozeh, the 14th victim, went out to buy opium one day at about 5.30pm, says her daughter, Sahar. "We were all waiting for her but she never came home." We see a drawing in crayon from Sara, with a bearded Hanaei in handcuffs, her mother lying dead and a little girl kneeling in despair. Sahar looks away from the camera and says she hasn't spoken to anyone at school about what has happened. She says she wants to be a journalist when she grows up because she hopes to document what happened to her mother.

Hanaei served as a volunteer in the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war, and described his murders as a "continuation of the war effort". He first became obsessed with "street women" after his wife was mistaken for a prostitute by a taxi driver. We learn from a journalist that Hanaei went looking for men who were soliciting prostitutes and got beaten up. "So he turns to the people who don't have the power to fight back," says the journalist, Roya Karimi. Hanaei had plenty of opportunities to prey on the powerless in Mashhad, a city with all the ingredients for a thriving prostitution trade. While millions of pilgrims visit the city's holy Shia shrine every year, massive amounts of opium pour over the border from neighbouring Afghanistan and are transported through the city. Growing levels of poverty and unemployment, with rural families migrating to cities, have fed the increase in "street women". The spider case forced the invisible world of prostitution into the public arena and government officials can no longer pretend otherwise. But prostitution remains a sensitive issue and Bahari's documentary, which has been shown throughout Europe, has yet to be broadcast in Iran. The criminal code's vague reference to victims deemed to be a "waste of blood" has come under increasing scrutiny from lawyers.

Despite Hanaei's confession in prison that he had "improper relations" with his victims, some ideologues still sympathise with the spider killer. This month a hardline paramilitary group, Ansar-e Hizbollah, warned in its weekly publication that declining morality among women could lead to more such killings: "It is likely that what happened in Mashhad and Kerman could be repeated in Tehran." Although Hanaei was sentenced to death, he was shocked and angry when the moment came for his hanging in April last year. Unlike at his highly publicised trial, there were no cameras around to record how he screamed in protest, baffled that his ideological allies never came to his rescue. "Even until the last second before his execution, Hanaei thought someone in the government would come to save him," Bahari says. Hanaei's case had sparked debate and morbid fascination but not much mourning for the death of the 16 "street women". And Along Came a Spider commemorates these women and grants them a degree of dignity they never received while they were alive.

Known as El Mataviejas" (The Old Lady Killer), Jose Antonio Rodriguez Vega is Spain's most prolific killer. As the name suggests, this heartless brute preyed on elderly women, raping and strangling 16 victims over a period of just nine months. Vega’s usual M.O. was to befriend his victims by offering to help carry groceries or do work at their homes. Once inside, he’d turn on the helpless woman, fondle and rape her and then strangle her to death. Sometimes he’d commit postmortem rape with a broomstick handle or other object. Then, before leaving the scene, he’d tuck the victim up in bed. Because of this many of the early victims were thought to have died of natural causes. It was the murder of 82-year-old Margarita Gonzalez that first alerted the police to the presence of a serial killer. However, Vega would commit two more murders before an anonymous tip off brought the police to his apartment. There, they found an elaborate shrine, containing trophies taken from his many victims. When pictures of the shrine were shown on TV, relatives of several victims came forward to identify their possessions. It was only then that the scale of Vega’s killing spree became apparent. Tried in 1991, Vega was sentenced to 440 years, although that meant in effect that he’d only serve 20. However, fate had other plans for the notorious granny killer. On October 25, 2002, he was stabbed to death by two fellow prisoners in the courtyard of the Topas prison in Salamanca province.

Charles Ray Hatcher also known as "Crazy Charlie, A one-man crime wave, and Mr. Prince;" was born in the small town of Mount City, Missouri at 4:00 p.m. He was the youngest sibling having three older brothers; Arthur Allen Hatcher, Jesse Hatcher Jr., and Floyd Hatcher. His parents where Jesse and Lula Hatcher. Charles did have trauma in his childhood. At the young age of six years old he watched his oldest brother Arthur die of electrocution while they were flying a kite. His mother left the home and was married at least three times. At the age of 16 he moved to Saint Joseph, Missouri to live with his mother and her third husband. Then at the age of 18 he got a job but had trouble keeping a job. He first worked at the bowling alley in Saint Joseph. He then got a job in the fall of 1947 at Iowa-Missouri Walnut Co. driving a truck. By October 9th, 1947 he had stolen a company truck and returned it the next morning intoxicated. This is where his crimes started. He received a two year suspended sentence and was fired from his job.

On February 5th, 1948 Charles got a job at the St. Francis Hotel in Saint Joseph washing dishes. Just a couple of days later he received his first prison sentence. Hatcher was released from the Missouri prison system just a little over a year on June 8th, 1949 serving only 3/4 of his time. On October 10th, 1949 Charles was convicted of forgery for a ten dollar check at a gas station in Maryville, Missouri. For this crime Hatcher received three years in the Missouri State Penitentiary. It was just a couple of years later on March 18th, 1951 when Hatcher escaped from the prison but was caught but not before he had time to attempt yet another crime; burglary; for this he got two years added to his sentence. He was released from prison after serving his additional time on July 14th, 1954 and almost made it a year before committing his next crime.

On February 5th, 1955 at the age of 25 he stole a 1951 Ford in the small town of Orrick, Missouri. He was sentenced to four years for auto theft and served his time in the Ray County Jail in the small town of Richmond, Missouri. He still had not changed his pattern. He again attempted to escape and received another additional sentence of two years. He was released from prison on March 18th, 1959 from his fifth and sixth sentence of his criminal career. On June 26th, 1959 Hatcher moved his criminal activity from steeling cars to making his first known attempt to abduct a 16 year old paper boy of Saint Joseph, Missouri named Steven Pellham. Hatcher was sentenced to five years for the attempted abduction and car theft on November 20th, 1959. Staying true to his nature the very next day Hatcher attempted to escape the Buchanan County Jail with no success. Unsure if he received any additional time for the escape attempt. Charles Hatcher arrived at the Missouri State Penitentiary on November 25th, 1959. It was at this time he started taking pride in his criminal career claiming to be the most notorious criminal in northwest Missouri since the great Jesse James.

On July 2nd, 1961 inmate Jerry Tharrington was found raped and stabbed to death on the kitchen loading dock of the Missouri State Penitentiary. It is believed that Hatcher killing started here. The only punishment that Charles Hatcher received this murder was solitary confinement due to a lack of evidence to take further action. On January 18th, 1962 Hatcher was still in solitary confinement for the murder of his fellow inmate. At this time he wrote a letter to the Major of the penitentiary making the claim that he realized he needed psychological treatment. This is where the system made a huge mistake in thinking it was just a scheme to get out of solitary and possible out of prison early and refused to get Hatcher any kind of treatment. The question that many ask is if he have gone to treatment at this point in his life would things have turned out differently? With no treatment he was released to the general population October of 1962, and with the release from prison on August 24th, 1963 still receiving no psychological treatment.

August 1969 was a busy month for Charles Ray Hatcher. He confessed to the abduction of a boy in Antioch, California on the 27th of August. Hatcher asked the boy to take a ride with him. Hatcher drove to a creek and strangled the boy to death with his hands. Then just two days later on the 29th of August a six year old Hispanic boy was reported missing in San Francisco, California. A little girl the boy had been playing with reported that he walked away with a man that offered him ice cream. A man walking his dog came across them in the middle of a sexual assault and beating. The young boy did survive the horrifying encounter. When police arrested the man committing the crime he would not answer any question just claimed his name was Albert Ralph Price. However he was caring an identification with the name Hobert Prater. It was not til later that the FBI finally identified him as Charles Ray Hatcher.

On September 12th, 1969 Hatcher was brought before a judge in California for this assault, attempted murder, and kidnapping. At this time he was still claiming his name was Albert Price causing the judge to order a psychiatric evaluation. Hatcher was in the California State Hospital for a 90-day evaluation. During the first part of his stay Hatcher was completely unresponsive. Later claiming to hear voices, having delusions of persecution, being confused, and suicide attempts, was the first time Hatcher claimed a mental illness and avoided prison time. On September 30th, 1969 Hatcher began the first of five tours in the California State Hospital.

On December of 1971, Hatcher was 41 years old and the California State Hospital repeatedly sent him back to court declaring him competent to stand trial but every time was sent back to the hospital. Charles Hatcher was identified as a passive-aggressive personality with sexual deviation and murder. On January 21st of 1971, the first psychiatrist declared Hatcher insane and incompetent to stand trial. Then the very next day on the 22nd the second psychiatrist who referred to Hatcher as Mr. Prince, concluded that Hatcher was insane and incompetent to stand trial. This is when he was sent back to the hospital. On May 24th 1971 Charles was finally sent to trial and pleaded guilty by reason of insanity. Hacher was ordered another evaluation this time by a different hospital and was again found incompetent to stand trial. The actual evaluation took place on May 27th, 1971 with Dr. Carl Drake Jr. At this time Charles Hatcher still claiming to be Albert Price lied about his life history to the doctor.

The next month Charles Hatcher keeping true to his natural pattern escaped for that California State Hospital on June 2nd, 1971. He was picked up in Colusa, California 90 miles from the hospital a week later. He was arrested for auto theft giving the police the name of Richard Lee Grady. When taken to the hospital on July 15th, 1971 for evaluation the hospital staff know who he was. It was not until April 4th, 1972 that the hospital staff and doctors decided that Charles Ray Hatcher's treatment was not going any where and he was a danger to the other patients. These is when he was finally sent to the prison state hospital at Vacaville, California. It was just a few months later that he was transferred to the San Quentin Prison in August of 1972. This is where Hatcher was finally forced to stand trial for his crimes. It had been three years since he had committed these crimes when this happened. October 24th, 1972 Hatcher was ordered to have two more evaluations. The first one was to determine if he was competent to stand trail and the second was to determine if he was sane at the time he committed the crimes. On December 12th, 1972 Charles Hatcher was tried for the abduction of Gilbert Martinez; the six year old Hispanic boy; he was convicted of the charges. Hatcher was sentences to the California State Hospital. He entered the hospital on January 9th, 1973 as a mentally disordered sexual offender.

Hatcher could not help himself her on March 28th, 1973 he tried yet another escape attempt. This time unsuccessful. A security guard found him hiding in a cooler in the main courtyard. Hatcher had two sheets stuffed into his paints for some reason. He later confessed that this wad an escape attempt. This made the doctors feel that it was time for Hatcher to go back to court because he was a threat to society. In May of 1973 Hatcher received yet another evaluation by psychologist W.D Lewis who declared that Hatcher was "manipulative institutionalized sociopath." Then on June 15th, 1973 Hatcher was recommended for a transfer to a maximum security prison. Due to this recommendation Charles cut his wrists because he did not want to go. After this out burst he was concluded to be paranoia and schizophrenia and this saved him from the maximum security prison. On May 20th, 1977 Hatcher was released to the Home Care Services Center; which is a halfway house in San Francisco, California. This early release happened due to a bill being pasted giving inmates credit for time served in mental health facilities as well as time in jail. He also had received very good reviews at the parole board hearings. Less than a month later Hatcher was on the run declared a parolee at large.

At the age of 47, on May 25h 1977 Hatcher was supposed to report back to the half-way house every night at 9:00pm and take a total of nine prescribed pills. Five days later, Hatcher violated the terms of his parole and was on the run. He was considered a walk-away.” Then on June 13th 1977, Hatcher was declared a “parolee at large” and besides a sighting in Wilmar, Minnesota, was not seen for about a year.

This is when Hatcher began killing again. On May 27th, 1978 Charles Ray Hatcher had returned to Saint Joseph, Missouri where he had began his criminal career. He kidnapped four year old Eric Christgen. Eric was abducted from a park in downtown Saint Joseph, Missouri. Eric's babysitter had left him at the park to run into the store to buy a flag. When she returned Eric was gone. Melvin Reynolds was falsely accused of Eric's assault and sentences to life in prison on February 14th, 1979. Later Buchanan County Police would find out that due to a rush to close this case the had convicted the wrong man it should have been Charles Ray Hatcher. Then a few months later 150 miles north of Saint Joseph, Missouri on September 4th, 1978 Hatcher was arrested in Omaha, Nebraska. He had sexually attacked a 16 year old boy. Victims name is unknown. Hatcher was released from the Douglas County Mental Hospital in Omaha, Nebraska on January 31st, 1979. This is where he had served his time for the 1978 sexual attack that happened in September. When arrested Charles gave police yet another fake name this time claiming to be Richard Clark. Do to the staff never taking fingerprints the police and staff may never have known who Hatcher really was. On May 3rd, 1979 Hatcher was arrested yet again in Omaha for the assault and attempt to kill seven year old Thomas Morton. Some how the charges where dropped and Charles was sent to another mental hospital for this crime. Hatcher was released from the hospital on May 21st, 1980 but returned just two months later because of another assault charge.

At the age of 51 Charles Ray Hatcher still had not changed he again escaped this time from Norfolk Regional Center. Hatcher was arrested in Lincoln, Nebraska under the name Richard Clark on October 9th, 1980. Hatcher has attempted to assault and murder on a 17 year old boy. He was discharged from a mental facility just 21 days later. Charles Hatcher had moved his crime wave to Des Moines, Iowa. On January 13th, 1981 he was arrested again under the the name of Richard Clark. This time he had been a knife fight. He spent a short time in another mental facility. On April 10th, 1981 he was discharged from the Iowa Mental Hospital to the care of the Salvation Army shelter in Davenport, Iowa. On June 20th, 1981 a man by the name of James Churchill was stabbed to death on the Missouri River banks near Rock Island, Illinois. It was not until later that Charles confused that he and Churchill had been drinking together and Hatchers impulse to kill was growing in him. Charles has stabbed Churchill 10 to 12 times with a knife that had been embedded in a bone in Churchill's right chest near the heart. Arrested in Bettendorf, Iowa forattempting to abduct an 11 year old boy named Todd Peers from a grocery store.The boy was able to run Ironically this was Hatcher’s 52nd birthday.

Arrested on his 52nd birthday(July 16th, 1981) for attempting to abduct an 11 year old boy named Todd Peers. Hatcher using the name Richard Clark when the police picked him up. On March 18th, 1982 again for some reason the charges where dropped against Hatcher and he spent only 49 days in a mental hospital in Mount Pleasant, Iowa before being released on May 7th, 1982. On July 27th 1982 Charles Hatcher had made his way back to Saint Joseph, Missouri. A woman by the name of Stephanie Richie was approached by a strange man wanting to take her for coffee. Something about the man frightened her so she requested that he leave her alone. This strange encounter took place only a half a block from where Eric Christgen had been abducted only four years earlier. The next day Hatcher abducted a ten year old boy; Kerry Heiss, outside the Saint Joseph Mall. Hatcher claiming to be a security guard grabbed the boy and began to pull him away from the record store. Kerry was able to get away and told his grandmother but Hatcher was gone by the time that the police got to the scene. On July 29th, 1982 Hatcher abducted and murdered an 11 year old girl; Michelle Steele. Michelle had gone to a dentist appointment at 10:30 a.m she left the dentist office at 11:30 a.m. It was not until her mother Annette Steele got home at 3:15p.m that Michelle was noticed missing and the police where called. It was not until July 30th, 1982 that Michelle was found by her uncle dead between two logs. Michelle Steele's body was found less than a mile downstream from where Eric Christgen's body had been found. This was the same day that Charles Hatcher checked himself into the St. Joseph State Hospital under the name of Richard Clark.

On August 3rd, 1982 Charles Hatcher was charged under the name Richard Clark for the murder of Michelle Steele. The charge this time was first degree murder. His bond was set at $250,000.00. With the identification by an eye witnesses that Hatcher was the man down by the river, the teeth marks matched the bite marks on the girls body, shoe imprints matching, his knapsack, nylon cords, as well as the photo identifications from the two attempted abductions the police had sufficient evidence to charge Charles Ray Hatcher. On August 13th, 1982 Hatcher received his first mental evaluation in this case and it was concluded that he could understand the charges but need to be sent to another mental facility. It was not until April 19th, 1983 that Hatcher was declared competent to stand trial for first degree murder in the death of Michelle Steele. On May 3rd, 1983 Hatcher was sent to the Buchanan County Jail to await trial. This is when he gave the deputy a peace of paper that said, "Please call the FBI and tell them I would like to see them today. Very important case." FBI agent Joe Holtstag met with Hatcher. This is when Hatcher gave them a map to Churchill's body but still did not admit to killing him. Charles also told Joe Holtstag that there where 16 bodies, 13 adults, and all where male. This is how they got the information to know that they had convicted the wrong man of Eric Christgen's murder. Charles made it clear to Holtstag that he would trade information about the murders for taking the death penalty off the table. On June 20th, 1983 attorneys Dahms and Morrey had obtained a charge for Hatcher and trial date was set for August 22nd, 1983. Just five days later Holtstag received the letter that Hatcher wrote with a detailed account of the murder of four year old Eric Christgen's. This letter contained details that no body else could have know. Taking his time confessing to all his murders he confused to the Churchill murder on August 3rd, 1983. He also confessed to the William Freeman murder in 1969. By the end of the interview on August 3rd he had filled in all the details about his criminal career from auto theft on October 27th, 1947 all the way through and up to the murder of Michelle Steele on July 29th, 1982.

On September 12th, 1983 Hatcher plead not guilty and another trial was set for January 9th, 1984. The on October 13th, 1983 Hatcher was sentenced to life in prison in the MIssouri State Penitentiary for the murder of Eric Christgen. This was also the day that the man wrongfully convicted was released for the crime he did not commit. On January 9th, 1984 the trial was set to start but Hatcher had abused is attorney Dahms so much that he dropped the case. Due to this the trial was moved to Warrensburg, Kansas. The trial started on September 17th, 1984. The jury was picked in one day their were 9 men and 4 women picked to judge this case. The trial lasted five days from 9:00 a.m to 9:00 p.m. On the 22nd of September Hatcher was convicted of capital murder of Michelle Steele. He received 50 years without possibility of parole. In November of 1984 Holtstag met with Hatcher for the last time. Then on December 3rd, 1984 Hatchers motion was denied. Just a few days later on December 7th, 1984 Charles Ray Hatcher was found during morning rounds hanging in his cell. He was hanging from a piece of electrical wire that had been to brace the heavy metal ventilation grate in his cell. Hatchers hang had been tied behind his back with shoelaces. The officer did try to revive Hatcher but he was already dead.

A death wish, once in custody, is not unusual among compulsive killers. Carroll Edward Cole, admitted murderer of thirteen persons, was securely serving out a term of life in Texas, with parole a possibility in seven years, when he elected voluntarily to face a pair of murder charges in Nevada, fully conscious of the fact that he would be condemned to die upon conviction. Once the sentence had been passed, facilitated by his guilty plea, Cole staunchly fended off appeals and efforts of assorted liberal groups to interpose themselves on his behalf. His execution, in December 1985, immediately paved the way for others in the Western states, but Cole's significance lies elsewhere -- in the man himself, and in "the system's" failure to prevent his crimes. When Cole was five years old his mother forced him to accompany her on extramarital excursions in his father's absence, using torture to extract a pledge of silence, making him a bruised accomplice to her own adultery. As he grew older, Cole was forced to dress in frilly skirts and petticoats for the amusement of his mother's friends, dispensing tea and coffee at sadistic "parties" where the women gathered to make sport of "mama's little girl." Enrolled in elementary school two years behind his peers, Cole grew up fearing for his masculinity, intensely sensitive to jokes about his "sissy" given name. At nine, he drowned a playmate who made fun of him, avoiding punishment when careless officers dismissed the murder as an accident. He had begun to fight habitually at school, and once contrived to maim the winner of a yo-yo contest in which Cole had come out second-best: while playing on a piece of road equipment, he engaged the gears and crushed his rival's hand inside the dozer's massive treads. In adolescence , Cole accumulated numerous arrests for drunkenness and petty theft. He joined the Navy after dropping out of high school, but was discharged for the theft of pistols, which he used to fire at cars along the San Diego highways. Back at home in Richmond, California, during 1960, he attacked two couples with a hammer as they parked along a darkened lover's lane. Increasingly, he cherished fantasies of strangling girls and women who reminded him of his adulterous mother. Finally, alarmed by violent fantasies which would not let him rest, Cole flagged a squad car down in Richmond and confessed his urges to police. On the advice of a police lieutenant, Cole surrendered voluntarily to mental health authorities, and spent the next three years in institutions where he was regarded as an "anti-social personality" who posed no threat to others. Finally discharged in 1963, he moved to Dallas, Texas, and exacerbated matters by immediately marrying an alcoholic prostitute. The grim relationship was doomed to failure, filled with screaming battles, beatings, the occasional resort to weapons. Finally, in 1965, persuaded that his wife was servicing the tenants of a motel where they lived, Cole torched the place and was imprisoned on an arson charge. Upon release, he drifted northward, through Missouri, and was jailed again for the attempted murder of Virginia Rowden, age eleven. Cole had chosen her at random, crept inside her room while she was sleeping, and had tried to strangle her in bed; her screams had driven him away, and he was readily identified by witnesses as her assailant when police arrived. Missouri offered Cole more psychiatric treatment through assorted inmate programs, but it didn't take. In 1970, he once again surrendered to authorities -- this time in Reno, Nevada -- confessing his desire to rape and strangle women. Learned doctors wrote him off as a malingerer and set him free, on the condition that he leave the state. Cole's file contains the telling evidence of psychiatric failure: "Prognosis: Poor. Condition on release: Same as on admittance. Treatment: Express bus ticket to San Diego, California." The problem was exported, but it would not go away. Within six months of his return to San Diego, Cole would kill at least three women. (On the day before his execution in Nevada, he suggested that there might have been two others in this period, the details of their murders blurred by massive quantities of alcohol.) His victims , then and later, shared the common trait of infidelity to husbands, fiancees, or boyfriends; each approached Cole in a bar, accompanied him to lonely roads for sex, and laughed about the skill with which they "put one over" on their regular companions. Moving eastward, Cole picked off another victim in Casper, Wyoming, during August 1975. Assorted jail terms often interfered with hunting, but he surfaced in Las Vegas during 1977, staying long enough to kill a prostitute and get himself arrested on a charge of auto theft, which was dismissed. A few weeks later, after days of drinking, Cole awoke in Oklahoma City to discover the remains of yet another woman in his bathtub; bloo.‹¤ œ.¥ h‰¤ dy slices of her buttocks rested in a skillet on the stove. Returning once again to San Diego, Cole remarried -- to another "drunken tramp" -- and sought the help of local counselors to curb his drinking. Given the conditions of his home life, it was hopeless, and the urge to murder was consuming him, inevitably fueled by alcohol, a ravenous obsession. During August 1979, he strangled Bonnie Stewart on the premises of his employer, dumping her nude body in an alleyway adjacent to the store. For weeks, he had been threatening to kill his wife -- the threats reported to an officer in charge of supervising his parole -- but when he finally succeeded in September, the authorities refused to rule her death a homicide. Despite discovery of her body, swaddled in a blanket and reposing in a closet of Cole's home, despite Cole's own arrest while drunkenly attempting to prepare a grave beneath a neighbor's house, detectives viewed the death of Diane Cole as "natural," related to her own abuse of drink. Taking no chances, Cole hit the road. He claimed another victim in Las Vegas, gravitating back to Dallas where, within eleven days in 1980, he would strangle three more victims. Though discovered at the final murder scene, the victim stretched out at his feet, he was again regarded merely as a "casual suspect" by detectives. Weary of the game at last, Cole startled them with his confession to a string of unsolved homicides; at trial, in 1981, his guilty plea insured a term of life with possible parole, and he was counting down the days to freedom when reports of a potential extradition to Nevada changed his mind. The case of Carroll Edward Cole deserves a place among the classics as a showcase of "the system's" abject failure. As a child, young Eddie Cole was failed by educators who ignored his late enrollment, failed to recognize the signs of chronic child abuse, and dealt with adolescent violence as a problem to be swept away, referred to other agencies. As a potential murderer who sought the help of mental institutions, he was failed by the psychologists and psychoanalysts of half a dozen states, repeatedly discharged as a malingerer, a harmless fake, "no danger to society." On two occasions, officers in San Diego literally caught Cole in the act of an attempted murder -- and, on each occasion, they accepted his ridiculous assertion of a lover's quarrel, offering the would-be killer transportation to his home. When violent fantasies became reality, investigators with the same department stubbornly ignored persuasive evidence, rejecting even Cole's confession, passing off two homicides as drunken accidents, dismissing others as the handiwork of angry pimps. In Texas, Cole might very well have slipped the net again, if he had not elected to confess in cases where detectives were inclined to view his homicides as "accidental deaths." In such a case, the system fails not only Carroll Edward Cole. It fails us all.