Following the historic Lindbergh kidnapping, the United States Congress passed a federal kidnapping statute—known as the Federal Kidnapping Act, 18 U.S.C. § 1201(a)(1) —which was intended to let federal authorities step in and pursue kidnappers once they had crossed state lines with their victim. The act was first proposed in December 1931 by Missouri Senator Roscoe Conkling Patterson, who pointed to several recent kidnappings in the Missouri area in calling for a federal solution. Initial resistance to Patterson's proposal was based on concerns over funding and state's rights. Consideration of the law was revived following the kidnapping of Howard Woolverton in late January 1932. Woolverton's kidnapping featured prominently in several newspaper series researched and prepared in the weeks following his abduction, and were quite possibly inspired by it. Two such projects, by Bruce Catton of the Newspaper Enterprise Association and Fred Pasley of the Daily News of New York City, were ready for publication within a day or two of the Lindbergh kidnapping. Both series, which ran in papers across North America, described kidnapping as an existential threat to American life, a singular, growing crime wave in which no one was safe.
Terry Anthony Blair was an American serial killer who was convicted of killing seven women of various ages in Kansas City, Missouri, although investigators believed that there were additional unidentified victims.
Gary Ray Bowles was an American serial killer who was executed in 2019 for the murders of six men in 1994. He is sometimes referred to as The I-95 Killer since most of his victims lived close to the Interstate 95 highway.
Michael Wayne McGray is a Canadian serial killer convicted of killing seven individuals between 1985 and 1998. He claims to have killed eleven others during the same time period.
Montie Ralph Rissell, also known as Monte, is an American serial killer and rapist who raped and murdered five women between 1976 and 1977 in Alexandria, Virginia, where he lived.
Samuel Little was an American serial killer who confessed to murdering 93 people, nearly all women, between 1970 and 2005. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)'s Violent Criminal Apprehension Program (ViCAP) has confirmed Little's involvement in at least 60 of the 93 confessed murders, the largest number of confirmed victims for any serial killer in United States history.
Alfred J. Gaynor is an American serial killer and rapist who committed a series of nine murders in the city of Springfield, Massachusetts from 1995 to 1998. For these crimes, Gaynor was subsequently given four sentences of life imprisonment without parole.
Larry Dean Bright, also known as The Bonecrusher, is an American serial killer responsible for the deaths of at least eight women between the ages of 30 and 41 in central Illinois. The murders occurred between July 2003 and October 2004, in Peoria and Tazewell County, Illinois. His nickname derives from his purported propensity for burning his victims' bodies before crushing their bone fragments with a hammer. After confessing to his crimes in May 2005, Bright was convicted of eight counts of murder and sentenced to eight life sentences without the possibility of parole.
Juan Chavez was a Mexican serial killer who, between 1986 and 1990, killed at least six gay men in three cities in Los Angeles County, California. On June 21, 1999, he was sentenced to five consecutive life sentences without the possibility of parole, but he committed suicide by hanging himself at Folsom State Prison just two months later.
Henry Adolph Busch was an American serial killer who killed three women, including his aunt, in California in 1960. He claimed he had an irresistible urge to kill.
Rodney Troy Bixler is an American serial killer and rapist who strangled three women to death in Kentucky between February and October 2000. He was sentenced to 40 years imprisonment for these crimes, and provided that he maintains good behavior in prison, Bixler will be released in 2039.
Kevin Taylor is an American serial killer and rapist who strangled four prostitutes to death following sexual encounters in Chicago, Illinois, between June and August 2001. After a would be fifth victim survived and identified him, Taylor was arrested and sentenced to multiple life terms in 2006.
Daniel Oliver Jones is an American serial killer who raped and stabbed four young women to death in Kansas City, Missouri, between 1998 and 2001. He was arrested shortly after the final murder, and DNA evidence linked him to the previous crimes, after which he confessed and was given multiple life sentences.
Robert Wesley Knighton was an American serial killer and spree killer who, after serving time for kidnapping and manslaughter in Missouri embarked on a four-day, two-state killing spree along with Lawrence Lingle Brittain and Ruth Renee Williams. Brittain and Williams both pleaded guilty and testified against Knighton in exchange for leniency, and have since been released from prison. Knighton was convicted of two murders in Oklahoma and executed in 2003.
Joseph Robert Miller is an American serial killer and rapist who raped and killed at least six women in Chicago and Peoria, Illinois, from 1977 to 1993. He was convicted of these crimes the following year and sentenced to death, which was later commuted to life imprisonment.
Mauricio Rodriguez Silva, known as The Monster, is an American serial killer who killed three people, including his half-sister, during a May 1984 crime spree that spread across California, shortly after being paroled from serving a manslaughter conviction. He was convicted of the latter crimes and sentenced to death and is currently awaiting execution.
John Peter Malveaux is an American serial killer and rapist who committed between four and five murders around Opelousas, Louisiana from January to October 1997. Following his arrest and confession to the crimes, Malveaux pleaded guilty on all counts and was given four life terms without parole.
Jeffrey Paul Cutlip is an American serial killer and rapist who murdered two women and a teenage girl in the Portland metropolitan area of Oregon between 1975 and 1993. He confessed to the murders in 2012, and was sentenced to life imprisonment the following year.
Ronald Hinton is an American serial killer who committed the murders of three women in the Rogers Park neighborhood of Chicago, Illinois, between 1996 and 1999. He pleaded guilty to each murder in 2004 to avoid a death sentence and was subsequently given three life terms.
Jeffrey S. Mailhot, also known as The Rhode Island Ripper, is an American serial killer who murdered three prostitutes in Woonsocket, Rhode Island, between 2003 and 2004. After strangling his victims to death, Mailhot dismembered their corpses with a saw, placed them in garbage bags, and threw them in dumpsters. After one of his victims survived, Mailhot was arrested on July 17, 2004, and later sentenced to three life terms in prison. Only the remains of one victim have been found.
