Notorious Murderers and Serial Killers

Olsen killed 11 victims begining November 17, 1980 to July 30, 1981. He was arrested on August 12, 1981 while trying to abduct two young girls.

No, Adam Lanza committed suicide after killing 20 children and 6 adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School, Newtown, Connecticut, USA.

May 12, 2003.

Wendy Lee Coffield was a victim of the green river killer.

While still in grade school, Aileen was found to have some hearing impairment. It was recommended that she should be fitted for a hearing aid but Lauri and Britta Wuornos* did not follow up and little Aileen received no help.

*Lauri (pronounced Larry) and Britta Wuornos were actually Aileen's grandparents but their daughter Diane abandoned her two older children, Keith and Aileen, and the older Wuornos' raised them as their own children.

Henry Lee Lucas (August 23, 1936 - March 13, 2001) was an American criminal, convicted of murder and once listed as America's most prolific serial killer. Serial killer expert Robert Ressler believes Henry might be responsible for as little as five killings. The truth probably lies somewhere in the middle. At a 1985 trial, he was convicted of ten homocides---more than enough to get him the death sentence.

Myra Hindley was a serial killer from England, active in the 1960s. She was involved in the murders of at least five children. Her accomplice was a man named Ian Brady.

Gary Leon Ridgeway was arrested on November 30, 2001 at his place of employment in Auburn, Washington.

I included the Ed Gein wikipedia article on the related links box below.

As a general rule serial killers are white males between the ages of 25-35. (usually the first murder will occur in this age range) Of course there are black serial killers, Wayne Williams, the 'Atlanta Child Killer', is an example.

Serial killers tend to hunt in their own ethnic group (race) but of course there are some that mix it up and then there is Jeffrey Dahmer who was white but his victims were black or asian. The Green River Killer, Gary Leon Ridgeway (white), killed mostly white female prostitutes but there were a couple of black victims.

So there are no absolutes, just guidelines that help police narrow down the suspect list.

Dissociative Identity Disorder.

The Phantom Killer is an unidentified serial killer. He is Texarkana's only serial killer and is credited with a number of attacks in Texarkana, Texas and Arkansas between February 22 and May 3, 1946.

Edward Theodore Gein, the inspiration for Psycho, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Silence of the Lambs, shared a home with his father, mother, and brother in a remote, rural farmhouse in Plainville, Wisconsin. His mother survived his father, and an in-depth online search of the Gein case that gets into the subject of his mother with some depth, gives considerable insight into Ed Gein himself. After the death of his entire family from natural causes, Gein lived alone in near isolation, and began his life of crime as a body-snatcher. Robbing graves at the local cemetery, and using body parts as knick-knacks, lamps, dishes, ect. Like Buffalo Bill in Silence of the Lambs, Gein made clothes made of human skin and would wear them around the farmhouse. When stealing cadavers lost it's appeal, Gein graduated to murder, killing at least two local women, and had the parts to at least 15 individuals. Police found a box of human noses, a belt decorated with human nipples, and a human heart in a pot on the stove at the time of his arrest.

It's no surprise that Gein was found insane and spent the next decade in a mental hospital. Finally deemed sane to stand trial, he was found guilty but was sent back to the hospital where he remained for the rest of his life. Like several others of his ilk, Gein, in interviews and discussions about his life, came across as rather quiet and reserved. Gein died on July 26, 1984.

Theodore (Ted) Kazinski

Last time I read about this person I remember read that he was from Playing Fields.

There certainly are countless ways to commit murder, but many times it is true that men murder differently than women. Yet there are also exceptions to all the rules. Men can murder by poison, knife, gun, manual strangulation, or even a 'staged accident'.

One midwestern husband killed several wives by plying them with alcohol and pushing their heads under water in the family hot tub. After the third wife, family members alerted police and he was finally caught. Another got rid of two wives by pushing them over a cliff while on a nature hike.

It is safe to say that the possiblities are only as limited as the killer's minds and imaginations make it. As for serial killers, men are more likely to use a gun, manual strangulation or knife. Women serial killers, many times, are poisoners. But of course, there are always exceptions. Convicted killer Aileen Wurnous killed at least seven men by shooting them, usually in the back, with a 22 caliber handgun. Wurnous died by lethal injection in Florida, 2003.

Dr. Thomas Neill Cream, a Scotish-born serial killer from the mid-19th century, used poison on his victims. Lizzie Borden, in a very un-ladylike blitz, hacked to death her stepmother and father on a hot August morning in 1892 in Fall River MA. She was aquitted by a jury of her peers, which in 1892 were all men, due to the fact that men in that time could not imagine a woman being so violent. So we know that when it comes to murder, there are no hard and fast rules.

There is a massive, albeit subtle to those of us not really paying attention, grab being made by the field of sociology right now. The social science is making a move to wrestle control of the study of murder from its soft science sister field of psychology. I find this intensely interesting. For the last X decades, since psychology has been around really, the field has had complete and unadulterated domain over the crime of murder. When Jack the Ripper was running around Whitechapel, the cops rounded up everyone who even seemed crazy and sent them off to asylums. The tacit implication was that anyone who butchered women must be insane. That concept hasn't faded much in the last 120 years. You murder someone, you're crazy - especially in the case of stranger murders like serial killing, which lack a clear motive. -Josh Clarck-

Traditionally the behavior of serial killers has been viewed through a psychological framework, blaming customary factors like bad parenting, maladjusted brain chemistry or past abuse. But Kevin Haggerty, a University of Alberta sociologist and criminologist, argues that society -- not psychology -- is responsible.

Yes, it just means you're into criminal psychology. There's nothing wrong with that.

There has always been speculation that Wayne Williams could not have killed all the victims. FBI profilers Roy Hazelwood and John Douglas were of the opinion that there was more than one killer. This is not unheard of. There can be two serial killers working the same geographical area at the same time. Whichever the case, the killings stopped with the arrest of Williams.

The first thing is that DeSalvo was never proved to be the Boston Strangler:

On 27th October, 1964, he entered a young woman's home posing as a detective. He tied his victim to the victim's bed, proceeded to sexually assault her, and suddenly left, saying "I'm sorry" as he went. The woman's description to the police led to his identification as Albert De Salvo, with the publication of his photo resulting in women coming forward in droves identifying him as the man who had assaulted them. At this point, De Salvo was not suspected of being involved with the spate of stranglings that had taken place over a period of nearly two years, and wasn't until he was being held on a rape charge that he confessed in great detail his activities as the Boston Strangler.

However, there was no evidence to substantiate his confession, and as such, stood trial for earlier, unrelated crimes of robbery and sexual offences. He was sent to prison for life in 1967, but was to be murdered six years later while in his cell.

The second thing there is no victim from Beckley:

1.Mrs. Anna E. Slesers

77 Gainsborough St.

Boston-Age 55

2.Mrs. Nina G. Nichols

1940 Commonwealth Ave.

Brighton-Age 68

3.Miss Helen E. Blake

73 Newhall St.

Lynn-Age 65

4.Mrs Margaret Davis

139 Blue Hill Ave.

Roxbury-Age 60

5.Mrs. Ida Irga

7 Grove St.

Boston-Age 75

6.Miss Jane Sullivan

435 Columbia Rd.

Dorchester-Age 67

7.Miss Sophie Clark

315 Huntington Ave.

Boston-Age 21

8.Miss Patricia Bissette

515 Park Dr.

Boston-Age 24

9.Mrs. Evelyn Corbin

224 Lafayette St.

Salem-Age 50

10.Miss Joan Graff

Essex St.

Lawrence-Age 23

11.Miss Mary Sullivan

44 Charles St.

Boston-Age 20

In one ocatin he said: I feel like I'm a star right now. He did 10 kills from 1974 to 1991.

He was from a good family with no abuse and he was active in the Lutheran church. The first symptom as a child was he began strangling dogs and cats inside a barn and another was sketching violent sexual fantasies of bondage.

After that He began dressing in women's underwear in the basement of his parent's home, tied a rope around his neck, as if he were hanging and took pictures of himself. When he began killing, he called the police to brag about his killings and he also wrote letters. The writing errors tells us he was beneath an average IQ.

Kevin Bright, the only known BTK survivor, Kathryn Bright, his 21 year old sister, was murdered in April of 1974 in her home.

He showed a Bipolar Disorder.

Looking at Gary Leon Ridgeway it is hard to imagine that he could have been the source of such destruction and downright evil. He looks very average, someone's son, father or husband, and he is. This is one of the most disturbing truths that defines what Ridgeway really is. Mary Bridget Meehan, age 18 went missing on September 15, 1982. Meehan, in her third trimester of pregnancy, was found November 13, 1983, two more victims of the Green River Killer.

I will assume we're on the same page here and we're talking about the murder of Dr. Jack Wilson, an eye doctor from Alabama. His wife Betty Wilson and her twin sister Peggy Lowe were both arrested and charged with his murder.

There is nothing simple or straight-forward about this case. There is still much controversy as to what the murder weapon actually was. It was supposed to be the metal baseball bat that was found beside Wilson's body. Then talk of a fireplace poker among other things. But so far nobody knows where the weapon is that caused the stab wounds on the victim.

Serial killers come from different backgrounds, attain different levels of education, and hold various types of jobs. However, many serial killers do have at least one thing in common: the desire to communicate regarding their crimes. Through a careful examination of messages from such killers as the D.C. Snipers, the BTK Killer, the Zodiac Killer, Jack the Ripper, the Black Dahlia Avenger and others, Gibson reveals in his book "Clues for serial killers" aspects of their communications that give us a window into the psyches of these criminals.

and afraid of bees and all that stuff