PETER BRYAN: THE REAL HANNIBAL LECTER

Cannibal Peter Bryan found his 'appetite for killing' after he battered a young woman to death in a fashionable Kings Road boutique.
He had fallen for Nisha Sheth, the 20-year-old daughter of the shop's owners, while working as a shop assistant but was sacked after being caught stealing clothes.
A week later on March 18 1993, Bryan, then aged 23 and living in Derby Street, Forest Gate, East London, returned to get his revenge.
He knocked Nisha's 12 year-old brother Bobby to the floor and battered her over the head with a claw hammer as she chatted on the phone. Nisha was dead before the ambulance arrived.
An hour later Bryan, high on cannabis, jumped from the third floor balcony of a building in Battersea in an apparent suicide attempt. He survived and admitted the manslaughter of Nisha on the grounds of diminished responsibility.
He was locked up in the Rampton maximum security psychiatric unit 'without limit of time' but was released on the advice of psychiatrists nine years later.
Bryan now had the chilling ability to mask his madness under a veneer of normality.
A short stay at the Riverside House residential care home in Seven Sisters, north London, ended when he was caught 'blowing raspberries' on a 16-year-old girl's stomach.
He was then treated as a care in the community patient at Topaz Ward in Newham General Hospital but on February 17, 2004, it was agreed Bryan could leave the ward as much as he wanted.
By 7pm that night he had killed his second victim Brian Cherry and begun to dismember the body.
'I ATE HIS BRAIN WITH BUTTER'
Mr Cherry, 43, who was described as a 'nice man, lonely with no friends' lived at a ground floor flat at 1 Manning House, The Drive, Walthamstow, east London.
At around 7.15pm his friend Nicola Newman let herself into the flat at around 7.15pm and noticed a strong smell of disinfectant.
Bryan then emerged from the living room bare-chested and holding a knife to announce: 'Brian is dead.'
'She naturally did not believe him and tried to look into the room,' prosecutor Aftab Jafferjee told the Old Bailey.
'She saw Mr Cherry lying naked on the floor and could see one of his arms on the floor clearly separated from the rest of his body.'
The police arrived to find Bryan standing in the hallway in the dark with bloodstained hands, jeans and trainers.
In the kitchen officers noticed a small amount of meat in a frying pan next to an open tub of Clover butter.
The meat was part of Mr Cherry's brain. More brain tissue and hair matted with blood was heaped on a plate next to a knife and fork on the draining board.
Bryan told officers he had killed Mr Cherry after the victim opened his door and then said: 'I ate his brain with butter, it was really nice.'
He later added: 'I would have done someone else if you hadn't come along. I wanted their souls.'
SKULL SMASHED OPEN
Mr Cherry's skull had been smashed open with at least 24 blows from the hammer and his head had been partly sawn off.
Bryan had also had hacked off his right leg and both arms. Blood was spattered around the living room and three blood-stained knives were strewn around the floor.
Mr Jafferjee said: 'The severed left leg was partly sawn and partly fractured. At the top of the right left the muscle had been completely divided and superficial sawing of the bone had commenced.
'The pathologist concluded the defendant had been interrupted before he could complete the amputation of that limb.'
Bryan later admitted that he was 'comforted by the smell of blood' and added: 'I used the Stanley knife to cut them off and some other kitchen knives but I had to stamp on them to break the bone.'
Even at Pentonville jail he told a member of staff he wanted to kill a warder and eat someone's nose and prison officers had to use riot shields when unlocking his cell in case of attack.
Bryan was finally admitted to Broadmoor maximum security hospital on April 15, 2004, and kept in a cell. But yet another blunder meant doctors believed he had 'settled' and could be transferred to a medium risk ward.
'There was a significant failure within the Mental Health care regime in recognising the danger that the defendant presented,' said Mr Jafferjee.
'Even more startling is the fact that such a capacity for failure within this regime was to manifest itself again in just a few weeks time.'
'I WANTED TO EAT HIM - BUT I DIDN'T HAVE THE TIME'
Third victim, Richard Loudwell, 60, was awaiting trial for the murder of an 82-year-old woman and was a patient on the same ward.
On the day of his death, April 25, 2004, Mr Loudwell was 'happy, cheering and laughing.' But at around 6.10pm three members of staff heard two bangs coming from the
dining room and found Mr Loudwell lying on the floor next to a table and chair.
His face was covered in blood and there was a strangulation mark around his neck. He died on June 5 from broncho-pneumonia caused by severe brain injuries.
When Bryan was found he admitted he had tried to strangle Mr Loudwell with a piece of cord and smashed his head on the floor.
Bryan told doctors: 'I get these urges you see. I've had these urges ever since I saw him. He's the bottom of the food chain, old and haggard. He looked like he'd had his innings.
'I was just waiting for my chance to get at him. I wanted to kill him and eat him. I didn't have much time. If I did I'd have tried to cook him and eat him.'
Asked if wanting to eat people was normal, he replied: 'Of course it's normal. Cannibalism is normal.
'It's been here for centuries. If I was on the street I'd go for someone bigger, you know, for the challenge.
'I felt excited when I attacked him. I wanted to shag him when he was alive and also when he was dead.
'I wanted to cook him but there was no time, nor was there access to cooking equipment. I briefly considered eating him raw.'
He named another patient as his next target and added: 'It's something like a ritual. I must be becoming a serial something.'
Mr Jafferjee said: 'He believed that the human body was a natural food source and it
made him stronger. He had wanted to kill eight people because he wanted to be known as a serial killer.'
Bryan even told the doctors he thought he would be released into the community again despite killing three people.
THE PYSCHO WHO CAN APPEAR NORMAL
Psychiatrist Dr Martin Lock, who carried out a series of 'Silence of the Lambs' style interviews with Bryan said he was 'the most dangerous man I have ever assessed.'
He told the doctor: 'You look like a brainy chap and you are quite slim. I think I could take you.'
Bryan also described the victim's arms and leg as 'tasting like chicken.'
Mr Jafferjee said Bryan should die behind bars and added: 'He is at his most deadly when he is able to present himself as entirely calm and settled.
'This case reveals a chilling insight into the mind of a man who had developed an appetite for killing.'
Bryan was given a whole life sentence and will never be released from Broadmoor again.
Judge Giles Forrester told Bryan: 'You had the urge not only to kill but also to eat the flesh of your victims.
'You experienced feelings of power and invincibility. Not only that but you gained sexual excitement from the act of battering your victims to death.
'The earlier treatment at hospital did not cure your disease and there is no reason to believe a hospital order now will do what it failed to achieve back in 1994.
'It is clear that you can appear calm and cooperative while harbouring bizarre psychotic beliefs.'

John Straffen

John Straffen, who died in Frankland prison, County Durham, aged 77, will always be remembered as one of the country's most notorious child murderers - though he was also the victim of one of the most shaming trial processes in the history of English criminal justice. At the time of his death, he was Britain's longest-serving prisoner, having been incarcerated for more than 55 years.

He was born in Borden, Hampshire, but spent his early years in India, as his father was in the armed forces. From 1938, when the family returned to England to live in Bath, Straffen was in virtually constant trouble with the authorities - albeit, at first, for trivial thefts - and was sent to special schools.

After wringing the necks of five chickens in 1947, he was certified as feeble-minded and committed to what was then termed a colony for mental defectives at Almondsbury, north of Bristol. Released on licence in 1951, he was examined at a Bristol hospital, where electro-encephalograph readings showed that he had suffered "wide and severe damage to the cerebral cortex, probably from an attack of encephalitis in India before the age of six".

On July 15 that year, he encountered six-year-old Brenda Goddard, who was picking flowers in a field. He encouraged her to walk with him and then strangled her in a wood. A few days later, he met nine-year-old Cicely Batstone at the cinema. He befriended her, took her to see another film and then strangled her.

After he was arrested, Straffen immediately confessed and was committed for trial at Taunton. However, the judge told the jury: "In this country we do not try people who are insane. You might as well try a baby in arms." Straffen was found unfit to plead and sent to Broadmoor.

At about 2.40pm on April 29 1952, he jumped over the wall and, though the alarm was quickly raised, enjoyed four hours of freedom. He was pursued by two staff members on bicycles and recaptured about seven miles away, in Arborfield, at 6.40pm. That evening, at about 10.30, five-year-old Linda Bowyer was reported missing in Arborfield. Her body was found the following morning. She, too, had been strangled and, naturally, almost the entire country jumped to one conclusion.

By now, Straffen had had two aborted trials. As the third trial began, most newspapers carried posed photographs of the three mothers of the murdered girls having tea together. With even the pretence of a fair trial having been abandoned, on July 25 Straffen was found guilty and sentenced to be hanged on September 4.When Straffen stood trial for Bowyer's murder at Winchester assizes, the first task of the prosecution was to argue that, notwithstanding the finding of the previous court, he was fit to plead. Astonishingly, the judge agreed. He not only allowed the trial to proceed but allowed the press to report legal arguments heard in the absence of the jury. The trial, however, was soon abandoned after one of the jurors was overheard saying that he believed Straffen to be innocent and that one of the prosecution witnesses was responsible for the girl's murder.

There had been a public outcry after his escape and Linda Bowyer's murder. Now there was an outcry of a different kind. "It is not the sanity of John Straffen that is in question," wrote one doctor, "but the sanity of the law." On August 29, Straffen was reprieved by the home secretary on the grounds of insanity. In less than 12 months, during which time Straffen had received no medical treatment, the authorities had contrived to find him insane, sane and insane.

While acknowledging his resp-onsibility for the deaths of Brenda Goddard and Cicely Batstone, Straffen always asserted that he had not killed Linda Bowyer. His case was persuasive: there were right-hand fingernail markings round the girl's throat, but Straffen's right-hand nails were bitten down to the quick; the murderer must have taken the girl's bicycle and dumped it in a hedgerow, but Straffen's fingerprints were not on it; virtually every minute of Straffen's time at large was accounted for by witnesses; and a girl's screams were heard at about 7.00pm - after he had been recaptured.

When the Criminal Cases Review Commission began its work in 1997, Straffen submitted his own case to them. However, even though it was later taken up by well-respected lawyers, it was never reopened, although he had recently been downgraded to category B and was due for transfer to a secure mental unit outside the prison system.

· John Straffen, murderer, born February 27 1930; died November 19 2007

Christopher Hampton

Melanie Road murder:  Christopher Hampton jailed for life 32 years after killing

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Image captionMelanie Road's murderer was caught due to a rerun of familial DNA profiling in 2015, police said

A man who sexually assaulted and stabbed a girl 32 years ago has been given a life sentence for her murder.

Melanie Road, 17, was attacked as she made her way home from a nightclub in Bath in June 1984.

Christopher Hampton, who changed his plea to guilty as his murder trial was due to begin at Bristol Crown Court, must serve a minimum term of 22 years.

Hampton, 64, was caught in 2015 after police linked DNA from Melanie's clothing to his daughter.

Stabbed 26 times

She had been arrested aged 41 in 2014 for a "minor incident" and her DNA profile was taken, leading the police to her father.

Sentencing Hampton, Mr Justice Popplewell told him the attack had been "lengthy and brutal" and "for your own sexual gratification".

"She was repeatedly stabbed - 26 times in all - with a sharp-edged knife, causing four-inch wounds.

"Eight of the wounds were to her breasts.

"You first stabbed her while she was on her feet on the street on her way home, before chasing her some 30 metres round the corner to the cul-de-sac where she died."

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Image captionSentencing Hampton, Mr Justice Popplewell told him: "You will very likely die in prison"

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Image captionChristopher Hampton chased Melanie Road into a cul-de-sac after repeatedly stabbing her

Following the attack, Hampton married his second wife and had a daughter, Amy, and stepson Darren with her.

"You married and had a child and lived your family life for all those years knowing the extreme misery you must have inflicted on your victim's family but you were too callous and cowardly to put an end to their heartache," the judge told Hampton.

"You will very likely die in prison."

On the night of her death, Melanie had gone out with her boyfriend and friends to the Beau Nash, a nightclub in Kingston Parade.

She left the club in the early hours of 9 June and was last seen alive by her friends a short time later in Broad Street.

A milkman found her body, which was lying in a pool of blood.

Kate Brunner QC told the court that Hampton, from Fishponds in Bristol, subjected Melanie to a "vicious and sustained" sexual assault then partially redressed her, possibly after she had died.

Three decades a later, a familial match was identified between Hampton's daughter's DNA and the DNA taken from Melanie's body and clothing.

"As a result, her father Christopher Hampton was asked for, and gave, a voluntary mouth swab," Ms Brunner said.

"Christopher Hampton's DNA was found to match the DNA from semen staining from the fly and crotch of Melanie Road's trousers."

Melanie's mother Jean said when she first saw Hampton in court she thought he was "a monster".

"I then realised his wife and daughter were sitting behind me - both with blonde hair like Melanie," said Mrs Road.

"It hurts beyond repair - how can he do that to somebody and then live with people and with them not knowing?"

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Image captionMelanie Road's body was found in front of some garages near St Stephens Road on 9 June 1984

In a witness impact statement, Melanie's older sister Karen told the court: "You would think that nothing could be worse then being told that your little sister has been sexually attacked and brutally murdered… what is worse is no-one being charged with her murder.

"For 32 years this evil person has not owned up to this horrific crime.

"I want to be able to remember her life instead of focussing on her death. She is my sister, she is a person, she deserves to be remembered for herself."

An impact statement from Melanie's brother Adrian Road said: "When they told me, I cried, uncontrollably, I cried.

"My six-year-old daughter asked me "Daddy, why are you crying?" I had to tell her, "The man who killed Aunty Melanie, my little sister a long time ago, has now been caught, so we are all safe."

Directly addressing Hampton, Mr Road said: "You killed Melanie, you raped her, you mutilated her, and you chose to abandon her, you abandoned her when she was dying, our little sister Melanie.

"She was a lovely girl and I loved her."

Lonnie David Franklin Jr - "Grim Sleeper"

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Image captionLonnie David Franklin Jr killed nine women and one teenage girl between 1985 and 2007

A former Los Angeles rubbish collector has been found guilty of the "Grim Sleeper" serial murders that spanned more than 20 years and left 10 dead.

Lonnie David Franklin Jr killed nine women and a 15-year-old girl between 1985 and 2007, before dumping their bodies, often in alleyways.

Prosecutors said Franklin Jr, 63, stalked vulnerable young black women before shooting or strangling them.

He began by targeting drug addicts during LA's crack cocaine epidemic.

Franklin Jr was convicted after a two-month trial at LA County Superior Court and could face the death penalty.

He was also convicted of the attempted murder of an 11th victim who survived being shot, raped, and pushed out of a car in 1988.

He was nicknamed the Grim Sleeper because of an apparent 14-year gap in attacks after that incident.

The killer showed no emotion as the verdict was read out, court reports said.

In the 1980s, following the deaths of several women in South Los Angeles, California, community members formed the Black Coalition Fighting Back Serial Murders. The group pressured police into setting up a task force and to acknowledge the deaths as serial killings. The Coalition launched a media campaign and set a monetary award aiming to capture the killer. The joint Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department-LAPD investigation determined that the crimes were committed by a single person labeled the "Southside Slayer." Their results were announced to the public on September 23, 1985.

According to investigators, evidence was found suggesting that several serial killers were murdering women in South Los Angeles. Louis Craine committed at least two of the "Southside Slayer" murders, and Michael Hughes, Daniel Lee Siebert, and Ivan Hill at least one each. A separate series of killings commenced with the murder of Debra Jackson and a different MO involving a firearm. These became known, misleadingly, as the "Strawberry murders." Sheriff's Detective Ricky Ross was wrongfully arrested due to a ballistics error. Two decades later, the perpetrator of these crimes was named "Grim Sleeper" due to a long period of apparent inactivity between murders.

In May 2007, the slaying of Janecia Peters, 25, was linked through DNA analysis to at least eleven unsolved murders in Los Angeles, the first of which occurred in 1985. This same year, in secrecy the LAPD formed the "800 Task Force", consisting of six detectives and overseen by the Robbery-Homicide Unit. After a four-month investigation, the LA Weekly investigative reporter Christine Pelisek broke the news of the task force's existence, the linking of Peters' killing to the earlier murders, and the silence of Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and Police Chief William J. Bratton regarding the killer's existence. The mayor and police chief never issued a press release nor warned the community. In some cases, LA Weekly was the first to inform the families that their daughters had long been confirmed as victims of a serial killer.

In early September 2008, Los Angeles officials announced that they were offering a $500,000 reward to help catch the killer. On November 1, the case was detailed on the Fox program America's Most Wanted.

On February 25, 2009, Police Chief Bratton addressed the press for the first time regarding the case, at which time the police formally gave the killer the "Grim Sleeper" nickname chosen by L.A. Weekly. Bratton also released a 911 call from the 1980s in which a man reported seeing a body being dumped by the Grim Sleeper, giving a detailed description and license plate number of a van connected with the now-closed Cosmopolitan Church.^[11]

In March 2009, reporter Pelisek did an extensive interview with Enietra Washington, the sole survivor of the Grim Sleeper's attacks. She described him as "a black man in his early 30s He looked neat. Tidy. Kind of geeky. He wore a black polo shirt tucked into khaki trousers." She also described the interior and exterior of his vehicle.

Patrick Kearney

Patrick Kearney
Born	Patrick Wayne Kearney September 24, 1939(age 76) Los Angeles, California
Other names	The Freeway Killer The Trash Bag Killer
Criminal penalty	Life imprisonment
Killings
Victims	21 -28+
Span of killings	1965–March 13, 1977
Country	United States
State(s)	California
Date apprehended	July 1, 1977

Patrick Wayne Kearney (born September 24, 1939) is an American serial killer who preyed on young men in California during the 1970s. He is sometimes referred to as "The Freeway Killer". Kearney may be among the most prolific serial killers in United States history, claiming possibly as many as 43 victims according to law enforcement.

He was the oldest of three sons and was raised in a reasonably stable family. His early life was not without some trauma, however; as a thin and sickly child, he was often a target for bullies at school. In his teens, he became withdrawn and fantasized about killing people.

Born in East Los Angeles, Kearney also lived in Texas. He moved back to California after a brief marriage ended in divorce and eventually worked as an engineer for Hughes Aircraft.

It was from his experiences in his early years in California that Kearney cultivated his skill as a gay pickup artist. Kearney mostly sought out partners in San Diego and Tijuana, Mexico, where he used his fluency in Spanish and keen interest in Latin American culture as a basis to connect with potential partners. Kearney claimed to have killed his first victim, a hitch-hiker he picked up and murdered in Orange, California, around 1965. He claimed several more victims, mostly transients, before moving to Redondo Beach, near Los Angeles, in 1967 with a younger man named David Hill, who became his lover.

As time passed Hill and Kearney began to argue more often, and Kearney would go out for long solitary drives in his Volkswagen Beetle or his truck. He would then pick up young male hitchhikers or young men from gay bars and murder them. Kearney was primarily a necrophile, and was generally consistent in the manner in which he murdered his victims and disposed of their remains. Standing only 5'5" tall, being of slight build, and typically preferring victims of greater stature than his, Kearney was forced to resort to a system of subduing his victims that was unlikely to fail or create situations which could place him in physical danger or cause unwanted exposure to authorities. Kearney was not known to resort to sadism or inflict pain on his victims as the other "Freeway Killers" did, preferring quickness and efficiency. While Kearney did later confess to having experimented with his victims' bodies out of curiosity, such as cutting open one of their stomachs, he did so post-mortem and did not inflict any physical suffering.

Kearney confessed to having committed his first murder in the Spring of 1962. The victim's name is unknown, but he was confirmed to be age 19 and white. Kearney had convinced the male to take a ride on his motorcycle with him to a secluded area outside of Indio, California. When they arrived, Kearney shot the man in the head and sexually assaulted the body. It is unknown if the body was ever found but Kearney did indeed confess to committing this murder and two additional during the year 1962. The second victim being the younger cousin of Kearney's first victim, who had witnessed Kearney drive away with the first victim.

The first murder that Kearney confessed and was convicted of was in 1967 while living in Culver City, CA, approximately one year after moving in with David Hill. The murder took place in Tijuana, Mexico where Hill and Kearney were visiting a close friend of Hill. Identification of the victim was impossible, as Kearney only knew him as "George". Kearney shot him between the eyes with his pistol as he slept in the master bedroom of his Tijuana, Mexico home. After killing George, Kearney took the body into his bathroom where he first sodomized the body as it lay in the bathtub and afterward proceeded to dismember and skin it with an X-Acto knife. Afterward, Kearney decided to extract the bullet from the victim's head to ensure that it would not be traced to his gun, then he buried George's dismembered body behind his garage and buried the remains in the yard. Kearney did not kill for over a year following this murder, primarily out of fear that law enforcement would inquire about George's disappearance.

As time passed, Kearney greatly refined his modus operandi, which enabled him to carry out his crimes much more efficiently and frequently. Starting in 1974, Kearney is estimated to have committed murders on an almost monthly basis. After picking up his victims along the freeway or at gay bars in his Volkswagen or in his truck, Kearney would typically shoot his victims in the temple above the ear without warning, with a Derringer .22 pistol in his right hand while steering his car with his left hand and simultaneously monitoring the speed limit to minimize the predictability of the altercation and to avoid exhibiting any unusual behavior to potential witnesses. After murdering his victims, Kearney would leave the bodies slumped upright in the passenger seat and drive to a secluded area to sexually violate them.

After copulating with his victims' corpses, Kearney would usually mutilate and dismember the remains with a hacksaw before disposing of them in various locations such as in canyons, in landfills, and along the freeways, usually in industrial trash bags. In some cases, Kearney disposed of the bodies in the desert where the remains could be consumed by carrion-eating animals. Kearney would sometimes drain the victim's blood to eliminate odor and would also sometimes bathe the body parts prior to disposal to minimize the presence of dried blood and eliminate fingerprint evidence. Sometimes, Kearney would beat his victims after they were dead. He perceived beating his dead victims as a cathartic exercise and a means by which he could effectively vent suppressed anger and animosity, and acquire a sense of power. Often, the victims resembled people who had bullied him in his childhood.

Although Kearney primarily preyed on young men, there were known child and adolescent victims, as well. Kearney's youngest victim was Ronald Dean Smith, age 5, who disappeared in Lennox, CA on August 24, 1974. His body was discovered in Riverside County on October 12, 1974. Merle "Hondo" Chance, 8, of Venice, CA vanished on April 6, 1977 while supposedly riding his bicycle in the vicinity of Kearney's place of work. Kearney claims to have smothered the boy, taken his body home overnight and later disposed of the remains in the Angeles National Forest off of Angeles Crest Highway, approximately 11 miles north of Altadena, CA. Chance's decomposed remains were discovered on May 26, 1977. Merle Chance was Kearney's last known victim.

On June 16, 1976, Kearney killed Micheal Craig McGhee, 13, of Redondo Beach, CA. Records confirmed that McGhee had a lengthy history of juvenile delinquency. Kearney claimed to have picked up McGhee, who was hitchhiking from Inglewood Avenue near Lennox to Torrance, CA. According to the police, Kearney had befriended the boy and invited him to attend a camping trip to Lake Elsinore over the course of a weekend. Kearney claimed to have perceived McGhee as a potential threat and shot him without warning after McGhee openly boasted of his criminal exploits and inquired about the presence and location of burglar alarms in Kearney's home. Later, when interviewed by detectives, Kearney implied that he had destroyed the remains, stating: "I disposed of the body...You aren't going to find him."

The victim who ultimately led to Kearney's arrest was a young man named John LaMay, 17, whom he killed on Sunday, March 13, 1977. At approximately 5:30 pm on that same day, LaMay had told a neighbour he was going to Redondo Beach to meet a man named Dave, whom he had met at a local gym. This was in fact David Hill, and Hill had given LaMay the address to Kearney's home. Hill was absent when LaMay arrived, so Kearney invited LaMay in to watch television until Hill returned. Without provocation, Kearney impulsively reached for his .22 Derringer and shot LaMay in the back of the head. Kearney later dismembered the corpse and dumped the remains in the desert.

When his killing spree was at its zenith, Kearney's odd tendencies went largely undetected. A local grocery store owner named Jerry Stevens did, however, note that Kearney had an unusual interest in knives and frequently purchased butcher knives after examining them and inquiring about the quality of the steel. Stevens also described Kearney as "a loner with an eerie sense of quiet about him." Kearney's supervisor at Hughes Aircraft referred to him as a "model worker."

LaMay's remains were found on March 18, 1977. Police had actually been to Kearney's home for the LaMay investigation prior to 8-year-old Merle "Hondo" Chance's kidnapping and murder. The police soon discovered that LaMay had been seen in the company of Kearney and Hill. The two fled to El Paso, Texas, and Kearney resigned from his job. The fugitives' families persuaded the pair to turn themselves in.

Hill, 36 years old at the time, was eventually cleared of any involvement in his partner's crimes and was released.

Kearney, on the other hand, made a full confession of his crimes, initially admitting to a total of 28 murders and subsequently to seven more. In order to avoid the death penalty, he agreed to plead guilty. Kearney was charged with 21 counts of murder, and as agreed, he pled guilty and was given 21 life sentences. Police are certain that Kearney was responsible for the other seven murders he had admitted to, but they lacked the physical evidence to charge him. Kearney has been incarcerated at California State Prison, Mule Creek as of October 2014.

Gennady Mikhasevich

Gennady Modestovich Mikhasevich
Born	7 april 1947 Vitebsk Oblast, Byelorussian SSR, Soviet Union
Died	25 september 1987
Killings
Victims	36 confirmed; confessed to 43, probably 55+
Span of killings	1971–1985
Country	Byelorussian SSR, Soviet Union
State(s)	Vitebsk Oblast
Date apprehended	9 December 1985

Gennady Modestovich Mikhasevich (Belarusian: Генадзь Мадэставіч Міхасевіч; 1947–1987) was a Soviet serial killer. He murdered 36^[1] women during the period from 1971 to 1985 in Vitebsk, Polotsk and the rural areas in the nearby regions of the Byelorussian SSR.

Gennady Mikhasevich was born in the village of Ist (Vitebsk Oblast) in 1947,and served in the army. He committed his first murder on 14 May 1971. He himself later explained that the killing spree started after he had returned from the army only to find out that his girlfriend had left him and got married in the meantime. On the night of 14 May 1971, he was on his way from Vitebsk toPolotsk. It was late so he could not catch a bus to Polotsk where his parents lived. Mikhasevich reported he was feeling despondent because of the breakup with his girlfriend and had prepared a loop to hang himself. However, he accidentally met a young woman on the road. He decided to kill her, venting his anger on her. He murdered again in October, 1971, and strangled two other women in 1972, near Vitebsk. Mikhasevich graduated from a technical school in Vitebsk in 1973 and returned to Ist, starting to work in a sovkhoz. He got married in 1976. In the meantime, the murders went on.

Many of his murders coincided with rape. He either strangled or smothered his victims, either assaulting them in solitary locations or (during later years) after having lured them into his own car (he possessed a red Zaporozhets) or the machines of his workplace (he later had a job in machine repair service). Mikhasevich did not carry weapons, instead he used improvised means (e.g. a cord made of rye). Besides killing, he robbed his victims of money and valuable items (that he would sometimes give to his wife as a gift), and sometimes even of household items like scissors.

In outward appearance, Gennady Mikhasevich was a good family man, a teetotaller, had two children, was a conscientious worker; he was also member of the Communist Party (also served as a local party functionary) and of Voluntary People's Druzhina.

The investigation started to advance in the 1980s, as the young investigator Nikolay Ignatovich firmly stood up for the idea that all the killings of females near motorways in the region were committed by one person, a serial killer, not separate murderers, as the investigators had conveniently presumed. The police also suspected that the serial killer was using a red Zaporozhets; as they started checking all the people of the Oblast, who possessed such a car, Mikhasevich as a druzhinnikparticipated in these actions, in a way searching for himself. This also enabled him to learn of the steps the investigators were taking beforehand. The year 1985 was especially 'prolific' for the murderer: he killed 12 women in this year alone.

Eventually, Mikhasevich, who was now getting concerned, made a fatal mistake: in order to derail the investigation, he sent an anonymous letter to the local newspaper on behalf of an imaginary underground organization 'Patriots of Vitebsk', supposedly calling on his fellow militants to intensify their struggle of killing communists and lewd women. When he left a similar hand-written note next to his new victim, again signed on behalf of 'Patriots of Vitebsk', the investigators started to ascertain the handwritings of the male residents of the Oblast. Having checked 556,000 samples, the experts detected that the sample with the handwriting of Gennady Modestovich Mikhasevich had striking resemblance with the handwriting on the murderer's notes. Further investigation revealed other evidence, convincing them of Mikhasevich's guilt.

He was finally arrested in December 1985, after initial denial, he confessed and was sentenced to death and executed in 1987. His case became notorious in the USSR (“The Vitebsk Case” (“Витебское дело”)), as it revealed both the incompetence of the police and the corruption of the law enforcement agencies: by the time Mikhasevich was finally arrested, 14 people had already been convicted for the crimes Mikhasevich committed, the suspects had been often forced to confess by torture, and a couple of them had been sentenced to death and executed for the crimes they did not commit.

William Lester Suff

William Suff
1974 Texas mugshot
Born	Bill Lee Suff August 20, 1950 (age 65) Torrance, California
Other names	William Lester Suff, The Riverside Prostitute Killer, The Lake Elsinore Killer
Criminal penalty	Death
Conviction(s)	Attempted murder Murder
Killings
Victims	12–22
Span of killings	1974–1992
Country	U.S.
State(s)	California
Date apprehended	January 9, 1992

William Lester Suff (born August 20, 1950, as Bill Lee Suff), also known as the Riverside Prostitute Killer and the Lake Elsinore Killer, is an American serial killer.

Early crimes

In 1974, a Texas jury convicted Suff and his then-wife, Teryl, of beating their two-month-old daughter to death. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals later reversed Teryl’s conviction but upheld Suff's in Suff v. State (Tex. 1976) 531 S.W.2d 814, finding insufficient evidence to convict her as either the primary actor or a principal in their baby's murder. Though Suff was sentenced to 70 years in a Texas prison, he served only 10 years before his 1984 release on parole.

Murders

Suff subsequently raped, stabbed, strangled, and sometimes mutilated 12 or more prostitutes in Riverside County, beginning in 1986. On January 9, 1992, Suff was arrested after a routine traffic stop.

Described as a mild-mannered loner, Suff worked as a county stock clerk who allegedly delivered supplies to the task force investigating his killing spree. He liked to impersonate police officers and cooked chili at office picnics. In fact, it was alleged that he used the breast of one of his victims in his chili, which won the "Riverside County Employee Chili Cookoff." He was also working on a book about wild, lethal dogs. He enjoyed vanity plates and was an avid volunteer in the county's car-pooling program.

Trial

On July 19, 1995, a Riverside County jury found Suff guilty of killing 12 women and attempting to kill another, though police suspected him responsible for as many as 22 deaths. During the penalty phase that followed, the prosecutor presented evidence linking Suff to the 1988 murder of a San Bernardino prostitute, as well as evidence that despite his prior Texas prison term for murdering his first daughter, he abused and violently shook his three-month-old daughter by his second wife. On August 17, 1995, after deliberating for only 10 minutes, the jury returned verdicts of guilty on all 12 murder counts. On October 26, 1995, the trial court followed the jury's recommendations and ordered Suff condemned to death. Suff resides on death row at San Quentin State Prison.

Book[edit]

In 1997 "Cat and Mouse - Mind Games With A Serial Killer" was published by Dove Books. Suff met with author Brian Alan Lane and told his story. The book includes short stories and poems written by Suff and photos of several of his victims.

1. up

Ottis Toole

Ottis Toole
Toole's 1983 mugshot
Born	Ottis Elwood Toole March 5, 1947 Jacksonville, Florida, U.S.
Died	September 15, 1996 (aged 49) Raiford, Florida, U.S.
Cause of death	Cirrhosis
Resting place	Florida State Prison Cemetery
Nationality	American
Criminal charge	Arson, First-degree murder
Criminal penalty	Death commuted to life in prison
Criminal status	Deceased
Killings
Victims	6+
Span of killings	Unknown–1983
Country	United States
State(s)	Florida and Texas
Date apprehended	April 1983
Imprisoned at	Florida State Prison

Ottis Elwood Toole (March 5, 1947 – September 15, 1996) was an American drifter who was convicted of six counts of murder. Like his companion Henry Lee Lucas, Toole made confessions he later recanted, but which resulted in murder convictions. The discrediting of the case against Lucas for crimes in which Toole had offered corroborating statements created doubts as to whether either was a genuine serial killer or, as Hugh Aynesworth suggested, both merely compliant interviewees who police used to clear unsolved murders from the books. Toole received two death sentences, but on appeal they were commuted to life imprisonment. He died in his cell from cirrhosis, aged 49. Police attributed the murder of Adam Walsh to Toole on the basis of recanted statements. Lucas had backed Toole's confession to the Walsh murder, claiming he had been in possession of the victim's severed head.

Ottis Elwood Toole (sometimes misspelled "Otis") was born and raised in Jacksonville, Florida. Toole's mother was abusive; Toole claimed she would dress him in girls' clothing and call him Susan. His father was an alcoholic who abandoned him. Ottis claimed that as a young child, he was a victim of sexual assault and incest at the hands of many close relatives and acquaintances, including his older sister and next door neighbor. He claimed that his maternal grandmother was a Satanist, who exposed him to various Satanic practices and rituals in his youth, including self-mutilation and grave robbing, and dubbed him "Devil's Child". Toole claimed this abuse began when he came out as gay to his family.

He was often designated as suffering from mild mental retardation, with an I.Q. of 75. He also suffered from epilepsy, which resulted in frequent grand mal seizures. Throughout his childhood, he ran away from home often and often slept in abandoned houses. He was a serial arsonist from a young age and was sexually aroused by fire.

In the documentary Death Diploma, Toole claimed he was forced to have sex with a friend of his father's when he was five years old. He felt he knew he was gay when he was 10, and claimed to have had a sexual relationship with a neighborhood boy when he was 12. Toole dropped out of school in the ninth grade and began visiting gay bars. He also claimed to have been a male prostitute as a teenager, and became obsessed with gay pornography. Toole claimed to have committed his first murder at the age of 14, when after being propositioned for sex by a traveling salesman, Toole ran over the salesman with his own car. Toole was first arrested at the age of 17 in August 1964 for loitering.

Much information on Toole between 1966–73 is unclear, but it is believed that he began drifting around the Southwestern United States and that he supported himself by prostitution and panhandling. While living in Nebraska, Toole was one of the prime suspects in the 1974 murder of 24-year-old Patricia Webb. Shortly after, he left Nebraska and briefly settled in Boulder, Colorado. One month later, he became a prime suspect in the murder of 31-year-old Ellen Holman, who was murdered on October 14, 1974. With many accusations against him, Toole left Boulder and headed back to Jacksonville.

In early 1975, Toole returned to Jacksonville after drifting and hitch-hiking through the American South. On January 14, 1976, he married a woman 25 years his senior. She left him after three days, after discovering his homosexuality. Toole said during an interview his marriage was a tactic meant to conceal his true sexuality.

Murders and imprisonment

Photograph of Lucas and Toole together.

In 1976, Toole met Henry Lee Lucas at a Jacksonville soup kitchen, and they soon developed a sexual relationship. Toole later claimed to have accompanied Lucas in 108 murders, sometimes at the behest of a cult called "The Hands of Death". Police, however, discounted the uncorroborated claim of the cult's existence. 

On January 4, 1982, Toole barricaded 64-year-old George Sonnenberg in a boarding house where he was living in Jacksonville and set the house on fire. Sonnenberg died a week later of injuries he sustained in the fire. In April 1983, Toole was arrested for an unrelated arson incident in Jacksonville. For that crime, he was sentenced to 20 years in prison. While in custody, Toole confessed to killing George Sonnenberg. Toole signed a confession stating that he and Sonnenberg had begun a sexual relationship and, after the two had an argument, Toole lit Sonnenberg's home on fire.

Two months later in June, his accomplice Henry Lee Lucas was arrested for unlawful possession of a firearm. It was then Lucas began boasting about the murderous rampage orchestrated by the two. At first, Toole had denied involvement but later began backing up Lucas's confessions. Lucas also backed Toole's confession to the murder of Walsh. Journalist Hugh Aynesworth and others investigated for articles that appeared in The Dallas Times Herald. It was calculated that Lucas would have had to use his 13-year-old Ford station wagon to cover 11,000 miles (18,000 km) in one month (i.e., around 370 miles (600 km) per day) to have committed the crimes police attributed to him. Lucas became widely regarded as a compliant interviewee who was used by police to clear up unsolved murders that he had not been involved in, aided by Toole giving false statements in collaboration.

During Toole's trial for murdering George Sonnenberg, Toole claimed that he did not light the home on fire and only signed the confession so he would be extradited back to Jacksonville. On April 28, 1984, a jury found Toole guilty of first degree murder and sentenced him to death. Later that year, Toole was found guilty of the February 1983 strangulation murder of a 19-year-old Tallahassee, Florida woman, and received a second death sentence; on appeal, however, both sentences were commuted to life in prison.

After his incarceration, Toole pleaded guilty to four more Jacksonville murders in 1991 and received four more life sentences.

Confessions

On October 21, 1983, while imprisoned for two unrelated murders, Toole confessed to the 1981 murder of 6-year-old Adam Walsh. A few weeks after Toole made the confession, however, police investigating the case announced that they had lost Toole's impounded car and machete. John Walsh, Adam's father, continued to maintain that he believed Toole to be guilty. On December 16, 2008, Hollywood, Florida, police announced Toole as the murderer, and the Adam Walsh case was closed. The police did not reveal any new physical evidence and pointed out that they still had no DNA evidence. Toole confessed that on that same day he ambushed and killed 46-year-old Joana Holter in her home while she was attending to groceries with the same machete which he used to decapitate Adam Walsh.

In 1984, Toole confessed to two unsolved northwest Florida slayings, including one of the I-10 murders. During an interview, he admitted to killing 18-year-old David Schallart, a hitchhiker he picked up east of Pensacola. Schallart's body, bearing five gunshot wounds in the left side of the head, was found on February 6, 1980, approximately 125 feet (38 m) off I-10's eastbound lane, 5 miles (8.0 km) east of Chipley. The second confession involved the death of 20-year-old Ada Johnson. Toole confessed that he shot her in the head on a road outside of Fort Walton Beach after kidnapping her at gunpoint at a Tallahassee nightclub. Psychiatrists Dr. Urbina and Dr. Sanches testified at Toole's 1984 Florida Supreme Court appeal that he was extremely impulsive and exhibited antisocial behavior as a result of a personality disorder and that he was a pyromaniac. The court found sufficient evidence that Toole was diagnosed with antisocial personality disorder.

Murder of Adam Walsh

Twenty-seven years after the 1981 murder of Adam Walsh, authorities officially named Toole as the likely killer.

Toole claimed to have picked Walsh up in a Sears mall parking lot. Toole said he offered him candy and toys and that Walsh came willingly. Walsh soon wanted to go home and began crying. Toole said he then punched him in the face. Walsh started crying more, and according to Toole, he began to "wallop" Walsh, knocking him out. Toole eventually pulled over in a rural area and decapitated Walsh with a machete. He drove around for several days with Walsh's head, forgot about it, and once rediscovering it, tossed it into a nearby canal. Police somehow lost his impounded car and its bloodstained carpeting, hindering their ability to proceed with the investigation.

Hollywood, Florida Police Chief Chadwick Wagner said Ottis Toole had been the prime suspect all along, but went on to admit that although Toole's case was weak, he could have been charged during the original investigation. Wagner acknowledged that many mistakes were made by the department and apologized to the Walsh family. Public critics of the indictment argue that lack of new (public) evidence, and the inability of the defendant to defend himself of the allegations, leaves no definitive claim to his guilt. To this Wagner has stated: "If you're looking for that magic wand, that one piece of evidence, it's not there."However, by reexamining previously uncorrelated evidence, police and the Walsh family are satisfied with the new report and existing evidence that points only to Ottis Toole.

In response to the naming of his son's alleged murderer, John Walsh stated: "We can now move forward knowing positively who killed our beautiful little boy."

The decision was finally reached once Toole's niece told John Walsh that her uncle confessed on his deathbed in prison that he had murdered and decapitated Adam Walsh.

Death

On September 15, 1996, at the age of 49, Ottis Toole died at Florida State Prison of cirrhosis. As his body went unclaimed, he was buried in the Florida State Prison Cemetery.