Serial Killers are Scary

Everytime E! THS Investigates, or A&E does something about Serial Killers, I find myself glued to the tv.

Serial Killers are friggin scary...because they are really killing multiple people (not in movies...unless there are movies made about them) in usually strange and disturbing ways that no normal-minded human being could find rational...and because they, once again, are seriously 150% insane.

Many of them also appear to lead "normal" lives so that nobody suspects their sick and sadistic habits...making them ultimately more terrifying.

Wikipedia, who never lets me down, actually made a list of serial killers by the number of people that were killed or by the country.


I'm going to give a rundown of the most well-known serial killers (in my opinion of course)


***Warning...GRUESOME STUFF AHEAD***





Ted Bundy - This guy was notorious throughout the mid to late 1970's. He confessed to killing 30 victims, although the total could be much higher. according to my pal wikipedia, he "engaged in rape and necrophilia" YIKES. He killed women ranging from ages 12-26, but usually bludgeoning them and then assaulting them. he also treated the courts as a joke, he represented himself as the defense lawyer, and he proposed to some crazy woman (Carol Ann Boone) that fell in love with him. They were married at his trial where he was sentenced to death for killing a 12 year old girl. Wonder what the honeymoon was like? You can read a little more about Ted Bundy's early life here and here, if you'd like.









Jeffrey Dahmer - If you haven't heard of Dahmer, I don't know what to say. He's super famous, for eating people. He was believed to have murdered 17 people from 1978 to 1991, mainly males. He averaged murdering one person each week, in extremely horrific ways, like mutilation and dismemberment. He also kept select body parts as souveniers in acid-filled vats. Apparently, he also was an alcoholic, and liked to dissect animals at a young age. He was discharged from the military due to excessive drinking. His killing spree is so disgusting that I can't even repeat it, just go to wikipedia and read it or go here, or here. He ended up being found guilty and sentenced to 957 years in prison, but wouldn't end up serving them all. According to the Serial Killer Database, he was killed by another inmate who beat him to death with a weight from the weight room.










Ed Gein - Ed Gein was ultimately the inspiration behind Leatherface in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, as well as Buffalo Bill in The Silence of the Lambs. He also is believed to have inspired the Norman Bates character in Psycho. While he supposedly only killed 2 people (i know, "only" isn't the greatest word, but it's significantly less than the others), he was known to exhume bodies and craft things out of the remains. He was very attached, in an unhealthy way to his mother, who, through strong religious beliefs, demanded that Ed not have friends, and taught that women were evil. Mysteriously, his brother, who went against his mother's beliefs, was killed in a fire, and once his father died, all that was left was Ed and his mother. Once his mother died, Ed blocked off all rooms that she used, and began going to the graveyard late at night to dig up bodies. At the time of his arrest, he had numerous body parts that acted as "furniture". He also was rumored to have wanted to change his gender, and had created a "woman suit" that he would wear. Gein was so insane that he was found not guilty by reason of insanity TWICE and spent the rest of his life in a hospital.









Henry Lee Lucas - I only heard about Lucas when I watched the movie Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer with Michael Rooker. He had killed about 600 people from 1978 to 1983. His first murder was killing his own mother by stabbing her. He was sentenced to jail, and released after 10 years. Lucas's murders caused an array of disagreements between law enforcement. Through his calculated "confessions" people were confused as to whether or not he was guilty or innocent. He ended up dying in 2001 in jail of heart failure. Just an FYI, he was also sentenced to death, but everyone's good buddy George W. Bush commuted his sentence to a life sentence.









Dennis Rader - This guy was featured on E!'s THS Investigates, and he literally gave me the creeps. His confessions to the judge sounded as though he was reading off a grocery list. He's better known as the "BTK Killer" , named after his method of killing-Binding, Torturing, and Killing. I truly believe if they ever made a movie about the guy, they should get Jack Nicholson to play him. The bulk of his killings take place in Wichita Kansas. What's scariest about BTK is that he really truly seemed like a regular guy. He worked in his church, he was married and had a family...his neighbors had no idea. That's what makes him one of the scariest serial killers, he could be your neighbor. He was sentenced to 175 years without any parole.









Jack the Ripper - Jack the Ripper is one of the two serial killers on this list that have never been identified. Perhaps arguably the most well-known and most notorious of all serial killers, JTR terrorized London for the greater part of the late 19th century. His victims were largely prostitutes, as the main location was the run-down Whitechapel area of London. His main method was strangulation, then slitting the throat and thereafter mutiliation (gross stuff, I know) in the late hours of night or very early morning. There were letters taunting the police sent to Scotland Yard, one of which including a preserved kidney. Because of so many copycat murders, Jack the Ripper has almost taken on a folklore kind of appeal. To this day, no person or persons have been pointed out as Jack the Ripper.






The Zodiac Killer - The 2nd on this list that is merely an alias with no suspect. The Zodiac Killer was prevalent in the late 1960's in Northern California. Preying on young couples as opposed to prostitutes, The Zodiac used the media to immortalize its message and gain fame through sending taunting cryptographs (seen above). While nobody has ever been convicted of the murders, the case remains open as of 2007, and as depicted in the David Fincher movie Zodiac, Arthur Leigh Allen was pointed as a prime suspect.




John Wayne Gacy - I saved this guy for last because frankly, he scares the shit out of me. First of all, he dresses like a deranged clown. look at half of that picture. I'm going to have nightmares. He was also known as "the Killer Clown". That's enough horror for me. John Wayne Gacy was convicted of the rape and murder of over 33 men and boys during the course of 6 years (1972-1978). He would lure the boys to his car by using drugs as a decoy and the boys, ranging from 14-21 would be tortured, raped, killed, and then stored in his basement until they had rotted too much that they smelled. Some of the victims were so decayed, they could not be identified (the pictures of the unidentifed and computer reconstructed on Wikipedia are really, really creepy). Gacy was eventually captured, and was not at all remorseful in court. He joked that he was "running a cemetary without a license" and that all 33 deaths were by erotic asphyxia. He was put to death and his last words were reportedly "kiss my ass". Prior to his death, he began making oil paintings which were sold after his death. some were put on band's such as G.G. Allin's and Cradle of Filth's albums. Others were bought by people just to burn them.



As horrible and frightening serial killers are, people are still fascinated by the motives, and what goes on inside their heads.



And that's my list. Next blog will be more fun and fantastically scary, I promise!