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Serial Killers 4
John Wayne Gacy
John Wayne Gacy was born in chicago on 17 March 1942. Gacy had a uneventful childhood up until the age of eleven. While out playing he had been struck on the head by a swing. Subsequently he suffered fainting fits for many years.
Gacy graduated from business school and went on to work as a star shoe salesman for the Nunn Bush shoe company. Gacy met and then married work collague Marylnn Myres in 1964.
The marrage ended when Gacy was imprisoned for ten years at a correctional institue in Warterloo, Iowa for various sex and violent crimes against young men. In 1971 Gacy was arrested again for trying to rape a teenage boy.
John Wayne Gacy was married for the second time in 1972 to Carol Hoff. He set up a business as a renovation contractor at this time.
This marrage also ended one of the facts being that Carol was frightened of he husband's temper. Despite all this Gacy worked very hard at trying to be liked. He was an enthusiastic member of the Junior Chamber of Commerce as "Pogo the Clown" a children's entertainer.
John Wayne Gacy would use his contracting business to attract young men eager for work, many of whom were subjected to rape. Thrity three of whom lost thier lives.
At nine o'clock on the evening of 11 December 1978, fifteen year old Robert Piest went to a chemist's shop in his home town of Des Plaines, Illinois. He was going to see a building contractor who was working in the shop about a holiday job.
Robert Piest was supposed to go striaght home, where his family were holding a birthday party for his mother. When Robert had not arrived home by 11.30pm his family contacted the police.
Police investigating the case learned that the contractor hired by the shop was in fact John Wayne Gacy a name not unfamiliar to them. Gacy had been reported earlier in the year by a 27 year old man named Jeffery Rignall.
According to Mr Rignall's story he had been approached by a plump man with a flashy car. The man invited him to join him in the vehicle to smoke some marijuana. Once in the car the man pushed a chloroform soaked hankerchief into Rignall's face and drove him, unconscious, to a house where he was beaten with whips and raped.
Rignall regained conciousness then next morning where he had been dumped in Lincoln Park.
In veiw of the fact that Rignall could not give them much information the Police were unable to be of much help. In fact even when Jeffery Rignell went out into the city and looked and indeed found the car, it was some time before the police went to arrest it's owner - one John Wayne Gacy.
When investigating officers paid a visit to 8213 West Summerdale Avenue, Des Plaines, they followed the unpleasant smell to a trap door which led to the crawl space under Gacy's house.
Seven bodies were found in varying stages of decomposition underneath the house, along with the parts of several others. Eight more corpses were dug out of lime pits in the garden and the garage. In all the remains of twenty-eight bodies were found in and around the house. Gacy confessed to throwing five in the Des Plaines river including that of Robert Piest.
Gacy admitted to killing thirty-two teenage boys before, during, and after sex. He claimed to have lost count - there were thirty-three recovered.
A point of interest is that although Gacy gave several confessions while in costody he never once admitted to being a homosexual. He is said to have stated that he in fact hated homosexuals.
John Wayne Gacy did not gove evidence at his trial and on 12 March 1980 the jury regected his defence of insanity. John Wayne Gacy was convicted of murder with a recommendation for the death penalty.
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Ed Kemper
Twenty-five year old Edmund Kemper got out of his car in Pueblo, Colorado and called the police in Santa Cruz. He told them about 8 women, all of whom he killed. The cop didn't believe him and told him to call back later, so he did, and he still didn't have any success in convincing the cop on the other end of the line. So he called again and again. Each time he gave more details onhow he had killed each victims and what he had done with the bodies. Finally Santa Cruz police drove three states to get him, Kemper sat and waited for his arrest. According to Kemper, he was traumatized by his mother at an early age. Clarnell Kemper raised her son and two daughters on her own, and little Edmund was subjected to severe discipline. He claims he was constantly put down. In his early teens, Kemper killed two of the family cats. Him mom found the remains of one, minus the head, and in the garbage can, while remaining dismembered peices were in Edmunds closet. He often daydreamed of "making a doll out of a human being." He commited his first murder at the age of fifteen, after being sent to live with his grandparents. Murdering them both in August of 1963. His explanation for these murders: "I just wondered how it would feel to shoot Grandma." He was put in a mental hospital for six years. Between May 1972 and February 1973 he picked up and murdered six college age girls hitchhiking. He would usually shoot or stab them, then store them in the trunk. Then after his mother was asleep he would bring them in the house and sexualy violate their lifeless bodies. Sometimes he cut off flesh and other times he'd cook and eat parts of the bodies. In September of 1972, he had a follow-up psychological evaluation. After being considered not a threat, he was let go agian. He drove away with the head of a fifteen-year-old girl in the boot of his car. On the day before Easter in 1973, he reached the climax of his murders and possibly killing his main target, his mother. At her bedside while she slept, he bashed in her skull with a hammer and then decapitated her. He cut out her larynx and shredded it through the garbage disposal. Then he invited a friend of his mothers over and killer her in the same manner. After this murder he left on his last car ride as a free man, the drive took him to Pueblo, Colorado. Nobody had been searching for him the whole time he was driving. He was convicted of eight murders after a very detailed confession. As a child Kemper had fantasized about his own execution. Often he would enact his death, by asphyxiation. At his trial, the judge asked him what he thought would be a suitable punishmet. Kempers reply, tortured to death.
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Jack the Ripper
The story begins betweenlate August and early November 1888 in Whitechapel, London. The East End of London witnessed a series of brutal, vicious, and still unsolved murders. There were five victims, all were prostitutes, and all had their throats cut. Four of the victims had been subjected to mutilation.
The first victim was Mary Ann Nichols, nicknamed "Polly". She died on Friday 31 August 1888 in Bucks Row, whitechapel. A report in a newspaper the following morning read: "No murder was ever more furiously and more brutally done."
The second victim, Annie Chapman, nicknamed "Dark Annie", was found on the 8th September 1888. Her body was found viciously slaughtered in Hanbury Street, Whitechapel. She was forty seven years of age.
The next two victims were found on the same day, 30 September 1888. the first body was found at around 1 am by a carter who was going about his business in Berners Street, Whitechapel. The body was of a woman with a deep gash across the throat going from ear to ear. She was identified as Elizabeth Stride, nicknamed "Long Liz".
The second body was found in the south-west corner of Mitre Square, Whitechapel. It was that of Catherine Eddowes. In this case not only had the throat been cut, but the face had been so badly slashed that it was difficult to identify the remains. The abdomen had also been ripped open, and a portion of the intestines were dragged out and hung around her neck.
The last murder was the most gruesome, it is said this was because The Ripper had privacy and lots of time to spare. The murder of Mary Jane Kelly took place on the 9th November 1888 in her room in Miller's Court, Whitechapel.
The victims throat had been cut with a knife almost severing the head from the body. The abdomen was slashed with a knife across and downwards and the liver and entrails removed. Both breasts were cut and removed from the body. The left arm was severed and only remained attached by the skin. The nose was cut off, the forehead skinned, and legs stripped of flesh. The entrails and other portions of the body were missing, but it is reported that the liver was placed between the feet. The flesh from the legs, together with the breasts and nose, were placed on a table. It is also reported that one of the hands of the victim had been pushed into the stomach.
Then as quickly as they had started, the murders stopped, and the controversy that has lasted more than a century begun.
Despite the huge effort put in by Scotland Yard, no reliable evidence was ever found to bring a charge of murder. There have been countless theories as to the identity of Jack The Ripper ranging from the improbable to the impossible.
Perhaps one of the most famous is that of HRH Prince Albert Victor, Duke of Clarance and grandson to Queen Victoria. The Duke has been named in a number of theories to a greater or lesser degree, but perhaps the latest, or shall we say most fashionable, is that of the Duke, Sir William Gull (the royal physician), Walter Sickert (an artist), and John Netley ( a royal coachman), committing the murders to prevent a scandal involving the Duke, a shop girl, and an illegitimate child.
A contrary theory names James Kenneth Stephen, the Duke's tutor at Cambridge. Stephens was a homosexual and it is claimed a pathological hater of women.
Other theories include:
Montigue John Druitt, a failed lawyer who drowned himself in The River Thames in December 1888. The fact that his death coincided with the end of the murders was enough to convince some of his guilt.
Severin Klosowski - alias George Chapman. Chapman, a triple wife poisoner, was arrested on suspicion of the murders. Even though there is little evidence to to suggest that Chapman would so drastically change his M/O, the fact that Chief Inspector Frederick Abberline was to have commented "You've got the Ripper at last" is enough to made Chapman a myth. The fact that the Inspector retracted his comment has made little or no difference.
Dr Rosyln Stephenson - an author and magician, who it is suggested committed the murders as past of a black magic ritual. The mystery surrounding Stephenson deepened when he disappeared in 1904.
Dr Thomas Neill Cream. Cream was a multicide in his own right, and his only link with the Ripper deeds is that he cried out on the scaffold "I am Jack....." His statement was cut short by the rope. Dr cream was however in prison in America in the autumn of 1888.
My own opinion is that Jack The Ripper is none of the above. The conspiracy that surrounds this case is akin to the Kennedy assassination. Due to the lack of forensic science at the time of the killings, and the fact that detection methods were very different from that of today, I believe that a lot of the evidence was lost or corrupted.
We will never know who Jack The Ripper was, but I suspect that the theories will keep on growing. This is a case that will keep the conspiracy junkies busy for another century at least.
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Arthur Shawcross
Arthur Shawcross recieved a second chance at life after being released back into the community for the murder of two small children. Moving from place to place he ended up in Rochester, New York. He married Rose Walley while in Rochester. He also met Clara Neal, who became his mistress. Working nights as a food wholesaler, and living near the center of town, he didn't even have a car. During the day he would be seen riding a brown Schwinn bicycle, a womans model, riding to fishing spots along the Genesee River. Not many people wanted Arthur for a neighbor. In 1972 while in Watertown, New York, an upstate town Shawcross had murdered little ten year old Jack Blake, and eight year old Karen Hill He served 15 years of a 25 year sentence for these crimes. He was released on parole in April of 1987 for those murders. After moving from town to town, chased out by enraged citizens, he found his home in Rochester. People there found him to be friendly, and mild mannered. They didn't know of his dark past. In March of 1988 the body of a 27 year old prostitute was found floating in Salmon Creek. In September another body was found. Over a year later in October of 1989, a third was found, and in early November, a fourth. Later that month a fifth. Police believed the murders were too similar to be the work of different people...a serial killer was loose in the community. Arthur followed the news of the murders closely. He warned his wife and Clara to be careful. He also hung out at the local Dunkin' Donuts to talk with the cops about the case. In late November another body was found by a guy walking his dog. Four days later another body was found. By the end of the year three more bodys were added to the death list. About this time, the Rochester police invited FBI serial killer specialists in to help. They made a profile of the killer: White male, thirties, mobile, trusted by the women who fearlessly got into his car. On January 3, 1990 state troopers in a helicopter spotted a body in the icy Salmon Creek waters. On a bridge overlooking the creek a man leaned out of his car urinating into a pop bottle. The choper alerted some patrol cars and they surrounded the area. Shawcross had just finished a salad when he saw the copter. He climbed back into Clara Neal's Chevy and left toward the mursing home where she worked. As soon as he pulled in, a police car pulled in behind him and he was taken in for questioning. Shawcross didn't fit the profile to well, but when the checked his history their interests changed. They impounded the Chevy, and let Arthur go for lack of evidence. While inspecting the Chevy they found a pink earring that matched on of the earrings found on one of the victims. Shawcross was picked up the next morning. For hours he denied involvement in the crimes. Eventually he confessed to the murders in detail. He had strangled one of his victims for calling him "no better than a faggot"...and saying that he was the Genesee River Killer. He smashed one's face into the car door for saying he was "hopeless", and killed one for claiming to be a virgin. By the time his October trial came he had refused to testify. His defence tried to get a insanity claim. Under hypnosis he spoke as an eleven year old arttie, and even as a reincarnated medieval English cannibal. A few of the prostitutes he killed had had their vaginas cut out, which Arthur had ate a few of. He was sentenced to 10 consecutive terms of 25 years at the Sullivan Correctional Facility. He was convicted of 10 murders, but later admitted to an eleventh. He is still being held at Sullivan with no possibility of parole.
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