Serial Killers: Anthony Jackson

Born: 1939 

Number of victims:  5+   

Date of murders: 1972

Method of murder: Shooting / Strangulation   

Location:  Massachusetts 

Known as the “Hitch-Hike Killer,” Jackson preyed on young co-eds who he found thumbing rides in and around Boston, Massachusetts. The killer first announced his deadly presence in September 1972, when he murdered 18-year-old Kathleen Randall and 19-year-old Debra Stevens within two days of each other. Their bodies were found raped and strangled, discarded at the roadside.

On November 9, the strangler struck again, killing 19-year-old Emerson College sophomore, Ellen Reich. Her body was found five days later, hidden inside a closet in an abandoned house.

Sandra Ehramjian, a Boston taxi driver was killed on November 27, after she vanished en route to a dentist's appointment, Two days later, honor student Synge Gillespie was abducted and killed while thumbing rides in Boston.

Three more young women were brutally slain before the police eventually got a lead on 33-year-old Anthony Jackson. Confronted by officers, Jackson made a break for it, but was captured after a high-speed chase and shootout. His bloodstained Cadillac provided all of the evidence that prosecutors needed to put him away for life. 


Read the full, horrific story of Anthony Jackson , plus 49 more serial killer cases in    50 American Serial Killers You've Probably Never Heard Of Vol. 4 Available now on Amazon  

   

 

Serial Killer Video: Douglas Clark: The Sunset Strip Slayer

Together with accomplice Carol Bundy, Clark murdered at least seven young women in just two months during the summer of 1980, committing necrophilia and severe mutilations on the bodies.

Serial Killers: Il Mostro (The Monster of Florence)

Number of victims: 16    

Date of murders: 1968 - 1985

Method of murder: Shooting / Stabbing    

Location: Florence, Italy   


Il Mostro, or the Monster of Florence, is an unidentified serial killer who appeared periodically between August 1968 and September 1985 to carry out a series of quite horrific murders. Sixteen victims would fall victim to this savage killer, all of them couples.

The Monster’s usual M.O. was to approach couples making out in parked cars. He would them shoot the male before attacking the the female, raping and killing her. Afterwards, he’d severely mutilate the woman’s corpse, sometimes carrying body parts from the scene. All of the murders were committed in and around Florence, Italy, with the same gun used in each one.

Il Mostro has proved to be to be an elusive quarry for the Italian police. During the decades long investigation, a number of suspects have been arrested, tried and even convicted of the murders, most notably, Stefano Mele, Pietro Pacciani, Mario Vanni, and Giancarlo Lotti. However, these convictions have generally been ridiculed by the media. They believe that the real killer is still out there and there is little reason to doubt them. 


Read the full, horrific story of Il Mostro, plus 9 more serial killer cases in    Serial Killers Unsolved. Available now on Amazon  

 

 

 

Serial Killers: Lucian Staniak

Number of victims: 6 - 20+    

Date of murders: 1965 - 1967

Method of murder: Stabbing   

Location: Poland   





Lucian Staniak is Poland’s most deadly serial killer, a depraved ripper who raped and severely mutilated his young female victims. Appearing first in 1964, Staniak would go on to murder at least six (and possibly as many as twenty) women.

The Polish state at first attempted to deny evidence of the murders, but Staniak took that option away from them by leaving the bodies in places where they could easily be discovered. He also began taunting the police by leaving notes at the crime scenes. Written in a spider-like scrawl using red ink, they earned the elusive killer the terrifying epithet, Red Spider. 

Staniak was eventually arrested on February 1, 1967, after the mangled body of 17-year-old Janina Kozielska was found aboard a train. Janina’s sister had been murdered by the Red Spider a year earlier, leading police to speculate that the killer had known both girls. That led them to the Art Lover’s Club in Cracow, where the girls had worked as models. Staniak was a member there and attention eventually honed in on him. 

Convicted of six murders, Lucian Staniak was sentenced to death. The ruling was later overturned and he was declared insane and sent to a mental institution for life.


Read the full, horrific story of Lucian Staniak , plus 29 more serial killer cases in    Human Monsters Volume 1. Available now on Amazon  

 

 

 

Serial Killers: Gilbert Paul Jordan

Born: December 12, 1931 

Number of victims:  10   

Date of murders: 1965 - 1987 

Method of murder: Alcohol Poisoning   

Location: Vancouver, Canada  




A unique serial killer, Gilbert Paul Jordan used alcohol as his weapon of choice. An alcoholic himself, the ‘Boozing Barber’ would coax, and then coerce, his female victims into consuming large quantities of alcohol. Ten women died as a result. 

The “Alcohol Murders,” as they became known, occurred in Vancouver, British Columbia between 1965 and 1988. Jordan, an ex-con with a record for rape, abduction and car theft, was working as a barber at the time. His favored victims were First Nations prostitutes, lured from Vancouver's sleazy Eastside to dive hotels. There he’d offer them financial inducements to drink large amounts of vodka. After they passed out, he would continued to pour liquor down their throats.

Jordan was eventually caught after a call made to report a dead body in a hotel room was traced to him. Tried for manslaughter he was sentenced to fifteen years in prison in 1988, reduced to nine years on appeal. He was released in 1994 and died on July 7, 2006 at age 74.

Read the full, horrific story of Gilbert Paul Jordan, plus 24 more serial killer cases in    Canadian Monsters. Available now on Amazon  

 

 

 

Serial Killers: Volker Eckert

Born: 1959 

Number of victims: 18+   

Date of murders: 1974 - 2006

Method of murder:  Strangulation  

Location: France / Spain / Germany  




A deadly German trucker, Volker Eckert traveled the highways and bi-ways of Europe between 1974 and 2006, murdering at least 19 women, most of them prostitutes. His usual M.O. was to pick the women up at truck stops, strangle them to death in his truck and dump their bodies miles away. And because he killed in several countries including France, Spain and Germany, the murders were never tied together until EUROPOL, the Europe-wide police force, got involved. 

Eckert was eventually identified as a suspect when his rig was picked up on CCTV near a site where one of the bodies was found. He was arrested on November 17, 2006, in Cologne, Germany and the evidence quickly mounted up against him after that. The police found tufts of human hair inside his vehicle, as well as souvenirs taken from his various victims. Most telling was his polaroid collection, showing women being subjected to various tortures. 

Faced with the evidence against him, Eckert quickly confessed, telling investigators: "I am so crazy. I am glad it’s over.”

Volker Eckert, though, would never stand trial for his crimes. He committed suicide in his cell on July 2, 2007. 

Read the full, horrific story of Volker Eckert, plus 23 more serial killer cases in    German Monsters.  Available now on Amazon  

 

 

 

Serial Killers: The Mad Butcher of Kingsbury Run

Number of victims: 12 - 20    

Date of murders: 1935 - 1938

Method of murder: Stabbing   

Location: Cleveland, Ohio  

One of the most enigmatic killers in American history, the “Mad Butcher” murdered at least 12 people in Cleveland, Ohio between 1935 and 1938. The victims, both male and female, were mostly from the ramshackle shanty towns that sprung up on the outskirts of Cleveland during the Depression era. Most were never identified, due to the extreme mutilations inflicted on the bodies.

All of the victims were beheaded and in many cases, the decapitation was the actual cause of death. In addition, the Butcher often cut the torso in two along the sternum. Most of the male victims were castrated, although it is unclear whether this was done before or after death. 

Needless to say, the spate of horrific murders caused an uproar. Desperate to catch the killer, city authorities turned to Eliot Ness, the man who had brought Al Capone to justice. Ness was appointed to the position of Public Safety Director of Cleveland and immediately kicked the investigation into a higher gear, leading to the arrest of one of the chief suspects in the case, Dr. Francis E. Sweeney.

However, there was never enough evidence to pin the murders on Sweeney (or any other suspect for that matter). Ness eventually resorted to ordering the demolition and burning of the Kingsbury Run, the shanty town from which the killer had taken most of his victims. That stemmed the flow of murders, although the Mad Butcher was never caught. Some believe that an additional eight murders - committed between 1938 and 1950 - were his handiwork. 


Read the full, horrific story of The Mad Butcher of Kingsbury Run,  plus 9 more unsolved serial killer cases in    Serial Killers Unsolved. Available now on Amazon