Curated playlist

21st-century American murderers

Nikolas CruzNikolas Cruz told a psychologist that he chose Valentine's Day for his attack because he believed no one loved him. On the 14th of February 2018, Cruz walked into Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, where he had once been a student, and…
Derek ChauvinDerek Michael Chauvin joined the Minneapolis Police Department in 2001, and on the 25th of May 2020 he became one of the most scrutinized defendants in the world. That day he was among four officers who arrested George Floyd, a 46-year-old…
Dzhokhar TsarnaevDzhokhar Tsarnaev and his older brother Tamerlan planted two pressure cooker bombs at the 117th Boston Marathon. The bombs exploded at 2:49 in the afternoon on the 15th of April 2013, Patriots' Day. One had been placed at the finish line,…
Gypsy-Rose BlanchardGypsy Rose Blanchard was, for most of her life, the daughter a whole Missouri town believed to be gravely ill. When she disappeared from her home in Springfield, neighbors feared for a young woman who relied on a wheelchair, oxygen tanks…
Charles CullenCharles Cullen told detectives that he had killed as many as 40 patients, and that figure marks only the beginning of the uncertainty around him. Investigators have confirmed at least 29 of those deaths. Researchers who studied his career…
Jared Lee LoughnerAt 2:05 on the morning of the 8th of January 2011, Jared Lee Loughner left a voicemail for a friend. "Hey man, it's Jared. Me and you had good times. Peace out. Later." The message was short and casual. Within hours, a shooting in the…
Ricky RodriguezRicky Rodriguez sat down in Tucson, Arizona, on the 7th of January 2005 and recorded a videotape. He spoke about revenge. He said that if he never found the person he was hunting, someone else would "pick up the torch". Within two days,…
Omar MateenAt about 2:22 in the morning on the 12th of June 2016, a man inside the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida, dialed 911. He was Omar Mateen. He told the dispatcher he was a soldier and pledged his loyalty to the leader of the Islamic…
Dylann RoofDylann Storm Roof, born on the 3rd of April 1994, is an American white supremacist and neo-Nazi who carried out the Charleston church shooting. On the evening of the 17th of June 2015, a routine Bible study was under way at Emanuel African…
Stephen PaddockStephen Paddock spent the night of the 1st of October 2017 in a hotel room above a crowd of about 22,000 people. They had gathered for a country music festival on the Las Vegas Strip. By the end of that night, 60 of them were dead and…
Gary HiltonGary Michael Hilton, born in 1946, earned the nickname The National Forest Serial Killer because every one of his four known murders took place inside a national forest. Those killings came between 2007 and 2008 and stretched across three…
Kermit GosnellKermit Gosnell's West Philadelphia clinic was raided on the 18th of February 2010, when investigators arrived at 3801 Lancaster Avenue with a search warrant. Gosnell was a doctor who had practiced in the city for decades. The agents were…
Robert DurstOn the 30th of November 2001, Robert Durst was caught inside a Wegmans supermarket in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. He was trying to steal Band-Aids, a newspaper and a chicken salad sandwich. In his pocket he had $500 in cash. Durst, an…
James Holmes (mass murderer)James Eagan Holmes, an American born in 1987, made a phone call to a mental health crisis hotline in the moments before he carried out the 2012 Aurora theater shooting. By his own account, he hoped someone might talk him out of it at the…
Robert William FisherRobert William Fisher is an American fugitive, wanted for allegedly killing his wife and two children in Scottsdale, Arizona. At 8:42 in the morning on the 10th of April 2001, the family's house exploded. Neighbors grabbed garden hoses…
Pam HuppPam Hupp's first recorded words to police after a fatal shooting in her own home were a question about cameras. At the O'Fallon Police Department in August 2016, she asked, "Is this going to be filmed? Because I always appear on the news…
Joseph Edward DuncanJoseph Edward Duncan III was recognized by strangers in a Denny's restaurant in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, in the early morning of the 2nd of July 2005. A waitress, a manager and two customers noticed a girl sitting with a man none of them…