Documentaries - Serial Killers

Description:

A serial killer is someone who murders three or more people with a 'cooling off' period between each murder, whose motivation for killing is largely for psychological gratification. All serial killers suffer from some form of Antisocial Personality Disorder but rarely psychopathy. They are usually not psychotic, and thus appear to be quite normal and often even charming, a state of adaptation which Hervey Cleckley calls the "mask of sanity." There is sometimes a sexual element to the murders. The murders may have been completed/attempted in a similar fashion and the victims may have had something in common, for example occupation, race, sex, etc. Also, the victims of a serial killing generally belong to the same race as the killer.

The term serial killer is widely believed to have been coined either by FBI agent Robert Ressler or by Dr. Robert D. Keppel in the 1970s (the credit for the term is disputed). Serial killer entered the popular vernacular in large part due to the well-publicized crimes of Ted Bundy and David Berkowitz in the middle years of that decade.

These 10 videos are a glimpse into the lives of the most prolific serial killers of all time.

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#1 - John Wayne Gacy

John Wayne Gacy (March 17, 1942 - May 10, 1994) also known as The Killer Clown, was an American serial killer.

He was convicted and later executed for the rape and murder of 33 boys and young men between 1972 and his arrest in 1978, 27 of whom he buried in a crawl space under the floor of his house, while others were found in nearby rivers. He became notorious as the "Killer Clown" because of the many block parties he threw for his friends and neighbors, entertaining children in a clown suit and makeup, under the name of "Pogo the Clown." He was also in the Guinness Book of World Records for the longest sentence imposed on a mass murderer; he was given 21 consecutive life sentences and 12 death sentences.

[img]http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/5/5e/Waynegacy.jpg[/img]


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#2 - Jeffry Dahmer

Jeffrey Lionel Dahmer (May 21, 1960 â?? November 28, 1994) was an American serial killer.

Dahmer murdered 17 men and boys between 1978 and 1991, with the majority of the murders occurring between 1989 and 1991. His murders were particularly gruesome, involving rape, necrophilia and cannibalism.

[img]http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/5/51/Jeffrey-dahmer.jpg/200px-Jeffrey-dahmer.jpg[/img]


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#3 - Ted Bundy

Ted Bundy (November 24, 1946 â?? January 24, 1989) was an American serial killer. Bundy murdered scores of young women across the United States between 1974 and 1978. After more than a decade of vigorous denials, Bundy eventually confessed to 29 murders, although the actual total of victims remains unknown. Estimates range from 29 to over 100. Typically, Bundy would bludgeon his victims, strangulating them to death. He also engaged in rape by necrophilia.

[img]http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/b/b1/Ted-bundy.jpg/200px-Ted-bundy.jpg[/img]


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#4 - Ed Gein

Edward Theodore Gein (August 27, 1906 â?? July 26, 1984) was a notorious American killer. Though only two murders on his part were proven, he gained great infamy due to necrophiliac behavior (which involved the skinning of his murder victims and exhumed corpses, the decoration of his home with parts of corpses, and the creation of articles of clothing and furniture from the skin of corpses). Although he is considered to have engaged in necrophiliac behavior, there is no significant evidence to prove that he engaged in sex with the corpses. Besides the death of his brother in 1944 under mysterious circumstances, six people disappeared from the Wisconsin towns of La Crosse and Plainfield between 1947 and 1957.

[img]http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/4/44/Edgein.jpg[/img]


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#5 - Aileen Wuornos

Aileen Carol Wuornos (born Aileen Carol Pittman) (February 29, 1956 â?? October 9, 2002) was an American serial killer who was convicted and sentenced to death by the state of Florida in 1992. She ultimately received five additional death sentences. Wuornos admitted to killing seven men in separate incidents, all of whom she claimed raped her (or attempted to) while she was working as a prostitute. She was put to death via lethal injection on October 9, 2002.

[img]http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/2/22/Wuornos.jpg/200px-Wuornos.jpg[/img]


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#6 - Gary Ridgeway

Gary Leon Ridgway (born February 18, 1949), known as the Green River Killer, is one of the most prolific serial killers in American history. On November 30, 2001, as he was leaving a Renton, Washington factory where he worked, he was arrested for the murders of seven women whose deaths were attributed to the "Green River Killer". Four murders were linked to him through DNA and three through paint he used at his job. Two years later he pleaded guilty to 48 counts of aggravated murder, although the estimates run much higher. Ridgway has been married three times and has one son. He carried his son's photo in his wallet to lure most of his victims into his pickup truck.

[img]http://www.truelifecrimes.com/gary_ridgway.jpg[/img]


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#7 - Dennis Rader

Dennis Lynn Rader (born March 9, 1945) is an American serial killer who murdered 10 people in Sedgwick County (in and around Wichita), Kansas, between 1974 and 1991. He was known as the BTK killer (or the BTK strangler), which stands for Bind, Torture and Kill, which describes his modus operandi. Letters were written soon after the killings to police and to local news outlets, boasting of the crimes and knowledge of details. After a long hiatus these letters resumed in 2004, leading to his arrest in 2005 and subsequent conviction.

[img]http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/0/08/Dennis_Rader_booking.jpg/200px-Dennis_Rader_booking.jpg[/img]


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#8 - Henry Lee Lucas

Henry Lee Lucas (August 23, 1936 â?? March 13, 2001) was an American criminal, convicted of murder and once listed as America's most prolific serial killer. However, he later recanted his confessions. He once flatly stated "I am not a serial killer" in a letter to researcher Brad Shellady.

Lucas confessed to involvement in about 3,000 murders, an average of about one murder per day between his release from prison in mid-1975 to his arrest in mid-1983. A more widely circulated total of about 350 murders committed by Lucas is based on confessions deemed "believable" by a Texas-based "Lucas Task Force," a group which was criticized by Texas Attorney General Jim Mattox for sloppy police work and taking part in an extended "hoax".

[img]http://www.mugshots.com/IMAGES/P__Henry-Lee-Lucas.jpg[/img]


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#9 - David Berkowitz

David Richard Berkowitz (born June 1, 1953), also known as the .44 Caliber Killer and the Son of Sam, is an American serial killer.

Shortly after his arrest in 1977, Berkowitz confessed to killing six people and wounding seven others in the course of eight shootings in New York City between 1976 and 1977. He has been imprisoned for the crimes since 1977. The crimes had terrorized New York for a year. Berkowitz subsequently claimed that a neighbor's dog was possessed by a demon that commanded Berkowitz to kill.

Berkowitz later amended his confession to claim he was the shooter in only two incidents, personally killing three people and wounding a fourth. The other victims were killed, Berkowitz claimed, by members of a violent Satanic cult of which he was a member. Though he remains the only person charged with or convicted of the shootings, some law enforcement authorities argue that Berkowitz's claims are credible: according to John Hockenberry of MSNBC, many officials involved in the original "Son of Sam" case suspected that more than one person was perpetrating the murders. Hockenberry also reports that the Son of Sam case was reopened in 1996 and, as of 2004, it was still considered open.

[img]http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/7/7a/David_Berkowitz.jpg/200px-David_Berkowitz.jpg[/img]


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#10 - Albert Desalvo

Albert Henry DeSalvo (September 3, 1931 â?? November 25, 1973) was a criminal in Boston, Massachusetts, United States who confessed to being the "Boston Strangler", the murderer of 13 women in the Boston area. His confession has been disputed, and debate continues regarding which crimes DeSalvo actually committed.

[img]http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/9/97/Albert_DeSalvo.jpg[/img]

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