Random Darkest, Most Upsetting Interviews With Serial Killers (10 items)

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  (#4) Richard Ramirez

  • Dec. at 53 (1960-2013)

  Richard Ramirez, better known as “the Night Stalker,” assaulted and murdered more than 15 people between June 1984 and August 1985, largely in the San Francisco and Los Angeles areas. After a year of terrorizing the California coast, Ramirez was famously captured after being chased down by dozens of civilians when someone recognized him exiting an East Los Angeles convenience store.

  This jailhouse interview, conducted by Mike Watkiss, focuses largely on Ramirez's obsession with the concept and practice of evil. The conversation ranges from a philosophical discussion of evil to Ramirez's take on the women who became obsessed with him after his imprisonment (including one of the jurors in his trial) and even into Ramirez's own personal politics.

  In the interview, Ramirez states, “Serial killers do what governments do on a large one. They are a product of the times, and this is a bloodthirsty one.” Ramirez also denied feeling any "normal" human emotions. When Watkiss asks him if he was evil, Ramirez smirks and replies, “We are all evil in some form or another, are we not?”

  Ramirez was sentenced to death in 1989 but died in prison on June 7, 2013, while on Death Row.
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  (#10) Gary Ridgway

  • 74

  Gary Ridgway became known as "the Green River Killer" after the Washington River, where his first strangulation victims were found. His typical MO involved picking up women on the road, earning their trust, sexually assaulting them, strangling them with his bare hands or ligatures, then disposing of their bodies throughout the forested areas of Kings County, WA.

  These murders continued from the 1980s into the early 1990s, and Ridgway is thought to have claimed the lives of 70 to 90 women, many of them runaways and sex workers. Ridgway confessed to his crimes but conceded that he killed so frequently, he lost count of the total.

  In this interview, Ridgway details his ploy of using a photo of his son to win his victims' sympathy and trust. He also discusses an incident in which he picked up a victim with his son in the car. "I killed her," he said. "And I'm real sure my son didn't see it."
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  (#9) Issei Sagawa

  • 74

  Issei Sagawa became something of a celebrity in his native Japan in 1981 after killing and eating Dutch exchange student Renee Hartevelt. Sagawa reportedly invited Hartevelt to his Paris apartment to read and study poetry, then shot her in the neck, committed necrophilia, and proceeded to spend two days cannibalizing her body.

  Sagawa, who was born prematurely and lived with extensive health issues, later claimed he had hoped by eating Hartevelt, he would absorb some of her “healthy energy.”

  Initially imprisoned in France, Sagawa was later extradited to Japan, where his crime became the subject of intense public fascination. In the documentary Cannibal Superstar, which aired in Scandinavia in the 1980s, Sagawa goes into extensive detail about Hartevelt's murder and his lifelong fascination with cannibalism.

  Sagawa lived as a free man for decades until he died at the age of 73 on November 24, 2022.
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  (#8) Dennis Rader

  • 78

  Dennis Lynn Rader of Wichita, KS, also known as the "BTK Killer" (which stands for “Bind, Torture, Kill”), murdered 10 people between 1974 and 1991. During this time, Rader sent taunting messages to the local police, boasting about his crimes and demanding media attention. Although his last murder reportedly took place in 1991, Rader wasn't captured until 2005, after he had resumed sending out letters as BTK.

  Ultimately, Rader's need for police and media attention led to his arrest. Rader sent a floppy disk to police, believing they couldn't use it to trace his identity; however, police were able to do so easily. In fact, police knew Rader had written the letter on the floppy disk using a computer at the church he attended.

  Though this interview Rader gave to NBC News provides few revelations, it does give the viewer some insight into his motives: For example, Rader states in reference to the origins of his murders, "I actually think I may be possessed with demons. I was dropped on my head as a kid."

  He also describes his meticulous preparations for the murders, which often involved stalking his victims, then waiting for them in their own homes. Rader conceded, upon his capture, that he had planned to begin killing again and had already started stalking his next victim.
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  (#6) David Berkowitz

  • 70

  From 1976 to 1977, David Berkowitz murdered six people. He later claimed he did so while being controlled by Satan, and he eventually dubbed himself the “Son of Sam.” The name referenced his neighbor, Sam Carr, whose dog Berkowitz believed was possessed by a demon that instructed Berkowitz to kill.

  Berkowitz was later diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic, and some members of law enforcement suspected that other members of the Satanic cult Berkowitz belonged to were responsible for the Son of Sam shootings. That said, Berkowitz received six life sentences for the murders.

  In this interview, Berkowitz recounts his past contract with the devil and his Satanic rituals, claiming all are entirely behind him. He insists he's a changed person, saying, "My job was to be a soldier for the devil and to bring destruction. Ultimately that good would become of it, and that would help bring about the apocalypse, the end of the world, so God would establish his kingdom of peace."

  Berkowitz is still alive today and resides in Sullivan Correctional Facility in Fallsburg, NY. He identifies as a born-again Christian and maintains his own website through a third-party source, as he notes he's not allowed access to a computer.

  In 2006, Berkowitz released a memoir titled Son of Hope: The Prison Journals of David Berkowitz. Berkowtiz claimed he received no money from its publication.
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  (#5) Ted Bundy

  • Dec. at 42 (1946-1989)

  Throughout the 1970s, Ted Bundy murdered at least 20 women and, in some cases, committed necrophilia. Despite his crimes' inhumane nature, Bundy described himself as “essentially a normal person” who kept a dark secret.

  Bundy spoke in multiple interviews about being raised in a close-knit Christian household, and friends and family all found him extremely personable. In the aftermath of his capture, Bundy largely blamed his intense obsession with violent pornography as the cause of the crimes he committed.

  In Bundy's final interview, conducted just one day before his January 24, 1989, execution, he spoke about his pornography addiction with psychologist Dr. James Dobson, a close friend of former President George W. Bush and the founder of the influential Focus on the Family political activism organization.

  During the discussion, Bundy suggests that "pornography can reach out and snatch a kid out of any house today. It snatched me out of my home 20, 30 years ago."

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