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Serial Killers

If I remember connectly they caught Chikatilo when they realised that he was preying on people at railway stations (or was it bus stations) and staked a bunch of them out.

In winter, in the freezing cold, for days at a time.

Cujo
 
This is bugging me. Some years back there was a French film which I didn't catch at the time but would like to try and find now.

It was based on the supposedly true story of a doctor in WW2 France who offered to hide people from the Nazis but then did away with them. I think he was eventually found out and hanged.

As far as I can remember the title of the film was the name of the Doctor and I think his name begun with a 'P'. (helpful huh?).

Has anybody heard of this case ?
 
Thank you!!! Now all i have to do is find is the video/DVD.

I'm constantly amazed by this board, one day I'm going to have a query so obscure nobody will be able to answer it ;)
 
Lillith said:
I'm constantly amazed by this board, one day I'm going to have a query so obscure nobody will be able to answer it ;)
Click to expand...
How about "Where has the remote for our cable box gone?"

And no, it's not fallen down the sofa :confused:

doomed to watch cbeebies forever otherwise, Noddy Holder or no Noddy Holder...either that or lie on the floor fiddling with badly labelled buttons...
 
Stu, I can't find anything black- doofers, mobiles, wallets, corkscrews- so I have to take extra care with such objects.;)

Have you tried the book case for your doofer? Pushed in on its side on a low shelf?
 
Get one of those keyrings that sounds out when you whistle and attach it to your remote.

Then you can wander around your house whistling aimlessly as you remember you didn't put batteries in the keyring.

Or train a small child to push the correct buttons on the tv when you throw peanuts at him/her. Ah, modern technology is great ... Retro-engineering? Arse!
 
Good thinking, but no :(. Ah! Hang on!

[edit]Found it! It was in the pocket of my bath robe (duh...)[/edit]
 
Hmmmmmmm.
Bathrobe, eh?
This proves that you've been slouching around in the semi-buff after a bath or shower, watching TV.

It's possible that you still had the doofer in the pocket because you had to vacate the lounge sharpish-like when visitors arrived who wouldn't take kindly to the hairy legs display and inadvertent flashing opportunities associated with men in bathrobes.


Taps out pipe on oak sideboard and opens violin case.
 
escargot said:
It's possible that you still had the doofer in the pocket because you had to vacate the lounge sharpish-like when visitors arrived who wouldn't take kindly to the hairy legs display and inadvertent flashing opportunities associated with men in bathrobes.
Click to expand...
A fine analysis, my dear Escargot - actually, all of the above is true, but it was done deliberately (ie no sharp vacation of lounge) in order to actually get people to leave ;) :D.
 
A dastardly plot, sirrah!
Having studied the supporting evidence I can only ask- did the strategy work?

Concealing the doofer from the guests was a further act of genius. I mean, they weren't going to frisk you!:eek:
 
Oi!!! Stop hijacking my thread! ;)

If anybodys seen action mans trousers could they let me know...they were torn off on christmas day morning and are now lost....... we're talking about the 8 inch plastic variety of action man unfortunately....hang on, this is getting ruder the more i whitter on, think i'll shut up.
 
Lillith said:
Oi!!! Stop hijacking my thread! ;)
Click to expand...

I wouldn't mind taking the opportunity to bring this thread back on topic as serial killers operating during wars is an interesting topic. The case for a drop off (or not) of serial killings during war:

CON: Wars mean the more anti-social element goes away and gets their killing done in a manner condoned by the state. There is also evidence of some gruesome trophy taking (during the Falklands wasn't a dead marine found to have a necklace of Argentinian ears in his belongings?).

[edit: There is a thread on the taking of war trophies here:

http://www.forteantimes.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=12378

where this aspect of the discussion is continued]

PRO: In the chaos of War serial killers can operate freely - people will not be missed so quickly and bodies are easier to dispose of. As in the Marcel Petiot some people may also be traumitised by the war and sent home. The fact that serial killings seem to decrease during war is just that it is more difficult to piece the evidence together and track down the killers.

So does anyone know of anymore cases? I'm sure I read/heard that people thought there were a number of serial killers operating during the Blitz.

Oh and I found Action man's trousers - they were stuck on my V fingers on my right hand this morning - no idea how that happened ;)

Emps
 
Annoyingly the film only seems available in the states and the reviews look so tempting as well (French art house/indicitive of silent horror...I'm an odd person that kind of thing just makes me crazy to see it).

I may have my dates wrong but I think I read that Crippen was able to get away with as much as he did for so long thanks to the war and the 'floating' population, the homeless, the jobless, the dispossessed.

[edited for some quite terrifying spelling mistakes)
 
Ah ha a quick flick through my A to Z of Serial Killers reveals a 'Wartime' entry. It starts with the Chinese saying "in crisi there is opportunity". Some of the entries (as well as Marcel Petiot):

Henri Landru

He made quite a 'killing' marrying widows and then murdering them during World War I.

He is also a classic Bluebeard killer and his entry here:

http://www.crimelibrary.com/serial_killers/history/landru/index_1.html

also deals with the background of Bluebeards.

Gordon Cummins

An English airman who killed at least 4 women within a week during the Blitz.

http://www.murderuk.com/serialkillers/gordoncummins.htm

http://www.stephen-stratford.co.uk/gf_cummins.htm

Bela Kiss

Although he didn't do his killing during war he did escape punishment thatnks to WWI by enlisting and possibly getting killed (it seems like he switched dog tags).

http://www.crimelibrary.com/serial_killers/history/bela_kiss/1.html

http://www.thecrimeweb.com/belakiss.htm

--------
As a side note I did find the book 'A Gathering of Saints':

A maniacal serial killer known as Queer Jack stalks London during the dark days of the Blitz, engaging the pursuit not only of Scotland Yard but of a highly placed German spy known as The Doctor. That's the premise behind Hyde's densely atomospheric new thriller, his latest after Hard Target (1990). Detective Inspector Morris Black, widowed, brilliant, introspective and Jewish, is "seconded" to MI5 for the duration of the murder investigation. Black's diggings must remain top-secret, because the killer always commits his grisly crimes in locations that are immediately bombed by the Germans. While Black deducts from the evidence and reviews his own haunted past, London turns to smoking ash around him. Meanwhile, a host of additional characters impedes his progress, most notably Katherine Copeland, a volatile American journalist-cum-spy whose assignment is to seduce Black and who ends up getting in the way at the most extraordinary moments. Hyde's scrupulous research and deep knowledge of the political realities surrounding the Blitz make his story utterly convincing, though at times the generous detail grows so thick that it chokes the narrative like a kudzu vine. The procedural elements are perfect, however, with scenes of ghastly carnage rendered so crisply that one can almost smell the fear and death. The final pages, in which Black, The Doctor and the forces of MI5 inevitably converge upon Jack, contain images of gore and tormented madness that can't soon be forgotten. Readers who relish the raw truth of human, and inhuman, history will find here what they are looking for.
Click to expand...

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0671875809/

[edit: Just adding some links]

Emps
 
while i was in the final years of high school there was this sicko on the go where i lived...

http://www.crimelibrary.com/serial_killers/predators/paul_denyer/1.html?sect=2

it was really quite disturbing...walking about at night after parties knowing that this animal was out and about. it was interesting how us young people kind of 'worked together'...walking each other home and stuff like that.

me and a mate used to walk the track late at night where the last girl was killed. we even saw the hole in the fence before she was killed...which was disturbing when we found out the story.
 
In any society where there is very strict State control over national media, some of the most unexplainable crimes will always be denied. Perhaps the Chinese Government has always taken the line that "Serial killers are a symptom of Western decadence and we don't have them. This is why our system of government is correct and please support your local dictator".

It is quite correct that serial killers are hard to catch without experience. After all, you almost need a trail of victims in order to find a pattern of slayings but sometimes the pattern is only "obvious" in the killers mind.
 
yeah, escargot, it was really creepy.

there's another girl who went missing too. sarah mcdiamard i think her name was...she went missing years before this psycho...she was never found, although the rumour is that her body could have been dumped into the foundations of a big shopping center that was being built at the time.

a mate of mine was actually a suspect too! hahaha! me and some friends were at his place on a saturday afternoon...and we went to the shop to get lunch.

we were stopped by the cops, who took our names etc etc...said they were checking out all the guys in the area...and asked us what we were doing.

when we mentioned my mate;s house, and his name, the cops new exactly who he was and where he lived.

needless to say, we paid out on steve as soon as we got back with our lunches and said we were going to set him up etc etc.

but, he was quite disturbed by it all.
 
guttersnipe said:
while i was in the final years of high school there was this sicko on the go where i lived...

http://www.crimelibrary.com/serial_killers/predators/paul_denyer/1.html?sect=2

it was really quite disturbing...walking about at night after parties knowing that this animal was out and about. it was interesting how us young people kind of 'worked together'...walking each other home and stuff like that.

me and a mate used to walk the track late at night where the last girl was killed. we even saw the hole in the fence before she was killed...which was disturbing when we found out the story.
Click to expand...

I lived in the Georges Heights area of Sydney at the time this guy,
http://www.crimelibrary.com/serial_killers/predators/glover/killer_1.html?sect=2
was active less than 5km away. At the height of the Granny Killer panic a forensic psychologist did a criminal profile for the police which pointed towards a young man, perhaps in his late teens or early 20's, probably a skater or surfer. As a fairly scruffy looking 20 yr old at the time I distinctly felt as though I was being watched & suspected!! Of course the murderer turned out to be an apparently respectable 60ish old originally from Wolverhampton & a few years later the psycologist was struck off & imprisoned following convictions for serious drug offences!
 
Although not s erial killer yet I can't imagine that he'd have stopped if he hadn't been caught:

Thu, Jan 15, 2004


Murder suspect 'liked killing people'


JOHNSON CITY, Tenn. (AP) - A man charged with two murders, including that of a Stevens Point woman, and under investigation for others, said "he liked killing people" when questioned about one of the cases, a police investigator testified.

Glenn Isaac Goins was indicted Monday in Louisville, Ky., on charges of murder, first-degree rape and first-degree robbery in the 1999 slaying of Melissa Januskevicius, 20, of Stevens Point. Januskevicius, a country singer, was returning home by bus from Nashville when she was killed.
Goins provided a videotaped statement to Louisville police confessing to the killing and to several others in other states, according to a court document.

Investigator Joe Harrah also said Tuesday that Goins did not provide any information about the death of 24-year-old Amanda Wood of Johnson City until police told him they had found the body in the basement of his mother's house.

"And his next exact words were, 'I did it. I killed her,'" Harrah said. Goins, 22, did not show any remorse for his actions, Harrah said.

"His big question was, 'How did you find the body?"'
Goins is charged with first-degree murder and is facing a possible death sentence. Police haven't said how many cases might involve Goins.

"He's been interviewed in some others. We're not sure right now exactly how many," Johnson City Police Chief John Lowry told The Associated Press on Wednesday.

Wood was pregnant when she was killed, and District Attorney Joe Crumley says he is awaiting autopsy results on the fetus to determine whether it could have survived outside the womb. The results could lead to Goins also being charged in the death of the fetus.

During Tuesday's hearing, Harrah read Goins' Jan. 4 statement about Wood's death. Goins said he had seen Wood downtown, watched her a couple of times and wondered what it would be like to kill her.

"I think it was three days ago at night," Goins said. "I pulled up beside her in my car and said, 'Hey.' She said, 'Hey.' She asked if she could get a ride. I told her to hop in."
Goins said she asked him what she could do for him or what he would like. They went to his mother's Johnson City house and had sex, he said.

Goins told police he taped Wood's hands in the bathroom. He said she asked him what he was doing, and he told her to be quiet and not worry about it. After having sex a second time, Goins said he took her back to the bedroom and she asked him again what he was doing.

"And I said, 'I'm going to kill you,"' Goins said. "She said, 'Please don't' or something like that, and I smacked her in the face and told her to shut up. She was sitting on the bed, and I took a towel and started choking her with the towel. I kept on choking her until she died."
Goins then told how he moved the body in a sleeping bag to the basement, which Harrah described as more like a tall crawl space, and cleaned up some items beforehand. Goins said he wrapped the body in plastic and duct tape and thought he had put the towel in the sleeping bag. He also took from Wood.

Goins said he fell asleep upstairs before waking up and taking his mother's car to Appalachia, Va.

"I never felt bad about what I have done," Goins said. "Whenever I let her in my car, I knew I was going to kill her and nothing would stop me."
Goins is being held in the Washington County Detention Center in Jonesboro.
Click to expand...

http://www.wisinfo.com/dailytribune/wrdtlocal/289610461548331.shtml
 
Swiss nurse on 24 murder charges

Alison Langley in Zurich
Thursday January 15, 2004
The Guardian

A former dancing instructor known as the Angel of Death has been charged with murdering 24 elderly patients in Swiss nursing homes.

The man, whom the police refuse to identify, is said to have killed his victims, aged between 66 and 95, in a seven year period after training as a nurse.

The investigating magistrate, Orvo Nieminen, said: "As motive, the accused said on the one hand that he did it out of empathy, compassion, sympathy and deliverance. On the other hand, he said he and his team were totally overtaxed and required relief."

The accused has confessed to 27 murders but Mr Nieminen said three of the deaths could not be proved. Twenty three of the victims were women; four were men. He worked in five care homes and hospitals.

In 10 cases he sedated his patients before suffocating them. In eight instances, he did not sedate them. Nine times he killed elderly people who depended on him for medicine.

He is accused of killing 11 patients in the 11 months that he worked at one care home.

A nursing home in Lucerne contacted the authorities in June 2001 when it noticed an inordinate number of deaths on one particular nursing station.

When questioned by the police, the accused immediately confessed, Mr. Nieminen said.

"He said he wanted to stop."

The accused lived in central Switzerland until his parents divorced, when he and his sister moved with their mother to Germany, where he finished school.

He qualified first as a communications electrician in Germany, then later as a dance instructor.

In 1990 he returned to his homeland to work as an assistant dance teacher, but in 1992 decided to change careers and trained as a nurse.
Click to expand...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,1123251,00.html
 
Death for China's serial killer

A court in central China has sentenced a man to death for 67 murders and 23 rapes, in what is believed to be the country's bloodiest killing spree.
Yang Xinhai, 38, was found guilty of committing the killings over the past three years by the court in the province of Henan, state media said.

It said he used a hammer to carry out some of the attacks in four provinces, sometimes murdering entire families.

Yang waived his right to appeal after an hour-long closed-door trial.

Yang - a migrant worker - was arrested in Cangzhou City in Hebei last November, during a routine inspection of entertainment venues.

He later admitted the crimes in the provinces of Henan, Anhui, Shandong and Hebei, and police also matched his DNA with that found at several crime scenes.

In an interview shown on China's Central Television on Monday, Yang gave no real motive for the killing spree that had begun after he was released from a labour camp for rape in 2000.

"When I killed people I had a desire (to kill more). This inspired me to kill more. I don't care whether they deserve to live or not. It is none of my concern," Yang said.

"I have no desire to be part of society. Society is not my concern," he said.

Some earlier reports suggested that Yang went on the rampage after being dumped by his girlfriend, but police listed robbery and rape as the main motives.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/3450661.stm
..............................................................................................
 
UK VICAP

Journeying into the mind of a serial killer

Police to interview repeat murderers in jail for clues towards solving future crimes

Gerard Seenan
Saturday February 21, 2004
The Guardian

Ted Bundy put it succinctly and uncomfortably. "We are your sons, and we are your husbands, and we grew up in regular families," he said, when asked what makes a serial killer.

It is an artful description by the American who killed at least 28 women in the 1970s, but the Metropolitan police officers who will interview every serial killer in Britain must be hoping they will arrive at a more practical explanation.

In an attempt to establish patterns and profiles that will aid in the early identification of serial killers, a team of officers and psychologists led by Andy Baker, head of homicide investigations at Scotland Yard, are seeking permission to re-interview repeat murderers in jails.

British detectives began planning the study following the sniper attacks that left 10 people dead in Washington and Virginia in 2002, fearing they may be ill-equipped if something similar happened here. They hope the interviews will lead to a better understanding of how serial killers operate - and earlier detection of their crimes.

"The possibility of early identification of a series will allow for early response and the possible prevention in the numbers of murders within the series," said a police spokesman.

Most of the empirical evidence on what makes a serial killer has been gathered in the US. The interviews should allow forensic psychologists to test if the profiles hold true on this side of the Atlantic.

"The study sounds very similar to work done for the FBI in the '70s, which became the basis for Silence of the Lambs and the like," said Ian Stephen, a forensic psychologist. "We have only a very small sample, so it will take a long time, but it will be interesting to see how British serial killers compare with American."

The FBI research, which remains the basis of much serial killer profiling today, suggests that such murderers can be split into two types: organised and disorganised. Organised killers are often sociable and intelligent. Their crimes are well-planned, with bodies hidden and evidence covered up. They often live with a partner, follow their crimes in the press and are prepared for police questioning.

Disorganised killers tend to know their victims and kill spontaneously, leaving messy crime scenes. They often live alone and can have difficulties fitting in with normal society. They do not change their behaviour following crimes and have no interest in reading reports in the press.

Serial killers are generally white, male, middle-class and in their 20s or 30s, but it is almost impossible to predict what character trait or twist of background makes the murderer. "We can say things like, 'They are often well-educated,' but these characteristics really can't be too generalised," said Professor Stephen.

The problem for police officers in the Scotland Yard study may be that, as Bundy said, serial killers are the product of many environments.

"These profiles are useful if you have, say, three or four people who you suspect could be the potential offender. They allow you to look into their background and focus an investigation. But I would be sceptical about whether they can really help in early detection," said Paul Seager, a forensic psychologist at the University of Central Lancashire.

Dr Seager is not the only sceptic. Keith Hellawell, the former police chief who interviewed Peter Sutcliffe, the Yorkshire Ripper, said serial killers were so rare that it made their crimes very difficult to analyse and predict. "It is like looking for a needle in a haystack," he told BBC Radio 4's Today programme. "Many of them have no previous convictions and it is only when they murder once that you have some basis on which to operate."

Despite its drawbacks, forensic profiling does allow police forces to home in on suspects. The FBI discovered that most serial killers fall into a pattern - such as victim type or modus operandi - and it is these patterns that can lead police to their doors. The information gathered in the new study may help refine this process.

Fantasies


"I don't think gathering this sort of information will ever allow us to prevent serial killers, but it can be very useful to match the profile of a person against the profile of the crime," said Prof Stephen. "But, unfortunately, you don't know many things until after the arrest. For instance, Fred West and Dennis Nilsen had violent fantasies as children which they acted on as adults. Often, with a serial killer, the damage has been done in the early years - the only realistic method of prevention is to address that."

Under the Met plan - which will also look at 12 other categories of murder, such as honour killings and those motivated by homophobia, and which will need approval from the Home Office - the original investigating officer, a psychologist and an analyst will interview the serial killer. It will not be an easy task.

"It is going to be a very difficult job for the police because I don't think serial killers are going to talk. Look at Shipman," said Michael Berry, senior lecturer in forensic psychology at Manchester Metropolitan University. "They are going to play games, offer the police things, and then not come up with the goods."

Murder in numbers

Beverley Allitt

Alllitt was a nurse at the Grantham and Kesteven hospital when a series of mysterious deaths and injuries occurred in 1991. She was convicted two years later on 13 charges of murder and causing grievous bodily harm.

Dennis Nilsen

An alcoholic gay civil servant, Nilsen killed 16 young homeless men between December 1978 and January 1983 "out of loneliness". He got rid of body parts by flushing them down the drains of his house. He was sentenced to life in 1983 aged 37.

Peter Sutcliffe

The Yorkshire Ripper killed 13 women - mainly prostitutes - and attempted to kill seven others. He was sent to Broadmoor.

Rosemary West

Over 20 years, West and her husband Fred abducted, tortured, raped and murdered an unknown number of women. Many were buried under their house at 25 Cromwell Street, Gloucester.
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http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,3604,1152933,00.html

[edit: But, as might be expected given their nature, they are less than co-operative:

Mass killers refuse to join study

Rosie Cowan
Friday February 27, 2004
The Guardian

Two of the UK's most notorious serial killers, Ian Brady and Dennis Nilsen, have refused to cooperate with a Metropolitan police study of mass murderers.

Scotland Yard hopes the research will establish profiles and patterns to aid future investigations. But Moors murderer Brady, who killed five children, and Nilsen, who killed 16 men in London, have refused to participate.

In a letter from Ashworth psychiatric hospital on Merseyside, Brady, 66, wrote: "Research conducted by the penal authorities is self-serving ... an exercise in pretension and time-serving by the tea and biscuit-munching professional drones."

Nilsen, 57, said he would "never agree to it" because the Home Office had blocked publication of his autobiography. "I have spilled my guts out in three volumes and that is it," he wrote to a friend.

Professor David Canter, of Liverpool University's centre for investigative psychology, said serial killers would probably not be able to shed light on their crimes, even if they did cooperate. "If they had any real insight, would they really have done these things?" he asked.
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http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,3604,1157214,00.html ]
 
Updated: February 23rd, 2004 04:29:51 PM

Police Fear Serial Killer in Philadelphia

............



PHILADELPHIA (AP) -- The discovery of a woman's body stuffed in a trash bag has police in Philadelphia wondering whether a serial killer is on the loose.

Evelyn Rolon, 43, was the fourth woman found slain - three of them strangled - along a stretch of Kensington Avenue in North Philadelphia in the past six weeks, police said. No arrests have been made.

"We're not saying we have a serial killer on our hands here. But at the same time, we want everyone walking that corridor to be careful," Cpl. Jim Pauley said after Rolon's body was found Sunday. "Detectives are keeping an open mind about the possibility of a connection, but at this point in the investigation, it's too early to tell."

While the three other women were known to police and frequented areas known for prostitution, Rolon, a mother of four, had no arrest record but was known to drink and get into fights.

She was also older than the other victims, and was the only one whose body was found clothed, police said.

"We know she was tough, but she didn't deserve to be dumped in a trash bag, strangled like they did. The person who did this has no heart," Maria Rolon, the victim's 71-year-old mother, said in Spanish.
Click to expand...

http://www.officer.com/article/article.jsp?id=9919&siteSection=1
 
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