Serial Killers

Herbert Mullin believed he was saving the world. After all, God had told him that murdering people would prevent catastrophic earthquakes. So, with his heaven-sent mission, he set out to kill and kill again. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Throughout his childhood in the 1950s and ‘60s, Herbert Mullin's life seemed decidedly idyllic. But tragedy struck when he was 18. In the aftermath, Mullin began hearing voices — and they told him to kill. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Having killed and dismembered his first victim, Robert Bordella was anxious to take another person captive. He kidnapped and tortured multiple men in succession, drugging them with tranquilizers and documenting his actions in a diary — until someone eventually escaped.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Inspired by a 1965 horror film called The Collector, Robert Berdella harbored dark fantasies about abuse and control. As a college student, he acted out his sadism on animals, and later, in the early ‘80s, on a teenager named Jerry Howell. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In November 1997, John Bunting claimed his sixth victim, and successfully passed it off as a suicide. From there, he and his accomplices moved at alarming speed, torturing and killing another six people until police finally caught up.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Arriving in South Australia in the 1980s, John Bunting surrounded himself with people he could easily manipulate: a small group of men who hated pedophiles and gay men, and were determined to rid their community of both. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

After his first murder, Steven Zelich couldn't bear to let go of his victim, and kept her body close by. But eventually he began to crave the same powerful feeling he'd had the first time, and the hunt for his next target began... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Once a police officer who loved the authority and respect his position brought him, Steven Zelich's life took a turn in the late ‘90s when the power went to his head. His quest for the thrill of control led him to the world of BDSM… and eventually, murder. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Once a promising intelligence officer, Ray Fernandez transformed into a career conman, swindling lonely women out of their savings. When he met Martha Beck in 1947, his Lonely Hearts con became a deadly scheme of spiralling jealousies and stolen fortunes.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

If love makes you do something evil, does that make you evil, too? In the late 1970s, Gerald Gallego twisted himself around Charlene’s heart and didn’t let go. The couple, later known as “The Sex Slave Killers,” worked in tandem to kidnap and murder ten women. Was Charlene a victim, too? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Following a whirlwind romance, Alton Coleman and Debra Brown embarked on a violent rampage that turned the summer of 1984 bloody. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

They say that “love is a many-splendored thing.” But for Ray and Faye Copeland, it was a thing of violence. The couple’s murderous crimes made them two of the oldest people ever sentenced to death in the United States. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

By 1985, the Monster of Florence had claimed 16 lives. Unfortunately, authorities were no closer to catching the killer than when they'd started their investigation, and the trail was getting colder every day... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

One of Italy’s most notorious serial killers has never (definitively) been identified. The mysterious Monster of Florence murdered couples in their cars, beginning in 1974. The crimes were so horrific that all of Florence was on edge, and the hunt for the killer was vast. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

By 1984, Nance had revamped his reputation and settled into a comfortable routine in his hometown. But as he grew fixated on his boss, his nice-guy exterior evaporated, revealing a cold and calculating killer. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

As a teenager, Wayne Nance developed an interest in Satanism that may have led to his first murder. He became obsessed with the idea of making a human sacrifice — and in the spring of 1974, he boasted to a friend: “It’s been done.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

His victims’ deaths were often ruled “unnatural and accidental,” leaving Gilbert Paul Jordan free to perfect his M.O. — forcing Indigenous women in Vancouver to drink themselves to death. Unable to keep him behind bars, police surveilled the barber until they could catch him in the act. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

An alcoholic from his teenage years onward, Gilbert Paul Jordan spent his young adulthood in 1950s Vancouver tallying up arrests for theft, assault, and drug possession. Then he discovered a crime he wouldn’t be punished for: plying a victim with alcohol until she was poisoned to death. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

By the 1990s, Ángel Maturino Reséndiz was a seasoned murderer using America’s extensive railroad system to strike new victims, then flee. But eventually, authorities caught onto the pattern in his murders. In 1999, their investigation came to a surprising stop.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

After years of incarceration, rejection, and failure, Ángel Maturino Reséndiz's most violent impulses began to surface. Between 1986 and 1999, he traveled the U.S. by freight train, murdering “sinners” in a so-called mission from God. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices