127 Fun Facts About Serial Killer

Jack the Ripper's murders took place in 1888 in which district of London?

The 1888 murders happened in Whitechapel, in London's East End; the killer was never identified, and the name comes from the 'Dear Boss' letter sent to the press.

The Ripper victims generally accepted as linked are known collectively by what name?

The canonical five are Mary Ann Nichols, Annie Chapman, Elizabeth Stride, Catherine Eddowes and Mary Jane Kelly, killed between 31 August and 9 November 1888.

The 'From Hell' letter sent to George Lusk of the local vigilance committee arrived with what enclosed?

The box held half a human kidney; the writer claimed to have fried and eaten the other half, supposedly taken from Catherine Eddowes, whose left kidney was missing.

Which FBI agent is usually credited with coining the English term 'serial killer' in the 1970s?

Robert Ressler of the FBI's Behavioral Science Unit popularised 'serial killer' in the mid-1970s, using 'serial homicide' in lectures from 1974; a German equivalent had existed since 1930.

What term describes the interval between a serial killer's separate murders?

A cooling-off period, a gap of weeks, months or years between killings, is what most definitions use to separate serial murder from spree and mass murder.

H. H. Holmes committed his most notorious crimes in Chicago around which 1893 event?

Holmes, born Herman Webster Mudgett, ran his Chicago hotel during the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition; the 'Murder Castle' legend has grown well beyond what records support.

Ted Bundy was executed in Florida in January 1989 by what method?

Bundy died in Florida's electric chair on 24 January 1989 after three death sentences in two trials for the Florida murders, following two escapes from custody in Colorado.

Witnesses at several Bundy crime scenes described a man in a sling or cast driving what kind of car?

The 'Ted' at Lake Sammamish in July 1974 drove a tan Volkswagen Beetle and asked women to help load a sailboat; that composite broke the case open.

In January 1978 Bundy attacked students at the Chi Omega sorority house on which campus?

The Chi Omega house was at Florida State University in Tallahassee; Bundy had arrived by bus about a week before the 15 January 1978 attack, after his second escape.

Jeffrey Dahmer, the 'Milwaukee Cannibal', was arrested in 1991 after what happened?

He was beaten to death by a fellow inmate at a Wisconsin prison in November 1994.

John Wayne Gacy earned his 'Killer Clown' nickname because of what?

He performed as Pogo at parties and other public events before his crimes were discovered; 26 of his 33 victims were buried in the crawl space of his home outside Chicago.

Gacy's December 1978 arrest followed the disappearance of which Des Plaines teenager?

Fifteen-year-old Robert Piest vanished from a Des Plaines pharmacy on 11 December 1978 after Gacy offered him a job; the search for him took police to Gacy's house.

The Zodiac Killer's crimes took place in and around which city?

San Francisco and its Bay Area were the Zodiac's hunting ground: he attacked three couples and a cab driver, and two of his seven victims survived.

Which Zodiac cipher did amateur codebreakers finally solve in December 2020?

The 340-character cipher, mailed in November 1969, was solved in December 2020 by David Oranchak, Sam Blake and Jarl Van Eycke; the 408 had been cracked in 1969.

The 2007 film Zodiac is based on books by which cartoonist-turned-author?

Robert Graysmith, a San Francisco Chronicle cartoonist, wrote Zodiac (1986) and Zodiac Unmasked; Jake Gyllenhaal plays him, with Mark Ruffalo as detective Toschi and Robert Downey Jr. as reporter Avery.

David Berkowitz, the 'Son of Sam', was finally traced in 1977 thanks to what?

A parking ticket written on Berkowitz's Ford Galaxie near the final Brooklyn shooting led police to Yonkers; he claimed a demon spoke through a neighbour's dog, later admitting it was a hoax.

Which kind of gun earned David Berkowitz the nickname '.44 Caliber Killer'?

Berkowitz fired a Charter Arms Bulldog revolver chambered in .44 Special; his taunting letters to police and the press set off possibly the biggest manhunt in New York's history.

The Wichita killer BTK gave himself a name that stood for what?

BTK stood for 'Bind, torture, kill', Dennis Rader's own label for his method; he murdered ten people in Wichita between 1974 and 1991 and was president of his church council when arrested.

What finally identified BTK in 2005?

He had asked police whether a disk could be traced; a deleted Word document on it was marked as last modified by 'Dennis' at Christ Lutheran Church.

The Golden State Killer, arrested in 2018, had once worked in what profession?

Joseph James DeAngelo had been a police officer in Exeter and Auburn, California, until 1979; forensic genetic genealogy identified him in 2018 as the East Area Rapist and Original Night Stalker.

Which crime writer coined the name 'Golden State Killer' in the 2010s and wrote the book I'll Be Gone in the Dark?

Michelle McNamara's title came from a threat the attacker made to a victim; she died in 2016, two years before the arrest.

Gary Ridgway, the Green River Killer, was arrested in 2001 as he left work at a plant that made what?

Ridgway was arrested on 30 November 2001 leaving the Kenworth plant in Renton, Washington, where he painted trucks; he pleaded guilty to 48 murders in 2003, and a 49th in 2011, to avoid execution.

Which actress won the Best Actress Oscar for playing Aileen Wuornos, executed in Florida in 2002, in the film Monster?

Charlize Theron took the Academy Award for Best Actress as Wuornos, who had shot seven of her clients along Florida highways; Christina Ricci played her lover.

Harold Shipman, thought to have killed around 250 people, worked as what?

Shipman was a family doctor, a GP in Hyde near Manchester; convicted of 15 murders in 2000, he hanged himself in Wakefield prison in January 2004, the day before his 58th birthday.

Peter Sutcliffe, the 'Yorkshire Ripper', was finally arrested in Sheffield in 1981 for what offence?

The investigation had been derailed by hoax letters and a tape from a man later nicknamed 'Wearside Jack'.

Andrei Chikatilo, the 'Butcher of Rostov', was executed in 1994 in which country?

Chikatilo was shot in Novocherkassk, Russia, on 14 February 1994; the Ukrainian-born killer had murdered at least 52 people across the Soviet Union, and his hunt inspired the film Citizen X.

In which country did Luis Garavito, nicknamed 'La Bestia', commit his crimes?

Garavito, 'La Bestia', killed boys across Colombia through the 1990s; arrested in April 1999 after a victim escaped, he confessed that October to well over 100 murders.

Countess Elizabeth Báthory, the 'Blood Countess', was walled up in a castle in which kingdom?

Čachtice Castle, where Báthory was confined until her death in 1614, lay in the Kingdom of Hungary (now Slovakia); the blood-bathing tale was first written down in 1729, over a century later.

Belle Gunness lured most of her victims to her Indiana farm using what?

Gunness placed personal advertisements in Norwegian-language newspapers seeking well-off suitors, then killed them at her La Porte farm; she apparently died in a farmhouse fire in 1908, but her fate was never confirmed.

Ed Gein inspired Norman Bates in Psycho and which Silence of the Lambs character?

Buffalo Bill's suit of women's skin echoes Gein's crimes, discovered at his Plainfield, Wisconsin farm in 1957; Leatherface from The Texas Chain Saw Massacre also drew on him.

Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho was adapted from a 1959 novel by which author?

Robert Bloch's novel appeared just two years after the Gein case broke in Wisconsin; Joseph Stefano wrote the screenplay.

Who played Hannibal Lecter in The Silence of the Lambs, the third film to sweep the 'Big Five' Oscars?

Anthony Hopkins won Best Actor as Lecter; The Silence of the Lambs also took Best Picture, Director, Actress and Adapted Screenplay at the 1992 Oscars, matching the sweeps of 1934 and 1975.

The Netflix series Mindhunter is based on a 1995 book by which FBI profiler?

John E. Douglas wrote Mindhunter: Inside the FBI's Elite Serial Crime Unit (1995) with Mark Olshaker; the series dramatises his late-1970s prison interviews with Kemper, Berkowitz and others.

How many imprisoned serial killers did Ressler and Douglas interview from 1976 to 1979?

The 36 prison interviews with convicted sexual murderers, including Edmund Kemper, became the basis of FBI criminal profiling and, later, the book and series Mindhunter.

Edmund Kemper, the 'Co-ed Killer' featured in Mindhunter, committed his crimes around which California county?

Kemper picked up student hitchhikers around Santa Cruz in 1972–73; he had murdered his grandparents at 15 and, after killing his mother in April 1973, phoned police to turn himself in.

Herbert Mullin, a California killer of the early 1970s, claimed his 13 murders prevented what?

Mullin believed his 13 killings in Santa Cruz County were sacrifices that prevented earthquakes; he was found legally sane and convicted in 1973, the same year as Kemper.

How many murders did Samuel Little, the FBI's most prolific US serial killer, confess to?

Little confessed to 93 murders committed between 1970 and 2005 before his death in December 2020; the FBI verified 60 and released his colour portraits of victims, drawn from memory, to identify the rest.

Richard Ramirez, the 'Night Stalker' who terrorised Los Angeles in 1984-85, died in 2013 of what?

Ramirez died of complications from B-cell lymphoma, a blood cancer, at a Marin County hospital on 7 June 2013, having sat on San Quentin's death row since his 1989 sentence.

Albert Fish, executed at Sing Sing in 1936, was tried for the murder of which child?

Fish was tried for killing ten-year-old Grace Budd, whom he took from her family's Manhattan home in June 1928; an anonymous letter he sent her mother in 1934 led to his arrest.

Dennis Nilsen, who killed at least twelve men in North London, was known by which nickname?

Nilsen was dubbed the Muswell Hill Murderer after his arrest in February 1983, when human remains blocked the drains of his flat at 23 Cranley Gardens, Muswell Hill.

Ian Brady and Myra Hindley buried their victims on which stretch of Pennine upland near Manchester?

Saddleworth Moor, above Oldham, was where Brady and Hindley buried their victims; three of the five children were found there, but Keith Bennett's body was never located in the 1965 or 1987 searches.

Robert Pickton, convicted of six murders in 2007, ran what kind of business in British Columbia?

Pickton ran a pig farm in Port Coquitlam, where victims' remains were found; convicted of six second-degree murders in December 2007, his case forced Canada to confront the crisis of missing and murdered Indigenous women.

What linked Albert DeSalvo to the final Boston Strangler victim in 2013?

DNA evidence settled it: DNA from DeSalvo's nephew and then from his exhumed body matched semen from the 1964 Mary Sullivan scene; many investigators had long believed the 13 murders were the work of more than one man.

Dexter Morgan, the vigilante serial killer played by Michael C. Hall, holds what day job with Miami Metro police?

Blood spatter analyst is Dexter's day job, a forensic technician specialising in bloodstain patterns; the show ran on Showtime from 2006 to 2013, adapted from Jeff Lindsay's Darkly Dreaming Dexter.

Locusta, sometimes called history's first documented serial killer, made poisons for which Roman emperor?

She was implicated in the deaths of Claudius and Britannicus and was executed by Nero's successor Galba.

Which German criminologist coined the term Serienmörder in 1930, describing Peter Kürten?

The German concept predates Robert Ressler's English 'serial homicide' by more than four decades.

Ann Rule credited the term 'serial killer' to which LAPD detective, later ViCAP's founder?

In Kiss Me, Kill Me (2004) Rule argued that LAPD detective Pierce Brooks, who later created the FBI's ViCAP programme, deserved the credit for coining 'serial killer'.

Which period is often called the 'golden age of serial murder' in the United States?

The 1970 to 2000 span, which produced Bundy, Gacy, Dahmer and the Green River Killer, is what Peter Vronsky and others call the golden age of serial murder.

Which Cleveland killer was convicted in 2011 of murdering eleven women found at his home?

Anthony Sowell's victims were found in and around his Imperial Avenue house in October 2009; he was convicted of eleven murders in July 2011 and sentenced to death.

Which Virginia university built the Serial Killer Database later shared with Florida Gulf Coast University?

Radford University psychologist Mike Aamodt began the database, later the Radford/FGCU Serial Killer Database, which codes each killer across more than a hundred variables.

Which three childhood behaviours make up the Macdonald triad?

J. M. Macdonald proposed in 1963 that animal cruelty, fire-setting and bedwetting in childhood predicted later violence; later research failed to validate the triad.

In what year did the FBI create ViCAP, its database for linking violent crimes?

Founder Pierce Brooks was inspired by the Harvey Glatman case he had worked as a detective.

In which year did the FBI establish its Behavioral Science Unit at Quantico?

The Behavioral Science Unit opened at the new FBI Academy in Quantico in 1972 under chief Jack Kirsch; Howard Teten and Patrick Mullany taught its early profiling courses there.

Fred and Rose West's home at 25 Cromwell Street became known by what nickname?

The press dubbed 25 Cromwell Street, Gloucester, the House of Horrors after nine bodies were dug from its cellar and garden in 1994; the council demolished it in 1996.

John Christie strangled at least eight people at which infamous London address?

Christie lived at 10 Rillington Place, Notting Hill, from 1938 to 1953; three bodies were found in a wallpaper-covered kitchen alcove there after he moved out, with others in the garden and under the floor.

Which innocent lodger was hanged in 1950 for a murder now attributed to Christie?

Christie was a key prosecution witness at Evans's trial before his own crimes were exposed.

Which actor played John Christie in the 1971 film named after his address?

Attenborough said he disliked the part but accepted it at once without seeing the script.

Colombian killer Pedro López, who murdered at least 110 people, was nicknamed what?

Pedro López was called the Monster of the Andes; convicted in Ecuador in 1980 of 110 murders, he claimed over 300 victims across Colombia, Ecuador and Peru and vanished after his release in Colombia in 1998.

Charles Sobhraj preyed on Western tourists on which 1970s travel route?

Sobhraj stalked the 1970s hippie trail through Thailand, Nepal and India; nicknamed the Bikini Killer, he was convicted in Nepal in 2004 of a 1975 murder and released in December 2022 because of his age.

From which Indian prison did Sobhraj escape in 1986 after drugging the guards?

Sobhraj threw a party for the guards at Delhi's Tihar Jail in March 1986, drugged them and walked out; recaptured in Goa within weeks, he gained extra years that let a Thai warrant lapse.

Israel Keyes was arrested in 2012 over the killing of a woman in which state?

Keyes abducted barista Samantha Koenig from an Anchorage, Alaska coffee stand in February 2012; the FBI later suspected him of eleven killings, and he died by suicide in custody that December.

What did Israel Keyes bury in multiple locations for use in future crimes?

Keyes buried caches of supplies and weapons, including guns, cash and tools, years ahead of planned crimes; agents recovered two, one near Eagle River, Alaska, and one in upstate New York.

Rodney Alcala earned his nickname by appearing on which TV show in 1978, mid-spree?

Alcala won a date on The Dating Game in September 1978 as 'Bachelor Number One', between murders; he was eventually convicted of seven killings in California and New York and suspected of many more.

Roughly how many photographs of women, girls and boys did Rodney Alcala compile?

More than 1,000 photographs of women, girls and boys were found in Alcala's Seattle storage locker; in 2016 he was charged with murdering a Wyoming woman identified in one of them.

Why was Dean Corll nicknamed 'the Pied Piper' by locals in Houston Heights?

He gave free candy to local children; his crimes became known as the Houston Mass Murders.

Wayne Williams, convicted of killing two adult men, is believed responsible for most of which series of 1979-81 killings?

The Atlanta Child Murders took some 28 young victims between 1979 and 1981; after Williams's 1982 conviction for two adult killings, police attributed most of the children's cases to him without trial.

Police first suspected Wayne Williams after a splash from a bridge over which river?

A police stakeout heard a splash under the James Jackson Parkway bridge over the Chattahoochee on 22 May 1981 and stopped Williams's car; fibres from his home, car and dog were later matched to victims.

A 1993 Seinfeld episode gave Elaine a boyfriend named after which Long Island killer?

Rifkin confessed to 17 murders and received 203 years in prison.

Charles Cullen's crimes were dramatised in which 2022 Netflix film?

The Good Nurse (2022) stars Eddie Redmayne as Cullen and Jessica Chastain as the colleague who helped catch him; researchers have suggested he may have killed as many as 400 patients over 16 years.

Charles Cullen killed patients while working as a nurse in which two US states?

Cullen worked at hospitals in New Jersey and Pennsylvania between 1987 and 2003, including Somerset Medical Center; he confessed to as many as 40 murders and pleaded guilty to 29.

Nurse Beverley Allitt attacked children on a ward in which Lincolnshire town in 1991?

She received 13 life sentences and is held at Rampton Secure Hospital.

Peter Kürten, the 'Vampire of Düsseldorf', was executed in 1931 by what method?

Kürten was guillotined at Klingelpütz prison in Cologne on 2 July 1931; Fritz Lang's M, with Peter Lorre as a child killer, had premiered in Berlin that May.

Fritz Haarmann, the 'Butcher of Hanover', killed at least how many young men and boys?

Haarmann was convicted of 24 murders in December 1924 after confessing to many more, and guillotined in Hanover in April 1925; biting through victims' throats earned him the Wolf Man nickname.

Under what alias did Dr Marcel Petiot run a fake escape network in occupied Paris?

As 'Dr Eugène', Petiot ran a network called Fly-Tox that promised Jews and others passage to South America, then poisoned them and stole their valuables; he was guillotined in May 1946.

Marcel Petiot was convicted of how many counts of murder before his 1946 execution?

Petiot was convicted of 26 of the 27 murders charged and guillotined on 25 May 1946; he had claimed his 63 victims were Germans and collaborators killed for the Resistance.

Which Charlie Chaplin film was inspired by the case of French 'Bluebeard' Henri Landru?

Monsieur Verdoux (1947), built on an idea Orson Welles brought Chaplin, turned Landru into a dapper bigamist; Landru had met lonely war widows through newspaper ads and burned their bodies in his stove.

Police traced Henri Landru's correspondence with how many women?

Landru's notebook listed 283 women with whom he had corresponded; eleven of them, ten women and one woman's son, became the murders for which he was guillotined in February 1922.

Australian 'Backpacker Murderer' Ivan Milat killed his victims in which state forest?

Seven backpackers' bodies were found in Belanglo State Forest, New South Wales, in 1992–93; Milat had picked them up along the Hume Highway between 1989 and 1992.

Where were most bodies from Australia's Snowtown murders discovered?

Eight bodies were found in six barrels of acid inside the vault of a disused bank in Snowtown, about 140 km north of Adelaide, in May 1999; only one victim had actually been killed there.

Which Chinese serial killer confessed to 67 murders and was executed in 2004?

Yang Xinhai, the 'Monster Killer', broke into farmhouses across Henan, Anhui, Hebei and Shandong from 1999 to 2003 and was executed in February 2004 after confessing to 67 murders.

Russia's 'Chessboard Killer' Alexander Pichushkin hunted victims in which Moscow park?

Pichushkin lured drinking partners into Moscow's Bittsa (Bitsevsky) Park from 1992 to 2006; convicted in 2007 of 48 murders and three attempted murders, he said he wanted to fill all 64 chessboard squares.

Victorian killer Amelia Dyer, the 'Ogress of Reading', practised what trade?

Dyer practised baby farming, taking payments to adopt unwanted infants, whom she strangled with tape; her downfall came when a bagged infant's corpse was pulled from the Thames at Reading in 1896.

Mary Ann Cotton, hanged in 1873, is thought to have poisoned her victims with what?

Cotton's victims, including 11 of her 13 children and three of her four husbands, showed the gastric symptoms of arsenic poisoning; arsenic was found in her stepson Charles Edward Cotton's body in 1872.

Burke and Hare sold their sixteen 1828 victims to which Edinburgh anatomist?

Robert Knox, a private anatomy lecturer at Surgeons' Square, paid Burke and Hare about £10 a body and was never prosecuted; Burke was hanged in January 1829.

Which new verb entered English as a result of the Burke and Hare murders?

'Burking', to smother a victim as Burke did, entered English after the murders; Burke's trial opened at 10 am on Christmas Eve 1828 and he was hanged the next month.

Which law-enforcement agency's reputation was damaged by the Henry Lee Lucas confessions?

The Texas Rangers ran the Lucas Task Force that cleared some 200 cases on his word; Attorney General Jim Mattox's 1986 report called him a fabulist, and his death sentence was commuted in 1998.

Carl Panzram was hanged in 1930 for murdering an employee at which federal prison?

Panzram beat laundry foreman Robert Warnke to death at Leavenworth in 1929 and was hanged there on 5 September 1930; his autobiography, published as Killer: A Journal of Murder, claimed 21 murders.

The Hillside Stranglers, Kenneth Bianchi and Angelo Buono, were related how?

Almost all their murders took place in Buono's upholstery shop in Glendale.

How did the Hillside Stranglers lure victims into their car?

Bodies were dumped naked on wooded hillsides around Los Angeles.

Leonard Lake and Charles Ng held victims at a remote cabin near which California town?

The bunker stood beside Lake's cabin near Wilseyville in Calaveras County; after a June 1985 shoplifting arrest in South San Francisco, Lake swallowed cyanide and died four days later.

'Butcher Baker' Robert Hansen hunted released victims with what rifle?

Hansen flew victims into the Alaska wilderness and stalked them with a Ruger Mini-14 rifle; he was sentenced to 461 years in February 1984 and played by John Cusack in The Frozen Ground.

William Bonin, the 'Freeway Killer', dumped his victims where in southern California?

Gay rights activists offered a $50,000 reward that helped lead to his conviction.

Danny Rolling's 1990 Gainesville murders inspired which slasher franchise?

Kevin Williamson wrote Scream after a TV report on the Gainesville case; Rolling killed five college students in four days in August 1990 and was executed in Florida in 2006.

For what crime was Danny Rolling jailed in September 1990, before being linked to the murders?

Rolling was jailed after a supermarket robbery, holding up a Winn-Dixie in Ocala on 8 September 1990; only later did DNA and items from his Gainesville campsite tie him to the murders.

Ángel Maturino Reséndiz was called the 'Railroad Killer' because he did what?

He was the FBI's 457th Ten Most Wanted fugitive before surrendering in Texas in 1999.

Why was Los Angeles killer Lonnie Franklin Jr. nicknamed the 'Grim Sleeper'?

The apparent gap ran from 1988 to 2002; he was sentenced to death in 2016.

Bruce McArthur, who murdered eight men in Toronto, worked in which trade?

McArthur worked in landscaping as a self-employed gardener and hid remains in planters at a client's home; he pleaded guilty in January 2019 to murdering eight men between 2010 and 2017.

Which Toronto neighbourhood did Bruce McArthur's eight victims disappear from?

The victims vanished from Toronto's Church and Wellesley gay village between 2010 and 2017; criticism of the police response led to an independent review and a dedicated missing persons unit.

Who was Paul Bernardo's wife and accomplice, freed in 2005 after a contested plea deal?

Karla Homolka served the 12-year sentence of her 1993 plea deal, 'the deal with the devil', and was released in July 2005; Bernardo, the 'Scarborough Rapist', was declared a dangerous offender.

Belgian killer Marc Dutroux was paroled after just three years for what 1989 conviction?

Dutroux was sentenced in 1989 to 13 years for abducting and raping five girls, then paroled in 1992; his 1996 re-arrest and that lenient earlier treatment triggered a national scandal and the White March.

Which Thomas Harris novel introduced Hannibal Lecter in 1981?

Its killer is first nicknamed 'the Tooth Fairy'; the 1986 film version was titled Manhunter.

Who played Hannibal 'Lecktor' in Michael Mann's 1986 film Manhunter?

Brian Cox, then little known outside Britain, played Lecktor opposite William Petersen's Will Graham; Manhunter flopped at the box office but developed a cult following.

The title of Harris's first Lecter novel refers to a painting by which artist?

The painting is William Blake's watercolour The Great Red Dragon and the Woman Clothed with the Sun, which the killer Francis Dolarhyde has tattooed across his back.

Patrick Bateman, the narrator of American Psycho, works in what job?

Bateman is a Manhattan investment banker, a vice-president at Pierce & Pierce, in Bret Easton Ellis's 1991 novel, filmed in 2000 with Christian Bale.

In Se7en, the killer's murders are modelled on what?

John Doe stages murders for gluttony, greed, sloth, lust, pride, envy and wrath, the seven deadly sins; the bleak 1995 film ends with the famous box in the desert.

Which director, seeking to re-establish himself after a career setback with his debut Alien 3, made Se7en?

David Fincher was mistakenly sent the original script and committed to directing only if its ending stayed intact.

Austrian killer Jack Unterweger was paroled in 1990 after intellectuals championed what?

His prison writing, including the 1983 autobiography Purgatory, won backing from Austrian intellectuals who campaigned for his 1990 release; he became a journalist and resumed killing within months.

Japan's Tsutomu Miyazaki was dubbed the 'Otaku Murderer' because of what?

Police found nearly 5,800 videotapes in Miyazaki's room after his 1989 arrest; the huge anime, manga and horror video collection triggered a moral panic against otaku in Japan.

Ahmad Suradji buried his 42 victims in a sugarcane field near which Indonesian city?

Suradji, a cattle breeder and sorcerer, killed 42 women and girls from 1986 to 1997 and buried them in a sugarcane field near Medan, North Sumatra; he was executed by firing squad in 2008.

Anatoly Onoprienko, 'The Terminator', confessed to 52 murders in which country in 1996?

Onoprienko was arrested in Ukraine in April 1996 and confessed to 52 murders, many of them whole families killed in their homes; he was also nicknamed the Beast of Ukraine and Citizen O.

Hungarian killer Béla Kiss preserved his victims' bodies in what?

Large metal drums at Kiss's Cinkota house, opened in 1916 while he was away at war, held 24 preserved bodies; the tinsmith had lured women through matrimonial newspaper ads under a false name.

Thierry Paulin, the 'Monster of Montmartre', targeted which victims in 1980s Paris?

Paulin confessed to murdering 21 elderly women in Paris's 18th arrondissement and nearby between 1984 and 1987; he died of AIDS-related illness in April 1989, before any trial.

Scottish child-killer Robert Black died in 2016 at which prison?

Black died of a heart attack at HMP Maghaberry in Northern Ireland on 12 January 2016, where he was serving a sentence for the 1981 murder of Jennifer Cardy; he was the prime suspect in Genette Tate's 1978 disappearance.

Steve Wright, the 'Suffolk Strangler', murdered five women in which town in 2006?

Wright murdered five women working in Ipswich's red-light district between October and December 2006 and was given a whole life order in February 2008.

Levi Bellfield holds what grim distinction in British sentencing?

Bellfield became the first prisoner given two whole life orders: one in 2008 for murdering Marsha McDonnell and Amélie Delagrange, another in 2011 for killing Milly Dowler.

Nurse Kristen Gilbert killed patients by injecting IV bags with what?

Gilbert injected epinephrine (adrenaline) into patients' IV bags at the Northampton VA hospital, inducing cardiac arrests, then answered the codes herself; she was convicted of four murders in 2001.

Self-described 'angel of death' Donald Harvey committed his murders in what job?

Harvey worked as a hospital orderly and nurse's aide in Kentucky and Cincinnati, poisoning patients with arsenic and cyanide; he claimed 87 victims, was convicted of 37, and died in prison in 2017 after a beating.

Texas nurse Genene Jones was charged in 2017 to stop her release under a law on what?

Jones was due for mandatory release in 2018 under a 1977 Texas law passed to relieve prison overcrowding; Bexar County prosecutors indicted her in 2017, and she pleaded guilty in 2020 to murdering baby Joshua Sawyer.

Roughly how long is the 'Highway of Tears' corridor in British Columbia?

The 719 km corridor between Prince George and Prince Rupert has seen crimes since 1969.

Who directed Monster, the 2003 Aileen Wuornos biopic, as her feature debut?

Patty Jenkins wrote and directed Monster as her feature debut; made for about $8 million, it grossed some $64 million, and Jenkins went on to direct Wonder Woman (2017).

Which actor played Jeffrey Dahmer in Netflix's 2022 series Dahmer – Monster?

The series was created by Ryan Murphy and Ian Brennan; Peters won a Golden Globe.

Who played Ted Bundy in the 2019 film Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile?

Zac Efron played Bundy opposite Lily Collins in Joe Berlinger's film; the title quotes Judge Edward Cowart's words when sentencing Bundy to death in 1979.

Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile is based on a memoir by whom?

Her book is The Phantom Prince: My Life with Ted Bundy.

'Death House Landlady' Dorothea Puente killed tenants of her boarding house in which California city?

Puente's boarding house stood at 1426 F Street in Sacramento; she drugged elderly and disabled lodgers, buried them in the yard and kept cashing their Social Security checks until her November 1988 arrest.

How did Richard Chase, the Sacramento killer sentenced to death in 1979, die in 1980?

Chase, the 'Vampire of Sacramento', saved up his prescribed pills on San Quentin's death row and died of an overdose of hoarded antidepressants on 26 December 1980.

What caused New York state troopers to pull over Joel Rifkin's pickup truck on June 28, 1993?

He led police on a 20-to-25-minute chase before crashing into a light pole; he was later convicted of killing nine women and confessed to 17.

South African killer Moses Sithole's crimes are known as the 'ABC Murders' because of what?

ABC are the initials of the three areas where he killed: Atteridgeville, Boksburg and Cleveland, a Johannesburg suburb; Sithole was convicted in 1997 of 38 murders and 40 rapes committed in 1994–95.