TW: mentions of murder and r*pe
Hello again! Today I decided to bring you something different, so we will be playing a game!
Over the years I’ve noticed that most people don’t have a very correct view of what being a psychopath means scientifically, so let’s put it to the test!
I’ll give you some famous serial killers, very known specially in the US, for you to tell me which one(s) you think are in fact psychopaths - at the eyes of science, because to the media, cops and professionals of justice, they were all labeled as high-level psychopaths (but is this true?).
The contestants for this game are:
1. John Wayne Gacy, aka The Killer Clown
2. Jeffrey Dahmer, aka The Milwaukee Cannibal
3. Gary Ridgway, aka The Green River Killer
4. Edmund Kemper, aka The Co-Ed Killer
5. Theodore Bundy, aka Ted Bundy
6. Richard Ramirez, aka The Night Stalker
7. Dennis Rader, aka The BTK Killer
8. Countess Erzebet Bathory, aka The Blood Countess/Countess Dracula
9. Jane Toppan, aka Jolly Jane
10. Aileen Wuornos, aka The Florida Highway Killer
Feel free to place your bets in the comments and stay tuned for Monday, where I will reveal the right answer! I will now tell you a bit about each person and what crimes they committed so if you don’t know some of them, don’t worry, I’ll give you ad brief explanation! (You can also leave in the comments below if you want me to talk about any of them in a more specific way on our True Crime Series!)
John Wayne Gacy, aka The Killer Clown
John Wayne Gacy got his nickname because he would do charitable events or go to children’s hospitals dressed as a clown, his persona. But he was a darker individual than anticipated as he assaulted and murdered 33 young men and boys (or more), making him one of the most known serial killers and sex offenders.
He would usually lure his victims to his ranch house in Norridge, a village in Illinois and handcuff them to “show them a magic trick”. He would then r*pe and torture them, before killing them, typically by strangulation or asphyxiation. Most of his victims would then be buried in his property.
The killings happened between 1972 and 1978, year where he was apprehended. He was later sentenced to death, in March 1980.
Jeffrey Dahmer aka The Milwaukee Cannibal
Like the one before, Jeffrey was a known killer and sex offender who murdered and dismembered 17 men and boys from 1978 to 1991. He got known as the Milwaukee Cannibal or Monster, since his crimes involved cannibalism, necrophilia and even the permanent preservation of body parts, as he would try to keep their skeleton as a trophy.
He would look for his victims in bars, libraries, or malls, lure them to his house to drink and watch pornography or even lure them with money to “just take pictures of them”.
He was caught and sentenced to 16 terms of life imprisonment, but ended up dying in November 1994, when another inmate beat him to death.
Gary Ridgway aka The Green River Killer
This man is one of the serial killers in the US history with more confirmed murders, adding a total of 49 teenage girls and women, all in Washington, between the 80s and 90s.
His victims would typically be sex workers or vulnerable women (for example teenagers that would run away from home). He got his nickname early from the press, since his first five victims were found in the Green River. He would usually strangle them and dispose the bodies but would end up returning to a lot of them to have sex with them.
He was arrested in November 2001 and sentenced to life imprisonment without parole, since he confessed to another murder of a missing woman and told them her location - freeing him from the death penalty.
Edmund Kemper aka The Co-Ed Killer
Edmund got known very fast for the murder of 10 people, 3 of them being his grandparents and mother. He so became not only a serial killer, but also a serial r*pist and a necrophile. His nickname “Co-Ed Killer” was given due to the fact that most of his victims were female college students.
As he was schizophrenic, by the time he was 15 years old and killed his grandparents, he was considered paranoid and sentenced as an insane juvenile to a hospital. However after being released, he went on to a killing spree of female hitchhikers, luring them to his car and murdering them, later taking them home to r*pe, decapitate and dismember them.
After this spree, Edmund decided to kill his mother and her friend and turn himself to authorities asking for the death penalty, in 1973. However, because this sentence was suspended at the time, he received eight life sentences.
Theodore Bundy aka Ted Bundy
As you may know, Ted Bundy was a very famous serial killer who kidnapped, r*ped and murdered a lot of women and girls during the 70s.
Due to being handsome and very charismatic, he would approach the victims in public either pretending to be injured or an authority figure. He would then knock them unconscious and take them to secluded locations where he proceeded to r*pe and strangle them. Like a lot of other killers mentioned prior, he would sometimes revisit the bodies he disposed, grooming and performing sexual acts with the corpses. He would also decapitate some victims, saving their heads as trophies.
Ted was arrested in 1975, but manage to escape and commit more crimes, until he was recaptured in 1978, where he received 3 death penalties and was executed. Although he confessed 30 murders, all in a span of 4 years (1974 to 1978), investigators estimate a lot more total victims.
Richard Ramirez aka The Night Stalker
Ricardo Ramírez, a known serial killer, serial r*pist, kidnapper, pedophile, and burglar. He terrorized Los Angeles for a long time with his home invasions and murder sprees, from 1984 to 1985. He was first nicknamed “Valley Intruder” and the news media ended up giving him his final and most known nickname as “The Night Stalker”.
He would dress in all black and enter people’s homes with a variety of weapons raging from handguns to knifes, machetes, hammer and even a tire iron. He would then attack the victims, burglarize the home, kill the husbands and r*pe the female wives. He left a satanic pentagrams as his signature.
Ramirez found his fate in 1989 being convicted of 13 murders, 5 attempted murders, 11 sexual assaults and 14 burglaries and got 19 death sentences but died while waiting his execution. Of all his crimes, Richard never expressed any remorse.
Dennis Rader aka The BTK Killer
Known as BTK Killer as BTK stood for “bind, torture and kill” - an abbreviation he gave himself, he killed 10 people from 1974 to 1991 in Wichita and Kansas, taunting the police all this time with letters describing his crimes.
He would find a victim, stalk them and invade their homes and cut the phone lines, so they couldn’t ask for help, wait for them to get there where he would bind them ad torture them, before executing the kill. He would then leave with souvenirs. He was caught in 2005 and sentenced to ten consecutive life sentences.
Countess Elizabeth Bathory aka The Blood Countess/Countess Dracula
This woman received the Guinness World Record for the most prolific female murderer as she was accused of torturing and killing, at the time of the trial, 650 women and girls from 1590 to 1610.
Elizabeth’s sadistic murders would usually have a lot of witnesses and survivors, as well as the evidence of the mutilated dead and imprisoned girls found when she got caught. She got her nicknames due to the stories of her bathing in the blood of her virgin victims to keep being young, but it’s hard to be exact on how it all happened.
Although there were a LOT of evidence against Elizabeth, due to her family’s importance, she didn’t receive the death penalty, but was imprisoned in December 1610.
Jane Toppan aka Jolly Jane
Jane Toppan was a nurse that killed her patients and their family members between 1885 and 1902. This American serial killer confessed to 31 murders, even thought only 12 were confirmed.
She would do a lot of experiments with morphine and atropine in her patients and would spend a lot of time alone with them, making them go in and out of conscience multiple times, giving them various medicating to see the reaction and even getting in bed with them.
Known by her saying that her ambition was to “have killed more people, helpless people, than any other man or woman who ever live”, she was found not guilty due to insanity with 12 confirmed kills, 31 confessed, and more than 100 suspected.
Aileen Wuornos aka The Florida Highway Killer
Aileen was a serial killer and sex worker know for her 7 murdered men in Florida, from 1989 to 1990.
She killed all her victims by shooting them at a point-blank range and claimed that all these kills were in self-defense, since they were man that either r*ped or tried to do so while soliciting sex from her. She would carry a “kill bag” with her .22 caliber revolver and a bottle of windex, she would hitchhike to find her victims and rob them after killing them.
She got caught and sentenced to death in October 2002.
Now that you saw a bit about every single one of them, I leave you to think: which ones do you think are scientifically considered psychopaths? Leave in the comments below your guess, I’ll get to you all and don’t forget to stay tuned for Monday, for the final answer!!
If you want to see any of these criminals be on the True Crime Series where we extensively go through their life and crimes, also feel free to say it, as I will, for sure, get to your requests! Thank you for supporting me and have a great day!
Best Regards,
I bet on the Ramirez guy, seems sus