Serial Killers

By the beginning of 2011, Bruce McArthur had killed and dismembered two men, hiding their bodies in enormous planters at a client's house. But when police let him slip through their hands, he was free to kill again.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

For most of his life, Bruce McArthur led an unremarkable existence. But in the 1990s, he split from his wife and moved to Toronto's gay village — free to be his true self. Unfortunately, McArthur's true self was violent, bloodthirsty... and murderous. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

After amassing wealth and influence as a spiritual advisor in the 1980s, Adolfo Constanzo set his sights on the lucrative drug trade in Matamoros. To claim a piece for himself, he needed more power. And for that, he turned to one thing: human sacrifice.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Schooled in the darkest corners of his family’s Afro-Carribean religion, Adolfo Constanzo decided to make his fortune using magic granted through animal sacrifices. In Mexico City, he grew his power and esteem — but he wanted something more. He wanted revenge. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

By 1828, Burke and Hare’s scheme of murdering people and selling their bodies was making them rich. But eventually, one curious woman crashed their entire operation. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

When a tenant at their boarding house died in 1827, William Burke and William Hare found a way to make some extra money: selling bodies to a medical school. But to keep it up, they’d need a fresh supply of dead bodies — and those were hard to come by. Naturally, at least.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Having moved from break-ins to aggressive sexual assault, David Russell Williams carefully planned his first horrific murder in late 2009. It was not his last. But the high-ranking military officer could only fly under the radar for so long. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

As an officer in the Canadian Armed Forces, David Russell Williams had a spotless record for decades before beginning a breaking-and-entering spree in 2007. Stealing into women’s houses, he photographed himself wearing their underwear, setting the baseline for crimes that would later include rape and murder.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

After his first murder in San Francisco, Richard Ramirez headed back to Los Angeles to begin a killing spree that had the whole city terrified. His brutal attacks came after dark and without warning, earning him the chilling nickname "Night Stalker.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

A troubled relationship with his father, his religion, and the demonic visions he saw during seizures dominated Richard Ramirez’s childhood in the 1960s. When he witnesses a horrific crime at the hands of a sadistic cousin, he comes face to face with his own dark nature.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Organized and meticulous, Timothy Wilson Spencer evaded suspicion until a detective began connecting the dots between Arlington’s “Masked Rapist” and Richmond’s “South Side Strangler.” The 1988 case against him helped exonerate a wrongfully convicted man, and made forensic science history. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Growing up in Arlington, Virginia in the 1960s, Timothy Wilson Spencer displayed an alarming interest in torturing animals and burglarizing homes. With practiced cruelty and stealth, he eventually became known as “The Masked Rapist” for his attacks on women.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Born in 1935, Florencio Fernández grew up in a region of Argentina nicknamed the “fortress of folklore.” As a teenager, destitute and alone, he watched a film at a local theater that would change his life — and inspire his crimes. That film’s name? Dracula. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Salvator Perrone’s early life in the 1950s is a murky mystery, but by the time he was in his 60s, the failed fashion entrepreneur had a grudge against the world — and he was ready to exact his revenge.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

By the 1980s, Ted Kaczynski had set off several bombs, causing only minor injuries — but for him, it wasn’t enough. What had started as a plot for revenge grew into an unrelenting need to change the world. To do that, he needed to kill. The reign of the Unabomber had begun. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Spotting his genius at a young age, Ted Kaczynski’s parents pushed their son to academic excellence — but Ted never found a true home in the hallowed halls of academia. Instead, by 1969, he was a former math professor with a festering hatred for the modern world.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

By Thanksgiving 1986, Gary Heidnik had captured a woman and locked her in his basement, where he intended on making her carry his children. But Gary wanted an entire “birthing harem.” Over the next four months, he lured five more women to his Philadelphia home… Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Estranged from his family, Gary Heidnik’s behavior grew more and more troubling as he grew older. By 1976, no one was around to notice when he started digging a pit in his basement — one big enough to hold a person... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

When a six-year-old girl was brutally murdered in Chicago in 1945, the public and the press demanded answers. Luckily, police found the killer by chance when they arrested a teenage burglar named William Heirens. Or did they? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Growing up in a family that didn’t have a lot of money, William Heirens turned to burglary to ease his economic anxiety. It became a compulsion he couldn’t control, and got him into trouble with the law in the early 1940s. Then, one day, it changed his life forever. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices