Serial Killers
The serial killers who terrorized towns and cities, from the ones caught to the ones never named.
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The Samuel Little Case: 93 Confessions, a Drug Warrant and the Women No One Counted
In 2012, a 72-year-old drifter was picked up in Louisville on an old drug warrant. What his DNA and his memory revealed changed how the FBI counts murder. Continue reading
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The Fred and Rose West Case: How a Gloucester House Hid Twelve Victims for Two Decades
In February 1994, police dug up a garden in Gloucester, England, looking for a missing 16-year-old. What they found at 25 Cromwell Street revealed two decades of murder by Fred and Rose West, and a string of chances the system… Continue reading
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The Hwaseong Murders: How DNA Named Lee Chun-jae 33 Years Later, and Freed the Wrong Man
Ten women and girls were murdered in Hwaseong, South Korea, between 1986 and 1991, and the case inspired “Memories of Murder.” In 2019, DNA finally named Lee Chun-jae — too late to charge him, and 20 years too late for… Continue reading
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The Ed Gein Case: The Antifreeze Receipt That Led Police to a Plainfield Farmhouse in 1957
On the opening day of deer season in 1957, Bernice Worden vanished from her Plainfield hardware store, leaving one receipt behind. It led police to Ed Gein’s farm, and to the crimes that inspired Psycho, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre,… Continue reading
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The Happy Face Killer: Keith Jesperson’s Letters, Lies, and Long Road of Murder
Between 1990 and 1995, Keith Jesperson killed at least eight women across six states — and then wrote letters to police and journalists confessing his crimes, signing each one with a smiley face. The Happy Face Killer case is a… Continue reading
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Rodney Alcala: The Serial Killer Who Won The Dating Game
In 1978, Rodney Alcala appeared on The Dating Game — and won. What the producers, the audience, and the bachelorette did not know was that he was already a serial killer. His case remains one of the most chilling examples… Continue reading
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The Connecticut River Valley Killer: A Decade of Terror on the Backroads of New England
Between 1978 and 1988, at least seven women were murdered along the quiet rural highways of New Hampshire and Vermont, their bodies left in wooded terrain near the Connecticut River. The killer was never identified. One woman survived. And the… Continue reading
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The Alphabet Murders: Rochester’s Deadliest Unsolved Mystery
Between 1971 and 1973, three young girls were abducted, sexually assaulted, and strangled in Rochester, New York — each victim sharing initials with the town where her body was found. More than fifty years later, the “Alphabet Murders” remain officially… Continue reading
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The Boston Strangler: Terror, Confession, and the DNA Truth That Took Fifty Years
Between 1962 and 1964, thirteen women were murdered in their Boston apartments, and a city lived in fear of an unseen killer who came to be called the Boston Strangler. Albert DeSalvo confessed and spent the rest of his life… Continue reading
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The Cleveland Torso Murders: The Killer Even Eliot Ness Couldn’t Catch
In the depths of the Depression, dismembered bodies appeared in Cleveland’s Kingsbury Run — most never identified. The case fell to Eliot Ness, the lawman who took down Al Capone. He never caught the killer. At least a dozen died,… Continue reading
