Serial Killers: Judi Buenoano

 Born: April 4, 1943

Number of victims: 3   

Date of murders: 1971 - 1980 

Method of murder:  Poisoning / Drowning 

Location: Florida / Colorado, USA 



As a child, Judias Buenoano suffered severe physical abuse at the hands of her father and stepmother. When she eventually struck back, it resulted in her being sent to a girls’ reformatory. Overcoming these early difficulties, Judi qualified as a nurse and moved first to New Mexico and then to Florida, where she married Air Force pilot, James Goodyear. Shortly after the wedding Goodyear was shipped off to Vietnam. Three months after completing his tour of duty, he suddenly became ill and died, resulting in his widow receiving a substantial insurance payout. 

A year after Goodyear’s death, Judi moved with her new lover, Bobby Joe Morris, to Colorado. Bobby died in 1978, of symptoms remarkably similar to Judi’s first husband. After cashing in a large insurance policy, she returned to Pensacola, Florida and changed her name to Judi Buenoano.

But there was even more tragedy to come. Judi’s oldest son, Michael was struck down by a mystery ailment that left him partially paralyzed. Then in 1980, he drowned while canoeing on a river with his mother. Again, the insurance payout was substantial.

Still not satisfied, Buenoano attempted another murder on June 25, 1983, blowing up the car of her fiancee, John Gentry. Gentry was seriously injured but survived, and with clues leading to Buenoano, she was arrested and charged with attempted murder. The bodies of James Goodyear and Michael Buenoano were then exhumed and found to contain substantial amounts of arsenic, leading to murder charges being filed.

Buenoano was eventually convicted of murder and sentenced to death. She was executed by lethal injection on March 30, 1998.


Read the full, horrific story of Judy Buenoano, plus 49 more serial killer cases in  50 American Serial Killers You’ve Probably Never Heard of Vol. 1. Available now on Amazon  

   

 

Serial Killers: Robert Ben Rhoades

Born: November 22, 1945

Number of victims:  3+  

Date of murders: 1989 - 1990  

Method of murder:  Strangulation / Shooting  

Location: Texas / Illinois




A long haul trucker with a taste for sexual sadism, Robert Ben Rhoades toured the country with a fully equipped torture chamber in his rig. He first came to police attention after he was arrested while parked illegally beside a road in Arizona on April 1, 1990. As the State trooper approached his truck to write up the infraction, a naked woman suddenly jumped from the vehicle and ran towards him screaming for help. She said that Rhoades had held her prisoner over a period of two days, raping and torturing her.

Taken into custody, Rhoades insisted that the woman had agreed to the sex games and that he had done no wrong. However, as detectives began to look into his background, some startling facts began to emerge, linking Rhoades to several unsolved murders. Among those were the killings of 14-year-old Regina Kay Walters and her boyfriend, Ricky Lee Jones. Rhoades was also implicated in the murders of Douglas Scott Zyskowski, 25, and his wife Patricia Candace Walsh, 24. Another victim definitely linked to him was 24-year-old Candace Walsh, whose badly decomposed body was found by deer hunters 22 miles south of Fillmore in October 1990.

However, police believe that this is only the tip of the iceberg. Rhoades was known to boast that he’d been “doing this for years and getting away with it.”

Convicted eventually for the murder of Regina Kay Walters, Rhoades was sentenced to life in prison, with no possibility of parole.


Read the full, horrific story of Robert Ben Rhoades, plus 11 more serial killer cases in  American Monsters Volume 9.  Available now on Amazon  

   

 

Serial killers: Alonzo Robinson

Number of victims: 6   

Date of murders:  1926 - 1934

Method of murder: Stabbing / Shooting 

Location: Mississippi / Michigan 

Born in Cleveland, Mississippi, Robinson clocked his first arrest in 1918, for sending obscene letters to local women. However, he escaped from custody while been transported to to jail, making his getaway despite taking a bullet in the shoulder.

Eight years later, police in Michigan City, Michigan where investigating a strange case of serial murder. Several decapitated female corpses had been found, and investigations led the police to the home of a man named James Coyner (an alias being used by Robinson). There they found four severed heads, although there was no sign of the perpetrator. He had fled to Indiana, where he’d later serve time for grave-robbing. 

Paroled in July 1934, Robinson returned to Cleveland, Mississippi. Still using the alias “James Coyner,” he picked up his old habit of writing obscene letters. And it wasn’t long before he started killing again. In December 8, 1934, Aurelius Turner and his wife were shot to death in their Cleveland home. When the bodies were found it was apparent that chunks of flesh had been hacked from the woman and carried from the scene by her killer.

A month later after the double homicide, federal agents tracked “James Coyner” to a post box in Shaw, Mississippi, and arrested him. Later, when they searched his home, they found strips of human flesh, salted and cured like beef jerky.

In custody, Robinson freely admitted to the murders and to eating the flesh of his victims. History does not record the outcome of the case but given the nature of the crimes it is likely that Alonzo Robinson saw out his days in a lunatic asylum. 


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

 

Serial Killers: Gwendolyn Graham & Kathy Wood

Number of victims: 5    

Date of murders: 1987 

Method of murder: Suffocation  

Location: Kent County, Michigan


Lesbian lovers Gwendolyn Graham and Catherine Wood were co-workers at the Alpine Manor Nursing Home in Walker, Michigan. Eager for a thrill to spice up their lovemaking, the dominant Graham suggested that they should murder the elderly patients under their care. When Wood agreed, it sparked a murder spree which would claim the lives of five elderly women, in the space of just three months between January and April 1987. The depraved pair would smother their helpless victims during the night shift, then make love in the same room as the corpse.

Because of the advanced ages of the victims, all of the deaths were originally deemed to be from natural causes. Graham and Wood might well have continued killing indefinitely had their relationship not fallen apart. Thereafter, Graham moved to Texas, where she found work at a pediatric hospital. Fearful that Graham might start killing children, Wood told her ex-husband about the Alpine Manor murders. He in turn went to the police.

Graham and Wood were arrested and charged with murder, with Wood agreeing to testify against her ex-lover. She said that it was Graham who had committed all of the murders, while she had only acted as a lookout.

Found guilty on all counts Gwendolyn Graham was sentenced to life without the possibility for parole. Cathy Wood received a sentence of 20 to 40 years.


Read the full, horrific story of Gwendolyn Graham & Kathy Wood, plus 29 more serial killer cases in Human Monsters Volume 2. Available now on Amazon  

   

 

Serial Killer Video: Bianchi and Buono - The Hillside Stranglers

A deadly pair of miscreants who raped, tortured and murdered ten female victims in Los Angeles during a four month period between late 1977 and early 1978.  

Serial Killers: Saeed Hanaei

Born: 1962

Number of victims: 19   

Date of murders: 2000 - 2001 

Method of murder:  Strangulation 

Location: Iran



A rare Iranian serial killer, Saeed Hanaei, murdered 16 women in the holy city of Mashhad between 2000 and 2001. His targets were prostitutes who he believed had corrupted the neighborhood where he lived. Working as a construction worker by day, Hanaei would take to the streets at night, posing as a taxi driver. After picking up a woman, he’d drive her to an isolated spot, where he would strangle her to death with her own head scarf before dumping the body in a sewer.

The murders caused fierce debate in Iran with many supporting the killer, saying that he was doing God’s work. However, the police had to act and their enquiries eventually led them to Hanaei, who had been dubbed “The Spider Killer” by the Iranian press, due to the ruthlessness of his methodology.

At trial Hanaei claimed that he had committed the murders in the name of Allah, but once he admitted that he’d had sex with many of his victims, support quickly fell away. He was found guilty of murder and hanged at Mashhad Prison on April 8, 2002.


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

 

 

Serial Killers: Dorothy Williams

Born: December 24, 1954

Number of victims:  3  

Date of murders: 1987 - 1989 

Method of murder: Strangulation / Stabbing  

Location: Illinois



An unusual female serial killer, Dorothy Williams beat, stabbed and throttled three elderly victims to death between 1987 and 1989 in Cook County, Illinois.

The first to die was 79-year-old Lonnie Laws, strangled to death with a belt on December 5, 1987, his apartment ransacked by his killer. Almost a year to the day later, on December 6, 1988, police officers were summoned to an apartment building for the aged, where they found the decomposed body of 64-year-old Caesar Zuell. An autopsy would later reveal that he’d suffered three stab wounds to the chest, which had lacerated his lungs.

This time crime scene investigators were able to lift fingerprints from the scene. But the police were no closer to making an arrest when 97-year-old Mary Harris was murdered on July 25, 1989. She’d been severely beaten, then throttled to death with her own headscarf.  The apartment had also been ransacked and several items, including a stereo, were missing.

Detectives eventually made an arrest on September 6, 1989, thanks to a tip-off from one of Mrs. Harris’ neighbors. Faced with overwhelming evidence against her, Williams admitted to the killings, although, absurdly, she tried to claim self defense. 

Williams was found guilty of murder on April 18, 1991, and sentenced to die by lethal injection. In 2003, Illinois governor, George Ryan, commuted her sentence to life without parole.
 

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

   

 

Serial Killers: Marc Sappington

Born: February 9, 1978

Number of victims: 4   

Date of murders: 2001 

Method of murder: Shooting / Stabbing  

Location:Kansas City, Kansas



A paranoid schizophrenic with a history of drug abuse, Marc Sappington embarked on a four day killing spree after hearing voices telling him to eat human flesh and drink human blood.

His first victim was Terry Green, a longtime friend who dropped in at Sappington’s home on April 7, 2001. Luring Green down to the basement, Sappington attacked him with a hunting knife, then lapped up the blood that flowed from his wounds. Three days later, Sappington killed another friend, 22-year-old Michael Weaver, who he stabbed to death in his car.  Again the voices told Sappington to drink the blood of his victim, but he became afraid and fled, leaving the body behind.

Sappington was on his way home from the murder scene when he spotted 16-year-old Alton "Fred" Brown. The teenager idolized Sappington, so when Sappington suggested that they hang out at his house Fred immediately agreed. Once there, Sappington used a shotgun to murder him. He then crudely butchered the corpse, eating some of the flesh raw and storing pieces of flesh in the refrigerator. Then he left the house, without bothering to get rid of the blood-soaked remains lying on the basement floor. They were discovered hours later by Sappington’s mother, who immediately called the police.

At trial Sappington was sentenced to three consecutive life terms without parole. He was also found guilty of killing businessman David Mashak during a botched robbery.


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

   

 

Serial Killers: Helmuth Schmidt

Number of victims: 30+   

Date of murders: 1900 - 1918  

Method of murder: Poisoning  

Location: Several US States


Born in Germany, Helmuth Schmidt immigrated to the United States in the early 1900s. He would go on to become one of America’s most prolific “Bluebeard” killers, believed to be responsible for the deaths of at least 40 immigrant women in Missouri, New York, New Jersey and Michigan.

Schmidt’s M.O. was simplicity itself. Using various aliases, he would place newspaper ads in Lonely Heart’s columns, describing himself as a wealthy man in search of a wife. The women he attracted were in the main poorly educated, German immigrants, many of them employed as domestic servants. Schmidt would invite the girl to his residence to discuss the prospect of matrimony. There, he’d murder her, relieve her of whatever meager belongings she had, and then  bury the body in a pre-dug grave in the cellar. He’d then disappear only to show up elsewhere and run his ruse again.
 
In 1918, Schmidt fled New York after he was connected to the death of a woman named Augusta Steinbach. He turned up in Royal Oak, Michigan, where he found work at the Ford plant and started placing Lonely Heart's ads in the local newspaper. Fortunately, New York detectives tracked him down before he could find a new victim. 

Schmidt must have known that the game was up. While awaiting extradition to New York, he committed suicide in his cell, pulling a heavy iron bedstead down on his head and crushing his own skull.

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

   

 

Serial Killers: Cayetano Santos Godino

Born: October 31, 1896

Number of victims: 4    

Date of murders: 1906 - 1912  

Method of murder: Strangulation / Bludgeoning   

Location: Buenos Aires, Argentina



Born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, to a couple of abusive alcoholics, Cayetano Santos Godino    showed an early propensity for violence. He started by setting fires and killing cats and birds. Then, at the age of just seven, he severely beat a two-year-old and threw him in a ditch. Fortunately, someone witnessed this latter action and informed the police. Godino was arrested but released with a warning. A year later, he beat another child and was again let off. 

Taking advantage of the lenience shown him, Godino embarked on a crime spree in January 1912. First, he set fire to a warehouse. Then, on January 26, 1912, he beat 13-year-old Arturo Laurona to death, leaving his body in an abandoned house. Less than two months later, on March 7, 1912, he set fire to the dress of Reyna Vainicoff, aged 5. The little girl died of her injuries.

On November 8, 1912, Godino tried to strangle an 8-year-old and was arrested and charged with attempted murder. Again he was released with no more than a firm rebuke. Assaults on two more children followed but fortunately adults were at hand to intervene. During this time Godino also continued his arson campaign, torching several buildings.

On December 3, 1912, Godino lured 3-year-old Jesualdo Giordano to an abandoned house. There he choked and beat the toddler before driving a nail into his head. The body was found soon after and when a witness recalled seeing Godino with the little boy, Godino was arrested. He quickly admitted to four murders.

Godino was sent to a reformatory, but after attacking several of his fellow inmates, he was declared insane and ordered to be incarcerated indefinitely. He died in prison in 1944.  


Read the full, horrific story of Cayetano Santos Godino, plus 29 more serial killer cases in  Human Monsters Volume 5. Available now on Amazon  

   

 

Serial Killer Video: Rodney Alcala - The Dating Game Killer

A depraved sex slayer, Rodney Alcala was convicted of 8 murders but may have been responsible for as many as 130.

Serial Killers: Lee Roy Martin

Born: 1937

Number of victims: 4   

Date of murders: 1967 - 1968

Method of murder: Strangulation   

Location: Gaffney, South Carolina



Known as the “Gaffney Strangler,” Lee Roy Martin terrorized the small town of Gaffney, South Carolina, claiming four female victims over the course of nine months in 1967 and 1968.

On March 1, 1967, Ann Lucille Dedmond drove off in her car after an argument with her husband, Roger. Her body was found the following morning, lying in the middle of the highway between Union and Spindale. Roger Dedmond would eventually be convicted of her murder and sentenced to 18 years in prison.

Roger, of course, was innocent. After months of lying low, the real killer, Lee Roy Martin, abducted Nancy Christine Rhinehart, who was walking home from a friend's house. Rhineart was driven to a wooded area, where she was raped and then choked to death. Weeks later, the killer he did the same to Nancy Carol Parris, attacking her while she was out walking her dog. Finally, on February 13, 1968, he snatched 15-year-old Opal Buckson from the street while she was on her way to school.

On February 15, two days after Opal's abduction, two men spotted a car parked beside a dirt road in Union County. The car drove off as they approached but they jotted down the license plate number and passed it on to police. When detectives searched the area, they found the raped and strangled body of Opal Buckson.

The license plate number led investigators to 30-year-old Lee Roy Martin.Under questioning, Martin admitted to the murders, but claimed he heard voices instructing him to kill. Found guilty of four counts of murder, he received four life sentences. Three years into his jail time, Martin was killed by another inmate.


Read the full, horrific story of Lee Roy Martin, plus 49 more serial killer cases in   50 American Serial Killers You’ve Probably Never Heard of Vol. 1. Available now on Amazon  

   

 

Serial Killers: Martha Woods

Number of victims: 7   

Date of murders:  1946 - 1969

Method of murder: Suffocation  

Location: Baltimore, Maryland 

On the surface, Martha Woods was a devoted Army wife, moving from one military base to another with her husband. But Martha suffered from an unusual mental illness known as Munchausens Syndrome by Proxy. Victims of this bizarre condition typically seek attention or sympathy by making up illnesses and ailments for their loved ones. In extreme cases they may even inflict harm on those close to them, including their own children. Martha Woods was an extreme case. Seven children would lose their lives because of it.

Woods’ M.O. was almost always identical. She would rush into the E.R. with an unconscious baby in her arms, saying that the child had just stopped breathing. The child would almost always be revived but within days (sometimes even hours) the drama would play itself out again and the child would be dead. Three of Martha’s own children died in this way, as did a niece, a nephew, and a neighbor’s child. When she ran out of victims, Woods adopted a  little boy, who soon went the way of the other children.

You might wonder why police or hospital staff did not pick up a pattern to these deaths. That was because Martha had geography on her side. As she traveled with her husband to various military bases around the country, the deaths were not linked until her adopted seven-month-old son, Paul, died in Baltimore in 1969.  

With clear evidence of murder, Woods was arrested and committed for trial. Convicted on one count of murder, she was sentenced to life imprisonment. 


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

   

 

Serial Killers: Harrison Graham

Born: October 9, 1958

Number of victims: 7    

Date of murders: 1986 - 1987 

Method of murder: Strangulation 

Location:  Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA




Harrison Graham was well known in the Philadelphia neighborhood that he called home. The mentally challenged young man was popular with local kids for his “Cookie Monster” imitations. He was also a regular client of the local drug dealers, and was sometimes seen digging holes in vacant lots. “Graves for dogs,” he’d answer when asked what they were for.  

In early August 1987, Graham had an argument with his landlord and vacated his apartment. Days later, police were called after neighbors complained about a horrendous stench coming from the residence. They arrived to find that Graham had nailed the door shut and they quickly discovered why. Inside, the apartment resembled a rubbish dump, with piles of garbage, soiled mattresses and spoiled food. The place was infested with rodents and cockroaches. But that wasn’t the source of the reek. The patrolmen soon found the decomposing corpses of two women. Four more sets of skeletal remains would be discovered by the time the filthy apartment was cleared. Another skeleton would be found hidden on the roof of the building.

A hunt was now launched for Graham and it didn’t take long to find him. On August 16, he handed himself over at a local police station. Under interrogation, he confessed to seven murders, all committed in the last eighteen months. All of the victims were drug addicted women who he lured to his squalid apartment for sex.  

Surprisingly, given his state of mental health, Graham was ruled fit to stand trial. In April 1988, he was given one term of life imprisonment and six death sentences.  He was later ruled incompetent to be executed, meaning he will spend the rest of his life behind bars. 


Read the full, horrific story of Harrison Graham, plus 11 more serial killer cases in  American Monsters Volume 10. Available now on Amazon  

   

 

Rampage Killers

The World's Most Deadly Mass Murderers, including;
  
James Huberty: Perpetually angry at the world, James Huberty eventually snapped one day in July 1984. His attack on a McDonalds restaurant left 21 dead.

Anders Breivik: A politically motivated killer, Breivik holds the dubious honor of committing the most lethal one-man killing spree in history.

Patrick Sherrill: Postal worker who committed a deadly workplace shooting in Edmond, Oklahoma on August 20, 1986, causing 14 deaths.

Thomas Hamilton: Suspected pedophile who carried out an unspeakable murder spree against a school class of 5-and-six year olds in Dunblane, Scotland.

Charles Whitman: An ex-marine, Whitman climbed the bell tower on the campus of the University of Texas, Austin and opened fire on the people below.

Marc Lépine : Enraged at what he regarded as “persecution by feminists,” Lépine rampaged through the University of Montreal on December 6, 1989, killing 14 female students.

Andrew Kehoe: Angry at taxes levied to finance a new school in Bath, Michigan, Andrew Kehoe took matters into his own hands - with bombs and a rifle.

Michael Ryan: This British gun-nut turned his murderous attentions on the residents of Hungerford one summer’s day in August 1987.

Eric Harris & Dylan Klebold: Teenaged killers Harris and Klebold carried out the horrific massacre at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado.

Woo Bum-Kon: A minor argument sent this South Korean police officer into a killing frenzy that left 57 people dead.

Ronald Gene Simmons: After murdering his entire extended family, Ronald Gene Simmons drove into town totting a gun and a lust for revenge.

Howard Unruh: Unruh’s numerous altercations with his neighbors eventually came to a head in September 1949. The city of Camden, New Jersey would never be the same again.

Martin Bryant: Australian psycho who launched a horrific attack on tourists visiting a popular Tasmanian attraction.

Available Now Amazon

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

Rampage Killers

Serial Killers: Daisy de Melker

Born: June 1, 1886

Number of victims:  3  

Date of murders: 1923 - 1932 

Method of murder: Poisoning   

Location: Johannesburg, South Africa



Daisy de Melker, it appeared, was unlucky in love. Her first two husbands, William Cowle and Robert Sproat, had preceded her to the grave, each of them dying of a mystery ailment and leaving her with a handsome endowment. Now married for a third time, De Melker suffered a third tragedy when her son Rhodes died inexplicably in March 1932.

This time, however, the death was not so easily explained away. Rhodes had been a fit and healthy young man until his health had suddenly taken a turn for the worse. Within weeks he was dead, leaving behind a considerable life insurance policy to console his grieving mother.

Perhaps it was the insurance policy that first roused the suspicions of the South African Police, but when they began investigating the death, an interesting witness came forward. A Johannesburg pharmacist testified that he’d sold a quantity of strychnine to De Melker. Sure enough, an autopsy proved that Rhodes had died of strychnine poisoning. And when the bodies of William Cowle and Robert Sproat were exhumed, they two showed clear signs of poisoning. 

Confronted with such damning evidence, De Melker confessed. Convicted of all three murders she was sentenced to death and hanged in Johannesburg on December 30, 1932.


Read the full, horrific story of Daisy de Melker, plus 29 more serial killer cases in  Human Monsters Volume 2. Available now on Amazon  

   

 

Serial Killers: Bruce Davis

Born: 1948

Number of victims:  3 - 30 +  

Date of murders:  1969 - 1982

Method of murder: Strangulation / Ax   

Location: Several US states

Bruce Davis had dreams of a singing career. But after relocating to New York City in the mid-sixties, the Toledo, Ohio native soon discovered that breaking into show business was no easy task. Left embittered when his dreams of stardom came to nothing, Davis embarked instead on a life of crime. 

In February 1972, Davis was arrested in Washington, D.C., for the murder of local businessman, James Earl Hammer. Convicted eventually of manslaughter, he drew a sentence of five to fifteen years imprisonment. While serving that time investigators in Illinois linked him to the strangulation murder of Rev. Carlo Barlassina.

Davis was extradited to Illinois in December 1972, where a term of 25-to-45-years was added to his existing sentence. He had no intention of serving that time. On October 24, 1979, Davis attacked and killed prison guard, Joe Cushman, before escaping in Cushman's car. He remained at large until Halloween, when deputies eventual tracked him to Smithers, West Virginia.

Back in custody, Davis for some reason decided to come clean about all the murders he’d committed. He claimed to have killed 32 men between 1969 and 1971. All of the victims were wealthy professional men, who were lured with promises of sex, then killed and relieved of their cash and valuables. According to Davis, he’d committed murders in Washington, D.C., New York, Baltimore, Boston, Fort Lauderdale, Reno, Las Vegas, New Orleans, Los Angeles, and San Juan, Puerto Rico.

The police were never able to verify all of Davis’ claims, but they did link him positively to at least four of the murders. However, he’d only stand trial for killing prison guard Joe Cushman. Convicted on that charge, he was sentenced to life in prison.  


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

   

 

Serial Killers: Amy Archer-Gilligan

Born: October 1868

Number of victims: 5+  

Date of murders: 1908-1916 

Method of murder: Poisoning 

Location: Windsor, Connecticut 




Considered by many to be America’s most prolific female serial killer, Amy Archer-Gillingham drew her victims from the elderly residents of her nursing home in Windsor, Connecticut.  

Between 1907 and 1917, over 60 residents died at “Sister Amy's Nursing Home for the Elderly,” way above the statewide average. Relatives of the deceased eventually became suspicious and one of them, Nellie Pierce, took the matter up with the authorities after her brother Franklin R. Andrews died at the home on May 29, 1914.

Andrews had been a healthy man who had been seen working in the garden on the day he died. Looking over his financial matters, his sister noticed that he’d given Archer-Gilligan a large sum of money shortly before his death.This turned out to be a pattern among the many elderly residents who had died at the home. 

Yet despite strong evidence of wrongdoing, the district attorney mostly ignored Mrs. Pierce’s pleas for an investigation. Frustrated, Pierce took the story to a journalist at the The Hartford Courant. On May 9, 1916, the newspaper printed the story under the headline, “Murder Factory.” They followed that up with several articles about Archer-Gilligan and her nursing home. In the face of mounting public pressure, the D.A. was eventually forced into action.

The investigation took almost a year to complete, but the results were damning. All of the bodies exhumed, including those of Archer-Gilligan’s late husband, showed evidence of arsenic or strychnine poisoning. Local merchants were then questioned and provided proof that Archer-Gilligan had purchased large quantities of the poisons, supposedly to kill rats.

Archer-Gilligan was sentenced to death at her trial in June, 1917, but the sanction was later commuted to life in prison. In 1924, she was declared insane and transferred to a psychiatric facility in Middletown, Connecticut. She remained there until her her death on April 23, 1962.


Read the full, horrific story of Amy Archer-Gilligan, plus 49 more serial killer cases in  50 American Serial Killers You’ve Probably Never Heard Of Volume 1  Available now on Amazon  

 

Serial Killers: Raymond Brown

Born: 1946

Number of victims: 5   

Date of murders: October 1960 / August 1987 

Method of murder: Stabbing  

Location: Alabama, USA

In October 1960, police in Clay County, Alabama, were called to the scene of a quite horrific murder. Three women, aged 83, 63 and 31 respectively, had been brutally stabbed to death, a total of 123 stab wounds inflicted on their bodies. The victims were all members of the same family and the police soon had a suspect, courtesy of a bloody footprint left at the scene. Shockingly, the killer was 14-year-old Raymond Brown. The victims were his great grandmother, grandmother and aunt.

Convicted of the murders, Brown was sent to a juvenile facility for the maximum time permitted by law. He was paroled in 1973, and put the mechanic skills he’d learned in prison to use by finding work at a garage at Ashland, Alabama. But it wasn’t long before Brown reverted to type, choking the manager of his apartment building into unconsciousness and raping her. This time the victim lived. Brown’s parole was revoked and he was shipped back to prison.

Thirteen years passed before Brown was again paroled in June 1986. Moving to Phoenix City, Alabama, he again found work at a garage and began dating a 32-year-old divorcee named Linda LeMonte.

On August 10, 1987, Linda walked in on Brown attempting to rape her 10-year-old daughter,  Sheila. Brown then turned on mother and daughter, stabbing and hacking both of them to death in a frenzy of rage. After fleeing the scene he remained at large until his capture on August 12.

This time the courts would not be so lenient with Raymond Brown. Found guilty of the double homicide in 1988, he was sentenced to death. 


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

   

 

Serial Killer Video: Dennis Nilsen

They called him the "British Jeffrey Dahmer," and with good reason. This deadly necrophile killed and dismembered at least 16 young men.

Serial Killers: Velma Barfield

Born: October 23, 1932

Number of victims: 7 

Date of murders: 1969 - 1978 

Method of murder: Poisoning 

Location: North Carolina  




Velma Barfield was a two time widow when she began dating farmer, Stuart Taylor, in 1977. She was also addicted to prescription painkillers, a habit she financed by committing petty thefts and forgery. It wasn’t long before she was forging checks on Taylor's account to pay for her addiction.

Taylor, however, soon discovered the fraud and threatened to report Velma to the police if she continued stealing his money. Fearful of being arrested, Velma decided that Taylor would have to go. She began stirring rat poison into his drinks. Within days, Taylor was racked with abdominal pain, afflicted by chronic vomiting and diarrhea. He died in hospital shortly after.  

Unfortunately for Velma, Taylor’s family insisted on an autopsy, which in turn showed large amounts of arsenic in his system. Arrested for murder, Velma soon confessed, then stunned investigators by admitting that she’d also murdered her second husband, Jennings Barfield; her mother, Lillian Bullard; Dollie Edwards (a relative of Stewart Taylor); and John Henry Lee, who she’d worked for as a housekeeper. In each case the murders had been committed to cover up frauds and thefts.

At trial, the defense tried to have Barfield declared insane, but that was rejected by the jury. Found guilty of murder, Velma Barfield was sentenced to death. She was executed by lethal injection in North Carolina on November 2, 1984.  


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

 

Serial Killers: Trevor Hardy

 Born: 1947

Number of victims: 3   

Date of murders: 1974 - 1976 

Method of murder: Stabbing / Strangulation  

Location: Manchester, England



Known as the “Beast of Manchester,” Trevor Hardy committed three horrific murders in that city between December 1974 and March 1976. 

The first to die was 15-year-old Janet Lesley Stewart, who was stabbed to death on New Years Eve 1974 and buried in a shallow grave in Newton Heath, Manchester. Six months later, Hardy struck again, killing 17-year-old Wanda Skala, as she walked home from a bar in Moston, where she worked as a barmaid. Wanda was bludgeoned to death with a brick, then robbed and sexually assaulted. Her partially buried body was found on a nearby construction site the next day.

In March 1976, 17-year-old Sharon Mosoph was walking home from an office party when she had the misfortune of encountering Hardy. Sharon was stabbed and strangled with a pair of tights. Her body was then dumped in the Rochdale Canal, where it was found the following day. This time the killer had gone even further, mutilating the corpse after death. 

With evidence of a serial killer on Manchester’s streets, the police launched a massive operation leading to the arrest of Trevor Hardy in August 1976. Found guilty of three counts of murder at the subsequent trial, Hardy was sentence to three life terms.  


Read the full, horrific story of Trevor Hardy, plus 29 more serial killer cases in  Human Monsters Volume 2. Available now on Amazon  

   

 

Serial Killers: Francis Nemechek

 
Born: June 29, 1950

Number of victims: 5   

Date of murders: 1974 - 1976  

Method of murder:  Shooting / Stabbing  

Location: Kansas 



Francis Nemechek was an angry man. Angry that his marriage had ended in divorcee, angry that his wife was giving him grief about visitation rights to his son, angry that his life was going nowhere. On December 13, 1974, Nemechek decided that he was going to take out his anger on somebody.

Perching himself on a overpass on Interstate 70, near Hays Kansas, the skilled hunter shot out the tire of a passing vehicle. Then, after the vehicle skidded to a halt he went to offer “assistance.” When the two female occupants, Cheryl Young, 21, and Diane Lovette, 19, refused his help, he forced them into his vehicle at gunpoint, drove them to an abandoned barn, and there raped them. He then shot them to death and left, abandoning Cheryl Young’s two-year-old son, Guy, at the scene. The boy froze to death later that night in sub-zero temperatures.   

On June 30, 1976, Nemechek was driving in his truck when he spotted 20-year-old Carla Baker riding a bicycle. He stopped and exposed himself to her, then dragged her into his vehicle and tried to rape her. Carla put up a furious fight and eventually broke free. However, Nemechek chased her down and stabbed her to death. Less than two months later, Nemechek abducted 16-year-old Paula Fabrizius from a ranger station at Cedar Bluff Reservoir in west Kansas. Paula was raped and stabbed to death.

Nemechek was arrested after his thumbprint was found on a warranty card belonging to Paula Fabrizius. Found guilty of five counts of first-degree murder, he was sentenced to five terms of life imprisonment. 


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

   

 

Serial Killers: The Boston Strangler

Number of victims: 13

Date of murders: 1962 - 1964

Method of murder: Strangulation 

Location: Boston, Massachusetts


Between June 14, 1962 and January 4, 1964, a vicious killer held the city of Boston, Massachusetts in a grip of fear. Thirteen women would fall prey to the unnamed fiend. All of the victims were raped and strangled to death in their own homes, with some of the bodies bizarrely and explicitly posed.

Despite the brazen nature of the crimes, the police had no solid clues until a man named Albert De Salvo, being held on separate charges, confessed. De Salvo was well known to police as a burglar. He had also committed two unusual series of sex crimes. In one series, he posed as the representative of a model agency and offered women modelling work if they would allow him to take their measurements. In the other, he gained access to his victims’ homes by pretending to be a handyman. Once inside, he tied them up and fondled them before fleeing.

De Salvo seemed to have some insider knowledge of the Strangler crimes. Yet despite his confession, police had no evidence that linked him to the murders. Then De Salvo’s attorney offered a deal. De Salvo would plead guilty to sexual assault and accept a life sentence, if the D.A. did not pursue murder charges against him. Desperate to get the Strangler off the streets, the D.A. agreed.

De Salvo was sentenced to life in prison on January 9, 1967. Less than seven years later, on November 25, 1973, he was stabbed to death by a fellow inmate.

But was De Salvo really the Boston Strangler? Most experts do not think so, and there is a substantial body of evidence to suggest that they are right. The story of the Boston Strangler remains one of the enduring mysteries of American crime.      

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

 

Serial Killers: Richard Angelo

Born: April 29, 1962

Number of victims: 25

Date of murders: 1987

Method of murder: Poisoning (drug overdose)

Location: New York, USA 

A former volunteer fireman who had an compulsive need to be recognized as a hero, registered nurse Richard Angelo eventually hit on the perfect scheme to feed his obsession. He began creating emergency situations by overdosing patients at Good Samaritan Hospital in Long Island.

Working the 11 p.m. to 7 a.m. shift gave Angelo the perfect opportunity to do this. But in late 1987 administrators at the hospital began to become alarmed at the high number of deaths in the intensive care ward. Six patients died between September 16 and October 11, leaving doctors bewildered. All had appeared to be recovering well. 

Then, on October 11, patient Girolamo Cucich was approached by a bearded nurse who injected something into his intravenous tube. He immediately began to have difficulty breathing, but summoned enough strength to press the buzzer and summon help. 

It was determined that Cucich had been given a shot of Pavulon, a muscle relaxant. After police were called they questioned Richard Angelo, the only bearded nurse on the night shift. A search of Angelo’s hospital locker turned up hypodermic needles and supplies of potassium chloride. At his home, detectives found several vials of Pavulon.

Arrested on November 15, Angelo confessed to several murders. He was eventually sentenced to 61 years to life.  


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

 

Serial Killers: Steven Wright

Born: April 24, 1958

Number of victims: 5   

Date of murders: 2006  

Method of murder: Strangulation  

Location: Ipswich, England



Between October and December 2006, five young prostitutes went missing from the streets of Ipswich, in the east of England. The police had no clues in the case until the body of 25-year-old Gemma Adams was found in a stream just outside of town on December 2, 2006. She’d been raped and strangled to death.

Six days later, on 8 December, another of the missing women, 19-year-old Tania Nicol, was discovered in water at Copdock Mill just outside Ipswich. And on December 10, a third victim was found, this time in some woods along the A14 road in nearby Nacton. She was later identified as 24-year-old Anneli Alderton. 

On 12 December, the police announced that two more women had been found, 24-year-old Paula Clennell and 29-year-old Annette Nicholls. Both had been strangled to death.

With the media in a frenzy over the “Suffolk Strangler,” police investigations eventually focussed on a local man, Steven Wright. Wright admitted that he regularly used prostitutes, including three of the murder victims, but he denied that he had killed anyone. DNA and fiber evidence, however, told a different story. 

Committed for trial on 21 February 2008, Wright was found guilty of all five murders. He was sentenced to life imprisonment, with the judge recommending that he should never be released. 


Read the full, horrific story of Steven Wright , plus 29 more serial killer cases in  Human Monsters Volume 5. Available now on Amazon  

   

 

Serial Killer Video: William Bonin: The Freeway Killer

A ferocious and unbelievably cruel sex slayer, Bonin haunted Southern California's highways for eight years, from 1972 to 1980, claiming as many as 44 young victims.

Serial Killers: Vasili Komaroff

Born: 1871

Number of victims:  33  

Date of murders:  1921 - 1923

Method of murder:  Bludgeoning / Strangulation 

Location: Moscow, Russia



Between 1921 and 1923 murdered bodies were turning up around Moscow with alarming regularity. The police soon determined that a serial killer was at work, bludgeoning and strangling his victims, then dumping their bodies in the cities poorer neighborhoods, all of them enclosed in crude grain sacks. Sharp-eyed detectives picked up another pattern. The bodies always seemed to appear after market days.

Following that line of enquiry led police to Moscow’s thriving horse market and to one trader in particular, Vasili Komaroff. Lately it appeared that, although Komaroff attended the markets, he seldom had stock to sell. Instead, he spent most of his time trying to convince potential buyers to view the horses he had back as his stables.

The detectives decided to pay Komaroff a visit, fortuitously as it turned out, Komaroff had a body in his barn, concealed under some hay. Under questioning, Komaroff readily confessed to being “The Wolf Of Moscow.” He claimed that he had murdered thirty-three men after luring them back to his stables to view his superior stock. His take from these murders had been pitiful though, less than a dollar per victim.

Komaroff was eventually found guilty and put to death by firing squad. His wife, who was deemed an accomplice, was also executed.


Read the full, horrific story of Vasili Komaroff, plus 29 more serial killer cases in  Human Monsters Volume 2. Available now on Amazon  

   

 

Serial Killers: Jake Bird

Born: December 14, 1901

Number of victims: 11 - 44

Date of murders: 1930 - 1947 

Method of murder: Axe

Location: Several states, USA  




Jake Bird was born in Louisiana on December 14, 1901, and started drifting in his nineteenth year, earning his living as a manual laborer on the railroads. This work took him far and wide across the country, and wherever Jake stopped off death followed. At the time of his arrest, he confessed to 47 bloody ax murders.

On October 30, 1947, Bird was in Tacoma, Washington, when he spotted 52-year-old Bertha Kludt and her teenage daughter, Beverly. Bird followed them to their home, found an ax in the woodshed and then took off his clothes and entered the home naked. He then raped Mrs Kludt and hacked both woman to death with the ax.

Unfortunately for Bird, the victims' screams were heard by neighbors who called the police. Bird tried to flee but was captured after a short chase. 

In custody, Bird claimed innocence, but blood and brain tissue on his trousers told a different story. Eventually he confessed, adding that he’d also committed murders in Evanston, Illinois; Louisville, Kentucky; Omaha, Nebraska; Kansas City, Kansas; Sioux Falls, South Dakota; Cleveland, Ohio; Orlando, Florida; and Portage, Wisconsin.

Sentenced to death at trial, Jake Bird was eventually hanged on July 15, 1949, at Washington State Prison, Walla Walla.


Read the horrific story of Jake Bird, plus 49 more serial killer cases in  50 American Serial Killers You’ve Probably Never Heard of Vol. 1.  Available now on Amazon  

 

Serial Killers: John Norman Collins

 Born: June 17, 1947

Number of victims: 8    

Date of murders: 1967 - 1969 

Method of murder:  Bludgeoning / Stabbing / Strangulation / Shooting 

Location: Ypsilanti, Michigan



Seven years before Ted Bundy launched his career of evil in Washington state, a young man named John Norman Collins carried out a similar series of murders in Ypsilanti, Michigan. Like Bundy, Collins was intelligent, charming, articulate and handsome. And as with Bundy those positive traits served only to mask the monster that lurked beneath. At least eight young women would die at the hands of this savage psychopath, their lives snatched away by a variety of cruel methods. All were raped. Some may have been tortured prior to death.

As the case went on, with the police apparently powerless to stop the killer, the University of Michigan campus, and the town of Ypsilanti, were thrown into a state of panic. Then, when it appeared that the fiend would never be caught, a stroke of luck eventually cracked the case.   

Collins' cousin, David Leik, was a Michigan State trooper. In July 1969, Leik went away on a family vacation, and asked Collins to house sit. When he returned, he was annoyed to find a patch of crudely applied black paint on his cellar floor. Scraping away at the paint he saw what appeared to be bloodstains underneath. The "blood" as it turned out, was actually wood stain, but while Leik was cleaning up the mess, he found something else, tufts of human hair. These were turned over to the state lab and matched to Collins last victim, Karen Beinemanm. Collins was arrested soon after.

Collins would eventually be tried only for the Beineman murder. Found guilty, he was sentenced to just twenty years in prison.     

Read the full, horrific story of John Norman Collins, plus 11 more serial killer cases in  American Monsters Volume 6. Available now on Amazon  

   

 

Serial Killers: Amelia Dyer

Born: 1839

Number of victims: 100+    

Date of murders: 1880 - 1896  

Method of murder: Strangulation  

Location: Reading, England



Amelia Dyer was Britain’s most prolific ‘baby farmer,’ a particularly evil woman who took in illegitimate children for a fee, murdered them, and then pocketed the money their mothers had paid for their care.

In 1895, Dyer set up shop in Reading, placed an ad in the local paper and was soon inundated with desperate young mothers, willing to pay for her services. It was not long before tiny bodies began showing up in the River Thames, all with a length of tape pulled tight around their necks. 

Police attention focused in on Dyer after one of the babies was found wrapped in packaging that had an address sticker with her name on it. She was eventually arrested in April 1896 and despite her protestations of innocence, seven murdered babies were linked to her, all bearing clear signs of ligature strangulation. Realizing that the game was up, Dyer confessed, telling detectives, “You'll know mine by the tape around their necks.”

Convicted of murder at the Old Bailey in May 1896, Dyer was sentenced to death. She was hanged at Newgate Prison on June 10, 1896.

Read the full, horrific story of Amelia Dyer, plus nine more serial killer cases in  British Monsters Volume 1.  Available now on Amazon  

   

 

Serial Killers: Dale Hausner

Born: February 4, 1973

Number of victims: 6

Date of murders: 2005 - 2006 

Method of murder: Shooting

Location: Phoenix, Arizona  




A deadly serial shooter, Dale Hausner prowled the streets of Phoenix, Arizona between May 2005 and August 2006, gunning down anyone he encountered. At least eight people were shot to death, with a further 29 injured. Hausner also turned his guns on dogs and horses.

Hausner’s M.O. seldom varied. He’d cruise the streets in his truck, often in the company of his buddy, Samuel Dieteman. Once he spotted a likely victim, he’d open fire without warning before racing away from the scene. Most of the attacks occurred between the hours of 10 p.m. and 4 a.m., with the victims apparently chosen at random.

The police first focussed in on Hausner and Dieteman after receiving several tips from the public. The pair were arrested on August 3, 2006, with Dieteman turning state's evidence in order to avoid a possible death sentence. He was convicted on two counts of murder and sentenced to life in prison. His co-accused, Hausner, got the death penalty.

After his sentence, Hausner insisted that he wanted to die and instructed his attorneys not to appeal his sentence. However, he would never make it to the death chamber. Hausner committed suicide in his cell by taking an overdose of amitriptyline on June 19, 2013.  


Read the horrific story of Dale Hausner, plus 49 more serial killer cases in  50 American Serial Killers You’ve Probably Never Heard of Vol. 1.  Available now on Amazon