Serial Killers of America – Legends of America

Serial Killers of America – Legends of America

Okay, let’s dive into a topic that’s both fascinating and disturbing: serial killers in America. Now, I know it’s not exactly sunshine and rainbows, but these cases have a way of capturing our attention, making us wonder what goes on inside the minds of these individuals.

What Makes a Serial Killer?

So, what exactly defines a serial killer? Well, generally speaking, it’s someone who has killed three or more people, with the murders happening over more than a month. There’s usually a "cooling-off" period between the crimes. The FBI defines serial murder as “a series of two or more murders, committed as separate events, usually, but not always, by one offender acting alone.”

Let’s take a look at some of the more infamous (and lesser-known) names in the history of American true crime:

A Glimpse into the Darkness

• Edward J. Adams (Prohibition Era): This guy was a real menace back in the Roaring Twenties. During Prohibition, Adams was a notorious outlaw in the Midwest. Over 14 months, he racked up a body count of seven, including three cops, and injured a dozen others. After escaping prison twice, he finally met his end in a shootout with the police in Wichita, Kansas. Talk about a wild ride!

• Amy Archer-Gilligan (Early 1900s): Ever heard of "Sister Theresa"? That was Amy Archer-Gilligan, a nursing home owner in Connecticut. She offed at least five people by poisoning them, including her own husband and some of her residents. They say she may have been involved in many more deaths during her time. She was eventually locked up in an insane asylum, where she stayed until she died in 1962.

• Babysitter Killer (Detroit, 1970s): This one’s super creepy because the killer was never caught. Between 1976 and 1977, four children were abducted and murdered in Detroit. Some were sexually assaulted. The sick part? The killer would clean the kids’ clothes and arrange their bodies in a display downtown for the police to find.

• The Beltway Snipers (2002): Remember the fall of 2002? The D.C. area was gripped by fear because of a series of coordinated shootings. Over three weeks, more than a dozen people were shot by an unknown sniper. The massive manhunt eventually led to the arrest of Lee Boyd Malvo and John Muhammad. Muhammad was executed in 2009, and Malvo, who was only 17 at the time, got life in prison.

• Cullen Montgomery Baker (1839-1868): Baker was a ruthless killer who roamed the American Frontier. After the Civil War, he refused to give up the fight and terrorized Texas and Arkansas, ambushing reconstructionists and killing former slaves.

• The Bloody Benders (1870s): This family of spiritualists settled in Kansas in 1870. They killed at least a dozen travelers who stayed at their inn. The family’s fate remains a mystery.

• Robert Berdella (1980s): Known as "The Kansas City Butcher" and "The Collector," Berdella kidnapped, raped, tortured, and murdered six young men in Kansas City, Missouri. He pleaded guilty and died of a heart attack in prison in 1992.

• David Berkowitz (1970s): "Son of Sam," the ".44 Caliber Killer," terrorized New York City in the late 1970s, shooting eight strangers and killing six. He was sentenced to life in prison.

• Jake Bird (1930s-1940s): Bird was executed in Washington for the 1947 murders of two women. He was also known to have murdered at least 11 other people across several states between 1930 and 1947. Before his execution, he implicated himself in up to 46 murders.

• Bonnie & Clyde (1930s): These two traveled the central United States with the Barrow Gang during the Great Depression, robbing people and killing when cornered.

• Gary Ray Bowles (1994): Known as "The I-95 Killer," Bowles killed six men in Florida, Maryland, and Georgia. He posed as a prostitute and lured his victims, then beat and strangled them. He was executed by lethal injection in 2019.

• Rufus Buck (18?? -1896): Buck was a Creek Indian who formed the Buck Gang and went on a ten-day murder and robbery spree in Indian Territory. All five members were hanged at Fort Smith on July 1, 1896.

• Judy Buenoano (1970s-1980s): This woman murdered her husband, boyfriend, and son, and attempted to kill another boyfriend. She was executed in the electric chair in 1998.

• Ted Bundy (1970s): Bundy confessed to 30 murders committed in seven states between 1974 and 1978. He was executed in the electric chair in 1989.

• The Chicago Rippers (1980s): This satanic gang of serial killers, cannibals, rapists, and necrophiles was suspected in the disappearances of 17 women in Illinois. All four were convicted and sent to prison. Andrew Kokoraleis was executed by lethal injection in March 1999.

• Alfred Leonard Cline (1930s-1940s): Known as "The Buttermilk Bluebeard," Cline married wealthy women, convinced them to will their possessions to him, and then poisoned them with buttermilk and sedatives. He was jailed for forgery and sentenced to 126 years in Folsom Prison, California.

• Carroll Cole (1940s-1980s): Cole strangled 15 women and one boy in California, Nevada, and Texas. He was executed by lethal injection in 1985.

• Ray and Faye Copeland (1980s): This couple murdered at least five drifters after hiring them as farmhands. They were the oldest couple to be sentenced to death, but both died of natural causes.

• Juan Corona (1971): Corona killed at least 25 men who worked as migrant farm workers in California and buried the bodies on fruit ranches in Sutter County. He was given 25 consecutive life sentences in 1973 and died of natural causes in 2019.

• Dean Corll (1970s): Known as the "Candy Man," Corll abducted, raped, tortured, and murdered at least 28 boys in Houston and Pasadena, Texas. He was killed by one of his teenage accomplices.

• Jeffrey Dahmer (1970s-1990s): Dahmer killed 17 young men and was known as the "Milwaukee Cannibal" because he ate some of his victims. He was beaten to death by a fellow inmate in 1994.

• Joseph James DeAngelo (1970s-1980s): Known as "The Golden State Killer," "The Visalia Ransacker," "The East Area Rapist," and "The Original Night Stalker," he murdered three people in Sacramento and ten people in Southern California. He was sentenced to 12 consecutive life sentences without the possibility of parole plus eight years.

• Dillinger Gang (1930s): Led by John Dillinger, this gang spread terror across the Midwest, killing as many as 16 people and robbing as many as 20 banks.

• Thomas Dillon (1980s-1990s): Dillon shot and killed at least five men outdoors in Ohio for seemingly no motive. He was sentenced to life in prison and died in 2011 due to illness.

• Ronald Dominique (1990s-2000s): Dominique confessed to the rape and murder of at least 23 men in Louisiana. In 2008, he was sentenced to life in prison.

• Nannie Doss (1920s-1950s): Known as "The Giggling Granny" and "The Jolly Black Widow," Doss was a serial poisoner who killed four husbands, two children, her two sisters, her mother, a grandson, and a mother-in-law. She pleaded guilty and was sentenced to life imprisonment.

• Felipe Espinosa (1863): A Mexican-American murderer who killed an estimated 32 people in the Colorado Territory. He was killed in a gunfight by Tom Tobin.

• Raymond Fernandez (1940s): Along with accomplice Martha Beck, the couple became known as "The Lonely Hearts Killers" because they met their victims through personal ads. They were executed in 1951.

• Albert Fish (1920s-1930s): Known as "The Werewolf of Wysteria," Fish was a serial killer, rapist, child molester, and cannibal who committed at least three child murders in New York. He was executed in 1936.

• Lavinia Fisher (1819): Married to John Fisher, the pair were active members of a large gang of highwaymen who operated out of two houses in the backcountry near Charleston, South Carolina. The couple were soon arrested, convicted, and sentenced to hang.

• John Wayne Gacy (1970s): Gacy killed and sexually assaulted at least 33 young males in Chicago, Illinois. He was executed in 1994.

• Gerald and Charlene Gallego (1970s-1980s): This pair were serial killers and rapists who were active mainly in Sacramento, California. In their sadomasochistic relationship, they murdered at least 11 victims, mostly teenagers, often kept as sex slaves before killing them.

• Kristen Gilbert (1990s): Gilbert is a former nurse convicted of four murders, and two attempted murders of patients admitted to the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Northampton, Massachusetts.

• John Gotti (Convicted 1991): New York mob boss John Gotti had been so successful at avoiding criminal prosecution and conviction that he earned the nickname the Teflon Don. But after investigators managed to convince one of his confidants and fellow mafioso, Sammy “The Bull” Gravano, to turn against him, the FBI in 1991 convicted Gotti of five murders and several other charges.

• Billy Gohl (1900s): In the first decade of the 20th Century, as many as 100 corpses were found in and around Aberdeen, Washington. William “Billy” Gohl, who became known as the Ghoul of Grays Harbor, was blamed for these mysterious deaths.

• Belle Gunness (1880s-1900s): Known as "Hell’s Belle," Gunness was America’s most degenerate female serial killer in history, who likely killed both her husbands and all of her children.

• Anna Marie Hahn (1930s): Hahn poisoned five elderly men in Cincinnati, Ohio, to steal from them to support her gambling habit. She was sentenced to death in 1937 and executed in 1938.

• Robert Hansen (1970s-1980s): Known as "The Butcher Baker," Hansen abducted, raped, and murdered at least 17 women in and around Anchorage, Alaska.

• The Vicious Harpes (1790s-1800s): Micajah “Big” Harpe and Wiley “Little” Harpe were murderers, highwaymen, and river pirates who operated in Tennessee, Kentucky, Illinois, and Mississippi.

• Donald Harvey (1970s-1980s): Known as "The Angel of Death," Harvey was a hospital orderly who murdered patients in Ohio and Kentucky.

• Linda Hazzard (1900s): Known as the “Starvation Doctor,” Hazzard was a quack doctor and swindler who promoted fasting, pummeling, and hours-long enemas as treatments at a sanitarium she operated near Seattle, Washington.

• Levi Boone Helm (1850s-1860s): A mountain man, gunfighter, and serial killer, Helm was known as the Kentucky Cannibal.

• H.H. Holmes (1890s): Holmes was a prolific serial killer who was said to have killed as many as 200 people. He was tried and convicted of only one murder and was executed in 1896.

• Waneta Hoyt (1960s-1970s): Hoyt murdered all five of her biological children but passed off their deaths as Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) cases in New York.

• Jennings Eight of Louisiana (2000s): These were eight women whose bodies were found in swamps and canals around Jennings, Louisiana, between 2005 and 2009.

• Patrick Kearney (1970s): Known as the "Trash Bag Killer" and "The Freeway Killer," Kearney killed at least 21 young men and teenagers in southern California during the 1970s.

• Genene Jones (1970s-1980s): A pediatric nurse murdered as many as 60 babies and young children under her care by injecting them with lethal doses of digoxin, heparin, and succinylcholine to induce medical crises in her patients.

• Theodore John Kaczynski (1970s-1990s): Known as the Unabomber, he was a mathematician, serial killer, and domestic terrorist.

• The Kelly Family (1887): Family members William and wife Kate, son Bill, and daughter Kit conspire to kill travelers who stop in at their roadside Kansas ranch.

• Charles Kennedy (1860s-1870s): Kennedy was a mountain man who ran a traveler’s rest with his wife Rosa near Eagle Nest, New Mexico.

• Paul John Knowles (1974): Also known as The Casanova Killer, Knowles was tied to the deaths of 18 people in 1974, though he claimed to have murdered 35.

• Randy Steven Kraft (1970s-1980s): A serial killer and rapist known as the Scorecard Killer, the Southern California Strangler, and the Freeway Killer, he committed the rape, torture, and murder of a minimum of 16 young men in California, Oregon, and Michigan.

• Delphine LaLaurie (1834): Nobody knew the extent of the horrors that Delphine LaLaurie inflicted upon her slaves until 1834, when her home in New Orleans, Louisiana home caught fire.

• Henry Lee Lucas (1960-1983): Lucas was convicted of 11 murders and confessed to approximately 3,000 murders, though most confessions were considered outlandish.

• Leonard Thomas Lake (1980s): Leonard Hill and his accomplice, British Hong Kong-born Charles Ng, raped, tortured, and murdered an estimated 11 to 25 victims at a remote cabin near Wilseyville, California.

• Samuel Little (1970s-2000s): Known as "The Choke-and-Stroke Killer," Little was a transient who allegedly killed 93 women in 14 states.

• Mad Butcher of Kingsbury Run, Ohio (1930s): Also called the Cleveland Torso Murderer, this madman was one of the most notorious serial killers in American history.

• Samuel “Wolfman” Mason Takes on the Natchez Trace (1790s-1800s): Mason was a river pirate associated with the Harpe brothers and other outlaws.

• Manson Family Murders (1960s-1970s): Cult leader Charles Manson instructed his followers to commit a series of gruesome murders that killed seven people over two days, including pregnant actress Sharon Tate.

• Kenneth Allen McDuff (1960s-1990s): McDuff was a serial killer convicted in 1966 of abducting and murdering 16-year-old Edna Sullivan, her boyfriend, 17-year-old Robert Brand, and Brand’s cousin, 15-year-old Mark Dunnam, in Texas.

• James Miller (1860s-1900s): Miller was one of the worst of the many violent men of the Old West.

• Niagara, North Dakota Killer (1913): In 1913, six men’s bodies were found in the crawlspace of a house in Niagara, North Dakota.

• Carl Panzram (1920s): In 1920, Panzram committed his first murders.

• Thomas W. Piper (1870s): Known as the “Belfry Butcher,” parishioners are stunned when Piper, a well-respected sexton at Warren Avenue Baptist Church in Boston, Massachusetts, confesses to raping and beating to death four victims after a body of a little girl was found in the belfry of the church.

• David Parker Ray (1950s-1990s): Also known as the Toy-Box Killer, Ray was a kidnapper, torturer, serial rapist, and suspected serial killer.

• Sarah Jane Robinson (1880s): Nicknamed the “Boston Borgia” or the “Poison Fiend,” Robinson poisoned 11 people to collect insurance money, including her husband, children, and various other friends and family members.

• Lydia Sherman (1860s-1870s): Called the “Derby Poisoner,” Sherman poisons three husbands and eight children in Derby, Connecticut.

• Erno Soto (1970s): Soto was the only person ever suspected of being a serial killer nicknamed Charlie Chop-off, who killed at least four Black male children after mutilating them in New York City.

• Speed Freak Killers (1980s-1990s): Comprised of serial killer duo Loren Herzog and Wesley Shermantine, they were suspected in the deaths of as many as 72 people in and around San Joaquin County, California.

• Jane Toppan (1890s-1900s): Nicknamed Jolly Jane, Toppan was a nurse known to have committed 12 murders by poison in Massachusetts and confessed to 31 murders.

• Tool Box Killers (1979): Lawrence Bittaker and Roy Norris were two American serial killers and rapists who committed the kidnapping, rape, torture, and murder of five teenage girls in southern California over five months in 1979.

• Minnie Wallace Walkup (1880s-1900s): This young beauty charmed three older men and then poisoned them with arsenic to collect their money after their deaths.

• West Mesa Murders of New Mexico (2000s): In 2009, the bodies of 11 women and a fetus were found in the desert in the West Mesa of Albuquerque, New Mexico.

• Aileen Wuornos (1980s-1990s): The bodies of several men were found murdered along the highways of northern and central Florida.

• The Elusive Zodiac Killer (1960s): In the late 1960s, the Zodiac Killer killed five people, severely injured two others in Northern California, and taunted newspapers with coded messages.

The Enduring Fascination

I know this is a heavy topic, but it’s one that continues to intrigue us. What drives someone to commit such horrific acts? Is it nature, nurture, or some twisted combination of both? It’s a question that we may never fully answer.

More to Explore

If you’re interested in learning more about this dark side of American history, here are a few related topics you might want to check out:

• American History
• Mysteries in American History
• True Crime in America
• Who’s Who in American History

Let me know if you want me to delve deeper into any of these cases!