serial killers

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'Hoax' Confession Prompts Police Hunt for Serial Killer

Authorities in New England are trying to debunk rumors of a regional killer

(Newser) - The rumor likely began on TikTok, reports Rolling Stone . Now there's a Facebook group with 60,000 members and growing, amplifying the notion that a serial killer is stalking New England. However, exasperated-sounding police departments across Rhode Island, Massachusetts, and Connecticut are trying to debunk the rumors, which...

Woman Insists Her Dad Is the Most Prolific Serial Killer Ever

A California woman says her father killed more than 400, but skeptics say the evidence isn't there

(Newser) - A California woman is on a mission to ensure the world knows her father's legacy, but she's having trouble convincing authorities her dad is what she claims he is: the most prolific serial killer in history. SFGate reports it all began about a month ago when Galina Trefil...

Florida Executes Man Who Killed Miami Herald Employee

Michael Tanzi apologized to Janet Acosta's family in his final statement

(Newser) - Florida has executed a man who kidnapped, raped, and murdered a Miami Herald employee 25 years ago. Michael Tanzi, whose lawyers had argued that he was too obese for lethal injection to work, was pronounced dead at 6:12pm Tuesday following a three-drug injection at Florida State Prison, the AP...

Cops: Chicago Teen Killed 6 People in 9 Months

'It's difficult to comprehend how anyone could easily take someone's life'

(Newser) - While most people were hunkered down at home during the early months of the pandemic, one teen went on a killing spree in Chicago, massacring six people within a span of nine months. So said local police and prosecutors on Wednesday in announcing murder charges against Antonio Reyes, now 21,...

Doc Charged With Murdering 10 Patients

Unnamed German doctor showed 'lust for murder,' say cops

(Newser) - A doctor in Berlin who was first arrested in August on suspicion of killing four elderly patients is now suspected of killing a total of 10 patients and, in five cases, trying to cover up the evidence by starting fires, investigators said Tuesday, per the AP . The unidentified doctor, who...

Families of Jack the Ripper Victims Demand 'Form of Justice'

After researcher names Polish barber as the serial killer, victims' relatives ask for a new inquest

(Newser) - Descendants of victims of the infamous "Jack the Ripper," the serial killer who terrorized London's East End and is tied to about a dozen murders in the late 1880s and early 1890s, are demanding a new inquiry be opened after DNA evidence has pointed to a not-so-new...

LI Serial Killer Suspect Indicted in Murder of 7th Woman

Rex Heuermann charged in killing of Valerie Mack in 2000

(Newser) - The murder charges keep racking up for accused Long Island serial killer Rex Heuermann, who now stands accused in the slaying of Valerie Mack in 2000. As NBC News reports, prosecutors say that a hair found on Mack's body was linked by DNA to Heuermann's wife and daughter....

After Third Dead Wife, Cops Uncover Insulin's Role in Spree

The LA Times looks back on the first person convicted of using insulin to murder.

(Newser) - "Well, it took you long enough!" Those were the words of William Dale Archerd when police finally knocked on his door in 1968. Archerd was suspected of foul play in several sudden deaths, including three of his wives, over two decades. While coroners originally found medical reasons for...

Child Serial Killer Lucy Letby Questioned About More Deaths

Additional incidents reported at hospital where former neo-natal nurse trained as a student

(Newser) - "Britain's worst serial child killer of modern times," convicted of murdering seven infants and trying to kill seven more at a hospital in northern England, has been questioned in prison about more infant deaths, reports Reuters . All seven murders of which Letby was convicted last year occurred...

Woman Suspected of Killing 14 to Be Put to Death

Thai woman's alleged victims include friends, police officers, boyfriend

(Newser) - A woman suspected of being among Thailand's "worst serial killers" was sentenced to death Wednesday in the first of 14 murder trials, CBS News reports. Sararat Rangsiwuthaporn, 36, is described as a gambling addict who allegedly used "herb capsules" laced with cyanide to fatally poison people who...

New Theory Emerges on the 'Blood Countess'

Was Elizabeth Bathory a serial killer or herself a target?

(Newser) - More than 400 years after her death, the truth about the "Blood Countess," a Hungarian noblewoman alleged to have been the most prolific female serial killer of all time, remains elusive. From her castle atop a rugged peak in what's today Cachtice in western Slovakia, Elizabeth Bathory...

45 Years Later, Teen's Death Linked to Serial Killer

Police in Illinois say Kathy Halle was murdered by Bruce Lindahl

(Newser) - DNA found on the clothing of a suburban Chicago woman who was kidnapped and killed 45 years ago matches that of a suspected serial killer who died two years later. The DNA of Bruce Lindahl, who's believed to have killed as many as a dozen women and girls, was...

Canadian Police: We've Caught Female Serial Killer

Woman accused of 3 murders over 3 days

(Newser) - Canadian police say they've captured a serial killer who is accused of three murders over a three-day span last week. Sabrina Kauldhar, 30, was arrested Friday. The first victim, a 60-year-old woman, was found dead in her Toronto home on October 1 with "visible trauma" to her body,...

UK Fast-Tracks Law to Block Serial Killer's Marriage

Levi Bellfield and other inmates serving 'whole-life orders' can't marry or enter civil partnerships

(Newser) - Wedding bells are never going to ring for British serial killer Levi Bellfield. A law that came into force on Friday blocks the 56-year-old inmate and other inmates serving life with no possibility of parole, known in the UK as a "whole-life order," from getting married or entering...

Prosecutors: LI Serial Killer Suspect Penned a Murder Guide

How-to manual reportedly includes lessons learned, reminders to check for cameras

(Newser) - When authorities charged alleged Gilgo Beach serial killer Rex Heuermann with his fifth and sixth murders earlier this month, they referred to a document that had helped the architect avoid detection. It was, in fact, a "blueprint for murder" that may now become "damning evidence against him,"...

New Charges: LI Serial Killer Suspect Was At It Longer Than Thought

Heuermann charged in 2 new killings; prosecutors say they found 'blueprint' to do better 'next time'

(Newser) - The New York architect previously accused of killing four women and leaving their corpses scattered along a coastal highway was charged Thursday in the deaths of two more women, instead of the one that prosecutors had hinted at earlier in the week . Rex Heuermann, 60, was set to appear before...

Cops: US Fugitive Killed 4 Women in Canada in the '70s

And Canadian authorities think the now-dead serial sex offender may have killed more

(Newser) - Canadian police announced Friday they have linked the deaths of four young women nearly 50 years ago to a now-deceased US fugitive who hid in Canada from the mid-1970s to the late 1990s, the AP reports. Alberta Royal Canadian Mounted Police Supt. Dave Hall said Friday that Gary Allen Srery...

Strange Puzzle May Link BTK Killer to Missing Teen

Puzzle sent by serial killer to TV station includes Cynthia Kinney's name, sheriff says

(Newser) - Since last year , authorities have been investigating a possible link between the BTK serial killer and Cynthia Kinney, who went missing in Oklahoma in 1976 at age 16. Now they're taking another look at a crossword puzzle sent by the convicted killer, Dennis Rader, to a TV station...

Survivor Squashes the Bundy Mystique

Attacked by Ted Bundy in 1978, Kathy Kleiner has finally begun telling her story

(Newser) - When Kathy Kleiner was a student at Florida State University, she was attacked by serial killer Ted Bundy , who murdered two of her sorority sisters that same night. She recounts her experience at the Guardian with writer Ann Moore, delving into what measures she took to never let that night...

'The Lab of Last Resort' Helped Take Down a Serial Killer

A nuclear weapons lab's work was key to getting justice for Efren Saldivar's victims

(Newser) - Police had a suspect, dead bodies, a confession—but what they didn't have was evidence. In a piece for Undark , Sarah Scoles dives into the case of Efren Saldivar, a California respiratory therapist whose treatment of terminally ill patients at Glendale Adventist Medical Center had raised some concerns, enough...

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