Ted Bundy

Born in November 24, 1946 he was attractive, intelligent, and well composed man. He was nice, sociable, and master of deception. At young age he was told that his grandparents were his parents and his mother was his sister. By the age of 3 he showed signs that he wasn’t well adjusted. By the age of 15 he had become a shoplifter and a murderer. Bundy was socially awkward and by time college he fabricated a new personality of a sophisticated guy. He studied law at the University of Washington where he fell in love with a girl, Stephanie Brooks, who was everything he wished he was. After a year of being together she broke up with him because to her, he was not husband material and would never amount to anything. Devastated, he went back home where he found out the truth about his family. From that moment on, he wanted to get revenge from girls that hurt him.

On January 4, 1974 he began his killing spree from Washington, Oregon, Utah, and Florida. His victims were small frame females with long hair split in the middle and usually good looking- they all resembled Brooks. To get his victims, he would pretend to be injured and drop books. A girl would come help him carry the books to his car but as soon as she got close enough, he would hit her with crowbar and take her to woods. If she survived he would rape her, kill her, and then come back to the scene of the crime and have sex with her.

Bundy killed over 30 women. On January 15, 1978 entered the back door of Chi Omega sorority house at FSU. As they slept he crept and bludgeon, raped, and killed Lisa Levi, Margaret Bowman.

He went on to assault and almost killed other roommates Karen Chandler, and Kathy Kleiner. Then he went on to assault Cheryl Thomas who was just a few blocks away from the house. When he was caught he fired his lawyers and acted as his own attorney. He died by the electric chair in Florida 1989, he was 43.

Jeffrey Dahmer



Not only was he a serial killer, but also a sex offender. Born on May 21, 1960, Jeffrey Dahmer killed 17 males. He was a white male that murdered other males from African, Asian, or Latino descent. Between the ages of 10 and 15, he started showing signs that he was socially awkward and withdrawn from people and activities. Dahmer was very curious and went around his neighborhood looking for road kill he could dissect. In his teenage years he became interested in men and at the same time his parents’ marriage started disintegrating. His father moved out and his mother, unannounced, took his younger brother and also moved out, leaving Jeffrey alone. Unsupervised he was able to act out his fantasies. In 1978 he committed his murder. He picked up a hitchhiker named Steven Hicks. Dahmer brought him back to the house and had some drinks. After a while Hicks wanted to leave but Dahmer wouldn’t let him because he didn’t want to be alone. Dahmer attacked him and knocked him out with a barbell and then strangled him. To get rid of the evidence he dismembered the body with a knife, the same way he had practiced with animals. After this, he got a new apartment. Here was when his killing frenzy began.

Dahmer usually picked up his victims at gay bar and bathhouses, drugged them, and then strangled them. He would often preserve the bodies and have sex with them after killing them. When the bodies started piling up, Dahmer bought 57 gallon barrel and filled it with an acid that would dissolved the victim’s limbs and torsos. For others he boiled the skin off their bones. He would preserve some body parts and since he could not find the perfect partner that would be completely submissive but still alive, he would eat body parts to make him feel like they were a part of him. He’s trial began on January 30, 1992 and he was sentenced to 957 years in prison for murdering over 15 men. On November 28, 1994, he was beaten to death by an inmate.

John Wayne Gacy



It is no surprise that John Wayne Gacy, Jr. was admired and liked by most who had known him. Gacy was born on March 17, 1942. He raped and killed thirty three teenage boys and buried twenty six of them in the crawlspace of his house and under his house. Most of his murders occurred between 1972 and 1978. He was also known as “Pogo the Clown.” He was a businessman by day and would even dress up as a clown and volunteer at children’s hospital. The people that knew him thought that the Pope was more able to commit a crime before Gacy would. What was the scariest aspect of Gacy was that he was able to function in normal society, something most of the other serial killers lacked. In 1968, he was charged with sodomy and was to spend 10 years in the state penitentiary. He was social and became involved in many activities in the prison. He served only sixteen months of his sentence before he was released on good behavior. He could not control his attraction to teenage boys and on January 2^nd, 1972 he raped and killed his first victim, Tim McCoy. While maintaining his double life, John Wayne Gacy was able to kill 19 young men by 1977. He continued to kill about every two weeks. Investigators eventually found one of the bodies Gacy put in the crawlspace and on December 21, 1978 he was arrested for murder. He was such a complex being that many psychologists could not figure out how his mind worked. Forensic psychologist, Helen Morrison, even examined his brain thinking there would be some sort of abnormality and found nothing. On May 10, 1994, John Wayne Gacy was put to death by lethal injection.

Aileen Wuornos



Theft, prostitution, and the murder of seven men in the state of Florida, are a few things that come to mind when mentioning Aileen Wuornos. Aileen Wuornos, a female serial killer, was born on February 29, 1956. She had a very problematic childhood. Her father avoided going to prison for petty crimes by enlisting in the army. Her mother took the chance and fled and left Aileen and her brother Keith with her parents. Aileen’s father was later found guilty of raping a seven year old girl and he hung himself in his prison cell. By the age of ten, Aileen started experimenting sexually with her brother. By the age of 11, she was having sex with boys in exchange for loose change or cigarettes. At 15 she left her grandparents house and lived on the road. She did what she knew best and became a prostitute. Wuornos was arrested for the armed robbery of a mini mart and spent three years in jail. When she was twenty eight, she turned to women for acceptance, a turn that would just get her involved in more problems. Her first victim was Richard Mallory, a 51 year old electronic store owner. He picked her up of off I-95, they parked the car, drank and talked all night. Then she pulled out her gun and shot him four times to the chest and back. Wuornos then took all of his cash, threw his body out, took his car, and dumped it somewhere else. She basically would make money from killing men. The fact that she was a female, and dumped the body and car at different locations made it hard for police to figure out it was her. Between 1989 and 1990 Wuornos killed seven men among the highways of central Florida. Wuornos was executed by lethal injection on October 9, 2002.

Ed Gein

The words “based on a true story” can add a lot more horror and make films more relevant. Scary movies tend to bring our most horrible nightmares to life. But Ed Gein brought the demon to life and made them a reality. Because he only killed less than three people, he does not entirely fit the definition of a serial killer, but movies like Psycho, Silence of the Lambs, and Texas Chainsaw Massacre, all about serial killers influenced by him, bring out different aspects of Gein. Born on August 27, 1906, Ed Gein was not only a murderer but also a body snatcher. His victims were both alive and dead. On November 16, 1957, Gein was arrested for the murder of Bernice Worden. When police investigated his house, not only did they find Worden’s decapitated body, but also human remains. Bowls were made from human skulls, lap shade and chairs made form human skin, face masks that were hung around the walls like decorations and the head of a past victim, Mary Hogan, who had gone missing three years before. He had gathered all these items from different cemeteries. Augusta Gein, was more than Ed Gein’s mother, she was also his best friend. He worshiped every move that his mother made, even though she had stripped him of his manhood. When she died, his world was devastated and that was when he began raiding tombs. He would also find himself having intercourse with dead corpses. On July 26, 1984, Gein died of respiratory and heart failure at the Mendota Mental Health Institute.

Charles Manson



As one of the most popular killers, Charles Manson was born on November 12, 1934. He is known as the leader of the Manson Family. He had a very troubling childhood, with his mother in jail and no father. He was not able to be placed in a foster home so the court placed him in a school for boys. He kept getting in trouble, running away, and transferred to different schools for boys. By the age of 13, he stole cars, broke into stores, and committed armed robbery. He committed so many small crimes he basically spent most of his life in jail, a place that would become his home. When he finally got out, he was able to read and figure out people very accurately. He even said, “And when I got out, all your children would come to me because they never had anyone tell them the truth.”  His followers were hippies; most of them lost and confused females. Manson would also use the girls to attract male followers. His beliefs became their beliefs. He kept his followers entertained by moving from town to town in California. Manson wanted complete control of the followers, whether it was emotionally, physically, or psychologically. The main way he kept control was through drugs, LSD specifically. On August 8, 1969, Charles Manson ordered some of his followers to go to a house and do what ever Tex Watson, one of the followers, wanted them to do. They went into the house of actress Sharon Tate, murdered her and four other people that were at her house. They were either shot or stabbed, or both. The next night, they went in the house of a grocery executive and slaughtered him and his wife. Charles Manson had provoked his followers to commit the crimes. One of the followers felt guilty and tipped off the police. On December 1969, Charles Manson and the four other followers were arrested and charged with murder. They were first sentenced to death but the State of California temporarily eliminated the death penalty and they were automatically sentenced to life imprisonment.