In their own words...
"We serial killers are your sons, we are your husbands, we are everywhere.
And there will be more of your children dead tomorrow."
A quote from Ted Bundy - he was executed in 1989 after confessing to 40 murders (more from him and others below)
And there will be more of your children dead tomorrow."
A quote from Ted Bundy - he was executed in 1989 after confessing to 40 murders (more from him and others below)
Some of the worst specimens are listed here, though this is not a comprehensive list. Their comments give us a real insight into what makes them tick - definitely to a different beat to the rest of us...
Some of them look respectable, but you would not want to meet any one of this lot in a dark alley - or anywhere else for that matter!
NB. This site in no way glorifies or approves of anything these vile criminals have ever said or done.
The information found here is to increase understanding and nothing more.
Content last updated Jan 2018:
Some of them look respectable, but you would not want to meet any one of this lot in a dark alley - or anywhere else for that matter!
NB. This site in no way glorifies or approves of anything these vile criminals have ever said or done.
The information found here is to increase understanding and nothing more.
Content last updated Jan 2018:
Scroll down this page or hit the links below for the relevant quotes.
Okay, I know there are only a handful of ladies in the list but check out this female psychopath and her matter of fact pronouncements in her interview on the video page if you have 10 mins to spare. Classic clinical psychopath...
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John Wayne Gacy
His comment, after 28 corpses were dug up from under his home:
I should never have been convicted of anything more serious than running a cemetery without a license.
He actually killed at least 33 victims and had this to say about them:
They were just a bunch of worthless little queers and punks.
Gacy also felt he deserved some sympathy, though was not alone (see Rifkin below):
I see myself more as a victim rather than a perpetrator... I was cheated out of my childhood.
Gacy, like many psychopaths, suffered dreadful abuse during his childhood, with severe beatings from his father. But he didn't mind cheating other children out of their childhood - he had this to say about murdering his first victim, 16 year old Timothy McCoy, a crime that gave Gacy an orgasm:
That's when I realized that death was the ultimate thrill.
From this fascinating book, Buried Dreams: Inside the Mind of a Psychopath by Cahill. An over-inflated ego is a trademark of these guys, and it is interesting that Gacy claimed indifference but kept a careful tally of his fame count:
There’s been 11 hardback books on me, 31 paperbacks, two screenplays, one movie, one off-Broadway play, five songs, and over 5,000 articles. What can I say about it? I have no ego for any of this garbage.
Status is often important to psychopaths, and Gacy was a smart operator. In 1978, several years after his first murder, the then First Lady was photographed with him... He even received a signed copy from her saying, "To John Gacy. Best wishes. Rosalynn Carter." The Secret Service were rightly embarrassed.
His final words to his guards immediately prior to execution:
You can kiss my ass.
Gacy used to entertain young children in a clown suit and makeup - hence his nickname: the 'Killer Clown'. Perhaps Stephen King was inspired by this killer to come up with his phantom child murderer in his novel - and now a major hit movie - It.
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I should never have been convicted of anything more serious than running a cemetery without a license.
He actually killed at least 33 victims and had this to say about them:
They were just a bunch of worthless little queers and punks.
Gacy also felt he deserved some sympathy, though was not alone (see Rifkin below):
I see myself more as a victim rather than a perpetrator... I was cheated out of my childhood.
Gacy, like many psychopaths, suffered dreadful abuse during his childhood, with severe beatings from his father. But he didn't mind cheating other children out of their childhood - he had this to say about murdering his first victim, 16 year old Timothy McCoy, a crime that gave Gacy an orgasm:
That's when I realized that death was the ultimate thrill.
From this fascinating book, Buried Dreams: Inside the Mind of a Psychopath by Cahill. An over-inflated ego is a trademark of these guys, and it is interesting that Gacy claimed indifference but kept a careful tally of his fame count:
There’s been 11 hardback books on me, 31 paperbacks, two screenplays, one movie, one off-Broadway play, five songs, and over 5,000 articles. What can I say about it? I have no ego for any of this garbage.
Status is often important to psychopaths, and Gacy was a smart operator. In 1978, several years after his first murder, the then First Lady was photographed with him... He even received a signed copy from her saying, "To John Gacy. Best wishes. Rosalynn Carter." The Secret Service were rightly embarrassed.
His final words to his guards immediately prior to execution:
You can kiss my ass.
Gacy used to entertain young children in a clown suit and makeup - hence his nickname: the 'Killer Clown'. Perhaps Stephen King was inspired by this killer to come up with his phantom child murderer in his novel - and now a major hit movie - It.
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Albert Fish
These individuals don't fear their own deaths, which may be the reason they are so callous about other people's. The likely consequences barely figure in their actions either. Fish was as cold-blooded as his namesake:
Going to the electric chair will be the supreme thrill of my life.
A common thread for psychopaths is physical abuse in childhood, and Fish suffered in the orphanage where he was brought up, along with the other boys, but discovered at a very early age that he was different: he enjoyed pain.
I was there till I was nearly nine, and that's where I got started wrong. We were unmercifully whipped. I saw boys doing many things they should not have done.
Like many psychopaths Fish tried to manipulate people into thinking he was somehow not to blame for his actions:
I have no particular desire to live. I have no particular desire to be killed. It is a matter of indifference to me. I do not think I am altogether right.
He may be correct in his assessment. He claimed he sometimes experienced auditory hallucinations, so was both psychopathic (anti-social personality disorder) and psychotic (suffering a particular form of mental illness).
None of us are saints.
A masterful understatement, uttered by Fish, one that applies to everyone on this list!
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Going to the electric chair will be the supreme thrill of my life.
A common thread for psychopaths is physical abuse in childhood, and Fish suffered in the orphanage where he was brought up, along with the other boys, but discovered at a very early age that he was different: he enjoyed pain.
I was there till I was nearly nine, and that's where I got started wrong. We were unmercifully whipped. I saw boys doing many things they should not have done.
Like many psychopaths Fish tried to manipulate people into thinking he was somehow not to blame for his actions:
I have no particular desire to live. I have no particular desire to be killed. It is a matter of indifference to me. I do not think I am altogether right.
He may be correct in his assessment. He claimed he sometimes experienced auditory hallucinations, so was both psychopathic (anti-social personality disorder) and psychotic (suffering a particular form of mental illness).
None of us are saints.
A masterful understatement, uttered by Fish, one that applies to everyone on this list!
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Joel Rifkin
Joel Rifkin exuded self-pity - yet had none for his victims. He is not unusual among his ilk.
I will in all probability be convicted, but I will not go away as a monster, but as a tragedy.
He was convicted of the murder of nine women although it is believed he killed 17. He would dismember the bodies for easy disposal. An FBI profiler interviewed him in this 45m video:
Interviewer: When you looked in their faces what did you see?
Rifkin: Er, deer trapped in headlight look. Just that stare.
Interviewer: Did you like that look?
After a pause where this intelligent psychopath (IQ 128) can be seen thinking what to say, what to divulge, says:
Not necessarily, or I would've looked more often.
It's one of those moments when you wonder if the FBI profiler is even close to getting the truth, or just what Rifkin is prepared to say. Manipulation by intelligent psychopaths has often led the most expert psychiatrists to be deceived...
The psychotic mass murderer Colin Ferguson is reported to have told him during a prison argument, 'I wiped out six devils and you only killed women,' to which he replied:
Yeah, but I had more victims.
Psychopaths often brag about their crimes, and this revealing statement rather undermines his claim of victimhood above. According to ex-policeman Mladinich, in his book From the Mouth of a Monster, Ferguson punched Rifkin the mouth for the response - rather less than he deserved.
Psychopaths often need high levels of stimulation, especially the intelligent ones. This can turn into a sort of craving, as Rifkin admits, saying of his first homicide, regarding the thrill of the chase and the deed itself:
You never get that original rush...
Rifkin is inquisitive about his condition and agreed to have his brain scanned for an ABC documentary - you can see the clip here.
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I will in all probability be convicted, but I will not go away as a monster, but as a tragedy.
He was convicted of the murder of nine women although it is believed he killed 17. He would dismember the bodies for easy disposal. An FBI profiler interviewed him in this 45m video:
Interviewer: When you looked in their faces what did you see?
Rifkin: Er, deer trapped in headlight look. Just that stare.
Interviewer: Did you like that look?
After a pause where this intelligent psychopath (IQ 128) can be seen thinking what to say, what to divulge, says:
Not necessarily, or I would've looked more often.
It's one of those moments when you wonder if the FBI profiler is even close to getting the truth, or just what Rifkin is prepared to say. Manipulation by intelligent psychopaths has often led the most expert psychiatrists to be deceived...
The psychotic mass murderer Colin Ferguson is reported to have told him during a prison argument, 'I wiped out six devils and you only killed women,' to which he replied:
Yeah, but I had more victims.
Psychopaths often brag about their crimes, and this revealing statement rather undermines his claim of victimhood above. According to ex-policeman Mladinich, in his book From the Mouth of a Monster, Ferguson punched Rifkin the mouth for the response - rather less than he deserved.
Psychopaths often need high levels of stimulation, especially the intelligent ones. This can turn into a sort of craving, as Rifkin admits, saying of his first homicide, regarding the thrill of the chase and the deed itself:
You never get that original rush...
Rifkin is inquisitive about his condition and agreed to have his brain scanned for an ABC documentary - you can see the clip here.
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Gary Alan Walker
Psychopaths often try to make excuses for their behaviour and rationalize things in a way we would understand, like this from Walker:
I haven't spent a full year out of jail since I was seventeen years old.
He clearly felt this was some justification for his appalling actions, but his callous disregard for the six people he killed exposed his true nature:
I'm sorry I killed five people, okay?
He did not just murder them - he raped, tortured and strangled his victims.
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I haven't spent a full year out of jail since I was seventeen years old.
He clearly felt this was some justification for his appalling actions, but his callous disregard for the six people he killed exposed his true nature:
I'm sorry I killed five people, okay?
He did not just murder them - he raped, tortured and strangled his victims.
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Joseph Kallinger
Of course some psychotic psychopaths really do hear voices and act on them. Others just claim to do so, or pretend they act on divine inspiration:
I was only following God's orders.
If we are to believe Kallinger then he had a very strange god...
This serial killer murdered three people and tortured four families. He wanted a family business it seems - he committed these crimes with his 13-year-old son along as an observer.
See Psycho? to understand the difference between a psychopath and a psychotic.
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I was only following God's orders.
If we are to believe Kallinger then he had a very strange god...
This serial killer murdered three people and tortured four families. He wanted a family business it seems - he committed these crimes with his 13-year-old son along as an observer.
See Psycho? to understand the difference between a psychopath and a psychotic.
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Herbert Mullin
Mullin may have been a psychotic psychopath - a very rare and dangerous combination - he strung a victim's intestines in the trees and claimed he did so to inspect them for 'pollution'.
He claimed he heard voices although that may well have been a ploy:
I saw the light over the confessional and the voice said:
That's the person to kill.
He tried a plea of insanity but was imprisoned as a criminal - he is due parole in 2025. It is unlikely the parole board will be swayed by this excuse:
Satan gets into people and makes them do things they don't want to.
He is 'credited' with 13 victims.
See Psycho? to understand the difference between a psychopath and a psychotic.
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He claimed he heard voices although that may well have been a ploy:
I saw the light over the confessional and the voice said:
That's the person to kill.
He tried a plea of insanity but was imprisoned as a criminal - he is due parole in 2025. It is unlikely the parole board will be swayed by this excuse:
Satan gets into people and makes them do things they don't want to.
He is 'credited' with 13 victims.
See Psycho? to understand the difference between a psychopath and a psychotic.
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Ed Gein
Gein murdered at least two women, as well as dug up female corpses and wore their body parts. Speaking about prison:
I like this place, everybody treats me nice, some of them are a little crazy though.
When asked if he wore the skin face masks for prolonged periods, he had this to say:
Not too long, I had other things to do.
Now he was definitely not altogether right! Psychopath? Most definitely. Psychotic? Mmm...
See Psycho? to understand the difference between a psychopath and a psychotic.
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I like this place, everybody treats me nice, some of them are a little crazy though.
When asked if he wore the skin face masks for prolonged periods, he had this to say:
Not too long, I had other things to do.
Now he was definitely not altogether right! Psychopath? Most definitely. Psychotic? Mmm...
See Psycho? to understand the difference between a psychopath and a psychotic.
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Andrei Chikatilo
Like many sadistic criminal psychopaths Chikatilo was aroused by aggression and violence, and without any conscience to hinder him he indulged his deviant desires to the full:
...the whole thing - the cries, the blood, the agony - gave me relaxation and a certain pleasure.
He was a cannibal who liked the taste of blood. He said it gave him an 'animal satisfaction' to chew or swallow nipples or testicles. He also claimed:
What I did was not for sexual pleasure. Rather it brought me some peace of mind.
Chikatilo was a prolific killer who admitted to to 56 murders, mostly female, with victims of all ages. He was judged sane and executed in 1994 with a single shot to the head. Rumour had it that he had been offered a million dollars for his brain - his last words were, apparently:
Don't blow my brains out! The Japanese want to buy them!
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...the whole thing - the cries, the blood, the agony - gave me relaxation and a certain pleasure.
He was a cannibal who liked the taste of blood. He said it gave him an 'animal satisfaction' to chew or swallow nipples or testicles. He also claimed:
What I did was not for sexual pleasure. Rather it brought me some peace of mind.
Chikatilo was a prolific killer who admitted to to 56 murders, mostly female, with victims of all ages. He was judged sane and executed in 1994 with a single shot to the head. Rumour had it that he had been offered a million dollars for his brain - his last words were, apparently:
Don't blow my brains out! The Japanese want to buy them!
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Issei Sagawa
Originally Sagawa was committed to indefinite detention in a mental institution in France after he was deemed unfit for trial for the murder of a fellow student at the Sorbonne University. He had raped the corpse before cannibalizing the poor girl's remains.
She looked very delicious.
He was deported to Japan after just one year and reassessed as sane but evil by psychiatrists there. However, he avoided prosecution in his homeland due to cross border problems - and possibly because his father, a rich industrialist, influenced his released.
I want to eat her. If I do she will be mine forever.
He has since claimed that he 'only' wanted to eat living flesh, not necessarily kill his first victim:
the moment the girl became a corpse, I realized that I had lost an important friend and even regretted killing her for a moment. What I truly wished was to eat her living flesh. Nobody believes me, but my ultimate intention was to eat her, not necessarily to kill her. To this day, I still think, “If only she had let me taste her, just a little bit…”
You may think he is sick, but society can be sicker:
He is now a celebrity in Japan and - unbelievably - has even had articles published as a magazine food critic there. He has a fans' Facebook page with hundreds of followers and a picture of his victim permanently on display...
She smiles at me. But I know inside that I’m the strangest one of all.
'Strange' hardly covers it, but he is rational, highly intelligent, articulate, logical, frightening, smug and full of ego. This cold, remorseless psychopath has since admitted he would like to do the same again.
The desire to eat people becomes so intense around June when women start wearing less and showing more skin...
Evil has a face.
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She looked very delicious.
He was deported to Japan after just one year and reassessed as sane but evil by psychiatrists there. However, he avoided prosecution in his homeland due to cross border problems - and possibly because his father, a rich industrialist, influenced his released.
I want to eat her. If I do she will be mine forever.
He has since claimed that he 'only' wanted to eat living flesh, not necessarily kill his first victim:
the moment the girl became a corpse, I realized that I had lost an important friend and even regretted killing her for a moment. What I truly wished was to eat her living flesh. Nobody believes me, but my ultimate intention was to eat her, not necessarily to kill her. To this day, I still think, “If only she had let me taste her, just a little bit…”
You may think he is sick, but society can be sicker:
He is now a celebrity in Japan and - unbelievably - has even had articles published as a magazine food critic there. He has a fans' Facebook page with hundreds of followers and a picture of his victim permanently on display...
She smiles at me. But I know inside that I’m the strangest one of all.
'Strange' hardly covers it, but he is rational, highly intelligent, articulate, logical, frightening, smug and full of ego. This cold, remorseless psychopath has since admitted he would like to do the same again.
The desire to eat people becomes so intense around June when women start wearing less and showing more skin...
Evil has a face.
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Gary Ridgway
Ridgeway pleaded guilty to 48 charges of murder. His views on prostitutes are pretty common among predatory killers:
I hate most prostitutes. I didn’t want to pay them for sex. I also picked prostitutes as victims because they were easy to pick up without being noticed. I knew they would not be reported missing right away, and might never be reported missing.
...but bragged that he actually killed 71 women.
I killed so many women I have a hard time keeping them straight.
Sometimes psychopaths are motivated by the thrill of having beaten the system and like to 'relive' or just revel in their self-satisfied 'brilliance' and ability to 'get one over' on society:
I liked to drive by the clusters around the county and think about the women I placed there.
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I hate most prostitutes. I didn’t want to pay them for sex. I also picked prostitutes as victims because they were easy to pick up without being noticed. I knew they would not be reported missing right away, and might never be reported missing.
...but bragged that he actually killed 71 women.
I killed so many women I have a hard time keeping them straight.
Sometimes psychopaths are motivated by the thrill of having beaten the system and like to 'relive' or just revel in their self-satisfied 'brilliance' and ability to 'get one over' on society:
I liked to drive by the clusters around the county and think about the women I placed there.
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Arthur J Shawcross
Shawcross served 15 years for the vicious rape and murder of an 8 year old girl and a 10 year old boy. Incredibly, he was paroled in 1987; by December 1989 he had killed 11 women. He claims to have eaten some of his victims' body parts, including sexual organs, and was totally matter of fact about his hideous crimes in numerous TV interviews.
He managed to avoid capture while he murdered his victims because he looked and behaved like a normal person, and was later described as 'avuncular' by those who knew him. Sadly, the police, and his prostitute victims, thought they would be able to spot him, perhaps believing such an evil person would have horns.
He eviscerated June Stott's body 'in a fit of anger' after they had spent the day feeding ducks, walking around and 'making out'. In one prison interview Shawcross claims that, for no apparent reason, she 'just flipped' and began threatening to scream and call the police. His remorse-free response:
Yeah, yeah, I snapped her... I snapped her neck.
He pauses, thinking about it, savouring the moment, a flicker of smug self-satisfaction on his features as he reflects on butchering a woman's body with no more thought than he might cut into a steak:
Stayed there all day until dark. Then, uh... split her open... From her neck to her groin.
I didn't go deep into the stomach area. Just split her open. I dunno why.
Like many killers, he enjoyed the attention the police were giving his crimes, and was confident enough to hang around the area they were staking out - and bragged about how he was mistaken for a cop. He put on respectable clothes, shined his shoes, and they chatted to him, one of them pointing out decoys in among the prostitutes they were watching, thinking he was on the team. A stone cold killer who was amused to fool the police.
When quizzed about evil Shawcross said:
People on the outside do not know what evil is.
Interviewer: Do you know what evil is?
Sure.
Interviewer: Are you evil?
Somewhat.
Of course, this cold-blooded psychopath claimed numerous mitigating factors during both his trials, including an abused childhood; he accused his aunt but his family confirmed he had a normal upbringing. He also claimed Post Traumatic Stress Disorder after firstly witnessing, then participating in atrocities in Vietnam. He admitted to decapitating women there, and impaling their heads on poles, but this was dismissed by the judge as 'patently outrageous and untrue'. US soldiers could never be guilty of atrocities like that - surely? (See Ramirez below.)
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He managed to avoid capture while he murdered his victims because he looked and behaved like a normal person, and was later described as 'avuncular' by those who knew him. Sadly, the police, and his prostitute victims, thought they would be able to spot him, perhaps believing such an evil person would have horns.
He eviscerated June Stott's body 'in a fit of anger' after they had spent the day feeding ducks, walking around and 'making out'. In one prison interview Shawcross claims that, for no apparent reason, she 'just flipped' and began threatening to scream and call the police. His remorse-free response:
Yeah, yeah, I snapped her... I snapped her neck.
He pauses, thinking about it, savouring the moment, a flicker of smug self-satisfaction on his features as he reflects on butchering a woman's body with no more thought than he might cut into a steak:
Stayed there all day until dark. Then, uh... split her open... From her neck to her groin.
I didn't go deep into the stomach area. Just split her open. I dunno why.
Like many killers, he enjoyed the attention the police were giving his crimes, and was confident enough to hang around the area they were staking out - and bragged about how he was mistaken for a cop. He put on respectable clothes, shined his shoes, and they chatted to him, one of them pointing out decoys in among the prostitutes they were watching, thinking he was on the team. A stone cold killer who was amused to fool the police.
When quizzed about evil Shawcross said:
People on the outside do not know what evil is.
Interviewer: Do you know what evil is?
Sure.
Interviewer: Are you evil?
Somewhat.
Of course, this cold-blooded psychopath claimed numerous mitigating factors during both his trials, including an abused childhood; he accused his aunt but his family confirmed he had a normal upbringing. He also claimed Post Traumatic Stress Disorder after firstly witnessing, then participating in atrocities in Vietnam. He admitted to decapitating women there, and impaling their heads on poles, but this was dismissed by the judge as 'patently outrageous and untrue'. US soldiers could never be guilty of atrocities like that - surely? (See Ramirez below.)
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Richard Leonard Kuklinski
Kuklinski was a hitman convicted of five murders, though at times claimed over 200... His nickname, The Iceman, came about from his habit of freezing his victims before dumping them in the belief it would confuse the forensic experts and medical examiners by masking the time of death. He was also a stone cold killer!
He would often torture his victims by tying them up and feeding them live to rats. He would sit and watch, completely devoid of emotion, maybe while eating his lunch - a genuinely remorseless psychopath... And a family man with three children and an unsuspecting wife.
He would often torture his victims by tying them up and feeding them live to rats. He would sit and watch, completely devoid of emotion, maybe while eating his lunch - a genuinely remorseless psychopath... And a family man with three children and an unsuspecting wife.
Fellow mobsters were wary of him and nicknamed him 'the devil himself' and - thanks to his efficiency as a killing machine - 'the one man army.' He was fearless, thanks to having a dead zone in the part of his psyche that should harbour emotions. But he could still enjoy himself, as this quote from Phillip Carlo's excellent book demonstrates:
...what I liked most was the hunt, the challenge of what the thing was. The killing for me was secondary. I got no rise as such out of it... for the most part.
...the figuring it out, the challenge - the stalking and doing it right, successfully - that excited me a lot. The greater the odds against me, the more juice I got out of it
If you have ten minutes you can check out this chilling video of Kuklinski being interviewed by a forensic psychiatrist (from Youtube). It is enlightening to watch especially as the very experienced criminal psychiatrist was clearly unsettled (scared?). Here's one brief exchange:
Interviewer: Do you see yourself as an assassin?
Assassin? Sounds so exotic... (Laughs.) I was just a murderer.
At least, in this interview, he seems honest, but he displays his psychopathic smugness with a self-satisfied smile as he explains why he liked to kill people up close and personal:
I wanted to watch them leave. I wanted to say goodbye.
Kuklinski, like many fellow psychopaths, though not all, was a victim of abusive parents. He developed personality disorders including paranoia that led to violent retribution for minor transgressions against his person - or perceived slights - and who was possibly possible bipolar too. He died in prison at the ripe old age of 71 in 2006.
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...what I liked most was the hunt, the challenge of what the thing was. The killing for me was secondary. I got no rise as such out of it... for the most part.
...the figuring it out, the challenge - the stalking and doing it right, successfully - that excited me a lot. The greater the odds against me, the more juice I got out of it
If you have ten minutes you can check out this chilling video of Kuklinski being interviewed by a forensic psychiatrist (from Youtube). It is enlightening to watch especially as the very experienced criminal psychiatrist was clearly unsettled (scared?). Here's one brief exchange:
Interviewer: Do you see yourself as an assassin?
Assassin? Sounds so exotic... (Laughs.) I was just a murderer.
At least, in this interview, he seems honest, but he displays his psychopathic smugness with a self-satisfied smile as he explains why he liked to kill people up close and personal:
I wanted to watch them leave. I wanted to say goodbye.
Kuklinski, like many fellow psychopaths, though not all, was a victim of abusive parents. He developed personality disorders including paranoia that led to violent retribution for minor transgressions against his person - or perceived slights - and who was possibly possible bipolar too. He died in prison at the ripe old age of 71 in 2006.
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Carl Panzram
Panzram confessed to 22 murders, claiming he was ‘rage personified':
I'll kill the first man that bothers me.
He also admitted to sodomizing over a thousand men. He said he would rape men because it was his method of dominating and humiliating people. On reform he had this to say:
I have no desire whatsoever to reform myself. My only desire is to reform people who try to reform me, and I believe the only way to reform people is to kill them. My motto is: Rob ’em all, rape ’em all, and kill ’em all.
Frustrated by the time it was taking his executioners to prepare, these were his final words to them:
Hurry it up, I could hang a dozen men while you're fooling around.
Fearlessness, combined with the other aspects of a psychopathic makeup, can mean that normal punishment - even the death penalty - does not act as a deterrent.
This applies equally to corporate psychopaths; they will often take risks where others would hesitate, and may well win big on occasions, but they care not for the consequences, for themselves or others, when their high risk strategies fail.
I don't believe in man, God nor Devil. I hate the whole damned human race, including myself... I preyed upon the weak, the harmless and the unsuspecting. This lesson I was taught by others: Might makes right.
This lesson is a common theme among all psychopaths where strength and domination go hand in hand; physical and mental weakness in others are merely character traits to be manipulated and exploited.
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I'll kill the first man that bothers me.
He also admitted to sodomizing over a thousand men. He said he would rape men because it was his method of dominating and humiliating people. On reform he had this to say:
I have no desire whatsoever to reform myself. My only desire is to reform people who try to reform me, and I believe the only way to reform people is to kill them. My motto is: Rob ’em all, rape ’em all, and kill ’em all.
Frustrated by the time it was taking his executioners to prepare, these were his final words to them:
Hurry it up, I could hang a dozen men while you're fooling around.
Fearlessness, combined with the other aspects of a psychopathic makeup, can mean that normal punishment - even the death penalty - does not act as a deterrent.
This applies equally to corporate psychopaths; they will often take risks where others would hesitate, and may well win big on occasions, but they care not for the consequences, for themselves or others, when their high risk strategies fail.
I don't believe in man, God nor Devil. I hate the whole damned human race, including myself... I preyed upon the weak, the harmless and the unsuspecting. This lesson I was taught by others: Might makes right.
This lesson is a common theme among all psychopaths where strength and domination go hand in hand; physical and mental weakness in others are merely character traits to be manipulated and exploited.
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Rudolph Pliel
The German serial killer liked to compare his 'hobby' with card games:
Every man has his passion; some like whist, I prefer killing people.
He also felt there were plenty more fish in the sea:
What I did is not such a great harm, with all these surplus women nowadays. Anyway, I had a good time.
He managed to 'cull' 10 victims - 11 if you include his own life, which he took in prison. Like most psychopaths he had a massive ego, if based on a rather distorted view of what is important:
You underrate me, I am Germany's greatest killer. I put others, both here and abroad, to shame...
Many psychopaths like to brag about their exploits as their ego drive is major factor in their makeup. Hare describes their 'grandiose sense of self-worth' and this trait has been used by investigators to unlock confessions, for example by comparing a serial killer's tally unfavourably with another 'more successful' one...
This high ego drive also helps explain why high achieving corporate psychopaths are motivated to appear to be acting in a pro-social way. They love the adulation.
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Every man has his passion; some like whist, I prefer killing people.
He also felt there were plenty more fish in the sea:
What I did is not such a great harm, with all these surplus women nowadays. Anyway, I had a good time.
He managed to 'cull' 10 victims - 11 if you include his own life, which he took in prison. Like most psychopaths he had a massive ego, if based on a rather distorted view of what is important:
You underrate me, I am Germany's greatest killer. I put others, both here and abroad, to shame...
Many psychopaths like to brag about their exploits as their ego drive is major factor in their makeup. Hare describes their 'grandiose sense of self-worth' and this trait has been used by investigators to unlock confessions, for example by comparing a serial killer's tally unfavourably with another 'more successful' one...
This high ego drive also helps explain why high achieving corporate psychopaths are motivated to appear to be acting in a pro-social way. They love the adulation.
Return to Index
Richard Ramirez
The 'Night Stalker' was pretty unimpressed with 19 death sentences:
Big deal, death comes with the territory...
At least he did not attempt to show remorse, but bragged instead to his cellmates:
I've killed 20 people... Man, I love all that blood.
Ramirez was motivated by more than just about the thrill of spilling blood - it was also about exercising god like powers over life and death itself.
We’ve all got the power in our hands to kill, but most people are afraid to use it. The ones who aren’t afraid, control life itself.
And Ramirez was pretty upfront with Deputy Sheriff Jim Ellis after his capture:
I love to kill people. I love watching them die. I would shoot them in the head and they would wiggle and squirm all over the place, and then just stop. Or I would cut them with a knife and watch their faces turn real white. I love all that blood. I told one lady to give me all her money. She said no. So I cut her and pulled her eyes out.
It seems that psychopathy runs in his family - his cousin, Mike, a Special Forces Vietnam War veteran, apparently boasted of killing and torturing the Vietcong. He is alleged to have shown the young Ramirez snapshots of his victims, including pictures of the severed heads of women who had featured in other photos fellating their 'Special Forces' killer.
When he was 13 years old Ramirez witnessed Mike murdering his wife; her blood splattered on the boy's face, and this may help explain his fascination with bodily fluids. There is little doubt that his disturbing childhood helped develop his psychopathic character, especially given the two major head injuries he suffered between the ages of two and five. These brain traumas may have exacerbated his genetic tendencies, and recent research seems to confirm that the amygdala and pre-frontal cortex exhibit major differences in psychopaths. With these areas of the brain not functioning properly, it diminshes their capacity to experience emotions to the same degree as normal folk.
As he says:
Even psychopaths have emotions... Then again, maybe not
His brutal rapes and slayings were undertaken with a variety of weapons - knives, guns, a hammer, a machete and even a tyre iron - often, but not exclusively during home invasions undertaken at night, terrorizing residents in LA and the San Francisco areas in the mid 80s. After being captured during a failed car-jacking, Ramirez was beaten by bystanders and held until the police arrived. At his hearing he held up his palm with a pentagram inked on it, proclaiming his belief in devil worship, and as if the jury did not have enough to detest him for already, yelled:
Hail Satan!
He was also on record as stating:
You maggots make me sick, I will be avenged. Lucifer dwells within us all.
His vile crimes and horrific personality appealed, as ever, to some clearly disturbed women. In 1996 he married one groupie while in prison - awaiting execution.She had sent some 75 letters to him before they were wed... Some supposedly 'normal' folk really are strange.
Ramirez died of lymphoma while on death row in 2013.
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Big deal, death comes with the territory...
At least he did not attempt to show remorse, but bragged instead to his cellmates:
I've killed 20 people... Man, I love all that blood.
Ramirez was motivated by more than just about the thrill of spilling blood - it was also about exercising god like powers over life and death itself.
We’ve all got the power in our hands to kill, but most people are afraid to use it. The ones who aren’t afraid, control life itself.
And Ramirez was pretty upfront with Deputy Sheriff Jim Ellis after his capture:
I love to kill people. I love watching them die. I would shoot them in the head and they would wiggle and squirm all over the place, and then just stop. Or I would cut them with a knife and watch their faces turn real white. I love all that blood. I told one lady to give me all her money. She said no. So I cut her and pulled her eyes out.
It seems that psychopathy runs in his family - his cousin, Mike, a Special Forces Vietnam War veteran, apparently boasted of killing and torturing the Vietcong. He is alleged to have shown the young Ramirez snapshots of his victims, including pictures of the severed heads of women who had featured in other photos fellating their 'Special Forces' killer.
When he was 13 years old Ramirez witnessed Mike murdering his wife; her blood splattered on the boy's face, and this may help explain his fascination with bodily fluids. There is little doubt that his disturbing childhood helped develop his psychopathic character, especially given the two major head injuries he suffered between the ages of two and five. These brain traumas may have exacerbated his genetic tendencies, and recent research seems to confirm that the amygdala and pre-frontal cortex exhibit major differences in psychopaths. With these areas of the brain not functioning properly, it diminshes their capacity to experience emotions to the same degree as normal folk.
As he says:
Even psychopaths have emotions... Then again, maybe not
His brutal rapes and slayings were undertaken with a variety of weapons - knives, guns, a hammer, a machete and even a tyre iron - often, but not exclusively during home invasions undertaken at night, terrorizing residents in LA and the San Francisco areas in the mid 80s. After being captured during a failed car-jacking, Ramirez was beaten by bystanders and held until the police arrived. At his hearing he held up his palm with a pentagram inked on it, proclaiming his belief in devil worship, and as if the jury did not have enough to detest him for already, yelled:
Hail Satan!
He was also on record as stating:
You maggots make me sick, I will be avenged. Lucifer dwells within us all.
His vile crimes and horrific personality appealed, as ever, to some clearly disturbed women. In 1996 he married one groupie while in prison - awaiting execution.She had sent some 75 letters to him before they were wed... Some supposedly 'normal' folk really are strange.
Ramirez died of lymphoma while on death row in 2013.
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Alberto de Salvo
Aka The Boston Strangler, confessed to 13 female victims. There is no doubting his motive:
It wasn't as dark and scary as it sounds. I had a lot of fun... Killing somebody's a funny experience.
Normal people can't understand that someone like this is not legally insane - just wired differently.
They know very well that what they're doing is wrong... they just don't care, and they don't feel bad about anything they have done either.
Bad not mad.
When asked how he selected his victims, the random nature of his attacks becomes clear:
Attractiveness had nothing to do with it... When this certain time comes on me, it's a very immediate thing. When I get this feeling, instead of going to work I make an excuse to my boss. I start driving and I start building this image up, and that's why I find myself not knowing where I'm going.
People - his female victims - were nothing more to de Salvo than random objects to be used and abused for his personal gratification and amusement: classic psychopathic behaviour.
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It wasn't as dark and scary as it sounds. I had a lot of fun... Killing somebody's a funny experience.
Normal people can't understand that someone like this is not legally insane - just wired differently.
They know very well that what they're doing is wrong... they just don't care, and they don't feel bad about anything they have done either.
Bad not mad.
When asked how he selected his victims, the random nature of his attacks becomes clear:
Attractiveness had nothing to do with it... When this certain time comes on me, it's a very immediate thing. When I get this feeling, instead of going to work I make an excuse to my boss. I start driving and I start building this image up, and that's why I find myself not knowing where I'm going.
People - his female victims - were nothing more to de Salvo than random objects to be used and abused for his personal gratification and amusement: classic psychopathic behaviour.
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Dennis Nilsen
Nilsen was fully aware of his motivation too:
I wished I could stop but I could not. I had no other thrill or happiness.
He murdered at least fifteen victims in a very gruesome way yet, true to form, said:
I don't lose sleep over what I have done or have nightmares about it.
He will die in a top security UK prison having rightly been denied any possibility of parole.
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I wished I could stop but I could not. I had no other thrill or happiness.
He murdered at least fifteen victims in a very gruesome way yet, true to form, said:
I don't lose sleep over what I have done or have nightmares about it.
He will die in a top security UK prison having rightly been denied any possibility of parole.
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Edmund Kemper
When asked what he thought when he saw a pretty girl walking down the street, Kemper replied:
One side of me says, 'I'd like to talk to her, date her.' The other side of me says, 'I wonder how her head would look on a stick...'
Kemper started young: he killed his grandmother, Maude, when aged just 14. Why?
I just wondered how it would feel to shoot Grandma.
He liked his grandfather but knew the old man would not accept the murder of his wife, so Kemper shot him. He later murdered and dismembered six women before killing his mother and her friend. He stabbed and decapitated his mother and used her head for sexual gratification. Later he would tell police:
It seemed appropriate as much as she'd bitched and screamed at me over the years. But even when she was dead, she was still bitching at me. I couldn't get her to shut up.
It would be easy to accept that the abuse he received as a child explained his behaviour, but the reality is that he chose to react by killing - many people who suffer childhood abuse and trauma do not. Curiosity may have been part of his early motivation for killing his own grandmother, but later he was less selective.
The first good-looking girl I see tonight is going to die.
He soon found out that he enjoyed killing.
I remember there was actually a sexual thrill . . . you hear that little pop and pull their heads of and hold their heads up by the hair. Whipping their heads off, their body sitting there. That’d get me off.
Like all psychopaths, for Kemper, fellow humans are considered much like objects or possessions, and they have little respect for other sentient beings or their lives. Kemper viewed women much as butcher might view a cow.
With a girl, there’s a lot left in the girl’s body without a head. Of course, the personality is gone.
Kemper was not apprehended - he handed himself in, for reasons probably only really known to himself, although some serial killers enjoy the limelight and the attention they garner from their crimes. Since his conviction, he has assisted the FBI's Behavioral Science Unit and has achieved an even greater level of fame by being featured in the Netflix Mindhunters series (played by actor Cameron Brittan). There is a great deal of mythology about the effectiveness of profiling, perpetrated by programmes like Mindhunters, and this New Yorker article gives a very good run down of the flaws in this overrated procedure.
Kemper was considered for parole in 2017 but denied. His next hearing will be 2024.
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One side of me says, 'I'd like to talk to her, date her.' The other side of me says, 'I wonder how her head would look on a stick...'
Kemper started young: he killed his grandmother, Maude, when aged just 14. Why?
I just wondered how it would feel to shoot Grandma.
He liked his grandfather but knew the old man would not accept the murder of his wife, so Kemper shot him. He later murdered and dismembered six women before killing his mother and her friend. He stabbed and decapitated his mother and used her head for sexual gratification. Later he would tell police:
It seemed appropriate as much as she'd bitched and screamed at me over the years. But even when she was dead, she was still bitching at me. I couldn't get her to shut up.
It would be easy to accept that the abuse he received as a child explained his behaviour, but the reality is that he chose to react by killing - many people who suffer childhood abuse and trauma do not. Curiosity may have been part of his early motivation for killing his own grandmother, but later he was less selective.
The first good-looking girl I see tonight is going to die.
He soon found out that he enjoyed killing.
I remember there was actually a sexual thrill . . . you hear that little pop and pull their heads of and hold their heads up by the hair. Whipping their heads off, their body sitting there. That’d get me off.
Like all psychopaths, for Kemper, fellow humans are considered much like objects or possessions, and they have little respect for other sentient beings or their lives. Kemper viewed women much as butcher might view a cow.
With a girl, there’s a lot left in the girl’s body without a head. Of course, the personality is gone.
Kemper was not apprehended - he handed himself in, for reasons probably only really known to himself, although some serial killers enjoy the limelight and the attention they garner from their crimes. Since his conviction, he has assisted the FBI's Behavioral Science Unit and has achieved an even greater level of fame by being featured in the Netflix Mindhunters series (played by actor Cameron Brittan). There is a great deal of mythology about the effectiveness of profiling, perpetrated by programmes like Mindhunters, and this New Yorker article gives a very good run down of the flaws in this overrated procedure.
Kemper was considered for parole in 2017 but denied. His next hearing will be 2024.
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Peter Sutcliffe
Sutcliffe felt he was doing us all a favour when he murdered 13 women:
The women I killed were filth - bastard prostitutes who were littering the streets. I was just cleaning up the place a bit...
It was more than a hobby - it was a habit:
Killing prostitutes had become an obsession with me. I could not stop myself. It was like a drug.
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The women I killed were filth - bastard prostitutes who were littering the streets. I was just cleaning up the place a bit...
It was more than a hobby - it was a habit:
Killing prostitutes had become an obsession with me. I could not stop myself. It was like a drug.
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John Christie
Known as Britain's 'Whispering Killer' as his voicebox was badly affected by a mustard gas attack during his service in World War One, this psychopath had an IQ of 128, but used his undoubted intelligence to nefarious ends.
Christie admitted murdering seven women - deliberately in defiance of the sixth commandment:
'Thou Shalt Not Kill' - fascinated me... I always knew that some day I should defy it.
Apparently he had found his calling:
My first murder was thrilling because I had embarked on the career I had chosen for myself, the career of murder.
...a 'career' he revelled in:
For me a corpse has a beauty and dignity which a living body could never hold... there is a peace about death that soothes me.
As an eight year old lad, Christie's first encounter with a dead body was seeing his grandfather in an open coffin - he would later state that this was a profound experience, seeing the corpse of a person who had previously frightened him.
When he murdered his wife he...
...removed the one obstacle which for ten years had apparently held me in check. After she had gone the way was clear for me to fulfil my destiny.
Christie's 'destiny' was to be hanged in 1953 after being convicted of the murder.
He is suspected of killing several more people by his own hand, though the official count of eight victims takes no account of one of his 'incidental' victims: a man who was also hanged by the UK state some years earlier...
Timothy Evans, Christie's neighbour, was convicted of murdering his wife, and Christie was a principal witness at the trial, though he was later determined to have been responsible for the crime. Evans had been dead three years before Christie's trial, where new evidence suggested a terrible miscarriage of justice had occurred - something that undoubtedly would have given the psychopath, Christie, a big thrill: he would have savoured his own part in the downfall of his neighbour, enjoying the manipulation and role playing involved in Evans trial, pulling the wool over the eyes of judge, jury and prosecutors.
Evans was posthumously exonerated in 1966, and his wrongful death at the hands of the state was an important factor in the abolition of capital punishment in the UK.
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Christie admitted murdering seven women - deliberately in defiance of the sixth commandment:
'Thou Shalt Not Kill' - fascinated me... I always knew that some day I should defy it.
Apparently he had found his calling:
My first murder was thrilling because I had embarked on the career I had chosen for myself, the career of murder.
...a 'career' he revelled in:
For me a corpse has a beauty and dignity which a living body could never hold... there is a peace about death that soothes me.
As an eight year old lad, Christie's first encounter with a dead body was seeing his grandfather in an open coffin - he would later state that this was a profound experience, seeing the corpse of a person who had previously frightened him.
When he murdered his wife he...
...removed the one obstacle which for ten years had apparently held me in check. After she had gone the way was clear for me to fulfil my destiny.
Christie's 'destiny' was to be hanged in 1953 after being convicted of the murder.
He is suspected of killing several more people by his own hand, though the official count of eight victims takes no account of one of his 'incidental' victims: a man who was also hanged by the UK state some years earlier...
Timothy Evans, Christie's neighbour, was convicted of murdering his wife, and Christie was a principal witness at the trial, though he was later determined to have been responsible for the crime. Evans had been dead three years before Christie's trial, where new evidence suggested a terrible miscarriage of justice had occurred - something that undoubtedly would have given the psychopath, Christie, a big thrill: he would have savoured his own part in the downfall of his neighbour, enjoying the manipulation and role playing involved in Evans trial, pulling the wool over the eyes of judge, jury and prosecutors.
Evans was posthumously exonerated in 1966, and his wrongful death at the hands of the state was an important factor in the abolition of capital punishment in the UK.
Return to Index
Heinrich Pommerencke
Apparently Moses has a lot to answer for - or at least Cecil B DeMille's version of The Ten Commandments does - as the movie supposedly inspired this German rapist/serial killer's murder spree:
I saw women dancing around the golden calf and I thought they were a fickle lot. I knew I would have to kill.
He was sexually active at a young age but had none of the charm often associated with highly socialized psychopaths. He would stalk, accost and rape girls while in his teens, and later progressed to killing after tossing one victim from a train as she struggled... He pulled the emergency cord, leapt off and went to finish his act of sexual violence with the poor, battered, shocked and bruised girl. Then he knifed her to death.
When I was a boy I never had a friend in the world.
Cases like this add weight to the argument that psychopaths are born different - nature not nurture is responsible. It is not politically correct to state this, but there is plenty of evidence to confirm that psychopathic tendencies are visible at an early age.
Recently, psychiatrists have accepted that certain traits suggest a child may become a psychopath but research also suggests the missing connections in their brains (video clip here) can be at least partially repaired before adulthood. This 2015 study by an Australian university discovered I in 10 children displayed callous and unemotional qualities - the indicators of childhood psychopathic tendencies. Also see see teenage killer James Fairweather below...
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I saw women dancing around the golden calf and I thought they were a fickle lot. I knew I would have to kill.
He was sexually active at a young age but had none of the charm often associated with highly socialized psychopaths. He would stalk, accost and rape girls while in his teens, and later progressed to killing after tossing one victim from a train as she struggled... He pulled the emergency cord, leapt off and went to finish his act of sexual violence with the poor, battered, shocked and bruised girl. Then he knifed her to death.
When I was a boy I never had a friend in the world.
Cases like this add weight to the argument that psychopaths are born different - nature not nurture is responsible. It is not politically correct to state this, but there is plenty of evidence to confirm that psychopathic tendencies are visible at an early age.
Recently, psychiatrists have accepted that certain traits suggest a child may become a psychopath but research also suggests the missing connections in their brains (video clip here) can be at least partially repaired before adulthood. This 2015 study by an Australian university discovered I in 10 children displayed callous and unemotional qualities - the indicators of childhood psychopathic tendencies. Also see see teenage killer James Fairweather below...
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Nicholas Kay - Wife killer who shed crocodile tears
This respectable looking gentleman was eventually found guilty of manslaughter almost a decade after killing his wife, and imprisoned for just six years. Rhonda Kay, went missing and was never found.
So, no forensics, no witnesses… Unsurprisingly, it took eight years for the police to get Kay to trial, and only then after bugging his home and catching him incriminating himself and his lover during a sting operation.
The police automatically assume those closest to the victim may be guilty as the majority of murders are committed by friends and family, but their suspicions were first confirmed when the overconfident killer took part in a press conference to appeal to the public to find his missing wife – pleading with the audience to help locate her ‘for the children’s sake’.
Most normal folk couldn’t do such a thing convincingly, and with such evident conviction, but this is a typical psychopathic trait – the crocodile tears and brazen manipulation.
One journalist attending the conference asked some tough questions, no doubt having been prompted by the police:
Did you kill your wife?
At this point, Kay gives finally himself away – he’s slightly taken aback, then snorts. He’s not shocked, just totally unemotional, saying:
What do you think?
When pressed to answer, he replies, sounding totally insincere, displaying no distress, still unemotional – at most, bored with the question:
No, I have not killed my wife...
Kay’s wife’s family were convinced he had killed her, but with no evidence, it was some time later that the police were able to convince a judge to allow them to bug his home and phone. They arranged for Rhonda Kay’s sister to tell him they’d found the body and that she hoped they’d finally discover that he was the killer. It was a lie, there was still no body, but the call had the desired effect.
Here’s the subsequent conversation between Kay and his second wife, Karen – the female lodger Rhonda Kay caught her husband having an affair with immediately before her disappearance, when she also demanded a divorce…
Karen Kay: Is it possible? Don't give me any bullshit.
Only if they got divers down or something… It's been there a long time.
During the conversation he then refers to the contents of a plastic bag.
It would be too small. It was all in bits. Once the tendons have rotted it will separate and disperse.
KK: I don't think you are telling me the truth… I don't think you used gloves.
Why wouldn’t I use gloves?
Pretty incriminating, but even with this admission about disposing of the body, he got away with just manslaughter. I often see that word and think 'man’s laughter'. In this instance, that seems rather more appropriate.
More details in this video documentary
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So, no forensics, no witnesses… Unsurprisingly, it took eight years for the police to get Kay to trial, and only then after bugging his home and catching him incriminating himself and his lover during a sting operation.
The police automatically assume those closest to the victim may be guilty as the majority of murders are committed by friends and family, but their suspicions were first confirmed when the overconfident killer took part in a press conference to appeal to the public to find his missing wife – pleading with the audience to help locate her ‘for the children’s sake’.
Most normal folk couldn’t do such a thing convincingly, and with such evident conviction, but this is a typical psychopathic trait – the crocodile tears and brazen manipulation.
One journalist attending the conference asked some tough questions, no doubt having been prompted by the police:
Did you kill your wife?
At this point, Kay gives finally himself away – he’s slightly taken aback, then snorts. He’s not shocked, just totally unemotional, saying:
What do you think?
When pressed to answer, he replies, sounding totally insincere, displaying no distress, still unemotional – at most, bored with the question:
No, I have not killed my wife...
Kay’s wife’s family were convinced he had killed her, but with no evidence, it was some time later that the police were able to convince a judge to allow them to bug his home and phone. They arranged for Rhonda Kay’s sister to tell him they’d found the body and that she hoped they’d finally discover that he was the killer. It was a lie, there was still no body, but the call had the desired effect.
Here’s the subsequent conversation between Kay and his second wife, Karen – the female lodger Rhonda Kay caught her husband having an affair with immediately before her disappearance, when she also demanded a divorce…
Karen Kay: Is it possible? Don't give me any bullshit.
Only if they got divers down or something… It's been there a long time.
During the conversation he then refers to the contents of a plastic bag.
It would be too small. It was all in bits. Once the tendons have rotted it will separate and disperse.
KK: I don't think you are telling me the truth… I don't think you used gloves.
Why wouldn’t I use gloves?
Pretty incriminating, but even with this admission about disposing of the body, he got away with just manslaughter. I often see that word and think 'man’s laughter'. In this instance, that seems rather more appropriate.
More details in this video documentary
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Darren Vickers - the 'Hero' Psychopath
One step beyond the crocodile tears shed by Kay (above) and we come to Darren Vickers, the self-appointed ‘hero’ psychopath who inveigled himself into an investigation into his own crime, partly for ego, but also to keep one step ahead of police. By getting close to his eight year old victim’s family, he had an insider’s insight into the hunt for the killer – the police were duty bound to inform the victim’s parents on their progress.
This paedophile told 'lies with frills on' after abducting young Jamie Lavis. Vickers killed, dismembered and scattered the lad’s remains and then befriended his family during search for the body.
Cold, unemotional, callous, confident. Remorseless...
When the search for Jamie was launched, Vickers ingratiated himself with Jamie's family and used his psychopath’s manipulative skills to dominate them. He pretended he felt some sort of responsibility for the boy, as he had been driving the bus Jamie travelled on before his disappearance. The family, desperate for help, responded.
Vickers became a convincing and energetic media campaigner during the search for his victim, and was so effective in dissembling that the family became his most vocal supporters when the police shared their suspicions about him.
Unlike Kay, there was not a hint of Vicker’s involvement during his various TV appearances. He even kept a straight face, with just the right amount of emotion, while appealing for the boy’s abductor to come forward – giving the family hope that Jamie was alive, while knowing full well the boy was dead:
There’s got to be someone out there who’s sick, keeping a child at that age. You know. Shouldn’t be done.
He wanted everyone to focus on a kidnapping rather than a murder, cleverly planting the idea with his dreadful appeal. During a mass gathering for a public search for Jamie, Vickers shed crocodile tears, claiming he was devastated by the boy’s disappearance, once again dissembling with ease.
At times, I wish I could just turn the clock back to that bank holiday Monday and that the boy had stayed at home here.
He was so convincing that when first arrested on suspicion, some three weeks after Jamie Lavis's disappearance, the boy's parents went to the police station to protest and get him released. By this stage he was a pillar of strength for them… They even held a party in the killer’s honour to clebrate Vickers' released.
Understandably, especially to anyone manipulated by a psychopath, the family just assumed the police were scrabbling around for the nearest suspect. After his release, Vickers even complained to the press/TV – while sitting in the victim’s family's lounge.
If I had never come forward in the first place to let them know I’d seen Jamie that day they’d have never been nothing the wiser today… I did the right decent thing… I’d never have thought I’d be arrested on suspicion of his abduction. I think it’s just a joke.
Incredibly, the family let him move in with them during and after the police search of his house a few streets away.
I’ve got the backing of the Lavis family…
Psychopaths are genuine masters of emotional manipulation, despite having zero empathy or depth of emotion themselves, and Vickers was an adept at pulling all the right levers with his victim’s family.
Eventually, the police convinced the Lavis boy’s parents to stop supporting Vickers, so of course, Vickers turned against them, projecting his own guilt onto the closest relatives of his victim. He claimed he’d been sleeping with Mrs Lavis while staying with the family, and that Mr Lavis, Jamie’s father, was the killer. During the trial, he told the jury:
I'm telling you she [Ms Vickers] did not seem bothered at all. The way they were going around, you would never have thought they had a child missing.
After screwing with his victim’s family and putting them through his version of hell, he eventually admitted to everything – but only some 24 hours after he was convicted.
This psychopath was, quite rightly, put away for ‘life’.
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This paedophile told 'lies with frills on' after abducting young Jamie Lavis. Vickers killed, dismembered and scattered the lad’s remains and then befriended his family during search for the body.
Cold, unemotional, callous, confident. Remorseless...
When the search for Jamie was launched, Vickers ingratiated himself with Jamie's family and used his psychopath’s manipulative skills to dominate them. He pretended he felt some sort of responsibility for the boy, as he had been driving the bus Jamie travelled on before his disappearance. The family, desperate for help, responded.
Vickers became a convincing and energetic media campaigner during the search for his victim, and was so effective in dissembling that the family became his most vocal supporters when the police shared their suspicions about him.
Unlike Kay, there was not a hint of Vicker’s involvement during his various TV appearances. He even kept a straight face, with just the right amount of emotion, while appealing for the boy’s abductor to come forward – giving the family hope that Jamie was alive, while knowing full well the boy was dead:
There’s got to be someone out there who’s sick, keeping a child at that age. You know. Shouldn’t be done.
He wanted everyone to focus on a kidnapping rather than a murder, cleverly planting the idea with his dreadful appeal. During a mass gathering for a public search for Jamie, Vickers shed crocodile tears, claiming he was devastated by the boy’s disappearance, once again dissembling with ease.
At times, I wish I could just turn the clock back to that bank holiday Monday and that the boy had stayed at home here.
He was so convincing that when first arrested on suspicion, some three weeks after Jamie Lavis's disappearance, the boy's parents went to the police station to protest and get him released. By this stage he was a pillar of strength for them… They even held a party in the killer’s honour to clebrate Vickers' released.
Understandably, especially to anyone manipulated by a psychopath, the family just assumed the police were scrabbling around for the nearest suspect. After his release, Vickers even complained to the press/TV – while sitting in the victim’s family's lounge.
If I had never come forward in the first place to let them know I’d seen Jamie that day they’d have never been nothing the wiser today… I did the right decent thing… I’d never have thought I’d be arrested on suspicion of his abduction. I think it’s just a joke.
Incredibly, the family let him move in with them during and after the police search of his house a few streets away.
I’ve got the backing of the Lavis family…
Psychopaths are genuine masters of emotional manipulation, despite having zero empathy or depth of emotion themselves, and Vickers was an adept at pulling all the right levers with his victim’s family.
Eventually, the police convinced the Lavis boy’s parents to stop supporting Vickers, so of course, Vickers turned against them, projecting his own guilt onto the closest relatives of his victim. He claimed he’d been sleeping with Mrs Lavis while staying with the family, and that Mr Lavis, Jamie’s father, was the killer. During the trial, he told the jury:
I'm telling you she [Ms Vickers] did not seem bothered at all. The way they were going around, you would never have thought they had a child missing.
After screwing with his victim’s family and putting them through his version of hell, he eventually admitted to everything – but only some 24 hours after he was convicted.
This psychopath was, quite rightly, put away for ‘life’.
Return to Index
Mitchell Quy - the 'Wronged' Psychopath
Another example of psychopathic chutzpah and media manipulation involves Mitchell Quy.
After murdering his wife, Quy not only protested his innocence, he even mounted a media campaign to find her. You can watch his appearance on Britain’s most popular breakfast TV in this documentary and make up your own mind how convincing he was. When asked if he killed Lynsey, on air, he denied it.
No.. No. I just wished… I just wish someone would listen to me. No one has listened to me since this begun.
And how about this?
I will not stop until they either apologise to me or I get compensated – cos I think I deserve it. I’ve been branded a murderer around this town, by them…
Quy, a father of two young boys, eventually admitted murdering his wife, Lynsey Vonn, before dismembering her and disposing of her body – only changing his plea to guilty at his trial when he realised he was going lose the case anyway.
Lynsey’s head and hands were never found – clearly Quy wanted to ensure her remains would be unidentified if discovered.
Evil deeds, and evil words, indeed.
Return to Index
After murdering his wife, Quy not only protested his innocence, he even mounted a media campaign to find her. You can watch his appearance on Britain’s most popular breakfast TV in this documentary and make up your own mind how convincing he was. When asked if he killed Lynsey, on air, he denied it.
No.. No. I just wished… I just wish someone would listen to me. No one has listened to me since this begun.
And how about this?
I will not stop until they either apologise to me or I get compensated – cos I think I deserve it. I’ve been branded a murderer around this town, by them…
Quy, a father of two young boys, eventually admitted murdering his wife, Lynsey Vonn, before dismembering her and disposing of her body – only changing his plea to guilty at his trial when he realised he was going lose the case anyway.
Lynsey’s head and hands were never found – clearly Quy wanted to ensure her remains would be unidentified if discovered.
Evil deeds, and evil words, indeed.
Return to Index
Harold Shipman
Shipman was a typical ‘Pillar of the Community Psychopath’, and was so credible presenting an image as a caring doctor, he still has ex-patients convinced he was innocent - despite being Britain's most prolific serial killer. He had regular correspondence with one married couple for years – from his prison cell – proclaiming his innocence. The contents of the letters only came to light after his death.
Shipman was driven by his high ego, a superiority complex, or more accurately, a god complex – an overweening desire to wield power over others, to the point of life and death. And of course, money. Or rather, what UK doctors used to refer to as ‘Ash Cash’ – the payment made to them for certifying the dead for cremation or burial. He protested his innocence right up to the end:
I didn’t kill anyone and that will be the statement until I die.
The court found differently, and convicted him of 15 counts of murder in 2000. Years later, an official inquiry led to the conclusion he had killed between 215 and 260 patients. The Shipman Inquiry brought about significant changes to the procedure around death certification to prevent other greedy ‘Doctor Deaths’ causing premature deaths to rake in the ash cash.
Shipman’s superiority complex even extended to sharing disparaging comments about those responsible for his incarceration, including the judge, and of course, the coroner who had dared to question his death certificates. He had this to say about the prosecutor:
He painted me as black, like my father used to say, as a negro miner wearing dark glasses and having left his teeth in the glass by his bed. I was a confirmed liar, a cheat, a forger, a murderer, as slippery as an eel, devious, never examining the dead bodies and not resuscitating anyone.
A psychopathic snowflake...
For Shipman, medicine was not a vocation aimed at helping others, a profession to pursue for the benefit of the community or similar altruistic calling. This is how he described the motivation of people who chose a medical career.
It’s about power!
He called the coroner ‘a clown’, just another example of how he looked down on everyone, convinced of his own superior intellect. Police believe it was that enormous psychopathic ego that led to his sloppiness and eventual capture.
Shipman hated the idea that others (the coroner, the judge who held the inquiry that discovered his other victims, the ‘grandstanding’ prosecutor) were sharing his limelight, undeservedly grasping for some ‘reflected glory’ as he saw it. He enjoyed the attention his infamy brought, delighting in the police outriders and helicopters that accompanied his prison transfer. He was proud to be labelled one of the world’s worst serial killers.
He had a very strange idea of what constitutes ‘entertainment’ too. Dispassionate, unemotional, and indifferent to the suffering of others – this screams ‘psychopath’:
Life in here is entertaining. My cellmate Fred tried to hang himself on Monday night. I heard the noise of his last breath, lifted him up, untied the knot, and laid him on the floor, before crying for help.
So why would a serial killer help his fellow inmate? Well, the poor chap was suffering so much, he wanted to die and felt suicide was his only option. Could it be that Shipman wanted him to continue to live, to suffer rather than have the release of death?
Probably. The impromptu rescue certainly won’t have been out of compassion for his fellow inmate.
Shipman’s psychopathic personality also allowed this comment about another inmate:
I’m on the medical wing because of the low mood and share a cell with a triple murderer – confessed – who is a nice man.
Of course he was – just like Shipman, who, when it was suggested he apologise to his victims and their families, asked:
For what?
He did one decent thing in the end. He hanged himself in prison using a blanket in 2004, just prior to his 58th birthday to guarantee his wife a widow’s pension.
The police complain I'm boring. No mistresses, home abroad, money in Swiss banks, I'm normal. If that is boring I am.
Boring to be around? Possibly.
Normal? I think not…
Return to Index
Shipman was driven by his high ego, a superiority complex, or more accurately, a god complex – an overweening desire to wield power over others, to the point of life and death. And of course, money. Or rather, what UK doctors used to refer to as ‘Ash Cash’ – the payment made to them for certifying the dead for cremation or burial. He protested his innocence right up to the end:
I didn’t kill anyone and that will be the statement until I die.
The court found differently, and convicted him of 15 counts of murder in 2000. Years later, an official inquiry led to the conclusion he had killed between 215 and 260 patients. The Shipman Inquiry brought about significant changes to the procedure around death certification to prevent other greedy ‘Doctor Deaths’ causing premature deaths to rake in the ash cash.
Shipman’s superiority complex even extended to sharing disparaging comments about those responsible for his incarceration, including the judge, and of course, the coroner who had dared to question his death certificates. He had this to say about the prosecutor:
He painted me as black, like my father used to say, as a negro miner wearing dark glasses and having left his teeth in the glass by his bed. I was a confirmed liar, a cheat, a forger, a murderer, as slippery as an eel, devious, never examining the dead bodies and not resuscitating anyone.
A psychopathic snowflake...
For Shipman, medicine was not a vocation aimed at helping others, a profession to pursue for the benefit of the community or similar altruistic calling. This is how he described the motivation of people who chose a medical career.
It’s about power!
He called the coroner ‘a clown’, just another example of how he looked down on everyone, convinced of his own superior intellect. Police believe it was that enormous psychopathic ego that led to his sloppiness and eventual capture.
Shipman hated the idea that others (the coroner, the judge who held the inquiry that discovered his other victims, the ‘grandstanding’ prosecutor) were sharing his limelight, undeservedly grasping for some ‘reflected glory’ as he saw it. He enjoyed the attention his infamy brought, delighting in the police outriders and helicopters that accompanied his prison transfer. He was proud to be labelled one of the world’s worst serial killers.
He had a very strange idea of what constitutes ‘entertainment’ too. Dispassionate, unemotional, and indifferent to the suffering of others – this screams ‘psychopath’:
Life in here is entertaining. My cellmate Fred tried to hang himself on Monday night. I heard the noise of his last breath, lifted him up, untied the knot, and laid him on the floor, before crying for help.
So why would a serial killer help his fellow inmate? Well, the poor chap was suffering so much, he wanted to die and felt suicide was his only option. Could it be that Shipman wanted him to continue to live, to suffer rather than have the release of death?
Probably. The impromptu rescue certainly won’t have been out of compassion for his fellow inmate.
Shipman’s psychopathic personality also allowed this comment about another inmate:
I’m on the medical wing because of the low mood and share a cell with a triple murderer – confessed – who is a nice man.
Of course he was – just like Shipman, who, when it was suggested he apologise to his victims and their families, asked:
For what?
He did one decent thing in the end. He hanged himself in prison using a blanket in 2004, just prior to his 58th birthday to guarantee his wife a widow’s pension.
The police complain I'm boring. No mistresses, home abroad, money in Swiss banks, I'm normal. If that is boring I am.
Boring to be around? Possibly.
Normal? I think not…
Return to Index
Anthony Hardy - The Camden Ripper
Hardy killed three women by asphyxiation, then dismembered two of them. Hence his nickname, relating to his crimes in a locale in London, and the original British serial killer, Jack the Ripper.…
Hardy was a big, powerful guy, known to many locals as ‘Bonecrusher Hardy’. When he was living in a homeless hostel, he allegedly broke someone’s ribs and shoulder merely by grabbing them from behind. Hardy was not prosecuted as the victim was apparently too frightened to testify against him.
Later, after his arrest for murder, the pathologists confirmed that Hardy knelt on his victims, crushing their ribs, breaking their backs then throttling them - and he probably thoroughly enjoyed the experience, although he has had remarkably little to say for himself besides the one revealing quote below.
He was also a necrophiliac, but even some living, breathing women can be attracted to criminals like Hardy. He exchanged letters with one female 'fan' offering his clothes and other possessions for her to sell to Madame Tussauds, or maybe to auction through Christie's…
Self-aggrandizement is another common theme among psychopaths.
Hardy was also typical as he enjoyed playing games with his captors. Throughout his arrest he maintained silence, usually offering a curt ‘No comment’ in answer to their questions. Then, to let them know who had the upper hand, despite his imprisonment, he teased the police with this remark:
There is much more than anyone imagines to be revealed.
Long before he was convicted of the brutal killings of three prostitutes, Hardy actually got away with murder, thanks to an incompetent pathologist who determined the death as 'natural causes' – later overturned. This medical ‘professional’ was struck off a decade or so later.
When Hardy was on the run from police he sneaked into a London hospital chapel and pinned up a note saying:
Please pray for Tony Hardy's immortal soul. 30/12/02. Happy New Year.
He was arrested three days later after following his own instructions - kneeling to pray in another London hospital chapel - having been spotted by security on the CCTV cameras.
At his sentencing hearing, when he changed his plea to guilty, the judge said:
'Only you know for sure how your victims met their deaths but the unspeakable indignities to which you subjected the bodies of your last two victims in order to satisfy your depraved and perverted needs are in no doubt.'
Hardy is serving three life sentences for his crimes but police believe he may be responsible for up to nine more murders.
Return to Index
Hardy was a big, powerful guy, known to many locals as ‘Bonecrusher Hardy’. When he was living in a homeless hostel, he allegedly broke someone’s ribs and shoulder merely by grabbing them from behind. Hardy was not prosecuted as the victim was apparently too frightened to testify against him.
Later, after his arrest for murder, the pathologists confirmed that Hardy knelt on his victims, crushing their ribs, breaking their backs then throttling them - and he probably thoroughly enjoyed the experience, although he has had remarkably little to say for himself besides the one revealing quote below.
He was also a necrophiliac, but even some living, breathing women can be attracted to criminals like Hardy. He exchanged letters with one female 'fan' offering his clothes and other possessions for her to sell to Madame Tussauds, or maybe to auction through Christie's…
Self-aggrandizement is another common theme among psychopaths.
Hardy was also typical as he enjoyed playing games with his captors. Throughout his arrest he maintained silence, usually offering a curt ‘No comment’ in answer to their questions. Then, to let them know who had the upper hand, despite his imprisonment, he teased the police with this remark:
There is much more than anyone imagines to be revealed.
Long before he was convicted of the brutal killings of three prostitutes, Hardy actually got away with murder, thanks to an incompetent pathologist who determined the death as 'natural causes' – later overturned. This medical ‘professional’ was struck off a decade or so later.
When Hardy was on the run from police he sneaked into a London hospital chapel and pinned up a note saying:
Please pray for Tony Hardy's immortal soul. 30/12/02. Happy New Year.
He was arrested three days later after following his own instructions - kneeling to pray in another London hospital chapel - having been spotted by security on the CCTV cameras.
At his sentencing hearing, when he changed his plea to guilty, the judge said:
'Only you know for sure how your victims met their deaths but the unspeakable indignities to which you subjected the bodies of your last two victims in order to satisfy your depraved and perverted needs are in no doubt.'
Hardy is serving three life sentences for his crimes but police believe he may be responsible for up to nine more murders.
Return to Index
James Fairweather - Just fifteen and a double murderer
Billed as Britain's youngest serial killer, Fairweather was convicted of two murders committed when he was just 15 years of age, and professed to having plans to murder fifteen more victims. Psychiatrists generally shy away from labeling children as psychopaths, but this young man demonstrates true psychopathic tendencies, along with claims of psychotic events. In reality, he was just obsessed with the Yorkshire Ripper (Sutcliffe) and had even told a teacher at his school he 'wanted to be a murderer'.
He was caught over a year after murdering his first victim, an innocent chap who had previously suffered brain damage from an accident, and who was lying on the ground, resting. Fairweather plunged a knife into James Atfield's body 102 times, including once through the eyeball.
According to Fairweather, he 'snuck out of the house through the living-room window' and went 'looking for a sacrifice' in his home town of Colchester, prompted by 'voices' in his head.
I couldn’t find no one. I then saw James Attfield lying there on the grass. He was drunk. They were saying ‘He’s the one, do it’. So I started stabbing, one shot missed and went into his eye and I went into a rage. There was a big pool of blood.
Three months later Almanea Nahid, became his next victim as she walked by a nature trail in broad daylight dressed in a Hijab and full-length Muslim robe. Once again he claimed to hear voices, and once again, stabbed his victim's eyes.
I went behind her and the voices started laughing, I remember again they were really, really loud. She stumbled and I hit her in the eye, the third blow I popped her in the eye and I went into a rage again. They were laughing in my head, going, ‘You did it’.
He was finally caught almost a year later when a dog walker reported him after seeing him lurking where Nahid was killed. When the police arrived arrived, the teen, armed with a knife and gloves, told them:
I’m waiting for someone to kill... I’ve done it twice before.
Fairweather claimed the voices in his head began before the murders, after he was bullied at school. He said they had ordered him to carry out the killings, telling one doctor:
I wish I had not told anyone so I could be out killing more people.
Leading criminal psychologist, Dr Joseph said about the lad's claims during the trial:
'It is significant he has not mentioned voices until he is arrested, and then there is a torrent of voices. They are a fallback position if arrested. In my view it’s inconceivable that voices would have been happening and a boy hid it from people around him. It is inevitable they would have been picked up and observed. I think he is doing that to distance himself from what he has done.'
Or in the hope that he will be treated as a victim of schizophrenia and hospitalised, rather than as a psychopath and spend most of the rest of his life in a high security prison. When he was sentenced to 27 years in prison, aged 17, he was heard to mutter:
I don't give a shit.
Prosecutors said had this dangerous individual been older, they would have demanded a whole life term due to his 'sadistic conduct'.
More on Fairweather
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He was caught over a year after murdering his first victim, an innocent chap who had previously suffered brain damage from an accident, and who was lying on the ground, resting. Fairweather plunged a knife into James Atfield's body 102 times, including once through the eyeball.
According to Fairweather, he 'snuck out of the house through the living-room window' and went 'looking for a sacrifice' in his home town of Colchester, prompted by 'voices' in his head.
I couldn’t find no one. I then saw James Attfield lying there on the grass. He was drunk. They were saying ‘He’s the one, do it’. So I started stabbing, one shot missed and went into his eye and I went into a rage. There was a big pool of blood.
Three months later Almanea Nahid, became his next victim as she walked by a nature trail in broad daylight dressed in a Hijab and full-length Muslim robe. Once again he claimed to hear voices, and once again, stabbed his victim's eyes.
I went behind her and the voices started laughing, I remember again they were really, really loud. She stumbled and I hit her in the eye, the third blow I popped her in the eye and I went into a rage again. They were laughing in my head, going, ‘You did it’.
He was finally caught almost a year later when a dog walker reported him after seeing him lurking where Nahid was killed. When the police arrived arrived, the teen, armed with a knife and gloves, told them:
I’m waiting for someone to kill... I’ve done it twice before.
Fairweather claimed the voices in his head began before the murders, after he was bullied at school. He said they had ordered him to carry out the killings, telling one doctor:
I wish I had not told anyone so I could be out killing more people.
Leading criminal psychologist, Dr Joseph said about the lad's claims during the trial:
'It is significant he has not mentioned voices until he is arrested, and then there is a torrent of voices. They are a fallback position if arrested. In my view it’s inconceivable that voices would have been happening and a boy hid it from people around him. It is inevitable they would have been picked up and observed. I think he is doing that to distance himself from what he has done.'
Or in the hope that he will be treated as a victim of schizophrenia and hospitalised, rather than as a psychopath and spend most of the rest of his life in a high security prison. When he was sentenced to 27 years in prison, aged 17, he was heard to mutter:
I don't give a shit.
Prosecutors said had this dangerous individual been older, they would have demanded a whole life term due to his 'sadistic conduct'.
More on Fairweather
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Alun Kyte
Kyte is another psychopathic murderer who preyed on prostitutes in his local area, hence his soubriquet, the Midlands Ripper. He killed two ladies of the night before being caught some four years after the second unfortunate victim died, although police suspect him of having murdered many more.
Like Sutcliffe (the Yorkshire Ripper), Kyte was a loner with a violent hatred of women. Both preyed on prostitutes - easy victims - and killed them after sex. Both killers also managed to evade arrest for years, but while Sutcliffe was jailed for killing eight young women, detectives thought Kyte, 35, may have murdered as many as 20 prostitutes in a bloody murder spree lasting almost two decades.
When challenged about how his sperm had been found inside a woman he claimed he had never met:
I cannot explain how it got their because I am not a forensic scientist. It is for the jury to decide on that evidence.
Then he said he may have slept with her after meeting her at a Stafford nightclub and added:
They say the DNA is mine and in that case I must have had sex with her at some point. You meet people and have sex with them or a one night stand and you don't remember it.
Some psychopaths are above average intelligence, but not this one. After his arrest Kyte boasted to fellow prisoners about what he had done to the two women, rather undermining earlier his claims of innocence. He has since upped the figure considerably, and police think this is credible, given his itinerant working life as a lorry driver and the likelihood his victims were strewn over much of the UK.
In reality, his inflated claim could be the usual psychopathic quest for notoriety, the one-upmanship and desire to be compared to other prolific serial killers. Such claims are often expressed only after they've been convicted for a lesser count - in Kyte's case, two life sentences for the murders.
More on Kyte
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Like Sutcliffe (the Yorkshire Ripper), Kyte was a loner with a violent hatred of women. Both preyed on prostitutes - easy victims - and killed them after sex. Both killers also managed to evade arrest for years, but while Sutcliffe was jailed for killing eight young women, detectives thought Kyte, 35, may have murdered as many as 20 prostitutes in a bloody murder spree lasting almost two decades.
When challenged about how his sperm had been found inside a woman he claimed he had never met:
I cannot explain how it got their because I am not a forensic scientist. It is for the jury to decide on that evidence.
Then he said he may have slept with her after meeting her at a Stafford nightclub and added:
They say the DNA is mine and in that case I must have had sex with her at some point. You meet people and have sex with them or a one night stand and you don't remember it.
Some psychopaths are above average intelligence, but not this one. After his arrest Kyte boasted to fellow prisoners about what he had done to the two women, rather undermining earlier his claims of innocence. He has since upped the figure considerably, and police think this is credible, given his itinerant working life as a lorry driver and the likelihood his victims were strewn over much of the UK.
In reality, his inflated claim could be the usual psychopathic quest for notoriety, the one-upmanship and desire to be compared to other prolific serial killers. Such claims are often expressed only after they've been convicted for a lesser count - in Kyte's case, two life sentences for the murders.
More on Kyte
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Joanna Dennehy
Male psychopaths - at least, violent criminal ones - significantly outnumber women, but there are some examples of truly evil femme fatales. Joanna Dennehy is serving a whole-life sentence for the murders of three men whose bodies she dumped in rural areas, in ditches around her town, and for the stabbing of two others.
During her arrest, psychopath Dennehy was cocky and relaxed, telling the booking sergeant that she was not happy with the clothes she was expected to wear during her time in the police cells:
The paper suits wrap around me twice - I'm not having it!
When this 'fashion victim' was asked about her state of mind she was remarkably upbeat, all things considered.
Am I suicidal? No... Am I cheery now? Yes... Would you be cheery if you were up for attempted murder and murder?
The sergeant wouldn't, of course, but Dennehy continues with her banter, full of herself, enjoying the attention.
No. But I'm still smiling. So please don't put me in a suicide suit - I'm good with my own clothes.
Ego driven and thoroughly confident, she chats with the policemen as she is formally charged, almost to the point of flirting.
Attempted murder and murder. It could be worse... I could be big, fat and ugly.
She tells one female constable she is tiny, and the copper replies as if complimented, so Dennehy pretty much incriminates herself with her self-satisfied retort as she points to her own chest.
Not bad for a murderer!
The judge who passed sentence described Dennehy as 'a cruel, calculating, selfish and manipulative serial killer'. He made particular reference to this comment she made to a forensic psychiatrist:
I killed to see how I would feel, to see if I was as cold as I thought I was. Then it got moreish.
When she was jailed in 2014, Dennehy became only the third British woman in modern history to be sentenced to serve a whole-life term. Even so, she has tried to claim her 'human rights' were being infringed in prison after being segregated when officers discovered her plan to kill a prison guard and escape. Hit the link below to read how that appeal to jurisprudence went.
More on Dennehy
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During her arrest, psychopath Dennehy was cocky and relaxed, telling the booking sergeant that she was not happy with the clothes she was expected to wear during her time in the police cells:
The paper suits wrap around me twice - I'm not having it!
When this 'fashion victim' was asked about her state of mind she was remarkably upbeat, all things considered.
Am I suicidal? No... Am I cheery now? Yes... Would you be cheery if you were up for attempted murder and murder?
The sergeant wouldn't, of course, but Dennehy continues with her banter, full of herself, enjoying the attention.
No. But I'm still smiling. So please don't put me in a suicide suit - I'm good with my own clothes.
Ego driven and thoroughly confident, she chats with the policemen as she is formally charged, almost to the point of flirting.
Attempted murder and murder. It could be worse... I could be big, fat and ugly.
She tells one female constable she is tiny, and the copper replies as if complimented, so Dennehy pretty much incriminates herself with her self-satisfied retort as she points to her own chest.
Not bad for a murderer!
The judge who passed sentence described Dennehy as 'a cruel, calculating, selfish and manipulative serial killer'. He made particular reference to this comment she made to a forensic psychiatrist:
I killed to see how I would feel, to see if I was as cold as I thought I was. Then it got moreish.
When she was jailed in 2014, Dennehy became only the third British woman in modern history to be sentenced to serve a whole-life term. Even so, she has tried to claim her 'human rights' were being infringed in prison after being segregated when officers discovered her plan to kill a prison guard and escape. Hit the link below to read how that appeal to jurisprudence went.
More on Dennehy
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Aileen Wuornos
If you are intrigued by female killers, then the movie, Monster, featuring a very bulky and unattractive Charlize Theron as Aileen Wurnoss, is well worth viewing. At times harrowing, but also exciting and insightful, this biopic of a murderous psychopath, helps audiences empathise with a very damaged character.
She murdered seven men by shooting them at point blank range. It rather reverses the role of the prostitute victim, so frequent among serial killers, as she was a sex worker who targetted her punters.
On the other hand, reading her comment to the jury that convicted her offers rather less opportunity for compassion.
May your wife and children get raped, right in the ass.
Her father died in prison - a man she never met - and her mother abandoned her to her grandparents when she was four years of age. By the time she was eleven she was sexually active, trading favours in exchange for food, cigarettes, and drugs. This suggests her claim that her grandfather physically and sexually abused her may well be true, setting her on ap and would also explain her antipathy for males seeking sex.
I have hate crawling through my system...
She also married a grandfather figure. She was aged just 20 when she became a wealthy 69 year-old's wife. That did not go well, and her abusive behaviour led him to obtaining a restraining order against her, so she abandoned him. The marriage was annulled after nine weeks...
For several years after, she was involved in a pattern of anti-social and violent behaviour, with many run ins with the police and some jail time. Her view of life was nihilistic, and largely conditioned by her own experiences, including her sex work.
To me, this world is nothing but evil, and my own evil just happened to come out 'cause of the circumstances of what I was doing.
She also felt her killings were justified, claiming all of the victims either raped her or tried to rape her.
They say it’s the number of people I killed. I say it’s the principle.
Her first murder victim was a convicted rapist who she claimed attacked her, and this may well have set her on a path of revenge. As the director of Monster said:
'I think this anger developed inside her. And she was working as a prostitute. I think she had a lot of awful encounters on the roads. And I think this anger just spilled out from inside her. And finally exploded. Into incredible violence. That was her way of surviving.'
She was not insane, just committed to her way of thinking:
There's no chance in keeping me alive or anything, because I'd kill again... I am so sick of hearing this 'she's crazy' stuff. I've been evaluated so many times. I'm competent, sane, and I'm trying to tell the truth. I'm one who seriously hates human life and would kill again.
Wurnoss was executed by lethal injection in 2002.
Thanks a lot, society, for railroading my ass.
She was one of the most prolific female serial killers in American history.
More on Wurnoss
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She murdered seven men by shooting them at point blank range. It rather reverses the role of the prostitute victim, so frequent among serial killers, as she was a sex worker who targetted her punters.
On the other hand, reading her comment to the jury that convicted her offers rather less opportunity for compassion.
May your wife and children get raped, right in the ass.
Her father died in prison - a man she never met - and her mother abandoned her to her grandparents when she was four years of age. By the time she was eleven she was sexually active, trading favours in exchange for food, cigarettes, and drugs. This suggests her claim that her grandfather physically and sexually abused her may well be true, setting her on ap and would also explain her antipathy for males seeking sex.
I have hate crawling through my system...
She also married a grandfather figure. She was aged just 20 when she became a wealthy 69 year-old's wife. That did not go well, and her abusive behaviour led him to obtaining a restraining order against her, so she abandoned him. The marriage was annulled after nine weeks...
For several years after, she was involved in a pattern of anti-social and violent behaviour, with many run ins with the police and some jail time. Her view of life was nihilistic, and largely conditioned by her own experiences, including her sex work.
To me, this world is nothing but evil, and my own evil just happened to come out 'cause of the circumstances of what I was doing.
She also felt her killings were justified, claiming all of the victims either raped her or tried to rape her.
They say it’s the number of people I killed. I say it’s the principle.
Her first murder victim was a convicted rapist who she claimed attacked her, and this may well have set her on a path of revenge. As the director of Monster said:
'I think this anger developed inside her. And she was working as a prostitute. I think she had a lot of awful encounters on the roads. And I think this anger just spilled out from inside her. And finally exploded. Into incredible violence. That was her way of surviving.'
She was not insane, just committed to her way of thinking:
There's no chance in keeping me alive or anything, because I'd kill again... I am so sick of hearing this 'she's crazy' stuff. I've been evaluated so many times. I'm competent, sane, and I'm trying to tell the truth. I'm one who seriously hates human life and would kill again.
Wurnoss was executed by lethal injection in 2002.
Thanks a lot, society, for railroading my ass.
She was one of the most prolific female serial killers in American history.
More on Wurnoss
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Susan Atkins
Atkins is one of the infamous female followers - or 'family members' - of Charles Manson who went on a killing spree in California. Known to her fellow groupies as Sexy Sadie, she was convicted of eight of the nine Manson family murders. Notorious for their gruesome crime scenes, and cryptic pseudo-hippy apocalyptic comments daubed on their victim's walls in blood, they achieved exactly what Atkins claims they set out to do.
We wanted to do a crime that the world would have to stand up and take notice.
Despite having an alcoholic father, as a young teen she was considered a quiet, respectable girl. As a member of the local glee club and the church choir, her future was hardly predictable. Manson, a charismatic, though twisted guru figure, was a man she supposedly 'believed' was a reincarnation of Jesus Christ. However, he was more like the incarnation of evil.
Atkins played a violent role in the Manson Family's six brutal slayings that took place at Sharon Tate's home in Hollywood's exclusive Beverley Hills in 1969 - killing Tate, her unborn baby and four others. These murders led to her accepting a life sentence rather than the death penalty, in exchange for a confession. She admitted she daubed 'PIG' on the front door using Sharon Tate's blood after stabbing her pleading victim. Tate was eight months pregnant at the time.
She claimed her own life meant little, but apparently still preferred prison to execution, so went ahead with the deal offered to her by the prosecutors, incriminating herself and other 'family' members.
I understand this [is self-incriminating] and my life doesn't mean that much to me...
Other people's lives meant little to her too. Atkins said she killed the mother-to-be as she was:
...sick of listening to her, pleading and begging, begging and pleading.
She also admitted telling her victim:
Woman, I have no mercy for you.
Of course, she tried to blame Manson for having some sort of control over her actions, and that the above comment was really aimed at herself to stiffen her resolve to do as her guru had instructed.
I was told before we even got there, no matter what they beg, don't give them any leeway.
Later, she recanted her confession, saying, unconvincingly, she killed no one. Eventually became a born-again Christian, purportedly after seeing Jesus Christ (again), this time in her cell. However, this psychopath's attempts at obtaining parole were denied. Tate's father wrote a heart-felt note about Atkins' behaviour, read out by Sharon's sister during the convict's 2000 parole hearing:
'Thirty-one years ago I sat in a courtroom with a jury and watched with others. I saw a young woman who giggled, snickered and shouted out insults; even while testifying about my daughter's last breath, she laughed. My family was ripped apart. If Susan Atkins is released to rejoin her family, where is the justice?'
Quite. She died in prison in 2009.
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We wanted to do a crime that the world would have to stand up and take notice.
Despite having an alcoholic father, as a young teen she was considered a quiet, respectable girl. As a member of the local glee club and the church choir, her future was hardly predictable. Manson, a charismatic, though twisted guru figure, was a man she supposedly 'believed' was a reincarnation of Jesus Christ. However, he was more like the incarnation of evil.
Atkins played a violent role in the Manson Family's six brutal slayings that took place at Sharon Tate's home in Hollywood's exclusive Beverley Hills in 1969 - killing Tate, her unborn baby and four others. These murders led to her accepting a life sentence rather than the death penalty, in exchange for a confession. She admitted she daubed 'PIG' on the front door using Sharon Tate's blood after stabbing her pleading victim. Tate was eight months pregnant at the time.
She claimed her own life meant little, but apparently still preferred prison to execution, so went ahead with the deal offered to her by the prosecutors, incriminating herself and other 'family' members.
I understand this [is self-incriminating] and my life doesn't mean that much to me...
Other people's lives meant little to her too. Atkins said she killed the mother-to-be as she was:
...sick of listening to her, pleading and begging, begging and pleading.
She also admitted telling her victim:
Woman, I have no mercy for you.
Of course, she tried to blame Manson for having some sort of control over her actions, and that the above comment was really aimed at herself to stiffen her resolve to do as her guru had instructed.
I was told before we even got there, no matter what they beg, don't give them any leeway.
Later, she recanted her confession, saying, unconvincingly, she killed no one. Eventually became a born-again Christian, purportedly after seeing Jesus Christ (again), this time in her cell. However, this psychopath's attempts at obtaining parole were denied. Tate's father wrote a heart-felt note about Atkins' behaviour, read out by Sharon's sister during the convict's 2000 parole hearing:
'Thirty-one years ago I sat in a courtroom with a jury and watched with others. I saw a young woman who giggled, snickered and shouted out insults; even while testifying about my daughter's last breath, she laughed. My family was ripped apart. If Susan Atkins is released to rejoin her family, where is the justice?'
Quite. She died in prison in 2009.
Return to Index
Peter Kurten
Also known as the Vampire of Dusseldorf, this rather nasty piece of work born in the late 19th century into a physically abusive family, with both parents alcoholic. Kurten's father would often force his wife and children to gather in their one room apartment before ordering his wife to strip naked and engage in intercourse as his children watched. He was also convicted of incest for raping his 13 year old daughter.
With an upbringing like that, it is little surprise that young Peter went off the rails. At age five, he attempted to drown a playmate, and by the age of nine he was accompanying a sadistic dog catcher who helped develop the budding psychopath's lust for inflicting pain. While still at that tender age, he also claimed to have murdered two school friends while messing about on a log raft. He deliberately pushed one in the water, knowing he couldn't swim. The other dived in to help his friend, but Kurten held his head underwater until both lads drowned. Originally considered accidental deaths, the young perpetrator was already on his way to eventual notoriety as a serial killer - and ultimately, the guillotine.
Tell me – after my head is chopped off, will I still be able to hear, at least for a moment, the sound of my own blood gushing from the stump of my neck? That would be the pleasure to end all pleasures.
As a pubescent young teen he did have a girlfriend who would allow him to undress and fondle her, but refused his requested perversions, so he took his sexual frustration out on sheep, pigs and other farm animals, and discovered he achieved more satisfying orgasms by stabbing the creatures as he climaxed. This pattern would repeat itself with his female victims later in life.
After years of petty crime and some stints in prison, and then a short spell in the army before deserting, Kurten took delight in setting fires and watching the emergency services respond to his arson. Barns and haylofts were chosen as they might contain homeless people dossing down for the night - and he admitted this gave him a sexual thrill as a result.
He regularly fantasised about mass murder, claiming he achieved:
...the sort of pleasures from these visions that other people would get from thinking about a naked woman...
Spontaneously ejaculating at the thought.
Murdering his first 'official' victim, a nine year old sleeping in a home he was burgling, achieved the same effect as the blood from the knife wounds he inflicted spattered noisily on the floor. The following day, he returned to the locale and enjoyed hearing the neighbours disgusted comments about his evil deed. He would later return to the town cemetery, more than once, spontaneously ejaculating as he hovered beside his victim's grave.
Two months after his first victim, he killed again, once more in a burglary, this time a 17 year old girl who he strangled and ejaculated at the sight of blood pouring from her mouth. The sexual sadist is generally considered the most dangerous, and the worst type of psychopath for a victim to encounter, and Kurten was now well on his way. Sometimes, in the midst of strangling a victim, and immediately after achieving orgasm, he would become apologetic, telling the poor woman:
That's what love is all about.
His MO was varied, but his objective was always the same - sexual gratification.
Whether I took a knife or a pair of scissors or a hammer in order to see blood was a matter of indifference to me or mere chance. Often after the hammer blows the bleeding victims moved and struggled, just as they did when they were throttled.
Eventually he was captured and admitted to ten murders and thirty-one attempted murders, all with a sexual element, including drinking the blood from one victim's severed throat - hence the nickname 'Vampire of Dusseldorf'.
Difficult as it is for most of us to comprehend, he was not insane in the legal sense. He knew what he was doing, he knew it was wrong, and could have controlled himself rather than indulging in his psycho-sexual fantasies. In court, his lack of remorse confirmed the diagnosis of psychopath:
I have no remorse. As to whether recollection of my deeds makes me feel ashamed, I will tell you, thinking back to all the details is not at all unpleasant. I rather enjoy it.
He finally met his fate on the guillotine in 1931.
Return to Index
With an upbringing like that, it is little surprise that young Peter went off the rails. At age five, he attempted to drown a playmate, and by the age of nine he was accompanying a sadistic dog catcher who helped develop the budding psychopath's lust for inflicting pain. While still at that tender age, he also claimed to have murdered two school friends while messing about on a log raft. He deliberately pushed one in the water, knowing he couldn't swim. The other dived in to help his friend, but Kurten held his head underwater until both lads drowned. Originally considered accidental deaths, the young perpetrator was already on his way to eventual notoriety as a serial killer - and ultimately, the guillotine.
Tell me – after my head is chopped off, will I still be able to hear, at least for a moment, the sound of my own blood gushing from the stump of my neck? That would be the pleasure to end all pleasures.
As a pubescent young teen he did have a girlfriend who would allow him to undress and fondle her, but refused his requested perversions, so he took his sexual frustration out on sheep, pigs and other farm animals, and discovered he achieved more satisfying orgasms by stabbing the creatures as he climaxed. This pattern would repeat itself with his female victims later in life.
After years of petty crime and some stints in prison, and then a short spell in the army before deserting, Kurten took delight in setting fires and watching the emergency services respond to his arson. Barns and haylofts were chosen as they might contain homeless people dossing down for the night - and he admitted this gave him a sexual thrill as a result.
He regularly fantasised about mass murder, claiming he achieved:
...the sort of pleasures from these visions that other people would get from thinking about a naked woman...
Spontaneously ejaculating at the thought.
Murdering his first 'official' victim, a nine year old sleeping in a home he was burgling, achieved the same effect as the blood from the knife wounds he inflicted spattered noisily on the floor. The following day, he returned to the locale and enjoyed hearing the neighbours disgusted comments about his evil deed. He would later return to the town cemetery, more than once, spontaneously ejaculating as he hovered beside his victim's grave.
Two months after his first victim, he killed again, once more in a burglary, this time a 17 year old girl who he strangled and ejaculated at the sight of blood pouring from her mouth. The sexual sadist is generally considered the most dangerous, and the worst type of psychopath for a victim to encounter, and Kurten was now well on his way. Sometimes, in the midst of strangling a victim, and immediately after achieving orgasm, he would become apologetic, telling the poor woman:
That's what love is all about.
His MO was varied, but his objective was always the same - sexual gratification.
Whether I took a knife or a pair of scissors or a hammer in order to see blood was a matter of indifference to me or mere chance. Often after the hammer blows the bleeding victims moved and struggled, just as they did when they were throttled.
Eventually he was captured and admitted to ten murders and thirty-one attempted murders, all with a sexual element, including drinking the blood from one victim's severed throat - hence the nickname 'Vampire of Dusseldorf'.
Difficult as it is for most of us to comprehend, he was not insane in the legal sense. He knew what he was doing, he knew it was wrong, and could have controlled himself rather than indulging in his psycho-sexual fantasies. In court, his lack of remorse confirmed the diagnosis of psychopath:
I have no remorse. As to whether recollection of my deeds makes me feel ashamed, I will tell you, thinking back to all the details is not at all unpleasant. I rather enjoy it.
He finally met his fate on the guillotine in 1931.
Return to Index
Ted Bundy
Bundy murdered at least 30 female victims and committed necrophilia with some. These chilling words pretty much sum up the true nature of all psychopathic killers:
I haven't blocked out the past. I wouldn't trade the person I am, or what I've done – or the people I've known – for anything. So I do think about it. And at times it's a rather mellow trip to lay back and remember.
He also suffered no misconceptions about being guided by a divine spirit:
You feel the last bit of breath leaving their body. You're looking into their eyes. A person in that situation is God!
I’ll leave you with these final words from this typical psychopath:
I haven't blocked out the past. I wouldn't trade the person I am, or what I've done – or the people I've known – for anything. So I do think about it. And at times it's a rather mellow trip to lay back and remember.
He also suffered no misconceptions about being guided by a divine spirit:
You feel the last bit of breath leaving their body. You're looking into their eyes. A person in that situation is God!
I’ll leave you with these final words from this typical psychopath:
I don't feel guilty for anything.
I feel sorry for people who feel guilt.
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Or you'll find more in these chilling videos and some classic movie psychopaths with more quotes too:
Classic movie psychopaths
Video Documentaries
Or you'll find more in these chilling videos and some classic movie psychopaths with more quotes too:
Classic movie psychopaths
Video Documentaries
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