The 5 Biggest Serial Killer Manhunts In Modern History | World's Most Evil Killers | Absolute Crime

foreign 2010 one man declared war on the northumbria police force a chance because I am broke for officers now after being released from prison 37 year old Raul moat shot his ex-girlfriend killed her new partner and critically injured a police officer shooting him at point-blank range what rang the 999 system again and just basically asked a Thunderbird Place do you believe me now I've just done one of you guys the search for Raul moat had become the biggest news story in the country people were following every move of this and during that week of the Manhunt people had their televisions and their radios switched on Round the Clock after a dramatic standoff with police aired live on British television Mo turned the shotgun on himself and pull the trigger he wanted to be iconic he wanted to be Infamous he wanted to go out with a bang and not whimper in just seven days Raul moat had edged his name in history as one of the world's most evil killers [Music] [Music] it was a new story that gripped the nation in the early hours of Saturday the 10th of July 2010 37 year old Raul mote shot himself after a six-hour standoff with northumbria police one of the biggest manhunts in UK history had come to a dramatic end moat had been on the run for seven days after critically injuring his former girlfriend and killing her new boyfriend he'd gone on to declare war on the police and shot a uniformed officer moat was armed full of rage and extremely dangerous Jim Napier was the senior investigating officer at northumbria police it was clear that his intention was wider than just targeting his ex-girlfriend and her new boyfriend he was in his words no Target in police officers therefore he was clearly the risk and the threat had gone up quite significantly more armed officers had to be brought to the area to support the hunt to find an arrest more because that's all we ever wanted to do was find and arrest him and bring it with Justice he's making a lot of threats he's saying this is it you've taken my life I'm going to take yours it's this real Vendetta against the police he's basically saying I'm doing this because I'm entitled to you better take me seriously former Sky News anchor Jeremy Thompson was following the story as it unfolded it was a July day the start of summer and not a lot of other stories around so one story can suddenly take hold and dominate the news agenda so without much else around every news outfit in the country sent their best resources up to the Newcastle area to find out more about this story and to find out more about the man that the police believe was behind it all Rao mode and this killer Story begins in 1973. Raul moat was born on the 17th of June in gateshead in the northeast of England he was raised largely by his grandmother his mother had some mental health issues but she lived in the local area so so he did have some contact with her but it wasn't anything really out of the ordinary a lot of families have to cope with that kind of thing during the 1970s and 80s the northeast of England was an area in economic decline its traditional heavy Industries such as ship building and Mining were phased out and many men lost their jobs it wasn't a particularly economically prosperous area so it was always going to be a challenge for Mo to find his way in the world as a man many teenagers go through a lot of changes particularly at momentous points in their teenage years when moat was 16 he left school and there was some changes in him around about that time so he became quite fixated on bodybuilding and this is something that you often find with young working-class Lads in an area where the prospects of those those traditional kind of tough men's jobs are few and far between they looked at other ways to to become men to make themselves visibly masculine and I think that was what Mo was doing when you see the results then in anything you you get more oh well this is working so then he wanted more and more and then he sort of got into steroids it was clear that Mozart had some serious psychiatric problems growing up and he'd obviously decided to express himself as the big fella around town it was six foot three 17 Stone and liked this idea of being a large well-built muscle bodybuilder and he clearly used a lot of steroids and people who were close to him talk time and time again about just what a terrible temporary got mate was somebody who has what I would describe as poor behavioral control so somebody who flies off the handle quite easily somebody who's quite readily aggravated and if you throw steroids into the mix you you get what people often refer to as Roid Rage you know a real inability to control your temper and it increases the levels of testosterone in the body so when somebody has a predilection towards aggression and then you add that on top of it you've got a really toxic mix moat had found work as a tree surgeon and his physical appearance came in handy in his other role as a nightclub dormant by 2005 the 32 year old was caught by the police carrying a knuckle duster and a samurai sword he'd Fallen foul of the law on numerous occasions he was known as a police for incidents of domestic abuse he had a number of partners with which he had trouble relationships when the police were involved it had arrests for generally speaking low-level violence by 2010 37 year old moat had fathered several children with different partners his latest girlfriend Samantha was 15 years his Junior they'd been in an on and off relationship for six years and had a daughter together well the relationship between Samantha and mo was an incredibly controlling one it's one that I classify as coercively controlling so it might believe that Samantha was his possession he was in control he decided what happened and she basically had to suck it up and get on with it so it was his rules everything was was focused around him and he would control everything he would control her movements what she could buy it could not buy what she did you know so who she talks on the phone so obviously Samantha would probably feel like completely controlled she didn't have the right to do anything you often find in relationships like this women are kind of treading on eggshells trying not to upset their abusive partner but at the same time it's very very difficult for them to leave often looking from the outside we say well why are you staying in this relationship and often it's to keep themselves safe because they know that if they were to leave they put themselves in quite a significant amount of danger Samantha was desperate to leave Raoul mode and in the spring of 2010 a chance presented itself moat was convicted of assaulting a family member and sentenced to 18 weeks in Durham prison something that only aggravated him further I am not a psychologist but it was clear to me that Mo was a bit of a psychopath he was always willing to blame others for everything that he did wrong everybody else was responsible the social services were wrong his legal team were wrong because they gave him bad advice and the police were picking on him he's always laying the blame at somebody else's door because he doesn't think that he can do anything wrong and That's a classic trait of somebody who's narcissistic Ral mode was locked away but he was a man holding a grudge and wanted revenge for the past six years he'd been in an on and off relationship with his 22 year old girlfriend Samantha thank you might be in prison had a significant impact on his relationship with Samantha for a man light mode it's very very important to be in control all of the time especially in terms of your personal relationships when he's removed from that domestic picture he has to try really hard to to keep control so he's on the phone to Samantha quite a lot he has one of his friends essentially stalking her and checking what she's up to was in prison Samantha did keep in contact with him she had a daughter to him and she kept in touch with him for the sake of that child Samantha tried to convince moat over the phone that it was over but any talk of Separation fell on deaf ears she was probably scared of him you'd be scared if you have you know a man that big saying I am the man and if you don't do what I tell you you know you're gonna get a herds or something so she didn't know how to escape so him being put in prison to her was like no something helped her out here no she finally was away from him but the problem was Sam knew he was coming back in his mind the relationship wasn't over in his mind they were going to reconcile but she didn't have that plan I at all and and the sort of straw that appears to have broken the camel's back was her announced in the fact that she was in a new relationship with Christopher Brown Christopher a 29 year old karate instructor originally from Berkshire moved to Newcastle in October 2009. he met Samantha in June 2010 whilst moat was still in prison Christopher's mother Sally was unaware of their relationship as far as I know Sam and Christopher only met each other [Music] a couple of weeks they hadn't been going out with each other for very long at all Christopher went up to Newcastle he said he's going for the weekend I said okay fine and then I got a phone call sorted out a few days later and he said well mum I've got chance to work here with karate I'm gonna stay I didn't like it but okay fine and that was his you seemed to settle down he loved what he was doing Samantha had told moat that her new boyfriend was a police officer Christopher was never a police officer never he was a quality instructor um never even thought of joining the place Force so I think she was just trying to back Mo off so I think that must be the only reason she told him that she lied to her because she was afraid of malt and she knew that when he came out he would have gone to her aunt to the new boyfriend so she started saying that he was a police officer because that wouldn't intimidate people she also said that he was a karate instructor but black belt in karate periods of Separation are a really high risk time for people who've just come out of an abusive relationship because the abuser has essentially lost control at this point in time the victim has taken some power back and and has some some Authority now over their own lives and the abuser hates that and they're going to resort to quite drastic measures to get that control back so the only thing he had to look forward to is going back to Sam to the person he loved and then she took that away from him right and that was just like completely bring his anger to surface like crazy there's no doubt at all that that those conversations while mote was in Durham prison with a blue touch papers that ignited the bonfire that became rail moat moat's anger was uncontrollable he decided he was going to kill Christopher Brown as soon as he got out of jail he Enlisted the help of a friend Carl Ness [Music] Mort started planning this while it was in prison he recruited or used coldness to keep an eye on Samantha and do was if what we would call surveillance by watching a house seeing who comes and goes identifying vehicles and try and identify who the new boyfriend was on Thursday the 1st of July 2010 37 year old Raul moat was released from prison he didn't waste any time it's alleged that Carl Ness had found a shotgun for him to use they were in much more planned this was quite meticulous he took steps to try and identify the the karate instructor I.E Christopher by making phone calls to to Health Centers to karate clubs to um to the extent they actually drove around the roots that they took on the field night they actually had a a dry run if you like on the Thursday night on Friday the 2nd of July staff at Durham prison worn northumbria police that moat might pose a risk to Samantha but unfortunately the information wasn't acted upon the same day moat was captured on CCTV in Newcastle sporting a Mohican hairstyle later that night Carl Nest drove moat to nearby gateshead where Samantha and Christopher were at a house party [Music] and what was dropped off quite near the address that Samantha and Christopher were visiting and he was able to walk in there and hide himself underneath the front window next to the front door where he was able to listen because it was a July night the window was open it was warm you could hear people talking and saying things and he picks up on things that were being said about him or things that he perceived to be about him and he started texting his friend Ness and and expressing his anger and frustration at what he was hearing this is going on it's really annoying me he's essentially venting and this is something that you see narcissistic people do quite a lot they want an audience for their complaints and their rants they want validation they want other people to agree with them and say yeah you're completely reasonable laying weight outside the house around about 2 30 in the morning Samantha and Christopher to leave as they come out the front door more stood up he's clearly armed with a gun and and pretty much without one and he I mean it was short Christopher Christopher started trying to run away and he just tried to run across the grass area he was shot again which was enough to make him fall more than calmly walked over reloaded his gun in front of witnesses and then shot him a third time causing his death was nothing more than a cold and calculated assassination it was a public execution motard used a sewn off shotgun to shoot Christopher Brown at Point Blank Range certainly with a close range discharge of a shotgun even with small pellets you're going to get a large mass going into the body that's going to lacerate major organs major blood vessels very likely to be fatal to create maximum damage motor loaded his shotgun with lead fishing weights they're bigger the heavier they do more damage they're going to make those discharges more lethal Christopher had no chance of survival but amidst the horror unfolding in front of her very eyes Samantha had managed to run back into the house to seek Refuge after it shot Chris he then turned around and walked towards the house that they had been in he could clearly see that Samantha was in the sitting room there and he fired a shot at Samantha which went through the window and struck on the abdomen causing her some critical injuries so it fatally wounded one victim he'd critically injured a second victim in any calmly walked away from the scene boats had no idea whether he'd killed Samantha or not well most people when they commit a murder they are absolutely horrified at what they've done they can't quite believe that the magnitude of it they often go into a State of Shock and literally don't know what they're doing afterwards but moat was very calm he was very calculated he phoned his friend he said I'm full of beans and the reason for that was because he thought he'd restored the natural order of things he felt entitled to carry out those shootings motored casually left the scene armed with his shotgun for him it seemed to have been a bit like mission accomplished and and he seemed quite calm and pleased with himself but he would not remain calm for long Raul moat had killed Christopher Brown and critically injured Samantha in front of other party guests the police were searching for the 37 year old but he was one step ahead moat had left a letter with a friend to deliver to detectives later in the day it warned the police would pay for what they've done he had a 49-page letter that he'd written outlining his complaints about various things and you often see this with people who are narcissistic when they have a complaint when they're angry about something it's not enough for them to just make a concise statement and sum it up neatly they will go on and on and on and in these these statements and these letters they'll be saying you know this is this is all about victimizing me I'm the victim here everybody's out to get me and it goes on it's embellished it's exaggerated he's a classic narcissist the same day 300 miles away in Berkshire uniformed officers paid a visit to Sally Brown the mother of murdered 29 year old karate instructor Christopher was our local police that came out to me they just said that they'd been an incident and that Christopher was dead but then I'm I had the flam family liaison officer from Newcastle on the phone and they didn't tell me too much over the phone I think it was a case of I wasn't listening anyway all I heard was your son's dead that was it it's you seem to sort of cut everything else off and when you when you're told something oh this you I think your body and your brain just goes into um how could I describe it you're hearing people they're talking to you and at the time I was at home I was listening to these people on the phone and I was talking to the police officers at the house with me but I could also hear my daughter screaming in the background she's absolutely gone hysterical he was a lad he was a typical little boy he was just very happy laughing all the time and he would help anybody if he could he wouldn't let anyone get hurt it's just a nice land but then I'm biased I suppose because he's my boy when you lose one of your children just can't describe it can't describe it let's read this while the Brown family mourned Raul moat was still on the run his hatred towards the police was Rising Samantha had told moat that Christopher Brown worked for them I think he was on the understanding Christopher's police officer because Sam had gone in and told him there he was the police and Christopher has never been in the place Force he's the karate instructor and whether she thought telling him that he was back him off a bit I don't know 's hostility towards the police was turning into a vendetta and he was Keen for them to know who they were dealing with in the early hours of Sunday the 4th of July after being on the run for 24 hours moat dialed 999. this is the gunman from Berkeley last night my name is Raul Moore what I'm thought about is to tell you exactly why I've done what I've done right now my girlfriend has been on an affair behind my back but one of the officers this gentleman that I shot last night Nickelodeon's doctor right yeah it's just more dealers alone he always wanted me to do myself in and I was gonna do it until I found out about him properly and what was going on and I was serious I found out so I thought no you'd have had so much from me you've got so much from me you'll take your time frictionless right you'll get yourself sickness we don't want to do that you need to kill yourself but I'm gonna give you the chance because I am blogged for officers now spent a number of minutes ranting on the phone effectively declaring war in northumbria police and saying I'm coming to get you you've ruined my life I'm coming to get you essentially he wants an all an old event and this call really is a this is all your fault you being the police you've done this to me it's all about him it's saying these are the reasons why I've done what I've done because I've been driven to it by other people I'm not responsible after making the 999 call moted stepped up his Vendetta against the police a friend Karama one was driving him around in a black Lexus moat was actively hunting for police officers moat's two closest Associates in the criminal underworld were Ness and Awan they a system the moment to the left Durham prison shortly after making his threatening call to police mode spotted a sitting police car at a roundabout in the Denton area inside was 42 year old PC David rathband moisture pushed the car for behind tapped in the passenger window and David turned and as soon as he turned Moore shot once through the window which hit David right in the middle of the face he fell into the food compartment of his car despite his serious condition PC rathband tried to activate the emergency button in his vehicle mode then shot him for a second time and calmly walked away molds was on the anger Rampage if he had passed another police officer motorcycle he probably would have stopped and shot him as well if there was a police officer in the shop he'd probably shoot him as well it's because he only found one if you had found more he would have shot more when Brahma shot PC David Ruff band it signified a real escalation in his offending this wasn't just about Ramo and people who had annoyed him it was a callous attack David rathband had sustained life-threatening injuries he had survived but he would never see again as a forensic pathologist if you're told somebody has been shot at very close range in the face with a shotgun you're expecting to perform an autopsy that person is almost certainly dead I think it's almost miraculous that David rathband survived what happened to him you can see from the x-rays the number of little pellets in him any one of those could easily have gone and struck something utterly vital and killed him he's being shot in the face mode made yet another 999 call he was determined to make sure the police knew it was him who'd shot the 42 year old father of two within maybe an hour of that incident more basically asked my thumb replacing do you believe me now I've just done one of you guys and just remind colleagues in northumbria that I'm coming to get you and that was a big big game Game Changer in the spine hunt what appeared at first to be a domestic dispute with a fatal outcome was quickly evolving into a much bigger story with Nationwide interest Jeremy Thompson was the anchor for Sky News within 24 hours policeman David Rathbun had been shot in the face a rare occurrence for a blister to be shot in Britain that really ramped up the story the media poured into the Northeast very quickly it became an unprecedented Manhunt over that long hot July week up in the northeast of England and the media interest was intense people had their televisions and their radios switched on around the clock it was a difficult time for the Brown family I I couldn't turn the news on because every time something came up about it it was always roundmost photo that they were showing because he was the wing one that was on the run and what have you but I just even afterwards I said to the police once that it seems as though Christopher was a number put under the carpet the following day Monday the 5th of July it emerged that motor had posted on his Facebook page I've lost everything watch and see what happens with this Behavior becoming increasingly erratic the authorities were warning the public not to approach him this wasn't just about Romo and his personal issues with his relationships this represented a real risk to the public so the scale of this case now was incredibly significant it was an operation that was supported by police forces from across the country colleagues from London Liverpool Manchester there was equipment center for Northern Ireland there was a huge response to this because day-to-day police had to continue the northumbria police area there had to be there in numbers and they had to have the right equipment they had to be armed it was on an epic scale they had not only got a 160 armed officers but also they'd got special armored vehicles they'd got specially trained tracker dogs they'd got helicopters up and that it even got an RAF jet up there running reconnaissance missions over that whole area it was an extraordinary reaction to what they knew at the time to be perhaps no more than one man with a gun on the loose after shooting and blinding PC David rathband at Point Blank Range on Sunday July the 4th moat had gone off the radar to shooting incidents in 24 hours and then gone no more phone calls no more messages you just vanished Into Thin Air we did not know what it was it come down caused all that damage and then disappeared to turn himself in but motor remained on the loose armed and extremely dangerous on the 6th of July the black Lexus motored used when he shot PC rathband was found abandoned in the small town of Rothbury 30 miles north of Newcastle police set up a two-mile exclusion Zone and urged residents to stay indoors the hunt suddenly started to focus on very pretty Market town called Rothbury right on the edge of the Northumberland National Park a beautiful little town on the kokit river surrounded by glorious but pretty remote Countryside and presumably moat knew pretty well and felt that he could steer clear of the police around them whatever game he had in mind whatever he was doing to taunt the police at the time or to evade the police he felt it was his best bet there was still no sign of moat but police had found an abandoned Campsite in Rothbury and a Dictaphone with recordings of mode complaining how unhappy he was with the media reports about his private life he also made threats to the general public unless the stories stopped so he's listening to what's going on in the media he's following the coverage so all of this is going to be fueling his aggravation and his sense of annoyance essentially so this is somebody who's becoming incredibly dangerous the the more bruised that ego becomes on Wednesday the 7th of July 2010 police found yet another letter in a tent it was addressed to his ex-girlfriend Samantha moat was somewhere nearby but detectives still didn't know exactly where they offered a ten thousand pound reward for any information that could lead to the 37 year old's capture I would ask people to keep contacting either northumbria police or Crime Stoppers with any information they believe may be relevant there is a ten thousand pound reward for information which leads to the Detention of Mr Mot the media interest in the case was intensifying with rolling 24-hour news reports by Thursday the 8th of July moat had now been on the run for five days but the police had finally made a breakthrough one of the most curious twists in this whole story that at one stage a few days into the Manhunt police were telling us they believe that moat was holding two hostages but then stranger this story Twisted round the next thing we hear is that the police have arrested two men National one who they now tell us they believe we're friends and a aiders and abetters of the runaway man Rao moat within 24 hours had gone from two hostages to two men arrested believed to have some involvement in moat's Escape and perhaps even the shootings itself the arrest of moats accomplices 26 year old Carl Ness and 23 year old Karam ar-1 was a mere Sideshow to The Manhunt around Rothbury by now the media had been issued with a news blackout not a complete blackout but a blackout on some of the personal details that clearly they felt was stirring up moat even more making him even more potentially dangerous the hunt for rail moat had elevated the killer to a bizarre cult status so for some people round moat is an anti-hero he represents somebody who stands up to Authority somebody who doesn't follow the rules and and for some people that's something to be admired unfortunately moat's time was running out on Friday the 9th of July a local resident spotted a man walking next to the river in Rothbury approach the priest Patrol who went down to check out as soon as Mort saw the police vehicle he sunk to his knees put the gun to his head and that's when the standoff started some of those images will live with me forever I can remember them vividly live constantly going back to seeing what was happening moat on his knees that Riverbank is the abiding image of rail mode in almost everybody's mind on the evening of Friday the 9th of July the nation was glued to their television sets as the drama unfolded but this wasn't a film it was real life the police were dealing with a man who was erratic armed and extremely dangerous we had police negotiators who were there on the scene face-to-face who spent the next six hours or so speaking to him and trying to persuade him that the right thing to do was Put the gun down and surrender himself to custody police were determined to make sure that mode came out of the standoff alive the presence of the media added extra pressure on their performance they are focused on doing your job but you're doing your job in the knowledge that there's lots of people watching you scrutinizing you and some of them judging you but moat wasn't planning on giving himself up so easily and the case continued to attract media attention extraordinary part of this story was the involvement of celebrities almost as The Manhunt came to its dramatic fatal climax we got the almost bizarre scene of Gaza Paul gascoigne famous England footballer turning up in his dressing gown claiming to no rail note an offering mode chicken and lager if he gave himself up didn't come to anything the police just asked Gaza to politely leave the town and had nothing more to do with it as the night of Friday the 9th of July turned into the early hours of Saturday the situation remained tense negotiations with moat weren't working and he remained where he was with a gun pointed at his own head it was an incredibly long and tense night Darkness fell we really could see very little of what was going on we could just see the outlines of the police Corden and the night dragged on after midnight into the small hours and it was around one o'clock in the morning when there was a dramatic series of events hard to make out it was confused it was dark it was very difficult to know exactly what the sequence of events were in one last attempt to capture moat the police decided to use a Taser on the 37 year old they were determined to take him alive on this occasion it tasers that were used were long tasers like shotgun style tasers which hadn't yet been approved for use by the police when you're in a mindset and a determination to arrest somebody to call them the account for the crimes that they've committed in the safest possible way then it was right and proper that it was given a try it didn't work at approximately 1 15 a.m on Sunday the 10th of July the sound of a shotgun blast followed by shouting signaled that Raul moat had taken his own life I don't think the police had any chance of talking round note down he wanted to be iconic he wanted to be Infamous he wanted to go out with a bang and not whimper a seven day Manhunt at a six hour standoff had come to a dramatic conclusion clearly I decided that he didn't want to be taken gaps if he didn't want another sentence in jail again this was it this was his final stand this was the moment he decided to pack up give up not be taken again with mode dead the police focused their attention on those who'd aided him during the seven days in March 2011 at Newcastle Crown Court modes two accomplices 26 year old Carl Ness a 23 year old Quran Awan were convicted of conspiracy to murder attempted murder and armed robbery owan was sentenced to a minimum of 20 years while Ness was further convicted of murder and a Firearms offense and sentenced to a minimum 40 years a one's defense solicitor told reporters this trial is Hamlet without the prince they were moat's assistants they were in every sense The sorceress's Apprentice they were there to facilitate moat's plan which was to become famous he wanted his 15 minutes of celebrity and boy he was going to get them in a further tragic turn in February 2012 PC David rathband took his own life unable to cope with his blindness since the shooting he hanged himself his colleagues at northumbria police believe that 44 year old David had become moat's second victim David's involvement in this case you know he was a police officer doing his job in uniform for the best he's ability and without one and he suffered horrific injuries that changed his life and in my view ultimately led to his death and I will always hold role more responsible for killing David Rathbun these people do these things too and they don't think about the consequences of the people that they leave behind they said it would get easier but no it's hard everybody talks about the wrong walk case this started as a Christopher Brown murder inquiry my team investigated it it continued to be the Christopher Brown murder inquiry the only thing he did wrong was he fell for a girl who more believed was his possession and he would use any Force to deal with that and he did and we should never forget that Christopher was the first victim here Christopher was a very happy-go-lucky fun loving person he was a good son he was a good friend to his friends a good brother to his sister he's never out of our thoughts he's let's just miss him so much Raul moat was full of Rage when he left Durham prison on July the 1st 2010 but no one could have imagined that then she would go to in order to get back at his girlfriend his murderous Rampage left an innocent man dead executed in Cold Blood his ex-girlfriend wounded and scarred for life and a police officer blind and suicidal all this before turning the gun on himself his selfish lusts for revenge and notoriety turned him into the most infamous man in Britain and one of the world's most evil killers November the 13th 1977 Los Angeles California school girls Dolores and Sonia were on their way home from a day shopping when two police officers stopped them for questioning but the so-called policemen were in fact killers they fell victim the two men who knew no compassion No Remorse no empathy it is beyond depraved fourteen-year-old Sonia and 12 year old Dolores were abducted held captive for five days repeatedly raped then strangled their killers were two cousins Angelo Bono and Kenneth Bianchi you got the smooth talking sharp glib Bianchi and then you've got the street conwise smart predator in Bono that's a pretty dangerous combination the partners in crime went on a killing spree murdering 10 young women in just four months many were dumped on hillsides across L.A lending The Killers their Infamous name the hillside stranglers these two were not going to stop until they were caught this had a really devastating effect on the lives of women in Los Angeles the deadly Duo terrorized the streets of LA whilst masquerading as police officers they raped and tortured victims as young as 12 during their sickening Rampage making Angelo Bono and Kenneth Bianchi two of the world's most evil killers [Music] me [Music] December 14 1977 Los Angeles California on a deserted Hillside overlooking the city seventeen-year-old Kimberly Martin was found dead by two paper boys doing their morning rounds her Killers had posed her body in a provocative manner they dropped her naked body on the hills in Alessandro Drive pointing at the city hall I think that was a deliberate placement to kind of piss everybody off you know now the media kind of went crazy about this that's where the name Hillside Strangler came from Kimberly was the ninth victim of the killers in barely two months it became one of the biggest news stories of the Year spreading Panic throughout the city it created a whole lot of fear particularly amongst women who were actually afraid to go out at night and there was some indication from some of the investigation that whoever was perpetrating these crimes may have been impersonating a police officer women were concerned that if they were approached by police officers should they stop or should they just keep moving it was really a terrorizing period of time in response Firearms sales went through the roof and the women of La made preparations to defend themselves women were taking physical defense lessons buying guns getting stuff to prevent themselves on the street to keep from being assaulted they're reading about it every day it's on television every day that's a lot of panic out there in the street and you could sense it in the state you're really good I think that gave Bianca and Bono pleasure I think they took an absolute Delight in the fact that they had taken a whole Community by the throat literally and strangled the life out of it the story of these two killers begins in Rochester New York Angelo Bono was the eldest of the adoptive cousins and was born on October 5th 1934. he and his sister were born into an Italian American Family at the age of five his parents divorced and in 1939 his mother took her two children West to Glendale in Los Angeles you could say that Bono was a troubled child he had a very strange relationship with his mother whom he constantly accused of being a [ __ ] now he doesn't speak very highly of his mother at all his mother would go and visit men and he would have to wait outside so here's an individual who's got very fixed ideas about who women are and how they should behave and what's acceptable for women and what isn't and I think that feeds into the rationale behind the future offending at the age of 16 Bono dropped out of high school and turned to crime as a teenager Bueno was somebody who regularly broke the rules he would steal things he would Joyride in cars he would hang around with gangs somebody who just did not think the rules apply to him and when you look at who his role models are they were criminals so he's starting off on a very dangerous path whilst Bono was serving time in youth custody for stealing cars in 1951 his adoptive cousin Kenneth Alessio Bianchi was born on the 22nd of May he too had a troubled start in life Kenneth Bianchi born funnily enough also in Rochester New York just like Werner but Bianchi's mother was a sex worker and he was very swiftly put out for adoption as a three-month-old infant and he was adopted by buono's mother's sister he's adopted by Francis and Nicholas now Francis absolutely doted on him but she took this to an absolute extreme and she had this paranoia that there was something wrong with Kenneth and she took him to see the doctor on multiple occasions when the turned out to be absolutely nothing wrong with him and I think this kind of smothering can be just as damaging as neglect it was something quite toxic going on here soon the young Bianchi started showing worrying signs of behavior he was described by his adopted mother as a compulsive liar from a very very early age he was difficult to control and then his father dies when he's a teenager so the male role model is removed and he is to some extent left swinging in the breeze despite being just 14 Bianca's mother had big plans for the sun she'd sheltered at the funeral she made Bianchi where his father's shoes they were far too big and he walked clumsily but they were a symbol of who he had become the man of the house they were an Italian Catholic Family with some very rigid ideas about family and about the role of men and the role of women so we're seeing some some quite strong values coming through in his childhood and their values that he draws on in an incredibly dysfunctional way his mother recognized that he had a lot of psychiatric issues and problems and she wouldn't let him date girls she watched over him very very closely Bianchi graduated high school and aged 18 married his sweetheart Brenda but his insecurities about her forging her own career as a nurse caused tension in the marriage Bianchi saw women as something to be possessed they could be his and his alone the marriage to brendo fell apart very quickly he was only 18. he accused her of being unfaithful it played to his sense that any woman he had to possess he had to control completely after just a few months the couple divorced Bianchi then planned a respectable career in the police in 1970 he enrolled in college to study police science and psychology he was absolutely obsessed with becoming a police officer he applied to join the police several times and failed at doing that this was a fixation for him throughout his life I think failing was one of the factors in the background of who he became he wants that legitimate control he wants that legitimate power and if he can't get it legitimately he's going to get it by some other means after failing to get his dream job as a police officer Bianchi found work as a security guard meanwhile in Los Angeles his cousin Bono was a career car thief by this point in 1970 the 36 year old had been married and divorced twice and fathered eight children by three different women a lot of women said that he had a very sexual strong feeling about him but it was a scary frightening kind of thing it was kind of a predator kind of a thing and he had been through a whole lot of women he was very sexually active and he was proud of that reputation Bruno's attitude to women into the women he married was abusive there can be no doubt about that and each of them described his abusiveness his drama threatened with a gun persistently kicked brutalized a very aggressive sexually even with young young girls there was something important which saw women as objects a man who saw women as something of his right before long the two maternal cousins who barely knew each other would discover they shared the same intense loathing of women Bono and Bianchi would move in together and become partners in crime soon this dangerous team would be heading on a path towards murder by 1975 41 year old Angelo Bono had served three short prison terms for stealing cars he also had a long dark history of domestic abuse raping and beating former wives and girlfriends but now it seems Bono wanted to settle on the straight and narrow although he wasn't particularly well educated he was quite smart he was capable of running a business indeed he started his own business in auto upholstery it was very successful matter of fact the rumors he did one of Frank Sinatra's cars he also considered himself a mafia kind of guy at home and at work Bono was meticulous to the extreme Bono was obsessed with cleanliness he would bleach his house several times a week he was able to change the brakes on a car without getting dirty and when you see people who are obsessed with cleanliness it's about feeling that everything is within your control meanwhile over 2500 miles away in Rochester New York Bono's cousin Ken Bianchi had been fired from his job as a security guard for stealing jewelry at the department store where he was working in January 1976 Bianchi's family came up with a plan to temper the Wayward 24 year old their mothers are sisters and they think it's a good idea for these two to live together and I think it is part of those this kind of Italian Mediterranean Family Values you know that if you're part of a family then you're always welcome you should always look out for one another was doing a family a favor taking him in this is something he didn't really want to do this is a guy who lives alone and to take in a border was something that you know he wasn't happy with Yankee apparently looked up to Angelo Bono his older cousin kind of admired the the tough guy image that he projected once again Bianchi tried for a career in the police this time with the LAPD but once again he failed his exams in the end Bianchi resorted to the lies to get a respectable job he had phony certificates made up showing that he was a graduate of Columbia University and had a degree in Psychiatry and he was actually a psychologist a psychologist in Los Angeles actually hired this guy and he was seeing his patients he had a gift of really selling himself and he did he was a sociopath and he was a pathological liar in June 1976 Bianchi finally made it into the LAPD reserves as an unpaid volunteer he also found himself a desk job to pay the bills and at work he met a new girlfriend whom he moved in with by now the cousins had a real Rapport Bianchi looked up to the older Bono and was only too quick to get involved when he suggested they established themselves as pimps he and buono said that would only be described as an agency for prostitutes they target two young women whom they set up to work for them to make them money as sex workers it was a marriage made in hell and I mean here you've got a sexual predator and a sociopath Bianchi wants to be like his cousin Angelo say he looks up to him he's older he was excited that it's a recipe for madness but pimping prostitutes wasn't enough for them to satisfy their own sexual Cravings they prowl the streets using a tactic inspired by an Infamous criminal from the 1940s when Bueno was an adolescent he very much looked up to Career criminals and one particular criminal a serial rapist a Chessman who he became very interested in had actually used a police bruise in order to Target his victim I think brono saw something there that lodged in his mind and that would later come out in his offender Angelo Bono had a security badge that belonged to his stepfather and they used that to portray themselves as undercover police officers they started using the badge to get free sex and prostitutes they liked the fact that they could get girls back to the house and have them have sex with them then play a badge on them and tell them that hey don't tell anybody we did this well you'll be in trouble but the excitement of duping women for free casual sex soon wore off Bono and Bianchi wanted to up the stakes to indulge a depraved desire they both agreed why don't we try choking somebody the death while we're having an orgasm that would be something I'd like to do that was Bono's thing because whatever Bono said Bianchi went along with what the psychologist called follyada one adds depth to the other one eggs the other one on one's the sorcerer and the other one's The Apprentice and then suddenly they become partners in crime at 11 PM on the 17th of October 1977 Bono and Bianchi were cruising down one of Hollywood's most famous streets Sunset Boulevard they had their fake police badges at the ready Bianchi had a four-door sedan that could resemble a police car at night they had no siren or lights but it had the same color dark blue and a white top there used that car in all the stops and pullovers that they made here they spotted 19 year old Yolanda Washington she was a mum she was struggling to make ends meet she became involved in sex work and they picked her up claiming to be police officers got her in a car under the pretense of who they were and Bianchi strangled her in the backseat and that's where it started dumped Yolanda's body on Forest Lawn Drive not far from Glendale she was discovered early the next morning she had a three-year-old child and she's treated as a piece of garbage from there it just kind of accelerated they started discussing what they were going to do let's take them back to the house if we take them back to the house then we can play games with them and that's exactly what they did barely two weeks later on the night of the 30th of October Bono and police reservist Bianchi were roaming the streets once again as they stalked Sunset Boulevard a young girl caught their eye Judy Miller was picked up on Sunset Boulevard near a hot dog stand he was 15 years old so a few years younger than Yolanda Washington and she's been described as a runaway but she's a child she's incredibly vulnerable and I think they recognize that and they Prey Upon that vulnerability again The Killers lured Judy into their car under the pretense of hiring her for sex once inside they pulled out their fake badges she was trapped and this time Bono and Bianchi had even more Sinister plans they took her to buona's auto upholstery shop where she was systematically raped this change in defending is really significant for me because when you were taking your victims to somewhere that's private an environment over which you have control this suggests that you want to escalate you're offending you want to spend more time with your victims you want to harm them more using a ligature placed around her neck they strangled fifteen-year-old Judy then the killer cousins dumped her naked body in bushes off acquired residential street in the neighborhood of La Crescenta when she was found the next day detectives noted the lack of drag marks on her body that gave us a kind of an indication that there might have been two guys because if you have a dead body and you're lugging it around you want to put a place here and place there it's very difficult and if you do that you usually will have leave marks on the body if you're dragging the heels but she was placed in an area that's where her body was found there was a fiber on her eyelid that was visible and obviously she was blindfolded which left the fiber but despite the police's hunch that there might be two killers working together there was little else left at the crime scene in the way of Clues to help them identify the murderers Bono and Bianchi felt Unstoppable and on the 5th of November they decided to Target a different type of victim now you have a complete change of pace it wasn't only directed at sex workers Lisa casting was a perfectly ordinary upright girl 21 she was a dancer quite a good career with an extraordinary group called the LA knockers Lisa Kasten was walking to her apartment and police ruse was used with her she was brought back to Lorna's shop you know raped and murdered and her body was found in the bushes off a street in Glendale now Bono and Bianchi had killed three young women they were reveling in their success and growing in confidence they were getting into their stride they were discussed according to Kenneth Bianca they would sit down what do you want to do tonight let's try Hollywood again let's pick up another horror in Hollywood they took him to Bono's upholstery shop and sexually assaulted him strangled them took their nude body and threw them in the hillside around the city of Los Angeles there was a game the Rampage continued just four days later on the 9th of November 28 year old actress and model Jane King was stopped at a Hollywood bus bench she was taken to Bono's Workshop where she was raped strangled then dumped next to the freeway in Glendale the killer cousins had claimed four victims in nearly as many weeks it was the most extraordinary spray and I think one of the things that made them in the end terrify Los Angeles there was no they literally like lightning strikes they had an appetite and that appetite knew no bounds but phono and Bianchi's Killing Spree had barely just begun and soon they'd become the talk of Tinseltown on Sunday the 13th of November they set their sights on two children Sonia Johnson and Dolores Cepeda were spotted getting on a bus after a Sunday afternoon shopping they get off the bus almost certainly they're impressionable they're 12 and 14 two men stopped them they say they're police officers they get them into the car they take them back to bonus I mean it is unimaginable this time the victims were imprisoned and held captive in Bono's home the two schoolgirls were gagged and bound then repeatedly raped over five days what they must have subjected them to and what those girls must have felt is literally horrifying depravity is too good a word for it it is utter depravity at the end of their torture the two children were strangled The Killers dumped their bodies four miles from Bono's home on a hillside near the famous LA Dodgers Stadium it's a street that Bono referred to and since he had grown up in the area as the cow patch and apparently their bodies were just thrown down the hill it is behavior of the most disgraceful because it's inhuman it is animalistic despite raping and killing six women and girls in barely a month Bianchi and Bono were left wanting for more they're varying they're offending at this point in time time and offenders will do this because they will get bored they will want to mix things up they will want to make things interesting their victims were no longer just randomly picked off the streets on the 20th of November two days after their last killing Bianchi called at the home of 20 year old art student Christina weckler Christina weckler had met Kenny Bianchi they lived near each other he succeeded in getting her out of her apartment on a roost that he was now LA police officer and her car was involved in an accident why the poor girl went I don't know but that was it they abducted her took her back to Bono's house one said Bono's home The Killers had devised a new sickening Act of torture for their seventh victim they use a more elaborate method of killing her not simple manual strangulation but they put a plastic bag over a head and put a gas pipe into it and effectively suffocator The Killers also injected Christina's arms and neck with air and cleaning solutions to try and induce a fatal embolism there was a mark on her neck where they put cleaning fluid in her neck with the syringe in their offending they're enjoying the process of watching their victims die of having that ultimate power and control over their life and death and this is something that's only going to get worse then they dumped Christina's body on another remote Hillside in Highland Park several miles from Bono's Glendale home was a Sunday I was notified at home they said we got a dead girl out here and then it's definitely a murder victim so I went out did my usual crime scene investigation and I noted the ligature marks on the hands and on the ankles detectives also noticed that the bodies continued to be placed and not dragged to each location they were still convinced that they had more than one killer on the loose we had put a lot of uniform policemen in the area of Northeast Los Angeles looking for two suspects or one suspect as a serial murderer so we were focusing in the area where the girls were originally abducted I think that information got out somehow to the media so what would it be on cambono do they drove all the way out to the valley to look for the next victim 25 miles away on the 28th of November eight days after their last killing Bianchi and Bono were cruising the streets of the San Fernando Valley they spotted 18 year old business student Lauren Wagner driving home they followed her and she parked right across the street from where she lived they stopped her pretended they were police officers and said they would have to take her in a car and she resisted she kind of vocally resisted and they got her in a car and took it to Bono's house Lauren was bound to a chair and gagged in Bono's home this time the cousins thought they'd experiment with a different type of torture they took wires plugged him into the wall kind of pulled the wires apart and taped the wire tube the girl's hand and then plugged it in to electrocuter they were burn marks in her hands from the wires Lauren's body was dumped once again on one of the city's hillsides her parents had noticed their daughter's absence and were concerned when they found her abandoned car with the keys left in the ignition and this was something that was out of the ordinary she wouldn't normally do that so immediately they knew that some was wrong they knew something was amiss so they contacted the local police department she was discovered the next day on the 29th of November her body was found once again on the side of the hill on a little Street into the Glendale LA area and she was lying there naked as the other is with ants crawling all over her body upon seeing her we knew right away that she and Christina Wecker were killed by the same people both had very similar ligature marks on the body around the neck and one on each wrist and one on each ankle we began referring to that as five-point ligatures forensic investigators also found a small fiber stuck to the adhesive left by the tape that had been used to attach the electrical wires to Lauren's hand detective Bob Grogan went to her parents home to break the devastating news about their daughter but word of an eighth strangling victim had got out which meant the LA Press were already one step ahead on the street brother Wagner's live was all the media in Los Angeles trying to interview Mr and Mrs Wagner I hadn't even notified him and they were running around their microphones looking for an interview and I ordered the uniform police to move them off the street and get him on it and if they turned this into a circus and this was far from a circus the Press now had a name for the serial murderer the Hillside Strangler but a neighbor had some important information for police which confirmed their earlier suspicions she came out and saw two guys putting a girl in a car that was the first time we actually had visible proof that there were two suspects couldn't identify them but two were seen with the killings making Daily News in La the police were now Under Pressure to step up their investigation after the murder of Lauren Wagner the detectives we got together and said we got a Serial murder we got a big problem big problem the chief wanted a task force the media wanted a task force so we got a task force we got a hundred policemen but Bono and Bianchi were already planning their next killing and another change of tactic they enjoyed the feelings of power and control that killing gave them but they didn't want to have to go to the effort of going out they wanted to make it easier for themselves and going out actually was quite a risky thing at this time because this was a ruse that they'd used several times so it's a combination of awareness of risk and laziness on their part Yankee has found a flat another apartment in the block he lives in which is vacant on December the 13th Bianchi called an escort service posing as a client seventeen-year-old Kimberly Martin was sent to The Empty Apartment as soon as the door is open she knew she had made a mistake Bono and Bianchi were there and a struggled broke up it's quite a severe head injury almost to say she'd been bashed to see in this case is an individual who knew that they were in danger and actually fought to The Nail for their life and I think that's Testament to the strength of character of this individual Bono and Bianchi took Kimberly back to Bono's Workshop after raping and strangling her The Killers planned a final Act to taunt the city her body was deposited on the side of a hill kind of overlooking the city of Los Angeles and her body was kind of displayed like this and she actually came to symbolize the Hillside Strangler where she was thrown was kind of a way for these guys to thumb their nose at the world and the media jumped on that oh the Hillside Strangler strikes again so it was a panic situation in the city of L.A no question about it the hillside stranglers had now claimed nine innocent lives Bono and Bianchi sat back and relished how their murders had become one of the biggest news stories ever in L.A the Los Angeles Police Department were now Under Pressure to catch the killers before they struck again by December 1977 the Hillside stranglers and claimed nine innocent lives Bono and Bianchi sat back and relished how their murders had become one of the biggest news stories ever in LA the Los Angeles Police Department were now Under Pressure to catch the killers before they struck again it created an utter Panic if you were young and a young woman in Los Angeles that time I think you would have been frightened anybody would have been Bianchi was reveling with the headlines his murders were generating still a member of the LAPD reserves he went on ride-alongs with the police and was on patrol with a local Sergeant just two days after Kimberly Martin's killing he was asking questions about this murder and he was wanting to see that the dump site so he was trying to find out what the police knew essentially is trying to get some information and the sergeant said hey I work uniform I don't know anything about that so he was Brazen enough to come out and make that kind of a statement he told many people I could be the Hillside Strangler it didn't bother him but you got to remember you're dealing with a pathological liar so he could say anything at any given moment two murderers decided to lay low for the next two months but on the 16th of February 1978 they couldn't resist 20 year old Cindy Lee huntsmith she walked into Bono shop to get upholstery work in her car big mistake the predator of predators she's talking to and doesn't know this next thing you know she's victim 10. they put her body in the trunk of her dats and her orange Datsun car and they drive it to a higher area Los Angeles the car with her body and it was pushed off of Los Angeles Crest Highway where she was found but soon cracks began to show between the deadly Duo the status that Bianchi was enjoying is a serial killer seemed to be going to the younger cousin's head Kenny Bianchi has got to the point where he's kind of got bone or worried because he's bragging about these murders now hey I went a ride along with the police department Bono couldn't believe that so that was a falling out Bono threw him out of the house is out on OSU ever again the two killers finally went their separate ways that same month Bianchi settled down to become a father when his girlfriend gave birth to their son now you have one of those wonderful contradictions you have a superficially doting father who has evil intent who presents to use the Contemporary phrase as an upright member of the community and yet is anything but in May 1978 Bianca's girlfriend left him and moved to Bellingham in Washington state desperate to stay with his son Bianchi followed and found a job as a security guard we've had this epidemic of killing and it stops but the trouble is Bianca can't stop it it's who addictive on the 11th of January 1979 Bianchi offered to pay two University students 22 year old Karen mandik and 27 year old Diane Wilder 100 to house sit one of the properties that he was guarding but it's unclear exactly how Bianchi forced these two down the stairs into the basement but there's no doubt that he did he also put the Noose around their necks and then strangled them kills the two girls and he does it on his own he does it poorly he masturbated on one of the victims and he couldn't get it on couldn't function he's now acting alone he doesn't have the street smart kind wise Angelo Bono as a partner next day on the 12th of January Karen's car was found nearby by the police with their bodies hidden in the trunk Bianca's employer revealed his whereabouts and he was arrested he claims that the killing wasn't done by him but done by his second personality Steve Walker so he's claiming that he has another individual in his head who's telling him to do particular things when the police in Bellingham realized their suspect had a Californian driver's license they contacted the LAPD detectives there noticed something interesting on Bianchi's driver's license whenever you moved in California you had a right on the back of your driver's license your new address biaki diligently did that he put his address when he moved which was on the same street that Christina weckler lived on that's a pretty strong connection you've got a guy who just killed two girls in Bellingham who used to live next door to a girl in Los Angeles that got killed that in itself is a strong connection doesn't prove anything but it makes it worthwhile to go talk to that guy now there's a lot of things happening at that time Bianchi is claiming to be a dual personality and he's decided that this is going to be my defense so one of America's leading criminal psychiatrists was sent to test Bianchi's Alter Ego Steve who allegedly appeared when he was under hypnosis Dr Martin orm examine kennels Bianchi and had some techniques and tricks that he used and came to us and said this guy's a complete fraud now Bianchi's lies had been exposed he turned on his partner in crime he says there's another person with him under murders and it's his cousin Angelo and so first we heard evangelo this is incredibly revealing to see whatsoever here he's got what he wanted out of brownout so we just cast him aside and places the blame squally on him in order to get him to give us enough information so we can go down and arrest Mr Bono we have to make a deal the deal is that he won't get the death penalty in the state of Washington and that he would testify truthfully in Los Angeles in the trial if and when we have a trial with Bono now in the frame forensic teams searched his home and workshop astonishingly they could not find a single fingerprint because of his obsessive cleanliness however they did find some evidence they discovered the white polyester fiber on Judy Miller's eyelid matched upholstery material in Bono's Workshop they also found forensic evidence which placed another victim at his home in the chair in the living room where we've learned from Bianchi where the victims were originally placed a fiber was found down inside the chair and that fiber was connected to a fiber that was found in Lauren Wagner's fingers that's pretty positive evidence that this girl was in Bono's house and that fiber evidence was extremely important evidence in this case as Bianchi had already pleaded guilty to seven counts of murder as part of his deal he did not face trial his cousin Angelo Bono appeared in court on November the 16th 1981. at the time it was the longest trial in U.S criminal history with Michael Nash the deputy attorney general prosecuting the jury selection alone took almost four months and then on top of that Kenneth Bianchi was on the witness stand for about six months the problem was that he changed his mind about everything he did everything possible to sabotage that case against Angelo Bono but the ploy failed after a mammoth trial lasting more than two years in November 1983 Angelo Bono was found guilty on nine counts of murder he was acquitted on the 10th count that of Yolanda Washington as it was accepted that he had been driving the car whilst Bianchi strangled her in the back both cousins were later sentenced to life in prison someone said so how come you're you're not celebrating and I said you have all these dead girls they had family and friends who are forever scarred by all this this is tragedy but the brutal Killers could no longer haunt the streets of LA in September 2002 Bono dies at the age of 67 in jail and Bianca remained in jail in Washington State they're not the first serial killers and they're not the last but they were two of the worst human beings who've ever walked the face of the Earth they are among the most horrifying Killers you could encounter because the rape torture and in the end killing of utterly innocent young women for nothing but their own pleasure and their own gratification is unimaginably evil the two cousins Reign Terror over the city of Los Angeles they strangled and raped ten females in just four months including four girls they electrocuted and gassed some of their victims and relished watching their slow painful deaths that makes Angelo Bono and Kenneth Bianchi two of the world's most evil killers 29th of July 1976 New York USA 18 year old Donna Lauria and her 19 year old friend Jody Valenti had returned home after a night out as they sat talking outside Donna's apartment a man approached and fired five times into their car they represented everything that he hated everything he resented they were people with their their lives ahead of them they were out having fun Donna died instantly and Jody was seriously wounded the gunman was 23 year old David Berkowitz a delusional loner who christened himself the Son of Sam he took five more young lives in just a year some people called it the Summer of Sam it captivated everyone it created fear frenzy of activity was like nothing I'd ever seen people genuinely were afraid to go out you cannot overestimate or exaggerate just how much that fear gripped the city the killings prompted the largest police Manhunt a city had ever seen what he did to those families that have been devastated and never got over what happened to their children bad times those bad times Berkowitz was a serial killer who had an obsession with the occult he murdered and maimed 13 young people in just over a year spreading Panic across the city that never sleeps that makes David Berkowitz one of the world's most evil killers [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] 1977 New York when courting couple Valentina suriani and Alexander Esau were shot dead a letter to the chief of police from their killer Son of Sam was left at the crime scene with five young people now murdered detectives knew they had a serial killer on the loose a wave of fear descended on the city as former reporter Brian Cates remembers these series of shootings really did grip the city people avoided going out late this was a time of sex drugs and disco and many of these shootings were involved in lovers lanes and around discos so you began to sense this growing fear particularly among young women people could talk about nothing else the fear of Son of Sam was fueled by a battling press hungry for The Latest Scoop on one of the biggest ever stories to hit the city I was in New York in the 1970s and the crimes literally hypnotized the city they were every day tabloid headlines Son of Sam terrorizes people afraid in Queens Brooklyn and the Bronx it was as though the city was afraid to take a breath it literally grabbed the imagination of New York at the height of the killings New York City Police Department had 75 detectives and 225 patrolmen working to hunt down the killer a former detective on the case Bill Gardella remembers how the hysteria even led to women changing how they looked once it was determined that he was targeting young females and by Maybe by coincidence they had long brown hair women were going to the beauty salons buying wigs blonde wigs or dying their hair no case can match the frenzy and the fear of the Son of Sam killings at a time when New York was the murder capital of the U.S even berkowitz's killings left an indelible mark on the place known as Fierce City if you think at the time that this happened women's Liberation rights for women but all of that freedom all of those Liberties were suddenly curtailed because there was this monster on the loose this killer Story begins on the 1st of June 1953 New York David Berkowitz arrived into the world under the name of Richard David Falco he was born out of an affair between his biological mother Betty and a married Long Island businessman called Joseph she became pregnant he essentially said that he would not adopt a child he would have nothing to do with the child and David was given up for adoption he was adopted by Pearl and Nathan bergerowitz they renamed him David they were a middle-aged couple Jewish working class and they had no children so I think this was a family which was was set up for happiness really you have this childless couple you have this baby that needs a home at the age of seven David learned the hidden truth through a slip of the tongue you heard the word adopted from his adoptive father and they had to explain to him what that term meant I think that probably made David very very uncomfortable I don't think he could grasp it soon the happy-go-lucky child became disruptive and difficult at one point I understand they unlisted the help of a therapist or a psychologist to deal with his disciplinary problems both at home and in school with his peers he doesn't form particularly healthy relationships with them he's a kid who always flies off the handle he has poor behavioral control so he becomes increasingly isolated but at the age of 14 berkowitz's World fell apart [Music] from cancer and he's facing a loss here at that time was still very much we don't talk about our feelings so this would not have been a helpful thing for him a few years later his father remarried David was not happy about that it made him angry and this is where we begin to see the the growth and real rage in his personality on the 23rd of June 1971 at the age of 18 Berkowitz joined the army to escape the strains of home here he learned to use weapons including the M16 rifle and trained as a sharpshooter whilst he was serving he chillingly wrote in a letter home to a friend all of these courses will come in handy one day he cryptically ended his letter by writing one day there will be a better world Berkowitz wrote saying I've learned things in the Army and I'm going to use them well maybe a bit of Bluster but maybe also a horrifying first note in what would become a desperately criminal career after three years Berkowitz decided the Army wasn't for him so in June 1974 at the age of 21 he returned home but his father soon left New York when his hardware store was robbed leaving his son alone in the city Berkowitz had dreams of becoming a firefighter but instead had to settle for low-paid security work the night shifts provided endless hours for him to ruminate Berkowitz already sees himself as an outsider but he's not settled he feels hurt he knows he's a loner he knows he can't relate very well to other people so this is when he starts to become quite dangerous feeling increasingly isolated Berkowitz decided to track down his biological mother Betty found her and sent her a poem on May the 11th 1975 Mother's Day Betty was over the moon to hear from her long-lost son and they arranged to meet she's delighted to see him and they have this wonderful reunion apparently and they continue to meet and they have this kind of loving relationship but soon the love for his Newfound mother would sour he meets his half-sister this was the child that his mother didn't give away and he realizes that he was a throwaway child and there's this other child that's been loved All This Time by his mother and he becomes Furious it's believed this rejection by his mother as a child was the Genesis of berkowitz's hatred for women once again isolated and alone with his paranoid thoughts he wrote to his father dad the world is getting dark now he said the people they are developing a hatred for me so what he's doing in this lecture is presenting himself as the victim saying poor me I have this horrible life now and he's essentially saying to his adoptive father it's your fault because you left me I'm sure at that point he is building yet more fantasies that he's been rejected not just by the world but by women that November in 1975 Berkowitz spent a month in isolation in his apartment he nailed blankets over the windows and scroll dark ramblings on the walls in this hole lives the wicked King he wrote kill for my master was another I think this was attention seeking behavior and he gets very frustrated that nobody comes to check up on him I think there's a kind of sense of entitlement there that other people should be looking after me on December the 24th Christmas Eve a delusional David Berkowitz decided to make his scrawlings about killing a reality he left his self-imposed Exile armed with a hunting knife he wanted to seek out revenge for the rejection by his birth mother now the ex-soldier was on a mission to kill he was in the area of Yonkers and he had an iPhone and he walked up to a young lady started stabbing her she screamed left on a couple blocks away and started stabbing another lady she screamed and he left only one of those two ladies reported I think the timing is really significant here because Christmas it's a family time I think it's when Berkowitz is feeling the most resentful towards people who have things that he doesn't I think the thing that he would have come away with is I enjoyed that I liked harming them but I didn't achieve the outcome that I wanted and that was to kill them that evening Berkowitz reflected on his failure in the coming months he would try a change of tack David Berkowitz to the people who knew him was this kind of puzzle of many pieces and many of the pieces didn't fit so that there were some who saw this happy-go-lucky slightly shy helpful young man and others who saw this angry Edge Berkowitz developed an angst written obsession with one of his neighbors retiree Sam Carr his neighbor's dog Harvey barks during the night and he finds this really annoying and he will ruminate about this he dwells on it on May the 13th things came to her head when Berkowitz threw a petrol bomb into Sam's backyard scared for his life Sam reported it to the police but they couldn't find the attacker meanwhile Berkowitz continued his reign of terror setting fires in nearby apartment buildings when we look at young people who engage in this kind of behavior fire setting is a way of them maintaining control it's an externalization they have these These Feelings they want to do something with those feelings and rather than turning it in on themselves they turn it outward to start harming other people and other things soon the world would know of David Berkowitz after his knife attacks failed Berkowitz decided on a different weapon of attack he illegally brought a gun that he could use with cold calculating Precision a bulldog 44 caliber revolver on Thursday July the 29th burkowitz was stalking the streets of the Bronx David Berkowitz was driving in the street looking for his neck victims eighteen-year-old daughter Lauria and her 19 year old friend Jody had been out playing backgammon at a local bar they'd returned home and were sitting in their car outside Donna's apartment they are chatting to one another when all of a sudden out of the blue out of nowhere the passenger side window explodes and what's happened is a book of its has gone into a firing position extended the gun with both hands and fired five times into the car Donner was fatally wounded in the neck her friend Jody was shot in the thigh Berkowitz fled as Donna's father having heard gunfire rushed down from his apartment to the scene but nothing could be done to save his daughter turned out that the bullet recovered was a 44 bullet from a bulldog revolver which was a rare gun David Berkowitz said that when he left that scene he sang a song on the way home because the demons had told him to go out and kill and he killed I think he quite enjoyed that high that kind of elevated sense of status of taking someone else's life he's targeting young people who are happy people who have their whole lives ahead of them and he feels actually I'm entitled to take that away from them because they don't deserve it and I do the police were puzzled at the motive for the shooting and wrote it off as a botched Mafia hit Berkowitz was disappointed that his first killing didn't create headlines in the press as he later revealed to the police after that first murder in August of 1976 David barkowitz was at the Westchester County mall and he said nobody recognizes him if somebody should know who he is and he says I wish I had a machine gun in an attempt to gain the recognition he so desperately craved three months later on the 23rd of October 1976 David Berkowitz struck again this time he targeted a couple on a date in the nearby borough of Queens in a so-called Lovers Lane an individual became a called an arrow is part with his girlfriend sitting in a car at night and he's sitting in the passenger side and called dinero has long hair it's believed that Berkowitz thought dinero was a girl Berkowitz shot into their car hitting 20 year old Carl in the head to berkowitz's disappointment Carl survived at his date Rosemary was unscathed a month later he stalked the streets of Queens looking for more victims in the early hours of the 27th of November he found 16 year old Donna damasi an 18 year old Joanne lamino sitting on a step he then walks over says a few words and shoots and flees the scene Mr Massey survived missile Amino is confined to a wheelchair for the rest of her life devastating injury Berkowitz had once more failed in his quest to kill again but his time would come in the new year of 1977 on January the 30th 26 year old Christine freund was on a date with her fiancee 30 year old John deal when Berkowitz spotted them he Parks not far from where that couple was and he observes a Christine foreign sitting in a car with her fiance runs up to the car shoots pristine Freud killing him instantly Christine was shot in the temple and in the neck her fiance John ran to get help but Christine was later pronounced dead in the hospital the young lovers were about to tell their parents about their engagement before Berkowitz took Christine's life in his second fatal shooting none of the Berkowitz shootings were seen as particularly unusual until the murder of Christine freund and Here For the First Time police said that they saw some connection between this shooting and previous shootings now we begin to see that there might be something more than a series of isolated shootings three days after Christine's killing a 16-man homicide task force was established by the New York City Police Department the patent was emerging of a killer who had a hatred for women just like his stabbing victims Berkowitz was targeting females with long dark hair they were in lovers Lanes around discos Berkowitz clearly had problems with women he said later that he saw his mother sitting in those cars when he shot the girls a pattern was also emerging of the Killer's Fascination for a particular location lovers Lanes It is believed that bergerowitz was a virgin there could be a voyeuristic element I've never had sex myself and I bet they're about to have sex and I want to see what it's like I do believe that there may have been an element of trying to destroy his mother what is clear is is completely off the wall Berkowitz had now shot six people and killed two women barely a month later on March the 8th he was back out on the streets of Forest Hills Queens the Brazen killer was now gaining in confidence this time he chose early evening and a lone victim college student Virginia Vasco region is walking down the street the time of 7 30 is much earlier than the previous incidents she's walking down the street and the assailant is approaching her she sees him pull out a gun and she puts her books in front of her head and he shoots through the books and kills him instantly once again Berkowitz fled the scene even saying hello to a passerby so when we look at Virginia his third murder victim he's starting to increase in confidence now he feels quite Invincible he feels kind of elated he attacks her in the middle of the street because he feels Untouchable he feels like he can get away with it what was it that made him changes modus operandi I think he just felt like experimenting he's been in this state of collapse if you like this Fugue of horror this Terror Reign for 15 months a single bullet from berkowitz's 44 Bulldog revolver had penetrated 20 year old Virginia's skull when Pathologists removed it it confirmed the police's suspicions that they had a serial killer on their hands they did a forensic comparison and found that the same gun used on the Freud shooting was used in a Vasco region shooting two days after Virginia's murder New York City Police Commissioner Michael Cod held a press conference he told reporters that they were on the hunt for a Serial shooter he announced that the bullet was a 44 caliber bullet that it was fired from a Charter Arms Bulldog revolver and that it was linked to at least three killings and for the first time now we see officially that all these shootings are linked for serial killer David Berkowitz his murders now made the headlines that he so craved for the first time we had a name for the Killer the 44 caliber killer it was a perfect tabloid headline and anytime there was a shooting young people involved reporters went scrambling to find the story now the city is in berkowitz's Palm he's got the city now where he wants it he's accomplished what he wants to do which is to have the city in total fear of him even though he'd taken three innocent lives The Killing wouldn't stop Berkowitz enjoyed the drama that was unfolding he watched the news and took clippings about his killings as trophies New York's number one news story was now spreading fear in the city people read the story girls begin to worry parents wouldn't let their kids out for late night dates people began to see a pattern in these shootings that the the victims were pretty young women with long brown hair girls began cutting their hair dying it blonde there was a an overall growing sense of fear the nypd's Omega task force now investigating the shootings was boosted from 16 to a 30 strong team but Berkowitz wanted to make an even bigger Splash across the newspapers barely a month after being christened the 44 caliber killer he would strike again but this time his hunting ground was the Bronx on April 17 1977 Valentina suryani and Alexander ESO at 3am in the morning were parked in a car when the assailant came up to the car put his hand on the hood fire through the front windows 18 year old aspiring actress Valentina died within a minute of the attack her 20 year old boyfriend Alexander died two hours later in the hospital Berkowitz had successfully fled once again but this time he had a surprise in store they found a letter that had been left by the killer for detective Joseph Borelli the Omega task force leader and the killer complained that he had been referred to as a woman hater and he was angry about that despite this Berkowitz stated in the letter I love to hunt prowling the streets looking for fair game tasty meat the women of Queens are prettiest of all for the police's psychological profilers they were convinced this message revealed his motive was a hatred of women what was interesting about the note the spelling was good but he always spelled the word women incorrectly he would spell it w-e-m-o-n if you change the W to a d he would have demon now whether in his mind women with demons or what have you but he was threatening to commit more murders as a result of that note he's wanting recognition he's wanting attention now for the things that he's done but he's also saying things like I don't belong on on this Earth in other words I am better than everybody else chillingly one of burka witch's last lines of his letter to Captain Borelli warned I don't want to kill anymore no sir no more but I must honor thy father most disturbing of all was the name he signed off as Son of Sam was the first time we had any mention of this name the Son of Sam and immediately his moniker changed from the 44 caliber killer to the Son of Sam and no one at that time really had any clue of exactly what that meant he wants that brand that identity you can say that this is someone who thinks very highly of himself and he's quite disappointed I think that he hasn't had that recognition that he feels he deserves what the present public didn't know is that the Sam Berkowitz was referring to was in fact his neighbor Sam Carr Berkowitz was also sending this same neighbor threatening Anonymous letters about his Labrador Harvey he's disintegrating in front of his own eyes let alone anybody else's he's living alone he's obsessed by the fact that his neighbor his dog is barking all night burka which is torment came to a head on the foggy morning of April the 27th when the ex-soldier shot Harvey the dog from his apartment block with a 22 caliber rifle this is a man falling apart literally he's convinced that he's hearing voices that his enabled Sam as influencing him and that the dog is sending in messages that he must commit demonic Acts luckily Harvey was not seriously injured and with no clear view of the shooter the police had little to go on a month later at the end of May Berkowitz crafted another taunting cryptic letter this time to Daily News columnist Jimmy Breslin Jimmy bresen was the top columnist in New York so if Berkowitz wanted publicity and wanted to find someone who could take his story to the people and whose story would then be read Jimmy Breslin was the man to do it the letter Berkowitz told Jimmy Sam's a thirsty lad at you killing until he gets his fill of blood the city room was flooded with police officers and then For the First Time The Daily News wasn't simply reporting the story The Daily News was the story son of Sam's letter confessed to the murder of his first victim 18 year old Donna Lauria and he asked Jimmy Breslin to celebrate the anniversary of her killing prompted outrage among everyone so we had in that story not only the infuriating letter that Berkowitz had written saying that Donna Lauria was a wonderful girl and she should be memorialized but also her family's reaction to that their anger their deep deep sadness and grief all came out in a single column by Breslin a lot of people have interpreted this as some kind of affection some kind of love but what it is it's about ownership and possession and control and the many serial killers the first victim is a very significant one the first time that they start to feel like they're in control so that's why there's an importance attached to her there was no feelings of affection whatsoever as newspapers battle for the latest scoops on Son of Sam Jimmy breslin's letter was published in the weekend edition of The Daily News to achieve Maximum Impact the letter wasn't published until Sunday when the larger circulation would be available the public release of urkowitz's letter to Jimmy Breslin did create a frenzy and a fear in the public and among journalists the media Spotlight on the case resulted in 250 calls a day to the police hotline with people reporting suspicions about neighbors boyfriends even their husbands with the pressure of having to catch a Serial shooter on the loose before he struck again the NYPD even planted decoy female mannequins in parked cars to try and entrap the Killer I think the biggest challenge was to get him as quickly as possible because you knew this wasn't going to be the last time he was going to kill that was the pressure that was put upon I think all the investigators at the time and and the fact that you knew that it wasn't going to end sure enough on June the 26th burkowitz struck again shooting another man and woman in Queens luckily they escaped with minor injuries but his next attack just over a month later in Brooklyn would whip up a wave of Hysteria that New York City had never seen on the 31st of July 20 year old Stacey Moskowitz went out on a date with 20 year old Robert violante that was their first date and both Robert violent his parents and Stacey muswell's parents were concerned and Stacy and Robert both said to their respective mothers he doesn't go after blocks he doesn't who have the blinds they felt that was going to be the case that night after dinner at the movie Stacy and Robert headed to a park in Bensonhurst Brooklyn Berkowitz was also cruising in the area looking for his next victim he pulled up close by Berkowitz fired four times into the car and fled back into the park Stacy remained in the car seriously injured Robert vilanti blessed the horn got out staggered and was leaning against the light pole Robert was shot twice in the face his left eye was shattered and he was left permanently blind Stacey was pronounced dead in the hospital 38 hours later struck in Brooklyn I mean there was a stereo within the city the New York Post had on the front page no one is safe from the Son of Sam the number of calls that came in to the hotline was overwhelming people now felt he could go anyplace and he did so that people who thought that they were safe before no longer had that Assurance suddenly he was all over the city and his victims were changing so clearly that created a whole new element of fear that hadn't existed before it is the most horrifying crime people genuinely were afraid to go out you cannot overestimate or exaggerate just how much that fear gripped the city he'd taken six young lies within a year and the serial killer was the Talk of the Town Berkowitz was relishing in his Rising notoriety the New York police department now had 225 patrolmen and 75 detectives working full-time on the case former detective Sergeant Bill Gardella was brought in to investigate the latest killing of 20 year old Stacey Moskowitz next to a park in Bensonhurst I was awakened in the middle of the night they said Serge it looks like we got a shooting in Bensonhurst Brooklyn maybe the Son of Sam I jumped out of bed got dressed and drove over to the scene at base 17th Street in the park we were then given other detective units in Brooklyn to assist in questioning as many people as we could no one was safe he could strike anywhere whilst detective guardella and his colleagues were hot on the trail for any leads New York's rival newspapers were also on the hunt for a scoop on the latest killing former news reporter Brian Cates was sent to the home of son of Sam's six victim Stacy where he met her mother Nasha Nasha Moskowitz was stunned really by her daughter's death we talk about what a beautiful girl her daughter had been how could this have happened to us and then she falls silent she looked down at the floor and then look at the pictures she had of Stacy and start to cry through this experience of grief was very difficult as a reporter you have this great sympathy for this family for this horrible death meanwhile detective bill goddeller and his team were on the hunt for Witnesses who may have seen her killer three days after her murder on the 3rd of August they had a breakthrough they found a 49 year old woman who'd been out walking her dog just minutes before Stacey's shooting she observed the mail coming in in her Direction and he was carrying something in his hand I don't know what it is but I was upset I was I was afraid I pulled my dog went back to me the U-turn went back into my apartment and a few minutes later I heard shots I heard shots this new witness had seen a car being booked by a patrolling police officer for parking next to a fire hydrant when detectives checked there was no record of any tickets being issued she insisted I saw a summons being given out we checked a second time no summonses we went back she insisted so much we'll give it one more try fellow NYPD detective James Justice was sent to meet the patrolling officer on duty that evening to see if he knew anything about this elusive parking ticket when I was able to speak to the uniformed officer he informed me what had happened that he had left it in his locker sure enough there were foursome and just given out one of them to a David Berkowitz that lived in Yonkers that third attempt pick up that sermons if we didn't make three efforts we would have not got birdwoods then finally David Berkowitz came onto the police radar when detective James Justice called Yonkers PD another Stroke of Luck meant the dispatcher who picked up the phone was the daughter of burkowitz's Nemesis and neighbor Sam Carr weed car happened to live with her dead in an apartment house right behind the apartment house that David Berkowitz lived in and she related to me various stories about Berkowitz and their association with him and the the problems that they had with them and the fact that Berkowitz shot their black lab he was also told about another neighbor who'd been receiving strange letters and had recently found a fire burning outside his door the neighbor suspected Berkowitz was to blame strangeness of what this guy was doing and the fact that he wasn't related to samka but the name Sam was there and I put this all in a report my inspector asked me how everything went and I said to him I got a gut feeling we have the guy to detectives from the Son of Sam investigation was sent to berkowitz's apartment on Pine Street Yonkers they found his Ford Galaxy parked outside and cautiously peered in through the window to see if there was any incriminating evidence they look into the car and on the floor of the rear of the car there was a army duffel bag protruding from the duffel bag we thought was a submachine gun was a semi-automatic rifle the detectives found that berkowitz's car was unlocked they enter the vehicle and they come up with a letter addressed to the Suffolk County Police Chief the letter stated you can't stop me I'm coming out and this was the straw that broke the camel's back to split the case wide open this was the Son of Sam detective Sergeant Bill Gardella was called with news of this exciting find with five of his NYPD team they rushed over to Stakeout burger with his apartment block four hours later at 10 pm their patients finally paid off when the killer approached his car I took my gun out ran down the sidewalk as fast as I could to confront Berkowitz before he had an opportunity go for his gun I screamed out on police don't you go for a gun he slowly turns his head like this and smiles so while he said you got me what took you so long I think he knew that this was coming he knew he wouldn't be able to get away with it forever but this is someone who is is very used to being in control and he remains in control he smiles which I think the police find quite unnerving once handcuffed and arrested on the journey in the police car from Yonkers back to New York City Police Headquarters serial killer David Berkowitz was ready to indulge in his Newfound Fame Berkowitz says hey guys I guess the Press is waiting for me at New York City Police Headquarters with their cameras okay do me a favor can you call my hair he's going to serve a life sentence in jail he's concerned about his hair and then when we pulled up the policing quarters there were few people on the street screaming and I told the captain that was with me Camp I said I want to go in the garage he said Bill no let's get our pictures taken the mayor was at police headquarters that was the end that was it New York daily news reporter Brian Cates was on a night shift when he got the news that Son of Sam had finally been arrested everybody was abuzz with this there was Jubilation in the city um and in fact there were parties at bars and clubs celebrating the fact that he'd been captured there was a collective sigh of relief that police had got their man and that hopefully the killings were over there's no question that Berkowitz would have gone on he would have killed again and again and again until he was eventually stopped the classic serial killer they don't stop until they're caught the police had captured Berkowitz just in the nick of time using the semi-automatic rifle found in his car that weekend the Son of Sam was planning a mass shooting detective Sergeant Bill Gardella was one of the first police officers to search his apartment anytime I speak about his apartment my body starts to chill because it's something I had never seen before he had photographs of all the girls he killed on the floor he had cut him out of the newspapers and he had holes in the wall voices used to come out of those holes that Tom would go out and kill and he used to try to stop the voices by hitting the wall and then he would write a note next to each of the holes one of the notes I pretty much committed to memory and said hi my name is Mr Williams I live in this hole I'm raising little children to be Killers can't wait till they grow up it just was his sight I never forgot and it's the only thing in my lifetime that if I talk about it I get to chills strange satanic symbols were also scrawled across berkowitz's walls during the police interviews that followed he confessed to carrying out the shootings and claimed that the devil was talking to him through neighbor Sam Carr's dog instructing him to kill when it came to his trial psychiatrists were split on whether he was mentally fit to stand these claims that he was hearing voices that his neighbor's dog Harvey was essentially talking to him and this was the voice of a demon um I think this is nonsense to be honest I think this is just part of his performance of trying to appear to be insane because he's been caught now and he wants to secure the best possible outcome for himself and that outcome will always be better if you claim you're not responsible for what you've done in the end Berkowitz was deemed fit to stand trial as it was ruled he understood the charges against him but after Consulting a priest Son of Sam had an unexpected surprise up his sleeve his lawyers wanted him to mount an insanity defense and go to trial Berkowitz determined that he would not do that that he would plead guilty which he did meaning that there would be no trial on the 12th of June 1978 25 year old David Berkowitz was finally sentenced to a total of 365 years in prison this is someone who's never ever going to be released from prison and I think he would have gone on to kill more people had he not been arrested this man is incredibly dangerous but the name Son of Sam is indelibly marked on the city he terrorized that fear was fueled of course by the media at the time of his last murders the entire world reported on the capture of David Berkowitz that's how far his reach extended he didn't do it for money he didn't do it for sex he did it because he felt like it because he wanted to and that makes him a very evil man indeed Berkowitz mercilessly gunned down and killed six young people who were merely out enjoying themselves he brutally wounded seven others leaving them with life-changing injuries he knows the city that's still living with trauma of his crimes that's what makes David Berkowitz one of the world's most evil killers on January the 2nd 1981 two policemen approached a parked car on Melbourne Avenue in Sheffield South Yorkshire to talk with a couple sitting in the front the officers had no idea they were about to arrest a man who'd murdered 13 women and evaded the authorities for over five years the relief that The Man Behind these horrible offenses had finally been caught and was behind bars was immense Peter Sutcliffe the man the Press were calling the Yorkshire Ripper had a cold-blooded Mo he was attacking helpless women with a hammer before stabbing them to death with a screwdriver the quieter and quieter because on the horizon was this this monster called the Yorkshire Ripper the whole of Britain was terrified by The elusive murderer who seemed to kill for his own enjoyment Peter in my opinion was a ruthless cold-hearted killer who actually enjoyed going out and killing he got a thrill he got a buzz Peter Sutcliffe the Yorkshire Ripper had undoubtedly become one of the world's most evil killers [Music] evening [Music] Peter Sutcliffe is one of the most infamous killers in British history for five years he evaded capture while brutally murdering 13 young women across the north of England it was an investigation with twists and turns and a case that still haunts the British public to this day for years women and girls felt that simply leaving their homes at night meant taking their lives in their hands when Sutcliffe was eventually apprehended on January the 2nd 1981 he bought an end to a Manhunt that had both terrified and captivated the nation the Press had dubbed him the Yorkshire Ripper for women it was a very frightening time and they were stuck in this awful position of being told they shouldn't go out at night it had an enormous social effect on the country as well as his 13 victims Sutcliffe had attacked at least seven more women his arrest was a huge relief for the Under Pressure detectives at West Yorkshire police they attacked random we couldn't anticipate his moves the whole of the north of England was held in a well a group of Terror rarely by this month there was a sort of I can only describe it as a Gothic type Cloud over the area but the Yorkshire Ripper Story begins over 70 years ago Peter Sutcliffe was born on the 2nd of June 1946 in the market town of Bingley on the outskirts of Bradford West Yorkshire he was the youngest of quite a large family his brothers and sisters we're all of uh strong character they were all working class could look after themselves but Peter was was a shy boy and very much attached to his mother his mother was somebody who was very much dominated and controlled by his father so I think he had quite a lot of sympathy for his mum and he thought the world of her as a child but Peter was somebody who was quite shy quite awkward he was quite skinny and scrawny and I don't think he ever lived up to his father's expectations and I think that planted that seed of shame in Peter Sutcliffe that would come to shape the rest of his life Sutcliffe's awkward demeanor as a child manifested into a dysfunctional adulthood demonstrated in his early career choices Peterson such a variety of different jobs throughout his life he worked as a Gravedigger for for quite a period of time and it was reported that he stole things from the corpses that he was burying now that suggests to me that he wasn't horrified or repulsed by dead bodies and and that's something that would be quite influential later on on Valentine's Day 1967 21 year old sutph met Sonja Sherma the pair began a long-term relationship eventually getting married in August 1974. the relationship that he had with his wife Sonia appeared to have been a decent one and I think he would have treated her fairly well because she served a purpose for him women like his mother and his wife he saw us carers and nurturers people who would look after him other women I think he saw somewhat differently I think Peter sucker's do women is very black and white they are either Madonna's or they are [ __ ] so they're either these perfect domestic Angels or they're these sinful creatures these opposing views on women collided with one another when a family Revelation dramatically altered 23 year old Sutcliffe's World his mother whom he'd looked up to as a child had been unfaithful his mother had had an affair uh with the policeman and his father had decided to confront his wife at a hotel where she was meeting this particular man and took Peter with him Peter's father basically humiliated her and said look yeah I know all about what's going on and the children found out as well so I think this kind of further cemented ideas as to what women were what could be expected of them always to be cautious and wary of them I think there was every possibility that after seeing his mother and and seeing what happened that that possibly prayed on his mind and affected his attitude towards women satcliffe began to visit the red light districts of Yorkshire and find solace in prostitutes but his feelings for these women would soon lead to violence and eventually murder it's never been established precisely when Peter started his attacks the first recorded one or the first no wall it was sometime in 1969 when he was with a friend called Trevor Birdsall and Peter told Trevor that he was looking for a particular prostitute who owed him money the cruise leads and Peter told Trevor to suddenly stop the car he jumped out of the car suddenly disappeared followed her down the street and and whacked her on the back of the head and then ran sweating back to the car and Away the following day the police came round and confronted Sutcliffe he acknowledged that he'd struck the woman he said he'd just given her a light blow with a hand and because the woman was working as a prostitute she didn't want any more problems with the police and so she didn't go ahead with a complaint had he been arrested then had he been listed as somebody attacking a woman in in this aggressive way who knows whether or not it would have been much easier to find him whether there were other attacks between 1969 and 1975. nobody really knows but his first real Attack came in in 1975. by October of that year Sutcliffe was living with his wife Sonia in Bradford and working as a long-distance Lorry driver on the morning of October the 30th 1975 just 12 miles away in the chapeltown area of Leeds the body of 28 year old Wilma McCann was discovered in a local park Wilma McCann was a Scottish woman who had come down to Yorkshire she was working as a prostitute she was very hard up and it was very difficult for her because she had young children young family to support and I think that was the only way she felt she could get enough money the attack on Wilma McCann set in motion what would become a clear pattern and regular method of Ambush by the Killer was to use a ball pane hammer and was to strike them very hard and very fast on the back of the head so they fell unconscious he used his hammer and hit her over the back of their head and then he stabbed us 15 times in the neck chest and and abdomen but the police were no closer to catching the Killer and three months later on the 20th of January 1976 another woman was murdered in Leeds 42 year old wife and mother Emily Jackson who'd vanished after a night out at a local pub Emily's son Neil was 17 years old at the time he remembers receiving the tragic news on that fateful morning come downstairs my dad's blood in one of rounds Up For Worse and I'm getting me boats I'm ready for going to work and having a party with no knock at the door and it opened the place and that's when I first knew and it was first kneel will win like I said for Dad when when the police knocked at the door I can still remember it the plane is there again a hammer had been used in the brutal attack Emily had also been stabbed a total of 52 times with a screwdriver like Wilma McCann Emily Jackson had been working as a prostitute to make ends meet they were just 12 family in their states is what I've been told after afterwards when family were in our town work where I should went elsewhere but I didn't realize till well after this time police were able to recover from the seed a key piece of evidence on Emily's right thigh was a very firm and visible footprint from a size 7 Wellington boot some inexplicable reason he stamped on her thigh with such force that it left an imprint of the soul of his boot on her thigh now police tried to trace that boot or the manufacturers of the boot which they did and then try and find out people who had bought them but it didn't come to anything once again the trail went cold it was over a year until a murder with a familiar Mo took place in Leeds on the morning of February the 5th 1977 the body of 28 year old Irene Richardson was discovered she'd been savagely murdered another prostitute killed with a hammer West Yorkshire police were suddenly dealing with a serial killer what they didn't realize is that this was just the beginning of what would become one of the most infamous series of murders in British history less than three months after the death of a third victim Irene Richardson the killer struck again on the night of the 23rd of April 1977 32 year old prostitute Patricia Atkinson became victim number four she was murdered in her own flat this time not in Leeds but in nearby Bradford she believed that if she invited customers into her flat she was safe because all the killings had taken place in isolated Parks or back alleys so she thought she was safe but she wasn't the killer hit Patricia four times around the head with a hammer and then mutilated her body with a knife this time detectives found a clue to link the murders of Patricia Atkinson and Emily Jackson the police found the same boot mark on the bed clothes at Patricia's house Patricia's flat as they found on Emily Jackson's thigh this crucial link confirmed the Authority's worst fears the killer was expanding his hunting ground and he seemed to have a favored Target all four murder victims had been working as prostitutes they were very vulnerable women it was very easy to persuade them to get into a car it was very easy to find them and they were used to not being protected in in any way and so he would be able to drive along ask them if they were up for business and they would get into the car and he realized then that as long as there was nobody watching what was going on he could do what he liked but the next victim would Buck the trend and shock the nation on the morning of the 26th of June 1977 just over two months after the murder of Patricia Atkinson two children in an Adventure Playground made a gruesome Discovery the body of 16 year old girl Jane McDonald she wasn't a prostitute she was a young girl going home minding her own business but suddenly a schoolgirl was attacked and that changed everybody's deception of the sort of man they were looking for by this stage if it was a woman who was vulnerable he was happy to kill them any woman who is vulnerable if they were found on the streets late at night this latest kill caused a great public outcry now courtesy of the Tabloid press the killer had a nickname the Yorkshire Ripper after Jane McDonald's murder the Press then and television actually became more interested in what was happening you have to remember that nothing had his the Jack the Ripper in London in the century before what did become clear was the attitude of that time because she was described in some newspapers as his first innocent victim as though in some ways the prostitutes had been guilty of making themselves vulnerable to him it caused a lot of anger amongst women amongst feminists and amongst any commentator with the heart she was a victim who prompted the police to work much harder than I think they had been working at the time what this did in the public mind was actually create Mass fear there is a great deal of fear and as the killings went on and the attacks went on that fear increased on a Monumental basis women were frightened of going out at night women questioned where their husbands were boyfriends were what they were doing when a particular attack had taken place and they perhaps weren't where they said they'd been The increased media attention in the case intensified the ongoing suffering of the victim's loved ones it was flushed everywhere no matter where you went purpose TV buses backyards whatever advertised everywhere there were no way you could get away from it it made it harder for me just seeing photo or a man have been not there to talk to with a full-scale Manhunt now taking place West Yorkshire police were desperate to capture the Ripper before he struck again but he was seemingly always one step ahead his next murder would take place across the pennines on the morning of the 9th of October 1977 the heavily mutilated body of 20 year old prostitute Jean Jordan was discovered on an allotment in Manchester she'd been dead for over a week time detectives found an important clue a newly minted five pound note in Gene's handbag which led them to a 31 year old Lorry driver from Bradford Peter Sutcliffe the police found the five pound note they traced it via the banks and found that it had gone through the hands of probably 300 people one of them being Peter Peter was interviewed but on the night in question he said he was at a party and his members of his family confirmed that he had been at the party the police didn't know it but they had found the murderer it would not be the last time Peter Sutcliffe slipped through the fingers of the authorities between December 1977 and may 1978 he would kill three more women all of them prostitutes all of them bludgeoned to death with a hammer I away with it the more bold and and the more kind of dramatic their their offending becomes and the more prolific they become because they they've been flying under the radar for so long there may have even been interviewed by the police and and subsequently not charged with anything they do get to the point where they feel completely Untouchable on December the 14th 1977 one woman survived an attack by the Ripper 25 year old prostitute Marilyn Moore she described her assailant in detail to the police and a photo-fit picture was released by May 1978 West Yorkshire police had interviewed Sutcliffe on seven different occasions but continually ruled him out of the investigation detective George oldfield's attention had been diverted elsewhere I'm Jack ing me good Lord you are not nearly touching me now and four years ago when I started what really derailed the investigation or largely derailed the investigation was a tape from a chap in the Northeast from where side who sent George ofield a tape which became known as we assigned Jack's tape in which he said you haven't caught me you've been looking for four years and really taunting the police he mocked George Oldfield and said your men are not doing very well I've done another one and you still haven't caught me and yeah the Geordie accent aware side accent and as a result of that the police discounted people like Peter Sutcliffe it had been almost a year since Sutcliffe had struck but early on the morning of the 5th of April 1979 a woman discovered the mutilated and blooded body of his tenth victim 19 year old building Society worker Josephine Whitaker in Halifax the Yorkshire rippers 322-day Hiatus had come to a devastating end in August 1979 West Yorkshire police could pay another visit to Sutcliffe's house in Garden Lane Bradford officer Andrew lapchu will never forget the day he stood face to face with the Yorkshire Ripper the rules of fur going to see Sutcliffe was because his vehicle had been cited in three red light areas in Leeds in Bradford and in Manchester Target Sutcliffe was like pulling teeth he'd said to him now what do you do for a living I'm a driver where do you work Clarks at Shipley it wouldn't volunteer any information without it being asked from him and one of our employees tactic if you like an icebreaker was to say to the wife now's your chance to get rid of your husband if you want now said jokingly but it was an icebreaker to put everybody at the race with the soap cliffs there was no reaction whatsoever which I found strange because at least he'd get a smirk or a laugh it was quite an attractive man you know well groomed but they have no personality no Charisma about him whatsoever no Aura there was nothing there lapchu felt so uneasy about his encounter with Sutcliffe he submitted a report to his senior officers suggesting Sutcliffe needed to be investigated further lapchu was within Striking Distance of the forces Most Wanted I had the report typed up and I says I've interviewed this fella I don't like him this has got really bad feeling about it's a niche that a cat scratch anything to do with the case was attached to the Ripple and I went directly to Dick Holland in the incident room he put in a report to his senior officers that Peter was a person who should be of interest someone who should be looked at closely and one of the key things that Mr lactu noticed was that Peter had a gap in his two front teeth and this he felt could mark up or marry up with bite marks found on two of the victims he asked me if he was a judice there's no it's from Bradford he's from around these parts I said but it's a dead ringer for the Marilyn Moore photo and it then hit the roof if anybody mentions effing photo fits to me they'll be doing traffic for the rest of the service it wasn't so bad that had the report rejected it was a manner of the rejection in front of about 50 people so I could have crawled under the crack in the door after that to read but you've got to remember these fellas were like gods that's how much in high esteem we held them the senior detectives on the Ripper case were so convinced that the killer was the mysterious weird side Jack that they dismissed any other suspect it was a mistake that would soon lead to the deaths of three more women across West Yorkshire [Music] police threw all their eggs into one basket and discounted a lot of others and spent many many man hours days weeks trying to track down where side Jack and that through the whole investigation into kilter it really did derail it he'd had many escapes Peter Sutcliffe during the investigation he was interviewed a total of nine occasions he lied his way out on every occasion and he was a very good liar he always had a quite a clever excuse as to why he had been somewhere he had the perfect Alibi because he was a long-distance Lorry driver so he had a perfect excuse to be in different places at top odd times of the day or night I think Peter Sutcliffe was going on in stream by the police several times he was right under the nose on multiple occasions and even Peter Sutcliffe himself has said I got to the point where I thought I must be invisible so he got to the stage where he felt Untouchable he felt so powerful he thought that he was never going to get caught as the police were trying to trace where side Jack Peter then started killing again and in September 1979 he attacked a young Bradford University student called Barbara leech twenty-year-old Barbara was found murdered on September the 2nd 1979 in back Ash Grove Bradford only 200 yards from where she said goodbye to her friends after a night out the women of West Yorkshire and the surrounding area were living in fear prostitutes who are particularly in danger eight of the 11 victims had been working on the streets so they were all very very frightened they needed to keep working but there was always this fear that the next man the next client could be the Yorkshire Ripper created fear and Terror on the streets of West Yorkshire and Lancashire he was somebody who was striking at night nobody knew and where he'd strike next he was absolutely terrifying for people the mood across the UK as a whole was stifled and tense awaiting the next move from the man the public knew only as the Ripper would never had anything like it the media coverage was overwhelming about it so wherever you were there was always something about the case that a million pounds worth of publicity with the hoax's handwriting on billboards rewards were offered it was a massive massively intensive campaign really both from a police point of view and a media point of view and it saturated your whole life the problem for the police was the days of before computers and police in those days would log information on index cards because of the notoriety of the attacks and the publicity the police were inundated with information they had boxes and boxes and boxes full of index cards which filled an enormous room in West Yorkshire Police Headquarters there's been undue criticism of the police who made every move for the best intention with the information that they had you cannot sort of anticipate what a merger is going to do at random all the stops were pulled out because all the police wanted from the top to the bottom was for this month to be captured so we could get back to normal everyday policing for almost a year there were no more attacks until the body of 47 year old civil servant Marguerite walls was discovered in Leeds on the 20th of August 1918. she'd been hit on the back of the head and in a change to the usual method of the Ripper she'd also been strangled look at your strangulation marks are often very characteristic the ligature will compress the neck it would often graze it just a little bit and when the person dies that area of the ligature Mark will go quite yellow quite hard and it's usually very characteristic something that will be identified very quickly now why she changed his modus operandi nobody seems to know him Marguerite walls was sucked with 12th victim but the police were still no nearer to catching him a month later in September 1980 20 year old student Mo Lee moved from Liverpool to Leeds to complete her degree she immediately felt a change in atmosphere having arrived in the Ripper's home county so in 1980 I just completed a foundation degree in art design from Liverpool so I ended up going to Leeds to do a fine art degree but there was a strange atmosphere there the streets became quieter and quieter because on the horizon was this monster called the Yorkshire Ripper there'd be another murder and it'd be closer to home and we began to realize that as women going out alone we were pretty vulnerable despite the continued rise in fear across the county Mo and her friends felt an increased sense of unity against the unknown assailant there was a curfew almost on on women going out alone there was that solidarity amongst the women and female friends and the blokes as well that they'd make sure that they would walk you home Mo and her fellow students were an independent group who tried as hard as they could to be unaffected by the events around them but this would all change on October the 25th 1980. I'd plan to to the town center of Leeds to meet a group of friends from art school and I left that Pub I think it was about quarter to ten ten o'clock my friends were saying oh we'll walk you into town and you were going to be all right I've got to say you know I'm absolutely fine it's not far I got to the outskirts of the campus and there's a church and you can either take the long way around or you can go and through a shortcut Street I made a decision that it would be much easier for me to go through that shortcut and get into town so get home safely but Mo was not alone it's fairly dark and as I was halfway through I heard this voice calling to me so I stopped and I turned around and I walked towards this figure and it was a young man I thought maybe I do know him I wasn't he was so friendly so friendly but Mo was wrong he was not a friend or even a kindly stranger so I realized I didn't know this chat and then I realized I was in danger I just sensed this and as soon as I started to run really quickly his footsteps were behind me getting quicker and quicker and quicker and the fear my knees turned to jelly and all I remember was getting this massive whack on the top of my head and I saw the ground come up towards me and that that was all that I remember but it was real fear like nightmare big deep deep fear I've never been frightened before like that ever or since fortunately Moe's attacker was Disturbed when a group of students approached after hearing her screams The Next Thing mo knew she was waking up in hospital I was pretty lucky I think my bones are pretty strong so the blow to the top of the head has left quite a large dent and crack in my skull I had two puncture wounds to the back of my top of my neck just below my skull and cuts and bruises on my knees and elbows where I'd Fallen to the floor the police could not be sure the attack on Mo Lee was carried out by the Ripper but they wouldn't have to wait long before he claimed his 13th victim on the 17th of November 1980 in Leeds Jacqueline Hill a 20 year old student was hit over the head stabbed repeatedly and mutilated an attack that bore all the Hallmarks of the Ripper but Jacqueline Hill would be Peter sutphiv's final victim within two months a routine police stop would lead to one of the most Sensational arrests of modern times the capture of the Yorkshire Ripper just after the New Year of January 2nd 1981. Peter went to Sheffield and picked up a prostitute on the same evening a policeman was a lot of years of service decided to show a young rookie round Sheffield the two police officers spotted Sutcliffe's car near offices on Melbourne Avenue in Sheffield's red light district they decided to approach and talk to the pair cops asked what what's your girlfriend's name he said I don't know we've only just met and the policeman said you know I haven't just fallen off a Christmas tree so he he already realized there was something odd going on Peter said that he needed to urinate and the officers let him go up to a wall by the side of the building while he was wired the young police officer did a PNC check on the registration of the car and found that the plates were false so Peter was arrested and taken to dewsbury police station once down at the station Sutcliffe was searched he wasn't carrying any weapons but this time detectives weren't going to let him slip from their grasp so one of them thought let's go back to that place where we spotted him and let's see if he did leave anything when he popped out of the car saying he was going to have a pee the police returned to the scene of the original arrest they found the hammer the attended murder weapon and they came back with them and gradually after that Peter Sutcliffe realized that the game was up and eventually he confessed and his only condition was that he'd be allowed to tell his wife Sonia before it became known to the general public that he was indeed the Yorkshire Ripper it had been over five years since the murder of Wilma McCann but detectives finally had the Ripper in custody all the years of Terror for women in West Yorkshire all the years of frustration for the police had come to an abrupt end Andrew lapq had suspected Sutcliffe may be the Ripper for the previous two years he vividly remembers the moment a fellow officer told him the incredible news she came in and says they've got the Yorkshire Ripper I says what really who was it she's somebody called Peter Sutcliffe well it was like somebody punched him in the chest from the inside the bottom had fallen out of my world Sutcliffe's arrest made headlines across the country he is being questioned in relation to the Yorkshire Ripper murders we are absolutely delighted with developments at this stage when Peter was caught the Press was all over it at the time it was probably one of the biggest stories since the Moore's murders the capture of Peter was front page headlines and on top of the news for days not only in Britain but around the world his arrest was greeted with enormous relief for six years this man had terrorized a large portion of the country the relief that The Man Behind these horrible offenses had finally been caught and was behind bars was immense and that shadow that he cast over the country for for those number of years passed I think when he was finally apprehended he would have felt a sense of resignation at this it's over that he wouldn't be able to commit any more murders but I think he probably would have been a bit shocked as well because he'd been getting away with it for so long that I thought he'd he'd just be able to talk his way out of it again a wave of relief spread across the country but the announcement came as a shock to the family members of those killed I'd seen it on the telephone uh when he got caught and at first I couldn't believe it when I started listening to it properly and realizing that I got a confirmation through the police a bit of a relief people felt a bit safer another viewer intently watching the story unfold was Mo Lee I was at home in Liverpool and his face appeared on the TV news it was when he was actually taken from a prison van into a courts and there was really a good camera shot and I recognized his face and his eyes I actually fell to my knees I was alone at home six o'clock news I thought that's the man I chatted to then I was really horrified because it dawned on me that he had attacked me so that was my first real understanding that for sure it was it was Peter suckley on the 5th of January 1981 of dewsbury magistrates Court Sutcliffe was remanded in custody for the murder of Jacqueline Hill later on the 20th of February he was charged with all 13 murders and a further seven attempted murders once he'd been charged I think Peter Sutcliffe felt that he had a chance of not going to prison but of claiming to be mad and therefore going to a secure hospital where life would be much easier for him and so he emphasized the fact that he believed God had instructed him to clear the streets and that it had been the devil a devil is urge had made him carry these things out the preliminary hearing began on the 29th of April 1981 at the old bayley in London Sutcliffe pleaded not guilty to murder but guilty to manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility the trial judge at that particular hearing heard evidence from four psychiatrists two for the prosecution and two for the defense the judge stepped in and said we need to be careful here because whilst I don't disagree with these psychiatrists they're only going on what Peter Sutcliffe has told them so we need to to be very careful about accepting that the word of a multiple murderer Mr Justice Forum decided at the end of it that Peter should stand trial in front of a jury on the charges of murder and attempted murder and that's what happened the trial began on May the 5th 1981 and the crowns had waited for hours some through the night to watch Peter Sutcliffe arrive from Brixton in the green prison van the 14-day trial was essentially a discussion about whether Peter Sutcliffe was as judge Mr Justice Borum put it bad or mad on May the 22nd the jury had reached their decision as each of the 13 women's names was read out the answer was the Same by a majority of ten to two guilty of murder on all charges this soothes the end of the largest murder inquiry in the history of the British police and we brought it to a satisfactory conclusion I I think when you look at Peter Sutcliffe's offending Behavior here's somebody who's very much in control of what he's doing yes his crimes are quite bloody quite gory they're incredibly violent but he escapes he gets away with it he picks up again where he left off he goes prepared to the crime scene so he's somebody who who knows what he's doing he knows what he's doing is wrong and yeah he's still continuing to do it on the 22nd of May 1981 Mr Justice boreham sentenced Peter Sutcliffe to 20 life sentences and a minimum of 30 years imprisonment before being considered for parole he was immediately sent to Parker's prison on the Isle of Wight despite being declared sane at his trial in 1984 Sutcliffe was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia and transferred to Broadmoor secure Hospital in Berkshire the real difference between prison and secure hospitals so prison is a place for prisoners for offenders secure hospitals are a place for people who are ill who need treatment a lot of people speculate that his paranoid schizophrenia was something that actually developed in prison he was somebody who was vulnerable to this anyway but because of the stress of the the circumstances of being in prison it triggered that the symptoms in him in 2010 a high court judge ruled that Sutcliffe's sentence should be increased to a whole life tariff meaning he'll never be released from prison and in 2016 Sutcliffe was moved out of Broadmoor and back into prison at Franklin in County Durham he is without doubt one of the most infamous murderers in the UK Britain is not a country which has a reputation for serial killers I think that's why it grabbed the Public's attention to the degree that it did 30 years after Peter Sutcliffe's killing spree the world is very different very very different you don't see people walking about in the way that they did 30 40 years ago nowadays everybody's very cautious everybody's worried I think to Sutcliffe has become this kind of iconic figure this kind of criminal celebrity and I think we need to be a bit cautious about that we're going to lose sight of the victims the people whose lives were lost in his Killing Spree it's become more about him than it has about them now Sutcliffe's Legacy car said deathly Shadow over the lives he took and the lives he left behind Peter Sutcliffe is never far from the headlines you know barely a few months ago passed without some mention of him in a national newspaper and he is a notorious figure in the years since his conviction Sutcliffe has admitted carrying out a collection of other attacks on women including two back in 1975 before his first murder Anna rogolski and Olive smelt he's never admitted to the attack on Molly so so unlikely I've had to learn to live with the fact that that will never happen I just wish you were here because I I had some good episodes with my mum I just wish you were there he blacks me out knowing my son and my grandson does here since his incarceration over 35 years ago Sutcliffe has talked many times about his Killing Spree regularly taking the opportunity to seize the Limelight but he's still yet to give a reason for the brutal attacks Peter in my opinion was a ruthless cold-hearted killer who actually enjoyed going out and killing he got a thrill he got a buzz why he did it only he knows he's never actually given a proper explanation he's never given a potent reason for killing in the manner that that he did we may never know how many people sucked with attacked or why he did it but we can be sure no woman who crossed his path was safe his reign of terror shocked the world as he evaded capture for over five years the cold-blooded and brutal manner in which he murdered 13 helpless women his wife are named Peter satriff the Yorkshire Ripper continues to hold the British public to this day foreign November 1974 Wichita Kansas the city was gripped by fear as a serial killer was attacking people in their own homes before binding torturing and ultimately killing them in Pursuit Of The Thrill the police found semen at the scene so there was clearly a sexual element to this offending and they also discovered that the faces of some of the victims were quite bloated which suggests that the killer strangled them and then stopped strangling them and then strangled them again The Man Behind These gruesome killings was living amongst his victims in the very town he was terrorizing he is a man who for all intents and purposes was upright Citizen and yet while he was that on the surface underneath there is no question at all he was a monster his evil is a different evil mainly because he thinks that he's entitled to him his name was Dennis Rader but he would go on to create a murderous Alter Ego for himself a brand of his own radar would stalk his he would attack them in their homes he would torture them and kill them Raiders preferred method of murder to bind torture and then kill became his name BTK it took over 30 years for authorities to bring him to Justice Wichita didn't have a boogie man they had BDK his gruesome crimes make Dennis Rader one of the world's most evil killers [Music] thank you January 1974 Wichita Kansas one of the world's most notorious serial killers began a reign of terror that would last over three decades I think the thing that makes Dennis Rader one of the world's most evil Killers is the sheer conceit and arrogance that runs through every vein of his body the Otero family had just moved into the area where Dennis Rader lived they became his first victims he killed two children and their parents leaving their other children to discover his crimes Dennis wrote its first murder he's chosen to kill four people that is quite a significant undertaking and I think that really is Testament to his arrogance and his hubris that he thought he could do this a pillar of the community involved in the church and a scout leader Raider would go on to kill another six times with his last murder taking place in 1991 when he attacked Dolores E Davis in her home he's on a Cub Scout camp which he slips away from clearly supposed to give him an alibi once again binds a torches her and eventually kills her this time with her own pantyhose and he dumps her body a long way away but this Killer's ego a new technology meant that he was finally in the sights of police and the FBI after he wrote to local newspapers and the TV station to brag about the murders he'd got away with do people just sat there and kept his mouth shut I'm not sure we'd ever caught him and so um you know that that kind of arrogance and complacency came back to bite him pretty hard radar light to torture people and that wasn't just his murder victims it was the families of his murder victims so when he has the opportunity to relive and to retell the stories of the horrendous acts that he's perpetrated he really does seize on that he enjoys revealing all of the explicit and the Gory details for the decades he remained uncaught Wichita the largest city in the sunflower state of Kansas lived in Terror of the killer who'd named himself BTK bind torture kill with Killers like Raider there is always knock-on effects and someone who is killing in such a way over a period of time is going to damage the community there is going to be fear that's going to be looking out of the curtains of the neighbors it just breeds an appropriate paranoia amongst people when's it going to happen next Who's it going to be next when he was finally arrested in 2005 his reign of terror came to an end but even then he reveled in the attention radar confessed that he didn't deny having committed these murders and actually I think he quite enjoyed having that notoriety finally people knew who BTK was this killer Story begins in 1945. was born in Pittsburgh Kansas on March the 9th the eldest of four boys born to William and Dorothea Raider Raider was born in 1945 and he was one of several children within a very traditional nuclear family his father was strict but not particularly abusive and many children grew up in households like this he was upright he was a scout he was on all sorts of programs for Good Children he had the ability to blend in he wasn't bullied for example as a lot of killers are to his friends and family he was a model child but in private Raider began to show his true colors Raider claims that when he was a Youngster he abused animals so he hung a cat and he hung a dog we do see in quite a few cases of serial killers animal harm in the background as he went into puberty that he described himself as looking at girly mags developing a fascination with underwear and then significantly and indeed deeply significant in his later crimes was a fascination with bondage and sadomasochism having graduated from a local high school in Wichita in 1965 radar enrolled in Kansas Wesleyan College in Selena 90 miles from home however he dropped out in 1966 when Raider was 21 he joined the United States Air Force and remained in it for four years he worked on systems he was that kind of man systems of very much his kind of thing we've served abroad sometimes in Europe as far as We Know not a particularly distinguished career but not a bad one he returns to Wichita Kansas and marries a girl he was at school with Raider marries and has two children and from the outside they do very much look like the respectable cereal box family just like any other regular American family in 1974 Raiders suddenly and inexplicably changed from the respected x-forces gentleman to a brutal evil killer there has to be something that set him off because that first explosion of violence was so shocking so dramatic so utterly horrifying that you couldn't possibly have imagined it was like going from naught to 60 in two seconds a new family to the neighborhood became his first victims the Atari family had recently moved to Wichita because they wanted a new start this was the beginning of a new chapter in their lives but unfortunately this was to be very short-lived because one day the teenage children arrive home to the most horrendous scene on January the 15th 1974 Wichita police were called to the scene detective Tim Ralph was one of the task force investigators on the BTK case in later years at the aterra house they were actually called by the children the three older children had come home and they had found their mother and father they called and the First Responders are the first people that arrived at that time they they went to the bedroom they found the father and the mother the scene they discovered was horrendous Dennis Rader had broken into the family home and murdered everyone in the house in a way that would become his trademark he binds ties up husband and wife with a Venetian bind cord suffocates them the older children didn't want their younger siblings to come home and find us because they thought they were at school and so the officers went to their elementary schools in the area and found that both of the younger siblings had not made it to school that day when officers searched the house it soon became clear that the parents weren't the only victims nine-year-old Joseph and his sister Josephine 11 were both found murdered their 11 year old daughter is found hanging in the basement whether he killed her by hanging her or strangled her and then strung up the body we have a situation where he's created elaborate knot work and hung the body up it's almost like some sort of Macabre art display radar appeared to have fixated on the younger daughter Josephine because he seems to have spent the most time with her body she was the prize and the others were just obstacles that he had to get out of the way he kills the boy ties him up leaves on the floor of his bedroom again suffocated Raider had killed four members of the Otero family 38 year old Joseph 33 year old Julie nine-year-old Joseph Jr and 11 year old Josephine the arterial case provided an overall mindset of this person that he certainly was into some kind of minding fantasy the way Raider had killed the family showed the beginnings of what would become his modus operandi the police found Seaman at the scene so there was clearly a sexual element to this offending and they also discovered that the faces of some of the victims were quite bloated which suggests that the killer strangled them and then stopped strangling them and then strangled them again so it literally holding them on the edge of life and death watching the life drain out of them and then giving it back so having that power over somebody's survival or somebody's demise is something that this killer very much enjoyed this was not sadly the act from admin it was the first of a series of killings in Wichita that would come to terrify the town with few Clues as to what had happened or why the Wichita Police were baffled just a few months later in April 1974 Raider struck again radar starts escalating in the classic profile system Catherine bright who's 21 years old a good-looking he forces his way into the house with a gun Catherine and her brother Kevin return at lunchtime to their house and he forces Kevin to tie Catherine to the chair and begins to struggle with Kevin Kevin is fighting back and Raiden really doesn't like this so he shoots Kevin in the head [Music] now miraculously Kevin survives and he's able to flee and summon help but unfortunately it's too late for his sister Catherine I think he tried to bind her up but it just wasn't working and the whole thing just came unraveled and and he would take out a knife and he would he would very viciously stab her several times and then he left thinking that he had killed her and and uh I don't think he realized that Kevin had run had run out and Kevin got a hold of a neighbor who called the police when the first officers got there Catherine was still alive but she was barely breathing and she couldn't identify her attacker and she was taking the hospital she died in surgery just a couple hours after that she's bound she is tortured and she's eventually killed Catherine's brother Kevin was the first person to give Clues as to Raider's identity to police he describes a white male you know 180 pounds we were looking for a single person uh you were looking for this white male in his late 20s could cover a description of quite a lot of men in Wichita Kansas but at least it's something radar once again slips behind the mask returns to being a pillar of the community the police are left struggling with no substantial leads and a brutal killer still at large it was only a matter of time before Dennis Rader struck again in January they have the Otero killings in April they have Catherine's killing and Kevin's attack they have no idea what they have on their hands I don't imagine they get an awful lot of these kinds of attacks in Wichita by the end of the year the police thought they'd had a breakthrough in their investigation of the killings in October 1974 and the police arrest three men on the suspicion of the Otero killings Raider is Furious this is an outrage those were my killings nobody else I'm not a this is it's not exactly absolutely not acceptable you can almost hear him saying it to himself this is not right in sense that his murders are being attributed to someone else Raider wrote a letter to the local newspaper the Wichita Eagle and hid it inside a textbook at the Wichita Public Library he then phoned the Otero murder hotline to describe where the letter could be found in his letter claiming credit for the Otero killings it's not quite um well written it's uh Clumsy misspelled bad grammar but the overall motive is absolutely clear Raider attempted to justify the killings with the phrase I can't stop it so the monster goes on and hurt me as well as Society Society can be thankful that there are ways for people like me to relieve myself a Time by Daydreams of some victims being torture and being mine understanding the fear he was causing radar went one step further and gave his murderous Alter Ego a name he wanted a brand he wanted an identity he didn't just want to be a nameless killer so he didn't want to get caught and he also wanted recognition for his crime so he had to come up with a moniker bind torture kill Dennis Rader was to be known as BTK and as he communicated with the Press Raider made a chilling threat that he was to strike again he'd gone to work for a security company installing home security kits well you can imagine what the residents of Wichita were doing at this moment suddenly there's a serial killer on the loose what are they going to be doing they bought elaborate security systems and burglar alarms which actually turned out to be quite ironic because the killer who was targeting the victims had actually worked for a security company so the very person who should have been invested in keeping people safe was the one who we had to watch out for it would however be nearly three years before Raider killed again in 1977 radar murders Shirley van now she's a 26 year old mother of three radar follows home Shirley's five-year-old son once again he forces his way into a house [Music] he locks the children in the bathroom and he proceeds to torture and kill Shirley your children are screaming in the bathroom the only thing you must be grateful for in imagining this horrifying scene is they couldn't actually see what was happening to their mother once again Radio use strangulation to claim his victim it was becoming increasingly clear that Raider had an obsession with tying ropes as part of his murderous action this is so far outside normal experience the body seems to be almost secondary to displaying his skill at tying knots yet again radar disappears the scene as if a ghost there's no clear forensic evidence is a random killing later that year on December the 8th 1977 with the police still having no clue about his identity Raider would strike again [Music] Raider kills a 25 year old Secretary and he likely stalked her for some time he's getting better at his offending at this point in time he's looking at the house he cuts the phone lines outside he waits for inside the house he waits until she gets home she is if you like the archetypal BTK victim he broke into her house completely invading her privacy he tied her up he strangled her with the belts he masturbated at the scene but that wasn't all he actually called the police so there is a tape of Dennis Rader's voice so they have the voice of the offender [Music] this is Raiders celebrating once again his own power here he is swaggering there could be no other word for it that he knows something that nobody else knows and he's taken another life within four years Raider had murdered seven people and yet the police had nothing to go on but odd Clues and a crackly voice recording he had continued to evade capture and baffle the police but he wanted more Raiders sees all of the attention that serial killers like Ted Bundy are getting and I think he wants a slice of that action but he wants to be more than Ted Bundy more than the other serial killers and I think that's very much what drives his offending and the form that that takes a month after Nance's death Raider sends a note to the local television station in which he explains that he can close her eyes though look she can pass away I mean it's an act of the most extraordinary vanity and again refers in the note to the television station to I'll be doing it again those seven murders back in 1978 became directly attributed to BTK and he had made several Communications he sent him through the local paper at the time so those seven were always attributed to him local police detective Randy Stone noticed that radar was enjoying the attention that he was getting he liked watching himself on TV so you know communicating with the news media was was part of his way of achieving the notoriety and being publicized and everything and he enjoyed watching himself on TV and he favored the news media that had the best seminal reception on his television I think one of the things that sustains Raiders appetite for publicity is it he knows full well he's not just terrifying individual victims he's terrifying the whole town they are in absolute fear the sales of his security systems are going up rapidly it's quite clear that there is a serial killer at work it's quite clear that all the victims are in Wichita which is not a huge town and it's quite clear the police have no suspects the community were particularly terrified by these murders because the police had to tell the community that there was a serial killer on the loose they had to do this in order for people to take steps to keep themselves and their loved ones safe the quiet and the peacefulness of 1970s Suburbia really has been completely shaken by these murders after scores of officers investigating and thousands of manners the police realized they had nothing to stop this killer but then BTK seemed to have stopped himself years went by without any further sign from him the case went cold could Dennis Rader have got away with it he disappears again and indeed pretty much disappears completely two years pass three radar goes dormant for a period of time whether there are murders that aren't linked to him or not is a matter of speculation as the years went by without another attack from BTK Wichita Police called in the FBI the local police form a task force which ironically they nicknamed Ghostbusters to try and find whoever the Killer is they are singularly unsuccessful they do not get anywhere near radar the Ghostbusters team would keep investigating BTK for the next three years there was a theory that he was either in jail or dead or had left the area that theory was the basis for Ghostbusters was the theory for the basis for searching for men that had left the area after 1979. over 600 suspects were tracked by the task force but none of them could be connected with the BTK murders questions and rumors began to swirl about btk's fate and with no more murders in the Wichita Area some considered the horror over so it isn't until 1985 that he kills again but this time he moves his victimology instead of a young woman it's an older woman 53 called Marine in fact she lives very close to Raider okay he hasn't actually killed anybody four years can you imagine what must be building up inside that torture mind with Marine hedge the Raider is changing his modus operandi not only does he murder her he then takes the body of all places to a church where he poses her in degrading positions and takes photographs and ultimately dumps the body this is the use of a human being as an object as a play thing BTK was back still evading capture and growing in Brazen confidence Raider dumps Nancy's body about seven miles away in a ditch clearly take some trophies as is won't and shows no regard for his victim whatever that case was not initially connected to BTK mainly because it was a completely different part of town it was a few miles outside of Wichita now it's you know almost bordering Wichita but at that time in a little city called Park City a year later on the 16th of September 1986 Raider murdered 28 year old Vicki wegely while she was at home with her two-year-old son Raider spots a attractive 28 year old mother called Vicky walking towards her house we're not exactly sure how radar got access to her but what we do know is he did exactly what he's done before her husband is driving home for lunch their two-year-old son is left in the house with the body of his dead mother her husband discovers the two-year-old sitting on the floor on his own and goes into another room to discover his wife's body the this time BTK was not a suspect police initially believed this was a domestic homicide and Vicki's husband was questioned Judge Kevin O'Connor who was Deputy District Attorney at the time recalls the case Mr wagerley her husband was always considered to be a suspect so at the time I became involved was when the DNA could be replicated and so they had the ability to replicate the DNA so you would have enough to be able to test it without using up your full sample by the late 80s police were beginning to have new technology to work with and homicide cases like this were the first places it was being used we started to learn about things like DNA and there was so much more even video and the computers came along and the ability to track people through all those different mediums became something that we had to kind of look back and see if we could use some of that new technology for some of the old evidence the DNA from the scene soon proved the husband was innocent and the wegely murder went unsolved BTK had got away with murder again radar disappears no contact with the police no contact with the local television station or the local newspapers he sinks back into the facade that he's been presenting for so very long of being an upright citizen married father of two indeed he doesn't kill again for five years Raiders final known murder occurred on the 19th of January in 1991. the victim 62 year old Dolores E Davis [Music] doesn't entirely fit the picture with what he's been doing before she's older quite a lot older he's on a Cub Scout camp which he slips away from clearly supposed to give him an alibi once again binds a torches her and eventually kills her this time with her own pantyhose and he dumps her body a long way away so the police find it difficult to fit a pattern here this this lady Dolores is again naked dumped but it's not anywhere near the house the scenes were different he removed them from the house he had to kind of move his victim his ideal victim had to move to where he could control them more and that meant a little bit more mature victim police still had nothing that could help them identify the Killer this time radar returns to the body and takes Polaroid of pictures of the victim all while wearing a feminine mask yet again the police are confused Raider disappears again off the radar BTK had now murdered 10 people he continued to roam the streets of Wichita a free man for over a decade but then in 2004 the 30th anniversary of his first murders ignites his ego once again a local is going to write a book called nightmare in Wichita if ever there was anything that was going to provoke Raiders vanity it was going to be that somebody else was going to tell his story no if anyone's going to tell my story it's going to be me Wichita Kansas 2004 the residents of this Heartland U.S Town knew Dennis Rader as a church-going family man but for decades he was getting away with murder binding torturing and killing his victims to build his own sick Alter Ego BTK it had been 30 years since his first murders the anniversary of the killing of the Otero family one of the newspaper reporters did his story to say you know here's the anniversary story it's it's another year and had been solved and evidently BTK read that story and read in the story that there was a book being written about it kind of had the opinion that who's more qualified to write the book than him at this point radar resumes writing to the media he wants to be back in the spotlight he wants to be in control of the story it's very very important to him that he has credit for these crimes that he committed he doesn't want anybody else taking away from that Raider wrote to the paper under his usual pseudonym Bill Thomas killman initials BTK and included a copy of Vicki wegler's driving license and photos from the murder scene this was the start of a trail of Clues connecting Raider to all of his victims first of all he leaves little items that he's taken from the scenes in unlikely places he starts taunting the police literally saying well of course you think you may know but actually I know and what's more I can prove it here's some examples BTK had returned to tease the police and they knew that this time they had to catch him one of his Communications allowed investigators to make a breakthrough he had left it cereal box at Home Depot here in Wichita he thought it was funny that to use cereal boxes because he's a serial killer law enforcement went out to Home Depot and started doing some interviews and one of the employees there said yeah he found a something in the bed of his pickup truck but he threw it out he took it home opened it up there was a doll there was some other stuff in there and he didn't he thought it was just some some joke or pranks he threw it away he didn't take the garbage down to the end of the driveway and law enforcement was able to recover that package and during the course of the investigation Home Depot was able to provide us with a video of the parking lot and so we were able to see a vehicle come in and that vehicle could be identified as a Jeep Cherokee or a similar type vehicle that was important to us because that was information at that time that law enforcement knew but he didn't know law enforcement knew the police finally had sight of BTK but with grainy unclear CCTV footage it was the smallest of Clues [Music] in an effort to keep himself hidden btk's communication methods were becoming increasingly complicated the police and he start communicating through small ads in the Wichita Eagle finally he asks the police in one of the communications what if I were to give you a floppy disk with more details of the killings could you identify me he asked us you know be honest you know because the police can't lie well we can lie if we're catching a serial killer and and then he was told you can send us whatever you want we won't raise it BTK Center disk to the local TV station the police took a look and suddenly with this one mistake the case was blown wide open we were contacted by ksas Fox TV and they had received a package they didn't initially recognize it as as being from him but then when they opened up and saw the contents which included the floppy disk they called the police department they called me and said hey we got a floppy disk and I remember and will never forget being present when the disc was put into the computer and Randy Stone the computer expert went through the language on the disk which is beyond me you know at the time I'm sitting in more cubicle facing a laptop doing thing and I looked behind me and there's like 20 people are crowded around a semicircle around me so it's when there's no pressure don't screw this up type of things so image it and I opened up the image and started looking through it and there's the file on there test a DOT RTF which was a Microsoft Office or it's a Word document file and then you see Dennis and then more gibberish and you see Christ Lutheran Church when you saw that there was another detective sitting next to to Randy who then Googled the Christ Lutheran Church and they're up in the corner of their website was a picture of the president of the church Dennis [Music] I still get goosebumps remembering that because you're looking at that and going that's him finally the team had a suspect now they had to prove Dennis Rader was BTK so then we were off and running we learned that a Raider had an address in Park City and we went down the street that the radar was said to have lived on you remember that little vehicle that was in the Home Depot parking lot it was in Raiders driveway at that point is when you knew you know you didn't know how this was going to end but you knew we'd got him and I made a phone call I didn't think I'd be able to make but I called Kenny and I said you know we got him but police still didn't have enough to make an arrest they needed hard proof the Dennis Rader was the BTK killer they've got no probable cause to demand a DNA sample from radar so they take the unlikely step of going to the hospital asking for a cervical smear that his daughter had given and comparing the DNA that they got from various crime scenes the semen they'd found and they find that it's extremely close the matches increase must be a family member the police could finally move in a large contingent of people were sent toward Park City on February the 25th of 2005 and at 12 15 he was taken into custody Raider is finally arrested and is eventually charged with 10 murders including the ateros the police had many crimes they suspected radar and his alter ego BTK of committing but at that time only he knew the full extent of the truth the interrogation was a delicate affair we had broken up the case into several different sections so we started to rotate in investigators and he would be more than a year and talked for almost 34 hours and he almost saw himself as an instructor of as he called it you know the Golden Age of Serial killing when they're done to the interviews I'm back from doing my search warrants he's in the interview room and they put the vest on him and they're hooking him up with the shackles and belly chain and that kind of thing and I just kind of stuck my head in the door and said um it's nice to be able to put a face go along with the name that I found on the floppy disk and he looks up and he's kind of got this the shackles like that looks up so you're the one huh and I said yeah I'm the one so we kind of joke back and forth it was it was a good mood he was joking and he said oh if I ever get out of here I'm gonna have to find you and stuff your mouth full of a case of floppy disk finally the infamous BTK was off the streets and in custody so we took him over to the jail everybody in the holding cells an area in there knew that it happened the cells in there are glassed office so all the inmates in there they all come up to the glass and they're looking in the glass and then they start pounding on the glass chanting his name chanting no pound on the glass again BTK BTK and then he's got a big old smile and he goes his hands there he goes two thumbs up is his two thumbs up to everybody chanting his name so I mean he just loved that on the 1st of March 2005 Dennis Rader had been charged with the murders of the Otero family Catherine bright Shirley Vian Nancy Fox Marine hedge Vicki wegely and dolorless E Davis when he first is charged and formally brought before a judge he refuses to say anything to plead so the judge pleads not guilty for him radar says nothing that was in March 2005. in June 2005 he's finally brought to trial but before the trial properly begins Raider changes his plea so he did not necessarily want to have a hearing he pled guilty to the murders and he tried to avoid any type of hearing whatsoever the district attorney thought that it was very important that the community knows what happened and the best way to do that is to have a public hearing because once it's a public hearing then it's open now the monster is really out of the bottle because radar is perfectly prepared to accept that he's got away with it for 30 years and that he's going to go down in history as BTK and what's more he's going to make sure the world knows just how evil he was during the hearing radar described the murders showing little remorse and with no apology to the horror of viewers mostly sensing hearings take a couple hours this one took three days and they would present evidence from the murders and really just kind of combined this is what we had in the crime scene this is what his confession says and it was just to kind of confirm the community this is really him this is what happened and then you had an opportunity for the victims their families to make a statement and it was just truly heartbreaking and painful but hopefully it helped them that finally after all these years the person that had murdered their loved one was uh was done was going to prison Raider was sentenced to ten consecutive life sentences with a minimum term of 175 years he remains in solitary confinement where he will stay for the rest of his life one of my favorite shots is him being led into the penitentiary over in El Dorado Kansas there is something about radar that genuinely chills the soul and something about that look in his eyes I can never ever get it out of my mind that little smirk that little glimmer of I'm better than you I really am God I'm not only the devil I am God as well Dennis Rader crafted a depraved Alter Ego that terrified a whole generation but it was his own arrogance that would eventually be his undoing but over 30 years he was one of the world's most elusive criminals taunting the police and teasing the Press brutally murdered 10 people including two children by binding torturing and killing them all to fit his sick brand BTK and make him one of the world's most evil killers [Music]

Channel: Absolute Crime

Views: 2,305,606

Keywords: Absolute Crime, big criminals chase, biggest manhunts ever, crime history, crime storytelling, criminal cases, criminal documentaries, criminal investigations, criminal justice system, criminal minds, criminal motives, criminal psychology, dangerous criminals, dangerous manhunts, heinous crimes, investigative journalism, killer psychology, law enforcement pursuit, psychological thriller, real life crimes, true crime enthusiast

Id: T2D6DYxyAzg

Length: 215min 44sec (12944 seconds)

Published: Thu Jun 15 2023