History's Biggest Villains

Mark Hopkinson had been released from a marijuana possession charge in 1975. He came back to find his father in a dispute over water and land rights with the neighboring Roitz family. Mark and his father even beat up Frank Roitz and his pregnant daughter, but after a prosecutor that was chummy with Mark declined to press charges, the father and daughter turned to Vincent Vehar, an attorney that would become a thorn in the side of the Hopkinson family. Mark devised a plan to eliminate him and the lawsuit against him, as this involved a bomb that leveled the entire house and killed 3 people. Now that the police were closing in on Mark and his crew, the desperation to save his own skin led Mark to take some extreme measures.

Unless you actually live there, most Americans couldn’t tell you five things about the state of Wyoming. With its wide open plains and sparsely populated areas, crime isn’t much of a worry for its citizens. In fact, the state has only executed one person since 1976 and his name was Mark Hopkinson. As a kid, he seemed to have it all, being a star athlete in multiple sports while also having his way with the ladies. He was deemed by most to be a pretty likable guy, but behind the facade lay a more manipulative and sinister character, one who killed animals for no reason and took nude photos of his female classmates to blackmail them. Mark spoke with a level of conviction that made people do his bidding with no questions asked, so he had a group of low-level thugs that carried out his every desire, as all he had to do was make a call and someone disappeared.

On March 2, 1989, Ramon Laso’s car fell off a 60 foot cliff while he was driving with his 6 year old son. The car burst into flames and the boy didn’t make it, but Ramon was unharmed, despite claims that he was passed out for 15 minutes. He received a large insurance settlement, which he used to open a video rental store. His wife was mysteriously found decapitated by a train 9 months earlier, but this was ruled as a suicide. Since Ramon was living life normally as if his wife and son weren’t dead, his father in law became suspicious and hired a private investigator to find evidence of murder, and he did. Ramon was found guilty in 1993 and was sentenced to 56 years, but by 2001, he was paroled already.

Earl Bradley was a pediatrician that worked in Northeast Philadelphia in the 80’s, as he was successful enough to open his own practice. But his career choice wasn’t because of a genuine desire to help, it was to gain access to victims for his pedophilic urges. In the mid 90s, he was accused twice of sexual misconduct towards his young patients, so he abruptly closed his practice and moved to Lewes, Delaware. He worked at Beebe Medical Center, where more allegations continued to mount. He then opened another private practice, Baybees Pediatrics in Milford, where he masqueraded as a friendly member of the community. But behind this mask, he continued to torment and abuse young children, with his youngest victim being just 3 months old. Despite numerous reports against him, Earl remained free. In 2009, 15 years after the first complaint, he was finally apprehended after yet another incident of him touching a young girl inappropriately. When police raided his practice, they found 13 hours of videotapes, displaying sadistic crimes that lead many to believe that he was the worst child predator in American history, but how did he escape justice for so long?

Africa is a continent rich with wildlife, culture and a history of perseverance. But unfortunately, their abundance of natural resources made them a target for European colonists looking to claim this land, but there were no arranged sales, the land was just taken simply because they felt they were entitled to it. Since many of these African countries were already under European control, these institutions felt like they could do whatever they wanted to the indigenous people. Most know 20th century Germany for their actions while a certain man with a mustache was in charge, but even before he rose to power, the German government had already subjugated an entire group of people, but this was in the small country of Namibia. German leadership was desperate to turn the Herero people into a subservient class,stealing all their possessions, enacting unfair judicial systems that targeted them and just outright killing them. When the Herero people chose to rise up, the Germans claimed to be the victims, calling for the extermination of the entire tribe. It seemed like killing 75,000 people wasn’t enough, as even after a peace agreement was reached, the remaining survivors were put into concentration camps. This was only the tip of the iceberg when talking about an atrocity that seems to be swept under the rug.

As you probably know, child protective service agencies always do a great job of making sure that children are safe. That’s why when LaShawn Ragland reported that his friend Banita Jacks was starving her children, along with another report from a social worker that she was holding them hostage, CPS did absolutely nothing about it. After the death of her boyfriend in 2007, Banita went completely off the rails, isolating herself and her kids, as nobody was able to get in contact with them. Even as the children were pulled from school, nobody came to check on them. Banita’s mother hadn’t heard from her granddaughters in over 2 years, but on January 7, 2008, she found out what happened to them, as this case brought major legislation changes in the nation’s capital.

Gary Evans grew up in a horrible situation, as his father frequently abused him and his siblings. At the age of eight, he became interested in expensive things. So in turn, he started stealing things and pawning them off.. This habit continued all through his early 20s, as a combination of the deaths of both of his parents and his mental health issues, he went on a spree of robbery and murder, as his victims were his close friends whom he had committed crimes with. He was extremely paranoid, feeling like someone was always out to get him, so when these men gave him the slightest suspicion, he shot and dismembered them. When he was finally caught, he used a secret key to break out of his cuffs and escape from the police van, and Gary made sure he wouldn’t face justice for his crimes.

Joseph Taborsky seemed to be on a path of negativity from the beginning, as at only 5 years old, he was stealing jewelry from a neighbor’s house to give to his mother. At 7 years old, he was stealing bikes and committing several burglaries. By the time he was an adult, he met Arthur Culombe, a mentally challenged man who collected guns, and Joseph saw an opportunity and a gullible accomplice. But he would be in jail for murder during a robbery committed with his brother not long after, being sentenced to death. However, due to his brother’s shaky confession being the only evidence against him , Joseph’s charges were dropped and he was released from prison 5 years later. Now emboldened by his newfound freedom, he reconnected with Arthur and the pair would leave an impact on the state of Connecticut that was still felt 50 years later.

Lam Kor-Wan was someone who always struggled socially. He didn’t have a great relationship with his father, plus he could barely make friends at school, let alone talk to women. So when his dad kicked him out after an argument, he had nothing but time to himself, so his perverted sexual urges only increased. It started with him hoarding porn magazines, then it progressed to peeping at his younger sister in the bathroom. Lam then became a taxi driver in 1978, also joining a photography club. He usually drove at night as it suited his personality, but with the camera, he started taking explicit pictures of multiple women without their consent, leading to him gaining a negative reputation in the community. Both of these interests would combine into one of the most notorious killing sprees in the history of Hong Kong.

Alexander Pearce was a petty thief from Ireland that had used all of his chances with the legal system. For his continued crimes, he was sent thousands of miles away to work at a penal colony in what is now Tasmania. In 1822, he and 7 other inmates escaped and set off for the wilderness, but the land was extremely treacherous, barren of anything but vegetation for hundreds of miles. This getaway was poorly planned as after 15 days, the men had run through their food rations and they were starving, and with no other options, they resorted to cannibalism to survive. When Alexander was the only one left out of the 8 escapees, authorities didn’t believe his story about the others being eaten, feeling like he was still protecting his partners in crime. Alexander came to the colony on a forgery charge, but he left it hanging from the gallows, as his daring escape would go down in the stuff of legends.

Bruce Lindahl was a sexual predator who seemed to have friends in law enforcement, so he seemed to avoid any serious jail time despite his increasingly questionable behavior. On the most egregious occasion, he was stopped by police with an unconscious woman in the passenger, bleeding from a knife wound to her head. He told them he was taking her to the hospital, even though he was going in the wrong direction. Bruce escaped this situation with no charges being filed against him. It was only a matter of time before he escalated to murder, but justice would be served in the most ironic way.

John Martin Scripps got his love of traveling from his father, as the pair went everywhere together. But after his father committed suicide when he was 9, John never really got over it, with his grades slipping to the point where he dropped out of school at just 15 years old. He then resorted to a life of crime, resorting to theft and drug possession to earn money. When he was caught, he would go on home release, abscond the terms, then be arrested shortly afterwards. After his most recent jail stint, he came up with a new way of earning money, a much more evil way.

Jaime Osuna came from an extremely abusive household, as his stepfather frequently beat him, even pushing him out of a moving car while he was strapped to his car seat. This constant state of torment caused him to lash out as by 15, he was sentenced to 4 years in prison for stabbing someone at school. When he was released, he covered his face in numerous tattoos, also getting involved with gangs, and his crimes continued. He went back to prison for stabbing another person, but after his release this time, he got married and had a child. But in 2011, his violent tendencies went to a new level as he committed his first murder. For this crime, he was sentenced to life without parole as he laughed at his victim’s grieving family in the courtroom. But the highly monitored environment of prison couldn’t stop him from committing another heinous offense.

Linda Hazzard believed that fasting was the way to cure all illnesses. Despite not having a medical degree, she was licensed to practice medicine in the state of Washington through a legal loophole. She had an outgoing personality, leading to her practice becoming incredibly successful. Her hold was so strong that one of her patients ignored orders from a physician to stop fasting, but she died nine days later. Not wanting to draw anymore attention to herself, Linda opened a private "sanitarium" called Wilderness Heights, claiming that she could cure any ailment by starvation. Once she realized that her patients became weak and agreeable during their fasting sessions, she then forced them to sign over their possessions to her, but greed was finally what brought an end to the reign of the Starvation Doctor.

On December 15, 2016, Theodore Johnson invited his ex-girlfriend Angela Best over to help with an appointment with the Jamaican Embassy. As soon as she entered the house, he struck her in the head with a claw hammer 6 times, then he strangled her with a gown. A few hours later, he threw himself in front of a moving train, losing his right arm and left hand. While the medics tended to his injuries, the police went back to his home and discovered Angela’s body. Theodore confessed to her murder and was sentenced to 30 years, but the real reason he killed her was due to a letter that showed up at his house,as after 20 years together, Angela found out that the man she loved had been convicted of manslaughter, twice.

On May 29, 1896, workers at a waste incineration facility in Buenos Aires, Argentina were met with a gruesome discovery. They opened a burlap sack and found the severed arm of a newborn baby. Further searches found the rest of the body, including a fractured skull. The investigation into this heinous crime stalled for a couple years, but in 1898, it picked right back up with the discovery of another newborn at the same location, this time with burn marks on the arms and hands, along with signs of strangulation. Police mapped out the delivery routes of the garbage pickups and it led them to 1438 Artes Street, the home of Cayetano Domingo Grossi, a man whom they would discover was one of the most evil in Argentine history.

Dallen Bounds was by all accounts a friendly kid who got along with people pretty well. But this calm demeanor hid a more devious side, as Dallen had sticky fingers, getting busted multiple times for theft and robbery, with his worst offense being a thievery of four pistols, a rifle and a shotgun, a crime in which he got off light with a 9 month sentence. He always held a job but he continued to live outside the law. He had become obsessed with a divorced nurse, but after she rebuffed his advances, he spiraled into a deep depression, frantically scribbling in his diary about wanting to commit suicide. In the 2nd half of 1999, Dallen decided that he wanted to leave this world, but he took others with him.

Alexsandr Rubel was a disturbed kid from an early age, as by 14 years old, his addiction to sniffing gasoline vapors caused him to develop homicidal urges. He was huffing up to 5 liters a day by the time he was 16, as his desire to kill grew stronger and stronger. In September 1997, Alexsandr couldn’t contain his compulsions anymore, as the teenager hacked his disabled neighbor to death with an axe. By the time he was caught, he had killed 7 people in 9 months,even decapitating one of his victims, but since he was a teenager, he was only sentenced to 8 years in prison. As of today, this mass murderer is free and possibly living in Estonia under a different name.

Werner Pinzner seemed to be down on his luck from the beginning, as after he dropped out of school, he floated from job to job, ultimately being sentenced to 10 years in prison for his part in an armed robbery that resulted in the death of the store manager. While behind bars, he was able to establish connections with multiple members of Germany’s seedy red-light district, as he desired to live the lifestyle of a pimp. Even while he was on day release from prison, he became a contract killer, eliminating anyone for the right price, as this was something he continued to do after he was officially released. When German police finally cracked down on organized crime, Werner was quickly named as a suspect in multiple murders,but he was ready to talk. On July 29, 1986, he was set to be interviewed at the Hamburg police headquarters, but the cops didn’t know that there was a surprise in store for them.

On February 20, 2005, Andrea Arrigoni, a private investigator, had traveled to Verona, Italy after a dinner with his parents. He called and told them he was going to his office, but he took a detour, heading to a well-known red light district in search of a prostitute. He picked up 30 year old Galina Shafranek, but they got into a violent altercation that witnesses reported to the police. By the time officers arrived, Andrea had already shot Galina twice in the neck. When they approached his vehicle, he fired his weapon at them and a shootout ensued. The two responding officers were killed and so was Andrea. After this deadly incident, police raided Andrea’s apartment, and they found bullets to link him to another murder, but the most confusing part is why someone with so much going for him would resort to such violence.

Olga Hepnarova was an average child growing up in Czechoslovakia, but out of nowhere, she developed psychiatric problems that plagued her for the rest of her life. She had attempted suicide by age 13, and had survived frequent beatings and other abuse at the mental hospital she was staying at. As she grew up, her life didn’t improve much, as she bounced from job to job. Once she found work as a truck driver, she eventually cut off her family and isolated herself. After trying to unsuccessfully burn down her family farm, Olga quickly came up with another, more heinous way to get attention. On July 10, 1973 in Prague,Olga, in her newly rented Praga RN, spent about 30 minutes circling a tram stop, waiting for a good amount of people to gather up. Once about 25 people were there, she drove to the end of the block, turned around and gunned it, and she didn’t stop.

If you looked up the word strange in the dictionary, you would probably see a picture of Wolfgang Schmidt. Out of retaliation for a strained relationship with his mother, a 7 year old Wolfgang went into her dresser and put on her bra and panties, then he would urinate and defecate in the underwear on purpose, as this apparently gave him sexual pleasure. He routinely did this until his mom noticed his thieving ways. She shamed him and locked her dresser drawers, but Wolfgang would then steal women’s clothes from landfills and dumpsters for the sole purpose of soiling them for sexual arousal. Even more alarming, Wolfgang eventually became a policeman as an adult, but he was fired after celebrating Hitler’s birthday. He often drifted from job to job, drunkenly roaming the streets in women’s clothing. But soon, Wolfgang’s obsession with women’s underwear evolved, as simply taking from clotheslines or landfills wasn’t enough to satisfy him, so he decided to take his unusual behaviors a step further, and 6 people, including a 3 month old baby fell victim to a man the German media dubbed “The Pink Giant”.

William Adrogo had a history of mental illness that caused delusions that made him snap into violent episodes. In February 1954, he invited his family to a banquet at his house, celebrating a indigenous festival for the Alur tribe. In his twisted mind, he believed that they had put witchcraft on his marriage, so after the celebration was over, he silently killed all 22 of his guests with a machete. He escaped on a boat and authorities couldn’t track him down. William ended up in northern Uganda, giving authorities a false name and quickly fitting in because he could understand the dialect of the locals. The police force in Tanganyika was unaware of his previous crimes and hired him as a constable. A few months later, for seemingly no reason, he upped the ante, and this would become one of the deadliest crimes of the 20th century.

The Murdaugh family is a prominent American legal family in the Low Country region of South Carolina. From 1920 to 2006, three members of the family consecutively served as solicitors in charge of prosecuting all criminal cases in the state's 14th circuit district, leading locals to call the five-county district, "Murdaugh Country." The family also founded a nationally recognized civil litigation law firm in Hampton, South Carolina that specializes in personal injury litigation. Despite all of this success, the legacy of this family is marked with legal issues, including corruption, insurance fraud, drug charges, and five murders in the last six years.

Gary Glitter was one of the biggest rock stars of his era, with hits "Rock and Roll (Parts 1 & 2)" and "Rock and Roll Christmas". But despite all of this success, he was convicted in 1999 for child pornography and his career derailed from that point forward.

Edward Theodore Gein, also known as the Butcher of Plainfield or the Plainfield Ghoul, was an American murderer and body snatcher. Gein's crimes, committed around his hometown of Plainfield, Wisconsin, gathered widespread notoriety in 1957 after authorities discovered that he had exhumed corpses from local graveyards and fashioned trophies and keepsakes from their bones and skin. Gein also confessed to killing two women: tavern owner Mary Hogan, in 1954, and hardware store owner Bernice Worden, in 1957.

Herman Webster Mudgett, better known as Dr. Henry Howard Holmes or H. H. Holmes, was an American con artist and serial killer, the subject of more than 50 lawsuits in Chicago alone. Until his execution in 1896, he chose a career of crime including insurance fraud, swindling, check forging, three to four bigamous illegal marriages, horse theft and murder.Despite his confession of 27 murders (including some people who were verifiably still alive) while awaiting execution, Holmes was convicted and sentenced to death for only one murder: accomplice and business partner Benjamin Pitezel. It is believed he killed three of the Pitezel children and three mistresses, the child of one of his mistresses and the sister of another. Holmes was executed on May 7, 1896.

On 13 February 2003, business owner and married father of two Amarjit Chohan disappeared without a trace in Hounslow, West London. Two days later, on 15 February his wife 25-year-old Nancy Chohan, her mother 51-year-old Charanjit Kaur and his two young children, 18-month-old Davinder and 2-month-old Ravinder, also vanished. Rumor suggested Mr Chohan had got himself involved in some shady business deals and had fled back to India with his family to escape repercussions. However, when a company employee presented letters that appeared to be signed by Amarjit Chohan stating he was handing over full control of his company, the disappearance of the Chohan family began to look more suspicious.When Mrs Chohan’s brother flew in from New Zealand to convince London police his sister and her family would not simply disappear, a full investigation was launched. What transpired was a sickening plan by two men to get their hands on a successful business to act as a front for laundering their drug money. A plan which involved fraud, abduction, torture and the murder of six people in order to get what they wanted. The Chohan family had not run away from anything. They had been callously murdered and disposed of as if their lives didn’t matter simply for the lure of money.

Joseph Lyle Menéndez and Erik Galen Menéndez are American brothers who were convicted in 1996 of the murders of their parents, José and Mary Louise "Kitty" Menéndez.During the trial, the brothers stated that they committed the murders out of fear that their father would kill them after they threatened to expose him for years of sexual, emotional, and physical abuse, while the prosecution argued that they did it to inherit their father's multimillion-dollar estate. They were first tried separately, with one jury for each brother. Both juries deadlocked, which resulted in a mistrial. For the second trial, they were tried together by a single jury, which found them guilty; as a result, they were sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole.

Trevor Joseph Hardy , also known as the Beast of Manchester, was a convicted English serial killer who murdered three teenage girls in Manchester between December 1974 and March 1976. In 1977, he was found guilty on three charges of murder and was sentenced to life imprisonment, remaining in prison until his death 35 years later.

PCs Fiona Bone and Nicola Hughes didn't stand a chance as they responded to what they thought was a routine report of a burglary. The pair stepped out of their police van and walked up to the front door of a three-bed maisonette, into a slaughter that was so gratuitous the shock still reverberates today.Inside was one-eyed fugitive Dale Cregan - wanted for murdering two gangland rivals. Before the officers had even knocked, the merciless killer burst through the door, shouted 'police' and unleashed a hail of bullets on the two unarmed officers, probationers who had only just joined GMP. He tossed a hand grenade on their dying bodies and then calmly handed himself in at the nearest police station.

Thierry Paulin, known as The Monster of Montmartre, was a French spree killer active in the 1980s who along with his lover Jean Thierry Mathurin, robbed and murdered 21 elderly women. He died from complications related to AIDS before his trial.

Mary Flora Bell (born 26 May 1957) is an English woman who, as a juvenile, killed two preschool-age boys in Scotswood, an inner suburb of Newcastle upon Tyne, in 1968.[4] Bell committed her first killing when she was 10 years old. In both instances, Bell informed her victim he had a sore throat, which she would massage before proceeding to strangle him.Bell was convicted of manslaughter in relation to both killings in December 1968, in a trial held at Newcastle Assizes when she was 11 years old, and in which her actions were judged to have been committed under diminished responsibility. Her accomplice in at least one of the killings, 13-year-old Norma Joyce Bell (no relation), was acquitted of all charges. She is Britain's youngest female killer and was diagnosed with a psychopathic personality disorder prior to her trial.Bell was released from custody in 1980, at the age of 23. A lifelong court order granted her anonymity, which has since been extended to protect the identity of her daughter and granddaughter. She has since lived under a series of pseudonyms.

Judias or "Judy" Buenoano (born Judias Welty, also known as Judias Goodyear and Judias Morris) was an American serial killer executed for the 1971 murder of her husband James Goodyear. She was also convicted for the 1980 murder of her son, Michael Buenoano, and of the 1983 attempted murder of her boyfriend, John Gentry. Buenoano is also acknowledged to have been responsible for the 1978 death of another boyfriend, Bobby Joe Morris, in Colorado; however, by the time authorities tied Buenoano to Morris, she had already been sentenced to death in Florida.

Carl Eric "Charlie" Brandt was an American serial killer who murdered at least four female victims; one in Indiana and three others in Florida. Growing up in Fort Wayne, Indiana, Brandt shot his parents in their family home on the night of January 3, 1971, when he was 13, killing his pregnant mother and wounding his father. He spent one year at a psychiatric hospital before being released and was never criminally charged. 33 years later, on September 13, 2004, Brandt stabbed his wife and niece to death and then hanged himself in his niece's garage. This incident, Brandt's efficiency in killing his wife and niece, and his hidden obsession with human anatomy led investigators to look into the possibility that he had committed other murders since moving to Florida in 1973. The 1989 murder of a homeless woman near Brandt's home was solved as a result of the investigation, as Brandt was found to have been the perpetrator. The police suspect him in three other Florida murders, but his true number of victims could potentially be more than 30.

Kenneth Allen McDuff was an American serial killer. He was convicted in 1966 of murdering 16-year-old Edna Sullivan, her boyfriend, 17-year-old Robert Brand, and Brand's cousin, 15-year-old Mark Dunnam, who was visiting from California. They were all strangers whom McDuff abducted after noticing Sullivan. McDuff repeatedly raped her before breaking her neck with a broomstick.McDuff was given three death sentences that were reduced to life imprisonment consequently to the 1972 U.S. Supreme Court ruling Furman v. Georgia. He was paroled in 1989 and went on to kill again. He was executed in 1998, and is suspected to have been responsible for many other killings.

Early in 1977, nurses employed at the public hospital in Wetteren, Belgium, began comparing notes on curious events in the 38-bed geriatric ward. The death rate had increased dramatically in recent months, with twenty-one patients lost in the span of a year. Other cases revealed signs of mistreatment, including catheters ripped from the bladders of elderly patients.The nurses started keeping a log and eventually, all fingers pointed to 44-year-old Sister Godfrida, a Josephite nun who was the Mother Superior of the geriatric ward. Born Cecile Bombeek, the product of a rigid Catholic home, Sister Godfrida adopted her religious name after joining the Apostolic Order of St. Joseph. In 1976, the aftermath of brain surgery left her addicted to morphine. And she would go to great lengths to feed this addiction.

Stephen Griffiths was a strange kid who became obsessed with death and murder from an early age. These obsessions led him to become infatuated with serial killers, and it wasn't long before he became one himself.

Anthony Sowell was someone who on the outside looked like a model citizen, especially considering his seven year military career with multiple medals and commendations. But underneath the surface was a man with a dangerous sexual appetite. This started early in his life, as he was the perpetrator of several sexual assaults as a teenager and also served 15 years in prison and kidnapping and attempted rape charges. In October 2009, his two-story home sat in a poor Cleveland neighborhood known as Mount Pleasant. A foul stench had hovered around the area for the past two years, but initially everyone thought that it was from a nearby sausage factory. Anthony Sowell had invited Latundra Billups to his house for a drink. Afterwards, he beat her, choked her, and sexually assaulted her before she escaped and told the police. As police arrived with an arrest warrant, Sowell was nowhere to be found but now the reason for the foul smell was identified.

Nannie Doss’s love life was something that would become her life’s identity. As an escape from her abusive childhood where her father made her quit school to work on his farm, she would always read her mother’s romance magazines and dream of finding a husband one day. Her dream would come when at 16 years old, she married Charley Braggs, her coworker, after only dating for four months. Bragg’s mother insisted on living with her son even after they got married. This stressed Nancy out immensely as his mother took up all of his time, as they had four daughters in this tumultuous relationship. Suddenly in 1927, two of her children and her mother-in-law died from mysterious circumstances. Charley took one of their daughters and left for good. Nancy was consumed with anger and was now set out to punish who wronged her.

Nathan Dunlap had his fair share of struggles growing up. His father was absent and his mother was diagnosed with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. Nathan had several mental health issues as a child, with two suicide attempts before he was 14. He was also diagnosed with hypomania as a teenager. His troubles with the law started early as he was arrested several times for robbery and drug possession. In 1993, he started working at the Chuck E Cheese's in Aurora, CO. He had an argument with his manager over his hours and this got him fired. This was the final straw as he would later come back to the restaurant with revenge in mind.

At 1:00 a.m. on March 29, 1988 in Kansas City, Missouri, Christopher Bryson was lured into the home of 39 year old store owner Robert Berdella. He was knocked out with an iron bar and tied to Berdella’s bed, where he was subjected to extreme abuse and torture, which included sexual assault, electrocution and injection with hypodermic needles. After three days, Bryson convinced Berdella to tie his hands in front of him instead of above his head. While he was at work, Bryson managed to burn through his restraints with a book of matches that was accidentally left in the room. Afterwards, wearing only a dog collar, he jumped from a second story window, breaking his foot, but he managed to flag down a police officer. Upon obtaining a search warrant, police found evidence that suggested that Christopher wasn’t the only victim of Robert Berdella.

In October 2011 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the landlord of an apartment complex in the Tacony neighborhood went to inspect the apartment owned by then 51-year-old Linda Ann Weston after receiving reports of suspicious activity. The landlord went into the apartment and discovered four mentally disabled adults locked in the basement in deplorable conditions as part of a Social Security benefit fraud scheme. They were all huddled under a stained, urine-soaked blanket in the cold, dark boiler room that was 6 feet tall by 15 feet wide. One of the men was even chained to the boiler. Linda and four others, including her own daughter, were arrested and charged. But a look at Linda’s background showed an extremely sinister past.

On January 3rd, 2022 in Slaughter, Louisiana, police received a call from Sheila & Clay Fletcher regarding their disabled daughter, 36 year old Lacey Ellen Fletcher, who was unresponsive on their couch. When the police arrived, the crime scene uncovered over a decade of horrible abuse and neglect.

Brenda Spencer was a girl who suffered from alcohol and drug addiction as a teenager. After her parents separated, her and her father Wallace Spencer slept on a single mattress on the floor that was littered with empty beer bottles. In the summer of 1978, she was arrested for shooting out the windows of the elementary school across the street from her house. After this incident, it was suggested that Brenda be admitted to a mental hospital for chronic depression, but her father refused to let her go there. For Christmas that year, he bought her a Ruger semi-automatic .22 caliber rifle with a telescopic sight and 500 rounds of ammunition. Acquaintances said Spencer showed a lot of hostility toward policemen, had spoken about shooting one, and had talked of doing something big to get on television. On January 29, 1979, she did just that.

Monroe Betterton by all accounts seemed to be a normal guy living a normal life with his wife Elizabeth and their several children. But it seemed that once he got angry, a switch flipped inside his head and he became an entirely different person. During one of the many arguments between him and his wife, he beat her until she was unconscious, as she later died from her injuries. Somehow, Monroe wasn’t charged for this fatal assault and he quickly married another woman. However, things didn’t go so smoothly again, as two years later, he and his second wife got into an argument, and in his drunken state, he stabbed her three times, even pouring whiskey on her face as she was dying on the ground. He was sentenced to 99 years, but he was somehow paroled after 11. And of course, he got married again.

The story of David Edwin Mason’s life was the result of childhood neglect combined with an undiagnosed mental illness. Even as a young kid, he suffered from abuse in multiple ways, while also not being mentally strong enough to deal with the bullying he received. As a teenager, he experimented with multiple ways to commit suicide, like hanging, cutting, throwing himself down the stairs and even setting himself on fire. David then turned his aggression outwards and began attacking fellow classmates and teachers, getting into several run-ins with the law. After a failed stint in the Marine Corps, he went back to his criminal ways, even resorting to murder seemingly for menial financial gains, as his victims were the most vulnerable of our society. Even behind prison walls, his thirst for blood couldn't be quenched.

Danny Figueroa was just like any other kid before the invention of cellphones, as he loved being outside and spending time in nature. But these habits still carried on into adulthood, as it seemed like Danny’s mental state remained that of an adolescent. He called himself a survivalist, infatuated with military fatigues and sleeping outdoors, as he wandered through the woods with his rifle. In his twisted mind, he was on the battlefield scoping out the enemy. But in reality, innocent people were on the other end of the gun.

On Saturday, June 4, 1966 in Westminster, CA, police received a strange call. 19 year old Robert Liberty told them that his girlfriend Marcella Landis was dead in their apartment. When the cops showed up, Marcella was found just like Robert had described. But her body was sprawled on the couch with a silk stocking wrapped around her neck, candles lit around her from head to toe and a Bible on her chest. Even more strangely, Robert was sitting next to her body, strumming a guitar. He was quickly taken into custody, but a judge ruled him insane, and he was found not guilty of the murder due to insanity. Only 3 years later, Robert was released from the mental hospital as a free man, and as you might expect, the killing continued.

Nestor Pirotte had come from humble beginnings, but since he and his brothers played with the children of the aristocrats, he started to claim that he was a part of that group. When he grew up and eventually joined the military, he still had these claims, but he admitted to stealing from his comrades and other forms of theft. At the age of 21, he believed that his aunt had sold cattle and had a large amount of money, so Nestor grabbed an iron bar and beat her to death, only to find out that the money was already spent. But even after receiving a life sentence for this murder, he gamed the system multiple times, being able to roam Belgium freely and keep killing.