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.
Ronald J. Dominique of Houma, LA has confessed to murdering 23 men over the past nine years and dumping their bodies in sugarcane fields, ditches and small bayous in six southeast Louisiana parishes. His reason for killing? He did not want to return to jail after raping the men. In 1997, authorities found 19-year-old David Levron Mitchell's murdered body near Hahnville. The body of 20-year-old Gary Pierre was found in St. Charles Parish six months later. In July 1998, the body of 38-year-old Larry Ranson was found in St. Charles Parish. Over the next nine years, more bodies of men ranging in age from 19 to 40 would be found dumped in sugarcane fields, desolate bayous and in ditches in remote areas. Similarities in 23 of the murders lead investigators to suspecting the men were victims of a serial killer.
A task force made up of nine South Louisiana parish sheriff's offices, the Louisiana State Police and the FBI, was formed in March 2005, to investigate the murders. Investigators knew the 23 victims were mostly homeless men, many who led high-risk lifestyles, which included drug use and prostitution. The victims had been asphyxiated or strangled, some raped and several were barefooted. After receiving a tip, authorities armed with forensic evidence, arrested Ronald Dominique, 42, and charged him with the murder and rape of 19-year-old Manuel Reed and 27-year-old Oliver Lebanks. Just days before his arrest, Dominique had moved from his sister's home into the Bunkhouse shelter in Houma, LA. Residents of the home described Dominique as odd, but no one suspected he was a killer.
Soon after his arrest, Dominique confessed to murdering 23 southeast Louisiana men. His tactics in capturing, sometimes raping then murdering the men was simple. He would lure homeless men with the promise of sex in exchange for money. Sometimes he would tell the men he wanted to pay them to have sex with his wife, and then show a picture of an attractive woman. Dominique was not married, he then lead the men to his home, asked to tie them up, then raped and eventually murdered the men to avoid arrest. In his statement to the police, Dominique said the men who refused to be tied up would leave his home unharmed. Such was the case with one unnamed man who a year ago, reported the incident to the task force, a tip that eventually led to Dominique's arrest.
Ronald Dominique spent much of his youth in the small bayou community of Thibodaux, LA. Thibodaux sits between New Orleans and Baton Rouge and is the type of community where everyone knows a little about each other. He attended Thibodaux High School where he was in the glee club and sang in the chorus. Classmates who remember Dominique say he was ridiculed about being homosexual during his teen years, but at the time he never admitted he was gay. As he got older he seemed to live in two worlds. There was the Dominique who was helpful to his neighbors in the small trailer parks where he lived. Then there was the Dominique who cross-dressed and did bad impersonations of Patti LaBelle at the local gay club. Neither world embrace him and among the gay community, many remember him as someone who was not particularly well liked. Through most of his adulthood, Dominique struggled financially and would end up living with his mother or other relatives. In the weeks before his arrest, he was living with his sister in a singlewide trailer. He was suffering from declining health, having been hospitalized for a severe heart condition and forced to use a cane to walk. Outwardly, there was side to Dominique who enjoyed helping people. He joined the Lions Club just months before his arrest, and spent Sunday afternoons calling out Bingo numbers to senior citizens. The membership director said he was well liked by everyone he had met through the Lions Club. Maybe Dominique had finally found a place he felt accepted. What sparked Dominique to move from the comfort of his sister's home to the dismal surroundings of a shelter for the homeless is uncertain. Some suspect the family grew uncomfortable by the 24-hour police surveillance and Dominique, knowing he was soon to be caught, moved away to avoid getting his family involved in his arrest.
Patrick Wayne Kearney told investigators that he committed his first murder while living in Culver City in 1962. The Redondo Beach man ultimately would be convicted of 21 killings, all males, all between the ages of 5 and 28, but he may have killed dozens more. He claimed to have killed one victim a month starting in 1974. Kearney was born in East Los Angeles on Sept. 24, 1939. The bespectacled serial killer stood 5 foot 5 inches, and reportedly had an IQ of 180. He worked at Hughes Aircraft and lived with his gay partner, Dave Hill, 34, at a house on Robinson Avenue near Aviation Boulevard in north Redondo Beach.
Kearney became known as the “trash bag murderer” for his method of putting body parts and corpses into large plastic trash bags and leaving them on the side of the road. The crimes took place in five Southern California counties. The case began in Los Angeles County on Jan. 24, 1977, when a highway worker tripped over a tightly wrapped object in the Lennox Boulevard tunnel under the San Diego Freeway near LAX. It turned out to be the corpse of 28-year-old Nicolas Hernandez-Jimenez of Los Angeles. Kearney, a necrophile, used to pick up his victims in Los Angeles and Hollywood. He would befriend hitchhikers, troubled teenagers and younger children, perhaps offering to take them camping or to Lake Elsinore, a favorite haunt of his, before killing them, having sex with their corpses and discarding their remains in the plastic bags.
When Sett and his partner Roger Wilson questioned friends of John LaMay, 17, of El Segundo, after his corpse was found stuffed inside a trash bag in a 55-gallon drum in Riverside on March 18, 1977, they were told that LaMay liked to hang out with “Pat and Dave” – Pat Kearney and Dave Hill. The detectives met with the pair at their house. Samples of hair from the suspects and their poodle and threads from a blue rug matched those found by police investigators on LaMay’s body. A search warrant was issued. When Sett and Wilson called to notify Kearney and Hill, the two men fled to Hill’s family home in Texas. The family urged them to give up, and the pair returned to California, turning themselves in at the Riverside County Sheriff’s station on July 1, 1977. Kearney decided to talk following his arrest. First, he cleared Hill of any wrongdoing. He had kept the murders from him, and committed them while Hill was away from their home.
He talked about his first victim in Culver City. He told investigators the address and where the body was buried. Detectives went there and recovered the skeleton, and found that the details of the crime matched Kearney’s description. Over the next few months, Kearney gradually confessed to 21 murders that detectives could confirm, ranking him among the ten most prolific serial killers in U.S. history. Police said he might have committed as many as 43 killings. Because the crimes were committed before California reinstated the death penalty law in 1978, the maximum sentence Superior Court Paul Breckenridge Jr. could give him when he pleaded guilty on Feb. 21, 1978 to the 21 murders was concurrent life sentences for all the crimes. “I would only hope that the Community Release Board will never see fit to parole Mr. Kearney because he appears to be an insult to humanity,” Breckenridge said during the sentencing. The judge got his wish.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
