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They seemed like ordinary people next door, but behind closed doors lurked unfathomable evil... Join us as we explore the double lives of history's most deceptive killers! Our countdown features seemingly normal individuals who maintained perfect facades while committing unspeakable crimes. Which case disturbs you most? Let us know in the comments!
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00:00A jury says Lonnie Franklin Jr. is the Grim Sleeper Killer.
00:04Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we're breaking down the chilling reality that monsters aren't always lurking in the shadows, but living right next door.
00:12These are individuals who expertly crafted facades of normalcy, beloved family members, respected professionals, active community members, only to reveal a terrifying capacity for cold-blooded murder.
00:23No incident, he didn't say it wasn't me or anything like that.
00:28No, really no, really no conversation at all.
00:33Dennis Nielsen.
00:34Dennis Nielsen, the man who once called himself the murderer of the century, tonight starts a life sentence for six murders in North London.
00:42He once boasted he could have killed 500 people had he not been stopped.
00:46The judge at the Old Bailey said he should stay in prison for at least 25 years.
00:51Nielsen drifted through London as a solitary ex-soldier working at a job center, blending into pub corners and long walks home.
00:57Neighbors remembered a polite man willing to help with errands.
01:00No alarms rang.
01:02That veneer split open in February 1983, when human remains surfaced in the drains at his Cranley Gardens flat.
01:09Eight or even nine of his victims to this day remain unidentified.
01:13Young men with no names, no known addresses, jobless, rootless, and friendless.
01:19Some were Scots, some were Irish.
01:21Others were described as vagrants, hippies, and skinheads.
01:24The truth stretched back to late 1978.
01:28Young men, often unhoused or lonely, brought home for company who never left alive.
01:33Nielsen killed at least a dozen victims over roughly four years, lived beside their bodies for days or weeks,
01:39and later burned or flushed remains in an attempt to dispose of them.
01:43The quiet life only made the reality more disturbing.
01:46At the time of his arrest, Dennis Nielsen hadn't seen his mother for ten years.
01:51How do you think Dennis was able to become involved in this kind of problem and then be able to live from day to day?
02:01No, that's the bit I don't understand.
02:02I just don't understand how this could go on and nobody knowing anything.
02:09Dennis Rader
02:10The prosecution's now hoping the BTK killer will receive a jail sentence of 175 years.
02:17The former scout leader's good fortune that Kansas did not introduce the death penalty till after his killing spree was over.
02:25The BTK murders terrified Wichita, Kansas for decades, while its culprit lived under the veil of absolute normalcy.
02:32Dennis Rader was a married father, a scout leader, a church council president, and a code compliance officer,
02:38the last person anyone suspected of violence.
02:41Beginning with the Otero family murders in 1974,
02:44Rader killed ten people while taunting police and media through letters that described his bind-torture-kill method.
02:50With us right now is Chief of Police Richard Lemunian.
02:53I have a couple of questions, Chief.
02:55How can you be sure that the BTK letter is authentic?
02:58Well, Ron, after reviewing the contents of the letters,
03:01there's absolutely no question that the only person who would have the type of information that was included in the letter
03:08would have to be the killer himself.
03:10He paused for long stretches, then re-emerged as if nothing had changed.
03:14When he resumed communication in the 2000s,
03:17one message on a floppy disk gave investigators the break they needed.
03:20In 2005, Rader was arrested and the facade finally collapsed.
03:25BTK had never been a phantom.
03:27It had been the most ordinary man in town.
03:29You know, I never met him personally, but, you know, there were, you know, small towns, people talk.
03:35We're mixed opinions.
03:37Of course, he was a very, he was known to be a very active person in one of the churches up there,
03:41but there were a lot of people that said that he was the type of person that,
03:46well, one phrase that we've heard frequently creeped you out.
03:50FBI profiler Mary Ellen O'Toole is using a carefully devised psychological strategy
03:58in her interrogation of the Green River killer, Gary Ridgway.
04:02Her goal is to get him to confess to 44 unsolved homicides
04:06where no physical evidence exists that could link him to the crimes.
04:10Serial murder is often imagined as frantic or chaotic.
04:14Gary Ridgway proved it could be systematic.
04:16He put in long hours painting trucks at Kenworth, attended church, married, and made himself forgettable, too forgettable.
04:24Beginning in 1982, Ridgway targeted vulnerable women and killed them with chilling regularity.
04:29Bodies appeared along the Green River and in wooded pockets of King County.
04:33Ridgway later admitted he revisited some dump sites long after death had been dealt.
04:37It started at an early age, but sex and hurting the woman.
04:44And he loved being able to talk, finally, after all these years.
04:47And in doing so, he kind of walked us down the path of all of his murders.
04:53At one point, Gary referred to himself as something like the lean, mean, killing machine.
04:58And he was very efficient, like a machine.
05:00By the time he was arrested in 2001, he had confessed to killing dozens of women,
05:05eventually pleading guilty to 48 murders, a number investigators believe understates the true toll.
05:11His own words said enough.
05:13He killed the women he believed no one would miss.
05:16And he would drive up to them, and sometimes he'd even have his son's toys in the front seat,
05:21and that would be a very effective ruse to convince these women that,
05:25hey, I can't be that serial killer.
05:27I've got my little boy's toys in the car.
05:30He was a very normal, kind of vanilla-type-looking person,
05:37and there was nothing that stood out about him.
05:39Harold Shipman
05:40Harold Shipman appeared here today charged with murder, forgery, and attempted deception.
05:46The case against him stems from the death of one of his patients.
05:50Trust is supposed to be the cornerstone of medicine,
05:52and Harold Shipman twisted it into a cover story.
05:55In Hyde, Greater Manchester, he built the reputation of a reassuring family doctor,
05:59the kind who knew patients by name and stayed with families through births, illnesses, and loss.
06:05Andrew Watson, a fingerprint expert, said he'd found the doctor's print in a corner of the will.
06:11He didn't identify any prints belonging to 81-year-old Mrs. Grundy.
06:14From the mid-1970s onward, Shipman quietly injected patients, mostly elderly women,
06:19with fatal doses of diamorphine, falsifying medical records to conceal the spike in deaths.
06:25When suspicions finally surfaced in 1998, the scale shattered belief.
06:30Official inquiries concluded he likely killed more than 200 patients,
06:34making him Britain's most prolific serial murderer.
06:36In the wake of the Harold Shipman case, Alan Milburn is expected to try and close the loophole,
06:41which prevents the GMC from temporarily suspending doctors suspected of criminal or incompetent behavior,
06:48while investigations are carried out.
06:50The GMC insisted tonight that they support the need to change.
06:55Jeffrey Dahmer.
06:56A gruesome story leads off our newscast.
06:58Milwaukee police found body parts in a Northside apartment,
07:02and now they wonder if they've uncovered some kind of death factory.
07:05This was the scene earlier this morning.
07:08Police hired a private contractor to haul a refrigerator and a tank of acid out of the apartment
07:13in the 900 block of North 25th Street.
07:16Apartment buildings are full of loners trying not to be noticed,
07:19and Jeffrey Dahmer leaned into that invisibility.
07:22Neighbors complained about foul odors and strange noises,
07:25but most chalked it up to spoiled food or bad wiring.
07:28Anything except violence.
07:30Behind his door, Dahmer murdered 17 men and boys,
07:33many of them men of color, drugging them, killing them, and keeping their remains as trophies.
07:39Dahmer was 33 when he told Nancy Glass about his twisted motive for killing 17 men.
07:45Not because I was angry with them, not because I hated them,
07:48but because I wanted to keep them with me.
07:52Even when one dazed and injured victim briefly escaped,
07:55police accepted Dahmer's flimsy explanation and returned the boy to him.
07:59In 1991, Tracy Edwards broke that pattern for good,
08:02leading police back to the apartment where it all came to light.
08:06The officers were stopped by an individual who claimed he was in the apartment
08:13and became engaged in a dispute with the owner of the apartment
08:19and left the apartment and called the officers.
08:23John Wayne Gacy
08:24The so-called killer clown had a public life so active and vibrant
08:41that it doubled as camouflage.
08:43He ran a contracting business, hired local teenagers,
08:46volunteered, and performed as pogo and patches at charity events and children's parties.
08:51In his neighborhood of Norwood Park Township,
08:53he seemed like someone helping to build the community, not destroy it.
08:57Between 1972 and 1978,
09:00Gacy sexually assaulted and murdered at least 33 young males.
09:04Well, he's pumping the water out,
09:06and that terrible smell is coming out, Steve.
09:09I said, hey, John.
09:10I said, what do you got, a bunch of dead bodies over there?
09:13He said, what do you mean?
09:14I said, what do I mean?
09:16It smells like a bunch of dead bodies.
09:18He said, oh, no, there's a row, dead, few mice, you know.
09:22He buried most of them beneath 8213 West Somerdale Avenue
09:26and dumped others in the Des Plaines River.
09:28Gacy's December 1978 arrest finally exposed what had been hidden directly under his house.
09:34Few killers have ever worn their community as such effective camouflage.
09:38He had said that he was going to make an addition,
09:43but he was going to go upwards.
09:44And then he was going to cement the crawl space.
09:48And then when this came out,
09:50we thought, well, nothing would have been found if he had done that.
09:54Joseph D'Angelo.
09:55Investigators now telling us they use discarded DNA to help track him down,
10:01genealogy websites,
10:02and a long process of elimination sifting through family trees.
10:06One of the most unsettling revelations of the Golden State Killer case
10:09was just how neatly Joseph D'Angelo's life split in two.
10:13To neighbors in Citrus Heights, he was a gruff but ordinary retiree.
10:17Earlier, he had been a police officer in Exeter and Auburn.
10:20He raised a family.
10:21He clocked into work.
10:22Nothing looked unusual.
10:23D'Angelo, a Navy veteran serving in Vietnam in 1973,
10:28then joining a police department around the same time the alleged crimes would begin.
10:32He outsmarted everybody for 40 years.
10:36Farrell Ward worked with him on the force.
10:38He kind of knew what the next step was going to be.
10:42Neighbors say D'Angelo was an average suburban homeowner, except for his temper.
10:47Meanwhile, across California,
10:49a single offender was committing burglaries,
10:51sexual assaults, and murders throughout the 1970s and 1980s.
10:55D'Angelo was ultimately linked to at least 13 murders,
10:58more than 50 assaults, and over 120 burglaries.
11:03In 2018, investigators used forensic genealogy to identify him.
11:08D'Angelo's chameleonic ability to hide in plain sight had been his shelter.
11:12And I'm really sorry to everyone I've heard.
11:22Thank you, Your Honor.
11:23Thank you, sir.
11:25Lonnie Franklin Jr.
11:26In South Los Angeles, the grim sleeper case dragged on for decades,
11:31partly because no one suspected the middle-aged man helping tune neighbors' cars.
11:35Lonnie Franklin Jr. was known as Uncle Lonnie,
11:38a quiet fixer who worked city jobs,
11:40hosted barbecues, and waved from his front lawn like anyone else on the block.
11:44Meanwhile, women were disappearing and dying.
11:47Samara Harrod said she broke every speed limit to drive in from San Bernardino.
11:51Her baby sister, 15-year-old princess,
11:53was murdered by Franklin, March 2002.
11:58And she had a heart of gold and she deserved to live a full life.
12:02And I'm here for her.
12:04Franklin murdered at least 10 victims between 1984 and 2007,
12:08with an apparent lull of about 1988 to 2002 that earned him his disturbing nickname.
12:14The break wasn't the result of reform, just gaps in what surfaced publicly.
12:18In 2010, a familial DNA match finally led detectives to him.
12:22The DNA sample that first led police to his doorstep wasn't his.
12:27It was his son's.
12:28Familial DNA, it's called.
12:30It's called familial DNA because it is the DNA not of the ultimate suspect,
12:36but of a very, very close relative.
12:39His case is a chilling example of familiarity shielding horror for far too long.
12:44Rodney Alcala.
12:45Well, let's see.
12:46Bachelor number one is a successful photographer
12:48who got his start when his father found him in the dark room at the age of 13,
12:52fully developed.
12:54Between takes, he might find him skydiving or motorcycling.
12:58Please welcome Rodney Alcala.
13:00Rod, welcome.
13:01What makes Rodney Alcala stand out is how effectively he weaponized charm.
13:05He didn't just appear harmless, he performed harmlessness.
13:08In 1978, he went on the dating game, won the episode, and flashed the easy confidence of
13:14someone destined to succeed.
13:16The disturbing truth was already in motion.
13:18Beginning in the late 1960s and continuing through the 70s, Alcala attacked, sexually assaulted,
13:44and murdered young women and girls in California and New York.
13:47He leaned heavily on his photography skills to lure victims, accumulating hundreds of photos,
13:52some still unidentified, and keeping trophies taken from the dead.
13:56When he was finally convicted of five murders decades later, investigators suspected many more.
14:02The performance had always been part of the crime.
14:04I'm a drama teacher, and I'm going to audition each of you for my private class.
14:13Bachelor number one.
14:16You're a dirty old man.
14:19Take it.
14:20Come on, over here.
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14:39Ted Bundy.
14:40And when I left about four o'clock in the morning, he would walk me out to my car and he'd say,
14:45Ann, be sure you lock the door because I don't want anything bad to happen to you on the way home.
14:51And if anyone had told me then that I had been locked up with the most dangerous man probably
14:57in America, I would have said you're crazy.
15:00Ted Bundy succeeded for a time because he embodied everything people didn't expect from a predator.
15:05He studied psychology, volunteered in political circles, and enrolled in law school.
15:10He appeared composed, articulate, and entirely in control, an image he cultivated with deadly precision.
15:16People say, Ted Bundy didn't show any emotion.
15:20There must be something in that.
15:21I showed emotion.
15:22You know what people said?
15:23See, you really can get violent and angry.
15:26There's no right way for me to act.
15:30From 1974 through 1977, Bundy committed murders across Washington, Oregon, Utah, and Colorado
15:36before fleeing to Florida in 1978.
15:40There, he targeted women in public spaces, using feigned injuries or authority to lure them
15:45into his dastardly clutches.
15:46His arrests didn't stop him.
15:48He escaped custody twice, first in Colorado in mid-1977, then again later that year,
15:54before resurfacing in Florida.
15:56Bundy would ultimately confess to dozens of murders.
15:59His case stands as proof that presentation alone can be a weapon.
16:03The sociopath will be whatever you want them to be.
16:07They can read us, and then they'll put on a mask for the occasion.
16:11Whatever they need to do to get whatever they want from us, they will be.
16:16So he was many men, and behind that facade, there was a monster that no one could have spotted.
16:22Which case on our list shocked you the most?
16:25Are there any we missed?
16:26Be sure to let us know in the comments.
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