Related Research Articles
Contract killing is a form of murder or assassination in which one party hires another party to kill a targeted person or persons. It involves an illegal agreement which includes some form of payment, monetary or otherwise. Either party may be a person, group, or organization. Contract killing has been associated with organized crime, government conspiracies, dictatorships, and vendettas. For example, in the United States, the Italian- and Jewish-American organized crime gang Murder, Inc. committed hundreds of murders on behalf of the National Crime Syndicate during the 1930s and '40s.
A thrill kill is premeditated or random murder that is motivated by the sheer excitement of the act. While there have been attempts to categorize multiple murders, such as identifying "thrill killing" as a type of "hedonistic mass killing", actual details of events frequently overlap category definitions making attempts at such distinctions problematic.
Charles Sobhraj is a serial killer, fraudster, and thief, who preyed on Western tourists travelling on the hippie trail of South Asia during the 1970s. He was known as the Bikini Killer because of the attire of several of his victims, as well as the Splitting Killer and the Serpent for "his snake-like ability to avoid detection by authorities".
Colin Ireland was a British serial killer known as the Gay Slayer because his victims were gay. Criminologist David Wilson believes that Ireland was a psychopath.
In England and Wales, life imprisonment is a sentence that lasts until the death of the prisoner, although in most cases the prisoner will be eligible for early release after a minimum term set by the judge. In exceptional cases a judge may impose a "whole life order", meaning that the offender is never considered for parole, although they may still be released on compassionate grounds at the discretion of the Home Secretary. Whole life orders are usually imposed for aggravated murder, and can only be imposed where the offender was at least 21 years old at the time of the offence being committed.
Peter Norris Dupas is an Australian convicted serial killer, currently serving three life sentences without parole for murder and primarily for being a serious habitual offender. He has a very significant criminal history involving serious sexual and violent offences, with his violent criminal history spanning more than three decades, and with every release from prison has been known to commit further crimes against women with increasing levels of violence. His criminal signature is to remove the breasts of his female victims.
Derrick Todd Lee, also known as The Baton Rouge Serial Killer, was an American serial killer. Between 1992 and 2003, Lee murdered seven women in the Baton Rouge area.
Terry Anthony Blair is an American serial killer who was convicted of killing seven women of various ages in Kansas City, Missouri, though investigators believe he may have additional unidentified victims.
Andre Crawford was an American serial killer, rapist and necrophile who killed 11 women between 1993 and 1999 in Chicago. Many of the women were addicted to drugs or worked as sex workers. He also had sex with their corpses. In 2009, Crawford was found guilty on all counts and sentenced to life imprisonment without parole.
The Peterborough ditch murders were a series of murders which took place in Cambridgeshire, England, in March 2013. All three victims were male and died from stab wounds. Their bodies were discovered dumped in ditches outside Peterborough. In Hereford, two other men were stabbed, but survived. The perpetrator was Joanna Christine Dennehy, a Cambridgeshire woman, who was later sentenced to life imprisonment with a whole life order.
Martin Ney is a German serial killer. He wore a mask while killing three and sexually assaulting at least 40 children in school camps. He also did some of his activities in camps, private homes and other places. Ney, who committed his first act in 1992, was also known as the "Masked Man" and the "Black Man". After his arrest on 15 April 2011, the 40-year-old educator confessed to three murders, but is suspected of two others. Ney was sentenced on 27 February 2012 by the Stade district court, among other things, for three murders to life imprisonment. The court also noted the particular severity of the guilt.
Umesh Reddy is a serial rapist and serial killer from India. He confessed to killing 18 women, and was convicted in 9 cases. The police believe that he raped at least 20 women in the states of Karnataka, Maharashtra and Gujarat. They also suspect that several of his crimes have not been reported, because the victims feared social stigma.
Niels Högel is a German serial killer and former nurse who was sentenced to life imprisonment, initially for the murders of six patients, and later convicted of a total of eighty-five murders. Estimates of Högel's alleged victim count have increased since his first conviction; as of 2020, he was believed to have claimed 300 victims over fifteen years, making him the most prolific serial killer in the history of peacetime Germany.
Jacques Plumain, known as The Ghost of Kehl, is a French suspected serial killer who was convicted of killing two women in Germany and France from 1999 to 2001, but is considered a suspect in three others, being acquitted for one and never brought to trial for the other two.
Simon Majola, known as The Bruma Lake Killer, is a South African robber and serial killer who, with accomplice Themba Nkosi, was responsible for the killings of at least eight people in the vicinity of the Bruma Lake in Bruma, Gauteng. Majola was given eight life sentences, and is currently imprisoned.
John Arthur Getreu is an American serial killer who was convicted of one murder during 1963 in West Germany and convicted of two more that took place in 1973 and 1974 in the United States. He is currently serving life imprisonment at California Health Care Facility.
Gary James Lewingdon and Thaddeus Charles Lewingdon were American siblings and serial killers, who committed a series of ten murders in different Ohio counties from December 1977 to December 1978 for the motive of robbery. As a murder weapon, the criminals used .22 caliber pistols, due to which they received the nickname The .22 Caliber Killers. In 1979, both brothers were sentenced to several terms of life imprisonment.
Douglas Baptista, known as The São Vicente Maniac, is a Brazilian serial killer who drowned at least eight children in the Baixada Santista metropolitan area from 1992 to 2003. Arrested and convicted for several of the crimes, he is currently serving a lengthy sentence.
References
- ↑ Detailbericht in der Zeitung Blick
- ↑ Prozess Gegen Todespfleger von Luzern Archived 2013-01-17 at archive.today at news.search.ch, 21 January 2005
- ↑ Es bleibt bei lebenslänglich für den «Todespfleger». In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung from February 16, 2006
- ↑ SF Tagesschau Archived 2011-03-12 at the Wayback Machine at www.tagesschau.sf.tv, February 15, 2006.