The Monster of Florence was a killer who became notorious for his pattern; he always targeted amorous couples that were out alone, shot them at close range with a .22-caliber Beretta and mutilated the sexual organs of the female victim. The killer was responsible for 16 murders between 1968 and 1985. Four men have been arrested, but police suggest that the real killer has never been identified.

Notorious Figure, serial killer. "Il Mostro di Firenze", or "The Monster of Florence", first came to prominence in 1981 in Florence, Italy. The killer became notorious for his homicidal pattern; he always targeted amorous couples that were out alone, shot them at close range with a .22-caliber Beretta, and then mutilated the sexual organs of the female victim with a sharp knife.

Il Mostro earned notoriety on June 6, 1981, after the bodies of 30-year-old Giovanni Foggi and his fiancée, 21-year-old Carmela Di Nuccio, were found near their vehicle in the Scandicci area of Tuscany, Italy. The killer had shot Foggi and Di Nuccio with a .22-caliber Beretta while the couple was parked in their car near a local "lover's lane." He then stabbed them repeatedly. After they were both dead, the murderer pulled Di Nuccio's lifeless body approximately 30 feet from the car and carefully removed her reproductive organs with a serrated knife commonly used by S.C.U.B.A. divers. The near-surgical precision with which the genitals were cut from the victim's body suggested that the killer had a medical background.

Investigators initially suspected ambulance driver—and secret voyeur—Enzo Spalleti, whose car had been parked near the scene of the crime. As law enforcement officers probed Spaletti further, he gave vague, conflicting alibis. More evidence revealed that the suspect had told his wife about the incident before it had been announced in the paper. With this evidence, Spalleti was charged with two counts of homicide and sent to prison to stand trial. Several months later, however, a new murder led police to believe they had apprehended the wrong man.

Investigators, still unable to find any new leads, began pursuing other possibilities. They investigated more than 100,000 people in hopes of gathering new evidence. Their questioning led to the doorstep of farmer Pietro Pacciani, a former rapist and murderer who had been arrested in 1951 for killing the man he'd found sleeping with his fiancée. Pacciani had been released after serving 13 years for his crime, but investigators believed that the man was still committing murders. In a highly publicized 1994 trial, a judge and jury convicted Pacciani for 14 of the 16 counts of murder. But in 1996 an appeals court overturned the conviction, citing lack of evidence.

The police, now desperate to find the murder or murderers, began developing a new theory. Acting on the belief that the killings were committed by a Satanic cult led by Pacciani, police concluded that two of Pacciani's friends Mario Vanni and Giancarlo Lotti were accomplices in the crimes. They were believed to have committed the murders in order to gain power from their victim's reproductive organs during bizarre cult rituals. Pacciani was was held in prison for a retrial, and in 1997 Lotti and Vanni were convicted to life in prison for the murders, with very little evidence to back the claims. Pacciani died of cardiac arrest in February 1998, before he was able to face his retrial. Lotti died in prison four years later.

Investigators made another leap in January of 2004, when they accused pharmacist Francesco Calamandrei of leading the Satanic cult they believed was responsible for the murders. For the next three years, police built a case against Calamandrei, as well Mario Spezi, a journalist who had been following the murders and was an outspoken critic of the police investigation. An outraged public, who believed the police had gone too far, protested the arrest. They alleged that prosecutors wanted to silence Spezi's criticisms, and pressured police into letting Spezi go. Spezi was eventually absolved of the crimes, and the group in charge of the Il Mostro investigation was dissolved in 2006. Prosecutors Giuliano Mignini and Michele Giuttari were also charged with abuse of office for their arrest of Spezi. In 2007, Calamandrei stood trial, but was acquitted of all charges due to lack of evidence. Two years later, Vanni died in a nursing home. Whether or not he participated in the crimes, or was falsely accused, remains a mystery. The identity of the Monster of Florence remains a mystery.

A middle-aged father of 5, Robert L. Yates Jr., a decorated military helicopter pilot, and National Guardsman was convicted of 15 murders but suspected of as many as 18. The most prolific serial killer ever sentenced in Washington state, he now sits on death row. He came from a solid, lovinghome with encouraging Support , a moral upbringing and Christian teaching from the time he could walk. He was an obedient child, a dedicated student, and a team player on the Oak Harbor High Schoolfootball team. Yates was a car buff frequently seen washing the Corvette and his other vehicles. He liked to cruise through the red-light district in a white Corvette, where the Army veteran murdered women 8 of at least 13 of his victims.

Washington state prosecutors suspect Yates is responsible for the slayings of as many as 18 women, many with a history of drugabuse and prostitution. Victims were shot in the head. The first body was found Feb. 22, 1990, and the killings continued for a decade. "Bobby is a loving, caring and sensitive son, a fun-lovingand giving brother, an understanding, generous and dedicated father, who enjoys playing ball, fishing and camping with his kids," the three-paragraph statement said. "We feel deeply for the families who have experienced loss," the statement said. "We ask that all judgments be reserved until the timely due process of law has been completed."

Signed "the Robert L. Yates family members."

In 2000, Yates, 50, pleaded guilty to the attempted murder of one woman and the killing 10 other women in Spokane County from 1996 to 1998. He's also admitted to two slayings in Walla Walla in 1975 and the killing of a woman whose body was found in 1988, in Skagit County. A judge sentenced him to 408 years in prison. Pierce County prosecutors then brought Yates to Tacoma to be tried on the aggravated murders of Connie LaFontaine Ellis and Melinda Mercer. During the 5 1/2-week trial, prosecutors told jurors this was Yates "his evil hobby." He killed for thrill of it and because he enjoyed sex with his dead victims. The death penalty was sought in this trial. Robert Lee Yates Sr. talked about his and his wife's joy at their son's birth, and his pride as Yates became a boy who never "sassed" him and always obeyed. Yates played baseball andfootball, and fished and hiked with his father.

Attorneys showed photos of Yates as a baby, in a tiny suit, with his little sister, and through the years in a military uniform and later with his children. The elder Yates acknowledged that his son didn't confide in him and that he married his second wife before divorcing his first. Recently, Yates Sr. said, his son has returned to his Seventh-day Adventist faith. "He fell away from God," the father said. "He went to the depths. But he's come back, and I really feel it's sincere." Crying, he continued, "I love him so much, and I've told him a good many times. I abhor what he's done, but I love him just the same." Yates cried during his father's testimony and when his victims' parents described their pain. Melinda Mercer's mother, Karyl Bushell, recalled her oldest daughter as a child who loved anything extravagant and funny. "She loved to dance," Bushell said, in tears. "She loved children. She loved people." She avidly hiked, skied and skated.

A troubled youth, Mercer spent her teen years in foster care but was at her mother's house for her birthday and holidays. She earned a GED, learned to hang drywall and had worked as a waitress in Seattle. In 1997, when she became aware of her daughters heroin addiction, Bushell found a hospital where she could receive drugtreatment, but she didn't showed up. Two months before her murder, she asked if she could move back home with her family in Centralia. Bushell declined out of fear herdrug use would affect the other children in the home. "She wanted to come home, and I told her she couldn't," Bushell said, crying hard. "I told her she had to start helping herself before I could help her anymore. She said, 'Mom, you're supposed to loveme,'" said Bushell. "I said, 'I do love you, but you have to help yourself.'" Emil LaFontaine of North Dakota called his daughter, Connie LaFontaine Ellis, a strong, independent girl who inspired his pride. She had 5 siblings and step-siblings, moved from the Chippewa reservation where her father lived to Spokane to be with her mother.

At 17, she had her first child, Angel, later, she gave birth to 2 sons. The first son died in infancy. She married and moved to Tacoma. In 1996, her youngest son, Randy, couldn't get a transplant in time and died of heart problems. "That was one of the main factors in the way she continued her life," LaFontaine said. "Connie was devastated by his death." She tried numerous times to beat a heroin addiction. She was working on the streets when Yates killed her, in September 1998. Her death hurt her daughter the hardest, LaFontaine said. LaFontaine cried reading from a statement he wrote about his daughter.

"Connie gave me strength and opened my life," he read. "I could not have asked for more. No wonder an eagle came down above her as she was buried, and came to hover over my own." Prior to reading the death sentence, Yates' attorneys moved for a retrial, saying prosecutors erred in the penalty phase closing arguments by making "passionate and prejudicial" statements to the jury. Defense attorneys also felt jurors committed misconduct by considering more evidence than allowed in sentencing, such as contemplating if Yates had undiscovered victims, as they reported to the media afterwards. Pierce County Judge John McCarthy rejected the arguments. The jury sentenced Yates to death after it convicted him of the aggravated murders of Connie LaFontaine Ellis and Melinda Mercer. Both bodies were found near Fort Lewis, where Yates served as a helicopter pilot in the Washington National Guard. "I'd like to thank the court for the courtesy accorded me and the professionalism shown me," Yates said quietly while looking down.

Jack Mogale because he lured, raped and killed women at a factory near his home, was found guilty in the Johannesburg High Court on 52 of 61 charges. Judge Frans Kgomo found Mogale guilty of nine kidnappings, 19 rapes, 16 murders, an attempted murder, three robberies with aggravating circumstances, a fraud or theft, an assault with intent to cause grievous bodily harm, a sexual assault and an escape from lawful custody. Mogale (42) had pleaded not guilty to all the charges. He continually testified that police, witnesses and his common-law wife Charlotte Manaka were conspiring against him. Kgomo dismissed this claim as “far-fetched” and “fallacious”. Dubbed the “West-End serial killer” by police before his identity was discovered, Mogale lured women to open areas where he raped and murdered them. The crimes were mainly committed at the West-End brick and clay factory near his home in Waterworks, Westonaria, and at various locations in Lenasia, south of Johannesburg.

He attacked and murdered 15 women and a child between March 2008 to March 2009. He was arrested when police were given his car registration number after a teenager went missing. The only two women to have survived his attacks testified during his trial that when they met him for the first time he claimed to be a Zionist Christian Church preacher and a prophet. One woman was given a herbal “tea” for uterine problems. She said he put herbs into her vagina and said he needed to have sexual intercourse to exorcise evil spirits from her. He however said they were having an affair and the sex was consensual. One woman said he gave her a lift, claimed to be prophesying over her, then took her to a veld where he attacked her. When she regained consciousness 24 hours later, her jaw had been dislocated and maggots were on her wounds.

Kgomo said the calm and sequential manner in which 41 state witnesses testified throughout the trial was key in building the prosecution. “The accused, however, was not a very good witness ... with his contradictions and new versions of events ... at times he wanted to shift blame onto his defence counsel,” Kgomo said. “I came to the conclusion that he was not telling the whole truth to the court. “The accused did also not bring in witnesses to back up statements made during cross-examination by the state.” The court’s judgment was assisted, to a large degree, by forensic analysis and expert advice from Professor Gerard Labuschagne, who headed the police’s investigative psychology unit. Many of Mogale’s victims were unidentified but linked to him through Labuschagne’s investigations. Nearly all the crimes had a similar modus operandi, circumstance, victimology and location. Most of Mogale’s victims were either strangled or killed with blunt force injury, and 14 were of a sexual nature, which Labuschagne, in his testimony, said was indicative of a serial killer. The professor also concluded that all the cases were “undoubtedly by the same offender”, Kgomo said.

Jimmy Maketta is a South African rapist and serial killer who in 2007 plead guilty and was convicted on 16 counts of murder, 19 counts of rape.A state psychologist described him as a psychopath. Maketta described how, from April to December 2005, he would attack farm labourers from a hill on Friday evenings near the township of Philippi, Cape Town.

Elias Xitavhudzi murdered 16 women and men in Sunnyside and Magnolia Dale (Gauteng Province) in the 1960’s. As he murdered only white males and females in the strictly isolated “apartheid-era”, his murderous reign caused communal concern on both sides of the race spectrum. Waiting for his victims at various “lovers-lane” spots, he would accost the unsuspecting couple and brutally murder them. Shortly before his arrest, he acquired the nickname “Pangaman” (panga being a local word for the machete/long broad-bladed knife he used to hack his victims). Being swiftly tried and convicted of the murders in November of 1960 he was sentenced to death by hanging.

South Africa's alleged "Phoenix Strangler," Sipho Agmatir Thwala, is suspected of raping and strangling 19 victims with their underwear before burying them in shallow graves. On March 31, 1999, the Durban High Court found Thwala guilty of only 16 murders and 10 rapes, and he was sentenced to 506 years in prison. Thwala, 31, of KwaMashu, became the most wanted man in KwaZulu-Natal province, located in eastern South Africa along the Indian Ocean during an alleged year-long reign of terror. At the time of his murderous spree - between 1996 and 1997 - the Phoenix and KwaMashu communities were gripped with terror, not knowing who would be next or when he would strike again. Thwala, who was acquitted of rape and murder in 1994, was arrested for the serial killings at his Besters squatter camp home in a pre-dawn swoop by police in August 1997. His arrest came days after DNA samples taken from the suspect, who was released on the rape and murder charges in 1994, matched those taken from several crime scenes.

The killer apparently lured his victims to the sugarcane fields fields of Mount Edgecombe, near Phoenix, by offering them employment. Thwala fitted the profile compiled by police forensic psychologist Micky Pistorius, who described him as "intelligent and charming to women, but extremely dangerous". Thwala speaks English, Afrikaans and Zulu and grew up as a labourer in the cane fields where he sold cane to local residents. His mother, Khathazile Ntanzi, described Twala as an intelligent man who could read and write even though he never received schooling beyond Grade 1. "He was a normal child, a gentleman and helpful around the house. He also bought us groceries when he had money. We are relieved he has been sent to jail. Who knows? He may have turned against us one day," said his sister, Zibekile.

On March 31, 1999, a Dunbar judge sentenced Twala to 506 years in prison after he was found guilty of 16 slayings and other charges. Twala, 31, showed no remorse for his crimes. He was also found guilty of one charge of attempted murder, seven of indecent assault and three of rape. Shortly before his sentencing, a rumour spread around Inanda that Thwala had been seen at his family's home. An angry mob converged on the house, setting it alight after locking his mother, Khathazile 65, and his sister Zibekile, 41, inside as they prepared to go to church. A neighbour came to their rescue, dragging them from the blazing dwelling. Fearing for their lives, the family fled to the police station with Zibekile's six-month-old son, Mthandeni, and her daughters Fikile, 2, Ntombizakhona, 7, and Phumelele, 8.

Both Thwala's mother and sister said that they believed he "got what was coming to him" when Judge Vivienne Niles-Duner imposed the 506-year sentence on him. At the time of his reign of terror, neither Thwala's mother nor his sister suspected that he was the killer. "He never changed his behaviour. He would even occasionally condemn the killings and said he hoped the killer would be caught soon," said his mother.

Mohammed Bijeh was an Iranian serial killer. He confessed in court to raping and killing 16 young boys between March and September 2004, and was sentenced to 100 lashes followed by execution. All the boys were between 8 and 15 years old. In addition, he killed two adults. On March 16, 2005, in Pakdasht, Iran, the town near the desert area where the killings occurred, in front of a crowd of about 5,000, Bijeh's shirt was removed and he was handcuffed to an iron post, where he received his lashings from different judicial officials. He fell to the ground more than once during the punishment but did not cry out. A relative of one of the victims managed to get past security and stab Bijeh. The mother of one of the victims put a blue nylon rope around his neck, and he was hoisted about 10 meters in the air by a crane until he died.

During the 1970s and 1980s, the victims of Kraft were among the many dead bodies found near highways in California. While the investigators believed the murders to be the work of a single serial killer, who was dubbed "The Highway Killer", there were two other perpetrators, William Bonin and Patrick Kearney, besides Kraft, who was the last of the three to be caught. In all cases, the victims were males who suffered some kind of sexual abuse and torture before being killed. Kraft's killings are believed to have started in 1971, the victim being Wayne Joseph Dukette, though Kraft was never convicted of his murder. He was first arrested on suspicion of murder when the severed head of one of his victims, Keith Crotwell, was found near the Long Beach Marina. Since he had been seen getting into a car revealed to be Kraft's, he was questioned as a suspect, but he claimed he let him ride along with him and then let him off at an all-night café. Kraft was released due to a lack of evidence. He was caught for the last time, just after 1:00 a.m. on May 14, 1983, when the California Highway Patrol pulled him over for driving under the influence. When the officers looked into his car, they saw a man who appeared to be sleeping in the back seat. When they opened it, they found him to be dead, with obvious signs of foul play. The man was Terry Gambrel, a 25-year-old U.S. Marine officer and Kraft's final victim, and had been strangled with his own belt.

When a search warrant for the car was obtained and carried out, the police found tranquilizers and prescription drugs inside as well as an envelope containing 47 photographs of young men, most of them either dead or seemingly asleep, in pornographic poses. There was also a lot of blood on the passenger seat, even though Gambrel didn't have any lacerations on his body.

Kraft's "score-card". When his home was searched as well, more evidence was found, including possessions of murder victims and Kraft's "score-card", on which he listed his victims by strange nicknames related to their locations or personal habits, such as "Deoderant", "New Year's Eve", and "Iowa". Kraft claimed the terms on the list referred to sexual encounters he'd had and other mundane things. In the end, Kraft was charged with 16 murders, among them a John Doe who was nicknamed as "Airplane Hill" on the "score-card" who wasn't identified until 1995, his real name being Kevin Clark Bailey. He was found guilty on all counts as well as some other related charges of sodomy and torture. At first, he was sentenced to death (for which he became briefly acquainted with William Bonin, another "Freeway Killer" on death row), but the sentence was upheld in 2000. He once pursued a lawsuit against a true crime writer who had written a book about his case, titled Angel of Darkness, as well as his publisher for $62 million in damages, claiming that the way he was portrayed in the book had smeared his "good name" and hurt his "prospects for future employment". Needless to say, the lawsuit was dismissed as frivolous. Kraft continues to serve his sentence at the San Quentin death row to this day.

Irina Gaidamachuk, a 41-year-old mother of two in the remote Urals region town of Krasnovfimsk, had a big thirst for vodka. But her husband Yury wouldn't give her money to buy the drink. So, Irina decided to earn it herself. From 2003 until June 2010, Gaidamachuk, by posing as a social worker, gained entry into the flats of women living on government pensions. Using this ruse, she used a hammer to smash the skulls of 17 women between the ages 61 and 89. Each murder brought a small amount of cash from the victims's purses.

Following Gaidamachuk's arrest in June 2010, the accused serial killer confessed that she had murdered these women for vodka money. At her trial in western Russia's Yekaterinburg, the country's fourth largest city, three psychiatrists testified that the defendant was sane when she hammered her victims to death. Gaidamachuk was charged with 17 counts of murder and 1 attempted murder. Forensic psychiatric examination conducted in GNTSSSP Serbsky showed that Gaidamachuk, although she showed some variation in the mind, was legally sane at the time of the murders. In February 2012, the court case began. Gaidamachuk gave a confession to the indictment during the preliminary investigation; but, contested this throughout her trial. On June 12, 2012, Gaidamachuk was sentenced to 20 years in prison.

On May 15, 1998, Donato Bilancia, confessed to a string of slayings in the Italian Riviera, saying he was mentally ill, suddenly flipped and could not explain his 90-day long serial killing spree. He spent seven hours through the night smoking and confessing to the magistrate in charge of his case to the tune of 18 murders, 15 of them since October. "He expressly asked for treatment because he is not able to realise what he has done. He cannot explain to himself what happened: something suddenly went off in him," the lawyer said. The confessed killer, who was arrested May 6, added that he had acted alone and on his own initiative. Prosecutors in Genoa said they now have evidence linking a Donato Bilancia to the killing of two women on trains around the Italina Riviera. Sources close to investigation confirmed that prosecutors had found gunpowder on the clothes of the two women shot dead in the toilets of trains to the crime scenes of the six murdered prostitutes.

Police said Bilancia was also under investigation for the murder of a money-changer near Ventimiglia on the French border in March and of a gas station attendant killed on the highway between Ventimiglia and the Mediterranean port city of Genoa in April. They have also reopened the case of a October 1997 shooting of a newlywed couple in their apartment in Genoa. A second official arrest warrant was issued for Bilancia in connection with the murder of two security guards shot dead last year when they went to the aid of a transvestite being attacked. The transvestite, called Julio Castro and known as "Lorena," pointed out Bilancia as the alleged assailant in an police lineup. Police revealed that one of the train murders took place on the same Genoa-Ventimiglia line where Bilancia's brother, Michele, threw himself and his small son into the path of an oncoming train 11 years ago. Bilancia, whose Genoa apartment was found to contain porn videos, syringes, and a statue of a phallus, said he bought a .38 Smith & Wesson revolver last year with 50 bullets and, "after firing a few practice rounds", set about killing a string of people after he was betrayed by people he knew in the local gambling world. In a lurid 14-page confession, the feared Riviera Serial Killer calmly recounted in detail how he had killed a gas station attendant, two goldsmiths, two bureau de change operators, two women in train lavatories, three security guards, four prostitutes, an underworld gambling figure and his wife, and a fellow gambler.

He started his murderous rampage with the killings of the underworld gambling figure Maurizio Parenti and his wife Carla. Next came the fellow gambler, Giorgio Cenentaro, who he strangled with adhesive tape. Donato said he murdered a prostitute "for each nationality" that worked his city's streets. His penultimate murder victim was Elisabotta Zoppetti, a 32-year-old nurse from Milan, who was returning home on a high-speed train from a weekend on the Riviera. "I got on the train at Genoa. In first class there was a woman," said Bilancia. "I didn't know her. I waited until she went to the lavatory, taking her bag with her. I opened the door with a false key. She screamed. I put her jacket over her head and fired. I had got on with the intention to kill. The victim had to be a woman, even if I never touched her." His last victim, Maria Angela Rubina, 32, also died in the bathroom of a train. "I did it like the other one," he told police. "Very quickly." On April 12, 2000, Donato Bilancia, 49, was sentenced by a Genoa court to 13 life sentences. Bilancia, a compulsive gambler, confessed to slaying 17 people in a six-month killing spree on the Italian Riviera.

Pedro Pablo Nakada Ludeña was born on February 28, 1973 in Lima, Peru. He was reportedly abused by his family from a young age. His sister's would have him dress up as woman and his father was an alcoholic who would abuse his mother. He was also raped by his brothers after they thought that he had killed a dog. Ludeña claimed to have tortured animals as a child. Ludeña killed his victims with 9mm pistols that were equipped with rubber silencers that he had made from slippers. He claimed of wishing to cleanse the Earth by eliminating drug addicts, prostitutes, homosexuals, and criminals after being commanded by God to do so.

Authorities from the homicide divisions of the Peruvian National Police in Lima and Huaral arrested Pedro Pablo Nakada Ludeña 33, prime suspect of the murders of more than 13 people in the northern provincial city of Huaral. Dubbed the "Apostle of death," Ludeña was arrested along with Christian Garcia Ponzino 26, after resisting arrest during a shootout with police authorities. While in custody, Ludeña confessed to the murders and told police he killed people who deserved to die. He added that he was ridding society of what he considered to be bad seeds. Garcia, who maintains his innocence, and Ludeña worked together at a mechanic's shop in Huaral. He was convicted of 17 murders and confessed to killing 25. He was sentenced to the maximum of 35 years in prison.

Huang Yong was a Chinese serial killer accused of murdering 17 teenage boys, although he is suspected of 25 murders, between September 2001 and 2003.In 2003, Huang Yong confessed to murdering 25 young men and boys. His motive: He wanted to know what it felt like to be an assassin. He specifically targeted young males, because older men were too vigilant and killing females would make him less of a “hero.” He began killing in September 2001 by luring boys from video halls and Internet cafes to his house under the guise of getting them jobs or funding their education. He would tie them to a noodle processing machine he called the “intelligent hobbyhorse” before suffocating them to death with a cloth. He then kept their belts as souvenirs. He was arrested in November 2003 after a would-be victim, a 16 year-old boy named Zhang Liang went to the police. The investigators at first were not convinced of Liang’s story but the boy claimed that Huang had invited him to his apartment by offering him a job. Once he got there, Huang tried to strangle him and that he went into unconsciousness three times. After, when the young boy awoke, Huang said to him “I killed at least 25 people. You’re number 26″ but Liang escaped and reported him to the police. The police found the bodies of more than 12 boys in his apartment. Huang Yong was convicted for 17 of the 25 murders. He was sentenced to death during a three-hour-long trial in December 2003. Over 300 people attended the trial, and the court installed loudspeakers so that people outside could hear the proceedings.

Christopher Mhlengwa Zikode is a South African rapist and serial killer who was convicted in 1995 on 8 counts of murder, 5 counts of rape, 5 counts of attempted murder and 2 counts of indecent assault. Zikode is however considered responsible for at least 18 murders and 11 attempted murders. Known as the "Donnybrook Serial Killer," Zikode murdered 18 people and attempted to murder another 11 over a period of two years in the rural Natal midlands town of Donnybrook in South Africa. All his victims were between 20 and 30. His modus operandi was to kick open the door of his victims' house, shoot the men in the head and drag the women to nearby plantations, where he would rape them repeatedly - sometimes for as long as five hours - and kill them. If they resisted he would shoot them first and commit necrophilia. Sometimes he would attack women from behind in footpaths in the area. Mhlengwa, 21 was arrested on September 29, 1995. On January 7, 1997, a High Court judge sentenced 23-year-old Zikode (23) to 140 years in prison, including five life sentences for a six-month rape and murder rampage. The judge said during sentencing that Zikode had absolutely no regard for human life and his attitude to women was "contemptible," and found it unnecessary to review the "gory details" of the case. Zikode was convicted on 21 charges, including eight murders, five rapes, five attempted murders and one indecent assault, between April and September 1995. The judge noted "with dismay" that ZIKODE was arrested for the first time in July 1995 for the attempted murder of Beauty ZULU. While on bail he committed five more offences - two attempted murders, housebreaking with intent to rape and murder.

Randall Woodfield is anAmerican serial killer who was dubbed The I-5 Killer or The I-5 Bandit by law enforcement due to the crimes he committed along the Interstate 5 corridorrunning through Washington, Oregon, and California. Before his capture, the I-5 Killer was suspected of multiple sexual assaults and murders. A native ofOregon, Woodfield was convicted of three murders and is suspected of killing up to 44 people. He is currently incarcerated at the Oregon State Penitentiary. In 2011, Woodfield was the subject of a Lifetime television movie Hunt for the I-5 Killer. The movie was based on the book The I-5 Killer by crime author Ann Rule. The former Greenbay Packers' hopeful, is nearing 60, and his black hair is gray now. He married twice while he was in prison, the last marriage a few years ago. He has little chance of a parole, although he still claims to be innocent of the rapes and murders of numerous victims in the seventies and early eighties. Detectives feel he is actually guilty of many more homicides than he was charged with, but, of course, there is no statute of limitation on murder. On February 8, 2006, Portland detectives announced that modern-day DNA testing had linked Randy's body fluids with the 1980 murder of Cherie Ayers, who had graduated from high school with him, and with whom he planned their "10 Year Class Reunion." Anyone who has read The I-5 Killer knows that the murders of Darci Fix, Doug Altic, Julie Reitz, In the Portland area, and Donna Eckard and Janell Jarvis, In Shasta County, California, have either gone unsolved or unpunished. There is little doubt that modern forensic science will finally close out those cases. No one should get a half dozen murders for the price of one.

Paulin was born in Fort-de-France, Martinique. His father flew to France just after his birth, leaving his teen-aged mother to fend for herself and the baby. Paulin was raised in Martinique by his paternal grandmother, who owned a restaurant and allegedly paid little attention to her grandson. When he was ten, Paulin started to live with his now married mother, trying to blend in with his stepbrothers and sisters. His behavior started to become erratic and violent towards the other children, and eventually his mother asked his father to take their son to France. His father accepted in order to avoid paying alimony.

Alternately dubbed the “Monster of Montmartre” and the “Little Old Lady Killer,” Thierry Paulin stood out as an anomaly not only within “normal” society but among serial killers. The victims of most sadistic psychopaths generally mirror the murderer’s own sexual orientation and race: whites tend to prey on whites, blacks on blacks, straight males on women, gay males on other men, etc. Paulin violated all these expectations. A bleached blond black drag queen, he savagely murdered nearly two dozen old white women in the Montmartre neighbourhood of Paris in the mid-1980’s, creating a panic among the city’s elderly female population.

Paulin’s crime wave began in 1984, when he was twenty-one. Accompanied on occasion by his nineteen-year-old lover, Jean-Thierry Mathurin, Paulin would trail old ladies home as they returned from the market, then pounce when they unlocked the front door. He and his accomplice killed with unusual ferocity. One victim, eighty-year-old Marie Choy, was bound with steel wire and forced to drink bleach before she was beaten to death. Another, seventy-five-year-old Maria Mico-Diaz, was so savagely hacked with a knife that she was nearly cut in two.

The “Monster of Montmartre” celebrate his twenty-fourth birthday in November 1987, by attacking three victims during a single weekend. One survived to describe him to the police, who had little trouble tracking down a black transvestite with platinum blond hair. In custody, Paulin confessed to the murder of twenty-one female victims between the ages of sixty and ninety-five. He died of AIDS in April 1989, while awaiting trial.

Paul John Knowles, a.k.a. "Lester Daryl Gates" aka "Daryl Golden" was an American spree killer, also known as The Casanova Killer, tied to the deaths of 18 people in 1974, though he claimed to have taken 35 lives. Born in Orlando, Florida, his father gave him up to live in foster homes and reformatories after he was convicted of a petty crime. Knowles himself was first incarcerated at the age of 19, and in the years following he spent more time in prison. In 1974, he was granted parole and sought to marry Mrs. Angela Covic, with whom he had corresponded from prison. Allegedly because of something a psychic told her, she ended the relationship. After this rejection, Knowles went on a murderous spree across northern Florida. He was eventually caught in Georgia and sent back to Florida. In early 1974, Knowles was serving time in the prison at Raiford, Florida when he began corresponding with a California divorcee, named Angela Covic. Angela visited the prison long enough to accept his proposal of marriage. She was then instrumental in getting Knowles released from prison by paying for the lawyers used to win his release. When he was granted parole and released following the stint at Raiford Prison, Knowles flew directly to San Francisco to marry Angela Covic.

Highly agitated at the rejection by Covic, Knowles traveled back home to Jacksonville, Florida. He was soon arrested after a bar scuffle and was jailed again. He avoided a quick trip back to prison on this occasion by picking a lock and escaping on July 26, 1974. After escaping, Knowles went on a murderous spree across the country starting that same night in Jacksonville. He was eventually caught in Georgia, but while he was claiming to assist officers in finding the officer's pistol he had used in his last two murders, he tried to escape and was shot and killed by a police officer. Paul John Knowles was a man with an I.Q. of 129, an excellent musician and a disco dancer. He was so good a dancer that when he would get on the dance floor, others would get off the dance floor just to watch him.

Paul John Knowles was a lean, red-haired joy killer who taped his own confession to fourteen murders and told a Georgia sheriff that he had killed eighteen times in seven states. "I ask him to tell me how many people he had killed," said Georgia Sheriff Earl Lee, who had custody of Knowles for two weeks in December of 1974. "He made a figure 18 in the palm of his hand. I said where did you kill them?" Knowles wrote out several states on a peace of scrap paper, showed it to Sheriff Earl Lee and then burned the piece of paper. Sheriff Earl Lee describes Knowles as "intelligent and mean as hell." Knowles was charged with seven killings in Georgia, Florida and Ohio. Georgia Law Enforcement officers were fearful of an escape attempt and moved him from county to county. In early December 1974, Knowles was transferred to the Douglas County, Georgia Jail, which was under Sheriff Earl Lee. On December 18, 1974, Sheriff Earl Lee and G.B.I. Agent, Ronnie Angel were taking Knowles to Henry County, where Knowles had dumped a weapon he had taken from the Florida State Trooper he had Killed.

While traveling on I-20 close to Lee Road, Knowles picked his handcuffs with a paper clip. Knowles then leaned over the seat and grabbed Sheriff Earl Lee's gun, discharging it through the holster. Sheriff Earl Lee, who was driving tried to control the car and struggle with Knowles at the same time. During the struggle Agent Ronnie Angel, without hesitation whipped out his own pistol and shot Knowles point blank in the rear of the Sheriff's car; killing him instantly.

Yavuz Yapıcıoğlu is a Turkish serial killer and arsonist. Nicknamed "The Screwdriver Killer", he is considered the killer with the greatest number of victims in Turkey. He murdered at least eighteen people between the period of 1994-2002 and assaulted many more. Even though criminal records tell us that he murdered eighteen people, his family and eye witnesses claimed he murdered between forty three to fifty people . What is more, his brother claims that Yapicioglu is not only a serial killer, but also a rapist. His brother believes that his sibling is responsible for raping and then murdering as many as two young university student girls.He has nine siblings. He claimed his family was unloving. His father married a woman with whom he had an affair, and he was raised by his stepmother. He finished primary and middle school at the top of the class. He was well liked by his classmates. He left home and dropped out of high school in the tenth grade after a quarrel with his parents.

Sergei Ryakhovsky, also known as The Hippopotamus or The Balashikha Ripper is a Russian serial killer and rapist who between 1988 and 1993 killed in and around Moscow at least 19 people aged 14 to 78 years including 12 men, 4 women and 3 boys. He also assaulted six other victims who survived the attack. During a routine search of the crime scene area, investigators found a shack with a noose fixed to the ceiling. Considering it a part of the preparation for the next murder, they decide to make an ambush. On 13 April 1993 Ryakhovsky arrived at the shack and was subsequently arrested by the Militsiya officers. It is worth noting that despite his considerable strength and violent temperament shown later at trial, Ryakhovsky gives absolutely no resistance. Later he admitted that, after seeing weapons in the hands of officers he became paralyzed with fear.

During investigation Ryakhovsky cooperated with officials and investigators, willingly indicating crime scenes and describing methods of killing. According to his confessions, most murders were not planned and were rather an effect of a sudden impulse forcing him to “clean the world of homosexuals and prostitutes”, the same explanations were used to explain motivation behind the murder of 70-year old woman and 78-years old man Ryahovski accidentally met in the forest. There was an exception however, as the murder of three homosexuals met in Izmailovski Park in 1988 were thoroughly planned and the murder of 45-years old woman that, according to Ryakhovsky, was a result of his sexual urge. Most victims were people over 40 and around 50 years of age, three of his were over 60.

According to psychiatrists from the Moscow Serbsky Institute, Ryakhovsky’s necrophiliac tendencies were caused by a malfunction in his central nervous system, however Ryakhovsky was evaluated as sane, competent for trial and fully responsible for his actions. After being informed of his diagnosis, Ryakhovsky ‘s behaviour changed dramatically. The accused, at first complacent and fully cooperating with the investigators, suddenly became obtrusive, stopped his cooperation and began demanding punishment for the experts. He also revoked his previous confessions. This may suggest that he planned to avoid death penalty through an insanity plea. Ryakhovsky was sentenced to death by firing squad in July, 1995. After hearing the verdict he said: ‘I will be back’. However, in 1996 Russia imposed moratorium on executions and the sentece was changed to lifetime imprisonment in the maximum-security penal colony IK1.

In death, the despicable acts of Larry Eyler were countered by one redeeming gesture-the confession through his court-appointed attorney that he had killed 21 boys and young men in the two states in the early 1980s, picking them up at random in gay bars or while they were hitchhiking and luring them to their deaths in a spree of rage. It is important to note that Eyler's saying he was the murderer does not necessarily make it so. Nevertheless, the revelations were not a surprise to authorities in Illinois and Indiana, who-once they had gotten on Eyler's trail-had reason to suspect that he was a serial killer in the gruesome mold of a John Wayne Gacy or Jeffrey Dahmer.

And to the families, Eyler's word was sufficient to at last close the book. There was comfort, too, in that Eyler-though he escaped execution-was now himself dead, succumbing to AIDS-related complications Sunday at Pontiac Correctional Center. Indianapolis Police Lt. Steven Garner spoke for them all: "It's not for the police; it's for the families. When your son, your brother, has been dead for years, you want some sort of finality to it: `Just tell me the truth, no matter how grotesque it is.' All of these families can now put their children to rest."

Police and prosecutors, however, are challenged anew-obligated to attempt their own closure from the clues and details left behind by Eyler. Seven victims, for example, remain unidentified. There also is Eyler's claim that in four of the murders he had an accomplice-a disturbing assertion that must be pursued urgently. Indeed, a companion was acquitted of an Indiana murder in 1991. And there is the irony that Eyler insisted that someone else, not he, committed the one murder for which he was sentenced to die-the 1984 slaying of 15-year-old Daniel Bridges of Uptown. It is not sufficient for the office of Cook County State's Atty. Jack O'Malley to summarily dismiss this possibility. The victims and families may rest. Justice cannot.

The "mama's boy" of serial killers. Known as the Siberian Cannibal. Russian, Alexander Spesivtsev, was accused of killing over 80 children and cannibalizing some of his victims. Spesivtsev, committed his crimes with the assistance of his mother. If that wasn't enough, Spesivtsev was sent to a mental institute (twice!), while his mother spent 13 years in prison. Not much is know about Spesivtsev's early life. He was born march 1st, 1970 (some accounts say 1969) in a very abusive home. His father allegedly tortured the entire family. Spesivtsev, would later torture and kill his girlfriend. A crime for which his only punishment was 3 years in a mental institute. After his release, he moved into an apartment with his mother, Lyudmila. Alexander Spesivtsev, took it upon himself to "cleanse the evil that democracy had brought" and decided that homeless children were detrimental to society.

His murder spree began in Siberia in 1991 and lasted until 1996. His mother, Lyudmila, would lure the children into their apartment with her motherly look, where Spesivtsev would torture, rape and kill the children. Later, his mother would cook the victim and they would sit down and have dinner. He began discarding body parts in the Aba river in the summer of 1996. Police began to suspect that there was a serial killer, but since the victims were homeless and children, not a lot of weight was put into the investigation. If police had acted on complaints by Spesivtsev’s neighbors they may have been able to save some of the children. One of Spesivtsev’s neighbors continuously complained to police of the stench coming from the apartment and the incredibly loud rock music. No officer went to investigate or even look up the man in question. Ever. After his arrest, one of Spesivtsev's victims, Olga Galtseva, told prosecutors how Lyumilda lure her and 2 of her friends, 13 year old girls, into the apartment. They were asked to help with grocery bags. The 3 girls were beaten and raped. After the first girl was killed, the remaining 2 had to cut her into pieces in the bathtub. Olga was forced to eat soup made out of one of her friends.

At the time of his arrest, in 1996, Spesovtsev was an unemployed black marketeer living in the Siberian town of Novokuznetsk. A pipe breakage in his apartment forced the neighbors to call a plumber. Since no one ever answered the knock, the door was opened by force. As the police entered, they noticed blood on all walls. Human pieces were found in the kitchen. A mutilated headless body was found in the bathtub. A rib cage in the living room. On the sofa, there was a 15 year old girl, still alive, but with deadly wounds. Olga Galtseva would die a few hours later. Evading police, Spesivtsev escaped through his balcony. He was later captured in a woman's apartment while he tried to rape her. During his interrogation, Mr Spesivtsev, confessed to over 80 murders and during the investigation, authorities found over 82 different pieces of bloody clothing and jewelry. Although suspected of over 80 murders, he was only found guilty in 19 cases. Mainly because he wrote detail descriptions in his diary (of course he had a diary!). Ruled insane by a court. Spesivtsev, now resides in a psychiatric hospital writing poetry and philosophy. His mother was released after 13 years, (even thought she was sentenced to life in prison). To this day, however, she has not uttered a word since her arrest.

The arrest of Bulelani Mabhayi, the “Monster of Tholeni”, proved to be most daunting. Mabhayi operated in the Eastern Cape, preying on victims in Tholeni, a place that became known as “the village of death”. The village lies along the N2 freeway, about 15km from Butterworth, a town situated between East London and Mthatha. It’s a small village. Herds of cattle, sheep and goats graze on the vegetation growing in the almost barren landscape.

“There aren’t many jobs around and most people just keep livestock or do odd jobs in the village or town,” said Nomfundiso Mpontshane, an activist whose house was used as a victim support centre for traumatised relatives and other frightened villagers during Mabhayi’s reign of terror. There are abandoned and dilapidated buildings interspersed with brightly painted houses. The deserted houses belonged to Mabhayi’s victims or their relatives, an eerie reminder of his trail of destruction. It was in June 2010, after the murder of Sinazo Mbeki and her two grandchildren, that Hanise was tasked with tracking the perpetrator behind a string of murders now believed to be linked. The three killings brought to eight the tally of murders that were believed to have been committed by the same perpetrator. Authorities were for the first time admitting that they were looking for a serial killer. Hanise and his team of detectives initially put up a R250 000 reward for an arrest leading to a conviction, but nobody came forward with any helpful information. “We called the psychologists’ office to help determine if we had a serial killer on our hands. They confirmed that,” said Hanise. DNA samples were also collected from some of the village residents with previous rape convictions in the hope of finding a link. It came to naught.

The case stalled and so provincial police management initiated a strategy called Operation Good Hope, drawing on police from various units including the organised crime unit, the dog unit and forensic divisions. The joint operation made its first move on May 17, 2010, when hundreds of males over the age of 16 were rounded up in an early-morning blitz in the area. They were taken to a local church, where they had their DNA samples and fingerprints taken. Mabhayi was among them, but his fingerprints could not be lifted as he did not have an ID document. The police focus did not deter Mabhayi. He continued with his killing spree, murdering five more people over the next 13 months. The breakthrough, when it was finally made, came as a result of Mabhayi’s indiscretion rather than good detective work. On August 11 last year, Mabhayi murdered Nophumzile Florence Lubambo and accidentally left his shoe at the crime scene. It was a mistake that led to his arrest.

“We were looking for another person, who happened to be his (Mabhayi)’s brother, the late Siyabonga. Incidentally, we got him because of the shoe we found on the crime scene. It matched the one he was wearing,” said Hanise. The saliva that had been drawn from Mabhayi during Operation Good Hope proved indispensable. His DNA test results linked him to the string of murders. “It was a huge relief when he was arrested. I can gladly go on pension now,” laughed Hanise. As Mabhayi began serving his life sentence in prison on Tuesday, residents of the village he terrorised for so long said they continued to live in fear. Many believe Mabhayi was not working alone when he committed his crimes. “When he testified in court, he (Mabhayi) always said ‘we’ when he answered questions. Who else was he referring to?” asked Mpontshane.

Mohan Kumar, also known as Cyanide Mohan, is a serial killerwho preyed on women looking for marriage. A Mangalore fast track court tried and convicted him for the murder of 20 women. He was accused of luring women who were unable to pay dowry or were unable to find suitable husbands. He would kill them by giving them cyanide pills, claiming they were contraceptives, and rob them of their jewelry. He was charged with 20 murders and defended himself in court. He was sentenced to death in December 2013. Apart from murder, he was also alleged to have been involved in bank loan frauds and forgeries. He was a primary school physical education teacher from 1980 to 2003. He confessed to the murders of 20 young girls over a period of 5 years. His modus operandi was to lure unmarried young girls into marrying him. The next day after marriage, he would kill them by giving them the anti-pregnancy pill. He is also known as Cyanide Mohan.

Yoo Young-chul was born in 1970, in South Korea. His parents separated quickly soon after his birth and Yoo was raised along with his siblings by his grandmother for a few years until they moved in with their father in the Mapo district of Seoul. Yoo's parents were blue collar workers who often had money problems. This poverty was one of the reasons he was made fun of in class, which planted in him a resentment towards the wealthy. It was in school where he also found an interest in the arts. He played guitar, sang, painted, and read poetry through elementary school, finding himself enamored with arts so much that he applied to a high school that specialized in them. He was denied admission though and enrolled in a technical school. During his high school years, he began his life of crime and spent time in juvenile detention for thievery. He continued stealing into his adulthood, from cash and cameras to cars. He spent time in and out of jail throughout the 90s as a way to provide for his young family.

In 2000, Yoo was arrested for the rape of a 15-year old girl, which caused his wife to divorce him while he served his time in prison. When he was released from prison in 2002, he earned money by extorting it from pimps and hookers, using a fake police ID. He then decided to step up his criminal activities, and broke into a house that seemed to belong to affluent people. Inside, he found a very elderly couple that he murdered and stole from. He committed at least two more robberies and killed four more people in the process. Yoo then moved onto killing prostitutes, taking advantage of the anonymity provided by South Korea's illicit sex market. He managed to find a system that allowed him to lure prostitutes into his apartment, where he would bash their heads in with a homemade hammer that became his signature murder weapon. Hiding the bodies would involve him cutting up the corpse and burying the pieces in a particularly humid area of Seoul where they would decompose quickly.

Yoo's murders became infamous quickly, to the point where pimps voluntarily collaborated with police in an attempt to catch the killer. Local pimps had noticed that one number had come up in relation to the various prostitutes' deaths and notified the police of it. The next time the number came up during the summer of 2004, the pimps and police laid a trap for the caller. Yoo was ambushed, found chewing phone cards and carrying the fake police badge that he had been using throughout the year. When he was brought in by the police, Yoo confessed to everything, claiming to have killed 26 people since the time he was released from prison in 2003. He led police to various corpses and was eventually charged for 21 murders. While Yoo was sentenced to death, the debate over the death sentence in South Korea has made it so that he waits in prison with 62 other convicts with the same sentence.

Vasile Tcaciuc was a Romanian man who lured victims and then murdered them with an axe that he specially constructed. The primary motive was robbery. On 7 September 1935 a dog found six bodies under his house. He had already been in prison on robbery and burglary charges. He confessed to having committed at least 26 murders. He was shot dead by a policeman while trying to escape during a reconstruction of one of his crimes.

On the night of February 22, 1996, William George Bonin requested two pepperoni and sausage pizzas, three pints of coffee ice cream and three six-packs of Coke for dinner. He watched “Jeopardy” while he ate. Hours later, he put on a new pair of denim pants and a blue work shirt and was led to the execution chamber at San Quentin Prison. At 12:13 a.m. on February 23, 1996, Bonin was pronounced dead, the first inmate executed by lethal injection in the state of California.

Bonin, known as the “Freeway Killer”, was convicted of 14 murders committed across two counties between 1979 and 1980, and he was suspected in many other deaths. His victims were all boys, 12 to 19 years old—some hitchhikers, some prostitutes, some just young men in the wrong place at the worst possible time—who were robbed and raped before being killed and dumped along California freeways. According to court records, most had marks on their wrists and ankles indicating they had been tied up, and some showed signs of beatings and torture. On August 6, 1979, the body of the first victim Bonin would be convicted of killing was discovered naked on the side of a road in Malibu Canyon. Marcus Grabs, a 17-year-old German student on a backpacking trip, was abducted the night before, sodomized, beaten and stabbed 77 times. Weeks later, on August 27, the body of 15-year-old Donald Hyden was found near an off-ramp of the Ventura Freeway. He had been sodomized, stabbed and strangled, and he had a burn mark above his groin. At least a dozen more victims followed, most killed by ligature strangulation. According to court records:

When he was arrested on June 11, 1980, Bonin was caught in the act of raping a 15-year-old boy in his van. Police found white nylon cord and three knives in the vehicle. Bonin later gave investigators a statement leading them to the body of 14-year-old Sean King, who had disappeared from a bus stop in Downey on May 20, 1980, but that statement was not admissible in court. He was acquitted of King’s murder. Court records show Bonin had at least four alleged accomplices during the course of his killing spree. One, Vernon Butts, committed suicide in jail while awaiting trial. Gregory Miley and James Munro, two teens who had sexual relationships with Bonin, pleaded guilty to murder charges and cooperated with the prosecution. According to prosecutors, Gregory Miley was 18 years old when he and Bonin picked up one of the victims, Charles Miranda, near the Starwood Ballroom in West Hollywood in the early hours of February 3, 1980.

Bonin sodomized Miranda and Miley attempted to but was unable to do it. Miley testified that Bonin whispered to him, “This kid’s going to die,” and began to tie him up. He asked why Bonin did not just let Miranda go and Bonin replied, “No, man, he’ll know the van and he’ll know us.” Bonin and Miley then used Miranda’s shirt to suffocate him and crushed his neck with a jack handle, court records state. After they dumped his body in an alley, Bonin said, “I’m horny again. I need another one,” according to Miley. Later that morning in Huntington Beach, they picked up James Macabe, a 12-year-old who said he was on his way to Disneyland, according to prosecutors. Miley drove the van while Bonin sexually assaulted him. The two then strangled Macabe with a shirt and left his body in a dumpster. At Bonin’s Orange County trial, James Munro, who was 18 at the time of Steven Wells’ murder, testified that he and Bonin picked up Wells as he was hitchhiking on the afternoon of June 2, 1980 and brought him to Bonin’s house. According to Munro, Bonin offered to pay Wells if he would let him tie him up during sex. Munro then helped hold Wells down while Bonin strangled him with a t-shirt.

When they were on their way to dispose of the body, they bought cheeseburgers with $10 they took from Wells’ wallet, Munro claimed. As they ate, Bonin allegedly looked up and laughed, saying, “Thanks, Steve, wherever you are.” However, Munro changed his story about exactly what happened many times. Several exhibits introduced at the trial showed inconsistencies, including letters Munro wrote to judges and to Bonin’s defense attorney claiming that he either never saw Bonin kill anyone or that he killed Wells himself. Bonin’s attorney highlighted these contradictions during Munro’s cross-examination. A fourth accomplice, William Pugh, was the one who first put police onto Bonin’s trail, according to court records. After an arrest for unrelated auto theft charges on May 29, 1980, Pugh, then 17, told authorities that he had gotten a ride home from a party with Bonin once and that Bonin talked about having killed young boys. Investigators eventually learned that Pugh participated in Bonin’s March 1980 abduction and killing of Harry Turner. Still, his tip gave police a suspect, and Bonin was placed under surveillance on the night of June 2, leading to his arrest just over a week later, according to a probation officer’s report. Pugh was convicted of voluntary manslaughter in Turner’s death and sentenced to six years in prison.

Once detectives convinced Bonin’s friend and neighbor, Scott Fraser, of his guilt, Fraser told them that Bonin claimed to have killed a teen in self-defense in August 1979 and that Vernon Butts was present at the time, Fraser said Bonin claimed he hid the body because he thought police would never believe him, given his criminal record for assaulting teenage boys. Police then arrested Butts, who confessed to participating in six or seven murders with Bonin before his suicide, investigator John St. John told the Register. Fraser ultimately received a $20,000 reward that had been offered for information in the case. In addition to Fraser, Miley and Munro, another key witness at Bonin’s trials was reporter David Lopez of KNXT in Los Angeles. Lopez, who interviewed Bonin in jail after his arrest, testified that he showed Bonin a list of 21 presumed victims of the Freeway Killer and Bonin admitted to murdering 20 of them.

When Lopez asked what he would be doing if he was not in jail, Bonin said, “I'd still be killing. I couldn't stop killing. It got easier with each victim I did." Prosecutors also presented forensic evidence linking Bonin to several of the murders. Investigators found triskelion-shaped fibers on the bodies of three of the victims that were consistent with the carpeting of his van. Hair that matched Bonin’s was found on three other victims. Also, human blood stains were found in several places in Bonin’s home and vehicle. At both of his trials, Bonin’s defense largely focused on attempting to discredit the prosecution witnesses, many of whom were criminals who stood to benefit from testifying against him. During the penalty phases, they tried to show that Bonin had been abandoned and abused as a child and that he had the potential to behave well and contribute to society in the structured setting of a prison if spared the death penalty.

Bonin’s former pre-parole counselor testified that he seemed interested in helping people and raised money to support the family of a prisoner in New England. A records custodian from Atascadero State Hospital said Bonin volunteered for experimental treatment programs while in custody for a previous sexual assault conviction. Defense experts testified that Bonin suffered from repeated abandonment as a child and that he showed signs of organic brain damage. Dr. Jonathan Pincus said Bonin exhibited a “snout reflex” and a “right Babinski reflex” that suggested frontal lobe damage, which could have made him uncommonly impulse-driven. However, Dr. Park Dietz, testifying for the prosecution, said that Bonin did not present any other behaviors associated with such damage and he testified that the reflexes Pincus observed would not explain a desire to sexually assault young men. Dietz determined that Bonin was a sexual sadist with a possible antisocial personality disorder, but he did not identify signs of any other neurological or psychiatric disorders.

Bonin was sentenced to death in both Los Angeles County and Orange County. An opinion on the case written by Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Alex Kozinski in 1995 highlighted a disturbing truth about Bonin’s crimes: “The facts of this case shock even those of us inured to shocking facts by years of capital cases. Most distressing, however, is that these tragedies could have been averted: Bonin gave us more than fair warning of his proclivities before he embarked on his killing spree.” Testimony by Bonin’s relatives and others at his trial alleged that his father was an abusive alcoholic and that Bonin was sexually abused in a detention home as a child. He served in Vietnam, received a medal for saving a fellow soldier and was honorably discharged, but he also engaged in what a judge described as “violent nonconsensual homosexual activity” during his service. Family members testified that he returned from the war a changed man. According to court testimony, he had planned to marry a woman when he came back, but she married someone else while he was away.

Between 1968 and 1969, Bonin abducted and sexually assaulted four teenage boys. One said he was gagged with his underwear and another was choked nearly to unconsciousness. When he was arrested in 1969, Bonin was driving with a 16-year-old boy. He told police he might have killed the teen if they had not caught him, according to court records. He was committed to Atascadero State Hospital as a “mentally disordered sex offender amenable to treatment.” However, in 1971, he was found unamenable to treatment and sent to prison instead. Bonin was released in 1974 and was convicted of sexually assaulting a teenage boy at gunpoint the following year. At the time of his arrest, he told police he would never leave a witness alive to testify against him again, court records showed. In 1978, he was paroled. A year later, the freeway killings began. Bonin presented numerous arguments in his appeals, many relating to alleged failures by his trial attorney to present mitigating evidence and decisions by judges that he argued infringed on his rights. Appellate courts agreed that some errors were made, but they never concluded that those mistakes—such as allowing David Lopez to testify that Bonin admitted to 20 or 21 murders rather than just 14, or only letting one of his two defense attorneys present closing arguments—would have impacted the verdict.

While awaiting his execution, William Bonin wrote a collection of stories and essays that received a small print run. The book, titled “Doing Time, Stories from the Mind of a Death Row Prisoner,” included several fictional tales of young boys in danger that ended with moments of redemption. “I like the way my writing is going…the message that I’m trying to get across,” Bonin said in a 1991 telephone interview with the paper. On the morning before his execution, while his attorneys filed motions for last-minute intervention by the Supreme Court, Bonin gave an interview to a local radio station. He told a reporter he had accepted the fact that he was going to die. However, he said of the victims’ families, “They feel that my death will bring closure. But that’s not the case. They’re going to find out.” About 50 witnesses attended the execution, including family members of several of Bonin’s victims and the survivor of the 1975 attack.

According to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, Bonin delivered his last words to the prison warden 45 minutes before his death. “That I feel the death penalty is not an answer to the problems at hand,” Bonin said. “That I feel it sends the wrong message to the youth of the country. Young people act as they see other people acting instead of as people tell them to act. And I would suggest that when a person has a thought of doing anything serious against the law, that before they did, that they should go to a quiet place and think about it seriously.” Two of Bonin’s accomplices remain in prison today. Gregory Miley, who was sentenced to 25 years to life for first-degree murder, had planned to seek parole in 2011, but he agreed to a continuance until 2014. In apress release announcing the delay, the Orange County District Attorney’s Office noted that Miley had incurred 26 prison rule violations including threats against inmates and nonconsensual sexual behavior that indicated he could pose a “significant” threat to the public if released. James Munro is serving 15 years to life for second-degree murder. At his sentencing hearing, the superior court judge stated, “He should every few seconds say a prayer that he is not going to the gas chamber with Bonin. For what he has done, I would have no problem sending him there, so I think he’s very, very fortunate.” Munro has tried and failed several times to get paroled. Over the last 22 years, he told several different versions of the events surrounding the murder of Bonin’s final victim, Steven Wells, according to court records and parole hearing transcripts.

Munro sometimes claimed that he watched Bonin kill Wells but did not participate at all, and he convinced his wife—who he married while in prison—and other supporters that he was completely innocent. He also sent letters to the district attorney’s office in 1994 and 1998 claiming that he was the one who killed Wells, but he later stated at a 2005 parole hearing that he only did that to “piss off” the prosecutors. When he has admitted to helping Bonin with the crime, Munro insisted that he only did so out of fear that Bonin would kill him if he did not. “I was scared to death,” he said at a 2005 parole hearing. “I was a victim as well as Steven Wells. Steven Wells died. I swear to God, I wish he never had.” Wells’ family has expressed doubt about Munro’s remorse. “I feel that he fully participated in this murder,” his sister, Susan Ruzzamenti, said at a 2009 hearing. “I feel he enjoyed it, and I feel that he received some type of deviant sexual satisfaction from it.” The parole board has repeatedly rejected Munro’s release, citing his history of minimizing his involvement in the crime and psychological evaluations that indicate he may pose a risk to the public. In 2009, the board ruled that Munro could seek parole again in five years. William Bonin continued to spark outrage and controversy even after his death, when it was revealed that the Social Security Administration had continued to pay benefits stemming from a 1972 diagnosis with mental illness into his bank account while he was on death row. Nearly $80,000 in disability checks was deposited in the account during the years between his arrest and execution. Bonin’s family agreed to repay the funds once the error was discovered, the paper reported. An investigation by the Social Security Administration concluded that no other death row inmates were receiving similar benefits.