Criminologists have distinguished between classic serial murder, which generally involves stalking and is often sexually motivated, and serial murder, which is generally motivated by thrill-seeking. Although some serial murders have been committed for profit, most lack an obvious rational motive, a fact that distinguishes them from political murders and terrorism and professional murders by gangsters. Serial killers are supposed to kill for reasons like sexual compulsion or even recreation. In many cases, the murders are believed to give the murderers a feeling of power, which may or may not be sexual in nature, over their victims. Typical victims have included women, migrants, prostitutes, children, homosexuals, and homeless people.
Serial killers have attracted immense attention in popular culture, in part because they are perceived as personifications of evil. We review the five most perverse sex killers.
1. Peter Kürten, Vampire of Dusseldorf
Location: Germany
Period: 1913-1930.
Crimes: 8 murders and 14 sexual assaults.
Profile: As a child he was abused. He was a sadist who tortured his victims, drank their blood and burned one alive. It only reached orgasm causing pain. Before being beheaded he said: “My greatest wish would be to hear my own blood dripping onto the basket.”
2. Richard Ramírez, The Night Marauder
Location: United States
Period: 1984-1985.
Crimes: 14 murders, 5 attempted murders, and 9 rapes.
Profile: Difficult to classify. His victims were varied in sex, race, and age. He raped women he left alive and killed people he did not sexually abuse. Sometimes he planned his crimes; others it was sloppy. It is said that he proclaimed:? Legions of the night! Races of the night! Do not repeat the mistakes of the night prowler and do not grant mercy. I will be avenged. Lucifer is with us?
3. Albert Fish, The Killer Grandpa
Location: United States
Period: From the end of the 19th century to 1935.
Crimes: He confessed to sexual abuse of more than 100 children and 15 murders.
Profile: It is believed that he was psychotic. Fisch was constantly looking for new sensations. Thus, he forced many people to be dung, his behavior was extremely sadistic towards children and he wrote a terrible letter in which he described how a mother ate her child.
4. Henry Lee Lucas
Location: United States
Period: 1960-1980.
Crimes: 11 crimes and some rapes were proven.
Profile: He was convicted of the murder and rape of his mother. Later, he got out of jail, joined Ottis Toole, and together they engaged in necrophilia, pedophilia, and pyromania on living people. They were hell-bent on blaming themselves for crimes and perversions, and their statements were always delusional.
5. Andrei Chikatilo, The Butcher of Rostov.
Location: Russia
Period: 1978-1990.
Crimes: Suspect of 36 crimes, he ended up confessing 53. He mixed sex and sadism, dismemberment and cannibalism. His trademark: the mutilation of the eyes.
Profile: Since he was a teenager he had erection problems and took refuge in extreme communist dogmatism. He experimented with his victims a sadistic sexuality with which he vented his anger and to which he became addicted.
