Serial Killers: Who Are They?

Serial killers often seem to be perfectly normal individuals. A truck painter. Law Student. Political insider. A renowned Poet. Shoe salesman. Husband. Father. A University drop out. Soldier. Alcoholic. Medical doctor. A photo technician. Someone physically challenged. A mild mannered, quiet, obedient employee. Migrant worker. Teacher. An ordinary, solitary and non-threatening individual. A street kid. Rape victim. A forestry student. Or, even the neighborhood’s favorite clown.

Collectively, these seemingly normal types, 14 men in all, murdered as many as 911 men, women and children. But, who are they?

The trunk painter was Gary Ridgway, aka the Green River Killer who strangled 48 women and/or dismembered and molested their bodies. He was called the Green River Killer because he dumped their remains near the Green River in northwestern Washington.

The infamous Ted Bundy was a law student and political insider, absolutely charming to those who knew him socially and politically. He had a degree in psychology and, while he worked for the Republican Party in the State of Washington developed a close relationship with governor Dan Evans. Yet, with all his connections and advantages, he turned violent. Over about four years, he raped 30 women, murdered them by bludgeoning them to death or strangling them, and then molested their bodies.

Jack the Ripper, whose actual identity has not been established, murdered, cut open and removed organs from five women in London in 1888. According to Richard Patterson, Jack the Ripper may have been Francis Thompson, a renowned poet. He was also a cricket fan who impressed and made friends with other poets. His most famous poem was “The Hound of Heaven” in which he talks about God’s pursuit of a human soul. (See: “Francis Thompson” by Richard Patterson at http://www.casebook.org/suspects/ft.html)

John Wayne Gacy raped and murdered 33 boys and young men, most of whom he buried in the crawl space under his house. He was a husband and a father. He was a shoe salesman and later managed a Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant. He bought a house in Cook County, Illinois and became active in the local Democratic Party. Becoming a precinct captain, he was photographed with Rosalynn Carter, wife of the then presidential candidate Jimmy Carter. Most benignly of all, he frequently entertained the neighborhood children in costume as Pogo the Clown.

Yoo Young-Chul of South Korea was also a husband, but a troubled one, with a history of mental problems and rape. His wife divorced him in 2002, and from September 2003 to 2004, Yoo killed, horrifically dismembered, and cannibalized 21 men and women.

Jeffrey Dahmer was also a well-know cannibal. He might have appeared normal, but he wasn’t. He killed his first victim in his parent’s house after he graduated from high school. After that he drank to excess and dropped out of Ohio State University after just one term because his drinking was uncontrolled. He joined the army and two years later he was discharged for alcoholism. In all, he killed 17 boys and young men, most in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, often having sex with their bodies, dismembering them, and eating part of them.

William MacDonald murdered 4 derelicts in Sydney, Australia, stabbing each victim dozens of times then cutting off their genitals. He was a soldier, too, a member of the Lancashire Fusiliers. He was raped by one of his corporals.

One of the worst serial killers of all time was raped, too. Pedro Alonso López, known as the Monster of the Andes, was born in 1948 in Santa Isabel, Colombia. Abused and repeatedly raped as a youngster, he lived on the streets and became a rapist, then murderer. By 1978, by his own accounts, he had murdered 300.

Among those often above suspicion are medical doctors, yet they are in a position to murder scores of people if they so desire. Fred Shipman, for example, a general practitioner in England murdered as many as 250 women and men. He graduated from Leeds Medical School, married and had four children. Many of his victims were murdered by a lethal injection of heroin. Doctor Marcel Andre Henri Felix was less ambitious and murdered only 60, hiding the remains of 26 of them in his house in Paris. As a youngster he was often accused of delinquency and criminal activities and often expelled from school, yet he completed medical school in only eight months. He too, was in politics, becoming mayor of Villeneuve-sur-Yonne. He was a husband and a father. He was also a thief.

Mild-mannered, ordinary, obedient men with quiet and solitary lives have also been serial killers. In Japan, Tsutomu Miyazaki was so described. He had a physical deformity and was often shunned when he was growing up, yet he attended Junior college and become a photo technician. In the late 1980’s, he murdered 4 girls, had sex with their corpses, gruesomely handled their remains, tormented their families, and ate portions of two of them.

Andrei Romanovich Chikatilo, an ordinary, non-threatening, teacher in Russia murdered, tortured and mutilated as many as 70 boys and girls. He was also a husband.

Huang Yong of China was a migrant worker. He tied his victims to a noodle-processing contraption and suffocated them. He murdered 17 teenage boys and kept their belts as souvenirs.

In the late 1990’s a forestry student, Anatoly Onoprienko, murdered approximately 52, men, women and children. Selecting an isolated house, he would enter and shoot all of its occupants and anyone else who might have witnessed the crime. He then burned the house.

These serial killers have little in common with regard to their outward personas, except that, before they were caught, most of them appeared to be normal.

Any thoughts?

by Shawna Ryan

Resources:
http://www.answers.com/topic/gary-ridgway;
Excerpt from truTV CRIME LIBRARY; “Green River Killer: River of Death -- At Wits End” http://www.crimelibrary.com/serial_killers/predators/greenriver/links_5.html;
CourtTVnews, Wednesday Feg. 27, 2008,The Green River Killer,
Gerald Boyle, Jeffrey Dahmer's lawyer, comments on the sentencing of Gary Ridgway, Dec. 18, 2003;
www.murdersdatabase.co.uk;
http://web.ukonline.co.uk/ruth.buddell/bundy.htm;
http://www.answers.com/topic/ted-bundy;
“Investingating Jack the Ripper” at http://www.coasttocoastam.com/shows/2005/09/15.html based on the investigations of retired British Police Detective Trevor Marriot;
“Francis Thompson” by Richard Patterson at http://www.casebook.org/suspects/ft.html;
http://www.answers.com/topic/john-wayne-gacy?cat=entertainment;
The Biography Channel; “Heidnik And Dahmer: Great Crimes And Trials;” http://www.thebiographychannel.co.uk/biography_story/489:346/1/Jeffrey_Dahmer.htm;
http://www.answers.com/topic/harold-shipman;
http://www.answers.com/topic/harold-shipman;
truTV Crime Library: “WILLIAM "THE MUTILATOR" MACDONALD,” by Paul B. Kidd; Australia's Most Feared Serial Killer; http://www.crimelibrary.com/serial_killers/weird/macdonald/index_1.html;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsutomu_Miyazaki;
CNN Internationl.com at http://edition.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/asiapcf/east/12/09/china.killer.reut/;
http://www.crimelibrary.com/serial_killers/notorious/chikatilo;
http://www.answers.com/topic/pedro-l-pez-serial-killer?cat=entertainment;
http://www.answers.com/topic/marcel-petiot;
http://www.francesfarmersrevenge.com/stuff/serialkillers/youngchul.htm.

© Shawna Ryan
Author: thrillers DESTINY'S DAMNED & SATAN'S SCAT
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