Random Killers Who Deliberately Prolonged Their Victims' Suffering (16 items)

• 

  (#4) Leonard Lake and Charles Ng

  In 1985, San Francisco police responded to a report of shoplifting, and the suspect was Charles Ng. When Leonard Lake arrived to pay for the stolen item, police found that Lake was in possession of an illegal weapon as well as a fraudulent ID. There were also bloodstains in his car. This lead police to Lake's cabin and bunker in the Sierra Nevada foothills, where they uncovered "a mass graveyard."

  Investigators recovered videotapes and a diary from the remote Northern California cabin, depicting crimes the ex-marines committed - including the deaths of entire families as well as repeated assaults on women. Authorities believe the pair is responsible for over two dozen deaths between 1983 and 1985. Lake took his life while in police custody. Ng fled to Canada but was later apprehended. He was then convicted of 11 capital counts and, as of 2018, is on death row at San Quentin State Prison.
• 

  (#10) Lawrence Bittaker and Roy Norris

  • 83

  Another deadly pair, Lawrence Bittaker and Roy Norris - also known as the "Tool Box Killers," took the lives of at least five teenage girls. Over a period of five months in 1979, they prowled Southern California, picking up girls between 13 and 18 and pulling them into their van. Then they would assault and torture their victims with items they'd picked up at the hardware store.

  They also recorded their victims' deaths, evidence that was used against them during their trial. When Norris revealed the duo's actions to an old ex-con friend, the police subsequently became aware and apprehended Bittaker and Norris in November 1979. Bittaker received a capital punishment sentence and, as of 2018, remains in San Quentin State Prison. Norris was sentenced to life in prison. 

   
• 

  (#12) Robert Berdella

  • Dec. at 43 (1949-1992)

  Robert Berdella, also known as the "Butcher of Kansas City," commenced his notorious 2-year spree in 1984. It started when Berdella drugged his 19-year-old acquaintance, Jerry Howell, and dragged him into the basement of his Missouri home. Berdella repeatedly assaulted and tortured Howell before asphyxiating him. It was the beginning of a pattern, and after that, Berdella began to lure workmen or male sex workers to his basement.

  By 1988, Berdella had done this to six different men, ranging in ages from 19 to 25. He displayed some of their skulls as trophies and kept Polaroids documenting his acts. But on March 1988, one victim escaped, and Berdella was caught. In 1992, he passed from a heart attack while incarcerated. 
• 

  (#16) Robert Ben Rhoades

  Infamously known as "The Truck Stop Killer," Robert Ben Rhoades may have killed more than 50 women across the United States, though authorities have confirmed only 3. He confessed to picking up his victims - mostly hitchhikers and sex workers - in his truck, then harming them in his mobile torture chamber over days or weeks before dumping their bodies.

  He alleged to doing so for over 15 years, and police suspect he assaulted dozens between 1975 and 1990. It's believed he was abducting approximately three women per month.

  His last known murder victim was 14-year-old Regina Kay Walters. Rhoades snapped pictures of his victims right before he took their lives, and this was part of what helped police catch him in 1990. He was sentenced to life without parole and has been extradited to Ohio and Texas to face charges related to similar crimes. 
• 

  (#11) Dean Corll

  • Dec. at 33 (1939-1973)

  Dean Corrl of Texas is often known as the "Candy Man" or the "Pied Piper" because he would give free candy to children. In the early 1970s, Corll lured young teens with the promise of a free ride or a party. Once they climbed into his van, he would abduct them. Back at his house, he tied his victims to a plywood "torture-board." 

  Corll particularly liked to prey on boys, and he would assault them for days. With help from his teen accomplices - David Owen Brooks and Elmer Wayne Henley, Jr. - Corll harmed at least 28 males between 1970 and 1973. Then, Henley fatally shot Corll in 1973. Houston Police subsequently apprehended the accomplices - who later each received 99-year sentences - and uncovered the shed where Corll hid his victims' remains. 
• 

  (#8) Delphine LaLaurie

  • Dec. at 67 (1775-1842)

  Madame Delphine LaLaurie lived in New Orleans around the 1830s, and she was known for being a cruel and "barbarous" slave owner. She would take her slaves and chain them to the walls in her house where she reportedly conducted physical torture. Then, she would eventually disembowel her victims to make them pass slowly.

  She allegedly did all this in an attic room of her house. When a fire erupted in 1934, responders found evidence LaLaurie had been enacting abuse for a long time in her home. No one is sure exactly when LaLaurie passed or where she is buried, though it may have been in either 1842 or 1849.

New Random Displays    Display All By Ranking