SERIAL KILLERS AND HIDING BODIES

Article BY Chris Bartholomew - Art by URIEL A. DURAN

---

The FBI estimates that there are currently 500 serial killers at large. Other estimates are much lower, around 35 - 100 serial killers currently committing crimes. In 1983, they estimated that 5000 Americans or 15 people a day were killed by strangers. Every year, between 3500 - 5000 people in America are the victims of serial killers. In the past 20 years, 160 serial killers have been identified or captured, and 120 of them were in the United States.

Sometimes in the profile of a serial killer, authorities will use the dump sites as a guide in that profile, an example would be that if the body is dumped in a wooded area, the killer might be a hunter or fisherman who is comfortable in the woods. Studies have been done showing that in most cases where the serial killer wasn't traveling, such as a truck driver covering a lot of territory, serial killers go a certain distance within a triangle space when dumping the body.

Sometimes the serial killer will go back to the dumping grounds to spend more time with the victim, or to relive the experience. Sometimes they will go back to make sure they didn't leave any evidence behind, or in some cases, when they've integrated themselves to the local police, to help in the investigation, or to taunt the police and leave clues. Gary Ridgway didn't chew gum or smoke, but he did leave chewing gum and cigarette butts at dump sites. Once he even scattered airport motel pamphlets and car rental papers to imply that the killer was a traveling salesman. Sometimes (also Ridgway) they go back to the dump site to have sex with the remains.

There are studies which suggest that the average serial killer travels about a half an hour from home to dispose of a body. Unless work or some other activity puts them further away, they likely live more or less than thirty minutes from the site.

Maurice Godwin, a former police officer from North Carolina, conducted research into geographical profiling involving 54 American serial killers. An analysis of the crimes of the 54 killers, who had each murdered at least ten victims, disclosed that the average distance between the killers' home and his chosen dumping ground was 14.3 miles while the abduction area was only 1.4 miles away.

Here is what 150 Serial Killers did about the question of hiding bodies:

 

Put in Trash Bags (along highways):

Patrick Kearney and David Douglas Hill (The trash bag murders), Belgium's Butcher of Mons, Bob Berdella (Put remains in can for collection by trash collectors), Jeffery Dahmer, Richard W. Rogers, Grim Sleeper (victims covered by trash bags, found near dumpsters), Bruce Mendenhall, Larry Eyler (The Interstate Killer), Jefferson Davis Parish Louisiana serial killings (unsolved), Robert Pickton, Unknown serial killer in Seoul, The Family murders (Adelaide, Australia), Jeffrey S. Mailho, Vlado Tanevski, Jeffrey S. Mailhot

 

Fed them to Animals

Joe Ball - The Alligator Man, Ottis Toole, Robert Pickton, Belle Gunness, Carl Panzram

 

Sold them as food

Fritz Haarmann, George Karl Grossman

 

Under houses, crawlspaces, basements

John Wayne Gacy, Kendall Francois, Jesse Harding Pomeroy, David Maust, Jeffery Dahmer

 

Rivers or other bodies of water

John Wayne Gacy, California Astrology Murderer, Gary Ridgeway, Sean Vincent Gillis, Lewiston Valley Killer, Amelia “The Baby Farmer” Dyer, Fritz Haarmann, The Atlanta Child Killer

 

Shed

Dean Corll

 

In or around Dumpsters in Alleyways

Daytona Beach SK (unsolved), George Russell, Eight Street Killer (Miami unsolved, 31 victims)

 

In the woods or fields

Gary Ridgeway, Ted Bundy, The I-45 Killer or Killer(s),east Texas and Montrose Killer(s), "killing fields" murders, Fort Myers killer, Gary G. Grant, James Edward Ruzicka, Gary A. Shaw, The 1969 Parkway Murders (Both Gerald Eugene Stano and Ted Bundy claimed credit for the Parkway Murders but were cleared), Ted Bundy (ditches and parks)

 

Rural Locations

Robert Lee Yates, Edmonton Canada missing women (unsolved)

 

Didn't bother

Dennis Radar, Angel Maturino Reséndiz, Zodiac Killer, Richard Ramirez, Jack the Ripper, Jesse Harding Pomeroy, Herbert Mullin, Aileen Wuornos

 

Under the bed

Jeffery Dahmer, Earl Nelson

 

Left them 'posed'

Albert Desalvo, Danny Rolling, the Grim Sleeper, George Russell

 

Dismemberment, cannibalism, hid some remains

Albert Fish, Jeffery Dahmer, Joachim Kroll, Arthur Shawcross, Henry Lee Lucas & Ottis Toole, Bob Berdella, Edmund Kemper III, Richard Trenton Chase, Douglas Clark & Carol Bundy, Andrei Chikatilo, Alfred Packer, Mark Sappington, Surender Koli and Moninder Singh Pandher

 

In house or apartment

Fritz Honka, Jose Luis Calva, John Christie, Charles Albright, Harrison Graham, Yang Xinhai, Moses Sithole, Tommy Lynn Sells, Dennis Radar, Richard Ramirez

 

Never found the Victims'

Gert van Rooyen and Joey Haarhof

 

Burried them

Andrei Romanovich Chikatilo, Juan Corona, Gilles de Rais, The Bloody Benders, Delfina and Maria de Jesus Gonzales, Pedro Alonso Lopez, Dorothea Puente, Reginald Christie, Fred West and Rosemary West, Gordon Northcott

 

Just dumped the bodies

Kenneth Alessio Bianchi and Angelo Buono

 

Burned

Gilles de Rais, Steven Avery, Sudhakar Gajare, Uresh Warik, Ravi Poojary, Charles Sobhraj, Nicolae Bonner, Thomas Svekla, Jeremy Bryan Jones, John Childs, Ohio Cincinnati killer (unsolved), Dr. Marcel Petiot, Herman Webster Mudgett (H. H. Holms), Countess Erszebet Bathory, Gilles de Rais, The Alberta Serial Killer, Larry Bright

 

Dissolved in acid (or kept hidden in vats or drums)

John George Haigh, Javed Iqbal Mughal, Nuevo Laredo, Santiago Meza López, Jeffery Dahmer

 

Dumped near highways (and deserted roads – vacant lots)

Rory Conde, Last Call Killer, Robert Lee Yates, Jr., James Ruzicka, Randy Kraft, The I-5 Killer: Randy Woodfield, Dewayne Lee Harris, California Occult Murders (unsolved), Gary Michael Hilton, Donald E. Younge Jr, Edmund Kemper, Derrick Todd Lee, Highway of Tears Killer (unsolved), Ortega Highway, (The 44-mile stretch of highway, officially part of California Route 74, where many bodies have been found, William Bonin threw one here, so did Randy Kraft, Patrick Kearney did too), Mack Ray Edwards, Clifford Olson, Larry Eyler, New Bedford Highway killer (unsolved)

 

Flushed them

Dennis Nilsen, Surender Koli, Joachim Kroll