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The arrest of Bulelani Mabhayi, the “Monster of Tholeni”, proved to be most daunting. Mabhayi operated in the Eastern Cape, preying on victims in Tholeni, a place that became known as “the village of death”. The village lies along the N2 freeway, about 15km from Butterworth, a town situated between East London and Mthatha. It’s a small village. Herds of cattle, sheep and goats graze on the vegetation growing in the almost barren landscape. “There aren’t many jobs around and most people just keep livestock or do odd jobs in the village or town,” said Nomfundiso Mpontshane, an activist whose house was used as a victim support centre for traumatised relatives and other fr…
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Carl Eugene Watts, also known by his nickname Coral, was an American serial killer dubbed "The Sunday Morning Slasher". Watts is now suspected to have killed more than 100 women, which would make him the most prolific serial killer in American history. He obtained immunity for a dozen murders as a result of a plea bargain with prosecutors in 1982; at one point it appeared that he could be released in 2006. He died of prostate cancer while serving two sentences of life without parole in a Michigan prison for the murders of Helen Dutcher and Gloria Steele. Carl Eugene Watts was born in Killeen, Texas to Richard Eugene Watts and Dorothy Mae Young. His father was a private…
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A death wish, once in custody, is not unusual among compulsive killers. Carroll Edward Cole, admitted murderer of thirteen persons, was securely serving out a term of life in Texas, with parole a possibility in seven years, when he elected voluntarily to face a pair of murder charges in Nevada, fully conscious of the fact that he would be condemned to die upon conviction. Once the sentence had been passed, facilitated by his guilty plea, Cole staunchly fended off appeals and efforts of assorted liberal groups to interpose themselves on his behalf. His execution, in December 1985, immediately paved the way for others in the Western states, but Cole's significance lies else…
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Maoupa Cedric Maake was a particularly brutal individual whose crimes seemed almost random. He operated mostly in the city of Johannesburg, South Africa. His victims included men and women, both young and old. There was no set pattern to whom he decided to kill, just the chaotic murders of a deranged mind. To add further unpredictability to his crimes, there were several methods that he used to attack his victims. Some he would sneak up behind while they were alone and bludgeon to death with rocks. Others consisted of couples in cars, the men which he would shoot before raping the women. For some reason he also attacked tailors within the inner city, beating them to death…
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On July 10, 1942 the first of five brutal murders and rapes began with the 20 year old red-haired wife of a man named William Brown. Charles Floyd entered the Brown’s home and strangled his wife to death before brutalizing her body. She was pregnant at the time so police ruled the murder as a double homicide. Six months later Georgina Green and her happily married daughter were alone in their home when Floyd broke in. He bludgeoned both of them to death. They were both redheads, which helped police understand that the killer had an affinity for red-haired women. On May 15, 1945 the killer struck again. This time his victim was Panta Lou Niles, another red-haired woman. …
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Charles Manson is an American cult leader whose followers carried out several notorious murders in the late 1960s and inspired the book Helter Skelter. Born in Ohio in 1934, Charles Manson is notoriously connected to the brutal slayings of actress Sharon Tate and other Hollywood residents, but he was never actually found guilty of committing the murders himself. However, the famous 'Tate-La Bianca' killings have immortalized him as a living embodiment of evil. Images of his staring 'mad eyes' are still used today to illustrate countless serial-murder news stories. The Manson Family—including Charles Manson and his young, loyal dropout disciples of murder—is thought to hav…
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Charles Ray Hatcher also known as "Crazy Charlie, A one-man crime wave, and Mr. Prince;" was born in the small town of Mount City, Missouri at 4:00 p.m. He was the youngest sibling having three older brothers; Arthur Allen Hatcher, Jesse Hatcher Jr., and Floyd Hatcher. His parents where Jesse and Lula Hatcher. Charles did have trauma in his childhood. At the young age of six years old he watched his oldest brother Arthur die of electrocution while they were flying a kite. His mother left the home and was married at least three times. At the age of 16 he moved to Saint Joseph, Missouri to live with his mother and her third husband. Then at the age of 18 he got a job but ha…
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Charles Sobhraj was a famous serial killer in the 1970's, known for drugging and killing between 12 and 24 western tourists in Asia. His several successful escapes from prison coined him the nickname, "The Serpent." Known for a string of killings in Vietnam in the 1970's. Born to an Indian father and Vietnamese mother, he spent most of his childhood on the rough streets of Saigon. He befriended mostly western tourists in Asia, later drugging and killing them. Between 1972 and 1976, it is speculated he killed anywhere from 12 to 24 people. He earned the nickname “the Serpent” for his numerous escapes from jail. Click here to view the article
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Chester D. Turner is no stranger to murder or the punishment that comes with it. He squeezed the life out of more than a dozen women during a decade of terror, and two juries decided he should die for his crimes. So it was merely a formality Friday that Turner, already on death row for 10 murders, was given four more death sentences for what a prosecutor called the city's most prolific serial killing. Turner, 47, looked straight at Judge Robert Perry as he handed down the penalty for the string of inner-city killings during the crack cocaine epidemic. As Turner was led from court, he cursed at the prosecution and said, "I'll be back." Turner is one of at least three men b…
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Christopher Mhlengwa Zikode is a South African rapist and serial killer who was convicted in 1995 on 8 counts of murder, 5 counts of rape, 5 counts of attempted murder and 2 counts of indecent assault. Zikode is however considered responsible for at least 18 murders and 11 attempted murders. Known as the "Donnybrook Serial Killer," Zikode murdered 18 people and attempted to murder another 11 over a period of two years in the rural Natal midlands town of Donnybrook in South Africa. All his victims were between 20 and 30. His modus operandi was to kick open the door of his victims' house, shoot the men in the head and drag the women to nearby plantations, where he would rap…
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David Berkowitz, also known as Son of Sam and the .44 Caliber Killer, is an American serial killer who terrorized the New York City area from July 1976 to July 1977. Berkowitz killed six people and wounded seven, most using a .44 caliber Bulldog revolver gun. Berkowitz was born Richard David Falco on June 1, 1953 in Brooklyn, New York. His unmarried parents separated shortly before he was born, and he was placed on adoption. His adoptive parents switched his first and middle names, and gave him their surname. From a young age, Berkowitz had began to show early signs of his future violent behavior patterns. While he was of above-average intelligence, he lost interest in sc…
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David Thabo Simelane was born in Swaziland in 1956 and grew up in Ngcoseni. He is a Swazi serial killer who caused havoc from the late 1990s until late 2001. His murder spree began in 1997, around the time he was released from prison for a prior conviction of rape. It was one of the many times, about 18, since 1976 that he had been convicted of robbery and rape. The last conviction was significant because he would later claim that he had robbed the woman but he had never raped her. For him, the 28 women and children he would later kill were revenge for the wrongful conviction. Simelane lured most of his victims to the woods of Malkerns with job prospects where he would th…
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Dean Corll was a 33-year-old electrician living in Houston, Texas, who with two teen accomplices was responsible for kidnapping, torturing, raping and murdering at least 27 young boys in Houston in the early 1970s. The Houston Mass Murders, as the case was later called, became one of the most horrific series of murders in U.S. history. He was born in Fort Wayne, Indiana, to Mary Robinson and Arnold Corll. After his parents divorced, Dean and his brother Stanley moved with their mother to Houston, Texas. Dean seemed to adjust to the change, kept a good grade average and was described by teachers as being polite and well-behaved. In 1964, Corll was drafted into the milit…
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Madame Delphine LaLaurie, a wealthy society woman of New Orleans, is most famous for the torture and murder of her slaves. LaLaurie was born around 1775. Her family moved from Ireland to New Orleans. She married her first time in 1800, a Spanish officer. LaLaurie gave birth to daughter Marie en-route. Her husband died before they reached Madrid. Back in New Orleans, LaLaurie married a banker and had four more children with him. Her second husband died eight years after they got married. Finally, she married Leonard LaLaurie, a doctor, in 1825, and together, they had a mansion where she and her husband and two daughters lived. LaLaurie was extraordinarily cruel to her s…
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Dennis Nilsen was born November 23, 1945 in Fraserburgh, Scotland. Though Nilsen recognized his homosexual desires, he was never comfortable with them and began acting on them through murder and dismemberment. Nilsen's first victim was in 1978, he went on to kill, upon his confession, twelve young men and dissect their bodies. Dennis Nilsen killed, defiled and dismembered 15 young men between December 1978 and February 1983, practically under the noses of his neighbors. When police finally arrested him in 1983, it quickly became apparent that, had they linked a series of reported incidents from lucky escapees over the previous five years, they might well have halted his g…
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Dennis Lynn Rader, born on March 9th, 1945, was the BTK Killer. The letters “BTK” stood for “bind, torture, and kill.” Rader was an active serial killer in Wichita, Kansas, between 1974 and 1991. During his youth, Rader hanged cats, reportedly. However, other than that, he led a normal life, joining the Air Force and marrying a woman named Paula. He even had children. In 1974, he would begin work for ADT Security Services. This year also marked the first of Rader’s murders. He killed the Oteros, taking a watch and a radio. In April of the same year, he killed Kathryn Bright and attempted to kill her brother, who survived the attack. Despite this eyewitness account, Rad…
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On March 13, 1933, Donald Gaskins was born in Florence County, South Carolina. At a young age, Gaskins was teased and given the nickname “Pee Wee” as a result of his small body frame. Violence and ridicule followed him from his home where his stepfather beat him to his school where he fought with the other kids daily. This would ultimately lead to him becoming the most prolific serial killer in South Carolina. At age 11, Gaskins quit school and began working on cars at a local garage. While working there, he met two boys, Danny and Marsh. They were all around the same age and out of school, so they teamed up and called themselves “The Trouble Trio.” The trio burglarize…
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On May 15, 1998, Donato Bilancia, confessed to a string of slayings in the Italian Riviera, saying he was mentally ill, suddenly flipped and could not explain his 90-day long serial killing spree. He spent seven hours through the night smoking and confessing to the magistrate in charge of his case to the tune of 18 murders, 15 of them since October. "He expressly asked for treatment because he is not able to realise what he has done. He cannot explain to himself what happened: something suddenly went off in him," the lawyer said. The confessed killer, who was arrested May 6, added that he had acted alone and on his own initiative. Prosecutors in Genoa said they now have e…
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Dorothea Puente was a convicted serial killer who ran a boarding house in Sacramento, California in the 1980s. Puente cashed in the Social Security checks of the elderly and disabled boarders living in her house. Many of them ended up dead and buried in the boarding house’s yard. In April 1982, Puente’s friend and business partner, Ruth Monroe, began to rent out a space in an apartment she owned. Shortly after moving in, Monroe died from an overdose of codeine and Tylenol. When she was questioned by police, Puente said that Monroe had become depressed because of her husband’s illness. Police officially ruled the death a suicide. Several weeks later, 74-year-old Malcolm…
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Elias Xitavhudzi murdered 16 women and men in Sunnyside and Magnolia Dale (Gauteng Province) in the 1960’s. As he murdered only white males and females in the strictly isolated “apartheid-era”, his murderous reign caused communal concern on both sides of the race spectrum. Waiting for his victims at various “lovers-lane” spots, he would accost the unsuspecting couple and brutally murder them. Shortly before his arrest, he acquired the nickname “Pangaman” (panga being a local word for the machete/long broad-bladed knife he used to hack his victims). Being swiftly tried and convicted of the murders in November of 1960 he was sentenced to death by hanging. Click here to v…
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Known as South Africa's "Axe Killer", Elifasi Msomi, was hanged in Pretoria in January 1956 after being convicted of hacking 15 people to death. Msomi blamed his victims' deaths on the "tokoloshe" which, he said, would appear on his shoulder and order him to kill. He killed mostly in the Unkomaas and Umzimkuku valleys in Natal. Posing as a doctor, Elifasi charmed his victims into willingly going off with him. A Zulu man, Msomi was an unsuccessful young sangoma (shaman). Seeking professional assistance, he consulted with another sangoma. Msomi claims that during this exchange he was co-opted by an evil sprite, a tokoloshe. In August 1953, under the instruction of the to…
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Little is known of Enriqueta Martí i Ripollés before she arrived in Barcelona in the early years of the 19th Century. What is known is that she did not arrive alone. She brought with her a brutal penchant for survival and an equally fierce desire to rise above a poverty that she would soon sadistically twist to her advantage. She preyed on young children from Barcelona’s destitute Raval Quarter. She would prostitute them to the pedophiles and deviants who had for so long protected and frequented her brothels. She could at once appear impoverished, dressed in rags to entice her prey and then as evening fell, attend the lavish galas of the El Liceu (Barcelona Opera House) a…
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Francisco Antonio Laureana was an Argentine serial killer who raped and murdered 13 women in a six-month period from 1974 to 1975. He would strangle his victims and occasionally shoot them with a handgun. He was killed in a shootout with police on February 27, 1975. A composite sketch had been made of him by a man he had shot at after fleeing from a murder. Laureana was married and had three children. Click here to view the article
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One of the most infamous vampire related mass murderers was Fritz Haarmann (1879-1925), who with his two accomplices was responsible for the deaths of at least twenty and as many as fifty young men. He was known as a vampire because of his cannibalism and habit of biting his victims in the throat. Born to a working-class couple in Hanover, Germany, Fritz was a sullen and slow-witted child whose favorite pastime was dressing up like a girl. At 17, he was committed to an asylum after being arrested for child molesting. Six months later, he escaped to Switzerland and made his way back to Hanover. Throughout his twenties, he was in and out of jail for offenses ranging from be…
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Gary Leon Ridgway is famous for being the serial killer who has admitted to more murders than anyone else. He is linked to the deaths of 48 young women, most of who were strangled to death around the Seattle and Tacoma, Washington areas. It took nearly 20 years for Ridgway to be caught and brought to justice. He committed the majority of his murders between 1982 and 1983, during which time the bodies of many of his victims were found near Green River in Washington. This earned the then unknown assailant the title of “the Green River Killer.” Police officers discovered the bodies of many of Ridgeway’s victims naked along the river bank. They were often placed together in g…
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