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Families who Killed together: The Kray twins

Kray twins

Reginald "Reggie" Kray (1933 – 2000) and his twin brother Ronald "Ronnie" Kray (1933 – 1995) were the foremost perpetrators of organised crime in London's East End during the 1950s and 1960s. Ronald, commonly referred to as Ron or Ronnie, most likely suffered from paranoid schizophrenia. The Krays were involved in armed robberies, arson, protection rackets, violent assaults including torture and the murders of Jack "The Hat" McVitie and George Cornell. As West End nightclub owners, they mixed with prominent entertainers including Diana Dors, Frank Sinatra, Judy Garland and politicians. The Krays were highly feared within their social environment, and in the 1960s they became celebrities in their own right, being photographed by David Bailey and interviewed on television. They were arrested on 9 May 1968 and convicted in 1969 by the efforts of a squad of detectives led by Detective Superintendent Leonard "Nipper" Read, and were both sentenced to life imprisonment. Ronnie remained in Broadmoor Hospital until his death on 17 March 1995, but Reggie was released from prison on compassionate grounds in August 2000, eight weeks before his death in October from cancer. Ronnie and Reggie Kray were born on 24 October 1933 in Hoxton, East London, to Charles David "Charlie" Kray, Sr, (10 March 1907 – 8 March 1983), a scrap gold dealer, and Violet Lee (5 August 1909 – 4 August 1982). Reggie was born roughly 10 minutes before twin Ronnie. Charlie and Violet already had a six-year old son, Charlie Jr, (9 July 1926 – 4 Apr 2000). A sister, Violet, born 1929, died in infancy. When the twins were three years old, they were struck down with diphtheria and recovered. Ron almost died from a head injury suffered in a fight with his twin brother in 1942. In 1938, having previously lived in Stene Street, Hoxton, the Kray family moved to 178 Vallance Road, Bethnal Green. At the start of the Second World War, Charlie Kray Senior was called up into the army but went into hiding, travelling the country as a trader and avoiding the law. The twins first attended Wood Close School in Brick Lane and then Daniel Street School. They were always trouble; people who knew them were too scared to say anything. The influence of their grandfather, Jimmy "Cannonball" Lee, led both boys into amateur boxing, which was at that time a popular pursuit for working-class boys in the East End. An element of rivalry between them spurred them on, and they achieved some success. They are said never to have lost a bout before turning professional at the age of 19. National Service The Kray twins became famous locally for their gang and the mayhem they caused. They narrowly avoided prison several times, and in early 1952 they were called up for National Service with the Royal Fusiliers. They deserted several times, each time being recaptured. While absent without leave, the twins assaulted a police officer who had spotted them and was trying to arrest them. They were initially held at the Tower of London (they were among the very last prisoners ever kept there) before being sent to Shepton Mallet military prison in Somerset and gaoled for a month awaiting court-martial. They ended up being gaoled in the Home Counties Brigade Depot gaol in Canterbury, Kent. Their behaviour there was so bad that in the end they were given a dishonourable discharge from the service; for the last few weeks of their imprisonment, when their fate was a certainty anyway, they tried to dominate the exercise area immediately outside their one man cells. They threw tantrums, upended their latrine bucket over a sergeant, similarly dumped a dixie (a large camp kettle full of hot tea on a guard, handcuffed another guard to the prison bars with a pair of stolen cuffs, and burned their bedding. Eventually they were discharged, but not before escaping from the guardhouse and being recaptured by the army one last time. The escape was executed when they were moved from a one man cell to a communal cell and they assaulted their guard with a china vase. Still, once recaptured and while awaiting transfer to civilian authority for crimes committed during their most recent period at large, they spent their last night in Canterbury drinking cider, eating crisps, and smoking cigarillos courtesy of the young National Servicemen who were acting as their guards. Criminal careers Nightclub owners Their criminal record and dishonourable discharge ended their boxing careers. As a result, the twins turned to crime. They bought a run down local snooker club in Bethnal Green, where they started several protection rackets. By the end of the 1950s, the Krays were involved in hijacking, armed robbery and arson, through which they acquired a few clubs and other properties. In 1960 Ronnie Kray was incarcerated for 18 months on charges of running a protection racket and related threats, and while he was in prison, Peter Rachman, the head of a violent landlord operation, gave Reggie the Esmeralda's Barn, a nightclub in Knightsbridge. This increased the Krays' influence in the West End of London, with celebrities and famous people rather than East End criminals. They were assisted by banker Alan Cooper who wanted protection from the Krays' rivals, the Richardsons, who were based in South London. The twins then had a turf war with Islington's then infamous criminal twins, Brendan and Daniel Gallagher. Celebrity status In the 1960s, they were widely seen as prosperous and charming celebrity nightclub owners and were part of the Swinging London scene. A large part of their fame was due to their non-criminal activities as popular figures on the celebrity circuit, being photographed by David Bailey on more than one occasion; and socialised with lords, MPs, socialites and show business characters such as the actors George Raft, Judy Garland, Diana Dors, Barbara Windsor and singer Frank Sinatra. "They were the best years of our lives. They called them the swinging sixties. The Beatles and the Rolling Stones were rulers of pop music, Carnaby Street ruled the fashion world... and me and my brother ruled London. We were fucking untouchable..." – Ronnie Kray, in his autobiographical book, My Story. Lord Boothby and Tom Driberg The Krays also came into the public eye when an exposé in the tabloid newspaper Sunday Mirror alleged that Ron had had a sexual relationship with Lord Boothby, a UK Conservative Party politician. Although no names were printed, Boothby threatened to sue, the newspaper backed down, sacked its editor, apologised, and paid Boothby £40,000 in an out of court settlement. As a result, other newspapers were less willing to uncover the Krays' connections and criminal activities. The police investigated the Krays on several occasions, but the twins' reputation for violence meant witnesses were afraid to come forward to testify. There was also a political problem for both main parties. It was neither in the interests of the Conservative Party to press the police to end the Krays' power lest the Boothby connection was again publicised and demonstrated, or those of the Labour Party because their MP Tom Driberg was also rumoured to have had a relationship with Ronnie. Frank Mitchell On 12 December 1966 the Krays assisted Frank Mitchell (nicknamed "The Mad Axeman") (not to be confused with Frankie Fraser – known as "Mad" Frankie Fraser, and contemporaneous, but allied with the rival Richardson gang) in escaping from Dartmoor Prison. Ronnie Kray had befriended Mitchell while they served time together in Wandsworth prison. Mitchell felt the authorities should review his case for parole, so Ronnie felt he would be doing him a favour by getting him out of Dartmoor, highlighting his case in the media and forcing the authorities to act. Once Mitchell was out of Dartmoor, the Krays held him at a friend's flat in Barking Road. However, as a large man with a mental disorder, he was difficult to deal with. He disappeared and his body has never been found. The Krays were acquitted of his murder. Freddie Foreman, a former member of The Firm, in his autobiography Respect claimed that Mitchell was shot and the body disposed of at sea. Arrest and trial When Inspector Leonard "Nipper" Read of Scotland Yard was promoted to the Murder Squad, his first assignment was to bring down the Kray twins. It was not his first involvement with Reg and Ron; during the first half of 1964 Read had been investigating their activities, but publicity and official denials surrounding allegations of Ron's relationship with Boothby had made the evidence he collected useless. Read tackled the problem of convicting the twins with renewed activity in 1967, but frequently came up against the East End "wall of silence", which discouraged anyone from providing information to the police. Imprisonment On 11 August 1982, under tight security, Ronnie and Reggie Kray were allowed to attend the funeral of their mother Violet, who had died of cancer the week before, but they were not allowed to attend the graveside service at Chingford Mount cemetery in East London where their mother was interred in the Kray family plot. The service was attended by celebrities including Diana Dors and underworld figures known to the Krays. The twins did not ask to attend their father's funeral when he died seven months later in March 1983: this was to avoid the publicity that had surrounded their mother's funeral. Deaths Ronnie was eventually once more certified insane and lived the remainder of his life in Broadmoor Hospital, Crowthorne, dying on 17 March 1995 of a massive heart attack, aged 61. His funeral on 29 March 1995 was an enormous event with people lining the streets. Reggie Kray was a Category A prisoner, denied almost all liberties and not allowed to mix with other prisoners. However, in his later years, he was downgraded to Category C and transferred to Norfolk's Wayland Prison. In 1985, officials at Broadmoor Hospital discovered a business card of Ron's, which prompted an investigation that revealed the twins – incarcerated at separate institutions – along with their older brother, Charlie, and another accomplice who was not in prison, were operating a "lucrative bodyguard and 'protection' business for Hollywood stars". Documents released under Freedom of Information laws revealed that officials were concerned about this operation, called Krayleigh Enterprises, but believed there was no legal basis to shut it down. Documentation of the investigation reveals Frank Sinatra hired 18 bodyguards from Krayleigh Enterprises in 1985. During incarceration, Reggie became a born again Christian. After serving more than the recommended 30 years he was sentenced to in March 1969, he was finally freed from Wayland on 26 August 2000, at almost 67-years-old. He was released on compassionate grounds as a result of having inoperable bladder cancer. The final weeks of his life were spent with his wife Roberta, whom he had married while in Maidstone prison in July 1997, in a suite at the Townhouse Hotel at Norwich, having left Norwich hospital on 22 September 2000. On 1 October 2000, Reggie Kray died in his sleep. Ten days later, he was buried alongside his brother Ronnie, in Chingford cemetery. Elder brother Charlie Kray was released in 1975 after serving seven years, but returned to prison in 1997 for conspiracy to smuggle cocaine worth £69m in an undercover drugs sting. He died of natural causes in prison on 4 April 2000, six months before Reggie's death.

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Jesse James: We made him a hero

Jesse James

Jesse Woodson James (1847 – 1882) was an American outlaw, gang leader, bank robber, train robber, and murderer from the state of Missouri and the most famous member of the James-Younger Gang. Already a celebrity when he was alive, he became a legendary figure of the Wild West after his death. Some recent scholars place him in the context of regional insurgencies of ex-Confederates following the American Civil War rather than a manifestation of frontier lawlessness or alleged economic justice. Jesse and his brother Frank James were Confederate guerrillas during the Civil War. They were accused of participating in atrocities committed against Union soldiers. After the war, as members of one gang or another, they robbed banks, stagecoaches, and trains. Despite popular portrayals of James as a kind of Robin Hood, robbing from the rich and giving to the poor, there is no evidence that he and his gang used their robbery gains for anyone but themselves. The James brothers were most active with their gang from about 1866 until 1876, when their attempted robbery of a bank in Northfield, Minnesota, resulted in the capture or deaths of several members. They continued in crime for several years, recruiting new members, but were under increasing pressure from law enforcement. On April 3, 1882, Jesse James was killed by Robert Ford, who was a member of the gang living in the James house and who was hoping to collect a state reward on James' head.

Historical The approach of the American Civil War overshadowed the James-Samuel household. Missouri was a border state, sharing characteristics of both North and South, but 75% of the population was from the South or other border states. Clay County was in a region of Missouri later dubbed "Little Dixie," as it was a center of migration from the Upper South. Farmers raised the same crops and livestock as in the areas they migrated from. They brought slaves with them and purchased more according to need. The county had more slaveholders, who held more slaves, than in other regions. Aside from slavery, the culture of Little Dixie was Southern in other ways as well. This influenced how the population acted during and for a period of time after the American Civil War. In Missouri as a whole, slaves accounted for only 10 percent of the population, but in Clay County they constituted 25 percent. After the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act in 1854, Clay County became the scene of great turmoil, as the question of whether slavery would be expanded into the neighboring Kansas Territory came to dominate public life. Numerous people from Missouri migrated to Kansas to try to influence its future. Much of the tension that led up to the Civil War centered on the violence that erupted in Kansas between pro- and anti-slavery militias. American Civil War The Civil War may have shaped the life of Jesse James. After a series of campaigns and battles between conventional armies in 1861, guerrilla warfare gripped the state, waged between secessionist "bushwhackers" and Union forces which largely consisted of local militia organizations ("jayhawkers"). A bitter conflict ensued, bringing an escalating cycle of atrocities by both sides. Guerrillas murdered civilian Unionists, executed prisoners and scalped the dead. Union forces enforced martial law with raids on homes, arrests of civilians, summary executions and banishment of Confederate sympathizers from the state. The James-Samuel family took the Confederate side at the outset of the war. Frank James joined a local company recruited for the secessionist Drew Lobbs Army, and fought at the Battle of Wilson's Creek, though he fell ill and returned home soon afterward. In 1863, he was identified as a member of a guerrilla squad that operated in Clay County. In May of that year, a Union militia company raided the James-Samuel farm, looking for Frank's group. They tortured Reuben Samuel by briefly hanging him from a tree. According to legend, they lashed young Jesse.

Downfall of the gang Jesse and his cousin Zee married on April 24, 1874, and had two children who survived to adulthood: Jesse Edward James (b. 1875) and Mary Susan James (b. 1879). Twins Gould and Montgomery James (b. 1878) died in infancy. Jesse, Jr. became a lawyer in Kansas City, Missouri and Los Angeles, California. On September 7, 1876, the James-Younger gang attempted a raid on the First National Bank of Northfield, Minnesota. After this robbery and a manhunt, only Frank and Jesse James were left alive and uncaptured. Cole and Bob Younger later stated that they selected the bank because they believed it was associated with the Republican politician Adelbert Ames, the governor of Mississippi during Reconstruction, and Union general Benjamin Butler, Ames' father-in-law and the Union commander of occupied New Orleans. Ames was a stockholder in the bank, but Butler had no direct connection to it. The gang attempted to rob the bank in Northfield about 2 p.m. on September 7, 1876 but the robbery was bungled because several gang members had been drinking that morning, something Jesse James would never have permitted had he been present in Northfield. This was a primary reason Jesse James was never indicted for the Northfield crimes. Jesse James was a highly disciplined Confederate terrorist in his day, but he never drank alcohol and never permitted his gang members to drink alcohol on the job because he had seen the disastrous results of drunken raids during and after the war. Northfield residents had seen the gang members leave a local restaurant near the mill shortly after noon, and they testified in Faribault at the Younger brothers' trial that they smelled of alcohol and that gang members were obviously under the influence when they greeted General Ames near the mill. The Northfield bank robbery was a debacle Jesse James would never have permitted had he been present that day. To carry out the robbery, the gang divided into two groups. Three men entered the bank, two guarded the door outside, and three remained near a bridge across an adjacent square. The robbers inside the bank were thwarted when acting cashier Joseph Lee Heywood refused to open the safe, falsely claiming that it was secured by a time lock even as they held a bowie knife to his throat and cracked his skull with a pistol butt. Assistant cashier Alonzo Enos Bunker was wounded in the shoulder as he fled out the back door of the bank. Meanwhile, the citizens of Northfield grew suspicious of the men guarding the door and raised the alarm. The five bandits outside fired in the air to clear the streets, which drove the townspeople to take cover and fire back from protected positions. Two bandits were shot dead and the rest were wounded in the barrage. Inside, the outlaws turned to flee. As they left, one shot the unarmed cashier Heywood in the head. Historians have speculated about the identity of the shooter but have not reached consensus on his identity. The gang barely escaped Northfield, leaving two dead companions behind. They killed two innocent victims, Heywood, and Nicholas Gustafson, a Swedish immigrant from the Millersburg community west of Northfield. A massive manhunt ensued. It is believed that the gang burned 14 Rice County mills shortly after the robbery. The James brothers eventually split from the others and escaped to Missouri. The militia soon discovered the Youngers and one other bandit, Charlie Pitts. In a gunfight, Pitts died and the Youngers were taken prisoner. Except for Frank and Jesse James, the James-Younger Gang was destroyed. Later in 1876, Jesse and Frank James surfaced in the Nashville, Tennessee area, where they went by the names of Thomas Howard and B. J. Woodson, respectively. Frank seemed to settle down, but Jesse remained restless. He recruited a new gang in 1879 and returned to crime, holding up a train at Glendale, Missouri (now part of Independence, Missouri), on October 8, 1879. The robbery was the first of a spree of crimes, including the holdup of the federal paymaster of a canal project in Killen, Alabama, and two more train robberies. But the new gang did not consist of battle-hardened guerrillas; they soon turned against each other or were captured, while James grew paranoid, killing one gang member and frightening away another. By 1881, with authorities growing suspicious, the brothers returned to Missouri where they felt safer. In December, Jesse rented a house in Saint Joseph, Missouri, not far from where he had been born and raised. Frank, however, decided to move to safer territory, heading east to Virginia.

Death With his gang nearly annihilated, James trusted only the Ford brothers, Charley and Robert. Although Charley had been out on raids with James, Bob was an eager new recruit. For protection, James asked the Ford brothers to move in with him and his family. James had often stayed with their sister Martha Bolton and, according to rumor, he was "smitten" with her. James did not know that Bob Ford had been conducting secret negotiations with Thomas T. Crittenden, the Missouri governor, to bring in the famous outlaw. Crittenden had made capture of the James brothers his top priority; in his inaugural address he declared that no political motives could be allowed to keep them from justice. Barred by law from offering a sufficiently large reward, he had turned to the railroad and express corporations to put up a $5,000 bounty for each of them. On April 3, 1882, after eating breakfast, the Fords and James prepared to depart for another robbery. They went in and out of the house to ready the horses. As it was an unusually hot day, James removed his coat, then declared that he should remove his firearms as well, lest he look suspicious. Noticing a dusty picture on the wall, he stood on a chair to clean it. Bob Ford shot James in the back of the head. James' two previous bullet wounds and partially missing middle finger served to positively identify the body.

The murder of Jesse James became a national sensation. The Fords made no attempt to hide their role. Indeed, Robert Ford wired the governor to claim his reward. Crowds pressed into the little house in St. Joseph to see the dead bandit, even while the Ford brothers surrendered to the authorities but they were dismayed to find that they were charged with first degree murder. In the course of a single day, the Ford brothers were indicted, pleaded guilty, were sentenced to death by hanging, and two hours later were granted a full pardon by Governor Crittenden. The governor's quick pardon suggested that he knew the brothers intended to kill James rather than capture him. Like many who knew James, the Ford brothers never believed it was practical to try to take him into custody. The implication that the chief executive of Missouri conspired to kill a private citizen startled the public and added to James' notoriety. After receiving a small portion of the reward, the Fords fled Missouri. Law enforcement officials active in the plan also shared the bounty. Later the Ford brothers starred in a touring stage show in which they reenacted the shooting. Suffering from tuberculosis (then incurable) and a morphine addiction, Charley Ford committed suicide on May 6, 1884, in Richmond, Missouri. Bob Ford operated a tent saloon in Creede, Colorado. On June 8, 1892, a man named Edward O'Kelley, went to Creede, loaded a double barrel shotgun, entered Ford's saloon and said "Hello, Bob" before shooting Bob Ford in the throat, killing him instantly. O'Kelley was sentenced to life in prison. O'Kelley's sentence was subsequently commuted because of a 7,000 signature petition in favor of his release. The governor pardoned him on October 3, 1902. James' mother Zerelda Samuel wrote the following epitaph for him: In Loving Memory of my Beloved Son, Murdered by a Traitor and Coward Whose Name is not Worthy to Appear Here. James's widow Zee died alone and in poverty. Rumors of survival Rumors of Jesse James's survival proliferated almost as soon as the newspapers announced his death. Some said that Robert Ford killed someone other than James, in an elaborate plot to allow him to escape justice. These tales have received little credence, then or later. None of James's biographers has accepted them as plausible. The body buried in Kearney, Missouri, as Jesse James's was exhumed in 1995 and subjected to mitochondrial DNA typing. The report, prepared by Anne C. Stone, Ph.D., James E. Starrs, L.L.M., and Mark Stoneking, Ph.D., stated the mtDNA recovered from the remains was consistent with the mtDNA of one of James's relatives in the female line. This theme resurfaced in a 2009 documentary, Jesse James' Hidden Treasure, which aired on the History Channel. The documentary was dismissed as pseudo-history and pseudo-science by historian Nancy Samuelson in a review she wrote for the Winter, 2009-2010 edition of The James-Younger Gang Journal. One prominent claimant was J. Frank Dalton, who died August 15, 1951, in Granbury, Texas. Dalton was allegedly 101 years old at the time of his first public appearance, in May 1948. His story did not hold up to questioning from James' surviving relatives.

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Families who Killed together: Ma Barker and The Barker gang

Ma Barker

Born Arizona Donnie Clark (October 8, 1873 – January 16, 1935), Kate "Ma" Barker was the mother of several criminals who ran the Barker gang from the "public enemy era", when the exploits of gangs of criminals in the U.S. Midwest gripped the American people and press.

Date of birth Ma Barker is believed to have been born October 8, 1873, in Ash Grove, Missouri, near Springfield, and named Arizona Clark. On September 14, 1892, she married George Elias Barker in Aurora, Lawrence County, Missouri. At that time her age was given as 17. George Barker was the informant on Arizona Barker's amended death certificate. He gave her date of birth as October 8, 1877. In 1920 "Arrie" appears on the Census of Stone County, Missouri, as age 45. In 1930 Arrie appears on the Census of Tulsa County, Oklahoma, as the wife of Arthur W. Dunlop. Her age is there given as 53.

Family life George and Arizona had four boys named Herman, Lloyd, Arthur, and Fred. Arrie did everything she could to protect her boys and to keep them out of jail.

Some accounts claim that George Barker was an alcoholic. It appears from the 1910 to 1930 censuses and the Tulsa City Directories from 1916 to 1928 that he was regularly employed. From 1916 to 1919 he worked for the Crystal Springs Water Co. In the 1920s he was variously employed as a farmer, watchman, station engineer, and clerk. George is last listed with Arrie in the 1928 Tulsa city directory. Whether he was thrown out by Arrie, as some claim, or he left on his own accord when life with her and the family became intolerable, isn't known, but it is clear that he didn't desert his family when the boys were young.

(Picture above on the right: George and Ma Barker)

George and Arrie's son Herman committed suicide on August 29, 1927, in Wichita, Kansas. He shot himself after a shootout with police that lasted hours. In 1928 Lloyd was incarcerated in the federal penitentiary at Leavenworth, Kansas, Arthur was in the Oklahoma State Prison, and Fred was in the Kansas State Prison. Miriam Allen deFord, in her 1970 biography titled The Real Ma Barker, wrote, "This was the period when George Barker gave up completely and quietly removed himself from the scene."

Controversy Though her children were undoubtedly criminals and their Barker-Karpis Gang committed a spree of robberies, kidnappings, and other crimes between 1931 and 1935, the popular image of her as the gang's leader and its criminal mastermind has been found to be fictitious. Ma Barker certainly knew of the gang's activities, and even helped them before and after they committed their crimes. This would make her an accomplice, but there is no evidence that she was ever an active participant in any of the crimes themselves or involved in planning them. Her role was in taking care of gang members, who often sent her to the movies while they committed crimes.

Alvin Karpis, the gang's second most notorious member, later said that: The most ridiculous story in the annals of crime is that Ma Barker was the mastermind behind the Karpis-Barker gang. . .  She wasn't a leader of criminals or even a criminal herself. There is not one police photograph of her or set of fingerprints taken while she was alive . . . she knew we were criminals but her participation in our careers was limited to one function: when we traveled together, we moved as a mother and her sons. What could look more innocent?

This view of Ma Barker is corroborated by notorious bank robber Harvey Bailey, who knew the Barkers well. He observed in his autobiography that Ma Barker "couldn't plan breakfast" let alone a criminal enterprise. Many, including Karpis, have suggested that the myth was encouraged by J. Edgar Hoover and his fledgling Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to justify his agency's killing of an old lady. FBI Agents discovered the hideout of Ma Barker and her son, Fred, after Arthur "Doc" Barker was arrested in Chicago on January 8, 1935. A map found in his possession indicated that the other gang members were in Ocklawaha, Florida. Agents surrounded the house at 13250 East Highway C-25 on the morning of January 16, 1935. Ordered to surrender, Fred opened fire; both he and his mother were killed by federal agents after an intense, hours-long gun-battle. According to the FBI, a Tommy gun was found lying in the hands of Ma Barker. (It is a common belief that this was a fabrication by the FBI in order to justify her violent death. ) Their bodies were put on public display, and then stored unclaimed, until October 1, 1935, when some relatives had them buried in Welch, Oklahoma, next to the body of Herman Barker.

Summary of Barker sons/gang activities 1900–1920

1910—Herman Barker arrested for highway robbery in Webb City, Missouri.

March 5, 1915—Herman Barker arrested for highway robbery in Joplin, Missouri. {Herman and Lloyd Barker reportedly involved with the Central Park Gang of Tulsa, Oklahoma.}

July 4, 1918—Arthur "Doc" Barker involved in US automobile theft in Tulsa, Oklahoma; arrested {#841} {escaped}.

1920–1929

February 19, 1920—Arthur Barker arrested in Joplin, Missouri (#1740); returned to Tulsa, Oklahoma.

1921—Lloyd "Red" Barker arrested for vagrancy in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

January 15, 1921—Arthur Barker aka "Claude Dade" involved in attempted bank robbery in Muskogee, Oklahoma; arrested {#822}.

January 30, 1921—Arthur Barker aka "Bob Barker" received at the Oklahoma State Prison (#11059); released June 11, 1921.

August 16, 1921—Arthur Barker and Volney Davis involved in killing of night watchman Thomas J. Sherrill in Tulsa, Oklahoma. (According to other sources, Thomas J. Sherrill. was a night watchman at St. John's Hospital in Tulsa.)

January 8, 1922—Central Park Gang involved in attempted burglary in Okmulgee, Oklahoma; shootout results in one burglar dead while police Captain Homer R. Spaulding ies of his wounds on January 19, 1922. One gang member is sentenced to life in prison while another had his sentence overturned.

January 16, 1922—Lloyd Barker received at Leavenworth Prison {#17243} after arrest for robbing mail at Baxter Springs, Kansas and sentenced to 25 years; released 1938.

February 10, 1922—Arthur "Doc" Barker received {#11906} at Oklahoma State Prison for the murder of Sherrill.

1926—Fred Barker robbed bank in Winfield, Kansas; arrested.

March 12, 1927—Fred Barker admitted to Kansas State Prison.

August 1, 1927-Herman Barker cashed stolen bank bonds at the America National Bank in Cheyenne, WY. Sheriff Deputy Arthur Osborn flagged down Barker's car. Barker picked up a gun from the vehicle's seat and shot Osborn. Osborn died as a result.

August 29, 1927—Herman Barker commits suicide in Wichita, Kansas after being stopped at police roadblock. {Wichita Policeman J.E. Marshall had been killed on August 9, 1927 by the Kimes-Terrill gang that Herman was associated with. Five other policemen were killed by the Kimes gang.

1930–1939

March 30, 1931—Fred Barker released from Kansas State Prison after serving time for burglary; met Alvin Karpis in prison.

June 10, 1931—Fred Barker and Alvin Karpis {alias George Heller} arrested by Tulsa, Oklahoma Police investigating burglary. Karpis sentenced to 4 years but paroled after restitution made; Fred Barker also avoided jail sentence.

November 8, 1931—Fred Barker killed an Arkansas police chief Manley Jackson.

December 19, 1931—Fred Barker and Alvin Karpis robbed a store in West Plains, Missouri and involved in the killing of Howell County, Missouri sheriff C. Roy Kelly.

January 18, 1932—Lloyd Barker received at Leavenworth Prison.

April 26, 1932—Body of A.W. Dunlap found at Lake Franstead, Minnesota; killed by Fred Barker and Alvin Karpis.

June 17, 1932—Fred Barker, Karpis and five accomplices robbed Fort Scott, Kansas Bank.

July 26, 1932—Fred Barker, Karpis (with an augmented gang) robbed Cloud County bank at Concordia, Kansas.

August 13, 1932—Attorney J. Earl Smith of Tulsa, Oklahoma found killed at Indian Hills Country Club north of Tulsa; he had been retained to defend Harvey Bailey over the Fort Scott bank robbery, but the man was convicted.

September 10, 1932—Arthur "Doc" Barker released from prison.

December 16, 1932—Fred and Arthur Barker, Alvin Karpis and gang robbed Third Northwestern National Bank in Minneapolis, killing policemen Ira Leon Evans and Leo Gorski and one civilian. {One gang member Lawrence DeVol in this shooting was also involved in four other police killings-two police officers, Sheriff William Sweet and City Marshal Aaron Bailey, in Washington, Iowa and Marshall John W. Rose in Kirksville, MO on November 17, 1930 and killing officer Cal Palmer and wounding another officer before being gunned down in Enid, OK in 1936.}

April 4, 1933—Fred and Arthur Barker, Alvin Karpis and gang robbed Fairbury, Nebraska bank.

June 1933—William Hamm of the Hamm's Brewery family kidnapped by Barker-Karpis gang; Hamm released June 19, 1933 after ransom paid. It is believed by some that the gang turned over half of the Hamm ransom money to the Chicago Mob under Frank Nitti after Nitti discovered that they were hiding Hamm in suburban Chicago and demanded half the ransom as "rent".

August 30, 1933—Barker-Karpis Gang robs a payroll at Stockyards National Bank of South St Paul, Minnesota in which one policeman Leo Pavlak is coldly executed and one disabled for life.

September 22, 1933—Two bank messengers held up by five men identified as Barker-Karpis gang; Chicago policeman Miles A Cunningham is killed by gang while investigating a nearby traffic accident. {Barker-Karpis gang associate Vernon Miller was allegedly involved in the killing, and reportedly also involved in the Kansas City Massacre in which four lawmen were killed}.

January 17, 1934—Gang kidnaps Edward George Bremer; Bremer released on February 7, 1934 after ransom paid.

January 19, 1934—Gang wounds M.C. McCord of Northwest Airways Company, thinking he was a policeman.

March 10, 1934—Barker gang member Fred Goetz (also known as "Shotgun George" Ziegler, a participant in the Bremer kidnapping) killed by fellow gangsters in Cicero, Illinois.

July 1934—Underworld doctor Joseph Moran last seen alive.

January 6, 1935—Barker gang member William B. Harrison killed by fellow gangsters at Ontarioville, Illinois.

January 8, 1935—Arthur "Doc" Barker arrested in Chicago; Barker gang member Russell Gibson killed and his colleague Byron Bolton captured at another address.

January 16, 1935—Fred and Ma Barker killed by FBI at Lake Weir, Florida. Ma Barker was discovered by the FBI tracking her letters sent to her other son. She was writing to him to tell him about a large gator that everyone had called "Gator Joe", which led to the name of the on-shore restaurant known as "Gator Joe's."

September 26, 1935—The supposed body of underworld doctor Joseph Moran found in Lake Erie; believed killed by Fred Barker and Alvin Karpis. (However, Karpis himself said that Moran had been buried.)

November 7, 1935—Karpis and five accomplices robbed a Erie Railroad mail train at Garrittsville, Ohio.

May 1, 1936—Karpis and accomplice Fred Hunter arrested in New Orleans, Louisiana.

January 13, 1939—Arthur Barker killed trying to escape from Alcatraz Prison.

(Of Barker-Karpis gang/associates: 18 arrested; 3 killed by lawmen; 2 killed by gangsters) 1940–1949

World War II—Lloyd Barker is US Army cook, ironically at POW camp Fort Custer, Michigan; receives US Army Good Conduct Medal and Honorable Discharge.

March 18, 1949—Lloyd Barker killed by his wife; he is manager of Denargo Market in Denver Colorado; she is sent to Colorado State Insane Asylum.

Popular culture

Lurene Tuttle portrayed Ma Barker in the low-budget feature film Ma Barker's Killer Brood (1960).

In the 1966 Batman series, one of the villains in series one was Ma Parker (played by Shelley Winters), a villainous mob boss based on Ma Barker. Ma Parker along with her three sons and one daughter almost managed to defeat the Dynamic Duo in the series.

Barker's story was also adapted in the low budget film Bloody Mama (1970).

In 1977, German disco band Boney M. released a hit single titled Ma Baker. The song's title and lyrics clearly reference Ma Barker.

Another retelling of the legend occurred in the 1996 movie Public Enemies starring Theresa Russell.

"Ma Barker and Her Boys", an episode of The Untouchables, pits Federal Agent Eliot Ness against the Barker clan, and depicts Ness as leading the assault on Ma Barker and her sons at their Florida hide-out. In real life Ness was not a member of the FBI at the time of the shoot-out, and had nothing to do with the Barker/Karpis case.

The DuckTales version of Disney's Beagle Boys, a gang of criminals, is led by their mother Ma Beagle, who is based on Ma Barker. She is absent from the original comics by Carl Barks.

The band Maylene And The Sons Of Disaster are named after the group of criminals and their songs are based on the gang's history.

While The Daltons of the Lucky Luke comic book series, were originally based on the real Dalton Gang, their mother Ma Dalton is clearly inspired by Ma Barker. Coincidentally, their gang consists of four instead of three Dalton brothers.

Crime author James Hadley Chase based some of the characters in his first novel, No Orchids for Miss Blandish, on Ma Barker and her sons.

John Eaton composed an opera, Ma Barker, in 1955.

The 1959 movie "The FBI Story staring Jimmy Stewart portrays a number of deaths of 1930s-era criminals, including Ma Barker (portrayed by Jane Crowley, though it was uncredited.

Freddie Barker & Arthur "Doc" Barker"

[crimelibrary]

Families who Killed together: The Harpe Brothers and The Borgia Family

The Harpe brothers

Micajah "Big" Harpe and Wiley "Little" Harpewere murderers, highwaymen, and river pirates, who operated in Tennessee, Kentucky, Illinois, and Mississippi in the late 18th century. Their crimes appear to have been motivated more by blood lust than financial gain and many historians have called them the America's first true "serial killers". The Harpes are said to have been brothers (though some sources say cousins), born in Orange County, North Carolina to Scottish parents. Their father or their uncles, were allegedly of Tory allegiance, who fought on the British side during the Revolutionary War. Big Harpe is known to have had two wives, sisters Susan and Betsey Roberts. Little Harpe married Sally Rice, daughter of a Baptist minister.

Disputed claims of early lives and involvement in Revolutionary War and Indian Wars

In Jon Musgrave's article of Oct. 23, 1998, in the southern Illinois newspaper, American Weekend, through thorough research, he cited the T. Marshall Smith 1855 book, Legends of the War of Independence, and of the Earlier Settlements in the West, that the Harpes were much older than most mainstream historians have acknowledged. Smith stated he had heard stories from his grandfather, older pioneers, and those who had interviewed two of the Harpe wives. One of his stories was that the Harpe brothers were actually cousins, William and Joshua Harper, who would sometime later take the alias Harpe, emigrated, in 1759 or 1760, at a young age, from Scotland. Their fathers were brothers, John and William Harper, who settled Orange County, North Carolina between 1761 and 1763. The Harper patriarchs were loyal to the British Crown and were known as Royalists, Kings Men, Loyalists, and Tories and may also, have been regulators involved in the North Carolina Regulator War. The anti-British Crown neighbors of the Harpers were known as Whigs, Rebels, and Patriots. Around April or May, 1775, the young Harper cousins left North Carolina and went to Virginia to find overseer jobs on a slave plantation. At the outbreak of the American Revolution, little is known of the Harpes' whereabouts. According to Smith, from an eyewitness account from Captain James Wood, they joined a Tory rape gang in North Carolina and took part in the kidnapping of three teenage girls, with a fourth girl being rescued by Captain Wood. These gangs took advantage of the war by raping, stealing, and murdering, and burning and destroying the property, especially farms, of patriot colonists. In an interview Smith had with the Patriot soldier, Frank Wood, who was the son of Captain James Wood revealed that he was the older brother of Susan Wood Harpe, the later kidnapped wife of Micajah "Big" Harpe. Frank Wood claimed to have seen the Harpe brothers, serving "loosely" as Tory militia, under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Banastre Tarleton's British Legion, at the Battles of Blackstocks, November 20, 1780, and Cowpens, January 17, 1781. They also appeared in the same supporting role, at the Battle of King's Mountain, October 7, 1780, under British commander Major Patrick Ferguson. These battles that the Harpes supposedly participated in resulted in major Patriot victories. Following the British defeat at Yorktown in 1781, the Harpes left North Carolina, dispersed with their Indian allies, the Chickamauga Cherokees, to Tennessee villages west of the Appalachian Mountains. On April 2, 1781, they joined war parties of four hundred Chickamauga Cherokee and attacked the Patriot frontier settlement of Bluff Station, at Fort Nashborough (now Nashville, Tennessee), which would again be assaulted by them, on either July 20, 1788, or April 9, 1793. A Captain James Leiper was killed in the 1781 attack on the fort and may have been related to the John Leiper, who was later involved in the killing of Micajah "Big" Harpe in Kentucky in 1799. On August 19, 1782, the Harpes accompanied a British-backed, Chickamauga Cherokee war party to Kentucky in the Battle of Blue Licks, where they helped to defeat an army of Patriot frontiersmen. During the Harpe brothers' early frontier period among the Chickamauga Cherokee, they lived in the village of Nickajack, near Chattanooga, Tennessee, for approximately twelve to thirteen years. During this span of time, they kidnapped Maria Davidson and later, Susan Wood and made them their women. In 1794, the Harpes and their women abandoned their Indian habitation, before the main Chickamauga Cherokee village of Nickajack, in eastern Tennessee, was destroyed in a raid by American settlers. They would later relocate to Powell's Valley, around Knoxville, Tennessee, where they stole food and supplies from local pioneers. The whereabouts of the Harpes were unknown between the summer of 1795 and spring of 1797, but by spring they were dwelling in a cabin on Beaver's Creek, near Knoxville. On June 1, 1797, Wiley Harpe married Sarah Rice, which was recorded in the Knox County, Tennessee marriage records. Sometime during 1797, the Harpes would begin their trail of death in Tennessee, Kentucky, and Illinois.

Atrocities

As young men, the Harpes lived with renegade Creek and Cherokee Indians who committed atrocities against white settlers and against their own tribes. By 1797 the Harpes were living near Knoxville, Tennessee. However, they were driven from the town after being charged with stealing hogs and horses. They were also accused of murdering a man named Johnson, whose body was found in a river, ripped open and weighted with stones. This became a characteristic of the Harpes' murders. They butchered anyone at the slightest provocation, even babies. R.E. Banta in The Ohio claims that Micajah Harpe even bashed his infant daughter's head against a tree because her constant crying annoyed him. This was the only crime for which he would later confess genuine remorse. From Knoxville they fled north into Kentucky. They entered the state on the Wilderness Road, near the Cumberland Gap. They are believed to have murdered a peddler named Peyton, taking his horse and some of his goods. They then murdered two travellers from Maryland. 

Deaths

In July 1799, John Leiper raised a posse to avenge the murder of Mrs. Stegal, including Moses Stegal, the victim's husband. Leiper reached Harpe first, and managed to shoot Big Harpe. After a scuffle with a tomahawk, Leiper overcame Harpe. When Stegal arrived, he decapitated Harpe and stuck his head on a pole, at a crossroads still known as "Harpe's Head" or Harpe's Head Road in Webster County, Kentucky. By the end of their reign of terror, the "Bloody Harpes" were responsible for the known murders of no less than 40 men, women, and children. Little Harpe eluded the authorities for some time, using the alias John Setton, until allegedly being caught in an effort to get a reward of his own on the head of an outlaw, Samuel Mason. He was captured in 1803, tried and hanged on February 8, 1804.

Harpe women

According to Jon Musgrave, the Harpe women, after cohabitation with the Harpe brothers, led lives that were relatively respectable and normal. Upon the death of Micajah "Big" Harpe in Kentucky, Wiley "Little" Harpe fled and went into hiding and their women were apprehended and taken to the Russellville, Kentucky state courthouse and later released. Sally Rice Harpe went back to Knoxville, Tennessee to live in her father's house. For a time, Susan Wood Harpe and Maria Davidson (aka Betsey Roberts Harpe) lived in Russellville. Susan Wood remarried later, and died in Tennessee. According to Ralph Harrelson, a McLeansboro, Illinois historian, records show that on September 27, 1803, Betsey Roberts married John Huffstutler, moved with her husband to Hamilton County, Illinois in 1828, had many children, and eventually the couple passed away in the 1860s. Cave-In-Rock historian, Otto A. Rothert, believed that Susan Wood died in Tennessee and her daughter went to Texas. According to the former sheriff of Hamilton County, Illinois, in 1820, Sally Rice, who had remarried, travelled with her husband and father to their new home in Illinois via the Cave-In-Rock ferry.

Descendants

After the atrocities committed by the Harpes, many members bearing the family name changed their name, in some way, to hide the heritage of their infamous ancestors. The Harpes may have disguised their Tory past from their Patriot neighbours, by changing their original name of "Harper," which was a common Loyalist name in Revolutionary War-era North Carolina. Some went by "Harp" merely removing the final "E" in Harpe, but leaving the pronunciation the same. Others changed the name significantly. Wyatt Earp is a famous example said - though unconfirmed - to have been a member of the Harpe family. There are still descendants of the family today, including those that have changed their surname back to the original spelling.

The House of Borgia

The Borgias, also known as the Borjas, Borjia, were a European Papal family of Italian and Spanish origin with the name stemming from the familial fief seat of Borja belonging to their Aragonese Lords; they became prominent during the Renaissance. The Borgias were patrons of the arts, and their support allowed many artists of the Renaissance to realize their potential. The most brilliant personalities of this era regularly visited their court.

The Borgias became prominent in ecclesiastical and political affairs in the 1400s and 1500s. They produced two popes during this period, Alfons de Borja who ruled as Pope Calixtus III during 1455–1458, and Rodrigo Lanzol Borgia, as Pope Alexander VI, during 1492–1503. Today they are remembered for their corrupt rule during the reign of Alexander VI. They have been accused of many different crimes, including adultery, simony, theft, rape, bribery, incest, and murder (especially murder by arsenic poisoning ). Because of their search for power, they made enemies of other powerful families such as the Medici and the Sforza, as well as the influential Dominican friar Savonarola. 

Rodrigo Borgia (1431 – 1503),

one of Alfons’s nephews, was born in Xàtiva, also in the Kingdom of Valencia. While a cardinal, he maintained an illicit relationship with Vanozza dei Cattanei from the House of Candia, and they had four children: Cesare, Giovanni, Lucrezia and Gioffre. He also had children by women other than Vannozza; Giulia Farnese was among his other mistresses. He was raised to the papal chair in 1492 and he chose the name of Alexander VI. He was considered a good politician and diplomat, but he was also criticized for over-spending, simony and nepotism. His main interests lay in acquiring more wealth, seducing women, and making his family as powerful as possible. He planned to establish an empire with the assistance of his second oldest son, Giovanni, who was appointed captain-general of the papal army. Rodrigo had also honored his eldest son, Cesare, by nominating him cardinal when he was 18. Alexander organized alliances through the marriages of his children. The Sforza family, which comprised the Milanese faction, was at the time one of the most powerful in Europe. Alexander married Lucrezia to Giovanni Sforza; in so doing, he united the Borgia and Sforza families. He also found another way of establishing his position – he married his youngest son from Vannozza, Gioffre, to Sancia of Aragon of the Kingdom of Aragon and Naples. Rodrigo Borgia was said to have died in 1503 in Rome from a poisoned apple, but the actual cause of death was malarial fever. His pontificate is frequently characterized in extremities – he is often said to have been the worst of all Popes. The era in which Alexander VI held supreme papal power was full of scandals, infringements and signs of moral offense among the highest authorities of the Latin Church.

Controversies

There are many controversies connected with Rodrigo. He was not only accused of simony and nepotism, but also of attending public orgies, along with his daughter Lucrezia. The "Banquet of Chestnuts" (also called the "Ballet of the Chestnuts") is considered one of the most disreputable balls of this kind. It was held on October 30, 1501. Not only Pope Alexander VI was present, but also two of his children, Lucrezia and Cesare. Rodrigo is also remembered for other crimes, many of them including torture and execution. The famous Florentine preacher Savonarola was executed under Rodrigo's reign. He accused Alexander VI of corruption and called for his removal as Pope. Savonarola was tortured and then hanged and burned publicly. Alexander VI is also remembered for bringing his mistresses to the papal court. One of them, Vanozza Cattanei gave him four children, and another two were born by Giulia Farnese. Alexander took Giulia as his mistress when she was a fifteen-year-old girl and he was over 60.

Cesare Borgia

Cesare's education was precisely planned by his father. Until his 12th birthday, he was educated by tutors in Rome. He studied law and the humanities at the University of Perugia, then went to the University of Pisa to study theology. As soon as he graduated from the university, his father made him a cardinal. Cesare was suspected of murdering his brother, Giovanni, but there is no clear evidence that he committed this crime. However, Giovanni’s death cleared the path for Cesare to become a layman and gain the honors his brother received from their father, Pope Alexander VI. Although Cesare had been a cardinal, he left the holy orders to gain power and take over the position Giovanni once held – Cesare became a condottiero. He was finally married to French princess Charlotte d'Albret. After Alexander’s death in 1503, Cesare affected the choice of a next Pope. He needed a candidate who would not be a threat to his plans of creating his own principality in Central Italy. Cesare’s candidate did become Pope; however, he also died a month after the selection. Cesare was now forced to support Giuliano della Rovere. The cardinal promised Cesare that he could keep all of his titles and honors. Despite all of his promises, della Rovere betrayed him and became his fiercest enemy. Cesare died in 1507, at Viana Castle in Navarre, Spain while besieging the rebellious army of Count de Lerin. The castle was held by Louis de Beaumont at the time it was besieged by Cesare Borgia and King John's army of 10,000 men in 1507. In order to attempt to breach the extremely strong, natural fortification of the castle, Cesare counted on a desperate surprise attack. However, he not only failed to take the castle but also was killed during the battle.

Controversies After Cesare became a leading general of the French King Louis XII, he returned to Rome. Behind him, dragged in golden chains, was Caterina Sforza, the Lady of two of the cities Cesare had conquered. She was imprisoned and held hostage in awful conditions. She would have died had the French not interceded for her release. When Lucrezia’s second husband, Alfonso, the Duke of Bisceglie, was no longer important to the Borgias, Cesare strangled him (or had him strangled) when he was still recovering from another attempt of assassination on his life. The first attack was also most likely organised by Cesare and his men. Between 1501 and 1503 Cesare hired Leonardo da Vinci as military architect and engineer, which means that da Vinci helped him conquer and then fortify fortresses. It is said that Leonardo invented war machines for Cesare and da Vinci received protection in return. Cesare allowed Leonardo to have full control over all planned and ongoing construction in his domain. Thanks to Leonardo’s merits, he received a vineyard from the family, which he later had to abandon, because of the fall of the Borgia empire. When Leonardo completed his work for Cesare, he had difficulties finding another patron in Italy. Finally, Francis I of France was able to convince him to enter his service, where Leonardo would work for the final three years of his life. Some historians say that Cesare Borgia also murdered his brother Giovanni; however there is no clear evidence that he actually did. There is also the case of Perotto, Lucrezia's lover. When Cesare found out about Lucrezia’s pregnancy, he was so furious that he had the father of the child murdered. The body of Perotto (young chamberlain, the father of the child) was fished out of the Tiber. Also the body of a chambermaid was found in the river – because she had given the lovers a chance to meet in secret. Both murders are believed to have been commissioned by Cesare. Historian Johann Burchard, a contemporary of Alexander VI, who lived in the Vatican, states about Cesare: One day he went so far as to have the square of St Peter enclosed by a palisade, into which he ordered some prisoners - men, women and children - to be brought. He then had them bound, hand and foot, and being armed and mounted on a fiery charger, commenced a horrible attack upon them. Some he shot, and others he cut down with his sword, trampling them under his horse's feet. In less than half-an-hour, he wheeled around alone in a puddle of blood, among the dead bodies of his victims, while his Holiness and Madam Lucrezia, from a balcony, enjoyed the sight of that horrid scene.

Lucrezia Borgia

Lucrezia was 13 years old when her father married her to Giovanni Sforza in 1493. It was a typical political marriage, however, the relationship was annulled in 1497, when Pope Alexander VI did not need the Sforzas any more. While terms of the divorce were being bargained, Lucrezia was resting in a convent. She was completely isolated from the world, and the only contact she had with the members of her family was through Perotto, a young chamberlain. Half a year later she attended a ceremony in which judges from Vatican stated that she was a virgin. The divorce could be permitted, since as a putative virgin Lucrezia could not have consummated her marriage with Giovanni. On the other hand, at the time of examination Lucrezia was pregnant, carrying a baby by Perotto. The child was born in secret, and given the name of Giovanni. He was passed from one protector to another, and finally resided with Lucrezia as her half-brother. Lucrezia’s second marriage, to young and wealthy Prince Alfonso of Aragon, allowed the Borgias to form an alliance with another powerful family. However, this relationship did not last long either. Cesare wished to strengthen his relations with France and completely break off those with Kingdom of Naples. As Alfonso's father was the ruler of the Kingdom of Naples, the young husband was in great danger. Although the first attempt at murder did not succeed, Alfonso was eventually strangled in his own quarters. The third and final husband of Lucrezia was Alfonso d'Este. Though there appeared to be an emotional connection between the couple, and Lucrezia became a beloved wife, she had a few affairs on the side. All of them eventually ended. Lucrezia gave birth to many children; most of whom died soon after birth. When she died in 1519, she was buried in a tomb with her husband and one of her prematurely deceased children, Isabella Maria. Lucrezia Borgia died ten days after the death of her daughter, Isabella, of complications during childbirth.

Controversies She was rumored to be a notorious poisoner and she became famous for her skill at political intrigue. However, recently historians have started to look at her in a more positive light: she is often seen as a victim of her family’s deceptions. Many people believe that she was a criminal, but the crimes of her father, Rodrigo Borgia (Pope Alexander VI), and some of her other siblings including Cesare Borgia are what gave her a bad name. Also, it is believed that Cesare and Lucrezia committed incest.

[crimelibrary]

Ed Gein, The Mad Butcher

Born Edward Theodore Gein, "Ed" was an American murderer and body snatcher.

Childhood

Gein was born in La Crosse, Wisconsin. His parents, George Philip Gein (1873-1940) and Augusta Wilhelmine (Lehrke) Gein (1878-1945), both natives of Wisconsin, had two sons: Henry George Gein (1901-1944), and his younger brother, Edward Theodore Gein. Augusta despised her husband, but the marriage persisted because of the family's religious belief against divorce. Augusta Gein operated a small grocery store and eventually purchased a farm on the outskirts of the small town of Plainfield, Wisconsin, which then became the Gein family's permanent home.

Augusta Gein moved to this location to prevent outsiders from influencing her sons.

Edward Gein left the premises only to go to school. Besides school, he spent most of his time doing chores on the farm. Augusta Gein, a fervent Lutheran, preached to her boys the innate immorality of the world, the evil of drinking, and the belief that all women (herself excluded) were prostitutes and instruments of the devil. She reserved time every afternoon to read to them from the Bible, usually selecting graphic verses from the Old Testament dealing with death, murder, and divine retribution.

A shy, effeminate boy, the younger Gein became a target for bullies. Classmates and teachers recalled off-putting mannerisms, such as seemingly random laughter, as if he were laughing at his own personal jokes. To make matters worse, his mother punished him whenever he tried to make friends. Despite his poor social development, he did fairly well in school, particularly in reading.

Gein tried to make his mother happy, but she was rarely pleased with her boys; she often abused them, believing that they were destined to become failures like their father. During their teens and throughout their early adulthood, the boys remained detached from people outside of their farmstead, and so had only each other for company.

Deaths of family members

After George Gein died of a heart attack in 1940, the Gein brothers began working at odd jobs to help with expenses. Both brothers were considered reliable and honest by residents of the community. While both worked as handymen, Ed Gein also frequently babysat for neighbors. He enjoyed babysitting, seeming to relate more easily to children than adults. As he matured, Henry Gein began to reject his mother's view of the world and worried about his brother's attachment to her. He spoke ill of her around his brother, who responded with shock and hurt.

On May 16, 1944 his brother Henry decided to burn off a marsh on the property.

The burn off escaped control and the local fire department was called to extinguish the fire and protect the family farm from flames. At day's end, with the fire under control, the men returned to their homes when it was discovered that Henry had not come in with the others. A searching party, with lanterns and flashlights, searched the burned over area and in the evening, several hours after the search began, found the dead body of Henry Gein lying face down.

Apparently the man had been dead for some time when he was found, and it appeared that death was result of a heart attack, since he had not been burned or otherwise injured.

It was later reported, and possibly embellished in the Ed Gein biography, "Deviant" by Harold Schechter that he had bruises on his head.

The police dismissed the possibility of foul play and the county coroner later officially listed asphyxiation as the cause of death. Although some investigators suspected that Ed Gein killed his brother, no charges were filed against him.

After his brother's death, Gein lived alone with his mother, who died on December 29, 1945, following a series of strokes. Gein was devastated by her death; in the words of author Harold Schechter, he had "lost his only friend and one true love. And he was absolutely alone in the world."

Gein remained on the farm, supporting himself with earnings from odd jobs. He boarded up rooms used by his mother, including the upstairs, downstairs parlor, and living room, leaving them untouched. He lived in a small room next to the kitchen. Gein became interested in reading death-cult magazines and adventure stories.

Arrest

On November 16, 1957, Plainfield hardware store owner Bernice Worden disappeared and police had reason to suspect Gein. Worden's son had told investigators that Gein had been in the store the evening before the disappearance, saying he would return the following morning for a gallon of anti-freeze. A sales slip for a gallon of anti-freeze was the last receipt written by Worden on the morning she disappeared.

Upon searching Gein's property, investigators discovered Worden's decapitated body in a shed, hung upside down by ropes at her wrists, with a crossbar at her ankles. The torso was "dressed out" like that of a deer.

She had been shot with a .22-caliber rifle, and the mutilations were made after death.

Searching the house, authorities found:

Four noses

Whole human bones and fragments

Nine masks of human skin

Bowls made from human skulls

Ten female heads with the tops sawn off

Human skin covering several chair seats

Mary Hogan's head in a paper bag

Bernice Worden's head in a burlap sack

Nine vulvae in a shoe box

A belt made from female human nipples

Skulls on his bedposts

A pair of lips on a draw string for a window-shade

A lampshade made from the skin from a human face

These artifacts were photographed at the crime lab and then were properly destroyed.

When questioned, Gein told investigators that between 1947 and 1952, he made as many as 40 nocturnal visits to three local graveyards to exhume recently buried bodies while he was in a "daze-like" state. On about 30 of those visits, he said he had come out of the daze while in the cemetery, left the grave in good order, and returned home empty handed.

On the other occasions, he dug up the graves of recently buried middle-aged women he thought resembled his mother and took the bodies home, where he tanned their skins to make his paraphernalia. Gein admitted robbing nine graves, leading investigators to their locations. Because authorities were uncertain as to whether the slight Gein was capable of single-handedly digging up a grave in a single evening, they exhumed two of the graves and found them empty, thus corroborating Gein's confession.

Shortly after his mother's death, Gein had decided he wanted a sex change and began to create a "woman suit" so he could pretend to be a female.

Gein's practice of donning the tanned skins of women was described as an "insane transvestite ritual". Gein denied having sex with the bodies he exhumed, explaining, "They smelled too bad." During interrogation, Gein also admitted to the shooting death of Mary Hogan, a tavern operator missing since 1954.

A 16-year-old youth whose parents were friends of Gein and who attended ball games and movies with him reported that he was aware of the shrunken heads, which Gein had described as relics from the Philippines sent by a cousin who had served in World War II. Upon investigation by the police, these were determined to be human facial skins, carefully peeled from corpses and used as masks by Gein.

Waushara County sheriff Art Schley reportedly physically assaulted Gein during questioning by banging Gein's head and face into a brick wall; as a result, Gein's initial confession was ruled inadmissible. Schley died of a heart attack in December 1968, at age 43, only a month after testifying at Gein's trial. Many who knew him said he was traumatized by the horror of Gein's crime and that this, along with the fear of having to testify (especially about assaulting Gein), led to his death. One of his friends said, "He was a victim of Ed Gein as surely as if he had butchered him.".

Trial

On November 21, 1957, Gein was arraigned on one count of first degree murder in Waushara County Court, where he entered a plea of not guilty by reason of insanity. Found mentally incompetent and thus unfit to stand trial, Gein was sent to the Central State Hospital for the Criminally Insane (now the Dodge Correctional Institution), a maximum-security facility in Waupun, Wisconsin, and later transferred to the Mendota State Hospital in Madison, Wisconsin. In 1968, Gein's doctors determined he was sane enough to stand trial. The trial began on November 14, 1968, lasting one week. He was found guilty of first-degree murder by Judge Robert H. Gollmar, but because he was found to be legally insane, he spent the rest of his life in a mental hospital.

Aftermath

Gein's house and property were scheduled to be auctioned March 30, 1958, amid rumors the house was to become a tourist attraction. The house was completely burned March 27. Arson was suspected but the fire was never officially solved. When Gein learned of the incident while in detention, he shrugged and said, "Just as well." Gein's car, which he had used to haul the bodies of his victims, was sold at the public auction for $760 to carnival sideshow operator Bunny Gibbons. Gibbons later charged carnival goers 25¢ admission to see it.

Death

On July 26, 1984, Gein died of respiratory and heart failure due to cancer at the age of 77 in Stovall Hall at the Mendota Mental Health Institute. His grave site in the Plainfield cemetery was frequently vandalized over the years; souvenir seekers chipped off pieces of his gravestone before the bulk of it was stolen in 2000. The gravestone was recovered in June 2001 near Seattle and is now in a museum in Waushara County.

[crimelibrary]

Some of Ted Bundy's notorious quotes

1.

“We serial killers are your sons, we are your husbands, we are everywhere. And there will be more of your children dead tomorrow”

2.

“You feel the last bit of breath leaving their body. You're looking into their eyes. A person in that situation is God!”

3.

“Murder is not about lust and it's not about violence. It's about possession.”

4.

“There's lots of other kids playing in streets around this country today who are going to be dead tomorrow, and the next day, and the next day and month, because other young people are reading the kinds of things and seeing the kinds of things that are available in the media today. “

5.

“I'm the most cold-hearted son-of-a-bitch you'll ever meet.”

6.

“I've met a lot of men who were motivated to commit violence just like me. And without exception, without question, every one of them was deeply involved in pornography. “

7.

 “I didn't know what made people want to be friends. I didn't know what made people attractive to one another. I didn't know what underlay social interactions. “

8.

“What's one less person on the face of the earth, anyway?”

9.

“I don't feel guilty for anything. I feel sorry for people who feel guilt.”

10.

“I just liked to kill, I wanted to kill.”

11.

“… I deserve, certainly, the most extreme punishment society has and society deserves to be protected from me and from others like me, that's for sure.”

12.

“Well-meaning, decent people will condemn the behavior of a Ted Bundy, while they're walking past a magazine rack full of the very kinds of things that send young kids down the road to be Ted Bundys.”

13.

“I'm as cold a motherfucker as you've ever put your fucking eyes on. I don't give a shit about those people.”

14.

“You learn what you need to kill and take care of the details. It's like changing a tire. The first time you're careful. By the thirtieth time, you can't remember where you left the lug wrench.”

[crimelibrary]

Rodney Alcala: The Dating Game Killer

Rodney Alcala is a convicted rapist, torturer and serial killer who evaded justice for 40 years.

Dubbed the "Dating Game Killer" Alcala was once a contestant on the show, "The Dating Game," where he won a date with another contestant, however the date never happened because the woman found him to be too creepy.

Alcala's Childhood Years Rodney Alcala was born on August 23, 1943, in San Antonio, Texas to Raoul Alcala Buquor and Anna Maria Gutierrez. His father left, leaving Anna Maria to raise Alcala and his sisters alone. At around the age of 12, Anna Maria moved the family to Los Angeles.

At the age of 17, Alcala joined the Army and remained there until 1964 when he received a medical discharge after being diagnosed with a severe anti-social personality.   

Alcala, now out of the Army, enrolled in UCLA School of Fine Arts where is earned his Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in 1968. This is the same year that he kidnapped, raped, beat and tried to kill his first known victim.

Tali Shapiro   Tali Shapiro was an 8-year-old on her way to school when she was lured into Alcala's car, an act that did not go unnoticed by a nearby motorist who followed the two and contacted police. Alcala took Tali into his apartment where he raped, beat and attempted to strangle her with a 10-pound metal bar. When police arrived, they kicked in the door and found Tali laying on the kitchen floor in a large puddle of blood and not breathing. Because of the brutality of the beating they thought she was dead and begin to search for Alcala in the apartment. A police officer, returning to the kitchen, saw Tali struggling to breathe. All attention went to trying to keep her alive and at some point Alcala managed to slip out the backdoor. When searching Alcala's apartment the police found several pictures, many of young girls. They also found out his name and that he had attended UCLA. But it took several months before they would find Alcala.

On the Run but Not Hiding   Alcala, now using the name John Berger, fled to New York and enrolled in NYU film school. From 1968 to 1971, even though he was listed on the FBI's most wanted list, he lived undetected and in full view. Playing the role of a "groovy" film student, amateur photographer, single hot shot, Alcala moved around New York's single clubs. During the summer months he worked at an all girl's summer drama camp in New Hampshire. In 1971, two girls attending the camp recognized Alcala on a wanted poster at the post office. The police were notified and Alcala was arrested.

Indeterminate Sentencing   In August, 1971, Alcala was returned to Los Angeles, but the prosecutor's case had a major flaw - Tali Shapiro's family had returned to Mexico soon after Tali recovered from the attack. Without their main witness, the decision was made to offer Alcala a plea deal. Alcala, charged with rape, kidnapping, assault, and attempted murder, accepted a deal to plead guilty to child molestation. The other charges were dropped. He was sentenced to one year to life, and was paroled after 34 months under the "indeterminate sentencing" program. The program allowed a parole board, not a judge, to decide on when offenders could be released based on if they appeared rehabilitated. With Alcala's ability to charm, he was back out on the streets in less than three years. Within eight weeks he returned to prison for violating his parole for providing marijuana to a 13-year-old girl. She told police that Alcala kidnapped her, but he was not charged. Alcala spent another two years behind bars and was released in 1977, again under the "indeterminate sentencing" program. He returned to Los Angeles and got a job as a typesetter for the Los Angeles Times.

More Victims It did not take long for Alcala to get back into his murderous rampage.

-The Murder of Jill Barcomb, Los Angeles County In November 1977, Alcala raped, sodomized, and murdered 18-year-old Jill Barcomb, a New York native who had recently moved to California. Alcala used a large rock to smash in her face, and strangle her to death by tying her belt and pant leg around her neck. Alcala then left her body in a mountainous area in the foothills near Hollywood, where she was discovered Nov. 10, 1977, posed on her knees with her face in the dirt. -Murder of Georgia Wixted, Los Angeles County In December 1977, Alcala raped, sodomized, and murdered 27-year-old nurse Georgia Wixted. Alcala used a hammer to sexually abuse Georgia, then used the claw end of the hammer to beat and smash in her head. He strangled her to death using a nylon stocking and left her body posed in her Malibu apartment. Her body was discovered Dec. 16, 1977. -Murder of Charlotte Lamb, Los Angeles County In June 1979, Alcala raped, beat, and murdered 33-year-old legal secretary Charlotte Lamb. Alcala strangled Charlotte to death using a shoelace from her shoe and left her body posed in a laundry room of an El Segundo apartment complex where it was discovered on June 24, 1979. -Murder of Jill Parenteau, Los Angeles County In June 1979, Alcala raped and murdered 21-year-old Jill Parenteau in her Burbank apartment. He strangled Jill to death using a cord or nylon. Alcala's blood was collected from the scene after he cut himself crawling through a window. Based on a semi-rare blood match, Alcala was linked to the murder. He was charged for murdering Parenteau, but the case was later dismissed. -Murder of Robin Samsoe, Orange County On June 20, 1979, Alcala approached 12-year-old Robin Samsoe and her friend Bridget Wilvert at Huntington Beach and asked them to pose for pictures. After posing for a series of photographs, a neighbor intervened and asked if everything was alright and Samsoe took off. Later Robin got on a bike and headed to an afternoon dance class.

Alcala kidnapped and murdered Samsoe and dumped her body near Sierra Madre in the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains. Her body was scavenged by animals and her skeletal remains were discovered July 2, 1979. Her front teeth had been knocked out by Alcala.

Arrested   After the Samsoe murder, Alcala rented a storage locker in Seattle, where police found hundreds of photos of young women and girls and a bag of personal items that they suspected belonged to Alcala's victims. A pair of earrings found in the bag were identified by Samsoe's mother as being a pair she owned. Alcala was also identified by several people as the photographer from the beach on the day Samsoe was kidnapped. Following an investigation, Alcala was charged, tried, and convicted for Samsoe's murder in 1980. He was sentenced to receive the death penalty. The conviction was later overturned by the California Supreme Court. Alcala was again tried and convicted for the murder of Samsoe in 1986, and was again sentenced to the death penalty. The second conviction was overturned by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.

Three Times a Charm   While awaiting his third trial for the murder of Samsoe, DNA collected from the murder scenes of Barcomb, Wixted, and Lamb was linked to Alcala. He was charged for the four Los Angeles murders, including Parenteau. At the third trial, Alcala represented himself as his own defense attorney and argued that he was at Knott's Berry Farm on the afternoon that Samsoe was murdered. Alcala did not contest the charges that he committed the murders of the four Los Angeles victims, but rather focused on the Samsoe charges. At one point he took the stand and questioned himself in third-person, changing his tone depending on if he was acting as his lawyer or as himself. On Feb. 25, 2010, the jury found Alcala guilty of all five counts of capital murder, one count of kidnapping and four counts of rape. During the penalty phase, Alcala attempted to sway the jury away from the death penalty by playing the song "Alice's Restaurant" by Arlo Guthrie, which includes the lyrics, "I mean, I wanna, I wanna kill. Kill. I wanna, I wanna see, I wanna see blood and gore and guts and veins in my teeth. Eat dead burnt bodies. I mean kill, Kill, KILL, KILL." His strategy did not work and the jury quickly recommended the death penalty to which the judge agreed. More Victims?   Immediately after Alcala's conviction, the Huntington police released 120 of Alcala's photos to the public. Suspecting that Alcala had more victims, the police asked for the public's help in identifying the women and children in the photos. Since then several of the unknown faces have been identified. New York Murders   Two murder cases in New York have also been linked through DNA to Alcala. TWA flight attendant Cornelia "Michael" Crilley, was murdered 1971 while Alcala was enrolled at NYU. Ciro's Nightclub heiress Ellen Jane Hover was murdered in 1977 during the time that Alcala had received permission from his parole officer to go to New York to visit family. Currently Alcala is on death row at San Quentin State Prison.

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Richard Angelo: The Angel of Death

Richard Angelo was 26 years old when he went to work at Good Samaritan Hospital on Long Island in New York. He had a background of doing good things for people as a former Eagle Scout and volunteer fireman. He also had an out-of-control desire to be recognized as a hero.

Playing Hero

Unable to achieve the level of praise he desired in life, Angelo came up with a plan where he would inject drugs into patients at the hospital, bringing them to a near-death state. He would then show his heroic capabilities by helping to save his victims, impressing both co-workers and the patients with his expertise. For many, Angelo's plan fell deathly short, and several patients died before he was able to intervene and save them from his deadly injections.

Working the graveyard shift put Angelo into the perfect position to continue to work on his feeling of inadequacy, so much so that during his realitvely short time at the Good Samaritan, there were 37 "Code-Blue" emergencies during his shift. Only 12 of the 37 patients lived to talk about their near death experience.

Something to Feel Better

Angelo, apparently not swayed by his inability to keep his victims alive, continued injecting patients with a combination of the paralyzing drugs, Pavulon and Anectine, sometimes telling the patient that he was giving them something which would make them feel better. Soon after administering the deadly cocktail, the patients would begin to feel numb and their breathing would become constricted as did their ability to communicate to nurses and doctors. Few could survive the deadly attack.

Under Suspicion

Then on October 11, 1987 Angelo came under suspicion after one of his victims, Gerolamo Kucich, managed to use the call button for assistance after receiving an injection from Angelo. One of the nurses responding to his call for help took a urine sample and had it analyzed. The test proved positive for containing the drugs, Pavulon and Anectine, neither of which had been prescribed to Kucich.  The following day Angelo's locker and home were searched and police found vials of both drugs and Angelo was arrested. The bodies of several of the suspected victims were exhumed and tested for the deadly drugs. The test proved positive for the drugs on ten of the dead patients.

Taped Confession

Angelo eventually confessed to authorities, telling them during a taped interview, "I wanted to create a situation where I would cause the patient to have some respiratory distress or some problem, and through my intervention or suggested intervention or whatever, come out looking like I knew what I was doing. I had no confidence in myself. I felt very inadequate." He was charged with multiple counts of second-degree murder.

Multiple Personalities?

His lawyers fought to prove that Angelo suffered from dissociative identity disorder, which meant he was able to disassociate himself completely from the crimes he committed and was unable to realize the risk of what he had done to the patients. In other words, he had multiple personalities which he could move in and out of, unaware of the actions of the other personality. The lawyers fought to prove this theory by introducing polygraph exams which Angelo had passed during questioning about the murdered patients. The judge however, would not allow the polygraph evidence into the court.

Sentenced to 61 Years

Angelo was ultimately convicted of two counts of depraved indifference murder (second-degree murder), one count of second degree manslaughter, one count of criminally negligent homicide and six counts of assault with respect to five of the patients and was sentenced to 61 years to life.

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John Eric Armstrong

His Friends Called Him 'Opie':

John Eric Armstrong was a 300-pound, former U.S. Navy sailor, who was married with two children. He was known as being mild-mannered, and had an innocent child-like look, so much so, that while in the Navy he was nicknamed "Opie" by his mates.

Armstrong Arouses Suspicion:

Detroit investigators became suspicious of Armstrong after he contacted them in regards to a body he saw floating in the Rouge River. The body was that of 39-year-old, Wendy Joran, whose murder was similar to a string of murders of prostitutes which had recently occurred.

The Truth Comes Out:

Through DNA testing the investigators were able to link Armstrong to one of the murders, and upon his arrest, he confessed to killing other prostitutes and 12 other murders that he committed around the world, from 1993-1998, while in the Navy.

Convicted:

Armstrong later recanted his confessions, but was convicted for the killing of Joran in January 2000, and for the murder of 34-year-old Kelly Hood. He then plead guilty to killing Robbin Brown, 20, Rose Felt, 32, and Monica Johnson, 31, all Detroit prostitutes.

FBI Launches an International Investigation:

The FBI continued to try to connect him to similar unsolved murders in countries such as Thailand, and all other places Armstrong was based while in the Navy.

Plus 31 More..:

On July 4, 2001, Armstrong bargained down to a plea of second-degree murder, and as a result he was sentenced to 31 years of life in prison for the murders of Brown, Felt and Johnson. All together he received two life sentences plus 31 years as punishment for his killings.

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Joe Ball: The Alligator Man

Joseph D. (Joe) Ball (January 6, 1896 – September 24, 1938), was an American serial killer, sometimes referred to as "The Alligator Man", the "Butcher of Elmendorf" and the "Bluebeard of South Texas". He is said to have killed at least 20 women in the 1930s. His existence was long believed to be apocryphal, but he is a familiar figure in Texas folklore.

After serving on the front lines in Europe during World War I, Ball started his career as a bootlegger, providing illegal liquor to those who could pay. After the end of Prohibition, he opened a saloon called the Sociable Inn in Elmendorf, Texas. He built a pond that contained five alligators and charged people to view them, especially during feeding time; the food consisted mostly of live cats and dogs .

Women Mysteriously Vanish:

After several barmaids, girl friends and two of his wives vanished into thin air, the local authorities began to suspect that Ball was up to no good. However, his intimidating nature kept the suspicious and curious at bay.

One Shot to the Head:

On September 24, 1948, a group of Texas Rangers decided to go and question Ball about all the missing women. Instead of talking to them, he opted to shoot himself in the head.

The Handy Man Talks:

A handy man for Ball, Clifford Wheeler, soon admitted to helping Ball get rid of the bodies of some the women Ball killed. He led them to the remains of Hazel Brown and Minnie Gotthard. Wheeler told authorities that Ball murdered at least 20 other women, but the alligators had disposed of any evidence to back up his claim.

A Neighbor in Fear:

A neighbor, who had fled to California after fearing that Ball would kill him, admitted to seeing Ball dismembering a body near the alligator pit.

No Evidence:

No real evidence was ever found that determined that Ball actually fed his victims remains to the alligators.

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Cesar Barone

His Preference - Senior-Aged Women:

In April of 1991, Barone raped and strangled to death 61-year-old Margaret Schmidt, inside her home.

Another Killing Six Months Later:

In October 1992, Barone shot bullets into a car, wounding mid-wife, Martha Bryant, as she drove home from work from the Tuality Hospital in Hillsboro. He then sexually assaulted her and dragged her from her car onto the road. He ended his assault by shooting her in the head at close range, killing her.

Barone's Youngest Known Victim:

In Portland, during December 1992, 23-years old Chantee Woodman was Barone's next known victim. He beat, sexually assaulted her, then shot her to death and left her body along U.S. 26 near Vernonia.

Victim Dies of a Heart Attack:

A month later, January 1993, 51-year-old Betty Williams was attacked by Barone inside her Portland apartment. She died after suffering a heart attack as Barone began sexually assaulting her.

His Sentencing :

Barone was given 89 years for Williams' killing, and received the death penalty for the slaying of Schmidt, Bryant, and Woodman.

Were There More Victims?:

Barone, at the age of 19, was suspected of raping and murdering by strangulation his 71-year-old neighbor, while she was in bed. He was sentenced to two years of juvenile detention for previously attacking the same woman. Florida did not seek prosecution since he is already on death row in Oregon. Authorities also suspect he was responsible for the beating of his grandmother around that same time, although he was acquitted for that crime.

His Rage Continues:

He managed to attack a female corrections officer while in prison.

Wonder What They Talked About:

While in a Florida prison, he spent a short time as the cellmate of Ted Bundy, after Bundy's final arrest in 1979. 

  Death Row Serial Killer:

Cesar Barone is currently on death row in Oregon, after being convicted of the rape and murder of three women in the Portland area. He faces a 89-year sentence for a fourth slaying.

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Herb Baumeister: Alleged Sav-a-Lot Killer

Herbert Richard "Herb" Baumeister (April 7, 1947 - July 3, 1996) was the founder of the thrift store chain Sav-a-Lot and an alleged serial killer from suburban Westfield, Indiana. Baumeister's childhood was unremarkable, but when he entered his teens he began showing antisocial behavior which was later diagnosed as schizophrenia. Left untreated, he had a difficult time keeping a job yet managed to marry and father three children

Sav-a-lot

In 1988 Baumeister founded the Sav-a-lot chain. The chain was a success and Baumeister became very rich. He also began spending a lot of time in homosexual bars in Indianapolis. Allegedly he would bring men he picked up back to his mansion where he would strangle them and dispose of their bones in the woods behind his home. Investigators eventually ended up at Baumeister's estate after receiving a tip from a man who accused Baumeister of trying to kill him. Baumeister fled to Toronto and killed himself.

A Backyard Burial Ground

A search of his property uncovered the bones of 11 men. Baumeister was also suspected of killing nine more men and disposing of the bodies in rural areas between Indianapolis and Columbus.

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Robert Berdella: The Kansas City Butcher

Summary:

The profile of one of the most barbarous serial killers in U.S. history who participated in vile acts of sexual torture and murder.

Personal Information:

Born - January 31, 1949 Birthplace - Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio Died - October 8, 1992 Location of Death - Missouri State Penitentiary Cause of Death - Natural causes

General Information:

Gender - Male Religion - Catholic Ethnicity - White

Bob’s Bazarre Bazaar And More:

Robert Berdella was the owner of a store called Bob’s Bazarre Bazaar in Kansas City, Missouri that specialized in novelty items that appealed to those with darker and occult-type taste. Around the neighborhood he was considered odd but was liked and participated in organizing a local community crime watch programs. However, inside his home, it was discovered that Robert ‘Bob’ Berdella lived in a world dominated by sadomasochistic slavery, murder and barbarous torture.

What Goes On Behind Closed Doors:

On April 2, 1988 a neighbor found a young man on his porch clad in only a dog collar fastened around his neck. The man told the neighbor an incredible tale of sexual tortuous abuse that he had endured at the hands of Berdella. The police placed Berdella in custody and searched his home where 357 photographs of victims in various positions of torture were recovered. Also found were torture devices, occult literature, ritual robes, human skills and bones and a human head in Bedella’s yard.

The Photographs Disclose Murder:

By April 4 the authorities had an overwhelming amount of evidence to charge Berdella on seven counts of sodomy, one count of felonious restraint and one account of first degree assault. After closer scrutiny of the photographs it was discovered that six of the 23 men identified were homicide victims. The other people in the pictures were there voluntarily and participated in sadomasochistic activities with the victims.

The Torture Diary:

Berdella established the 'Rules of the House' which were mandatory for his victims or they risked being beaten or receiving bolts of electric shock on sensitive areas of their bodies. In a detailed diary that Berdella kept, he logged details and the effects of the torture he would subject upon his victims. He seemed to have a fascination with injecting drugs, bleach, and other caustics into the eyes and throats of his victims then anally raped or inserted foreign objects inside of them.

No Indication of Satanic Rituals :

On December 19, 1988, Berdella pled guilty to one count of first and to an additional four counts of second-degree murder for the deaths of other victims. There were attempts by various media organizations to try to connect the crimes of Berdella to the idea of a nationwide underground satanic group but the investigators responded that over 550 people were interviewed and at no point was there any indication that the crimes were connected to a satanic ritual or group. Berdella received life in prison where he died of a heart attack in 1992 soon after writing a letter to his minister claiming that the prison officials refused to give him his heart medication. Berdella’s death was never investigated.

Victims:

Name                   |   Age    |   Date of disappearance

Jerry Howell      |   20      |   July 5, 1984 Robert Sheldon |   18       |   April 19, 1985 Mark Wallace    |   20       |   June 22, 1985 James Ferris      |   20       |   September 26, 1985 Todd Stoops      |   21        |   June 17, 1986 Larry Pearson   |   20       |   July 9, 1987

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Ted Bundy

Ted Bundy was born in Burlington, Vermont on November 24, 1946, at the Elizabeth Lund Home for Unwed Mothers. The identity of Ted's father remains a mystery. Bundy's birth certificate lists a "Lloyd Marshall", while Bundy's mother, Louise, would later tell a tale of being seduced by a war veteran named "Jack Worthington". Bundy's adopted family disbelieved this story, however, and expressed suspicion about Louise's violent, abusive father, Samuel Cowell. To avoid social stigma, Bundy's grandparents claimed him as their son, giving him their last name; he grew up believing his mother to be his older sister. Bundy would not learn the truth about his parentage until he was in high school.

For the first few years of his life, Bundy and his mother lived in Philadelphia with his maternal grandparents. In 1950, Bundy and his "sister" moved to live with relatives in Tacoma, Washington where Louise had Ted's last name inexplicably changed from Cowell to Nelson. In 1951, one year after their move, Louise met Johnny Culpepper Bundy at an adult singles night held at Tacoma's First Methodist Church. A Navy veteran and cook at a local Veterans Administration hospital, Bundy was eligible and lonely much like single mother Louise. In May of that year, Johnny and Louise were married and soon thereafter Johnny willingly adopted Ted, legally changing his last name to "Bundy".

In time, the Bundy family grew to add four more children, whom Ted spent much of his free time babysitting. Johnny Bundy tried to include him in camping trips and other father-son activities, but the boy remained emotionally detached from his stepfather. In Bundy's mind, he felt more like a Cowell than a Bundy and saw Johnny and the rest of the Bundy clan as beneath him. He became increasingly uncomfortable around his stepfather and made it clear that he preferred to be alone. Bundy was a good student at Woodrow Wilson High School, and was active in a local Methodist church serving as vice-president of the Methodist Youth Fellowship. He was involved with a local troop of the Boy Scouts.

Socially Bundy remained shy and introverted throughout some of his high school and early college years. He would later say that he "hit a wall" in high school; he was unable to understand social behavior, stunting his social development.  He maintained a facade of social activity, but he had no natural sense of how to get along with other people: "I didn't know what made things tick. I didn't know what made people want to be friends. I didn't know what made people attractive to one another. I didn't know what underlay social interactions."

Before he was even out of high school Bundy was a compulsive thief, a shoplifter, and on his way to becoming an amateur criminal. To support his love of skiing, Bundy stole skis and equipment and forged ski-lift tickets. He was arrested twice as a juvenile, though these records were later expunged. Bundy described the part of himself that, from a young age, was fascinated by images of sex and violence as "the entity", and kept it very well hidden. Later, friends and acquaintances would remember a handsome, articulate young man. While a college student, he worked as a volunteer at a Seattle suicide crisis center, alongside fledgling crime reporter Ann Rule. Ironically, Rule would go on to write the most famous biography of Bundy and his crimes, The Stranger Beside Me.

Bundy had one serious relationship with fellow college student Stephanie Brooks (a pseudonym), whom he met while enrolled at the University of Washington in 1967. Following her 1968 graduation and return to her family home in California, Stephanie ended the relationship. Fed up with what she described as Bundy's immaturity and lack of ambition, they separated, although he obsessively stayed in touch with her through letters. It was at this time that Bundy decided to pay a trip to Burlington, Vermont, the place of his birth. Making a visit to the local records clerk in Burlington, he finally discovered the truth of his parentage in 1969. Although it is unclear what impact this discovery had on him emotionally, it is clear that following his return from Vermont he began to treat Johnny Bundy with more obvious disdain.

After his discovery, Bundy became a more focused and dominant character. He re-enrolled at the University of Washington, this time with a major in psychology. Bundy became an honors student and was well liked by his professors. In 1969, he started dating Elizabeth Kendall (pseudonym), a divorced secretary who fell deeply in love with Bundy. They would continue dating for over six years, until he went to prison for kidnapping in 1976.

Bundy graduated in 1972 from the University of Washington with a degree in psychology, and soon afterward, he began working for the state Republican Party. While on a business trip to California in the summer of 1973, Bundy came back into Stephanie's life with a new look and attitude; this time as a serious, dedicated professional who had been accepted to law school. Bundy continued to date Elizabeth as well, and neither woman was aware the other existed. Bundy courted Stephanie throughout the rest of the year, and she happily accepted his proposal of marriage. Two weeks later, however, he unceremoniously dumped her, refusing to return her phone calls. He would later dismiss the proposal and break-up as part of a challenge he undertook, saying, "I just wanted to prove to myself that I could have her." It was a few weeks after this breakup that Bundy began a murderous rampage in Washington state.

First wave of murders

Many Bundy experts, including Rule and former King County detective Robert D. Keppel, believe Bundy may have started killing as far back as his early teens: an eight-year-old girl from Tacoma, Ann Marie Burr, vanished from her home three miles from Bundy's house one summer night in 1961, when Bundy was fourteen years-old. When asked about Burr's disappearance by Keppel shortly before his execution, Bundy denied killing her. While the possibility of Bundy's involvement in her disappearace is intriguing, it is improbable since the Burrs lived on the other side of town from the Bundy's home. When talking to his lawyer the day before his execution, Bundy said that his first attempt to kidnap a woman was in 1969, and implied that his first actual murder was sometime in the 1972-73 time frame. His earliest known, confirmed murders were committed in 1974, when he was 27.

Shortly after midnight on January 4, 1974, Bundy entered the basement bedroom of 18-year-old Joni Lenz (pseudonym), a dancer and student at the University of Washington. Bundy bludgeoned her with a metal rod from her bed frame while she slept, and sexually assaulted her with a speculum. Lenz was found the next morning by her roommates in a coma and lying in a pool of her own blood. She survived the attack, but suffered permanent brain damage and was unable to continue in her aspirations as a dancer.

Bundy's next victim was Lynda Ann Healy, another University of Washington student. On the night of January 31, 1974, Bundy broke into Healy's room, knocked her unconscious, dressed her in jeans and a shirt, wrapped her in a bed sheet, and carried her away. On March 12, 1974 in Olympia, Bundy kidnapped and murdered Donna Gail Manson, a 19-year old student at The Evergreen State College. She was last seen walking to an on-campus jazz concert. On April 17, Susan Rancourt disappeared from the campus of Central Washington State College in Ellensburg. Later, two different CWSC co-eds would recount meeting a man with his arm in a cast — one that night, one three nights earlier — who asked for their help to carry a load of books to his Volkswagen. Next was Kathy Parks, last seen on the campus of Oregon State University in Corvallis on May 6. (Oregon State is approximately 250 miles away from the scene of the Washington murders. Consequently, detectives for some time were unsure if they should class Parks with the other disappearances.) Brenda Ball was never seen again after leaving The Flame Tavern in Burien, Washington on June 1. Bundy then murdered Georgeann Hawkins, a student at the University of Washington and a member of Kappa Alpha Theta, an on-campus sorority. In the early morning hours of June 11, 1974, she walked through an alley from her boyfriend's dormitory residence to her sorority house. Hawkins was never seen again. Witnesses later reported seeing a man with a leg cast struggling to carry a briefcase in the area that night. One co-ed reported that the man had asked her help in carrying the briefcase to his car.

Bundy's Washington killing spree culminated on July 14 with the abduction in broad daylight of Janice Ott and Denise Naslund from Lake Sammamish State Park in Issaquah, Washington. Eight different people that day told the police about the handsome young man with his left arm in a sling who called himself "Ted". Five of them were women that "Ted" asked for help unloading a sailboat from his Volkswagen Beetle. One of them accompanied "Ted" as far as his car, where there was no sailboat, before declining to accompany him further. Three more witnesses testified to seeing him approach Janice Ott with the story about the sailboat, and to seeing Ott walk away from the beach, with her bicycle, and in his company. She was never seen alive again. King County detectives were able to get a description both of the suspect and his tan Volkswagen Beetle. Some witnesses told investigators that the "Ted" they encountered spoke with a clipped, Canadian accent. From the witnesses police obtained descriptions of the man and his Volkswagen, and soon fliers were up all over the Seattle area. After seeing the police sketch and description of the Lake Sammamish suspect in both of the local newspapers and on television news reports, Bundy's girlfriend Elizabeth Kendall (pseudonym), one of his psychology professors at the UW, and former co-worker Ann Rule all reported him as a possible suspect. The police, receiving up to 200 tips per day, did not pay any special attention to a tip about a clean-cut law student.

The fragmented remains of Janice Ott and Denise Naslund were discovered on September 7, off Interstate 90 near Issaquah, one mile from the park. Along with the women's remains was found an extra femur bone and vertebrae, which Bundy shortly before his execution would identify as that of Georgeann Hawkins. On March 2, 1975, the skulls and jawbones (and no other skeletal remains) of Healy, Rancourt, Parks and Ball were found on Taylor Mountain just east of Issaquah. Because Ball was not a college student and had disappeared from a bar rather than a campus, investigators had not initially believed her to be one of the "Ted" victims. Later, they would discover that she had been seen dancing at the Flame on the night of her disappearance with a man that matched the "Ted" description, including the sling on his arm. Years later Bundy claimed that he had also dumped Donna Manson's body there, but no trace of her has ever been found.

Second wave of murders

That autumn, Bundy moved to Utah to attend law school in Salt Lake City, where he resumed killing in October. Nancy Wilcox disappeared from Holladay, near Salt Lake City, Utah on October 2. Wilcox was last seen riding in a Volkswagen Beetle. On October 18, Bundy murdered Melissa Smith, the 17-year-old daughter of Midvale police chief Louis Smith. Bundy raped, sodomized, and strangled her. Her body was found nine days later. Next was Laura Aime, also 17, who disappeared when she left a Halloween party in Lehi, Utah on October 31, 1974. Her remains were found nearly a month later by hikers on Thanksgiving Day, on the banks of a river in American Fork Canyon. She was found naked, beaten beyond recognition, sodomized, and strangled with her own sock.

In Murray, Utah, on November 8, 1974, Carol DaRonch narrowly escaped with her life. Claiming to be Officer Roseland of the Murray Police Department, Bundy approached DaRonch at a mall, told her someone had tried to break into her car, and asked her to accompany him to the police station. She got into his car (but refused his instruction to buckle her seat belt), and they drove for a short period before Bundy suddenly pulled to the shoulder and attempted to slap a pair of handcuffs on her. In the struggle, he fastened both loops to the same wrist. Bundy then whipped out his crowbar, but DaRonch caught it in the air just before it would have cracked her skull. She then managed to get the door open and tumble out onto the highway, thus escaping from her would-be killer.

About an hour later, a strange man showed up at Viewmont High School in Bountiful, Utah, where the drama club was putting on a play. He approached drama teacher Raelynne Shepard several times, eventually asking her to go out to the parking lot to identify a car. Shepard declined. The man asked another student in attendance, Katherine Ricks, to come out to the parking lot and help him fix his car. Ricks also declined. Shepard would see the man again shortly before the end of the play, this time breathing hard, with his hair mussed and his shirt untucked. Another student, Tamara Tingley, would see the man lurking in the rear of the auditorium. Debby Kent, a 17-year-old Viewmont High student, left the play at intermission to go pick up her brother, and was never seen again. Later, investigators found a key in the parking lot outside Viewmont High. It unlocked the cuffs taken off of Carol DaRonch.

In 1975, while still attending law school at the University of Utah, Bundy shifted his crimes to Colorado. On January 12, Caryn Campbell disappeared from the Wildwood Inn at Snowmass, Colorado, where she had been vacationing with her fiancé and his children. She vanished somewhere in a span of fifty feet between the elevator doors and her room. Her body was found on February 17. Next, Vail ski instructor Julie Cunningham disappeared on March 15, and Denise Oliverson on April 6. While in prison, Bundy confessed to Colorado investigators that he used crutches to approach Cunningham, after asking her to help him carry some ski boots to his car. At the car, Bundy clubbed her with his crowbar and incapacitated her with handcuffs, later strangling her in a crime highly similar to the Georgeann Hawkins murder.

Lynette Culver went missing in Pocatello, Idaho on May 6 from the grounds of her junior high school. While on Death Row, Bundy later confessed that he kidnapped Culver and had taken the girl to a room he had rented at a nearby Holiday Inn. After raping her, he stated that he had drowned her in the motel room bathtub and later dumped her body in a river. After his return to Utah, Susan Curtis vanished on June 28. (Bundy confessed to the Curtis murder minutes before his execution.) The bodies of Cunningham, Culver, Curtis and Oliverson have never been recovered.

Meanwhile, back in Washington, investigators were attempting to prioritize their enormous list of suspects and, in an innovative use of technology for 1975, using computers to cross-check different likely lists of suspects (classmates of Lynda Healy, owners of Volkswagens, etc.) against each other, and then identify suspects who turned up on more than one list. "Theodore Robert Bundy" was one of 25 people who turned up on four separate lists, and his case file was second on the To Be Investigated pile when the call came from Utah of an arrest.

Arrest, first trial and escapes

Bundy was arrested on August 16, 1975, in Salt Lake City, for failure to stop for a police officer. A search of his car revealed a ski mask, a crowbar, handcuffs, trash bags, an icepick, and other items that were thought by the police to be burglary tools. Bundy remained cool during questioning, explaining that he needed the mask for skiing and had found the handcuffs in a dumpster. Utah detective Jerry Thompson connected Bundy and his Volkswagen to the DaRonch kidnapping and the missing girls, and searched his apartment. The search uncovered a brochure of Colorado ski resorts, with a check mark by the Wildwood Inn where Caryn Campbell had disappeared. After searching his apartment, the police brought Bundy in for a lineup before DaRonch, Shepard, and Tingley. They identified him as "Officer Roseland" and as the man lurking about the night Debby Kent disappeared. Following a week-long trial, Bundy was convicted of DaRonch's kidnapping on March 1, 1976 and was sentenced to 15 years in Utah State Prison. Colorado authorities were pursuing murder charges, however, and Bundy was extradited there to stand trial.

On June 7, 1977, in preparation for a hearing in the Caryn Campbell murder trial, Bundy was taken to the Pitkin County courthouse in Aspen. During a court recess, he was allowed to visit the courthouse's law library, where he jumped out of the building from a second-story window and escaped. In the minutes following his escape, Bundy at first ran and then strolled casually through the small town toward Aspen Mountain. He made it all the way to the top of Aspen Mountain without being detected, but then lost his sense of direction and wandered around the mountain, missing two trails that led down off the mountain to his intended destination, the town of Crested Butte. At one point, he came face-to-face with a gun-toting citizen who was one of the searchers scouring Aspen Mountain for Ted Bundy, but was able to talk his way out of danger. On June 13, Bundy was able to steal a car he found on the mountain. He drove back into Aspen and could have gotten away, but two police deputies noticed the Cadillac with dimmed headlights weaving in and out of its lane and pulled Bundy over. He was recognized and brought back to prison after having been on the lam for six days.

Upon arrest, Bundy was placed in the smaller Glenwood Springs jail, rather than being taken back to Aspen. Somehow he had acquired a hacksaw blade and $500 in cash--Bundy later claimed the blade came from another prison inmate. He was able to saw through the welds fixing a small metal plate in the ceiling and, after dieting down still further, to fit through the hole and access the crawl space above. An informant in the prison told guards that he'd heard Bundy moving around the ceiling, but no one checked it out. When Bundy's Aspen trial judge ruled on December 23 that the Caryn Campbell murder trial would start on January 9, 1978, and changed the venue to Colorado Springs, Bundy realized that he had to make his escape before he was transferred out of the Glenwood Springs jail. On the night of December 30, 1977, Bundy dressed warmly and packed books and files under his blanket to make it look like he was sleeping. He wriggled through the hole and up into the crawlspace. Bundy crawled over to a spot directly above the jailor's linen closet--the jailor and his wife were out for the evening--dropped down into the jailor's apartment, and strolled out the door to freedom.

Bundy was free, but he was on foot in the middle of a bitterly cold, snowy Colorado night. He managed to steal a broken-down MG, but it stalled out on a mountain road. Bundy was stuck on the side of Interstate 70 in the middle of the night in a blizzard, but a helpful driver gave him a ride into Vail. From there he caught a bus to Denver and boarded the 8:55 a.m. flight to Chicago. The Glenwood Springs jail guards did not notice Bundy was gone until noon on Dec. 31, 17 hours after his escape, by which time Bundy was already in Chicago. Bundy's final rampage, Florida

Bundy then caught an Amtrak train to Ann Arbor, Michigan where he got a room at the YMCA. On January 2, he went to an Ann Arbor bar and watched his beloved University of Washington Huskies beat Michigan in the Rose Bowl. He later stole a car in Ann Arbor that he abandoned in Atlanta, Georgia before boarding a bus for Tallahassee, Florida, arriving on January 8. There, he rented a room at a boarding house under the alias of "Chris Hagen" and committed numerous petty crimes including shoplifting, purse snatching, and auto theft. He stole a student ID card that belonged to a Kenneth Misner and sent away for copies of Misner's Social Security card and birth certificate.

Just one week after Bundy's arrival in Tallahassee, in the early hours of Super Bowl Sunday on January 15, 1978, two and a half years of repressed homicidal violence erupted. Bundy entered the Florida State University Chi Omega sorority house at approximately 3 a.m. and killed two sleeping women, Lisa Levy and Margaret Bowman. Levy and Bowman were bludgeoned, strangled, and sexually assaulted. Bowman's brain was visible through a hole in her skull. Two other Chi Omegas, Karen Chandler and Kathy Kleiner, were bludgeoned in their sleep and severely injured. The entire episode took no more than half an hour. After leaving the Chi Omega house, Bundy broke into another home a few blocks away, clubbing and severly injuring FSU student Cheryl Thomas.

On February 9, 1978, Bundy traveled to Lake City, Florida. While there he abducted, raped and murdered 12-year-old Kimberly Leach, throwing her body under a small pig shed. She would be his final victim. On February 12, Bundy stole yet another Volkswagen Beetle and left Tallahassee for good, heading west across the Florida panhandle. On Feb. 15, 1978, shortly after 1 a.m., Bundy was stopped by Pensacola police officer David Lee. When the officer called in a check of the license plate, the vehicle came up as stolen. Bundy then scuffled with the officer before he was finally subdued. As Lee took the unknown suspect to jail, Bundy said "I wish you had killed me." Before long, Bundy was identified and taken to Miami to stand trial for the Chi Omega murders.

Conviction and execution

Bundy went to trial for the Chi Omega murders in June of 1979 with Dade County Circuit Court Judge Edward D. Cowart presiding. Despite having five court-appointed lawyers, he insisted on acting as his own attorney and even cross-examined witnesses, including the police officer who had discovered the body of Margaret Bowman.

Two pieces of evidence proved crucial. First, Chi-O Nita Neary, getting back to the house very late after a date, saw Bundy as he left, and identified him in court. Second, during his homicidal frenzy, Bundy bit Lisa Levy in her left buttock, leaving obvious bite marks. Police took plaster casts of Bundy's teeth and a forensics expert matched them to the photographs of Levy's wound. Bundy was convicted on all counts and sentenced to death. After confirming the sentence, Judge Cowart bid him goodbye:

"It is ordered that you be put to death by a current of electricity, that current be passed through your body until you are dead. Take care of yourself, young man. I say that to you sincerely; take care of yourself, please. It is an utter tragedy for this court to see such a total waste of humanity as I've experienced in this courtroom. You're an intelligent young man. You'd have made a good lawyer, and I would have loved to have you practice in front of me, but you went another way, partner. Take care of yourself. I don't feel any animosity toward you. I want you to know that. Once again, take care of yourself."

After the Chi Omega trial, Bundy was tried for the Kimberly Leach murder in 1980.He was again convicted on all counts, principally due to fibers found in his van that matched Leach's clothing and an eyewitness that saw him leading Leach away from the school, and sentenced to death.

During the Kimberly Leach trial, Bundy married former coworker Carole Ann Boone in the courtroom while questioning her on the stand. Following numerous conjugal visits between Bundy and his new wife, Boone gave birth to a girl she named "Tina" in October 1982. Eventually, however, Boone moved away, divorced Bundy, and changed her last name and that of her daughter. Their current whereabouts are unknown.

In the years Bundy was on death row at Florida State Prison, he was often visited by Special Agent William Hagmaier of the Federal Bureau of Investigation's Behavioral Sciences Unit. Bundy would come to confide in Hagmaier, going so far as to call him his best friend. Eventually, Bundy confessed to Hagmaier many details of the murders that had until then been unknown or unconfirmed. In October 1984, Bundy contacted former King County homicide detective Bob Keppel and offered to assist in the ongoing search for the Green River Killer by providing his own insights and analysis. Keppel and Green River Task Force detective Dave Reichert traveled to Florida's death row to interview Bundy. Both detectives later stated that these interviews were of little actual help in the investigation; they provided far greater insight into Bundy's own mind, and were primarily pursued in the hope of learning the details of unsolved murders that Bundy was suspected of committing but had never been charged with.

Bundy contacted Keppel again in 1988. With his appeals exhausted (Bundy had beaten previous death warrants for March 4, July 2, and November 18, 1986), and execution imminent, Bundy confessed to eight official unsolved murders in Washington State, for which he was the prime suspect. Bundy told Keppel that there were actually five bodies left on Taylor Mountain, and not four as they had originally thought. Bundy said that the fifth body was that of Donna Manson, the Evergreen State College student missing since 1974. Bundy confessed in detail to the murder of Georgeann Hawkins, describing how he lured her to his car with the crutches-and-briefcase routine, clubbed her with a tire iron that he'd stashed on the ground under his car, drove away with a semi-conscious Hawkins in the car with him, and later strangled her.

After the interview, Keppel reported that he had been shocked in speaking with Bundy, and that he was the kind of man who was "born to kill". Keppel stated:

"He described the Issaquah crime scene (where Janice Ott, Denise Naslund, and Georgeann Hawkins had been left) and it was almost like he was just there. Like he was seeing everything. He was infatuated with the idea because he spent so much time there. He is just totally consumed with murder all the time."

Bundy had hoped that he could use the revelations and partial confessions to get another stay of execution or possibly commute his sentence to life imprisonment. At one point, a legal advocate working for Bundy, Linda Barker, had asked many of the families of the victims to fax letters to Florida Governor Robert Martinez and ask mercy for Bundy in order to find out where the remains of their loved ones were. To a person, all the families refused. Keppel and others reported that Bundy gave scant detail about his crimes during his confessions, and promised to reveal more and other body dump sites if he were given "more time". The ploy failed and Bundy was executed on schedule.

The night before Bundy was executed, he gave a television interview to James Dobson, head of the evangelical Christian organization Focus on the Family. During the interview, Bundy made repeated claims as to the pornographic "roots" of his sexually driven violence. He stated that, while pornography didn't cause him to commit his crimes, the consumption of violent pornography helped "shape and mold" his violence into "behavior too terrible to describe." He alleged that he felt that violence in the media, "particularly sexualized violence," sent boys "down the road to being Ted Bundy's". After the interview was made public, many who knew Bundy as a sociopath had their doubts as to the validity of his "the pornography made me do it" claims. In the same interview, hours before his execution, Bundy stated:

"You are going to kill me, and that will protect society from me. But out there are many, many more people who are addicted to pornography, and you are doing nothing about that."

According to Hagmaier, Bundy contemplated suicide in the days leading up to his execution, but eventually decided against it.

At 7:06 a.m. on January 24, 1989, Ted Bundy was executed in the electric chair. His last words were, "I'd like you to give my love to my family and friends." Then, more than 2,000 volts were sent through his body for less than two minutes. He was pronounced dead at 7:16 a.m.

"I'm not going anywhere..."

[crimelibrary]

Ted Bundy warnings on violent pornography on interview with Dr. Dobson PART 2

WARNING: ADULT CONTENT

Ted Bundy: Pornography 20 Years Later

Now, If you've seen those videos or already know their content, here you can see the video ratings and number of views:

Those people not even watched and apparently liked, but also bothered to vote and rate as "GOOD stuff." 

Here is another pornography website i found, called 18 and ABUSED!

How can that NOT affect vulnerable teenage minds?

After all, porn is "a harmless fun", right?

Well, i'd rather take the words of a Sexual Predator Serial Killer then that, definitely.

He knew a lot about that, and certainly had much experience.

But what has changed from 1989 to the present day?

Much has, actually. It's much worse.

[crimelibrary]

Ted Bundy warning about violent pornography on interview with Dr. James Dobson, 1989

WARNING: ADULT CONTENT

Ted Bundy: Pornography 20 Years Later

Ted Bundy on interview with Dr. Dobson hours prior to his execution.

Bundy warns on how pornography can "turn your children into Ted Bundy"

During this very same interview, Bundy says, "If you want to stop people from becoming like me, don't burn Catcher In The Rye, burn Hustler."

Torture instruments:

Now, the videos.

In this video you can see the Chair of Torture

Here, you can see the Breaking Wheel

And here, one of the most common, Bondage and Humiliation.

Now, this is what reality looks like:

Maybe it's something like that Bundy was talking about.

I'm only posting these video links and photos because, unfortunately, you can find them any and everywhere online, no matter where you're from or how old you are.

"We serial killers are your sons, we are your husbands, we are everywhere. And there will be more of your children dead tomorrow."

-Ted Bundy

[crimelibrary]

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Ted Bundy's notorious quotes

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