Serial Killers True Crime

Are all serial killers the same, or do they have different motives, methods, or origins? In this guide, we will answer those questions in the first section. You will learn about the background of serial killers, their childhood, and their thirst for blood. You will see that they are as different as the colors of the rainbow. They come in all shapes and sizes. The following sections after that will be devoted to some extremely notorious murderers: The Zodiac Killer, Donald Gaskins, Andrei Chikatilo, Patrick Kearney, and Dennis Rader.

When it comes to things that grip us with fear, the mind usually looks to the supernatural experiences that know no explanation. The truth is, yet again, stranger and more sinister than fiction. For the true monsters do not reside in the recesses of our minds, but in the shadows of dimly lit sidewalks, blind corners, and even - most menacingly - in the eyes of the seemingly innocent.

At a remote little inn not far from the Kansas homestead of Laura Ingalls Wilder lived the Bender family. These pioneers welcomed unwary visitors with jackrabbit stew and a sledgehammer to the skull. In time, their apple orchard gave up its secrets - a burial ground for their mutilated victims, each stripped of their possessions. The devilish enterprise on “Hell’s Half-Acre” would earn the Bloody Benders an undying place in the annals of American infamy. But it was the mysterious fate of eldest daughter, Kate, that would make them the stuff of mythic campfire prairie tales.

In Northampton, Massachusetts, at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center, Kristen Gilbert was known as a hardworking, dedicated nurse - so why were her patients dying? So many emergencies and sudden deaths occurred while Kristen made her rounds on Ward C that her colleagues jokingly called her the "Angel of Death".

This bloody and completely true trivia collection will horrify and intrigue listeners. Perfect for any murderino, true crime junkie, or connoisseur of macabre tales, this fact-packed book quizzes listeners on their true crime knowledge and offers fascinating stories of well-known murderers as well as lesser-known, but just as nefarious, killers. You’ll be surprised at how many fascinating tidbits you’ll learn about the world’s most cold-blooded and dangerous people.

America has a long and complicated fascination with serial killers. When we think about the most infamous of these killers, we generally think of men like Ted Bundy, Jeffrey Dahmer, or John Wayne Gacy. Those names make headlines while there’s the often-repeated myth that suggests there are no female serial killers. After all, most of us couldn’t name a woman on the same scale of infamy at BTK or the elusive Zodiac Killer, can we? As it so often is, the truth is far more complicated. Women kill.

A chilling genre-busting memoir by a major American essayist. Late in 2004, Maggie Nelson was looking forward to the publication of her book, Jane: A Murder, a narrative in verse about the life and death of her aunt, who had been murdered 35 years before. The case remained unsolved, but Jane was assumed to have been the victim of an infamous serial killer in Michigan in 1969.

In January 1978, I slept in my bed at the Chi Omega sorority house at Florida State University as Ted Bundy stalked nearby. He grabbed an oak log from a stack of firewood, slipped through a back door with a broken padlock, and headed upstairs.He began twisting doorknobs. Room 9 was open, and he quietly and quickly killed one of my sleeping sorority sisters. Across the hall, he found another unlocked door and murdered again. Then, he turned the knob to my bedroom and found it was open. I remember the attack vividly. But Bundy wasn’t my first brush with death, and he wasn’t my last.

What do Wyatt Earp, Belle Gunness, Big Foot the Renegade, Billy the Kid, Dr. H.H. Holmes, and The Black Hand have in common? They were all subjects of true crime newspaper reporting in the 1800s. Now their stories and that of many others are brought together in their original form in this compilation by New York Times best-selling author Mike Rothmiller. These classic works of journalism resurrect astonishing stories that will take the listener back to when these horrific tales mesmerized a nation.

Dennis Nilsen was jailed for life in 1983 after the murders of 12 men and the attempted murders of many more. Seven years after his conviction, Nilsen began to write his autobiography, and over a period of 18 years, he typed 6,000 pages of introspection, reflection, comment, and explanation. History of a Drowning Boy - taken exclusively from these astonishing writings - uncovers, for the first time, the motives behind the murders, and delivers a clear understanding of how such horrific events could have happened, tracing the origins back to early childhood.

Warning: This audiobook describes several crime scenes that are graphic in nature and may be very disturbing to some people. Do not proceed if under the age of 18 or are disturbed by scenes of death and violence. One after another, young women disappeared without a trace in the night. One by one, their brutalized bodies turned up, the macabre crime scenes suggesting they shared the same cruel fate. Abducted, bound, and raped, all fell prey to an unknown killer; all became the victims of a deadly deception.

Discover the real-life inspirations behind history’s most infamous serial killers: John Wayne Gacy, Jeffrey Dahmer, Charles Manson, and so many more.

This book is for listeners of true crime podcasts and audiences of both fiction and true-crime nonfiction. It's the true story of first-generation Irish-American nurse Jane Toppan, born as Honora Kelley. Jane Toppan was absolutely a monster, but she did not start out that way. When Jane was a young child, her father abandoned her and her sister to the Boston Female Asylum. From there, Jane was indentured to a wealthy family who changed her name, never adopted her, and wrote her out of the will.

On first impressions, Ted Bundy seemed like the perfect all-American boy. He was good-looking, fun, and very charming; many women found him irresistible...But deep inside he was an evil monster who used his insider knowledge of law enforcement to evade detection as he terrorized large areas of America, murdering white females, mostly college students aged between 15 and 25. This is the story of a chameleon-like psychopath and necrophile who lured innocent victims to a horrible end.

Arthur John Shawcross (June 6, 1945 to November 10, 2008), also known as the Genesee River Killer, was an American serial killer active in Rochester, New York, between 1972 and 1989. Shawcross's first known murders took place in his hometown of Watertown, New York, where he killed a young boy and a girl. Under the terms of a plea bargain, he was allowed to plead guilty to one charge of manslaughter, for which he served 14 years of a 25-year sentence. Shawcross later killed most of his victims in 1988 and 1989 after being granted an early parole.

Dennis Rader appeared to be the perfect neighbor: a father, church council president, and city employee. But behind closed doors, he was the BTK Killer—one of the most sadistic and methodical serial killers in American history. From 1974 to 1991, Rader murdered ten victims and vanished... only to resurface decades later in a chilling game with law enforcement. In Dennis Rader: The BTK Killer, David G. Stone delivers an in-depth account of how Rader maintained a monstrous secret life for decades.

We may not always see what truly hides within the minds and hearts of certain people, and where we believe is a good, pure individual, lays a terrible murderer capable of the most horrible acts. Robert Berdella was one such man, a helpful and friendly individual who - in a spree separated by a few years - managed to capture and horrifically torture seven young men, murdering six along the way. Control and dominance were his tools, pain was his method.

Israel Keyes was an American serial killer who was active from approximately 2001 to his capture in 2012. He was known for his extreme attention to detail, his patience, and his discipline in selecting targets that lived far away from him. He was also meticulous in disposing of his victim's bodies as authorities have not uncovered any other evidence that Keyes did not provide.

Theodore John Kaczynski (May 22, 1942 to June 10, 2023), also known as the Unabomber, was an American mathematician, serial killer, and domestic terrorist. A mathematics prodigy, he abandoned his academic career in 1969 to pursue a reclusive primitive lifestyle and lone wolf terrorism campaign. Kaczynski murdered three people and injured 23 others between 1978 and 1995 in a nationwide mail bombing campaign against people he believed to be advancing modern technology and the destruction of the natural environment.

John Wayne Gacy (March 17, 1942 to May 10, 1994) was an American serial killer and sex offender who raped, tortured and murdered at least thirty-three young men and boys between 1972 and 1978. He became known as the "Killer Clown" due to his public performances as a clown prior to the discovery of his crimes. Gacy committed all of his known murders inside his ranch-style house in Norwood Park Township, Illinois. Twenty-six victims were buried in the crawl space of this home, and three were buried elsewhere on his property; four were discarded in the Des Plaines River.