"example of a power/control-oriented serial killer. He traveled around the United States seeking women to control. Many serial killers claim that a violent culture influenced them to commit murders. During his final interview, Ted Bundy stated that hardcore pornography was responsible for his actions. Others idolise figures for their deeds or perceived vigilante justice, such as Peter Kürten, who idolized Jack the Ripper, or John Wayne Gacy and Ed Kemper, who both idolized the actor John Wayne. Many movies, books, and documentaries have been written about serial killers, detailing the lives and crimes that have been committed. The movie, ""Bundy"","
"26 of his victims in the crawl space of his home. Three other victims were buried elsewhere on his property, while the bodies of his last four known victims were discarded in the Des Plaines River. Convicted of 33 murders, Gacy was sentenced to death on March 13, 1980, for 12 of those killings. He spent 14 years on death row before he was executed by lethal injection at Stateville Correctional Center on May 10, 1994. Gacy became known as the ""Killer Clown"" because of his charitable services at fund-raising events, parades, and children's parties where he would dress as"
"Harvey Glatman Harvey Murray Glatman (December 10, 1927 – September 18, 1959) was an American serial killer active during the late 1950s. He was known in the media as ""The Lonely Hearts Killer"" and ""The Glamour Girl Slayer."" He would use several pseudonyms, posing as a professional photographer to lure his victims with the promise of a modelling career. Born in the Bronx to a Jewish family and raised in Colorado, Glatman exhibited antisocial behavior and sadomasochistic sexual tendencies from an early age. When he was twelve years old, his parents noticed that he had a red, swollen neck. He"
"Patrick Kearney Patrick Wayne Kearney (born September 24, 1939) is an American serial killer who preyed on young men in California from 1965 to 1977. He is sometimes referred to as ""The Freeway Killer"", a nickname he shares with two other separate serial killers, William Bonin and Randy Kraft. Kearney may be among the most prolific serial killers in U.S. history, claiming possibly as many as 43 victims according to law enforcement. Kearney was the oldest of three sons and was raised in a reasonably stable family. His early life was not without some trauma, however; as a thin and"
"Glen Edward Rogers Glen Edward Rogers (born July 15, 1962), also known as ""The Cross Country Killer"" or ""The Casanova Killer"", is an American serial killer. He was convicted of two murders and is a suspect in numerous others throughout the United States, including being mentioned, and considered by investigators in Los Angeles County, as a possible alternative suspect to O.J. Simpson in the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman, although as of 2018 nothing has developed regarding these allegations. Rogers was featured on the FBI Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list after a crime spree that began on"
"series of mock comic books in the pages of the magazine, entitled ""Evil Clown"", which featured a malevolent titular character named Frenchy the Clown. During that decade, American serial killer and rapist John Wayne Gacy became known as the ""Killer Clown"" when arrested in 1978, after it was discovered he had performed as Pogo the Clown at children's parties and other events; however, Gacy did not actually commit his crimes while wearing his clown costume. The modern stock character of the evil clown was popularized by Stephen King's novel ""It"", published in 1986, which introduced the fear of an evil"
"killer John Wayne Gacy, who would dress up at community children's parties as ""Pogo the Clown""; Dery has stated that the character ""[embodied] our primal fears in a sociopathic Ronald McDonald who oozes honeyed guile"". On his website, however, King makes no mention of Gacy in discussing his inspiration. The American punk rock band Pennywise took its name from the character. The character has also been cited as a possible inspiration for two separate incidents of people dressing up as creepy clowns in Northampton, England and Staten Island, New York. In 2016, several reports of random appearances by ""evil clowns"""
"Vaughn Greenwood Vaughn Orrin Greenwood (born 1944) is an American serial killer known by the nickname the ""Skid Row Slasher."" The first attacks occurred when Greenwood killed two transients in November 1964. A ten-year gap period between murders occurred due to Greenwood being convicted and sentenced due to a knifing assault in Chicago in 1966. He spent five and a half years in jail for this conviction before returning to California. Greenwood continued his murder spree in December 1974 and killed nine victims between December 1974 and February 1975. Greenwood was convicted of nine counts of murder, including eight of"
"Richard Kuklinski Richard Leonard Kuklinski (; April 11, 1935 – March 5, 2006) was an American hitman and serial killer. He was convicted of murdering six people, but confessed to and is suspected of far more murders. He was associated with members of the American Mafia, namely the DeCavalcante crime family of Newark, New Jersey, and the Five Families of New York City. Kuklinski was given the nickname ""The Iceman"" for his method of freezing a victim to mask the time of death. During his criminal career, fellow mobsters called him ""the one-man army"" or ""the devil himself"" due to"
"of attack: Vaughn Greenwood Vaughn Orrin Greenwood (born 1944) is an American serial killer known by the nickname the ""Skid Row Slasher."" The first attacks occurred when Greenwood killed two transients in November 1964. A ten-year gap period between murders occurred due to Greenwood being convicted and sentenced due to a knifing assault in Chicago in 1966. He spent five and a half years in jail for this conviction before returning to California. Greenwood continued his murder spree in December 1974 and killed nine victims between December 1974 and February 1975. Greenwood was convicted of nine counts of murder, including"
"Carl Eugene Watts Carl Eugene Watts (November 7, 1953 – September 21, 2007), also known by his nickname Coral, was an American serial killer dubbed ""The Sunday Morning Slasher"". He died of prostate cancer while serving two sentences of life without parole in a Michigan prison for the murders of Helen Dutcher and Gloria Steele, although the number of his victims may have exceeded 80. Carl Eugene Watts was born in Killeen, Texas to Richard Eugene Watts and Dorothy Mae Young. His father was a private first class in the Army, and his mother was a kindergarten art teacher. When"
"William Miller (criminal) William ""Billy the Killer"" Miller (1906 – April 16, 1931) was an American bank robber and Depression-era outlaw. In his brief criminal career, he committed numerous bank heists in Michigan, Ohio, Kentucky and Oklahoma, and teamed up with George Birdwell and Pretty Boy Floyd during the early 1930s. Miller was born in Ironton, Ohio in 1906. He first earned his nickname ""Billy the Killer"" when, on September 18, 1925, the 19-year-old Miller killed his brother Joseph in a fight over a woman. Tried in Beaver County, Pennsylvania, he was acquitted of murder on the grounds that he"
"Gary Ridgway Gary Leon Ridgway (born February 18, 1949), also known as the Green River Killer, is an American serial killer. He was initially convicted of 48 separate murders. As part of his plea bargain, another conviction was added, bringing the total number of convictions to 49, making him the most prolific serial killer in United States history according to confirmed murders. He killed a myriad of teenage girls and women in the state of Washington during the 1980s and 1990s and is now thought to have killed more than 90. Most of Ridgway's victims were alleged to be sex"
"Grim Sleeper Grim Sleeper is the nickname for convicted serial killer Lonnie David Franklin Jr., responsible for at least ten murders and one attempted murder in Los Angeles, California. The attacker was dubbed the ""Grim Sleeper"" because he appeared to have taken a 14-year break from his crimes, from 1988 to 2002. In July 2010, Franklin was arrested as a suspect, and, after many delays, his trial began in February 2016. On May 5, 2016, the jury convicted him of killing nine women and one teenage girl. On June 6, 2016, the jury recommended the death penalty, and on August"
"Keith Hunter Jesperson Keith Hunter Jesperson (born 6 April 1955) is a Canadian-American serial killer who murdered at least eight women in the United States during the early 1990s. He was known as the ""Happy Face Killer"" because he drew smiley faces on his many letters to the media and prosecutors. Many of his victims were sex workers and transients who had no connection to him. Strangulation was his preferred method of murdering, the same method he often used to kill animals as a child. After the body of his first victim, Taunja Bennett, was found, media attention surrounded Laverne"
"Charles Cullen Charles Edmund Cullen (born February 22, 1960) is an American serial killer. Cullen confessed to authorities that he killed up to forty patients during the course of his sixteen-year career as a nurse in New Jersey. However, in subsequent interviews with police, psychiatrists, and journalists, it became apparent that he had killed many more, whom he could not specifically remember by name, though he could often remember details of their murders. Experts have estimated that Cullen may ultimately be responsible for 400 deaths, which would make him the most prolific serial killer in recorded history. Cullen was born"
"Paul John Knowles Paul John Knowles (April 17, 1946 – December 18, 1974), also known as The Casanova Killer, was an American serial killer tied to the deaths of 20 people in 1974, though he claimed to have taken 35 lives. Born in Orlando, Florida, his father gave him up to live in foster homes and reformatories after he was convicted of a petty crime. Knowles himself was first incarcerated at the age of 19, and in the years following, he spent more time in prison. In early 1974, Knowles was serving time at Raiford Prison in Florida (now known"
"John Linley Frazier John Linley Frazier, known as The Killer Prophet (January 26, 1946 – August 13, 2009), was an American mass murderer who killed five people in Santa Cruz, California. The case was the subject of a 2017 episode of Investigation Discovery's series ""A Crime to Remember"" (Season 4 Episode 7, ""Killer Prophet""). John Linley Frazier was born in Ohio on 26 January 1946. Following a car accident in the late 1960s he became a religious fanatic who spent days with his Bible and believed the voice of God was telling him to commit homicides. On October 19, 1970,"
"Earle Nelson Earle Leonard Nelson (née Ferral; May 12, 1897January 13, 1928), also known in the media as the ""Gorilla Man,"" the ""Gorilla Killer,"" and the ""Dark Strangler,"" was an American serial killer, rapist, and necrophile. He was the first known American serial sex murderer of the twentieth century. Born and raised in San Francisco, California by his devoutly Pentecostal grandmother, Nelson exhibited bizarre behavior as a child, which was compounded by head injuries he sustained in a bicycling accident at age ten. After committing various minor offenses in early adulthood, he was institutionalized in Napa for a time. Nelson"
"of a hippie. One side had long hair and a long beard and the other side was totally bald with no beard. He later shaved his head completely. On August 13, 2009, Frazier hanged himself in Mule Creek State Prison in Ione, California. John Linley Frazier John Linley Frazier, known as The Killer Prophet (January 26, 1946 – August 13, 2009), was an American mass murderer who killed five people in Santa Cruz, California. The case was the subject of a 2017 episode of Investigation Discovery's series ""A Crime to Remember"" (Season 4 Episode 7, ""Killer Prophet""). John Linley Frazier"
"had also been dismembered prior to their disposal. Collectively, Bonin, Kraft and Kearney may have claimed up to 131 victims. William Bonin William George Bonin (January 8, 1947 – February 23, 1996), also known as the Freeway Killer, was an American serial killer and twice-paroled sex offender who committed the rape, torture, and murder of a minimum of 21 boys and young men in a series of killings in 1979 and 1980 in southern California. Bonin is also suspected of committing a further 15 murders. Described by the prosecutor at his first trial as ""the most arch-evil person who ever"
"had given him a tee shirt with the phrase ""Thrill to Kill"" emblazoned on it, which Swann enjoyed wearing. The request for a furlough was denied. James Swann James Edward Swann, Jr., a.k.a. ""The Shotgun Stalker"" (born 1964), is an American serial killer whose random drive-by shotgun shootings in Washington, D.C. in 1993 earned him his nickname in the press. Swann was living in the Iselin section of Woodbridge Township, New Jersey before the attacks. Swann drove to Washington to carry out the attacks, which took place in the Mount Pleasant and Columbia Heights neighborhoods. Each of the attacks followed"
"Doug Clark Douglas Daniel Clark (born March 10, 1948) is an American serial killer. Clark and his accomplice, Carol M. Bundy, were collectively known as the Sunset Strip Killers. They were accused and subsequently convicted of a series of murders in Los Angeles, California. Doug Clark was the son of Franklin Clark, a Naval Intelligence officer. His family moved frequently during Clark's childhood due to his father's job, and he later claimed to have lived in 37 different countries. In 1958, his father left the Navy for a civilian position as an engineer with the Transport Company of Texas, but"
"1935. Madden became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 1943 and eventually married the daughter of the city postmaster. He lived in Hot Springs until his death in 1965. Owney Madden Owen Vincent Madden (December 18, 1891 – April 24, 1965), known as Owney Madden and nicknamed ""The Killer"", was a leading underworld figure in Manhattan, most notable for his involvement in organized crime during Prohibition. He also ran the famous Cotton Club and was a leading boxing promoter in the 1930s. Owen Vincent Madden was born into a working-class family at 25 Somerset Street in Leeds, England, on December 18,"
"Randall Woodfield Randall Brent ""Randy"" Woodfield (born December 26, 1950) is an American serial killer, rapist, kidnapper, and robber who was dubbed The I-5 Killer or The I-5 Bandit by the media due to the crimes he committed along the Interstate 5 corridor running through Washington, Oregon, and California. Before his capture, the I-5 Killer was suspected of multiple sexual assaults and murders. Though convicted in only one murder, he has been linked to a total of 18, and is suspected of having killed up to 44 people. A native of Oregon, Woodfield was the third child of a prominent"
"referred to as an example of murderabilia. Danny Rolling Danny Harold Rolling (May 26, 1954 – October 25, 2006), also known as the Gainesville Ripper, was an American serial killer who murdered five students in Gainesville, Florida over four days in late August 1990. Rolling later confessed to raping several of his victims, committing an additional November 4, 1989, triple homicide in Shreveport, Louisiana, and attempting to murder his father in May 1990. In total, Rolling confessed to killing eight people. Rolling was sentenced to death for the murders in 1994. He was executed by lethal injection in 2006. Danny"
"Doodler The Doodler, also known as the Black Doodler, is an unidentified serial killer believed responsible for 14 murders and three assaults of men in the gay community of San Francisco, California, between January 1974 and September 1975. The nickname was given due to the perpetrator's habit of sketching his victims prior to their sexual encounters and slayings by stabbing. The perpetrator met his victims at gay nightclubs, bars and restaurants. It is believed that the Doodler killed up to 14 people. A consistent method used in several of the killings was stabbing the victims in the front and back"
"Billy Glaze Billy Richard Glaze (July 13, 1943 – December 22, 2015), also known as ""Jesse Sitting Crow"" was a convicted American serial killer whose guilt has come into question by the discovery of DNA evidence excluding Glaze and implicating another man. Glaze was suspected of the murders of at least 50 women in multiple states. He allegedly boasted to police about having killed over 20 women, but in interviews claimed he was innocent. Glaze became a suspect in the 1986–87 murders of three Native American women in the Minneapolis, Minnesota area after a waitress brought him to the attention"
"Owney Madden Owen Vincent Madden (December 18, 1891 – April 24, 1965), known as Owney Madden and nicknamed ""The Killer"", was a leading underworld figure in Manhattan, most notable for his involvement in organized crime during Prohibition. He also ran the famous Cotton Club and was a leading boxing promoter in the 1930s. Owen Vincent Madden was born into a working-class family at 25 Somerset Street in Leeds, England, on December 18, 1891, the son of Francis Madden and Mary Madden (née O'Neil.) The story goes that in search of work, the family moved first to Wigan, and then to"
"died of prostate cancer on September 21, 2007 in a Jackson, Michigan hospital. The case is featured in episodes of ""Cold Case Files"" and truTV series ""The Investigators"". Carl Eugene Watts Carl Eugene Watts (November 7, 1953 – September 21, 2007), also known by his nickname Coral, was an American serial killer dubbed ""The Sunday Morning Slasher"". He died of prostate cancer while serving two sentences of life without parole in a Michigan prison for the murders of Helen Dutcher and Gloria Steele, although the number of his victims may have exceeded 80. Carl Eugene Watts was born in Killeen,"
"Christopher Wilder Christopher Bernard Wilder (March 13, 1945 – April 13, 1984), also known as The Beauty Queen Killer, was a serial killer from Australia who abducted and raped at least twelve women, killing at least eight of them, during a six-week cross-country crime spree in the United States of America in early 1984. His series of murders began in Florida on February 26, 1984, and continued across the country through Texas, Oklahoma, Colorado, Nevada, and California, and attempted abductions in Washington State and New York before he was killed during a struggle with police in New Hampshire on April"
"David Berkowitz David Richard Berkowitz (born Richard David Falco, June 1, 1953), known also as the Son of Sam and the .44 Caliber Killer, is an American serial killer who pleaded guilty to eight separate shooting attacks that began in New York City during the summer of 1976. The crimes were perpetrated with a .44 caliber Bulldog revolver. He killed six people and wounded seven others by July 1977. As the number of victims increased, Berkowitz eluded the biggest police manhunt in the history of New York City while leaving letters that mocked the police and promised further crimes, which"
"Ted Cruz–Zodiac Killer meme The Ted Cruz–Zodiac Killer meme is a mock-conspiracy theory popularized on the internet during Ted Cruz's candidacy for President in 2015–16. The internet meme facetiously suggests that United States Senator and former 2016 presidential candidate Ted Cruz was the Zodiac Killer, an unidentified Californian serial killer of the late 1960s and early 1970s. Cruz, born in 1970, could not have committed these murders, which began before his birth. Circulators of the meme do not genuinely believe that he was the Zodiac Killer, citing the absurdity of its premise; NPR wrote that the meme captured ""a feeling"