Serial killer-just the term itself mentions names that reverberate through the head and mind of Ted Bundy, Jeffery Dahmer, John Wayne Gacy. Their villainies seem to take an almost mythic quality within our popular culture-the crimes featured within myriad documentary films, books, and feature films. However, serial killers are not only Dahmer, Gacy, and Bundy. There were so many other killers, murders that committed such atrocities, so incomprehensible, with chilling legacies lost to such highly profiled cases.
We get into some detail about the private life of a handful of some truly disturbing serial killers you’ve more than likely ever heard of, and the list goes on with its usual tales that fade into the obscurity often found within most murderers who have walked across the stage and shocked the world to its core, spreading dread and horror beyond their times in the headlines to their eventual times outside the public realm and into prison systems.
1. The Vampire of Sacramento – Richard Chase
One of the notorious serial killers known from newspapers in California back in the late 1970s was Richard Chase, otherwise known as the “Vampire of Sacramento.” The cruelty of his murders was terribly grotesque; some of the crimes he committed probably could be among the most shocking that had ever entered the annals of American serial killers.
From early life on, Chase plunged into complete insanity. He was said to have been suffering from some great mental disease and had actually been diagnosed with schizophrenia. To some degree, Chase’s motive seemed to be that he needed to drink his victims’ blood to live, and for this reason, he went on to commit those bizarre gruesome murders. He killed a total of six people, but his manner was especially grotesque: he broke into homes, shot his victims, then drank their blood and cannibalized their remains.
What’s worse with Chase is the very manner of his approaching murders: he generally killed for no reason other than the fact that, in his crazy mind, he needed the blood to survive. His eventual crimes escalated into a killing spree that had the community of Sacramento fearful. He was arrested in 1978 and later convicted of murder, but his case is just one sobering reminder of what untreated mental illness can lead people to commit.
2. The Boston Strangler – Albert DeSalvo
The story of the Boston Strangler has long been varied and for many years has been shrouded in mystery. Although the case is quite well known, few individuals have much of an idea regarding the specifics of the theories and speculation regarding who the real killer actually was. The most popular opinion is that Albert DeSalvo, arrested in 1964 and confessing to the murders, was the real Boston Strangler. However, from then until now, such a confession had repeatedly been challenged with a number of claims by experts that he was innocent, or even a prolific false confessor.
It is believed that the Boston Strangler murdered 13 women between 1962 and 1964. Of these, all were strangled with articles of their own clothing, and most were sexually assaulted. Worst of all, the murderer gained entry into the victims’ homes to kill them without leaving any kind of evidence pointing to his identity. The case remained unsolved for many years because of the fact that the police were unable to identify the killer after having committed the murder.
The confession by DeSalvo came with much controversy, as there were many believers that he was forced to confess to the crimes. DeSalvo was mysteriously murdered while in prison in 1973; adding intrigue into the case, there can never be any type of certainty pertaining to DeSalvo’s involvement with the murders, but there is one thing for sure; he spread terror among the females of Boston.
3. The Killer Clown – John Wayne Gacy
Though more famous than some on this list, the story of Gacy himself is almost bludgeoned into submission from his serial killer peers. Gacy was an active American serial killer and sex offender in the 1970s, primarily known as the “Killer Clown.” He would lure the young men into his address to torture, sexually abuse, and kill them. Even more unimaginable was the fact that Gacy would frequently show up at local functions dressed as a clown, usually referring to himself as “Pogo the Clown.”
His victims were all young men, whom he had lured into his house in search of work or for money. In over-powering the victim, most of his victims-young men-some bound, others tortured, before later being strangled, their body would be disposed in the yard under his house, and some threw in the river nearby.
What is even more disturbing about the committed crimes by Gacy is that he was very active in his community, participated in local politics, and even was photographed in his clown costume with children. His charismatic character and seeming outward appearance of normality enabled him to continue for so many years until finally, a young man by the name of Robert Piest disappeared and brought Gacy’s crimes into the light of the law.
4. The Toy Box Killer – David Parker Ray
David Parker Ray was an American serial killer who, in a spate of brutal, heinously sadistic, sexual crimes involving physical and psychological abuse across New Mexico during the 1990s, lured the women into his house and into a soundproof trailer referred to as a “Toy Box.” It is in this “Toy Box” that he tortured the victims of his misdeeds and videotaped this torture.
It wasn’t until 1999 that the crimes of Ray finally came into light when one of his victims, Cynthia Vigil, managed to break loose from the trailer in search of help. Vigil’s getting away had pointed out the “Toy Box” where several women were kept captive and tortured. Ray was arrested and charged with numerous counts of kidnapping, torture, and murder but was convicted of only a few murders.
What really makes Ray’s crimes especially horrific is the articulation and planning that he placed into the crimes. He had an entire room dedicated to the torture of his victims with devices and tools made for a truly sadistic approach. The trailer was fitted out with restraints and other devices and Ray would drug his victims in order to make them compliant. But the case drew national attention, and with Ray’s murders not being quite documented like other serial killers, his story usually remained subliminal.
5. The I-5 Killer – Randall Woodfield
Randall Woodfield was known as the “I-5 Killer,” a serial killer who terrorized the Pacific Northwest from the late 1970s into the early 1980s. He killed at least six women, but many experts say that figure could be much higher. What was peculiarly alarming in the killings of Woodfield was that he usually chose to attack those instances when a woman might well be alone in her car, waiting at either a rest stop or filling station along the I-5 freeway.
He would approach his victims by feigning his motives either as that of a hitchhiker or as one seeking aid. He would, in the process, overpower an individual who approached him before then sexually assaulting and killing him and finally leaving him at sites that were isolated. What was creepily haunting in this particular case of Woodfield was that on-campus, ex-football star of swift athletic build and outward charm prevented investigating police authorities from suspecting him in relation to the heinous crimes.
Finally, in 1981, Woodfield was arrested, charged, and convicted of several murders, but it is said that he could have murdered others beyond those for which he was found guilty. Very few people in the present know about this serial killer. His case just goes on to prove that bad things can happen since even normal and unsuspecting individuals are capable of evil.
6. The Black Dahlia Murderer – Elizabeth Short
The “Black Dahlia” Elizabeth Short is one of those names linked with one of the most renowned unsolved murders in American criminal history. Though her murder is well-renowned, few people know of the many suspects and theories that emerged in this case. Short, in 1947, was brutally murdered-finding her body severed in half, her face grotesquely mutilated. Her body was found in a neighborhood in LA, and after an extremely long investigation, no one was ever caught.
Time has brought several names to light who are possible suspects, among them quite a number of serial killers. Until today, this case remains open and the name Short still haunts the annals of criminal history. Although some find the murderer to have been a man connected to Hollywood, others have still claimed that this could have been part of an even larger killing network within that particular area during this time. However it may have gone, the murder of Elizabeth Short certainly continues to remain one of the most gruesome unsolved mysteries in American history.
Their stories are uncomfortably reminiscent that the things we thought only a Bundy or a Dahmer was capable of actually happened before them, and more often than not. All three caused terror to the communities within which they resided and had committed such foul acts as to assign them a dimly lit placement in the pages of criminal history. The names are not so memorable, but the terror that they evoke in their victims and the mystery that always shrouds such cases is something that does fascinate and appalls people.