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Curated playlist

Serial killers who died in prison custody

  • Lawrence Bittaker and Roy NorrisLawrence Bittaker and Roy Norris, two men later known as the Tool Box Killers, kidnapped five teenage girls in Southern California during 1979. None of the five survived. Everything happened within a span of just five months. The nickname…
  • Jerry BrudosJerry Brudos asked a young woman a question that she would never forget. She was a college student who had reluctantly gone out with him, and the evening had been uncomfortable for both of them. Partway through, he had told her to think of…
  • Rodney AlcalaRodney Alcala walked onto the set of the television game show The Dating Game in 1978, and host Jim Lange introduced him as a successful photographer. Lange promised that between takes he might be found skydiving or motorcycling. The…
  • Richard RamirezRichard Ramirez was an American burglar, sex offender and serial killer who terrorized Los Angeles and the San Francisco Bay Area. A California judge, upholding nineteen death sentences against him, said his deeds showed "cruelty,…
  • Peter SutcliffePeter William Sutcliffe was questioned by police nine times during a five-year hunt for the killer the press called the Yorkshire Ripper, and each time he was let go. He was a heavy goods vehicle driver from Bradford, in the north of…
  • Robert HansenBehind the headboard of a bed in an Anchorage home, investigators found an aeronautical chart marked with thirty-seven handwritten x symbols. The home belonged to Robert Hansen, a baker nicknamed the Butcher Baker. Between 1971 and 1983 he…
  • Ivan MilatOn the 19th of September 1992, two runners were orienteering through Belanglo State Forest in New South Wales when they came across a concealed corpse. Nothing about the scene announced a larger crime. The forest looked like any other…
  • 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…
  • Elizabeth BáthoryElizabeth Báthory spent the evening of the 20th of August 1614 under guard in a castle, complaining that her hands were cold. Her bodyguard answered, "It's nothing, mistress. Just go lie down." She went to sleep and was found dead the next…
  • Henry Lee LucasHenry Lee Lucas, later nicknamed The Confession Killer, sat in a Texas jail in 1983 and wrote a note to the local sheriff. "I have killed for the past 10 years and no one will believe me," it began. "I cannot go on doing this. I also…
  • Robert Black (serial killer)Robert Black, a Scottish van driver who delivered posters across Britain, was the quarry in a manhunt that its own commander called the biggest crime investigation in United Kingdom history. Detective Hector Clark told a jury in 1994: "I…
  • Grim SleeperLonnie David Franklin Jr., known as the Grim Sleeper, was responsible for at least ten murders and one attempted murder in Los Angeles between 1984 and 2007. His nickname came from an absence. Between 1988 and 2002, investigators saw no…
  • Samuel LittleSamuel Little, born Samuel McDowell, told investigators that he had committed 93 murders between 1970 and 2005. Courts convicted him of eight. The FBI's Violent Criminal Apprehension Program has confirmed his involvement in at least 60 of…
  • Luis GaravitoLuis Alfredo Garavito Cubillos was sentenced to 1,853 years and 9 days in prison, the longest term ever handed down in Colombia. He was born on the 25th of January 1957 and died on the 12th of October 2023. Colombians called him La Bestia,…
  • Mariam SoulakiotisAbbess Mariam Soulakiotis led a convent in the pine-covered hills near Keratea, Greece, and on the night of the 4th of December 1950 more than eighty-five police officers closed in on it. They brought a deputy prosecutor, a judge and a…
  • 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…

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