Who, IYO, was America's worst serial killer?

[SemiCharmedQuark]

I just can't say enough about my good friend, HH Holmes. Perhaps because I lived on the street where his castle once stood...but a guy that builds a whole castle to murder...THAT'S a serial killer.

[XanaDUer]

1. Whoa! Never heard of him.

Randy Kraft was pretty bad, number wise. And Gacy, too. If that is using numbers of victims killed/maimed. What are some of the criteria we can use to determine awfulness of serial killers, though?

[livetohike]

2. Ted Bundy gets my vote

I shudder when I think about how I probably would have been taken in by him, too when I was young.....

[Bunny]

3. Me too! I was a college student in the mid seventies, with long

hair, parted in the middle. Just his type.

Had he approached me for help, I'm pretty sure I would have helped him. :scared:

[livetohike]

5. I didn't have the long hair then (mid 70's) and it is red

but, I would have helped anyone who asked me. Very gullible....

[SemiCharmedQuark]

6. Yeah, me too.

I wouldn't pick up hitchikers though, and a lot of serial killers get their victims that way.

[Blue_In_AK]

10. Ted's always been my fave -- such a NICE boy.... n/t

[mitchum]

4. Randy Kraft gets my vote

[johnnie]

7. Was he

The vampire dude? The one who took the baby?

[mitchum]

8. Nah, that was Richard Chase AKA "The Vampire of Sacramento"...

(I've always thought that sounded like a Beefheart song title)
Kraft sits on California's death row for the murder of several young men. There is pretty compelling evidence that he is responsible for more than fifty murders in several states.

[johnnie]

9. Right...Chase

That guy was fucked up. I have to look up Kraft. I know the name.

[JohnKleeb]

11. Youre thinking of Richard Chase

Kraft was the gay guy who would intoxicate his victims than strangle them. As for worst, thats a tough choice, as far as absolute brutality goes though, its Albert Fish or Jeffrey Dahmer or Gary Heidnik.

[onager]

12. I think I have to agree on Holmes/Mudgett

I'd read about him before, but right now I'm reading Erik Larson's book "The Devil In The White City."

There's no way of really telling how many people he killed, which is a problem in trying to determine the "worst" status.

I guess you could say that about a lot of murderers, though, especially the ones who were active before the 20th century.

[SemiCharmedQuark]

13. Well, the fact that he killed small children helps boost him up there.

But there's just something about that castle that gets me everytime. He would have gotten away completely free too, had it not been for his greed.

[onager]

14. Yes, it was incredible. Especially the basement...

The crematorium, the vats of acid. And the tank full of chemicals that exploded when the basement was being searched.

And he planned to build an exact duplicate of the Chicago building in Texas, if he had gotten away with stealing Minnie Williams' land.

Those letters from the children are still VERY difficult for me to read--the letters Holmes never sent. They're just so sad, especially knowing what happened to them. The kids were homesick and wanted to see their mother.

Then there's that horribly chilling one: "William is no longer with us."

[wakemeupwhenitsover]

15. The Original Night Stalker

aka The East Area Rapist. Having a personal connection & the fact that he's never been caught (at least as far as I know) makes him tops in my book.

best

[pretzel4gore]

16. they found the girls here in toronto....

the house where he killed them poor little things is long gone, but i found where their grave is (both kids were buried together) in st jamestown cemetary....there's no marker but the attendent showed me the exact place where the grave was, and i fabricated a little wooden cross for them outta twigs...
carl panzam, a truly pathetic case from long ago, killed over a hundred men women and children...gary ridgeway (the GRK) maybe murdered 49 or so....albert fish was elderly when he was caught (he actually tried attacking the wide receiver type policeman who caught him with a letter opener!) and he was a freak- he had a fully functional family which he supported all the way til he was arrested....
fred west would eat onions raw like they was apples; he warnt american, and his numbers were small less then a dozen but them onions put him in a class alone!

[BlueIris]

17. Green River Strangler is, to me, the worst.

Not so much because of the high number of victims, but because he has, in my view, classic "serial killer eyes." I know, I know, not very scientific, (I'm sure he has classic serial killer pathology as well) but to me--you can tell one of those by his or her eyes and that man? Has the scariest, least expressionless eyes I've ever seen.

[pretzel4gore]

19. read 'the river' by roderick thorp

it's an amazing book written before ridgeway got caught (1995)(the 'killer's' name in the book is 'garret lockman'!...The idea of the book is that, while the GRK got away, and no one knew who he was, behind the scenes, the police, in the form of the book's protagonist, suspected this 'lockman' character and...well, i don't wanna ruin the story....it's simply the best serial killer fiction book i've ever read (thorp also wrote 'the detective' which was made into a movie back in the 70's and 'die hard')

[XanaDUer]

18. Michael Swango was pretty bad... and he did it with a medical license.

nt.

[Jamastiene]

20. Dahmer

He didn't do those disgusting things to the bodies to hide them, but to get satisfaction and generally tidy up a bit really. He showered and slept with corpses, so disposing of the bodies was an afterthought, when he felt like it. He lived in an apartment building and other tenants could smell his handiwork. He didn't even try to hide the fact that he was drugging and killing his victims. He was sloppy and let a couple victims escape...

Oh, you mean worst as far as numbers killed and such. :evilgrin:

I would have to say and I know this is rather controversial, Timothy McVeigh. I know he was technically not a serial killer, but he did kill over a hundred people.

If you asked the question based on how disgusting a killer was as opposed to numbers, I would still say Dahmer.

[calico1]

21. I think Ted Bundy.

The reason is unlike a lot of the others, he did not seem weird or strange. In fact, he was well liked and fooled a lot of people including Ann Rule, who worked with him at a suicide hotline. Its unnerving to me that someone can look so normal and fool so many people while doing all these horrible things. You imagine a serial killer as looking and acting like a kook--the way Richard Ramirez did. Him being a serial killer was much less surprising, though his crimes were no less horrible.

[BlueIris]

22. Yeah, Bundy's "normal" appearance wigs me out, too.

It always creeps me out that a couple of psychiatrists judged him "objectively sane," at one point.

Another issue with Bundy that I can never avoid thinking about whenever his name comes up, which should certainly factor into the question of whether he was the worst or not is the idea that only one intended victim escaped from his clutches (relatively) unharmed.

[calico1]

23. There were a few others that escaped only

because they did not buy his story and got a creepy feeling and didn't get in the car with him. But you're right. Of the ones who did get in his car only one escaped. And also the ones that were permanantly physically damaged by his brutal attack at the sorority. I think also there was one other girl at another dorm or home who was also beaten but survived. Have you ever read Ann Rule's book "A Stranger Beside Me?" Its a very good account of the Bundy story, especially so since Rule had known Bundy and worked with him before any of his actions were known but probably after he had started. Read her book if you get a chance.

[BlueIris]

24. Yes, I've read Ann's book about him.

And yes, I know that several other women he attacked technically survived (which I obviously should have put in my post). But there was only one who actually got away from him relatively unharmed after he had begun his "process" with her--amazing considering that he was getting pretty good at that point.

[calico1]

25. Yes, amazing.

She was one lucky young woman. And fortunately she fought like hell to get away from him. I'll bet she is like a lot of war veterans who survive and consider all their remaining days as "bonuses."