Juan Vallejo Corona, Machete Murderer
(August 1934)
This Mexican murderer was diagnosed with schizophrenia in 1956 and subjected to electric shocks. Subsequent reports indicate that Corona was a peaceful man who used to attend Mass on Sundays. But after 1971, graves began to appear in remote locations and traces of blood were found in his vehicle. Once arrested, the police discovered that he had committed 25 murders. The trial was long, costly and complex. Vallejo Corona hired a lawyer who, instead of fees, was offered the exclusivity of the literary rights to his story, relieving him of the duty of confidentiality. In 1973, after 45 hours of deliberation, the jury decided that Corona was guilty of 25 murders and the judge sentenced him to 25 life imprisonment terms. In prison, Corona was stabbed by four inmates and nearly died. On December 5, 2011 his request for parole was refused.
Charles Manson, leader of “The Family”
(November 12, 1934)
His group committed several murders. The most famous one was the murder of Sharon Tate, Roman Polanski’s wife, who was eight months pregnant. She was stabbed sixteen times -- eleven times as torture and five times to kill her. Participants at that meeting were stabbed in the outdoor gardens of the mansion. Even today, the motive for this crime is unclear. One hypothesis states that it was related to the shooting of the film Rosemary’s Baby by Roman Polanski. The following night, Manson and his followers broke into the house of businessman Leno LaBianca and his wife and stabbed them to death. Manson did not execute his victims directly, but used his acolytes. His death sentence in 1971 was commuted to life imprisonment when the California Supreme Court abolished the death penalty. During his criminal trial, the accused defended himself and turned the hearings into a circus act. His comments during the trial showed the desire for notoriety that drove him.
Andrei Chikatilo, the Butcher of Rostov
(October 16, 1936 - February 14, 1994)
The greatest serial killer in the Soviet Union, he is responsible for at least 52 cases. He lived a double life. On one side he was married, a worker, a member of Communist society and on the other side he was a clever murderer with great skills to gain children’s trust. He acted at railway and bus stations. In 1990, after getting away with murder for twelve years, he was discovered.
Retained by the KGB, the senile looking criminal said: “How can you do this to a person my age?” He finally broke down and ended up confessing and promising to provide evidence of his crimes in exchange for not being interrogated anymore. He hoped that the number of murders he had committed would make him a “specimen of scientific study.” In his statement he said that, since childhood, he had felt worthless as a man and as a person, and that he had not done it for pleasure, but because he needed to find peace. “I am a mistake of nature, a mad beast.” The ruthless murderer tried to allege a mental illness, but psychiatrists considered him a prudent sadist whose actions were premeditated. On October 15, 1992, he was sentenced to death and executed with a single gunshot on February 14, 1994. His awful actions were fictionalized by Tom Rob Smith in the best-seller, Child 44.
John Wayne Gacy, the Killer Clown
(March 17, 1942 - May 10, 1994)
His nickname is due to the costume he wore. He raped and killed 33 young men between 1972 and 1978. No suspicion fell on him until December 1978, when a 15-year-old man who was going to a job interview was last seen with Gacy. The inspection of John’s house revealed evidence of other disappearances. In December of that year, Gacy went to his lawyers and confessed his crimes. He stated that when he stabbed a knife into the body of a young man, the blood pouring from the body excited him. He told police the location of the bodies. The youngest were 14 and the oldest 21. Seven of the victims were never identified. In 1998, when some repairs where being made at the back of Gacy’s mother’s house, they found remains of four other victims.
On February 6, 1980 he pleaded not guilty in the trial, alleging mental impairments, which was refuted by the experts. His lawyer argued temporary insanity at the time of each murder, but this was also rejected. He was found guilty on March 13 and sentenced to 21 life imprisonments and 12 death sentences. His execution by lethal injection took place on May 10, 1994. Gacy’s brain was removed for examination. The results revealed there were no abnormalities.
Manuel Delgado Villegas, El Arropiero
(January 25, 1943 - February 2, 1998)
Known as the worst killer in Spain’s criminal history, he helped his father sell arrope, hence his nickname. He attended school but didn’t learn to read or write. In 1961 he joined the Spanish Legion, where he learned how to administer a mortal blow that helped him in his criminal career. He deserted the army and traveled around Spain, Italy and France, leaving a trail of corpses. He was arrested on January 18, 1971, in Puerto de Santa María. After his arrest, he confessed to so many crimes that the police didn’t take him seriously at first.
It took six and a half years for Manuel Delgado Villegas to get a defense attorney, which constituted a record of preventive detention without legal protection. He was never tried because he was diagnosed with a mental illness, and the Audiencia Nacional (National Court) ordered his detainment in 1978. When he heard on the radio that a Mexican man had killed more people than him, he literally said, “Give me 24 hours and I assure you that a Mexican will not be a better murderer than a Spanish one.” He underwent medical tests which detected a type of mental dysfunction that induced tremendous aggressiveness. Current medical studies do not agree with that theory. El Arropiero was released in 1998 and died soon after that, due to lung disease. The Catalan director Carles Balagué filmed a documentary on his life in 2009.
Dennis Rader, the BTK Murderer
(March 9, 1945)
His alias corresponds to the initials of Bind, Torture, Kill, describing his modus operandi. By 2004 there was no hope of catching him. Dennis Rader was not even on a list of suspects, but he began sending evidence to be found, boasting an unparalleled arrogance. In the last one, Rader sent a disc containing a single file. The police quickly tracked the document’s metadata and identified him. On February 25, 2005, Dennis Rader was arrested. On June 27, the same year, he pleaded guilty to the “BTK” murders, and on August 18, he was sentenced to 10 consecutive life sentences (one for each crime). Rader was spared the death penalty because the state of Kansas didn’t reinstate it until 1994, three years after the last “BTK” murder.
Arthur Shawcross, the Genesee River killer
(June 6, 1945 - November 10, 2008)
He was convicted of the murder of two children and killed most of his victims after being paroled, which led to a serious questioning of the justice system. For the first murders, he was sentenced to 25 years imprisonment, but he was released on parole having served 14 years. On March 1988, Shawcross began murdering prostitutes. Two years later, he was captured. He was convicted of 11 murders. In November 1990, Shawcross was tried by Monroe County, and convicted and sentenced to 250 years to life in prison. In 2008 Shawcross complained of a pain in his leg. He was taken to Albany Medical Center, where he suffered a cardiac arrest and died a few hours later.
Dennis Nilsen
(November 23, 1945)
He had a difficult childhood as a result of his parents’ messy marriage and his father’s alcoholism. When Nilsen was six, his grandfather died and his mother, without prior notice, took him to see the body. This event fascinated him. At age 8, Nilsen was drowning and was rescued by a young man who allegedly then masturbated on him. In 1961, he enlisted in the British army. He confessed he used to take advantage of the solitude of his room to place a mirror in front of his bed and fantasize that he was a corpse. In 1978, he started killing young men to keep their bodies, bath them and practice necrophilia. Nilsen killed 14 men. After his ritual, he dismembered the bodies and flushed the remains down a lavatory. In mid-1984, neighbors called a plumber to repair clogged drains and remove odor. The plumber found rotting meat in the pipes and called the police. Eventually, on November 4, 1983, Nilsen was tried and sentenced to life imprisonment.
Harold Shipman, Dr. Death
(January 14, 1946 - January 13, 2004)
It is estimated that he killed more than 250 people during the time he worked as a doctor. At 17, his mother suffered from lung cancer. Day after day, Harold would watch how his mother writhed in pain and the only thing that eased her suffering was morphine injections supplied by her doctor. In 1963, his mother died. Several years later, Shipman got his degree in medicine and surgery, with very good grades. His patients were delighted. As Shipman worked in the field of gynecology, getting morphine was easy for him, as it was used to relieve pain during labor. He began to consume this substance frequently. In 1974, his work was questioned when it was discovered that he prescribed morphine to patients who did not need it. The hospital opened an investigation. Not only did they find irregularities in his prescriptions, they also discovered his addiction to the drug. He was expelled from the hospital and sent to a drug rehabilitation clinic. Once rehabilitated, he founded his own surgical practice. His freedom to prescribe drugs freely resulted in mortal consequences. For five years, the number of deaths among elderly people was gigantic. Shipman himself signed the death certificates of patients, indicating natural causes. Then he persuaded relatives of the victims to cremate the bodies as soon as possible. One of his last victims was a wealthy woman. Shipman wrote a fake will, typewritten, which indicated him as the sole beneficiary. The daughter of the deceased woman was a lawyer. She knew her mother had no typewriter, so she sued the doctor and the body was exhumed. After analysis, remains of morphine were found. On September 7, 1998, the doctor was arrested. At his house, they found the proof of the crime: the typewriter that had produced the will. He was sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder of 15 patients. It is estimated that the number of victims was 215. On January 13, 2004, at age 58, Harold Shipman hanged himself in his cell using bed sheets.
Peter Sutcliffe, the Yorkshire Ripper
(June 2, 1946)
A British serial killer, he murdered thirteen women and seriously assaulted seven more. Most of his victims were prostitutes. The court where he was first tried found him sane and sentenced him to life imprisonment. He was imprisoned in May, 1981, for a year and four months. Then a committee of psychiatrists recommended that he be admitted to a mental hospital. He was referred to Broadmoor High Security Hospital in England. The British Supreme Court dismissed his appeal for freedom in 2010.