Murderous couples like Ray and Faye Copeland and the notorious Fred and Rose West kidnapped, tortured, and killed their victims together — and then they turned against each other.
Bettmann/Getty ImagesCharles Starkweather and Caril Ann Fugate’s 1958 murder spree across Nebraska and Wyoming left 10 people dead — but they’re nowhere near the most prolific serial killer couple.
As well as being illegal and morally repugnant, committing murder is risky. The chance of getting caught is high enough when only one person is in on the plot; adding a second perpetrator only heightens the potential for error, and thus the likelihood of imprisonment, as these serial killer couples found out the hard way.
Some of the couples below, like teenagers Charles Starkweather and Caril Ann Fugate, had just started dating when they set out on their grisly crime sprees. Others, like Ray and Faye Copeland, had been married for decades before they turned to murder.
Their victims varied, too. Most of the disturbing duos targeted teens and young women, but the Copelands exclusively killed their farmhands — and some of the couples simply murdered anyone who got in their way.
Go inside the stories of these notorious serial killer couples and the depraved crimes they carried out.
The ‘Ken And Barbie Killers’ Paul Bernardo And Karla Homolka
Kingston Penitentiary/Wikimedia CommonsPaul Bernardo in a November 1985 mugshot.
A gruesome pair even among serial killer couples, Paul Bernardo and Karla Homolka met in Toronto in 1987. Bernardo, who was 23 at the time, had already committed multiple rapes. Homolka was 17, but despite her young age, she was disturbingly sadistic.
The story goes that the two were drawn to each other almost immediately, but there was apparently a problem: Homolka wasn’t a virgin. To “solve” this issue, Homolka decided to gift Bernardo the virginity of her 15-year-old sister, Tammy Homolka, for Christmas. On the night of Dec. 23, 1990, Homolka drugged Tammy’s eggnog, and when Tammy passed out, Bernardo and Homolka brutally raped her for hours — and filmed the entire crime.
Somehow, the end result was even worse than what the pair had planned. After abusing Tammy, Paul Bernardo and Karla Homolka left her tied up and unable to move. Sometime during the night, Tammy choked on her own vomit and died. However, a subsequent inquest found no evidence of foul play, and her death was initially ruled accidental.
Bernardo and Homolka went on to repeat this grotesque act at least twice more, filming themselves sexually abusing and killing 14-year-old Leslie Mahaffy in June 1991 and 15-year-old Kristen French in April 1992. Bernardo also continued to rape other women, which is how his DNA wound up in investigators’ hands.
Dick Loek/Toronto Star via Getty ImagesKarla Homolka and Paul Bernardo got married on June 29, 1991 — the same day the body of their second victim, Leslie Mahaffy, was discovered.
Then, in late 1992, Bernardo made the mistake of beating Homolka. Around the same time, detectives connected him to multiple rape cases. At that point, Homolka revealed to her aunt and uncle that she and Bernardo were behind the murders of Leslie Mahaffy and Kristen French. Homolka struck a deal with the authorities and started testifying against Bernardo, leading the police to the videotapes of the crimes.
Bernardo is currently serving a life sentence, while Homolka — who claimed she was a victim of domestic abuse and was forced to help Bernardo in his murderous schemes — spent 12 years behind bars, from 1993 to 2005.
British Serial Killer Couple Ian Brady And Myra Hindley
RedditA photo of Ian Brady and Myra Hindley found in an album that was seized from Brady’s home.
Between 1963 and 1965, Ian Brady and Myra Hindley killed five children in England in what became known as the Moors Murders, a string of crimes that stands out even among those of other serial killer couples.
Brady displayed chilling tendencies from a young age, reportedly torturing and killing animals at just 10 and breaking into houses as a teenager. By 1961, when he was introduced to Myra Hindley, he already had several convictions for theft and assault.
Brady and Hindley met at work and quickly fell in love. They stayed up late into the night reading stories about Nazi atrocities to each other, and Hindley bleached her hair to appear more Aryan. By 1963, Brady had started talking about committing the “perfect murder” — and he wanted Hindley to help him.
The serial killer couple began their deranged crime spree in July 1963. Their first victim was 16-year-old Pauline Reade. Brady and Hindley offered her a ride to a dance, drove her to Saddleworth Moor, raped her, and slit her throat.
Four months later, the pair repeated these heinous acts on 12-year-old John Kilbride, raping the boy before killing him and burying him on the moor. They also murdered another 12-year-old boy, Keith Bennett, in the same manner in June 1964.
Greater Manchester Police via Getty ImagesMyra Hindley in a photograph taken by Ian Brady sometime in the early 1960s.
Their next victim was 10-year-old Lesley Ann Downey. Brady and Hindley lured her to their house by asking her to help them carry some shopping bags. Once the little girl was inside, they bound and gagged her, raped her, and strangled her — and recorded it all on audio tape. They then buried her on the moor, as well.
As they grew comfortable with their crimes, however, Ian Brady and Myra Hindley eventually took things too far. In October 1965, Brady brought home 17-year-old Edward Evans, a boy he had picked up at the train station. Brady murdered Edward in front of his 17-year-old brother-in-law, David Smith, thinking that Smith would want to join him for future crimes. Instead, Smith quickly notified the police of what he’d seen.
Both Brady and Hindley expressed remorse after they were sentenced to life in prison. Hindley claimed the crimes were all Brady’s idea, but she also told the court that she regarded herself as worse than her partner, since she had done most of the enticing. Brady took responsibility for what he had done, never asked for parole, and died in a psychiatric hospital in 2017. Hindley also died behind bars from pneumonia in 2002 at age 60.
