SERIAL KILLER PHOTOGRAPHERS

Article BY LORI BELL - Art by Roberto Aranda

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There are many reasons why serial killers keep “trophies” or “souvenirs“ of their victims. So to honor the lives of their victims, and to remind us of the sadism and savagery of their actions, here are the serial killers who chose to photograph their victims. Over the years, some photographs eventually resurfaced and became public. These pictures were never intended to see the light of day.

 

Harvey Glatman

Known as “The Lonely Hearts Killer,” Glatman was an American serial killer active in the late 1950s. Glatman exhibited his anti-social behavior and sadomasochistic sexual tendencies from an early age, and began killing when he moved to Los Angeles and posed as a professional photographer.

Judy Ann Dull was a 19 – year –old victim of Glatman, she agreed to pose for him because she was desperate to pay money for a lawyer in a child custody battle with her ex-husband. Shirley Ann Bradford was Glatman’s third victim, a model that he lured through an ad he placed in a San Diego newspaper.

By trolling Los Angeles modeling agencies, he would lure his victims to his hotel rooms where he would then tie them up, photograph them, kill them, and dump their bodies in the desert. He was executed in the gas chamber of San Quentin State Prison on September 18, 1959.

 

Robert Ben Rhoads

Rhoads was known for touring the US in an 18 –wheeler equipped with a torture chamber in the back, and is believed to have raped, killed and tortured over 50 women, while only 3 victims have been confirmed.

One of Rhodes’ victims, 14 – year-old Regina Kay Walters’ , photo was found in his house after he was arrested. This photo was used in a case that connected Rhoads to pattern of murders that spanned over the course of five months.

Walters was one of the numerous women held in an 18 – wheeler equipped with a torture chamber in back. Her photo was taken in an Illinois barn where Rhoads killed her after cutting off her hair and making her wear a black dress and heels.
Apprehended in the early 1990s, he is currently serving a life sentence without parole at Menard Correctional Center in Chester, IL.

 

Bob Berdella

Bob Berdella was an American serial killer in Kansas City, MO, active throughout the 1980s. He preferred male victims, in which he raped, tortured, and killed at least six men between 1984 and 1987.

Berdella was conscious of his homosexuality, in 1984 he started dating Jerry Howell, a good-looking 19 – year-old male prostitute. On July 5, 1984, Berdella invited Howell to his house, where he drugged him with sedatives for animals and he immobilized by binding him to a bed.

In the following hours he repeatedly rapes his victim, writes carefully about the process in his diary and takes several pictures to relive his fantasy later. This was the beginning of his torture and murder spree.

Todd Stoops was a 23 – year-old victim of Berdella, a male prostitute that the killer befriended. For two months, Berdella tortured him daily with electric shocks, anal penatration and other abuse. Believe it or not ---- he wasn’t intentionally murdered by Berdella, but died as a result of the countless injuries inflicted by his assailant.

Larry Pearson was another one of Berdella’s victims, also a male prostitute. He lived as Berdella’s sex slave for about six weeks, and was murdered when he finally tried to escape.

Berdella’s third victim was a prostitute named Chris Bryson. Like the other victims, he was put in the killer’s basement, but managed to break free and ran to a neighbor’s house wearing nothing but a dog collar around his neck. This exposed Berdella’s dungeon as well as the photos of his other victims.

By 1992, Berdella died of a heart attack at Jefferson City Correctional Center, and it is said that prison officials refused to give him his heart medication.

 

Rodney Acala

Rodney Acala is a convicted rapist and serial killer, sentenced to death in California in 2010 for five murders committed between 1977 and 1979. He is often compared to Ted Bundy, and some estimate that he has killed over 130 women.

Detectives found hundreds of photographs of unidentified women in a storage locker that belonged to Acala. He is sometimes referred to as “The Dating Game Killer” after his appearance on the game show during the height of his spree.

A handful of women (less than 30), identified themselves as having posed for the pictures. His collection included coworkers, classmates, girlfriends, family members, and strangers, but less than 10 admitted to knowing him personally. None of the women were linked to missing person cases. The case remains partly opened.

 

Jerry Brudos

Jerry Brudos was a serial killer and a necrophiliac, also known as “The Lust Killer” and “The Shoe Fetish Slayer, “ who was active in the late 1960s. In just one year, 1968 to 1969, he bludgeoned and strangled four young women while wearing women’s clothing that he would masturbate in afterward.

Nineteen –year-old college student Karen Sprinkler, was killed in Brodos’ garage after he kidnapped her from a department store parking lot. It is reported that Brudos made her model women’s underwear and pose for photos. He then killed her by hanging her from a hook in his ceiling, then had sex with her body and cut off her breasts.

Brudos kept trophies from his victims, expressly two pairs of amputated breasts that were used as paperweights and the left foot of a 19 –year-old girl named Linda Slawson (his first victim) which he used to model the shoes he collected.

He has confessed to murdering Linda Slawson, Jan Whitney, Karen Sorinker, and Linda Salee, and was sentenced to life in prison. Brudos died in prison on March 28, 2006 from liver cancer. At the time of his death, he was the longest incarcerated inmate in the Oregon Department of Corrections, serving a total of 37 years.

The irony of some of the victims is that they were posing for photos hoping they might become a famous model, but they became famous through their photos at the hands of a killer. Some photos were just grisly reminders of how sadistic people can be. Only the killers know the true reasons why it was so important to photograph their work. But, “lucky” for us, because of their need to record the victims, they actually prove their guilt.