John Marlowe - The Worlds Most Evil Psychopaths: Horrifying True Life Cases

THE WORLDS MOST EVIL

PSYCHOPATHS

HORRIFYING TRUE-LIFE CASES

JOHN MARLOWE

This edition published in 2014 by Arcturus Publishing Limited
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Copyright 2007 Arcturus Publishing Limited

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright Act 1956 (as amended). Any person or persons who do any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

Cover images, top left and bottom right: Corbis

ISBN: 978-1-78404-103-8

INTRODUCTION

One hundred years ago, a book on the subject of psychopaths would most certainly have included very different cases from some of the ones contained between these covers. At that time, when the crimes of Jack the Ripper, Joseph Vacher and Thomas Neill Cream were still well within living memory, the word psychopath would have been used to denote any form of mental illness. But in describing someone as a psychopath today, we are more often than not referring to a person who has no concern for the feelings of others, an individual lacking any sense of social obligation.

Of course, very few psychopaths ever commit murder. The individuals included here are remembered because the extent of their cruelty set them apart from the rest of humanity. These are people who took delight in inflicting pain and death on others. All might be considered serial killers or spree killers, though most committed their crimes well before either term came into common use.

The earliest examples in this book are members of the nobility. Holding great wealth and political power, they perpetrated their misdeeds before police departments and other law enforcement bodies existed. Historical figures such as Gilles de Rais and Elizabeth Bthory committed their crimes with at least the partial knowledge of fellow members of the aristocracy. We know of their activities today through court documents. Vlad III Draculea, on the other hand, has become a legendary figure through oral history, a record given to exaggeration and fancy. And yet, despite an absence of documentary evidence, we are virtually certain that this prince of Wallachia is guilty of having committed inhuman acts.

The same cannot be said about Sweeney Todd, the Demon Barber of Fleet Street, whose very existence, never mind crimes, has been debated for generations. In all likelihood, Sweeney Todd is nothing more than one more creation of the fertile imagination of Thomas Prest, a 19th-century contributor to the penny dreadfuls.

It is in Prests 1846 story, The String of Pearls: A Romance, that the barbers name first sees print. No one has yet uncovered files relating to Rex v Sweeney Todd, the trial that is said to have sent this 18th-century serial killer to the gallows, or any similar material.

The most that one can say in support of Mr Todds existence is that Prests writing was often inspired by actual crimes.

Thomas Prests method continues to be used today.

Author Thomas Harris, who was in the courtroom for portions of Ted Bundys 1979 murder trial, later incorporated the serial killers techniques in creating the character James Buffalo Bill Gumb in The Silence of the Lambs. The long history of murders committed by the Monster of Florence inspired Harris to set the 1999 sequel, Hannibal, in the Italian city.

Those studying American literature may one day be introduced to Jeffrey Dahmer through the character he inspired: Quentin P., the protagonist of Joyce Carol Oates award-winning 1995 novel, Zombie.

Other murderers found their stories adapted for the silver screen. John Wayne Gacy, the Killer Clown, lived long enough to see himself portrayed by the Tony award-winning actor Brian Dennehy in 1992s To Catch a Killer.

Of course, no killer has found his way into fiction and film more often than Jack the Ripper. He features in the novels of such varied writers as William S. Burroughs, Philip Jos Farmer and Colin Wilson, among many others, and has had a hold on the publics imagination like no other before or since. This can at least partly be explained by the fact that he was never caught. He remains a shadow, one might say a phantom.

In Nicholas Meyers 1979 film Time After Time, Jack the Ripper steals H. G. Wells famous time machine and is transported into the 20th century. After witnessing the destruction and death surrounding him, he says, Ninety years ago I was a freak. Today Im an amateur.

Indeed, the early part of the century saw war fought on a previously unimaginable scale. As if reflecting this, the frequency of psychopathic killing continued to rise. The body counts of serial killers such as Fritz Haarmann, Gary Ridgway and Andrei Chikatilo are many times those of Saucy Jack.

As the century progressed, advances in the technology of firearms helped bring about the rise of the spree killer. Mass murderers were now able to kill with a speed and efficiency that would once have been unimaginable. In carrying out the Columbine High School massacre, on 20 April 1999, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold used a 12-gauge Savage-Springfield 67H pump-action shotgun, a Hi-Point 995 Carbine 9 mm semi-automatic rifle, a 9mm Intratec Tec-9 semi-automatic handgun and a 12-gauge Stevens 311 D double-barrelled shotgun. Within 45 minutes, they had killed 12 students and a teacher, and had wounded 24 others. The slaughter only ended when they both committed suicide.

In 2007, Robert Pickton was tried on 27 counts of first-degree murder. The victims of this third-generation pig farmer were, mostly, prostitutes who once walked the streets of Vancouvers downtown Eastside. Pickton thus joined William Burke, William Hare, Thomas Neill Cream, Fritz Haarmann, Andrei Chikatilo, Jack Unterweger, Gary Ridgway and, of course, Jack the Ripper as a man known to have preyed on these marginalized and vulnerable members of society. The British Columbia Supreme Court sentenced Pickton to life with no possibility of parole for 25 years.

The murderers featured here rarely chose their equals as victims. Edmund Kemper standing 6 foot, 9 inches murdered women he towered over. Others, like Peter Krten and spree killer Thomas Hamilton, counted children among their victims. Even Harris and Klebold, who went after their fellow high school students, had a distinct advantage in the firearms they carried.

In this way, the serial killers and spree killers of our time have something in common with those of the nobility centuries ago. They seek to exercise power over who lives and who dies. Why this is so, we may never know.

John Marlowe

Vancouver, British Columbia

A BLOODY HISTORY

History records a lengthy procession of souls who have committed acts of unspeakable evil. At the very front are certain aristocrats. Abusing their positions of privilege and power, they were able to murder, rape and torture with impunity but only for a time. They are historic figures who have become legends in their own cultures and, in some particularly gruesome cases, have come to be known throughout the world.

GILLES DE RAIS

A nobleman and soldier, Gilles de Rais fought beside Joan of Arc during the siege of Orlans; in fact, this saint of the Roman Catholic Church was one of his greatest supporters. However, he is not remembered for his heroism or his accomplishments on the field of battle. Rais holds a place in history as one of the earliest recorded serial killers.