Gerard John Shaefer Jr., was born into an eventually troubled family on March 25, 1946 in Wisconsin, however he lived most of his early life in Georgia. He was the oldest of three children and was born to a week willed mother and an extremely abusive and adulterous father. At the age of fourteen he, and his family, moved to Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. He graduated high school in 1964 from St. Aquinas High School after which he attended Broward Community College. He had a brief, two year marriage with Martha Fogg. They divorced in 1970, Martha accusing him of being extremely cruel. He applied for the priesthood and was turned away for not having enough faith. He attempted to teach and was fired by a few schools for imposing his own beliefs on to his students. Unable to live out any of his “callings” he decided to apply to be a police officer. He was turned down by the Broward County Sherriff’s Department for failing psychological test, but was eventually taken on by the smaller police force of Whilton Mannor in 1970. On April 20, 1972, shortly after receiving a commendation, he was fired. Various reasons were given for his dismissal, including that he lacked common sense and used traffic stops as a way to pick up women. He latter began working as a Deputy Sherriff with the Martin County Sherriff’s Department in Stuart, Florida. After 28 days on the job he made the big mistake that finally got him caught, he let two of his victims escape.
On July 22, 1972, Gerard Shaefer picked up two teenage hitch hikers, Nancy Trotter, age 18, and Pamela Wells, age 17. According to what he said later, he then tried to “teach them a lesson”. He took them out into the swamp and bound them. He made them stand on a stand on a milk crate and hung a noose ...
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2. Biographical Information: The name of the serial killer that I researched is Donald Harvey. Biographical Information Donald Harvey was born on April 15, 1952. He is still alive and serving life in prison.
Born on February 2, 22, 1996, Charles Cullen is a famous serial killer from New Jersey (Jennifer Hash, 2006, p. 3). The Media named him “the Angel of Death,” an apt nickname for a serial killer that worked as a nurse. According to Brain D, Andresen (2005), an angel of death describes is a type of serial killer that often works as a caregiver in the medical field who intentionally kills patients (1). An angel of death has power over their victims and may try to play god by deciding the victim would be better off dead than to suffer from their illness. As a nurse, Cullen had access to drugs, which he used to kill his victims. He gave patients overdoses of the drug digoxin, a heart stimulant. Charles was given a way out of the death penalty if
Sean Vincent Gills was born June 24, 1962, in Baton Rouge, LA to Norman and Yvonne Gillis. His father died of acholism when Gills was just a young boy. His mom working a full time job at a local television station struggled to take care of Gills. Her parents often looked at after him. As a child Gills was thought to be normal. His mother was quoted saying that “I used to call him my little blue-eyed angel. This is the person I loved most in this world.” It wasn’t until his teenage years when others began to see a different side of him. As a teenager he had minor infraction but none to alarm others to think he would become a killer. He was arrested for traffic citations, DUI, possession of marijuana, and contempt of court through tout the years.
Pilkington, Ed. "The Wrong Carlos: How Texas Sent an Innocent Man to His Death." TheGuardian. Guardian News and Media, 16 May 2012. Web. 30 Mar. 2014.
John Allen Muhammad, also known as John Allen Williams, was born on December 31, 1960 in Louisiana. After the passing of his mom when Muhammad was the age of four, his aunt, Baton Rouge raised him. After Muhammad finished high school he married Carol Kaglear. They had a son and named him Linbergh. He then started a military career that was promising at first. His commanders described him as personable and outgoing. By the early 1980’s his cracks were beginning to show. He failed to report for duty and hit an officer, resulting in trouble (Biography, par 1, 2, 3).
In 1982, police received a call about a body floating in the Green River in Salt Lake City, Utah (it was just one of many bodies that they were going to find). Police were stunned when they started receiving more calls about bodies found in parks, play grounds, and near highways. When police learned that all of the victims were prostitutes, they knew this was a key piece of evidence in their investigation. No one could have ever known that Gary Ridgway just started one of the largest killing sprees in American history. Ridgway grew up in a house where he was abused and harassed by his mother, Mary Ridgway. Ridgway soon began growing a strong hatred towards his abusive mother. Ridgway had begun thinking of some ways he could get back at her by hurting her, but he never did. According to American Murder, Ridgway went through numerous divorces and had a history of interacting with prostitutes (Mayo). ). Ridgway’s past with women soon made him develop a strong dislike for them and led to his killings.
Serial killer is a person who kills three or more people with a cooling off period between murders and these murders may go on for a period of months or years. The murders that this person commits may have similar fashion or the victims may have something in common, for example, occupation, race, appearance, sex, or age group. Psychology is the science and study of human behavior and mental processes. Moreover, it is the study of human minds and its function.
Much is unknown about the Zodiac killer, but given what is known about serial killers in general, this man was probably born between 1938 and 1943. That would make his age between 25 and 30 years old at the time of his first murder in Vallejo, California, in 1968. Also, that age estimate works with witness statements and it's supported by Zodiac's references to his victims in younger terms in his letters of 1969. Zodiac wasn't an attractive character from what we know. He may have had to wear glasses throughout his youth and his facial features weren't all that pleasing. So overall he may have been unpopular as a young boy and spent a good deal of time alone. It seems as though rejection is a big issue for Zodiac. No one knows anything about the Zodiac's parents but it wouldn't be ridiculous to say that there was domestic violence, broken relationships with parents or guardians, and maybe even a physical or sexual abuse in the household. Considering the adult outcome, Zodiac would have turned out to be an angry, withdrawn, loner, whose adolescence just could have been filled with fantasies and irrationality.
In 1991, 11 year old Jaycee Lee Dugard was taken right in front of her stepfather’s eyes on her way to school in South Lake Tahoe, by what police believed was a man and a women. Years had went by and nothing had turned up about the missing Jaycee Lee Dugard. In 2009, one of Jaycee’s abductors Phillip Garrido went into his parole office with Jaycee (going by Alyssa at the office), telling police that Jaycee was his neice. Police began suspicious, because along with Jacy and Phillip were two young girls claiming those were his nieces as well. Phillip eventually confessed to a parole officer that he had kidnapped and raped Jacy. She had been held captive behind and series of tents for eighteen years at Phillip and his wife Nancy’s home. While
The Boston Strangler was probably the most notorious criminal that Boston, Massachusetts has ever known. But who was the Boston Strangler? Was he Albert DeSalvo, the person who confessed and went to jail for these crimes? Is he someone that took his secret to the grave and let an innocent man take the blame for his crime? Or is he still walking the streets of Boston, or even the streets of another city?
Clifford Olson is one of Canada's well known serial killers. He showed no sign of sympathy for the public all throughout his life and would eventually end up killing many innocent people and spending a good portion of his life in jail.
On June 9th 1959 near Clinton, Ontario 14-year-old Steven Truscott gave his classmate 12-year-old Lynne Harper a ride on his bike from their school down to Highway 8 (Ontario Justice Education Network Timeline of Events for the Steven Truscott Case). This sole event would be the one to change his life forever. The next day Lynne’s body was discovered near Lawson’s bush (close to the area in which he dropped her off) where she had been strangled, sexually assaulted and subsequently killed. That day Constable Hobbs conducted lengthy seven-hour interview on young Steven Truscott in which he asked him a number
People move all the time. Whether the relocation is due to personal or professional reasons, most often is it to start a new, and better, life. The community doesn’t usually know that new members are present and they go about their daily lives. In April of 1987, Rochester, NY gained two new members of the community and they were none the wiser until women, mainly prostitutes, began to disappear and then would turn up murdered starting in early 1988. Arthur Shawcross, relocated to Rochester after being paroled and having his criminal record sealed, was given the ability to start a new life, but he returned to his old habits of mutilation and murder by killing 11 women over two years.
Phillip like most criminal had problems with drugs at a very young age. In 1972 Phillip rapped and drugged a girl a fourteen year old girl but charges were dropped because the girl didn’t want to testify. In 1976 he abducted a twenty-five year old woman and rapped her too. He was caught and was sentenced to fifty years in prison but he only served eleven years and got parole in 1988. While in prison he met his soon to be wife Nancy. Nancy was born on July 18, 1955 in Seguin Texas. While Phillip was still in prison they got married on October 5, 1981. He was released and only two years later he abducted Jaycee Lee Dugard. Jaycee Lee Dugard was born on May 3, 1980 in South Lake Tahoe, California. Only at the age of eleven, on July 10, 1991 she was kidnapped from outside of her house. She was kidnapped from outside of her house. Her stepdad tried to chase down the car on a bike but they got away. Her stepdad called the police and everything but she wasn’t found. Phillip and Nancy Garrido took and kept Jaycee in the backyard of their house in Antioch, California for 18 long and sad years. During those eighteen years she was rapped multiple times and was told many lies by Phillip and Nancy. The icing on the bake was that Phillip got Jaycee pregnant twice and she had two daughters when she was only fourteen and seventeen years old. One day Nancy and Phillip went to the University of California of Berkeley because they had a religious event. People got suspicious so one day someone called the police and found out that he was a sex offender and was shocked that he had two little girls with him. Because of that there was a parole meeting on August 26, 2009 so Nancy, Phillip, Jaycee, and her two daughters were there. Phillip told his parole officer that Jaycee and her daughters that were relatives. But later he crumbled under pressure and two days later Phillip and Nancy were charged with 29 felonies.
Jeffrey Dahmer was born May 21st, 1960, the first child for Lionel and Joyce Dahmer, after a difficult pregnancy that had Joyce on various prescription drugs.