164 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 were set apart by an 1894 police memorandum in which Melville Macnaghten wrote that the murderer had five victims 'and five victims only', though the same police file held other killings.

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 days to years between killings, is what separates a serial killer from a spree killer; an FBI symposium in 2005 found the line so hard to draw that most attendees wanted the spree category dropped.

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

The World's Columbian Exposition drew millions to Chicago in 1893, and Holmes told investors his new top floor would be a hotel for its visitors; the 'Murder Castle' of trapdoors and gas chambers is mostly tabloid invention.

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?

A tan Volkswagen Beetle was where 'Ted' led women at Lake Sammamish in 1974 after asking for help with a sailboat; people who knew Bundy phoned in his name, but detectives passed over the clean-cut law student.

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?

An intended victim escaped his apartment on 22 July 1991 and flagged down a patrol car with a handcuff dangling from one wrist; officers who went back with him found Polaroids of dismembered bodies in a drawer.

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

He performed as Pogo at parties, charity fundraisers and other events through a local clown club; under police surveillance in December 1978 he told detectives that clowns can get away with murder.

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 the Bay Area were the Zodiac's hunting ground; he named himself, opening taunting letters to local newspapers with 'This is the Zodiac speaking' and signing them with a crossed circle.

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

The 340-character cipher, mailed in November 1969, held out for 51 years until three amateur codebreakers cracked it; the earlier 408 had been solved almost at once by two private citizens.

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

Robert Graysmith was a newspaper's political cartoonist when the Zodiac's letters arrived in 1969; he chased the case on his own for years, publishing Zodiac in 1986 and Zodiac Unmasked in 2002.

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'?

A Bulldog revolver in .44 Special was his weapon, and the press named him for it; the label gave way to 'Son of Sam' after he used that name in a letter left near two victims in April 1977.

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?

Metadata on a floppy disk he mailed to a TV station named Christ Lutheran Church and a user called Dennis; he had first asked police whether a disk could be traced, and they told him it would be safe.

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.

Why was Green River Killer Gary Ridgway spared the death penalty in 2003?

A full confession was the price: prosecutors agreed not to seek the death penalty in return for guilty pleas to 48 murders and his help in finding victims who were still missing.

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

Charlize Theron put on weight, shaved off her eyebrows and wore false teeth to play Wuornos, who shot seven men along Florida's highways and was executed there in 2002.

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?

Driving with false number plates got Sutcliffe arrested in Sheffield in January 1981; allowed to step behind a storage tank to relieve himself, he hid a hammer and knife that police found there the next day.

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, often posing as a monk or priest to win their trust; arrested in April 1999 over an attempted assault, he later confessed to well over 100 murders.

Countess Elizabeth Báthory, the 'Blood Countess', was confined for life 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 the matrimonial columns of Midwestern newspapers, and suitors arrived at her La Porte farm with their savings; she seemingly died in a 1908 fire there, 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 what police found at Gein's Plainfield, Wisconsin farm in 1957; Gein confessed to only two murders, and most of the remains came from graves he had robbed.

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

Robert Bloch was living in a small Wisconsin town less than 40 miles from Ed Gein's farm when the arrest made news in 1957; Hitchcock bought the film rights and reportedly had copies bought up to guard the twist.

Who won the Best Actor Oscar as Hannibal Lecter in The Silence of the Lambs?

Anthony Hopkins had moved back to London and was weighing giving up films for the stage when the part arrived; it won him Best Actor as the film swept the five top Oscars.

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 with Mark Olshaker in 1995; the show's Holden Ford is based on him, and Thomas Harris had already modelled Jack Crawford on him.

FBI agents laid the groundwork for profiling in the late 1970s by interviewing whom?

Imprisoned killers supplied the data: agents sat down with 36 of them, Edmund Kemper included, looking for patterns that tied each man's background to what he did.

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?

Earthquakes were what Mullin said his killings held off, as sacrifices to spare California from a catastrophic quake; a jury still found him legally sane and convicted him in 1973.

How did Samuel Little help the FBI identify his victims?

Drew portraits from memory in prison: the FBI published them in the hope that the public could name women among the 93 murders he confessed to.

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.

How was child killer Albert Fish finally caught in 1934?

Wrote to the victim's mother: six years after killing Grace Budd he sent an unsigned letter describing the crime, and detectives traced an emblem on its envelope to a rooming house; Fish was executed at Sing Sing in 1936.

Dennis Nilsen, the Muswell Hill Murderer, was caught in 1983 after a tradesman was called out to deal with what?

Blocked drains brought a Dyno-Rod engineer to the house in February 1983, and he found flesh and small bones in the sewer; Nilsen himself had been among the tenants complaining about the plumbing.

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; after his conviction for six second-degree murders, British Columbia set up the Missing Women Commission of Inquiry to examine how police had handled the cases.

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 the forensic job that puts Dexter at murder scenes by day; by night he follows a code taught by his adoptive father and kills only murderers who have slipped through the justice system.

Locusta, a notorious poisoner of ancient Rome, made poisons for which emperor?

By Suetonius's account, Nero used her poison on his stepbrother Britannicus; after Nero fell, his successor Galba had her led through Rome in chains and executed.

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.

Ed Gein's crimes inspired which horror-film killer?

Leatherface, the masked killer of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, borrows from Gein; the film was sold as based on true events, but its plot of a cannibal family preying on travellers is largely fiction.

How was 'Night Stalker' Richard Ramirez finally caught in Los Angeles in August 1985?

Residents chased him down in East Los Angeles after he tried to steal two cars; the crowd beat him and held him on the street until police arrived.

What physical evidence tied Ted Bundy to the Chi Omega murders at his 1979 trial?

Bite marks on a victim were matched by a forensic dentist to Bundy's teeth in front of the jury; his fingerprints, by contrast, were never found at any crime scene.

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.

The FBI set up ViCAP in 1985 to do what?

Link unsolved crimes: police send in case details and analysts search for similar ones elsewhere, an idea pitched by a Los Angeles homicide detective who became the programme's first head.

The FBI's Behavioral Science Unit was set up in 1972 in which Virginia town?

Quantico, home of the FBI Academy, housed the unit from 1972; Thomas Harris later made it the base of Jack Crawford's team in The Silence of the Lambs.

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?

Timothy Evans was hanged for killing his baby daughter after Christie, his downstairs neighbour, testified against him; pardoned in 1966, his case helped end hanging for murder in Britain.

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

Richard Attenborough filmed in the very street where Christie had killed, by then renamed, shortly before its houses were demolished.

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

Pedro López was called the Monster of the Andes; arrested in Ecuador in 1980 and given the 16-year maximum sentence there, he claimed over 300 victims in three countries and vanished after his release 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.

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?

Caches of supplies and weapons lay buried for years before he used them; agents dug up two, one holding a shovel and drain cleaner, and Keyes said more were hidden elsewhere in the country.

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

Alcala went on The Dating Game in September 1978 as Bachelor No. 1 and won the date, but the bachelorette backed out, later saying she had found him creepy; he was eventually convicted of seven murders.

A Seattle storage locker rented by Rodney Alcala gave police a large collection of what?

Photographs he had taken, of women, girls and boys, filled the locker; Alcala posed as a fashion photographer to lure victims, and in 2016 one picture led Wyoming prosecutors to charge him with a 1977 murder.

Why did Houston Heights locals nickname Dean Corll the 'Pied Piper'?

He gave out his family's candy, made at the Corll Candy Company. The murders surfaced only in 1973, when a teenage accomplice shot Corll dead and phoned the police himself.

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

The Atlanta Child Murders were never all tried: once Williams was convicted of killing two men, police closed most of the children's cases as his without ever charging him with them.

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.

Which 1990s sitcom gave a character an unlucky boyfriend who shared serial killer Joel Rifkin's name?

Seinfeld. In 'The Masseuse' (1993) Elaine urges her boyfriend to pick a new name and suggests O.J., months before O. J. Simpson was himself charged with murder.

Eddie Redmayne played hospital killer Charles Cullen in which 2022 Netflix film?

The Good Nurse stars Jessica Chastain as the fellow nurse who comes to suspect Cullen, who by his own account had been killing patients for 16 years.

Charles Cullen killed hospital patients for 16 years in which two US states?

New Jersey and Pennsylvania. Cullen moved from hospital to hospital in the two states and was caught only in 2003, after a run of unexplained overdoses at Somerset Medical Center brought in the state police.

Nurse Beverley Allitt attacked children in 1991 on a hospital ward in which Lincolnshire town, Margaret Thatcher's birthplace?

Grantham's hospital saw 13 children collapse on one ward in 59 days; Allitt was the only nurse on duty for every attack, and in 1993 she was given 13 life sentences.

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

Guillotine: Kürten was beheaded in Cologne on 2 July 1931. His head was kept so that scientists could study the brain, and the mummified remains ended up on show at a Ripley's museum in Wisconsin.

Fritz Haarmann, who preyed on runaways at the railway station, was the 'Butcher' of which German city?

Hanover. Haarmann found his victims around the city's central station, where police let him patrol at will because he worked for them as an informer.

How did Dr Marcel Petiot lure victims in occupied Paris?

Promising escape abroad: as 'Dr Eugène' he sold passage to South America for 25,000 francs a head, then gave his clients a lethal 'vaccination' and kept their valuables.

What led police to Dr Marcel Petiot's Paris house in 1944?

Chimney smoke: neighbours complained of its stench, and firemen found human remains burning in the basement stove. Petiot fled, joined the Resistance forces under a false name and stayed free for seven months.

Which Charlie Chaplin film was inspired by the 'Bluebeard' murderer Henri Landru?

Monsieur Verdoux (1947) grew from an idea of Orson Welles, who wanted Chaplin to play Landru; Chaplin paid him $5,000 for it and made the killer a dapper bigamist who marries for money.

Henri Landru's notebooks recorded which damning purchases?

One-way tickets: Landru bought himself a return to Gambais and each fiancée a single, and noted the fares. With no bodies to show the jury, such entries helped convict him of eleven murders.

Which Australian film drew on Ivan Milat's 'backpacker murders'?

Wolf Creek drew on Milat, who buried seven backpackers in a New South Wales forest, and on a 2001 outback attack; its Northern Territory release was held back so it couldn't sway that second case's trial.

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

In barrels in a disused bank vault: eight bodies were found there in Snowtown, about 140 km north of Adelaide, in May 1999, though only one of the victims had actually been killed in the town.

Yang Xinhai, who confessed to 67 murders in rural China, mostly struck where?

Village homes: Yang broke in at night, sometimes killing whole families, and wore new clothes and oversized shoes for each attack; he was arrested in Cangzhou in November 2003.

Alexander Pichushkin, the 'Chessboard Killer', lured his victims into a wooded park in which city?

Moscow. Pichushkin lured victims to Bitsa Park with offers of vodka and said he meant to kill 64 people, one for each square of a chessboard.

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?

Arsenic poisoning looked like the 'gastric fever' that doctors kept recording for the deaths around Cotton, so she went unsuspected until a post-mortem on her stepson found the poison.

Burke and Hare sold their murder victims' bodies to which Edinburgh anatomist?

Robert Knox bought the bodies for his anatomy classes and was never prosecuted, though a mob attacked his house; Burke was hanged and then dissected in his turn.

The verb 'burke', from the Burke and Hare murders, first meant killing how?

Smothering: Burke suffocated his victims so that the bodies showed no marks; the verb later came to mean quietly suppressing something, such as an awkward inquiry.

Which agency's task force cleared some 200 murders on Henry Lee Lucas's false confessions?

The Texas Rangers closed cases on Lucas's word until a Dallas newspaper showed he couldn't have committed many of them; his death sentence was the only one George W. Bush commuted as governor.

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

Leavenworth: Panzram killed the laundry foreman there in 1929 and refused to appeal. A young guard had slipped him pencil and paper, and the confession he wrote was published in 1970 as Killer: A Journal of Murder.

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

They were cousins: Bianchi moved to Los Angeles to live with Buono. The press wrote of a single 'Hillside Strangler' before detectives worked out that two men were dumping the bodies.

How did the Hillside Stranglers lure victims into their car?

By impersonating police officers: they flashed fake badges and said they were undercover detectives. During the manhunt Bianchi even applied to join the Los Angeles police and rode along with its officers.

Leonard Lake and Charles Ng's murders came to light after Ng committed which petty offence?

Shoplifting: Ng fled a store with a $75 vise, and police who checked the car arrested Lake, who swallowed cyanide. Ng escaped to Canada and was caught a month later, again while shoplifting.

How did 'Butcher Baker' Robert Hansen take many victims into the roadless wilderness to hunt them?

By bush plane: Hansen flew women out of Anchorage in his own aircraft. Neighbours knew him as a well-liked baker and a record-setting big-game hunter.

William Bonin, executed in 1996 for murdering hitchhiking boys across southern California, was known by which nickname?

The Freeway Killer left his victims beside southern California's roads. The name was shared: two other men killing in the same region in those years, Patrick Kearney and Randy Kraft, were given it too.

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?

A supermarket robbery in Ocala put Rolling in jail within days of the killings, and he was still locked up for it months later when DNA tied him to the Gainesville murders.

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

Travelled by jumping freight trains: Reséndiz struck at homes near the tracks, then rode the rails away across state lines and borders. In 1999 he gave himself up on a bridge at El Paso, his sister at his side.

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

He appeared to pause his crimes for 14 years, from 1988 to 2002. LA Weekly coined the name when its reporter revealed that city leaders had kept quiet about a serial killer at work in Los Angeles.

Bruce McArthur, who murdered eight men between 2010 and 2017, 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.

Serial killer Bruce McArthur preyed on men from the gay village of which Canadian city?

Toronto. The men vanished from the Church and Wellesley village over seven years; criticism of how police had handled the disappearances 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 bargained for a 12-year manslaughter sentence as Bernardo's victim; videotapes that surfaced after the deal showed her taking an active part, and the press called it a 'deal with the devil'.

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

Abducting and raping five girls earned Dutroux a 13½-year sentence in 1989, yet he was out by 1992. After his 1996 arrest, some 300,000 Belgians marched through Brussels in protest at how the case had been handled.

Which Thomas Harris novel, published before The Silence of the Lambs, introduced Hannibal Lecter?

Red Dragon gave Lecter only a small part: he is already locked up, and the profiler who caught him visits his cell for advice on another killer.

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

Brian Cox was the first screen Lecter, in a film that took under $9 million in American cinemas; five years later the same character won another actor an Oscar.

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

William Blake's watercolour of a scene from Revelation obsesses the killer, Francis Dolarhyde, who has the image tattooed across his back and finally goes to the Brooklyn Museum and eats the original.

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

Investment banker Patrick Bateman's story was dropped by Simon & Schuster shortly before its planned 1991 release; Vintage Books bought the rights and published Bret Easton Ellis's novel instead.

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

The seven deadly sins shape each murder, from gluttony to wrath. Kevin Spacey, who plays the killer, asked for his name to be left out of the opening credits and the marketing so his entrance would be a surprise.

Which director followed his feature debut, Alien 3, with 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, above all the autobiography Purgatory, won over Austrian intellectuals who campaigned for his release; freed in 1990, he worked as a journalist and began killing again within months.

Why was Japan's Tsutomu Miyazaki dubbed the 'Otaku Murderer'?

He hoarded anime and horror videos: police found 5,763 tapes stacked in his room, and the coverage set off a moral panic in Japan about otaku and the films they watched.

Self-styled sorcerer Ahmad Suradji, who buried 42 victims in a sugarcane field, was executed in which country?

Indonesia. Suradji told police that his dead father had come to him in a dream and told him to drink the saliva of dozens of women to become a mystic healer; he was shot by firing squad.

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

Ukraine sentenced Onoprienko to death, but it had promised the Council of Europe that it would give up capital punishment, so the sentence became life and he died in prison in 2013.

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

Large metal drums: Kiss told the local police they held fuel he was stockpiling for the coming war. They were opened in 1916 while he was away in the army, and he was never caught.

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.

Child-killer Robert Black abducted girls across Britain while working in which job?

Delivery van driver: Black's poster rounds took him the length of Britain. He was caught in 1990 when a witness saw him snatch a girl, and the policeman who opened the van found his own daughter inside.

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

Ipswich police traced Wright through DNA taken five years earlier, when he was convicted of stealing £80 from a pub till; it matched traces found on the victims.

Levi Bellfield holds what grim distinction in British sentencing?

First prisoner given two whole life orders: the second came in 2011 for murdering schoolgirl Milly Dowler, whose voicemail had been hacked by the News of the World, a revelation that helped close the paper.

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

Epinephrine, the heart stimulant also called adrenaline, set off cardiac arrests on Gilbert's ward; prosecutors said she wanted the emergencies to summon her boyfriend, who worked in hospital security.

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

Hospital orderly Harvey went undetected for 17 years, until an autopsy on one of his patients in 1987 turned up cyanide; he then admitted dozens of killings and pleaded guilty to 37 murders.

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

Prison overcrowding: an old Texas law to relieve it would have freed Jones in 2018, about a third of the way through her 99-year sentence, so prosecutors charged her over more babies' deaths and she pleaded guilty in 2020.

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

Patty Jenkins wrote and directed Monster as her first feature and won the Independent Spirit Award for best first feature, yet her next film for cinemas came 14 years later: Wonder Woman.

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

Evan Peters practised with lead weights on his hands, because Dahmer barely moved his arms when he walked; the role won him 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?

Elizabeth Kendall, Bundy's former girlfriend, published The Phantom Prince in 1981 under that pen name; while they were still a couple she had reported him to police three times as a possible suspect.

'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, California's so-called 'Vampire' killer, die on death row in 1980?

An overdose of hoarded antidepressants: Chase had saved up his prescribed pills. He chose his victims' homes by trying doors, taking a locked one as a sign he wasn't welcome and an unlocked one as an invitation.

What made New York state troopers try to stop Joel Rifkin's pickup truck in June 1993?

A missing license plate caught the troopers' eye; Rifkin fled, crashed into a roadside pole after a chase, and under a tarp in the truck bed they found the body of his final victim.

Why are Moses Sithole's South African killings called the 'ABC Murders'?

Initials of the three areas where he killed: Atteridgeville, Boksburg and Cleveland. Sithole posed as a businessman offering jobs through a charity he had invented, and in 1997 he was convicted of 38 murders.

Which US First Lady posed for a photograph with John Wayne Gacy while he was directing a Chicago parade?

Rosalynn Carter met him through the Polish Constitution Day Parade, and the picture, in which Gacy wears an 'S' pin for special clearance, later embarrassed the Secret Service.

A 1919 newspaper letter claiming to be from the Axeman of New Orleans promised to spare homes where what was playing?

A jazz band in the house meant safety, the letter said, so on the named night dance halls filled up and bands played at parties in hundreds of homes.

Dennis Rader, the Wichita killer known as BTK, spent 14 years installing what for a living?

Security alarms were his trade at ADT from 1974 to 1988, where colleagues nicknamed him 'blue book man' for scolding anyone who broke office rules.

How did Jeffrey Dahmer, the 'Milwaukee Cannibal', die in November 1994 while serving multiple life sentences?

Beaten by a fellow inmate, Christopher Scarver, with a metal bar while on cleaning duty, Dahmer made no sound during the attack, his killer said.

The Zodiac Killer, who taunted police by post in the late 1960s, signed his letters with what symbol?

Gunsight crosshairs, a circle cut by a cross, closed his letters, and the killer wore the same mark on a bib during one lakeside attack.

Ted Bundy escaped custody twice in 1977, once by leaping from a courthouse window, in which US state?

Colorado lost him first in Aspen in June and again from the Glenwood Springs jail in December, when he sawed a hole in his cell ceiling and walked out.

Investigators finally identified Joseph DeAngelo, California's Golden State Killer, in 2018 with the help of what?

A genealogy website, GEDmatch, matched the killer's genetic profile to distant relatives sharing his great-great-great-grandparents, and a family tree did the rest.

Samuel Little, the killer with the most confirmed victims in US history, helped the FBI identify women by doing what?

Drawing their portraits gave the FBI pictures it could release to the public, and at least one of his sketches solved a cold case in Akron, Ohio.

Which actress made her directing debut with Woman of the Hour, a 2023 film about serial killer Rodney Alcala?

Anna Kendrick also starred as contestant Sheryl Bradshaw, then gave her pay to two charities so that she would not profit from victims' stories.

Which famous Prohibition-era lawman was Cleveland's safety director during the unsolved Torso Murders of the 1930s?

Eliot Ness, leader of the Untouchables, never caught the killer, who once taunted him by leaving two victims' remains in full view of his City Hall office.

How was 'Night Stalker' Richard Ramirez finally captured after his face filled the front pages?

Residents chased and held him on Hubbard Street after a failed carjacking; he had just fled a shop where women recognised him and cried 'el matador'.

Ed Gein, the grave robber who inspired several horror films, lived near Plainfield in which US state?

Wisconsin lost a grim landmark in March 1958, when his farmhouse burned down days before an auction, amid rumours it would become a tourist attraction.

Which Erik Larson bestseller tells the story of Chicago killer H. H. Holmes?

The Devil in the White City weaves Holmes's crimes together with the career of architect Daniel Burnham, and Leonardo DiCaprio bought the film rights in 2010.

Gilles de Rais, executed in 1440 for murdering children, had fought in the same campaigns as which famous figure?

Joan of Arc fought the 1429 campaigns beside him, though little is known of how close they were; later legend tied his name to the fairy-tale Bluebeard.

Which director made Summer of Sam, a 1999 drama set in New York during David Berkowitz's shootings?

Spike Lee meant only to produce the film, set in a Bronx neighbourhood in 1977, but the screenplay impressed him so much that he asked to direct it.

Edmund Kemper, California's 'Co-ed Killer', ended his killing spree in 1973 by doing what?

Phoning police to confess from a phone booth took two attempts: the first person to answer did not take the call seriously and told him to ring back later.

During his 1992 trial in Rostov, Soviet-era killer Andrei Chikatilo was kept inside what in the courtroom?

An iron cage was built in a corner of the court to protect him from his victims' enraged relatives, and he kicked his bench across it on hearing the verdict.

In criminal profiling, which term covers acts a killer repeats to meet a psychological need, not a practical one?

Signature behaviours rarely change from crime to crime, whereas the modus operandi, the working method that gets the crime done, often does.

Which woman, killed in her room at Miller's Court in November 1888, is widely seen as Jack the Ripper's final victim?

Mary Jane Kelly was murdered indoors, unlike the earlier victims, who were killed outdoors, which left her killer far longer to work undisturbed.

Harold Shipman was convicted in 2000 of murdering 15 women in Hyde with lethal injections of which drug?

Diamorphine, the medical name for heroin, was found in the exhumed body of Kathleen Grundy after her daughter questioned a suspicious will.

Which label do criminologists give to women who murder a series of husbands or partners, usually for material gain?

Black widow is one of the two categories most female serial killers fall into, the other being the team killer who murders alongside a partner.

What plea did Aileen Wuornos first offer for shooting seven men who picked her up along highways in 1989 and 1990?

Self-defence against rape was her first account of all seven killings, but she later recanted and said robbery and leaving no witnesses were the reasons.

Which Oscar winner played New Orleans slave-torturer Delphine LaLaurie in the third season of American Horror Story?

Kathy Bates won an Emmy for the heavily fictionalised role; the real LaLaurie was exposed in 1834, when a fire brought rescuers into her Royal Street mansion.

Which Russian ruler put noblewoman Darya Saltykova on public trial in the 1760s for torturing and killing serfs?

Catherine the Great wanted a showcase for the rule of law: Saltykova was chained on a Moscow platform for an hour, then shut in a convent cellar for life.

Belle Gunness, who lured suitors to her Indiana farm in the 1900s, had emigrated from which country?

Norway knew her as Brynhild Størseth, the youngest of eight children from Selbu; she became Belle after sailing to America in 1881.

Nannie Doss, who confessed in Tulsa in 1954 to killing four husbands, was known by which nickname?

The Giggling Granny confessed after one husband died in hospital, and her victims proved to include her mother, a sister and two of her own children.

Mexican serial killer Juana Barraza, known as 'La Mataviejitas', had earlier performed in which profession?

Pro wrestler was her trade before her 2006 arrest: a fan of lucha libre, she fought under the ring name La Dama del Silencio, 'The Lady of Silence'.

Aileen Wuornos was arrested in January 1991 at a biker bar in Volusia County with which fitting name?

The Last Resort was where police caught up with her; she had been seen abandoning a victim's car, and her handprint was on its door handle.

Velma Barfield, executed in North Carolina in 1984, was the first woman in the US put to death by what method?

Lethal injection made her the first woman executed in America since 1962; one victim had drunk beer and tea that she laced with rat poison.

Italian killer Leonarda Cianciulli, who murdered three women in 1939 and 1940, turned her victims' bodies into what?

Soap and teacakes were her way of hiding the bodies, and she served the cakes to visitors; she believed human sacrifices would keep her soldier son safe.

American murderer Richard Kuklinski, the subject of three HBO documentaries, was known by which nickname?

The Iceman earned the name by freezing a victim's body to disguise the time of death; it was found more than two years after the man vanished.

David Berkowitz first claimed his 'Son of Sam' shootings were ordered by a demon in the form of what?

A neighbour's dog was the story he gave after confessing to every shooting, but he later admitted the tale of the dog and the devil was a hoax.

The 'Monster' who murdered couples in the Italian countryside from 1968 is named after which city?

Florence gave the killer a name although no murder took place in the city itself; the Italian press had first called the culprit the Maniac of Couples.

Why was trucker Keith Hunter Jesperson, who murdered at least eight women, dubbed the 'Happy Face Killer'?

He drew smileys on his letters when taunting the media and police; upset at getting no attention, he had first put one on a bathroom wall far from a crime scene.

Charles Sobhraj, who preyed on travellers in 1970s Asia, earned which nickname for his knack of evading police?

The Serpent, a nod to his snake-like ability to avoid detection, became the title of a 2021 BBC and Netflix drama series about his crimes.

English fraudster John George Haigh, executed in 1949 for murder, became known by which nickname?

The Acid Bath Murderer dissolved his victims in drums of sulphuric acid, an idea he took from the French killer Georges-Alexandre Sarret.

Before the name 'Jack the Ripper' took hold in autumn 1888, the London press called the unknown killer by what nickname?

Leather Apron was also what locals called John Pizer, a maker of footwear, who was arrested although the inspector reported no evidence at all against him.

Why was Randy Kraft, who murdered at least sixteen young men, dubbed the 'Scorecard Killer'?

He kept a coded victim list of sixty-one cryptic entries, which investigators found on his arrest; the first entry reads simply 'Stable'.

An unidentified man who killed three women after nights at Glasgow's Barrowland Ballroom is known by what nickname?

Bible John got the name by quoting scripture and condemning adultery in front of his final victim; police later eliminated convicted killer Peter Tobin as a suspect.

Where at his home near Chicago did John Wayne Gacy bury twenty-six of his victims?

In the crawl space he periodically poured lime to speed decomposition, and four other victims were thrown into the Des Plaines River.