serial killers

It was beginning to seem like a hoax, a jumbled mess of nonsense characters with no true meaning. But This week, the Zodiac serial killer's infamous "340 Cipher" has finally been cracked. The cipher was one of several sent in a letter to the S.F. Chronicle in November 1969 from the Zodiac, the serial killer who killed five people in the San Francisco Bay Area between 1968 and 1969. He has never been caught. David Oranchak, a 46-year-old web designer from Virginia has been working with a group to crack the code since 2006. In an interview on Friday, he told reporters, "We’ve been sitting on the solution since last Saturday. When I first started looking at the Zodiac ciphers all those years ago, I thought, ‘Oh, I

After nearly two decades, police in Long Island have identified the Long Island serial killer's sixth victim, known until now as Jane Doe #6, using genetic genealogy technology. The victim was Valerie Mack. Mack went missing in 2000. She was 24-years-old and worked as an escort in Philadelphia. Her partial remains were found that same year in a wooded area off Halsey-Manor Road in Manorville. A year later, her dismembered remains were found along Ocean Parkway in Gilgo Beach.

They are calling him the Thai Ted Bundy. 40-year-old wealthy real estate heir Apichai Ongwisit was arrested last week at his Bangkok mansion for the murder of Warinthorn Chaiyachet, Ongwisit’s live-in lover. Now police say hundreds of human bones have been discovered in his estate’s pond. The disappearance of Warinthorn Chaiyachet Warinthorn Chaiyachet had previously submitted a criminal report against the multi-millionaire. When officers arrived at the estate to question her, she could not be found. They began to investigate and were approached by an informant who claimed to have knowledge about crimes Ongwisit had committed. Investigators worked with the informant who told them that Chaiyachet had been murdered by Ongwisit. The informant told police that Ongwisit was extremely jealous. To keep her from going out at night,

This week, Long Island police released new evidence in the decade old Long Island Serial Killer case. The case, also known as the Gilgo Beach killings, has left 11 murders unsolved. The murders began in late 2010 along a lone stretch of highway on Long Island near the Gilgo and Oak Beaches. Most of the victims were escorts from the area. Police have no suspects and few leads. In an effort to stimulate interest in the case, they have released evidence collected nine years ago – a leather belt embossed with the initials “HM” or “WH”. Suffolk County police say the belt did not belong to any of the victims and they have reason to believe the belt was "handled" by an unknown suspect. Commissioner Geraldine Hart said

Swedish medium Olof Jonsson claimed a special connection with people. When near a person, he maintained he could tell their life story, their likes and dislikes, and even their thoughts. He said he could touch a person and detect feelings about themselves and other people. He even asserted he could touch an object and establish the identity of people who touched it before him. Thus in 1951, Swedish police sought his help in finding a killer. It was the first, last, and only time the Swedish police used a psychic medium to assist with an investigation. The murder of John Allan Nilsson The victim was John Allan Nilsson. Nilsson’s home had been nearly burned to the ground. Police found the cause to be arson and determined that

In late 1993 and early 1994, the bodies of 31-year-old Rita Tangredi and 20-year-old Colleen McNamee were found nine-miles apart. Both had been strangled and bludgeoned to death. DNA samples were taken from the bodies and the cases remained cold for over ten years – until an uninvolved man’s misdemeanor conviction steered investigators toward the killer.  Today, investigators see similarities between the murders and the decades-old Long Island (Gilgo Beach) serial killer case. The deaths of Rita Tangredi and Colleen McNamee Colleen McNamee was last seen January 5, 1994, getting into a small blue car in front of the Blue Dawn Diner in Islandia, New York. Rita Tangredi was last seen hitchhiking November 2, 1993, on Montauk Highway, east of County Road 101, in East Patchogue, New

The discovery of a diary signed “Jack the Ripper” The journal, dubbed the Maybrick diary, surfaced in 1992 when Michael Barrett, an unemployed former Liverpool scrap metal dealer, said the diary had been given to him by a friend, Tony Devereux. According to Barrett, Devereux refused to reveal where the diary came from or how he got it. The diary was signed, "Jack the Ripper". Devereux died a few months after turning over the diary to Barrett. The discovery was complicated by Barrett’s wife Ann, who claimed to know where the diary came from. She said the diary had been in her family for as long as she could remember. She explained that she had asked Devereux to give the diary to her husband as literary inspiration

John Wayne Gacy (aka The Clown Killer) was one of America’s most prolific serial killers. The number of Gacy victims, young boys he raped and murdered before burying them under his home, is unknown but believed to number thirty-nine or more. This week, a previously unidentified victim has been identified through the persistent efforts of the victim’s family. James Byron Haakenson was 16 years old when he left St. Paul, Minnesota for Chicago. He called his mother from Chicago on August 5, 1976 to let her know that he was okay.  Haakenson’s family has long suspected he was a victim of John Wayne Gacy.  In 1979, Haakenson’s mother visited the police to ask if her son was among the bodies found under Gacy's home. The case

Glen Edward Rogers, known as The Cross Country Killer or The Casanova Killer, was placed on the FBI’s Most Wanted list after a roaming crime spree on September 28, 1995. He was captured, tried, and convicted of two murders. He claims he killed 68 more including the unsolved murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman which OJ Simpson was tried and acquitted for. Glen Edward Rogers shows a proclivity for violence Rogers has never been a stranger to trouble. He was kicked out of high school when he was just 16 years old. After the expulsion, his 14-year-old girlfriend (Deborah Ann Nix) became pregnant from another boy. Despite the betrayal, Rogers married Deborah, accepting the bastard child as his own. Two years later Nix filed for

Who was Sawney Bean? Alexander “Sawney” Bean was born in the 14th century in East Lothian, Scotland, about ten miles from Edinburgh. His father supported the family through yardwork, ditch digging, and hedging. Sawney tried his hand at yardwork but found the amount of effort required to be distasteful. He preferred an easier trade, one that took advantage of others with little effort required. When Sawney reached adulthood, he left home with a local woman (sometimes identified as Black Agnes Douglas) and moved to Bennane Head, Scotland, on the southwest coast of Scotland. At Benane Head, the Beans lived in a cave, which was said to be about 200 yards deep. The entrance to the grotto was covered with water during high tide and thus the abode,

Beginning in 1983, a series of crimes occurred in Vienna, Austria that Chancellor Franz Vranitzky called “the most brutal and gruesome crime in Austria’s history”. The crimes took place within the walls of the Lainz General Hospital and would prove so horrifying, the four nurses who committed them would come to be known as The Angels of Death. Together, for seven years between 1983 and 1989, they killed scores of people. Waltraud Wagner kills 77-year-old woman to “ease her pain” 23-year-old Waltraud Wagner worked the graveyard shift at Lainz General Hospital, a picturesque facility fixed into the side of a hill next to the Vienna Woods. With over 2,000 staff members watching over patients, Lainz was the fourth largest medical facility in Vienna and considered one of

Robert Pickton – pig farm serial killer By all accounts, the owner of the Pickton pig farm, Robert Pickton, was an odd duck - quiet, hard to strike up a conversation with, and nervously fearful of others. Born with the umbilical cord wrapped around his neck, his mother recognized at an early age that something was not right with Robert. As a result, he was marginalized by society, shunned by women, and dominated by his younger brother, David. A bartender at a venue Robert frequented said he was much less of a man than he pretended to be. “He was a wannabe, you know, he wanted to be a biker, a Hells Angel, a mean leather guy. But everyone knew he was a weasel, a wannabe. I

Sierah Joughin disappears 20-year-old Sierah Joughin was riding her bike with her boyfriend on Tuesday, July 19, when the two parted ways near Evergreen High School in Metamora, Ohio. They continued texting when suddenly, text message from Joughin just stopped. By evening, it was clear that something had happened to Joughin. Law enforcement searched the area and discovered her purple bicycle near where she was last seen. They also found signs of a struggle. A suspect is arrested Three days later, on Friday July 22, her body was discovered in a shallow grave along County Road 7, not far from where her bicycle was found. That same day, 57-year-old James Worley of Delta, Ohio was arrested on abduction charges. He had plead guilty to an eerily similar abduction

Authorities in Phoenix today admitted what many have suspected for quite some time – an active serial killer, dubbed the Serial Street Shooter (or Monster of Maryvale), is leaving a bloody trail across Phoenix, Arizona. Thus far, several killings have been tied to the shooter. The spate of shootings began on March 17, 2016, when a 16-year-old boy was gunned down while walking along the street late at night. The next night, 21-year-old Diego Verdugo-Sanchez was shot while visiting his fiancée’s family. The shootings were followed by two killings in April and two more in June. 55-year-old Krystal Annette White was found dead of a gunshot wound on April 19. 32-year-old Horacio Pena was killed on June 3 after returning home from work. 19-year-old Manuel Castro Garcia was

He was originally known by two names, the East Area Rapist (EAR) and the Original Night Stalker (ONS).  Once police realized the two were one and the same person, the Golden State Killer moniker took hold (often referred to as EAR/ONS or EARONS by case researchers). Altogether, he is believed to have burglarized more than 120 California homes, raped between 45-50 women, and slain 10-12 people during the years between 1976 and 1986. Today, police are no closer to capturing the man who has eluded them for more than four decades. The first attack defines a serial rapist’s modus operandi (June 1976) The East Area Rapist's first known attack occurred on a Friday, June 18, 1976. The assailant snuck into the Paseo Drive home of a 23-year-old