Dark World of Serial Killers: 20 More Dark Facts – Part 2

Serial killer John Norman Collins used to pick up young women on his motorcycle in the Ypsilanti area of Southeastern Michigan. They were then abducted, raped, beaten and murdered by him, typically by stabbing or strangulation. He then discarded their bodies here and there, but they were always washed. It turns out he only killed women who were on their period. It is theorized that this may have been a factor in the sexual violence exhibited upon the victims.

Brazilian serial killer "little Petey" murdered over 40 people in prison. He began by murdering the gang that killed his girlfriend and then stabbing his father, who was in prison for killing his mother, during a visit. He was well liked because he was considered a sort of vigilante avenger, despite killing indiscriminately within the prison. Because of Brazil's odd sentencing laws, he could only serve a maximum of 30 years and is currently a YouTuber.

Green River killer would cover his tracks by buying new car tires and destroying shoes and getting new ones after murders (to avoid leaving traceable tracks behind). He took the jewelry off his victims and left it in the ladies restroom at his workplace and got off on seeing the “found” jewelry on the various women around the office.

When Dr. Harold Shipman lost his mother, he saw how morphine eased her pain before she passed. Then he became a doctor and used morphine overdoses to kill people, especially rich old ladies, and wrote himself into their wills with forgery. He was eventually caught because it was suspicious that every single one of his patients had him in their will, and that they all died under his care - but he did “inherit” a number of estates and a lot of money before getting caught.

A Polish serial killer named Paweł Tuchlin was admitted into a psychiatric ward. He started making sculptures out of bread and was quite good at it. He fell in love with one of the doctors there and to show his affection he made a vagina out of bread (he used natural hair too) and then gave it to the doctor. She then suffered a mental breakdown.

Israel Keyes used to fly to one state and then rent a car and drive thousands of miles to kill someone. He never stalked his victims, he would pick at random and connivance. He only got caught because he kidnapped a girl and held her for ransom and started taking money out of her account. It was the first time he ever did that. If he would have just kept doing what he was doing he would have never been caught.

Dennis Rader, a Kansas serial killer, a.k.a. the BTK Killer, installed alarms as a part of his job, and many of his clients had booked the company to stop BTK from ever entering their homes, unaware that BTK himself was installing them. He was finally caught after sending a 1.44MB diskette to the police - which they told him was untraceable - containing metadata from a deleted MS Word file.

David Berkowitz (aka the Son Of Sam) killed people because he believed that he was commanded to do so by a demon that resided in the body of his neighbor’s dog, Harvey.

When a man named John List lost his job at a bank, he became so scared of losing his home and bringing shame and distress to his family that he meticulously planned the murder of his wife, mother, and kids. Weeks went by before anyone realized his family members were missing. He left their bodies in sleeping bags in the ballroom of his family’s mansion. He then cut his face out of all the family photos, moved away to start a new life and eventually found a new wife. He was caught almost two decades later when an age progression clay bust was made of his face and shown on America’s Most Wanted.

Andrei Chikatilo was a Russian serial killer who targeted children and was said to have used parts of their anatomy as chewing gum while he walked the streets. The Soviet state was adamant that serial killers were a product of western moral failings and that the crimes were not related. Many of his victims were pinned on other men including his first murder even though a great deal of evidence pointed in his direction at the time. Andrei's job was to travel between factories delivering parts which let him spread out murders in different jurisdictions which of course was hampered by a lack of communication between police services. He was at one point arrested for acting suspiciously in public and found to have knives, rope, and Vaseline in his possession but this did not lead to him being charged with any murders.