Indholdsfortegnelse for Ice cold SERIAL KILLERS i Inside History Collection

When the volunteers at St Patrick’s Church in Glasgow showed up to open the soup kitchen on Sunday 24th September 2006, Pat McLaughlin had already set up the tables and chairs. The 60-year-old man had only worked as a volunteer for six weeks, but was already one of the most well-liked staff members at the church, which was surrounded by grey multi-storey buildings in the Anderston region of the city. McLaughlin was charming, polite and helpful to staff and visitors, and had become known as a handyman around the church. Therefore, no one found it unusual that he also decided to help out in preparing the kitchen. On the other hand, it was surprising that Angelika Kluk didn’t show up. The 23-year-old Pole worked as a cleaner in the building…

BACKGROUND Recent research has revealed huge insights into psychopaths’ brains. Defects in brain centres, allied with poor neural connections and excessive use of chemical neurotransmitters, make the psychopath both unscrupulous and emotionally cold. The hope is that this new understanding can provide an effective treatment for the disorder, which so far is incurable. Surinder Koli appeared completely calm and showed no signs of remorse or any other strong emotions during the interrogation. He was the servant of a wealthy businessman in an industrial district outside New Delhi in India, and had been telling police investigators about his actions for the past year and a half. When he was home alone, he repeatedly lured small girls from as young as four into his master’s house. Then he strangled the children and…

Young Alexander Pichushkin spent the afternoon as he had so many others: in the playground in Bitsevsky Park. The boy sat on the swing. Back and forth. Back and forth. But for one tragic moment, he lost his balance, slid backwards and landed with a bump on the ground. Dazed, he started to sit up, just as the swing swung back to hit the boy square on the forehead. He momentarily blacked out as he tumbled into the grass. After a few minutes, the boy’s friends got him back on his feet. They brushed off the dirt and followed him home to his mother, Natalya. But something didn’t return home with Alexander Pichushkin from the playground that day. From the moment the swing hit his forehead, the boy was no…

BACKGROUND Crime scene investigators and forensic scientists are constantly developing new ways to solve crimes, from DNA analysis to a careful examination of the crime scene and victim, which can reveal the killer’s profile and background. Was it a crime of passion, or did the victim meet a serial killer who had planned every detail in order to obtain the most pleasure possible? Three people disappeared without a trace in the Canadian metropolis of Toronto between 2010 and 2012. Local police routinely investigated each case, but there was nothing to immediately indicate that the missing people had been victims of a crime. Perhaps they had committed suicide, or maybe they just wanted to start over in a new place, somewhere no one knew them? But something caught the attention of…

On 15th May 1982, 15-year-old Galen Hirschi had spent the late spring day cycling around with his friend Robert Anderson. The pair enjoyed speeding along random paths and side roads in Kent, a city south-west of Seattle in the north-west of the United States. When it was time to go home, the two boys decided to travel via the old iron bridge over the Green River. The teenage friends halted on the bridge, but as Hirschi peered into the water, the current seemed to push a bag or sack against one of the bridge piers, and what appeared to be two white tennis shoes were poking out. The teenagers were naturally curious. They decided to examine it more closely, and so gently waded out to it. Galen wanted to pick…

The interrogation had been going on for an hour when the suspect complained of a severe headache. He claimed that he needed medication from the cab of his lorry. A young officer was dispatched to fetch it. It was a cold November night, and the officer was unhappy at being forced outside, but his irritation vanished when he looked into the well beside the driver’s seat. Three Polaroid photos were lying there. Three snaps of naked women. Strangled naked women. And on the back of each photo, the perpetrator had described in meticulous detail how he had taken the victim’s life. For 30 years, Volker Eckert had committed murders throughout Europe without being detected, but that evening in Cologne in 2006, he seems to have decided to end his killing…

Valentina Suriani and Alexander Esau had spent a wonderful evening together. First, the young lovers had been to the cinema, then on to a party, and then at 03.00 on 16th April 1977, the couple was sitting in a car in New York’s Bronx, passionately kissing goodbye. Eighteen-year-old Valentina was sitting on her boyfriend’s lap, with her legs across the passenger seat, when a dark figure suddenly appeared at the passenger window. The unknown male raised his .44-calibre revolver and fired twice. The glass shattered, and the bullets shot straight into Valentina’s brain, killing her instantly. Alexander Esau tried to duck but failed. The killer fired two more bullets that hit Esau in the head. The young man lay dying on the seat while the killer turned around and placed…

Psychiatrist Aleksandr Bukhanovsky confidently strode down the prison corridor. Soon he would be meeting the prisoner for the first time, but he already knew him extremely well. In Bukhanovsky’s folder was a 65-page profile of the killer, which the psychiatrist had prepared. Everything was described in intimate detail: the prisoner was impotent, a perverted sadist, middle-aged and living a double life as both a respectable citizen and a brutal killer. Only one piece of information was missing in the document: the name of the prisoner himself. The report was written before the identity of the killer was known. But thanks to Bukhanovsky’s work, the criminal had nevertheless been apprehended. It is now well known that the worst serial killer in Russia’s history was called Andrei Chikatilo. The hunt for Andrei…

That Friday seemed like any other news day at The Wichita Eagle. With a daily circulation of almost 50,000, the newspaper could boast of being the largest in the industrial city of Wichita on the Arkansas River in the central United States. As usual, a secretary was tasked with going through the pile of letters and packages from the morning delivery. But on that day, 17th March 2004, one letter stood out – it contained a copy of a driving licence belonging to a woman called Vicki Wegerle. She had been killed almost 20 years earlier, on 16th September 1986, and the killer had never been found. The envelope also contained three pictures from the crime scene, in which the murdered woman could be seen from different angles. The sender’s…

Police officers Robert Rauth and Rolf Mueller had been having a quiet evening. It was 23.30 on Monday 22nd July 1991 and the pair of law enforcers only had half an hour left of their shift as they drove down North 25th Street in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Suddenly, a slender man with his shirt unbuttoned ran towards the patrol car. A set of handcuffs dangled from one of his wrists, which he asked the officers to unlock. Rauth and Mueller had a hard time following the frantic flow of words, but apparently a “freak” had tried to kill the frightened man, who after a while introduced himself as Tracy Edwards. The officers asked Edwards to guide them to where the assault had taken place, and soon the trio was standing in…

Rain hammered on the windscreen of Edmund Kemper’s Ford Galaxie. Throughout the evening of 8th January 1973, water had been lashing down from the sky over Santa Cruz, California, but 24-year-old Ed appreciated the storm. It created the perfect conditions for him to entice a girl into his car – and now he was driving around looking for a victim. For the occasion, Kemper, who was more than two metres tall, was wearing his “murder clothes”, which is what he called his checked shirt and dark jeans. He had killed several young female students wearing exactly the same set of clothes, because the dark colours of the fabric helped to hide the victims’ bloodstains. As the time approached 17.00, Kemper spotted a woman through his large, round glasses sticking out…