What serial killer

[Sgt Mickey]

I have to say this is the oddest DIS board thread title I've ever seen.

Never really followed a lot of serial killers, but I have read a few true crime books. The one who I most wanted to see justice served was the woman about 20 years back who shot her 3 children, killing 1 and permanently disabling another. She claimed she had been carjacked and even shot herself in an attempt to fool the police, but it was quickly uncovered she shot the kids because her married lover didn't want children. She was a crazy awful person and it was her daughter, the one she disabled, who ended up testifying against her and sealing her fate to life in prison. I believe she actually escaped from prison after that. The book was called Small Sacrifices and I think there was also a TV movie with Farrah Fawcett playing the lead role.

There was a follow up last year with the surviving one she was on Oprah and she was also in a magazine article I read maybe in People?

 

[cluvsdisney]

It was Ted Bundy for me also. At first because I was in Florida while his trial there was going on. I was pretty young then but I read a few books about him when I got older. Chilling. I have read dozens of true crime books, Ann Rules' "The Strange Beside Me" was the only one that gave me nightmares.

 

[lizabu]

None of them. I think they give too much attention to these cowards and perverts. It makes me sad to see a serial killer treated as though he's a rock star and he actually did something special. The other day on Anderson there were people who collect things that came from crime scenes or things that used to belong to serial killers. It makes me sick. These people are not special. They are animals.

 

[DawnM]

I don't think the question was, "Who do you admire for their killings" but rather, who do you sit up and take note of.

They are monsters, but I think a lot of us are mesmerized by their story because it is so far removed from who we are, just like they are when watching shows like CSI or true stories like Cold Case.

Dawn

None of them. I think they give too much attention to these cowards and perverts. It makes me sad to see a serial killer treated as though he's a rock star and he actually did something special. The other day on Anderson there were people who collect things that came from crime scenes or things that used to belong to serial killers. It makes me sick. These people are not special. They are animals.

 

[tar heel]

Ted Bundy, for sure. I was in college when he went through the sorority house at Florida State, and we were all getting safety calls from our parents. I watched the mini series and also read The Deliberate Stranger -- can't remember which order.

We had a serial killer, Henry Louis Wallace, in Charlotte a few years ago. He went to one of the victim's funeral and comforted her mother. Serial killers who look scary are not fascinating -- it's the guys you think you would want your daughter to marry that are interesting.

 

[sunshinehighway]

The kooky thing is that a lot of serial killers "look" normal, so unassuming.

Not sure if he qualifies for serial killer status, but Unabomber. He was living out in the woods, he used to be a professor? who would have thought?


Richard Ramirez-Now his eyes are dead and cold.

Richard Ramirez totally creeps me out. Whenever there is something about him on tv , I regret watching it. It always gives me an uneasy feeling.

 

[willowsnn3]

Manson may not have been a serial killer but he totally freaks me out. Yet any mention of his name or any of his cohorts, I pay attention. The actor (can't remember name offhand) who portrayed him in Helter Skelter was very good.

 

[minniebride]

I tend to get sucked into any media about the Manson Family as a whole. The power of cult and persuasion just intrigues me-how these young kids can be so drawn into one man to the point where they lose sight of reality. I was in the hippie/deadhead culture throughout my late teens and 20s-drugs, music, hippie lifestyle-though a totally different generation, but it is like living in a world that is separate from reality. I remember how naive and free and vulnerable I was and I wonder if I or my friends at the time could have also been sucked into or disallusioned by a person like Manson given the right circumstances. I would like to think I wouldn't have been, but it's a scary thought.

The kids in the Manson Family did horrible things and I certainly do not condone them, but I wonder what torture they went through-are still going through, once they woke up from their drug haze cloud and realized what they did.....

Manson, by the way, does not scare me or freak me out at all. He is a pathetic man who once gained power over several kids, and is now rotten in jail with nothing and no one. I find his nuttiness to be a total act to try and grab onto every morsel of attention he has left.

 

[hereyago]

That was the method yes, but it was suicide, really. He - and I think everyone else too, when they moved him it seemed obvious that's how it'd end - knew that's what would happen if he was in the general population and he asked to be placed there.

Oh, I see kind of like "suicide by fellow inmate" kind of like people do "suicide by cop".

 

[hereyago]

I have to say this is the oddest DIS board thread title I've ever seen.

Never really followed a lot of serial killers, but I have read a few true crime books. The one who I most wanted to see justice served was the woman about 20 years back who shot her 3 children, killing 1 and permanently disabling another. She claimed she had been carjacked and even shot herself in an attempt to fool the police, but it was quickly uncovered she shot the kids because her married lover didn't want children. She was a crazy awful person and it was her daughter, the one she disabled, who ended up testifying against her and sealing her fate to life in prison. I believe she actually escaped from prison after that. The book was called Small Sacrifices and I think there was also a TV movie with Farrah Fawcett playing the lead role.

Diane Downs: I remember her. You know, she was the 80's version of Casey Anthony. Her, Susan Smith, Casey Anthony-never trust a "dry" crier. Andrea Yates, she killed her children for a totally "different" reason then the others., she believed in her mental illness that she was trying to "save" them.

As a Mom, it is absolutely chilling to me that a mom would do that to her kids. I am also very aware that there are moms out there who just don't have it "in them" to be moms, but good grief.

 

[hereyago]

Yea, Manson knew/knows what he did. He likes to mind freak people. As for the rotting in jail: he knew what jail was like as he had been in and out of it pretty much most of his life. Vincent Bugloisi, the prosecuter said that Manson had no fear of going back, he could have sex,drugs in there.

He gets "fan"letters from people, now that is scary.

 

[hereyago]

charles cullen. He was my dad's nurse while my dad was in the hospital. I spoke to him a few times. My dad was in the hospital when he killed one of his patients.
My dad fit the profile of someone he would have killed..in fact he was my dad's nurse the night my dad crashed.
We got my dad's hospital records and the prosicutor (sp?)had cullen look it over to see if he had indeed tried to kill my dad..but he said no.

holy crap!

 

[kacaju]

holy crap!

Yeah...holy crap it was!!

And I will tell you...before we found out who he was..if you asked me about him. I would tell you he was a quiet man. Nothing good or bad..just quiet compared to another nurse (also a man) who was very outgoing.
Nothing at all that would stand out that he was a wacko.

 

[bumbershoot]

hereyago, glad to know at least one other person (beyond me and a friend of mine) noticed the dry-crying in Susan Smith. From the moment we saw her "crying" on TV (and it should be noted we were living closeby, in Spartanburg, at the time) we KNEW she had done it.


I met a woman (mother of a friend-at-the-time) who had done political calls with Ted Bundy. She thought he was very nice. Thank goodness for her, she wasn't his "type" at all. This was in Tacoma, where he was for a little while. One of the dorms at my university supposedly had ground broken and concrete laid for it while he was living here, and *everyone* wonders if he dumped anyone under that dorm. Shudder to think.


But even though I notice their stories, I don't like hearing about them. I was living in Californian during the Night Stalker time period, and it totally freaked me out. I was in northern CA and I guess he was in southern, but I was really weak on geography and just didn't get how relatively far away it was. I thought he was in MY area. Scary. (even scarier, just skimmed his wikipedia page, and there's info on how his Vietnam veteran cousin might have influenced him into killing? yikes!)

ETA...well look at that, he did have a Bay Area "appearance"...guess I wasn't as stupid as I thought I was for thinking he was nearby then.

 

[stellablue]

So creepy and interesting hearing about people who had innocent connections with some of these serial killers!!!!

 

[castmember19]

For awhile in high school I was totally fascinated by the Manson family and was eager to learn everything I could about it. It started by watching some tv show on some tv station about horrifying Hollywood murders. Manson family and the murder of Sharon Tate was no. 1. After that I googled, googled, googled, then bought the book. Creeps me out. I couldn't even read the book at night because I got too scared.

Once I read the book I felt like there was nothing else to learn so I lost interest- sort of. I mean I guess I never "lost interest" but there was simply nothing else to look into.

I just found the whole story to be so interesting. I could not believe that people could be so evil. Still can't.

 

[DawnM]

Yikes.

You reminded me of the Angel of Death Efren Saldivar that they caught literally just a month or so after my son was born (he was caught in March, son born in Feb.) Both of my older boys were born at that hospital.

He killed about 50 people!

http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/notorious_murders/angels/efren_saldivar/1.html

Charles Cullen. He was my Dad's nurse while my Dad was in the hospital. I spoke to him a few times. My Dad was in the Hospital when he killed one of his patients.
My Dad fit the profile of someone he would have killed..in fact he was my Dad's nurse the night my Dad crashed.
We got my Dad's hospital records and the prosicutor (sp?)had Cullen look it over to see if he had indeed tried to kill my Dad..but he said no.

 

[GAGirlInVA]

Reinaldo Rivera- lived down the street from one of my siblings.

Had a totally freak brush with him, and fit his type, but he made the hair on my neck stand up, so I waved like I saw someone I knew, and he sped off.

A friend of mine worked for the court system and brought the court transcripts to our office (where she moonlighted) and that REALLY creeped me out then I remembered where I "knew" him from.

 

[DisneyIll]

Google Micheal Swango
He was a doctor here in my home town,very interesting story.
I am a nurse and did not know him but older nurses remember him. He tried to poison collegues and killed several patients before he was apprehended.

John Wayne Gacy also lived a few blocks away.I always wondered if he had any dead bodies hidden there.

 

[topolino]

Ed Gein. The fascination lies in the fact that he would actually fashion knick-knacks and other utensils out of his victims body parts, and would even wear their skin as clothing.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ed_Gein


The rock band Blind Melon wrote a song about him called "Skinned", which appears on their 1995 release "Soup".

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GHQiEouznmc