- 18 hours ago
Even the most calculating criminals make boneheaded mistakes! Join us as we examine the slip-ups that brought notorious killers to justice. From floppy disks to parking tickets, these fatal errors led to their downfall. Our countdown includes Dennis Rader, Ted Bundy, John Wayne Gacy, and more! Which killer's mistake do you think was the most ridiculous? Let us know in the comments below!
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00The case hinged on the glass hinges, specific to only three in Chicago.
00:05Only Leopold didn't have an alibi.
00:07Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we're looking at the slip-ups made by killers that led to their downfall.
00:13Does that warrant killing her?
00:14Well, to me it did.
00:17Sheer Arrogance, John Wayne Gacy.
00:20The final words of the serial killer, quote,
00:22taking my life would not compensate for the loss of the others.
00:25This is the state murdering me.
00:27The prosecutor put it this way, he got a much easier death than any of his victims.
00:32Thanks to this man, your childhood fear of clowns is totally valid.
00:36By day, John Wayne Gacy was the friendly contractor who also entertained kids as Pogo the Clown.
00:42But beneath that mask was a monster who murdered over 30 people.
00:46Gacy's downfall eventually came from his own carelessness.
00:49He buried most of his victims in the crawlspace beneath his home,
00:52probably thinking no one would suspect him.
00:54He had said that he was going to make an addition, but he was going to go upwards.
01:00And then he was going to cement the crawlspace.
01:04And then when this came out, we thought, well, nothing would have been found if he had done that.
01:09That changed when Robert Piest went missing and suspicion turned to him.
01:13During the investigation, police found IDs and items belonging to other people.
01:18A devastating clue.
01:19Gacy even invited investigators into his home, where one detective caught the horrific stench of decay.
01:25That unmistakable odor exposed the killer clown.
01:28Well, he's pumping the water out, and that terrible smell is coming out, Steve.
01:33I said, hey, John.
01:34I said, what do you got, a bunch of dead bodies over there?
01:37He said, what do you mean?
01:38I said, what do I mean?
01:40It smells like a bunch of dead bodies.
01:42He said, oh, no, those are all dead fuel mice, you know.
01:46Letting a victim go.
01:47Peter Curtin.
01:48From sexual assaults to arson and attempted murder,
01:51Peter Curtin's crimes went unchecked for far too long.
01:54He terrorized people in 1929, although his history of brutal attacks stretched back even further.
02:00His downfall came when he assaulted Maria Budlik, who eventually led police to his doorstep.
02:05Initially, Budlik hadn't intended to report the crime,
02:08but the letter describing her ordeal was opened at the post office.
02:12The clerk who read it alerted police, which prompted Budlik to come forward and expose Curtin's address.
02:17Though Curtin initially escaped capture, he eventually confessed his crimes to his wife,
02:22knowing that his end was near.
02:23He was arrested after his wife revealed his location, and he freely admitted to his crimes.
02:28Hiding bodies in his home.
02:30John Christie.
02:31Oh, hello, Mr. Christie.
02:34It's bad news, Tim.
02:37It didn't work.
02:41Oh.
02:42Oh, it's better then.
02:45She's upstairs on the bed.
02:47Oh, Tim.
02:47Lying down.
02:48No matter how long someone hides their evil, the truth always finds a way out.
02:53That was certainly true for John Christie, an English serial killer active in the 1940s and early 50s.
02:59Christie probably thought he would never be caught.
03:01After murdering Beryl Evans, he even testified against her husband, Timothy Evans, who was wrongly accused of the crime.
03:07But Christie's dark secrets couldn't stay buried forever.
03:10After he moved out of 10 Rillington Place, new tenants made a chilling discovery.
03:15Three female bodies hidden in a papered-over alcove in the kitchen.
03:18When police searched further, other remains were found, including his wife's.
03:23Christie fled, but couldn't run for long.
03:25He was soon captured and hanged for his crimes.
03:27You're Christie.
03:29John Reginald Christie.
03:33I should have to take you into custody.
03:36Come along.
03:37Boasting about his crimes.
03:39Richard Kuklinski.
03:40I am probably the loneliest person in the world because I have nothing I care for.
03:47And I can't make any friends to have any kind of a relationship or...
03:53So I've lost everything.
03:55What is it with some criminals and that urge to brag about their crimes?
03:59We'll never understand.
04:00But in Richard Kuklinski's case, it helped bring him down.
04:03Known as the Iceman, Kuklinski came under police scrutiny after a series of gangland-style murders led investigators to him.
04:10When police launched a full-scale investigation in the mid-to-late 1980s,
04:14their real breakthrough came when an undercover agent, Dominic Polifron, befriended Kuklinski.
04:19During their meetings, Kuklinski couldn't resist boasting about his killings,
04:23even explaining in detail how he accomplished them.
04:26Using Polifron, the police set up a fake hit on a fictitious target, then moved in for the arrest.
04:31Kuklinski thought he was untouchable, but his own arrogance and need to brag eventually sealed his fate.
04:37Since there is no love in my life, I must have something to replace it.
04:43So I replace it with hate.
04:46Constant hate.
04:48Constant reminded to hate.
04:51What's that do for you?
04:54Keeps my left foot going in front of my right foot.
04:57Releasing a manifesto, Ted Kuklinski, the Unabomber.
05:01We began to write very hostile, angry, resentful letters to our parents.
05:08I had a hard time understanding where the resentment came from.
05:12Infamously known as the Unabomber,
05:14Ted Kuklinski went from a respected mathematics professor to one of America's most chilling domestic terrorists.
05:20Despite all his intelligence, it was something as simple as his writing style that got him caught.
05:24Ted's 35,000-word manifesto was filled with his usual phrasing, tone, and ideas he used to write letters to family members, especially his brother.
05:33The Washington Post published his words only after speaking with Attorney General Janet Reno and FBI officials.
05:39The Justice Department hopes to use his own words to lead investigators to one of the most hunted men in the country.
05:45I think if he wrote one sentence or 37,000 words, he's revealing more of himself every time he writes anything.
05:51When the FBI published the manifesto, hoping someone would recognize the author's writing style, his brother David did.
05:58That marked the beginning of the end of Kaczynski's reign as the Unabomber.
06:02David alerted the authorities about his suspicions and turned in the letters.
06:06Soon, Kaczynski was exposed as the mastermind behind the 1978 and 1995 mail bombing campaign.
06:12Prosecutor Robert Cleary.
06:14The Unabomber's career is over.
06:16Today, for the very first time, Mr. Kaczynski offered to plead to a sentence of life in prison with absolutely no strings attached.
06:26Inviting a third party.
06:28Ian Brady and Myra Hindley.
06:30If Myra Hindley was expecting an early end to her sentence, did she ever talk about that?
06:35Well, as I can see, when I was there, I didn't think she thought that she would get out for a while, you know?
06:42She never used to talk about a case or nothing about parole or going out.
06:48When the Moores murderers, Ian Brady and Myra Hindley, killed Edward Evans in front of David Smith, they probably weren't thinking straight.
06:55Inspired by sadistic fantasies, Brady had been able to draw Hindley into his world of murder and manipulation.
07:01Together, they lured and killed various young people, and probably thought they could recruit Smith into this twisted world of theirs.
07:08But that was a huge miscalculation.
07:10I went to the bathroom, and I absolutely vomited.
07:17I then had to tell her what had happened.
07:20I've just seen somebody killed.
07:23Now I'm scared.
07:25All I want to do is get to a police station.
07:28That's all I want to do, but I don't move out of the flat.
07:32I wait probably two, three hours.
07:37We go around to the phone box.
07:41I ring 999 and put through to a hired police station.
07:45After Smith, Hindley's brother-in-law, witnessed the gruesome murder of Evans, he was shaken.
07:50He went home and told his wife everything he had witnessed, and the next morning, they alerted the police.
07:55That call exposed everything.
07:56When police searched the house, they found evidence linking Brady and Hindley to multiple murders.
08:02These were three calculated, cruel, and cold-blooded murders, was what Mr. Justice Fenton Atkinson said.
08:08And I pass the only sentence the law allows.
08:12After sentences, he praised the police investigation of the utmost skill and thoroughness which brought these matters to light.
08:18A pair of glasses, Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb.
08:22Nathan Leopold was not regarded as a likely suspect, simply because his family was very prominent.
08:29By 1924, the family was worth about $4 million.
08:33Why would someone like Nathan Leopold want to kidnap a young child?
08:40It didn't seem to make any sense.
08:42When you're intelligent and wealthy like this murderous pair, you might think you can pull off the perfect crime, whatever that means.
08:48But sometimes, you just can't be too smart.
08:51Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb made some dumb mistakes that sealed their fates.
08:55After murdering Bobby Franks, they hid the body poorly, and it was soon discovered.
08:59Their next blunder?
09:00Leaving a pair of glasses that traced straight back to Leopold.
09:04Here, for the first time on display in a decade.
09:07They are, in some ways, the undoing of Leopold and Loeb's idea of what the perfect crime would be.
09:13Leopold's glasses, he left near where they dumped Bobby Franks' body after taking a chisel to his head.
09:20Still, they could have gotten away with murder if not for yet another damning clue.
09:24They had sent a ransom note to their victim's father, and that handwriting matched that of Leopold's.
09:29For all of their brilliance and planning, it was their own carelessness that exposed them.
09:3391 years later, not much remains of the case of the century.
09:37Even the early plastic-framed glasses are at risk.
09:40It's sort of fighting with itself, and the pieces of the glasses are actually coming apart.
09:44At year's end, they'll return to storage at just about freezing.
09:48So much of Chicago's criminal past is gone.
09:51Homes were torn down, buildings were torn down.
09:53Using his own typewriter, Harold Shipman.
09:56Dr. Harold Shipman appeared here today charged with murder, forgery, and attempted deception.
10:02The case against him stems from the death of one of his patients.
10:05For over two decades, Harold Shipman secretly murdered his patients, mostly elderly women,
10:11and often pocketed their money.
10:12His undoing began in 1998, when the daughter of one victim, Kathleen Grundy, grew suspicious.
10:17After Grundy died, that same day, her solicitors received a will stating she'd left her entire estate to Shipman, not her children.
10:25That immediately raised flags, prompting Grundy's daughter to go to the police.
10:29Andrew Watson, a fingerprint expert, said he'd found the doctor's print in a corner of the will.
10:34He didn't identify any prints belonging to 81-year-old Mrs. Grundy.
10:38When her mother's body was exhumed, it showed lethal traces of heroin, something Shipman falsely claimed Grundy took voluntarily.
10:45His biggest mistake?
10:46Typing the forged will on his own typewriter, and even leaving traces of his fingerprints.
10:51That discovery unraveled Shipman's horrifying pattern of murders,
10:54and ended the career of one of Britain's most prolific serial killers.
10:58In the wake of the Harold Shipman case, Alan Milburn is expected to try and close the loophole,
11:03which prevents the GMC from temporarily suspending doctors suspected of criminal or incompetent behavior,
11:10while investigations are carried out.
11:12The GMC insisted tonight that they support the need to change.
11:16His compulsive desires.
11:18Arthur Shawcross.
11:19I was paying her $4.25 an hour just to clean the apartment.
11:22So she was thieving from you?
11:25She was taken from me and my wife Rose.
11:29Does that warrant killing her?
11:31Huh?
11:32Does that warrant killing her?
11:33Well, to me it did.
11:35A deeply disturbed killer, Arthur Shawcross' perverse behavior at a crime scene ultimately led to his capture.
11:41Known as the Genesee River Killer, Shawcross terrorized New York in the late 1980s,
11:45targeting mostly sex workers.
11:47Shockingly, he'd even served time for murdering younger victims but was released,
11:51only to kill again.
11:53Shawcross' downfall came in 1990,
11:55when police helicopters spotted him standing close to a van near one of his victims' bodies by the Genesee River.
12:00It didn't dawn on me what was going on.
12:04But the body of June Cicero was found very close to where you were on the bridge.
12:11Yeah, that was just down the road away.
12:14You know, I didn't register what was going on.
12:17I had forgot she was there.
12:19He seemed to be reliving the pleasure of the attack.
12:22Investigators on the ground chased after his vehicle and arrested him shortly after.
12:26Once in custody, Shawcross confessed to more than 10 murders.
12:30This just goes to show that even cunning criminals can expose themselves through compulsive desires.
12:35I suppose it's because some people might say,
12:36well, isn't that just an excuse to justify killing?
12:40You believe what you want to believe.
12:47I told you how I killed, why I killed.
12:50You don't want to believe it?
12:51That's up to you.
12:52While World War I left many grieving and desperate, Henri Landroux saw it as a perfect cover for murder.
13:18Disguising himself as a charming suitor, he lured widowed and single women to their deaths,
13:23then burned their bodies to erase all trace.
13:26Thanks to one particularly determined victim's sister, who kept pressing the police, he was eventually exposed.
13:32Investigators later discovered that Landroux always bought a return ticket for himself to his villa in Gambay,
13:37but only bought one-way tickets for the women he lured there.
13:40He never intended for them to return.
13:42Another crucial piece of evidence was his notebook,
13:45a small ledger detailing his victims and other important information.
13:49Though the women's bodies were not found, Landroux's notebook helped to seal his fate.
13:54Upon leaving this spark of earthly existence, I have this to say.
14:00I shall see you all very soon.
14:05Debit card carelessness.
14:06Israel keys.
14:07This otherwise meticulous serial killer was undone by a lapse in his calculated methods.
14:12If I was smart, I would let them come to me.
14:16In 2012, after abducting and murdering Anchorage barista Samantha Koenig,
14:21Keys used her debit card to withdraw ransom money across several states,
14:25transactions which allowed law enforcement to track his movements.
14:28On March 13, 2012, Texas Highway Patrol officers arrested Keys in Lufkin, Texas,
14:33after noticing his vehicle matched one identified in surveillance footage.
14:36A search revealed Koenig's ATM card, cell phone, and dyed cash from a bank robbery,
14:41sealing his fate.
14:42Despite Keys' efforts to remain anonymous, a digital breadcrumb trail led to his capture.
14:47We did spend a fair amount of time talking about his crimes and his offenses as well,
14:51and those times were definitely very chilling to hear him talk about what he has done.
14:57Capturing a young forensic genius, Bobby Joe Long.
15:00In November 1984, Bobby Joe Long abducted Lisa McVeigh in Tampa, Florida.
15:05This guy, he knew what he was doing.
15:07He had me.
15:09I could have been dead.
15:11I could have been lying down in some ditch or somewhere.
15:13During her 26-hour captivity, McVeigh manipulated Long into trusting her,
15:17strategically left fingerprints in key areas,
15:20and memorized critical details about his appearance, vehicle, and residence.
15:24After her release, she provided this information to the police.
15:27Forensic evidence, including matching red carpet fibers, linked Long to multiple crime scenes.
15:32He confessed to the murders of 10 women and was sentenced to death.
15:36McVeigh's bravery and quick thinking were instrumental in ending Long's killing spree,
15:40and she'd go on to become a police officer.
15:43What he did was horrendous.
15:44How he did it, these girls, these victims, didn't deserve to be killed.
15:51DUI
15:52Randy Kraft
15:53Known as the scorecard killer and freeway killer,
15:55Kraft was apprehended in 1983 during a routine traffic stop in Orange County, California,
16:01when a highway patrol officer noticed him driving erratically and pulled him over.
16:05Sure enough, the officers discovered open beer bottles in the vehicle.
16:08But that's not all.
16:09There was also a deceased Marine in the passenger seat,
16:12as well as tranquilizers and a list of coded references to victims.
16:15Then, yet another stunning discovery in the trunk of the Celica,
16:20a notebook with handwritten cryptic notes on as many as 67 victims dating back to the 1970s.
16:28This list, later dubbed the scorecard, contained cryptic entries believed to correspond to Kraft's victims.
16:34The evidence led to Kraft's conviction for 16 murders, though he is suspected of committing up to 67.
16:40They helped convince a jury to send Kraft to death row.
16:45And that's where he is still.
16:48Dropping something important.
16:50Peter Goebbels.
16:51It doesn't get much more incriminating than leaving your ID at the crime scene.
16:55Between 1984 and 1985, Goebbels strangled four women in Germany,
17:00saving his crimes for Saturdays and Sundays to accommodate his day job at a factory.
17:04While police initially struggled to nab the culprit, Goebbels offered himself up on a platter,
17:09albeit accidentally, when he dropped his identification card as he fled from police.
17:13Goebbels isn't one of the better-known serial killers, but he's certainly noteworthy for the way he was caught.
17:18Novel.
17:19Christian Bala.
17:20They say write what you know, but that advice backfired spectacularly for Bala.
17:24In 2007, the Polish author was convicted of orchestrating the 2000 torture and murder of Dariusz Januszewski,
17:30a businessman suspected of having an affair with Bala's ex-wife.
17:34The case went cold until 2003, when Bala published Amok,
17:38a novel featuring a murder eerily similar to Januszewski's,
17:41down to details that had never been made public.
17:43The book is about one man's descent into a spree of increasing depravity.
17:47Sex, violence, drugs.
17:50Investigators also discovered that Bala had sold the victim's cell phone online just days after the killing.
17:55Though the evidence was circumstantial,
17:57it was compelling enough to secure a 25-year prison sentence.
18:00Bala's attempt to blur fiction and reality ultimately exposed him as a killer hiding in plain sight.
18:06The story of a post-modern killer openly boasting about his crimes through his work was too good to ignore,
18:11so the place was packed as the trial kicked off.
18:14Shirt, Timothy McVeigh.
18:16You have no doubt heard of the Oklahoma City bombing, a devastating domestic terrorist attack in 1995.
18:22Are there people missing from your office?
18:23Yeah, 26.
18:24The perpetrator, Timothy McVeigh, detonated a truck bomb outside the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in the state's capital,
18:31killing 168 people and injuring over 600 more.
18:35I intend to recommend to the Department of Justice and the Attorney General of the United States that the death penalty be sought.
18:40Just 90 minutes later, state trooper Charlie Hanger pulled over McVeigh for driving without a license plate.
18:45During the stop, Hanger also discovered that McVeigh was illegally carrying a concealed weapon,
18:50not to mention wearing a shirt bearing the same phrase reportedly uttered by Abraham Lincoln's killer.
18:55He said,
18:56My weapon is loaded.
18:57And I nudged him a little bit with the barrel of my weapon, and I said,
19:00Well, so is mine.
19:01It was this traffic stop that led to McVeigh's identification and conviction.
19:06Arrest by chance.
19:07Peter Sutcliffe.
19:08You'd be surprised how many serial killers are done in by license plates.
19:12Such was the case of Sutcliffe, or the Yorkshire Ripper,
19:15who had previously evaded capture for years despite multiple run-ins with law enforcement.
19:19Peter was interviewed, but on the night in question, he said he was at a party,
19:25and his members of his family confirmed that he had been at the party.
19:29On January 2nd, 1981, Sutcliffe's luck ran out when officers in Sheffield stopped him for driving a car with false plates.
19:36I got out of the car, approached the driver, asked him his name and address.
19:42He actually gave me false details.
19:44During the arrest, Sutcliffe requested to relieve himself,
19:48and use the opportunity to hide a knife and hammer near the scene.
19:51A subsequent search uncovered these weapons, and when confronted with the evidence,
19:55Sutcliffe confessed to murdering 13 women, and attempting to kill seven others between 1975 and 1980.
20:02It took away my freedom.
20:03He took away a lot of my life.
20:08The night that he attacked me.
20:12And that I never get back.
20:16I never, ever get it back.
20:17Big mouth.
20:18Robert Durst.
20:19This famed real estate heir had long been suspected in multiple disappearances and murders,
20:23including that of his wife Kathleen McCormick.
20:25Now, Janine Pirro can go to the grand jury and say,
20:30this person is going to be tried for murder in Galveston.
20:37That's going to make it much more likely that they're going to want to indict me for Cassie.
20:42But it was the 2015 HBO documentary series The Jinx that brought new evidence to light.
20:48In the series' final episode, Durst was caught on a hot mic in the bathroom, muttering about what he'd done.
20:53What the hell are you doing?
21:04Killed them all.
21:06Of course.
21:07This apparent confession, along with a letter linking him to the 2000 murder of his friend,
21:12Susan Berman, led to his arrest on March 14, 2015, just one day before the finale aired.
21:17We did reach Douglas Durst, Robert Durst's brother, who is now the head of the family's real estate empire.
21:23He released a statement that says,
21:25We are relieved and also grateful to everyone who assisted in the arrest of Robert Durst.
21:30We hope he will finally be held accountable for all he has done.
21:34Durst was convicted of Berman's murder in 2021 and sentenced to life in prison, where he died a year later.
21:40Plumbing problems.
21:41Dennis Nielsen.
21:42In 1983, this Scotsman's murderous spree came to an end thanks to a plumbing problem.
21:47The toilets had been blocked, and an engineer had been called to clear the drains.
21:53Neighbors in his North London apartment complex complained about clogged drains, prompting a plumber to investigate.
21:59To the plumber's horror, human flesh and bones were blocking the pipes.
22:03When I arrived to Cranley Gardens, the police were unsure of their ground.
22:07Nielsen, a former civil servant, had been luring young men to his flat, where he killed and dismembered them, disposing of remains by flushing them down the toilet or hiding them under floorboards.
22:18Upon arrest, Nielsen confessed to murdering at least 15 men between 1978 and 1983.
22:24He was convicted of six counts of murder and two of attempted murder, receiving a life sentence.
22:29Bad Hair Day.
22:30Earl Nelson.
22:30Active in the 1920s, Nielsen was sometimes called the guerrilla killer, not because his victims were apes, but because he sported a stocky build with long arms and sizable hands.
22:41Nielsen's modus operandi involved renting rooms from landladies, whom he would then strangle.
22:45While they were in the house, he tricked Virginia into looking up at the ceiling, and when she looked up, he saw his opportunity and he started strangling her.
22:54His comeuppance came when he visited a barber shop in 1927.
22:57The man cutting his hair noticed dried blood and scratch marks on Nielsen's scalp, and was understandably unsettled.
23:04Earl had also stolen several items from various victims and pawned them off, so there were certain items at these pawn shops that were connected to him as well.
23:11Only a few days later, police nabbed the guerrilla man in Killarney, Manitoba.
23:16In January of the next year, he was executed by hanging in Winnipeg.
23:20Neville Heath's Hotel Stay.
23:21She met Neville Heath, probably impressed by this military bearing, and he put himself over as a lieutenant colonel.
23:31He took her out to dinner and persuaded her to come back to the hotel room.
23:36This Brit's killing spree was cut short by one careless check-in.
23:39In 1946, Heath, a World War II veteran, developed a strange pattern of checking into hotels and picking up women, two of whom he murdered.
23:48And he might have gotten away with it, but for the critical mistake of using his real name when checking in with one of his conquests at a hotel.
23:54She was a pretty thing.
23:56Tall.
23:57Slender.
24:00I think London rather dazzled her.
24:02You know these small-town girls.
24:04Not quite as you do, I imagine.
24:06Though the other times he was careful enough to use pseudonyms,
24:09Heath apparently believed that simply adding the military title lieutenant colonel to his name would be enough to avoid suspicion.
24:15This misguided decision not only led directly to his arrest, but also secured his place among the most incompetent criminals of all time.
24:23If they could prove insanity in some form, then actually they stood a lot better chance of being reprieved.
24:33Joel Rifkin's missing license plate.
24:35Drug-addicted, disease-carrying vermin is the lie I told myself.
24:38This Long Island native is currently serving a 203-year sentence for the brutal deaths of at least nine women,
24:45though he actually confessed to several more.
24:47Rifkin targeted vulnerable females in the New York City area,
24:51typically dismembering them and scattering their remains in rivers, woodlands, and golf courses.
24:55There were mini-clusters.
25:00Little, you know, sets of three.
25:02In 1993, he was brought to justice during a routine traffic stop because he was driving without a license plate.
25:08When he attempted to flee, a high-speed chase ensued, ending with a collision.
25:13Upon inspecting his truck, officers discovered the decomposing body of Tiffany Bresciani.
25:18The moral of Rifkin's story?
25:20Never drive without a license plate, or run from the police, or, you know, murder people.
25:25Would you have killed again if you weren't caught?
25:27As much as they say I wanted to stop, it probably would have been others.
25:32Maury Travis' map.
25:33We had several theories developed as to why they stopped in October.
25:37Perhaps the 9-11 crisis that occurred, perhaps this person was in the military.
25:42When you're this vocal about your crimes, should it really come as a shock when you end up in prison?
25:47This St. Louis waiter didn't seem to think so.
25:49In the early 2000s, Travis left a trail of victims,
25:52and even created a torture chamber in his basement, where he filmed grisly snuff films.
25:57There was a need, I felt, and some of the people at our paper felt also,
26:03to put faces and a humanity to these women.
26:08When a story about one of the slayings was published in the newspaper,
26:11Travis responded with what he thought was an anonymous letter,
26:15attaching a printed map that revealed the location of the body.
26:18What Travis failed to realize was that the map contained a URL identifier,
26:23which gave investigators the evidence they needed to apprehend Travis.
26:26We could tell it was computer-generated, though he had cut off the borders,
26:31and we didn't know what website it came from.
26:33Between this and the lovely videos, Travis had a lot of explaining to do.
26:38David Berkowitz's parking ticket.
26:40David Berkowitz, 24 years old, a postal worker, walked out of his Yonkers apartment last night,
26:45turned the ignition key in his car, and found himself surrounded by police.
26:49Well, he said, you got me.
26:51Better known as the Son of Sam,
26:52Berkowitz tormented New York City in the 1970s with a series of random shootings.
26:57Claiming to be in cahoots with a demonic dog,
26:59he taunted the police and media with handwritten letters that fueled public fear.
27:04One night, Berkowitz parked near a fire hydrant in Brooklyn,
27:07which any experienced driver knows is a parking no-no.
27:10The detectives of the Brooklyn Omega Squad, part of that 300-cop-44 killer manhunt,
27:15captured the man they say is Son of Sam.
27:18A witness later reported a suspicious figure near the scene,
27:21and police began combing through traffic tickets issued in the area that night.
27:25Upon further investigation, they found a rifle and a bag filled with ammunition in Berkowitz's vehicle,
27:30leading to his swift arrest and an alarmingly proud confession.
27:34Son of Sam killed six and wounded seven.
27:36How many people do you know, your neighbors, people who might fit that description?
27:41Nice, quiet, a little moody, kept to himself.
27:45Charles Ng's Stolen Fish.
27:47They combust the fantasy because they start saying to each other,
27:51what we need is to have lots of children to repopulate the world and make better citizens,
27:56a kind of a social engineering project.
27:58Imagine nearly getting away with multiple gruesome murders,
28:02and then sacrificing it all for a can of salmon.
28:04With his accomplice Leonard Lake, Ng subjected people of various ages to horrific abuse before
28:10taking their lives.
28:11They had even created a horrendous dungeon on a property they used in Calaveras County, California.
28:16Ng was a very shy person who himself could not have done this,
28:21but happily joined the venture so that he would have a chance of the kind of sexuality
28:26his shyness made impossible.
28:28While on the lam in Canada, Ng, who suffers from kleptomania,
28:32shoplifted some canned fish from a department store.
28:34His arrest for this offense eventually revealed him to be wanted in the United States.
28:39That small theft set off a chain of events that ended his deadly spree and landed Ng on death row.
28:45The evidence was so overwhelming.
28:47When you consider the fact that you had him on film with a number of the victims,
28:53telling them that he was going to kill them,
28:55along with all of the other evidence that was found, it was a pretty rock-solid case.
29:00Albert Fish's Watermark
29:01Known as the Werewolf of Wisteria, the Boogeyman, and the Grayman, Fish was infamous for his carnage.
29:08However, his reign of terror over New York City came to an end with a careless mistake
29:12involving a single piece of paper.
29:14After kidnapping and cannibalizing young Grace Budd in 1928,
29:18he sent a gruesome letter to her family,
29:20filled with chilling details of the crime and erratic psychological ramblings.
29:24Unbeknownst to Fish, the envelope containing the letter bore a distinctive watermark
29:28greeting New York Private Chauffeur's Benevolent Association.
29:32This small clue led the police directly to the rooming house where he was staying,
29:36resulting in his arrest.
29:38The Leinz Angels' Arrogance
29:40The so-called Leinz Angels of Death consisted of four Austrian nurses' aides who preyed upon the elderly.
29:45The women would forcibly cause patients to overdose on morphine and tranquilizers.
29:50Other times, they drowned patients by filling their lungs with water.
29:53Although the Angels claimed they simply wanted to put people out of their misery,
29:57it's largely believed they acted out of sadism rather than mercy.
30:00To add another layer of disturbing to the story,
30:03the Angels would likely have gotten away with countless more murders
30:06had they not been overheard arrogantly discussing their secret out loud at a tavern.
30:11Charles Schmitt's show-and-tell
30:12Everybody had slept with their doors unlocked and the windows open and so forth.
30:18But things were starting to change dramatically.
30:21Time for a serial killer pro tip.
30:24After you've killed someone, it's generally not a great idea to show off the body.
30:28Schmitt, also known as the Pied Piper of Tucson,
30:31strangled his girlfriend Gretchen Fritz, as well as her younger sister Wendy, in 1965.
30:37This was more than a year after he had bludgeoned another young woman named Aline Rowe to death with a rock.
30:42Had a fake bridge on his nose where he said it was broken.
30:47It wasn't, but it looked good.
30:49Apparently unable to resist bragging about his exploits,
30:52Schmitt showed his best friend Richard Bruns where he had buried the sisters' bodies.
30:56Bruns became frightened and alerted the authorities, bringing Schmitt's spree to a close.
31:00Reportedly, his mother chose to bury him here in the prison cemetery,
31:04thinking that if she buried him on a public site, his tombstone would be vandalized.
31:10Ted Bundy's stolen car
31:11One of his interviews, the interviewer asked him point-blank, he said,
31:16Ted, why did you kill?
31:18And Ted kind of raised one eyebrow and kind of smiled and says,
31:22because I liked it.
31:23Bundy is often considered one of the slickest and most cunning serial killers in history,
31:27but this story doesn't exactly support that idea.
31:30You're likely familiar with Bundy's dark deeds.
31:33He used his good looks and charisma to gain the trust of dozens of women,
31:36whom he then proceeded to murder in cold blood.
31:38Just barely 20 years of age, I had a one-month-old little girl at home.
31:45This proud, pompous psychopath managed to escape police custody several times before finally being
31:50caught in Florida, where he was driving a stolen vehicle, which eventually turned out to have
31:55evidence of his misdeeds. Though he attempted to flee once more, this encounter resulted in his
32:00capture and, ultimately, execution.
32:02I was not really happy, but kind of relieved. Normally, I don't very often agree with the death penalty,
32:09but with him, it was necessary.
32:11Before we continue, be sure to subscribe to our channel and ring the bell to get notified about
32:16our latest videos. You have the option to be notified for occasional videos or all of them.
32:21If you're on your phone, make sure you go into your settings and switch on notifications.
32:25Dennis Rader's floppy disk.
32:28They said that there's a real possibility that the Shirley Vian case is connected to the Otero case.
32:37The infamous BTK killer eluded capture for three decades until a foolish lapse of judgment cost him
32:43his freedom. Beginning in the 1970s, Rader terrorized the Midwest with the vicious and mysterious
32:49slaying of numerous citizens. Like many of his kind, he enjoyed taunting detectives with letters
32:54and clues.
32:55This letter is very clear to tell us, you have the wrong people. You need to stop looking at them.
33:02You need to come back and focus your attention on me. I am the important one.
33:05In 2004, after years of silence, Rader asked in one of his notes whether he could safely send a floppy
33:11disk without being traced. The police, playing along, assured him it was fine, and he naively believed
33:17them. This, of course, proved to be the rookie mistake that finally did Rader in. Police used
33:22information on the disk to gain his identity.
33:25Sure.
33:30Because I was trying to catch you.
33:32I lied to you because I was trying to catch you. And he was incredulous to the fact that
33:37I wanted this to end.
33:38Who is the most chilling of these serial killers? Let us know in the comments.
33:42We'll see you in the comments.
Be the first to comment