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

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  (#1) David Parker Ray

  • Dec. at 62 (1939-2002)

  In 1999, Cynthia Vigil Jaramillo escaped a motor home, running naked into the New Mexico desert after overpowering Cindy Hendy, David Ray Parker's girlfriend. Police followed her directions back to the trailer, where they found a horrifying dungeon built specifically for the purpose of torturing women. After that, Ray became known as the "Toy Box Killer." 

  He would abduct women in rural Elephant Butte, then systematically harm them for weeks or months, with his friends and his girlfriend participating. When the captives first arrived, the women would hear a recording in which Ray would tell them all the horrors they were about to endure, including mutilation, beatings, assaults, and even forced bestiality. It is suspected that he harmed as many as 60 women over a 40-year span.

  In 2002, Ray passed from a heart attack while in police custody. 
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  (#2) Fred West

  • Dec. at 53 (1941-1995)

  Fred and Rosemary West met in 1968 when Fred was 27 and Rosemary was only 15 years old. For approximately the next two decades, the pair abducted and killed women - predominantly nannies and lodgers - in the Gloucestershire area of England. They would then keep their captives in a small room for an extended period of time before causing their deaths via strangulation or suffocation.

  Eventually, the Wests took the life of their own daughter, and this was when they were caught, complete with a videotape they had made of the assault. Authorities believe the couple has at least a dozen victims. Fred took his own life in 1995 while in police custody, and the Winchester Crown Court convicted Rosemary on 10 counts. She received a life sentence.
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  (#3) Murder of Junko Furuta

   In 1988, 17-year-old Junko Furuta began walking home from school. Four males - ranging in ages between 15 and 18 - grabbed her and confined her in one of their homes, even with the knowledge of the boy's parents. Reportedly, Junko was held captive for 44 days. Although many knew of her abduction, the teen was not rescued due to her captors' connection to organized crime in Japan. 

  Junko endured repeated assaults and extensive torture before passing, and her body was recovered from an oil drum in 1989. Those responsible - Shinji Minato, Hiroshi Miyano, Jo Ogura, and Yasushi Watanabe - were arrested and received sentences between 5 and 20 years. After their releases, the offenders were apprehended on unrelated charges and received additional sentences.
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  (#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.
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  (#5) Dennis Rader

  • 78

  Dennis Rader is infamously known as the "BTK Strangler," an acronym which stands for "Bind, Torture, Kill." In Wichita, Kansas, from the mid-1970s to the early 1990s, Rader strangled adults, children, and even a whole family, sometimes in their own homes. Rader often resuscitated his victims after inducing asphyxiation, a process he then repeated. This reportedly gave him immense sexual gratification, especially if they tried to plead with him.

  Following his crimes, the former church president and Boy Scouts leader sent the police mocking letters, goading them to try and catch him. In 2005, following over a decade of silence, authorities apprehended Rader after he sent another letter. He was convicted on 10 capital counts and, as of 2018, is serving out life in prison.
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  (#6) Albert Fish

  • Dec. at 65 (1870-1936)

  Albert Fish, who has many infamous titles, including "The Boogeyman," predominantly preyed on children. In 1910, Fish - a father and husband - reportedly had a romance with a mentally-disabled teen named Thomas Kedden. Fish lured the 19-year-old into a barn where he mutilated Kedden's genitalia. Fish also engaged in self-harm, inserting needles into his abdomen and penis. As a sexual sadist and sadomasochist, Fish derived pleasure from inflicting and receiving pain.

  From 1924 to 1932, Fish targeted children predominantly in the New York area. However, he claimed he "had a child in every state," as he was a traveling painter and often relocating for work. The state convicted Fish of 10-year-old Gracie Budd's death, although it is believed he had at least 100 victims, some of whom he reportedly cannibalized. Fish passed via the electric chair in 1936. 
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  (#7) H. H. Holmes

  • Dec. at 34 (1861-1896)

  An accomplished con man, Dr. H. H. Holmes always found ways to get enough money to get by, and he eventually got enough to build a hotel catering to visitors of Chicago's 1893 World's Fair. This hotel would later become known as "the Murder Castle." During the hotel's construction, Holmes built secret stairways, doors that lead to nowhere, and locks that could seal people inside rooms. Bedrooms were made soundproof, and certain rooms were only accessible by trap doors.

  Once the hotel was done, Holmes would lure in victims as guests and then keep them there. He would leave them sealed in rooms to starve, torture them to death, hang them, and then eventually dissect their bodies and sell the cadavers to the medical community. Following his arrest in 1934, Holmes was sentenced to death via hanging and passed in 1936.

   
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  (#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.
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  (#9) John Bunting

  • 57

  John Bunting - along with Robert Wagner and James Vlassakis - committed a series of grisly crimes that are often called the "bodies-in-barrels" or "Snowtown" murders. In South Australia, the trio took the lives of at least 11 people, then put their bodies in plastic barrels for disposal. Police arrested the men after the discovery of the barrels. The trio targeted predominantly men during their 1992 to 1999 spree.

  However, Bunting tortured the victims prior to their death. He used an assortment of tools, as well as an electric shock machine, to coerce false admissions from victims. It's suspected the assailants harmed men they believed to be either homosexual or pedophilic. In one of South Australia's longest-ever trials, the guilty each received multiple life sentences.
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  (#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. 

   
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  (#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. 
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  (#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. 
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  (#13) Robert Hansen

  • Dec. at 75 (1939-2014)

  From 1971 to 1983, Robert Hansen abducted and assaulted as many as 30 victims near Anchorage, Alaska. He selected exotic dancers or prostitutes to assault but released them with a warning never to tell. However, Hansen abducted 17 other women - with approximate ages ranging from 17 to 41 - and flew them out to the Alaskan wilderness. There, he stripped them naked and told them that they were his prey. 

  Then, Hansen would order the women to run so that he could hunt them down with a favorite hunting knife or big game rifle. It was this practice that was his eventual downfall. In 1983, teen captive Cindy Paulson escaped prior to the flight and managed to contact the police. After his arrest, Hansen received a 461-year prison sentence. In 2014, he passed due to a heart condition while incarcerated. 
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  (#14) John Brennan Crutchley

  • Dec. at 55 (1946-2002)

  Known as the "Vampire Rapist," John Brennan Crutchley was never actually convicted of murder, although he was convicted of both kidnapping and rape. In 1985, a teenage woman was found on the side of the road. When someone stopped to help her, she said that she had been kept at a house and had been repeatedly assaulted.

  According to her account, she had awoken tied to a kitchen countertop, with a video camera watching her. A man assaulted her, then put needles into her arm and began to extract and drink her blood, saying that he was a vampire. He reportedly did this so often that she was missing up to 45% of her blood upon her rescue. 

  Crutchley claimed this was a kinky but consensual sexual encounter. Further investigation showed that he had done this before, and police linked his pattern to many unsolved disappearances. However, investigators were never able to locate any potential victims' bodies and could not charge Crutchley in relation to the believed deaths. In 2002, Crutchley was found asphyxiated in his cell, which has been attributed to a self-inflicted action. 
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  (#15) Elizabeth Báthory

  • Dec. at 54 (1560-1614)

  Elizabeth Báthory is the most prolific female murderer of all time. The Hungarian countess lived from 1560 to 1614 and allegedly took the lives of over 600 people, prior to inflicting medieval torture on many. It's believed that she had a chamber built just to serve her dark desires. Some accounts maintain she would drain the blood from living victims and then bathe in the liquid as an attempt to revive her own beauty. 

  Báthory targeted her own servants as well as peasant girls to use in her sacrificial slayings. In 1609, authorities apprehended Báthory and confined her to a single room for the remainder of her life. The servants who acted as accomplices were executed. 

   
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  (#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. 

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