COLEGIUL NAŢIONAL “SILVANIA”

Famous Serial Killers

Candidat: ALECU MARIA VIORICA Coordonator:

MAI, 2018
ZALĂU
 Famous Serial Killers

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 Table of content
I. Chapter 1 - Gary Ridgway……………………………………………………………...3
II. Chapter 2 - The Killer Clown (John Wayne Gacy)…………………………………….4
III. Chapter 3 - Theodore Bundy………………………………………………...…………6
IV. Chapter 4 - Harold Shipman……………………………………………………………8
V. Chapter 5 - Arthur Shawcross………………………………………………...………..9
VI. Chapter 6 - Jeffrey Dahmer…………………………………………………..………..10
VII. Chapter 7 - Tommy Lynn Sells……………………………………………….……….12
VIII. Chapter 8 - Richard Ramirez………………………………………………..…………13
IX. Chapter 9 - Charles Cullen………………………………………………….…………15
X. Chapter 10- Patrick Wayne Kearney……………………………………….………….17
XI. Chapter 11 - John George Haigh……………………………………………..………..20
XII. Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………..23
XIII. References and Bibliography …………………………………………………………23

Argument

I believe this theme represents a not so common subject and I chose it because of its
unexpected topic which I think it can be of interest for many individuals who like thriller
movies or books, or people who are simply curious in criminality.

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 From my point of view, this topic can be useful for learning about American History in the
criminality field, the crimes committed during the XX century are atrocious and shocked the
whole world, not only the state in which they were committed.
Another point which can be touched by this subject is the psychological facts or social
aspects offered by the description of these notorious murders. The reader can be informed
regarded mental disorders or pathologies which lead to totally inadequate behaviour followed
by acts of crime.
Serial killers tantalize people much like traffic accidents, train wrecks or natural
disasters. The public’s fascination with them can be seen as a specific manifestation of
its more general fixation on violence and calamity. In other words, the actions of a serial
killer may be horrible to behold but much of the public simply cannot look away due to
the spectacle.
People also receive a jolt of adrenaline as a reward for witnessing terrible deeds.
Adrenaline is a hormone that produces a powerful, stimulating and even addictive effect
on the human brain. If you doubt the addictive power of adrenaline, think of the thrill-
seeking child who will ride a roller coaster over and over until he or she becomes
physically ill. The euphoric effect of true crime on human emotions is similar to that of
roller coasters or natural disasters.
After much consideration, I believe that for many people, including me, true crime
shows generally offer guilty pleasure to thrill-seeking adults. Why is there guilt? It feels
wrong or inappropriate for us to delight in the horrors inflicted on real people in true
crime shows. Yet many of us relish watching these shows anyway. But although we may
feel a bit guilty about indulging in them, we simply cannot stop.

Chapter 1

[Link] Ridgway

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Gary Ridgway was an American serial killer, also known by the name of <<Green River
Killer>> who was born in 1949, in Salt Lake City--Utah. He murdered more than 90 individuals,
even though he was convicted for only 49 separate murders, which made him the most prolific
serial killer in U.S. history.

His early years were marked by his tentative of killing a friend when he was only six years old,
however, he stabbed him in a forest but the boy survived. After high school graduation, Gary
joined the army, moment when he started his killings, through sex workers. Ridgway used them
and then strangled them and hides their bodies, occasionally returning to them in order to have
another intimate intercourse with the body, without being constrained to murder another victim.

Gary Ridgway got away for a quite long time, until he was arrested on charges related with
prostitution. After taking and failing a polygraph test about several bodies founded in his
surroundings, DNA samples showed that he was the murderer of multiple women.

On December 18, 2003, King County Superior Court Judge Richard Jones sentenced Ridgway to
48 life sentences with no possibility of parole and one life sentence, to be served consecutively.
He was also sentenced to an additional 10 years for tampering with evidence for each of the 48
victims, adding 480 years to his 48 life sentences.

Ridgway confessed to more confirmed murders than any other American serial killer. Over a
period of five months of police and prosecutor interviews, he confessed to 48 murders—42 of
which were on the police's list of probable Green River Killer victims. [19] On February 9, 2004,
county prosecutors began to release the videotape records of Ridgway's confessions. In one taped
interview, he told investigators initially that he was responsible for the deaths of 65 women, but
in another taped interview with Reichert on December 31, 2003, Ridgway claimed to have
murdered 71 victims and confessed to having had sex with them before killing them, a detail
which he did not reveal until after his sentencing. In his confession, he acknowledged that he
targeted sex workers because they were "easy to pick up" and that he "hated most of them. Later
in a statement Ridgway said that murdering young women was his "career."

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 Chapter 2

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II. The Killer Clown

John Wayne Gacy (1942-1994) was an American killer and rapist who sexually assaulted and
murdered at least 33 boys and young men between 1972-1978.

Notorious serial killer John Wayne Gacy was born on March 17, 1942, in Chicago, Illinois. The
son of Danish and Polish parents, Gacy and his siblings grew up with a drunken father who
would beat the children with a razor strap if they were perceived to have misbehaved; his father
physically assaulted Gacy's mother as well. Gacy's sister Karen would later say that the siblings
learned to toughen up against the beatings, and that Gacy would not cry.

Gacy suffered further alienation at school, unable to play with other children due to a congenital
heart condition that was looked upon by his father as another failing. He later realized he was
attracted to men, and experienced great turmoil over his sexuality.

The Killer Clown got his nickname from his job, as he worked as a circus artist. Gacy affirmed
his job allowed him to remember his early years and travel back to his childhooh. However, it is
thought it was easier for him to lure kids to his home as a clown and then murder them. Gacy
was also a painter, most of his paintings were made while he was imprisoned .

Investigation on John Wayne Gacy started after an accusation made by a father of a presumably
molested child victim. The polic than discovered a lot more about the Killer Clown’s past as they
started to investigate more deeply.

After being informed that the police had found human remains in his crawl space and that he
would now face murder charges, Gacy told officers he wanted to "clear the air",adding that he
knew his arrest was inevitable since he had spent the previous evening on the couch in his

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lawyers' office. Gacy hid the body under his house or in his garden; sometimes he threw them
in the nearby 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.

Chapter 3

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[Link] Bundy

Theodore Robert Bundy was an American serial killer, kidnapper, rapist and necrophile who was
born in 1946 in Burlington, Vermont. He confessed to 30 homicides, ranking him in top 10 most
notorious serial killers in the US history.

Ted was a handsome, charismatic man, thing that made him more likely to win his victim’s
trusts, who were especially young women.

Bundy had a peaceful childhood, he was raised by his mother, the father remained unknown, and
his grandparents in Philadelphia. From his early years, Bundy discovered a passion for detective
magazines and crime novels, with no incidents during this period. After graduating high school,
Bundy spent a year at the University of Puget Sound (UPS) before he transferred to
the University of Washington (UW) in 1966 to study Chinese.

There is no precise moment when Bundy started his murders; he told different stories to different
people regarding this. On August 16, 1975, Bundy was arrested by a Utah Highway Patrol officer
in Granger (another Salt Lake City suburb). The officer had observed Bundy cruising a
residential area in the pre-dawn hours; Bundy fled the area at high speed after seeing the patrol
car. The officer searched the car after he noticed that the Volkswagen's front passenger seat had
been removed and placed on the rear seats. He found a ski mask, a second mask fashioned from
pantyhose, a crowbar, handcuffs, trash bags, a coil of rope, an ice pick, and other items initially
assumed to be burglary tools. He was convicted for kidnapping, burglary and assault and was
sentenced to serve between one and 15 years in prison. In 1975, Bundy went to jail for the first
time when he was incarcerated in Utah for aggravated kidnapping and attempted criminal
assault. He then became a suspect in a progressively longer list of unsolved homicides in
multiple states. Facing murder charges in Colorado, he engineered two dramatic escapes and
committed further assaults, including three murders, before his ultimate recapture in Florida in
1978. For the Florida homicides, he received three death sentences in two separate trials. Bundy

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was executed in the electric chair at Florida State Prison on January 24, 1989 and was described
as "a sadistic sociopath who took pleasure from another human's pain and the control he had over
his victims, to the point of death, and even after". As Bundy went under many psychiatric
examinations, he received diagnosis as multiple personality disorder, psychoses and antisocial
personality disorder. Although he confessed for only 30 homicides, speculation showed a number
much higher, around 100, Bundy used to make encrypted comments to encourage the rumors.

Chapter 4

IV. Harold Shipman

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Harold Frederick Shipman was born in January 1946 in Nottingham, England. He was a British
doctor who killed 250 patients, mostly women. He was the favourite child in his family which
belonged to the working class in England. Shipman wanted to become a doctor after his mother’s
death which left him both traumatized and fascinated by the effect of morphine. The local
undertaker started to notice the unusual number of deaths which occurred in Shipman’s patients,
later he alerted the police and an investigation took place. Even though at first, Harold Shipman’s
career seemed in order, it was later discovered that he modified many of his medical records of
his patients to corroborate their causes of death. After, the police found a specific victim who
was clearly leading to the doctor. It was immediately apparent to the police, from the medical
records seized, that the case would extend further than the single death in question, and priority
was given to those deaths it would be most productive to investigate. This being said, Shipman
started to urge the families of which he had taken care of to cremate their victims, so that the
police won’t discover the same death pattern. His method of murder was consistent: a swift
injection of diamorphine - pharmaceutical heroin.

Shipman's crimes were finally uncovered after he forged the will of one of his victims, Kathleen
Grundy, leaving him everything. Following extensive investigations, which included numerous
exhumations and autopsies, the police charged Shipman with 15 individual counts of murder on
September 7, 1998, as well as one count of forgery, later being concluded that it was likely that
he had murdered at least 218 of his patients. He was sentenced to life imprisonment but he
committed suicide when he hung himself in his cell in 2004 at the age of 57.

Chapter 5

V. Arthur Shawcross

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Also known by the name of Genesee River Killer Arthur John Shawcross was born in 1945 in a
small town in Maine and was a notorious American serial killer who murdered around 12 people
in a very brutal manner.

His criminal behavior could have roots in his early years, being ranked with a sub-level IQ,
living in an incestuous family. He had a troubling youth and in his case a police investigation
was not needed as he confessed to killing two children and went to prison in 1972. After serving
less than 15 years of this sentence, he was released on parole in April 1987. In March 1988,
Shawcross began murdering again, primarily prostitutes in the area. As prostitutes continued to
disappear, it became apparent that the killer must be someone familiar to the women who worked
in the area. FBI started an investigation which ultimately led to a suspect profile which matched
Shawcross who was caught being seen from a helicopter while he was trying to murder a young
prostitute on a bridge. At trial, he pleaded not guilty on behalf he was suffering from brain
damage, multiple personality disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder, and had been sexually
abused as a child. Shawcross was sentenced with life in prison without parole .He died because
of cardiac arrest in 2008.

Chapter 6

VI. Jeffrey Dahmer

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Jeffrey Lionel Dahmer also known as the Milwaukee Cannibal was an American serial
killerand sex offender, who committed the rape, murder, and dismemberment of 17 men and
boys between 1978 and 1991.

He was sentenced to 16 term of life imprisonment despite the fact he was diagnosed with bipolar
personality disorder, schizophrenia and psychosis, as he was sane during his trial and during the
period when he committed the murders.

As a child, Dahmer was deprived of attention and left traumatized by his parent’s divorce. He
discovered an interest for dismembered animals at the age of 5 when his father found some bones
under the house. At school he was seen as a lonely child but intelligent, however he was caught
drinking alcohol several times. Around the age of 12 he came out as homosexual but never
revealed that to his parents, even though he had a relationship with one of the classmates.

Dahmer committed his first murder in the summer of 1978 at the age of 18, just three weeks after
his graduation. He invited a former friend over his house to drink some beers and then killed him
with one of his dumbbell and hid the body in his crawl space. The following day, Dahmer
dismembered the body and kept the skeleton, dissolving the flesh in acid and then flushing it in
the toilet. In the following years, Dahmer continued to pick up boys and young man, invited
them to his house and following the same sinister scenario. However, he fantasized about having
intercourse with corpse, administrating sleeping pills and sedatives to his victims so that they
seem dead.

In 1991, a victim managed to break out of Dahmer’s house and went to the police and started an
investigation on Dahmer. The police found enough evidence to arrest Jeffrey including human
organs in his freezer and some photos of dismembered victims which were taken in his house.

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Dahmer was questioned by Detective Patrick Kennedy as to the murders he had committed and
the evidence found at his apartment and admitted to having murdered 16 people.

He died in prison killed by another cellmate at the age of 34.

Chapter 7

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[Link] Lynn Sells

Tommy Lynn Sells was an American serial killer. He was convicted of one murder, for which he
was executed. Authorities believe he committed at least another 21 murders. Sells and his twin
sister, Tammy Jean, contracted meningitis when they were 18 months old; Tammy died from the
[Link] thereafter, Sells was sent to live with his aunt, Bonnie Woodall, in Holcomb,
Missouri, where he lived until he was five years old. When Sells was eight, he began spending
time with a man named Willis Clark, who began to molest him with the consent of his mother.
Sells stated that this abuse affected him greatly, and he would relive his experiences while
committing his crimes. He was diagnosed with a personality disorderconsisting
of antisocial, borderline, and schizoid features, substance use disorder (severe opioid, cannabis,
amphetamines, and alcohol dependence), bipolar disorder, major depressive disorder,
and psychosis. In May 1992, Sells raped, knifed, and beat a woman with a piano stool
in Charleston, West Virginia. In June 1993, he was sentenced to two to ten years
imprisonment for malicious wounding; the rape charge was dropped. While serving this
sentence, he was diagnosed with bipolar disorder and married Nora Price. He was released in
1997 and moved to Tennessee with his wife. He left her and resumed his cross-country travels.

Claiming to have killed at least 70 people, Tommy Lynn Sells is considered one of the most
dangerous offenders in Texas and has been convicted of several brutal murders between 1985
and 1999, including stabbing a 13 year old girl 16 times. Sells was eventually captured after
breaking into the bedroom of a 10 year old girl, stabbing her, and leaving her for dead. Despite
her injures the girl managed to survive and alert her neighbors. She provided a detailed
description of Sells to police which eventually led to his capture. Sentenced to death he remains
on death row at a high security prison in Livingston, Texas.

Chapter 8

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VIII. Richard Ramirez

Ricardo Leyva Muñoz Ramírez, known as Richard Ramirez was an American serial killer, rapist,
and burglar born in 1960, Texas. As a child, Ramirez sustained two serious head injuries. When
he was two years old a dresser fell on top of him, causing a forehead laceration requiring 30
stitches to close. When he was five years old he was knocked unconscious by a swing at a
park, after which he experienced frequent epileptic seizures that persisted into his early teens.
Ramirez, who had smoked marijuana since the age of 10, bonded with Mike over many joints
and gory war stories. Mike [his cousin] taught his young cousin some of his military skills, such
as killing with stealth and surety. Around this time, Ramirez began to seek escape from his
father's violent temper by sleeping in a local cemetery. The adolescent Ramirez began to meld
his burgeoning sexual fantasies with violence, including forced bondage and rape. While still in
school, he took a job at a local Holiday Inn, where he used his passkey to rob sleeping patrons.
Ramirez dropped out of Jefferson High School in the ninth grade. At the age of 22 he moved to
California, where he settled [Link] April 10, 1984, 9-year-old Mei Leung was found
murdered in a hotel basement, where Ramirez was living, in the Tenderloin district of San
Francisco. The girl had been raped, beaten and stabbed to death, and her body was found hanging
from a pipe. This, his first known killing, was not initially identified as being connected to the
crime spree. In 2009, Ramirez's DNA was matched to DNA obtained at the crime scene. On June
28, 1984, 79-year-old Jennie Vincow was found brutally murdered in her apartment in Glassell
Park. She had been stabbed repeatedly while asleep in her bed, and her throat slashed so deeply
that she was nearly decapitated. On March 17, 1985, Ramirez attacked 22-year-old Maria
Hernandez outside her home in Rosemead, shooting her in the face with a .22 caliber handgun
after she pulled into her garage. Within an hour of the Rosemead home invasion Ramirez pulled
30-year-old Tsai-Lian "Veronica" Yu out of her car in Monterey Park, shot her twice with a .22
caliber handgun, and fled. She was pronounced dead upon arrival at the hospital. On March 27,
1985, Ramirez entered a home that he had burgled a year earlier in Whittier at approximately 2
a.m. and killed the sleeping Vincent Zazzara, age 64, with a gunshot to his head from a .22
caliber handgun. Zazzara's wife Maxine, age 44, was awakened by her husband's murder, and

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Ramirez beat her and bound her hands while demanding to know where her valuables
were. While he ransacked the room, Maxine escaped her bonds and retrieved a shotgun from
under the bed, which was not loaded. An infuriated Ramirez shot her three times with the .22,
and then fetched a large carving knife from the kitchen. Her body was mutilated with multiple
stab wounds, and her eyes were gouged out and placed in a jewelry box, which Ramirez left
with. Ramirez did not stop here; he ended up killing 13 people. On August 30, 1985, Ramirez
took a bus to Tucson, Arizona, to visit his brother, unaware that he had become the lead story in
virtually every major newspaper and television news program across the state of California. He
walked past officers, who were staking out the bus terminal in hopes of catching the killer should
he attempt to flee on an outbound bus, to a convenience store in East Los Angeles. On September
20, 1989, Ramirez was convicted of all charges: 13 counts of murder, 5 attempted murders, 11
sexual assaults, and 14 burglaries. During the penalty phase of the trial, on November 7, 1989, he
was sentenced to die in California's gas chamber. He stated to reporters after the death sentences,
"Big deal. Death always went with the territory. See you in Disneyland."

Chapter 9

IX. Charles Cullen

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Charles Edmund Cullen is a former nurse who is the most prolific serial killer in New
Jersey history and is suspected to be the most prolific serial killer in American history. He
confessed to authorities that he killed up to 40 patients during the course of his 16-year nursing
career. But in subsequent interviews with police, psychiatric professionals, and journalists
Charles Graeber and Steve Kroft, it became clear that he had killed many more, whom he could
not specifically remember by name, though he could often remember details of their
case. Experts have estimated that Charles Cullen may ultimately be responsible for 400 deaths,
which would make him the most prolific serial killer in American history. Cullen was born
in West Orange, New Jersey, and was the youngest of eight children. His father, a bus driver, was
58 years old at the time of Charles' birth and died when Cullen was seven months old. Cullen
described his childhood as miserable. He first attempted suicide at age nine by drinking
chemicals from a chemistry set. This would be the first of many suicide attempts throughout his
life. Later, working as a nurse, Cullen claimed to have fantasized about stealing drugs from the
hospital where he worked and using them to end his life.

In 1977 Cullen's mother died in an automobile accident. In April 1978 he dropped out of high
school and enlisted in the U.S. Navy, where he served aboard the submarine USS Woodrow
Wilson. He rose to the rank of petty officer third class as part of the team that operated the
ship's Poseidon missiles. When he began to show signs of instability he was transferred to the
supply ship USS Canopus. Cullen tried to end his life seven times over the next few years. He
received a medical discharge from the Navy in 1984.

Cullen's first confessed murders occurred at St. Barnabas. On June 11, 1988, he administered a
lethal overdose of intravenous medication to a patient. [6] He admitted to killing several other
patients at St. Barnabas, including an AIDS patient who died after being given an overdose
of insulin. Cullen left St. Barnabas in January 1992 when hospital authorities began investigating
who had contaminated IV bags; the investigation determined that Cullen was most likely
responsible, resulting in dozens of patient deaths at the hospital. Cullen began a three-year stint
in the intensive care/cardiac care unit of Hunterdon Medical Center in Flemington. He claimed
that he did not harm anyone during the first two years, but hospital records for that time period
had been destroyed by the time he was arrested in 2003. He did admit to murdering five patients

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between January and September 1996, again with overdoses of digoxin. Cullen then found work
at Morristown Memorial Hospital in Morristown, New Jersey, but was soon fired for poor
performance. Even with his history of mental instability and the number of deaths during his
employment at various hospitals, Cullen continued to find work due to a national shortage of
nurses. Cullen was arrested at a restaurant on December 12, 2003, charged with one count of
murder and one count of attempted murder. On December 14, 2003, Cullen admitted to homicide
detectives Dan Baldwin and Tim Braun the murder of Rev. Florian Gall and the attempted
murder of Jin Kyung Han, both p Cullen is currently serving a sentence of life in
prison without parole for over 100 years, to be served consecutively with his other sentences in
Pennsylvania. On March 2, 2006, Cullen was sentenced to 18 consecutive life sentences in New
Jersey, and is not eligible for parole until year [Link] at Somerset. In addition, Cullen told
the detectives that he had murdered as many as 40 patients over his 16-year career. Cullen stated
he administered overdoses to patients in order to spare them from being "coded" — going
into cardiac or respiratory arrest and being listed as a "Code Blue" emergency. Cullen told
detectives that he could not bear witness to or hear about attempts at saving a victim's life. Cullen
also stated that he gave patients overdoses so that he could end their suffering and prevent
hospital personnel from de-humanizing them. However, not all of his victims were terminal
patients.

Chapter 10

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X. Patrick Wayne Kearney: The Trash Bag Killer

Also called the Trash Bag Killer, he operated between 1975 -1977. Kearney had a high IQ but
once captured, he confessed to 32 murders of homosexual men. Kearney would dump their
bodies along California highways and wrapped them in trash bags thus earning the name. He
was convicted of 21 murders, but was sentenced to life because of his confession.

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 sickly child, he was often a target
for bullies at school. In his teens, he became withdrawn and fantasized about killing people.

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Born in East Los Angeles, Kearney also lived in Texas. He moved back to California after a brief
marriage ended in divorce and eventually worked as an engineer for Hughes Aircraft.

It was from his experiences in his early years in California that Kearney cultivated his skill as a
gay pickup artist. Kearney mostly sought out partners in San Diego and Tijuana, Mexico, where
he used his fluency in Spanish and keen interest in Latin American culture as a basis to connect
with potential partners. Kearney claimed to have killed his first victim, a hitch-hiker he picked up
and murdered in Orange, California, around 1962. He claimed several more victims, mostly
transients, before moving to Redondo Beach, near Los Angeles, in 1967 with a younger man
named David Hill, who became his lover.

As time passed Hill and Kearney began to argue more often, and Kearney would go out for long
solitary drives in his Volkswagen Beetle or his truck. He would then pick up young male
hitchhikers or young men from gay bars and murder them. Kearney was primarily a necrophile,
and was generally consistent in the manner in which he murdered his victims and disposed of
their remains. Standing only 5'5" tall, being of slight build, and typically preferring victims of
greater stature than his, Kearney was forced to resort to a system of subduing his victims that
was unlikely to fail or create situations which could place him in physical danger or cause
unwanted exposure to authorities. Kearney was not known to resort to sadism or inflict pain on
his victims as the other "Freeway Killers" did, preferring quickness and efficiency. While Kearney
did later confess to having experimented with his victims' bodies out of curiosity, such as cutting
open one of their stomachs, he did so post-mortem and did not inflict any physical
[Link] confessed to having committed his first murder in the spring of 1962. The
victim's name is unknown, but he was confirmed to be age 19 and white. Kearney had
convinced the male to take a ride on his motorcycle with him to a secluded area outside of
Indio, California. When they arrived, Kearney shot the man in the head and sexually assaulted
the body. It is unknown if the body was ever found but Kearney did indeed confess to
committing this murder and two additional ones during the year 1962. The second victim was
the younger cousin of Kearney's first victim, who had witnessed Kearney drive away with the
first [Link] first murder that Kearney confessed and was convicted of was in 1967 while
living in Culver City, CA, approximately one year after moving in with David Hill. The murder
took place in Tijuana, Mexico where Hill and Kearney were visiting a close friend of Hill.
Identification of the victim was impossible, as Kearney only knew him as "George". Kearney shot
him between the eyes with his pistol as he slept in the master bedroom of his Tijuana, Mexico
home. After killing George, Kearney took the body into his bathroom where he first sodomized
the body as it lay in the bathtub and afterward proceeded to dismember and skin it with an X-
Acto knife. Afterward, Kearney decided to extract the bullet from the victim's head to ensure
that it would not be traced to his gun, and then he buried George's dismembered body behind

21
his garage. Kearney did not kill for over a year following this murder, primarily out of fear that
law enforcement would inquire about George's disappearance.

As time passed, Kearney greatly refined his modus operandi, which enabled him to carry out his
crimes much more efficiently and frequently. Starting in 1974, Kearney is estimated to have
committed murders on an almost monthly basis. After picking up his victims along the freeway
or at gay bars in his Volkswagen or in his truck, Kearney would typically shoot his victims in
the temple above the ear without warning, with a Derringer .22 pistol in his right hand while
steering his car with his left hand and simultaneously monitoring the speed limit to minimize
the predictability of the altercation and to avoid exhibiting any unusual behavior to potential
witnesses. After murdering his victims, Kearney would leave the bodies slumped upright in the
passenger seat and drive to a secluded area to sexually violate them.

The victim who ultimately led to Kearney's arrest was a young man named John LaMay, 17,
whom he killed on Sunday, March 13, 1977. At approximately 5:30 pm on that same day, LaMay
had told a neighbor he was going to Redondo Beach to meet a man named Dave, whom he had
met at a local gym. This was in fact David Hill, and Hill had given LaMay the address to Kearney's
home. Hill was absent when LaMay arrived, so Kearney invited LaMay in to watch television
until Hill returned. Without provocation, Kearney impulsively reached for his .22 Derringer and
shot LaMay in the back of the head. Kearney later dismembered the corpse and dumped the
remains in the [Link]'s remains were found on March 18, 1977. Police had actually been
to Kearney's home for the LaMay investigation prior to 8-year-old Merle "Hondo" Chance's
kidnapping and murder. The police soon discovered that LaMay had been seen in the company
of Kearney and Hill. The two fled to El Paso, Texas, and Kearney resigned from his job. The
fugitives' families persuaded the pair to turn themselves [Link], 36 years old at the time, was
eventually cleared of any involvement in his partner's crimes and was [Link], on the
other hand, made a full confession of his crimes, initially admitting to a total of 28 murders and
subsequently to seven more. In order to avoid the death penalty, he agreed to plead
guilty. Kearney was charged with 21 counts of murder, and as agreed, he pleaded guilty and was
given 21 life sentences. Police are certain that Kearney was responsible for the other seven
murders he had admitted to, but they lacked the physical evidence to charge him. Kearney is
incarcerated at California State Prison, Mule Creek as of October 2014.

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 Chapter 11

XI..John George Haigh

John George Haigh commonly known as the Acid Bath Murderer, was an English serial killer.
He was convicted for the murder of six people, although he claimed to have killed nine. He
battered or shot his victims to death and used concentrated sulphuric acid to destroy their corpses
before forging papers so he could sell the victims' possessions and collect substantial sums of
money.

During the investigation, it became apparent that Haigh was using the acid to destroy victims'
bodies because he misunderstood the meaning of the term corpus delicti, and mistakenly
believed that, if the bodies could not be found, a murder conviction would not be possible.
Despite the absence of his victims' bodies, there was sufficient scientific evidence for him to be
convicted for the murders and subsequently executed. John George Haigh was born
in Stamford, Lincolnshire, and grew up in the village of Outwood, West Riding of Yorkshire. His
parents were engineer John Robert and Emily (née Hudson), members of the Plymouth Brethren,
a conservative Protestant sect. After school, he was apprenticed to a firm of motor engineers.
After a year, he left that job, and took jobs in insurance and advertising. At age 21, he was fired

23
after being suspected of stealing from a cash box. On 6 July 1934, Haigh married 23-year-old
Beatrice 'Betty' Hamer. The marriage soon disintegrated. The same year that Haigh was jailed for
fraud, Betty gave birth while he was in prison, but she gave the baby girl up for adoption and left
Haigh. His conservative family ostracised him from that point onwards.

He then moved to London in 1936, and became chauffeur to William McSwan, a wealthy owner
of amusement arcades. He maintained McSwan's amusement machines. Thereafter he pretended
to be a solicitor named William Cato Adamson with offices in Chancery Lane,
London; Guildford, Surrey; and Hastings, Sussex. He sold fraudulent stock shares, purportedly
from the estates of his deceased clients, at below-market rates. His scam was uncovered by
someone who noticed he had misspelled Guildford as "Guilford" on his letterhead, an unlikely
mistake from an educated solicitor. Haigh received a four-year prison sentence for fraud. Haigh
was released just after the start of the Second World War; he continued as a fraudster, and was
sentenced to several further terms of imprisonment.

Haighrealised that his repeated arrests stemmed from leaving victims alive to report the crime,
and he became intrigued by the crimes of French murderer Georges-AlexandreSarret, who in
1925 had disposed of his victims' bodies via sulphuric acid. While in prison, Haigh devised a
method of destruction of the body of a murder victim by dissolving it in the acid. He
experimented with field mice and found that it took only 30 minutes for the body to dissolve.

Haigh was freed from prison in 1943 and became an accountant with an engineering firm. Soon
after, by chance, he bumped into his former employer McSwan in The Goat pub in Kensington.
McSwan introduced Haigh to his parents, Donald and Amy. McSwan worked for them by
collecting rents on their London properties, and Haigh became envious of his lifestyle. On 6
September 1944, McSwan disappeared. Haigh later admitted hitting him over the head after
luring him into a basement at 79 Gloucester Road, London SW7. He then put McSwan's body
into a 40-gallon drum and tipped concentrated sulphuric acid onto it. Two days later he returned
to find that the body had become sludge, which he poured down a manhole.

He told McSwan's parents that their son had gone into hiding in Scotland to avoid being called
up for military service. Haigh then took over McSwan's house and began collecting the rents for
his parents, but he wanted the money from the properties. Donald and Amy became curious as to
why their son had not returned as the war was coming to an end. On 2 July 1945, he lured them
to Gloucester Road by telling them their son was back from Scotland for a surprise visit. He
murdered them in his basement with blows to the head and disposed of them.

Haigh was a gambler and was running short of money by the summer of 1947. To solve his
financial troubles, he found another couple to kill and rob: Dr Archibald Henderson and his wife
Rose, whom he murdered after feigning interest in a house that they were selling. He was invited
to the Hendersons' flat by Rose to play the piano for their housewarming party. While at the flat
Haigh stole Archibald Henderson's revolver, planning to use it in his next crime.

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He rented a small workshop at 2 Leopold Road, Crawley, Sussex, and moved acid and drums there
from Gloucester Road. Haigh was also known to have stayed at Crawley's George Hotel on
several occasions. On 12 February 1948, he drove Henderson to Crawley on the pretext of
showing him an invention. When they arrived, Haigh shot Henderson in the head with the stolen
revolver. He then lured Mrs Henderson to the workshop, claiming that her husband had fallen ill,
and shot her also.

After disposing of the Hendersons' bodies in oil drums filled with acid, he forged a letter from
them and sold all of their possessions (except their dog and motor car, which he kept).Detectives
soon discovered Haigh’s record of theft and fraud and searched the workshop. He was sentenced
to death and hanged in 1949.

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 XII. Conclusion

In the end, I think the fascination with murder is natural because there are so many different
ways to judge each crime. We wonder about the victim, about the perpetrator, and about the
circumstances. We are intrigued by the motive and the method and how they got away or how
they got caught. We wonder who would be capable of the crime and whether they are “normal”
like us or hopefully quite different.

In the real world, we are fascinated because of the powerful emotions aroused when we consider
the fate and fortune of the victim and the pain that remains for their survivors. In reality, it is the
cold realities that draw and demand our attention. We actively seek the clues that tell us that we
are safe, that it couldn’t happen to us.

Murder is fascinating whether it’s real or not. Every case creates a set of questions to ponder.
In the real world, we need to be intrigued and aware to remain safe. We need to examine each
case and judge for ourselves: was this a matter of primal instinct or some unnatural act? Was it
a matter of evil intent, a result of human frailty or a justified response to threat or provocation?

When it’s art, all of those questions make it what we call a “thriller” or a “mystery.” When the
body is real, the “thrill” may be gone, but the questions and the fascination remain.

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 References and Biography

-Our fascination with murder, Online :< http\why-are-we-so-fascinated-with-murder>

-Top Serial Killers, Online :< http\25-most-evil-serial-killers-of-the-20th-century>

-Not Mentioned, Online :< http\10-of-americas-most-notorious-serial-killers>

Notorious Killers, Online :< http\notorious-serial-killers-american-history-gallery>

-Killers among us, Online :< http\[Link]>

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