Tuesday 30 June 2015

Serial Killers: Gerald and Charlene Gallego


Number of victims: 10 

Date of murders: 1978 - 1980 

Method of murder: Shooting / Bludgeoning / Strangulation

Location: California / Oregon / Nevada

A horrendously depraved couple, Gerald and Charlene Gallego preyed on young women and girls, who they abducted, sexually assaulted and then murdered.

The first victims, Rhonda Scheffler and Kippi Vaught, aged 17 and 16 respectively, were lured away from Sacramento's Country Club Plaza on September 10, 1978, when Charlene invited them to smoke some pot in her van. They were then taken to a remote spot at gunpoint, repeatedly raped by Gerald and eventually shot to death. 

In November 1979, Brenda Judd, 14, and Sandra Colley, 13, were abducted from the Washoe County Fair in Nevada. They were taken to a desolate area known as Humboldt Sink, where they were raped and then bludgeoned to death with a spade. The teenagers were listed as runaways until Charlene confessed to their murders during her 1982 trial.

Stacey Redican and Karen Chipman Twiggs suffered a similar fate on April 24, 1980, before the Gallegos kidnapped, sexually assaulted and murdered Linda Aguilar and Virginia Mochel. Aguilar was heavily pregnant when she was killed.

Finally, the Gallegos murdered Craig Miller, and his fiancee, 21-year-old Mary Elizabeth Sowers, on November 2, 1980. This time though, the abduction was witnessed by another young couple who jotted down Gerald Gallego’s license plate number, leading to his arrest.

Gerald Gallego was tried, found guilty and sentenced to death. He died in prison before the sentence could be carried out. Charlene, meanwhile, struck a deal to testify against her husband and got just 16 years. She was released in 1997. Her current whereabouts are unknown.


Read the horrific story of Gerald and Charlene Gallego, plus 11 more serial killer cases in
American Monsters Volume 1. Available now on Amazon
 
 

Monday 29 June 2015

Serial Killers: Derrick Todd Lee

Born: November 5, 1968

Number of victims: 7+  

Date of murders:1998 - 2003

Method of murder: Stabbing 

Location: Baton Rouge, Louisiana  




A ferocious serial killer who plagued the cities of Baton Rouge and Lafayette, Louisiana, Lee murdered at least seven young women over a period of five years. Most of the murders occurred around the Louisiana State University campus, with Lee following his victims, forcing his way into their homes and then raping them before stabbing them to death.

With the city of Baton Rouge existing in a virtual state of siege, suspicion initially fell on a white man, seen driving a pickup truck near the scene of one of the crimes. However, the investigation eventually honed in on Lee, a persistent offender with a lengthy rap sheet for assault and sexual offenses. Before detectives could arrest him, Lee fled the area, running to Atlanta, Georgia, where he  was eventually captured in May 2003.

Lee was tried in August 2004 for the murder of Geralyn DeSoto, found stabbed to death in her home in Addis, Louisiana. DNA evidence linked Lee to the crime, but for some reason  the District Attorney elected to only prosecute Lee for second degree murder, resulting in a sentence of life in prison. 

A subsequent trial, for the 2002 rape and murder of LSU graduate student Charlotte Murray Pace, resulted in the death penalty. Derek Todd Lee currently resides on death row at the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola.


Read the horrific story of Derrick Todd Lee, plus 11 more serial killer cases in 
American Monsters Volume 3. Available now on Amazon
 
 

Sunday 28 June 2015

Serial Killers: Anna Marie Hahn

Born: July 7, 1906

Number of victims: 5+ 

Date of murders:  1932 - 1937

Method of murder: Poisoning

Location:  Ohio / Colorado




A native of Germany, Hahn immigrated to the US at age 21, settling in Cincinnati's German district. There she married a young telephone operator, and found work in a bakery. However, Hahn soon tired of the long hours and hit on a new way to make money. She insured her husband for $25,000, then tried to poison him. He survived after being rushed to hospital and promptly divorced her after he recovered. 

Unperturbed by this failure, Hahn started working as a day nurse to wealthy older men and promptly began killing off her clients. No suspicion accrued to Hahn even though she was named as the beneficiary in each of her victims' wills.

In 1937, Anna invited George Obendoerfer to take a trip with her to visit her “ranch” in Colorado. The ranch, of course, did not exist, but Obendoerfer would never know that. He became sick on the train and died soon after arriving in Denver. Hahn then cleared out his bank account, stealing $5,000.

Police became suspicious when Hahn refused to pay for Obendoerfer’s funeral, even though she claimed that he was her fiancee. An autopsy was ordered and showed copious amounts of arsenic. On her return to Cincinnati, Hahn was arrested.

Convicted of multiple murder, Hahn was sentenced to death. On December 7, 1938, she became the first woman to die in Ohio’s electric chair. 


Read the horrific story of Anna Marie Hahn, plus 11 more serial killer cases in 
American Monster Vol 9. Available now on Amazon
 
 

Saturday 27 June 2015

Serial Killers: Arohn Kee

Born: 1973

Number of victims: 3+ 

Date of murders: 1991 - 1998 

Method of murder: Strangulation

Location:  New York City




Arohn Kee, a New York City native, began his career of rape and murder by killing thirteen-year-old Palo Illera on January 24, 1991. Six years later, he claimed another young victim. Johalis Castro, 19, was raped and killed before her body was set alight on a tenement rooftop. Less than a year later, Kee raped, sodomized, and murdered 18-year-old Rasheeda Washington.

Although Kee was a suspect in the murders ( as well as a series of rapes) almost from the outset, the police had nothing to connect him to the crimes until DNA technology became available. In 1999, Kee was requested to submit a sample for analysis but refused. However, DNA was eventually obtained from a paper cup that Kee drank from and then discarded. It identified him as the killer of the three girls.

With a warrant out for his arrest, Kee fled with his girlfriend to Florida. He was arrested in Miami days later, after detectives found him hiding under a bed in his hotel room.

Arohn Kee was eventually convicted of three murders and four counts of rape. He was sentenced to 400 years in prison, the verdict sparking scenes of celebration by spectators in the courtroom.


Read the horrific story of Arohn Kee, plus 11 more serial killer cases in 
American Monsters Volume 6. Available now on Amazon
 
 

Friday 26 June 2015

Serial Killers: Russell Johnson

Born: 1947

Number of victims: 7+ 

Date of murders: 1973 - 1977 

Method of murder: Strangulation

Location:  Ontario, Canada




He is one of Canada’s most notorious serial killers, responsible for the deaths of at least seven young women. Russell Johnson, a hulking young man from London Ontario, began his killing spree in October 1973, when he strangled 20-year-old Mary Hicks in her bed. Three more deaths followed in quick succession, all of them deemed to be from natural causes because the killer took such care to leave the scene undisturbed, the victims tucked neatly up in bed. There was also no indication of forced entry as Johnson would scale walls and balconies to gain access to the apartments. 

Then Johnson inexplicably changed his M.O. On 31 December, 1974, Diane Beitz was found strangled with her own brassiere in her apartment in Guelph, Ontario. In April 1977; Louella Jeanne George was found strangled, some of her underwear later recovered from a dumpster a few blocks away. Finally, 22-year-old Donna Veldboom was found stabbed and strangled. 

While checking on tenants in the various buildings, police came across the name Russell Johnson, who had lived in the same building as both Donna Veldboom and Louelia George. Johnson was brought in for questioning and quickly confessed. 

At his trial in February 1978, Johnson was found not guilty by reason of insanity and committed to Oak Ridge maximum security wing at the Ontario Mental Health Center in Penetanguishene. 


Read the horrific story of Russell Johnson,  plus 29 more serial killer cases in 
Human Monsters Vol. 4. Available now on Amazon
 
 

Thursday 25 June 2015

Serial Killers: Karl Denke

Born: August 12, 1870

Number of victims: 30+ 

Date of murders: 1909 - 1924 

Method of murder: Axe 

Location: Munsterberg, Germany 


Karl Denke was well-loved in his hometown of Munsterberg, Germany (now Ziebice, Poland). Known affectionately as “Papa,” Denke was a regular churchgoer who was known to take in vagrants to his home and offer them a meal and a place to sleep for the night. Unbeknownst to the townsfolk, he was also killing and eating them, claiming over 30 victims in four years. 

Denke’s murder scheme was finally exposed on December 21, 1924, when a young man staggered into the local police station with blood flowing from a nasty head wound. He claimed that Denke had attacked him with an ax, but the police were reluctant to believe him until Denke admitted to the attack, claiming it was self defense. Denke was asked to spend the night in his cells. The following morning, he was found dead, having somehow managed to hang himself with a handkerchief. 

The police then decided to search Denke’s home. What they found there would cast a whole new light on the affable “Papa Denke.” There were cutlets of human flesh in a pot on the stove; two large tubs with human flesh pickled in brine; assorted bones, teeth and pots of fat. All in all police estimated that it amounted to at least thirty victims. These estimates were confirmed when detectives found Denke's ledger, detailing the name, body weight, and date of demise of each of his victims.


Read the horrific story of Karl Denke, plus 17 more cannibal killer cases in 
Cannibal Killers Volume 1. Available now on Amazon
 
 

Sunday 21 June 2015

Serial Killers: William MacDonald

Born: 1926

Number of victims: 5 

Date of murders: 1961 - 1962  

Method of murder: Stabbing 

Location: Sydney, Australia  




Known as the “Mutilator” William MacDonald terrorized the Australian city of Sydney over a period of two years in the early sixties. In June 1961, a naked male corpse was found near of public swimming pool. The victim had been stabbed over 30 times and severely mutilated, with the genitals hacked off and apparently carried from the scene by the killer. 

Two similar mutilation murders followed, throwing the city into a state of panic. Then the police received a complaint about a terrible smell coming from a small shop in the Sydney suburb of Burwood. Their investigation turned up a decomposed corpse, which they assumed to be the shop’s owner, William MacDonald. It wasn’t though, it was the fifth victim of the mutilator. MacDonald had killed the man and fled to New Zealand. 

With the police certain that MacDonald was dead, he might well have escaped justice had he not returned to Australia. But he just could not help himself. After returning to Sydney, he was identified by a former work colleague who reported him to the police.

MacDonald fled again, this time to Melbourne. He was eventually arrested while working as a railway porter under an assumed name. MacDonald admitted to five murders. He was sentenced to life in prison.


Read the horrific story of William MacDonald, plus 29 more serial killer cases in
Human Monsters Vol. 4. Available now on Amazon
 
 

Serial Killers: Louise Peete

Born: September 20, 1880

Number of victims:  3+

Date of murders: 1912 - 1944 

Method of murder: Shooting

Location: Texas / California 




Unlike most serial killers Louise Peete's came from a wealthy family and attended the best schools although she was later expelled for inappropriate behavior. In 1903, she married a traveling salesman named Henry Bosley, but he committed suicide after discovering Louise in bed with another man. She then moved to Boston, working for a time as a high-class hooker.

In 1912, she was in Waco, Texas, where she became involved with wealthy oil baron Joe Appel. After Appel was found murdered, with his jewelry missing, Peete was put on trial. She was acquitted after claiming self defense, saying Appel had tried to rape her. In 1913, she married hotel clerk, Harry Faurote. Like her previous husband, he committed suicide after finding her with another man.

In 1915, in Denver, she married salesman Richard Peete. They had a daughter before Louise abandoned her family and moved to Los Angeles. There, she moved in with Jacob C. Denton, another oil baron. Denton disappeared in 1920 and Peete returned to her husband in Denver. After Denton's body was found, Peete was charged with his murder, convicted and sentenced to life in prison.

Peete served 18 years before being released. Thereafter, she got a job as a housekeeper for a woman named Jessie Marcy, who died not long afterwards. An elderly co-worker also died under suspicious circumstances. Peete’s next employer was Emily Latham, who had helped to secure her parole. When Latham died soon after, her death was attributed to natural causes.

Peete then became a housekeeper to Arthur C. Logan and his wife Margaret in Pacific Palisades, California. Not long after, Margaret Logan disappeared and suspicion was aroused when it was discovered that Peete had forged her signature on a number of checks. 

Tried and found guilty of Margaret Logan’s murder, Peete was sentenced to death. She was executed in the gas chamber at San Quentin on April 11, 1947. 


Read the horrific story of the Louise Peete, plus 49 more serial killer cases in 
50 American Serial Killers You've Probably Never Heard Of Vol.2. 
Available now on Amazon
 
 

Saturday 20 June 2015

Serial Killers: Arnfinn Nesset

Born: October 25, 1936

Number of victims: 20+ 

Date of murders: 1977 - 1980 

Method of murder: Poisoning

Location: Orkdal, Norway




A balding, mild mannered nursing home administrator, Arnfinn Nessett is believed to have murdered as many as 138 patients over a 20-year career, making him Norway’s deadliest serial killer.

Most of those murders were committed after Nessett took up a position as director of the Orkdal Valley Nursing Home. Soon after that appointment, there was a significant spike in the number of deaths at the clinic. Given the ages of the patients, this did not at first arouse suspicion. Then, in early 1981, a journalist received a tip-off that Nesset was ordering large quantities of curacit, a derivative of the poison used by Amazonian tribes on the tips of their arrows.

Nesset was questioned by police, but said that he’d bought the drug to poison a pack of stray dogs that had been hanging around the nursing home. Then, inexplicably, he changed his story and admitted to killing patients. Asked how many he'd murdered, he exclaimed “I’ve killed so many that I'm unable to remember them all.”

Nesset was eventually convicted of 22 murders and sentenced to 21-year years in prison, the maximum allowed by Norwegian law. He was released in 2004.


Read the horrific story of Arnfinn Nesset, plus 29 more serial killer cases in 
Human Monsters Vol 2.  Available now on Amazon
 
 

Friday 19 June 2015

Serial Killer Video: Robert Black


One of the UK’S most reviled serial killers, Robert Black (a.k.a. Smelly Bob) kidnapped, raped and murdered four girls aged 5 to 11 years, between 1981 and 1986. A diagnosed psychopath, he is also suspected of several unsolved child murders in the UK and mainland Europe, which he visited as a truck driver.

Thursday 18 June 2015

Serial Killers: John Edward Robinson

Born: December 27, 1943

Number of victims: 8  

Date of murders: 1984 - 2000 

Method of murder: Bludgeoning

Location: Kansas / Missouri 




A native of Cicero, Illinois, John Edward Robinson is considered the first “internet serial killer,” because he lured many of his victims using that medium. Robinson was already a convicted fraudster by the time he turned to killing. He had also cultivated a repeatable persona for himself, becoming a Scoutmaster, a baseball coach, and a Sunday school teacher.

Robinson’s first four victims were lured with job offers or with promises of marriage. Then he discovered the internet and began trolling BDSM websites looking for women who enjoyed playing a submissive role during sex. Using the internet name “Slavemaster” he lured Sheila Faith in 1994, later killing her and her disabled 15-year-old daughter. Izabela Lewicka, a 21-year-old Polish immigrant, agreed to be Robinson’s “slave” in 1999 and promptly disappeared. Suzette Trouten followed her to the grave soon after.

A task force was by now hunting the elusive serial killer, but Robinson did not become a suspect until two women filed sexual battery charges against him. A search of his properties subsequently turned up the decomposing bodies of five women, concealed in oil drums. All of the victims had been bludgeoned to death.

Found guilty of murder, Robinson was sentenced to death in Kansas on January 21, 2003.


Read the horrific story of the John Edward Robinson, plus 11 more serial killer cases in 
American Monsters Vol. 10. Available now on Amazon
 
 

Tuesday 16 June 2015

Serial Killers: Heinrich Pommerenke

Born: July 6, 1937

Number of victims:  4

Date of murders:  1959

Method of murder: Bludgeoning / Stabbing 

Location: Germany  




Born in Mecklenburg, West Germany, Heinrich Pommerenke grew to be a handsome but inadequate young man who spent his youth trying to pick up girls at local dance halls. When they refused his rather crude advances, he followed them, knocked them down and tried to rape them. Eventually sought by police for these attacks, he fled to Switzerland in 1953, returning to Germany two years later.

Pommerenke committed a string of violent rapes in Hamburg between 1955 to 1959. Then, after watching the biblical epic “The Ten Commandments,” and being disgusted by scenes of women dancing around the golden calf, he decided that females were evil and started a campaign of murder against them.

Eighteen-year-old Hilde Knothe was raped in a local park that same day, her throat slashed with a razor. On June 1, 1959, Pommerenke attacked 21-year-old Dagmar Klimek on a train, then threw her from the moving conveyance. He then jumped from the train himself, found the injured woman and hacked her to death. A week later, he strangled 16-year-old Rita Waltersbacher, later committing necrophilia on her corpse.

While the German police hunted the “Beast of the Black Forest” Pommerenke continued his campaign of terror. He was eventually captured in June 1960, after he left a parcel containing a shotgun at a tailor's shop. The man called the police and Pommerenke was arrested when he came to collect his things. 

Charged with ten murders, 20 rapes, and various other felonies, Pommerenke was sentenced to six life terms, amounting to a minimum 140 years behind bars. 


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

Serial Killers: Enriqueta Marti

Born:1868

Number of victims:  10+

Date of murders:  1902 - 1912

Method of murder: Unknown

Location: Barcelona, Spain




A prolific child killer and reputed witch, Enriqueta Marti was born in 1868 in the village of Sant Feliu de Llobregat, Spain. As a young woman, she moved to Barcelona where she worked as a maid. However, she soon learned that there was much more money to be made as a prostitute.

Over the next two years Enriqueta saved up much of what she earned, then went into business for herself. Her establishment catered to rich pedophiles and she therefore needed child prostitutes. She solved this problem by wandering the streets dressed in rags an luring street children, who she forced into service in her brothel. If they were troublesome or outlived their usefulness, she murdered them.

Although she dressed as a beggar by day, Enriqueta spent her nights rubbing shoulders with  Barcelona’s elite in the city’s casinos and opera houses. This was necessary in order to recruit wealthy clients. Then, in 1909, it all came crashing down. Marti was arrested and charged with running a brothel, offering the services of children as young as three. Of course, Enriqueta held a trump card. Her clientele included the most powerful men in the city. She was released soon after.

Marti could not continue her brothel business but she came up with an even more monstrous way to make money. She began murdering children and using their body parts - fat, blood, hair, and bones - to make salves, ointments and potions. These were in great demand due to their perceived ability to treat tuberculosis and other deadly diseases. Marti’s wealthy clients were prepared to pay handsomely for her products.  

No one knows how many children Enriqueta Marti murdered, but given that she operated her business over a span of ten years, the number may run to the hundreds. She was eventually arrested after police called at her apartment on February 27, 1912, in response to a domestic complaint. A search of the premises turned up an eviscerated child’s corpse as well as other human remains.

Marti was packed off to prison to await trial. But she would never see the inside of a courtroom. A year into her incarceration she was beaten to death by fellow inmates.  


Read the horrific story of Enriqueta Marti, plus 29 more serial killer cases in 
Human Monsters Vol. 2.  Available now on Amazon
 
 

Monday 15 June 2015

Serial Killers: Richard W. Rogers

Born: 1950

Number of victims:  4+

Date of murders: 1992 - 1993  

Method of murder: Stabbing

Location: New Jersey / Pennsylvania / Maine  




Known as the “Last Call Killer,” Rogers preyed on men who he picked up at gay bars in Manhattan in the early 1990s. The victims were strangled to death and then dismembered, their body parts packed into green plastic bags and dumped at various locations along the highways of New Jersey and Pennsylvania. Three of these grisly finds were made and although the police had fingerprints on the plastic bags, the technology did not exist to lift them.

The murders attributed to the "Last Call Killer," remained unsolved until 2001, when investigators learned of a breakthrough new fingerprinting technique being used by the Canadian police. The plastic bags were sent to Canada for analysis and returned a set of prints that were matched to a male nurse named Richard Rogers. Amazingly, Rogers had served time for murder before, after he killed and dismembered a man in Maine, in 1973.

On May 30, 2001, Rogers was arrested at the Mount Sinai Medical Center in Manhattan, where he had worked for more than 20 years. He was charged with two members, although he was suspected of four in New York and another in Florida. He was sentenced to life in prison. 

Read the horrific story of Richard Rogers, plus 11 more serial killer cases in 
American Monsters Volume 7. Available now on Amazon
 
 

Sunday 14 June 2015

Serial Killers: Paul Durousseau

Born: August 11, 1970

Number of victims: 7  

Date of murders: 1997 - 2003  

Method of murder: Strangulation 

Location: Florida / Georgia 




On January 1, 2003, concerned family members of 19-year-old Nikia Kilpatrick arrived at her apartment to check on her. They had not heard from Nikia in several days and they soon discovered why. Her nude, decomposing body lay in the bedroom. She had been raped and strangled. Her two sons, aged eleven months and two years respectively, were alive but severely dehydrated and malnourished. 

Just a week later, on January 9, 20-year-old nursing assistant Shawanda McCalister was raped and strangled in her Jacksonville apartment, the crime virtually identical to the Kilpatrick murder. 

The next two victims, 17-year-old Jovanna Jefferson, and 19-year-old Surita Cohen, were found dumped in a construction ditch on New Kings Road in Jacksonville on February 5. But at least this time the police had a clue. Both of the women had been seen getting into a cab driven by a man named Paul Durousseau, a recent arrival in Jacksonville from Georgia.

Durousseau was brought in for questioning and initially denied knowing anything about the murdered women. However, after DNA evidence linked him to the crimes, he broke down and confessed. He also admitted to three more murders, Nicole Williams in 2001, Tyresa Mack in 1999, and Tracy Habersham in 1997, while he was serving in the US Army at Fort Benning.
   
Charged with five counts of murder Durousseau eventually went on trial in December 2007. He was found guilty and currently awaits execution on Death Row in Starke, Florida. 


Read the full, horrific story of Paul Durousseau, plus 11 more serial killer cases in 
American Monsters Volume 4. Available now on Amazon
 
 

Friday 12 June 2015

Serial Killers: Louise Vermilyea


Number of victims:  9

Date of murders: 1893 -1911  

Method of murder: Poisoning 

Location: Chicago, Illinois  





A “black widow” who preyed on her relatives, Louise Vermilyea might well have escaped justice had she not decided to murder a Chicago police officer, Arthur Bisonette.

Vermilyea began her murderous career in 1893, poisoning her first husband, Fred Brinkamp, on their farm near Barrington, Illinois. That netted her $5,000, and with no one casting suspicion on Fred’s death, she was encouraged her to try it again.  

Soon, her two daughters Cora, 8, and Florence, 4, were also dead. Then, in January 1906, Lillian Brinkamp, Fred's 26-year-old granddaughter, died in Chicago, her death put down to “acute nephritis.”

Not long after Lilian’s death, Louise married 59-year-old Charles Vermilyea. He lasted three years before falling ill suddenly and dying, leaving his widow $1,000 in cash and a house at Crystal Lake. Louise wanted to sell the house but her stepson, Harry Vermilyea, objected. The argument was settled when Harry died suddenly, his death deemed to be from natural causes.  

In 1910, Louise inherited $1,200 on the death of Frank Brinkamp, her son from her first marriage. On his death bed, Frank confided to his fiancee that he believed his mother had poisoned him. Unfortunately, the young woman did not pass those suspicions on to the authorities, allowing Louise to go on killing. In short order, she poisoned three of the boarders at her rooming house, including Arthur Bisonette, whose death would ultimately lead to her arrest.

Louise Vermilyea would never stand trial for murder. She died in December 1911, after swallowing some of her own poison.


Read the horrific story of Louise Vermilyea, plus 49 more serial killer cases in 
50 American Serial Killers You've Probably Never Heard Of Vol. 3. 
Available now on Amazon
 
 

Thursday 11 June 2015

Serial Killer Video: Ian Brady and Myra Hindley - The Moors Murderers



Arguably Britain’s most reviled killers, Ian Brady and Myra Hindley preyed on children, claiming five young victims between between July 1963 and October 1965. 

Wednesday 10 June 2015

Serial Killers: Vlado Taneski

Born: 1952

Number of victims:  3

Date of murders: 2004 - 2008 

Method of murder: Strangulation

Location: Kicevo, Macedonia  




Between 2005 and 2008 three elderly women were found strangled to death in the small town of Kicevo, Macedonia. The murders were a sensation in the country, particularly as they were covered in such depth by journalist Vlado Taneski, who seemed to have a unique insight into the mind of the killer. 

Taneski’s graphic reports, however, began to rouse suspicion among the investigative team. Then, after he slipped up and included details that had not been released to the public, Taneski was arrested and brought in for questioning.

The police soon discovered a number of startling coincidences. Taneski knew all of the victims, lived close to them, and they all worked as domestic cleaners, incidentally the same work that Taneski’s mother had done. Then, after DNA conclusively linked Taneski to the killings, he was charged with three counts of murder.

But Vlado Taneski had no intention of standing trial. On June 22, 2008, the day after his arrest, he was found dead in his prison cell in Tetovo. He had apparently committed suicide be submerging his head in a bucket of water.


Read the horrific story of Vlado Taneski, plus 29 more serial killer cases in 
Human Monsters Vol. 4. Available now on Amazon
 
 

Tuesday 9 June 2015

Serial Killers: Christopher Worrell & James Miller



Number of victims: 7

Date of murders: 1976 - 1977  

Method of murder: Strangulation

Location: Truro, South Australia 


Between December 1976 and February 1977, seven young women went missing from the streets of Truro, South Australia. The police were at a loss as to the disappearances and the women’s whereabouts remained a mystery until April 1978 when a mushroom hunter discovered human remains in a field. A police search turned up more remains, subsequently identified as Veronica Knight, 18, and Sylvia Pittman, 16, two of the missing.

As the police appealed to the public for information, a female caller suggested that they speak to a man named James Miller. Miller was tracked down and brought in for questioning. Under interrogation, he told a incredible story.

Miller said that the murders had been committed by a friend of his, Christopher Worrell, who had since been killed in a car crash. He admitted to being present at the time of the murders, but denied participating in them. He had no interest in the women, he said, because he was gay.

According to Miller, he had acted as driver, chauffeuring Worrell around the Truro area looking for women. If one of the women agreed to go with them, he’d drive to a remote spot. Worrell would then tell him to “take a walk.” When he returned the victim would be dead. Seven young women had died in this way in the space of just three months and Worrell would have carried on killing had he not been killed himself.

With Worrell not around to face the music, James Miller was tried with seven counts of murder and sentenced to life in prison. He died there of cancer in October 2008.      


Read the horrific story of the Christopher Worrell & James Miller,  
plus 23 more serial killer cases in Australian Monsters. Available now on Amazon
 
 

Monday 8 June 2015

Serial Killers: Alexander Spesivtsev

Born: March 1, 1970

Number of victims:  19+

Date of murders: 1991 - 1996  

Method of murder: Stabbing

Location: Novokuznetsk, Russia 




Born in the Siberian town of Novokuznetsk in 1970, Alexander Spesivtsev  was raised in an abusive home. As an adult, he murdered his girlfriend and was sent to a psychiatric hospital, remaining there until 1991, when he was declared “cured” and released. He returned to Novokuznetsk, to share an apartment with his mother, Ludmilla. 

In 1996, a water leakage in the Spesivtsev apartment resulted in neighbours calling a plumber. As no one was home, the plumber forced the door and entered. Moments later, he staggered out, screaming for someone to call the police.

Officers were soon on the scene. As they entered the apartment, they saw immediately what had so distressed the plumber. There was blood on the walls; bowls with pieces of human flesh in the kitchen; a mutilated, headless child’s corpse in the bathtub. On a bloodstained couch lay 15-year-old Olga Galtseva, severely mutilated but still alive. She was taken to a hospital, where she died seventeen hours later. Before that, she was able to tell investigators what had happened.

Spesivtsev's mother had lured Olga and two friends to the apartment. Once inside Spesivtsev had attacked the girls, using his fierce Doberman dog to intimidate them. The girls had been raped and beaten. Spesivtsev then killed one of the girls and forced her friends to cut flesh from her body, which he gave to his mother to cook. The second girl had been killed by the Doberman and Spesivtsev was attacking Olga with a knife when the plumber began breaking down the door. He’d then jumped from a balcony and fled.

Spesivtsev and his mother were captured soon after. Under questioning he confessed to killing 19 children. He also admitted that he and his mother had been indulging in cannibalism for five years. Both Spesivtsev and his mother were sentenced to life in prison. 


Read the horrific story of Alexander Spesivtsev, plus 29 more serial killer cases in 
Human Monsters Vol. 1. Available now on Amazon
 
 

Sunday 7 June 2015

Serial Killers: George Joseph Smith

Born: January 11, 1872

Number of victims:  3

Date of murders: 1912 - 1914 

Method of murder: Drowning 

Location: England  




One of the most heartless killers in British history, George Joseph Smith was a “Bluebeard” who murdered three of his wives by a unique method. He drowned each of them in the bathtub.

Smith had a simple but effective method to his murder-for-profit schemes. First, he’d seduce a lonely spinster and propose marriage. Then he’d arranged for the woman to make out a will in his favor, while he’d sometimes also take out insurance on her life. Next, he’d set the scene, advising anyone who would listen that his wife suffered from fits or fainting spells. Finally, he’d carry out the murder, waiting until his new wife was in the bath, then grabbing her by the ankles and pulling her under the water.

Three unfortunate women, Bessie Williams, Alice Smith and Margaret Lofty, were dispatched in this way. And Smith might have gotten away with it, were it not for a man named Joseph Crossley. In January 1915, Crossley wrote to the Metropolitan Police enclosing a newspaper cutting about the death of Margaret Lofty, and remarking how similar it was to the death of Alice Smith 12 months previously in Blackpool.

Thus alerted, the police began hunting for Smith, eventually arresting him on a London street as he walked to the insurance company offices to collect his payout for Margaret Lofty’s death.

Smith was found guilty on three counts of murder and sentenced to hang. He was executed at Maidstone Prison on August 13, 1915. Apparently he was so weak with fear that he had to be carried to the gallows.

Read the horrific story of George Joseph Smith, plus 9 more serial killer cases in 
British Monsters Vol. 1. Available now on Amazon
 
 

Dead Men Walking

Some killers get away with murder. Others pay the ultimate price.


These are the stories of 50 American killers who were put to death for their horrific crimes, including:

Ronald O'Bryan: Poisoned his own son with Halloween candy in order to collect on a life insurance policy.

Johnny Garrett: A troubled teenaged killer who raped and murdered a 76-year-old nun.


Frank Spisak Jr: A cross-dressing Nazi serial killer who prowled the streets of Cleveland, Ohio, dispensing death with his gun. 


Danielle Simpson: Heartless gangster wannabe who murdered an 84-year-old woman by throwing her off a bridge.

Robert Lee Willie: A brutal sex slayer who was executed in Louisiana. Formed the basis for the lead character in the movie Dead Man Walking.

Melvin White: A vile pedophile who raped his neighbor’s 9-year-old daughter, then bludgeoned her to death with a tire iron.

John Gilbert Graham: Wanted so desperately to murder his mother that he blew up the airliner she was traveling on, killing all 44 people on board.
 
Thomas Piper: A respected church deacon who moonlighted as a serial killer by night, claiming four victims.

George Stinney: Just 14 years old, Stinney was the youngest person to be executed in the electric chair.

Andrew DeYoung: He wiped out his entire family so that he could gain early access his inheritance.

Plus 40 more riveting cases....Click here to grab a copy

Click the "Read More" link below to read the first two chapters of
Dead Men Walking


Saturday 6 June 2015

Serial Killers: Verry Henyansyah

Born:  February 1, 1978

Number of victims: 11  

Date of murders: 2006 - 2008  

Method of murder: Bludgeoning / Stabbing

Location:  Jombang, Indonesia 



Serial killer and wannabe pop star Verry Idham Henyansyah (also known as Ryan) first came to public attention in Indonesia in 2008, when he was arrested for a series of gruesome murders, 11 in all.

Openly gay, Verry mostly targeted other homosexual men, who he claimed had insulted his sexuality, or otherwise offended him in some way. One wealthy businessman was murdered for offering money and a car to have sex with Verry’s boyfriend, another was murdered because Verry considered him to be too promiscuous. He also killed a woman and her young child, apparently because the woman fell in love with him and wouldn’t leave him alone. Some of the bodies were buried in backyard of his home in Jombang, East Java. Others were dismembered and left at roadsides around Jakarta.  

Henyansyah was eventually convicted and sentenced to death. While being held at Jakarta’s Pondok Bambu Penitentiary, he recorded a pop album under the name Ryan. He also wrote his autobiography, The Untold Story of Ryan. In it, he explained the roots of his killing spree. He said that he had been training to be a Koran recital teacher when he was seduced by one of his instructors. He then realized that he was gay, but he came hate the promiscuous lifestyles of other gay men he encountered.

Verry Henyansyah is still being held at Pondok Bambu, while he awaits execution. He has
become a celebrity of sorts, attracting scores of female fans to the prison, despite his homosexuality.
 

Read the full, horrific story of Verry Henyansyah, plus 29 more serial killer cases in 
Human Monsters Volume 4. Available now on Amazon
 
 

Friday 5 June 2015

Serial Killers: Lorenzo Gilyard

Born: May 24, 1950

Number of victims: 13 

Date of murders: 1977 - 1993 

Method of murder: Strangulation 

Location: Kansas City, Missouri
 



A prolific strangler, Lorenzo Gilyard preyed on prostitutes in Kansas City, Missouri, claiming at least 13 victims over a murderous career that stretched from 1977 to 1993. 

Gilyard was already a hardened criminal by the time he started killing. He had spent time in prison for child molestation and also for assault. In addition, he was the only a suspect in a series of five rapes committed between 1969 to 1974, although he was never convicted. Then on April 17, 1977, he graduated to murder, killing 17-year-old hooker Stacie Swofford.

The Swofford murder had already gone cold by the time Gilyard struck again on January 23, 1980, strangling 15-year-old prostitute Gwendolyn Kizine, 15. With this latest murder, the police picked up a pattern, one that they would see repeated over and over again in the years that followed. All of the victims were found without shoes, dumped in overgrown lots and abandoned buildings. Most had been gagged by having cloth or paper towels stuffed into their mouths.

The police knew they had a serial killer on their streets but despite their efforts, the Kansas City Strangler remained at large, claiming victim after victim. One woman was killed in 1982, three in 1986, five more in 1987. Gilyard then took a break from murder, returning in 1993 to claim one final victim. After that, he mysteriously stopped, something serial killers seldom do of their own volition.

The Kansas City Strangler case might well have gone unsolved. But in 2003, cold case detectives linked Gilyard’s DNA to the 1987 murder of Sheila Ingold. A crime lab later linked all 13 victims to the killer using DNA testing.

Gilyard was arrested in April 2004 and accepted a plea bargain in order to avoid the death penalty. He was sentenced to life in prison without parole.


Read the full, horrific story of Lorenzo Gilyard, plus 11 more serial killer cases in 
American Monsters Volume 7. Available now on Amazon
 
 

Thursday 4 June 2015

Serial Killer Video: Lawrence Bittaker & Roy Norris


This depraved serial killer pair met in prison, where they hatched a plan to kidnap, torture and rape teenaged girls. After their release they bought a Transit van which they dubbed “Murder Mack” and put their diabolical scheme into action. Five teenagers were brutalized and murdered in the space of just five months, the killers recording their vile deeds on camera and tape. Then Norris shot his mouth off about the murders and the duo were thankfully caught. Bittaker has sentenced to death, while Norris is currently serving a life term. 

Australian Monsters

The Lives and Horrific Deeds of 24 Australian Monsters, including;

Ivan Milat: Arguably Australia’s most notorious serial killer, Milat was convicted of the rape, torture and murder of seven backpackers.

Kathleen Folbigg: Murderous mother who sent four of her infant children to an early grave.

Paul Denyer: Sexually obsessed young man who hacked three women to death in Frankston, Victoria.

Bevan von Einem: Gay torture slayer convicted of one murder and suspected of at least four more. But was he part of a sinister pedophile murder gang?

William MacDonald: Serial slasher who terrorized Sydney and was at the center of the bizarre “Case of the Walking Corpse.”

Caroline Grills: “Aunty Thally” routinely killed members of her family, adding rat poison to the cakes and cookies she baked for them.

David and Catherine Birnie: Depraved couple who kidnapped, sexual tortured, and murdered four young women in and around Perth, Western Australia.

Archibald McCafferty: Psychotic killer who believed that the voice of his dead baby son was instructing him to kill.

Francis Knorr: One of only four women to be hanged in Victoria, Francis Knorr was a baby farmer believed to have killed upwards of 18 infants.

John Wayne Glover: A repulsive sex fiend who preyed on elderly women in Sydney’s Mosman suburb, battering at least 6 victims to death.
Plus 12 more riveting cases….


Click the "Read More" link below to read a sample chapter from

Australian Monsters


Wednesday 3 June 2015

Serial Killers: Jeffrey Feltner

Born: 1963

Number of victims: 8 

Date of murders: 1988 - 1989 

Method of murder: Suffocation 

Location: Florida  

In July 1988, an anonymous caller phoned a Florida TV station and confessed to killing several patients at a nursing home. He also warned that he was likely to kill again. The information was passed on to the police and their investigation led them to a nurses’ aide named Jeffrey Lynn Feltner. Feltner was questioned but denied making the call. With no evidence to the contrary, the police were forced to let the matter drop.

A short while later, the calls started up again. This time the caller claimed to have murdered a specific patient, although the information he gave was easily disproven. Nonetheless, the police were able to positively link the call to Feltner and he was arrested for filing a false report. Found guilty, he was sentenced to four months in jail.

After his release, Feltner moved to Daytona Beach and signed up with a temporary agency for healthcare professionals. He worked at several nursing homes over the next year, and sure enough the calls started up again. This time, however, the police knew exactly who was responsible. Feltner was arrested again and this time the police investigation revealed that his confessions were not fake after all. At least one of the seven patients he claimed to have asphyxiated had indeed been murdered. As many of the other patients had been cremated, it was impossible to verify all of Feltner’s confessions. 

Feltner was arrested in August of 1989, on one charge of first-degree murder. Under interrogation, he claimed to have killed one patient for every year he’d worked as a nurses aid. At least one of those claims was verified, leading to a second murder charge being added.

However, by the time the matter came to trial, Feltner had retracted his confessions, saying it had all been a stunt to draw attention to the poor conditions in nursing homes. It did him no good. Found guilty of murder, Jeffrey Feltner was sentenced to life in prison.


Read the full, horrific story of Jeffrey Feltner, plus 49 more serial killer cases in 
50 American Serial Killers You’ve Probably Never Heard Of Vol 3
Available now on Amazon
 
 

Tuesday 2 June 2015

Serial Killers: Steven Judy

Born: 1956

Number of victims: 11 + 

Date of murders: 70s  

Method of murder: Strangulation / Drowning

Location: Indiana / Texas / Louisiana / California  




However many murders Steven Judy committed (and there were at least eight, according to his confession), the incident that will always be associated with this heartless criminal was the atrocity he committed at White Lick Creek in 1979.

On April 28, 1979, a group of mushroom hunters found a woman's naked body floating in White Lick Creek, just outside Indianapolis. Further downstream, the bodies of three small children, two boys and a girl, were also found in the water. The woman had been raped and strangled. Her children had drowned after apparently being thrown into the creek. A bank book found at the scene identified the murdered woman as 20-year-old Terry Chasteen. That would make the children, Misty, 5, Stephen, 4, and Mark, just two years old.

As the police began investigating the atrocious crime, they got reports of a red-and-silver pickup truck, that had been spotted near the murder scene. The distinctive vehicle was soon traced to Steven Judy, a local bricklayer. Judy immediately confessed to the murders, saying that he had tricked Terry Chasteen into stopping her car at the side of the road. He had then offered to look under the hood and had deliberately disabled the vehicle. Then he’d offered to drive Terry and the children to their destination. Instead he drove them to White Lick Creek.

Judy sent the children to play and began raping Terry. When she started screaming, he strangled her. In an act of inhuman cruelty, he then threw the children one by one into the water, where they all drowned.

At his trial, Judy pleaded guilty and asked for the death penalty. “You’d better put me to death,” he said, “because next time it might be one of your daughters.” The jury was happy to oblige. Judy was sentenced to die in the electric chair.

Steven Judy was executed by electrocution on March 8, 1981. Few killers have been more deserving of that fate.


Read the full, horrific story of Steven Judy, plus 49 more serial killer cases in 
50 American Serial Killers You’ve Probably Never Heard Of Vol 3
Available now on Amazon
 
 

Monday 1 June 2015

Serial Killers: Li Wenxian

Born: 1952

Number of victims: 13 

Date of murders: 1991 - 1996  

Method of murder: Stabbing / Strangulation / Bludgeoning

Location: Guangzhou, China

In 1991, police in the Chinese province of  Guangdong were hunting a ferocious serial killer. The fiend first emerged on February 22, when he stabbed a 20-year-old woman to death, then severely mutilated her genitals with a knife. 

Over the next six months, five more women fell prey to the vicious killer. Each of the victims was raped, then either strangled or stabbed to death before being mutilated and dismembered. The bodies were then dumped at the many informal rubbish dumps that dotted the the city of Guangzhou. 

So far there had been no press coverage of the crimes in China, since the Communist regime denies the existence of serial killers and thus suppresses all such information. But after the seventh victim washed up in Hong Kong in March of 1992, the story of the "Guangzhou Ripper" was out.

Not that it helped the police in any way. The Ripper remained at large for another four years, claiming an eventual 13 victims and all the while adding new levels of depravity to his crimes. Some women were suffocated with plastic bags, others were bludgeoned to death with a hammer.

Then in 1996, the Ripper made his first mistake. A victim escaped his clutches and went to the police. Given a photo array to sift through, the women unerringly picked out Li Wenxian as her attacker. Li had once been a farmer, but hard times had forced him to move to Guangzhou in 1991 to look for work. The murders had started soon after his arrival.
 
In custody, Li confessed to the attacks, telling police that he had acted out of revenge, after a prostitute cheated him. He was convicted and sentenced to death in December 1996. Given the protocols of the Chinese state he would have been executed soon after.   


Read the horrific story of the Li Wenxian, plus 29 more serial killer cases in 
Human Monsters Volume 3. Available now on Amazon
 
 

Serial Killers: Richard Evonitz

Born: July 29, 1963

Number of victims: 3+ 

Date of murders: 1996-2002 

Method of murder: Strangulation 

Location: Virginia / South Carolina / California / Florida  




On the afternoon of September 9, 1996, 16-year-old Sofia Silva disappeared from her home in Spotsylvania County, Virgina. A police search was launched for the teenager, but she remained missing until six weeks later, when her naked body was found in a marsh, some twenty miles away. She had been strangled and was wrapped in a white sheet. Her pubic hair had been shaved off.

Police were still in the midst of investigating Sofia’s murder when sisters Kristin and Kati Lisk, 15 and 12 respectively, went missing. The siblings were found dead five days later, in a river forty miles from their home. As in the case of Sofia Silva, the killer had shaved their pubic hair.

It was obvious that the murders were the work of the same man. All three girls had been abducted at their homes, all had their pubic hair shaved off, all had been strangled or suffocated, and all had been dumped in water. It was therefore no surprise when DNA samples lifted from the victims revealed a common perpetrator. However, hopes of catching the killer diminished when no matching sample was found in the national DNA database. All the police could do was wait until the killer struck again.

On June 24, 2002 a 15-year-old girl was abducted from the streets in Columbia, South Carolina. The kidnapper took his victim back to his apartment, where he raped her several times over the next 18 hours. Eventually, the man dozed off and the girl was able to loosen her bonds and escape. She went directly to the police and later led officers back to the building where she’d been held. By the time they arrived, the kidnapper had already fled.

The owner of the apartment was identified as 38-year-old Richard Evonitz and a major operation was launched to find him. Two days later, he was tracked to Sarasota, Florida, where a terse stand-off ended with Evonitz shooting himself in the head. Subsequent DNA tests proved that he was the killer of Sofia Silva and the Lisk sisters. Evonitz is also believed to be responsible for the 1996 murder of Alicia Reynolds in Culpeper, Virginia, plus several other homicides across the United States.


Read the horrific story of Richard Evonitz, plus 49 more serial killer cases in
50 American Serial Killers You’ve Probably Never Heard Of Vol 2
Available now on Amazon