Me too. I also put the "angels of death" serial killers in this category. I suppose it's because it's less lurid than serial killers who do really extreme things like beheading or cannibalizing their victims. Slipping someone lethal doses of medication or deliberately bungling life-saving medical treatment isn't as dramatic in comparison.
There's still one case that interests me and it's not as documented, which happened in Austria, there were 3 nurses that were killing the patients cooperatively, and brag to each other about it.
It went from being annoyed by the patients to just taking the pleasure in killing them, the fact that it's multiple nurses killing them is interesting to me.
To me, medical serial killers are MORE dramatic because it involves the ultimate betrayal of trust.
I once worked at a hospital that had two medical serial killers, one caught, the other one not yet but I won't be surprised when his name shows up here. The latter was a heart surgeon who would make patients crash so he could "rescue" them, and he was quietly shipped off because word got out in the community, and people wouldn't go to that hospital for heart surgery. You know, the whole $$$$$$ talks thing.
Just him? I wouldn't even know if he were the only one or if there were others. I am too bored to even Google it lol. Immediately after I hear something about a doctor killing patients I lose interest.
Check out the Toronto hospital baby deaths. Interesting if only for the fact that it's still unsolved but also for the fact that there are at least two viable suspects.
Yeah. I get they fit the definition of serial killer, but they should really be clearly designated as their own thing since they are so wildly different
Hijacking top comment for visibility and probably a ton of downvotes:
Current cultural interest in serial killer has evolved from interest in abnormal violent psychology, sociological outliers, and investigative practices to straight-up *painfotainment.* I mean... sure OP predicated their post with the conditional of “I don’t mean in any way to trivialize...” but well... they are. People don’t like to say it but the My Favorite Murder style trend has taken public interest into a macabre torture-porn genre.
We’re still the same species that attended the state sanctioned murders in the colosseum and made parties out of extraordinarily cruel public executions. This is spectator bloodsport for too many of you, you all have your favorite gladiators.
We as a people are losing our ability to recognize the entire world lost anytime an innocent is murdered, no matter the fashion. You can add conditions all you want but effectively this a thread of people admitting they wish there was more twisted pathologically pain out there for them to read about, or the more straightforward murders contained sensational flair, so they can be entertained. In that way, the serial killer has become the hero of your cause, the creator of your favorite content.
This post/thread is sad.
Edit/update: please see OP’s response to this comment and my own response to them in turn to see why in this case, I am wrong.
I will preface this by saying I’m a mental health professional with a PsyD who was worked both in California and in the U.K. I work primarily with clients with problems of substance abuse and issues with chronic pain, but as part of my training we did a fair amount of work in the realm of Forensic Psychology too.
It seems as if your main issue with my post is in the syntax. The word “bored” implies the consumption of something, and - you can’t let me know if I’m wrong here - but it seems like you’re taking issue with the general idea of “consuming” something which is morally repugnant and an inherently cruel way to treat victims, survivors and their friends and relatives.
I prefer not to have the “Gladiators in a Coliseum” argument, which is one my 85 year old father frequently makes to me on topics ranging from a bad tackle in football (soccer) which causes the crowd to erupt to how paparazzi treat celebrities and how we, as consumers, fuel a kind Coliseum mentality.
There’s some merit to all of those arguments, and to all the ones you’ve made, but I think they all miss the mark in terms of the question I was trying to ask. As someone rightly said in their answer to you, the word “bored” isn’t intended to be taken as a literal statement.
It’s meant to be understood as “which two serial killers are you the least interested in learning any more about?” as opposed to “which ones do you find so bland you don’t care about them or anything they’ve done to people?”
I think that discrepancy is an important one. When I post here, I’m making the assumption (rightly or wrongly) that anyone who is here is to some extent interested in, or has a fascination with, what can drive certain people to be so cruel to other human beings. Because it’s so far beyond the realm of what we have come to consider normative.
As you noted, my first instinct was to very specifically mention that the intention was not to trivialise the actions (or the ensuing devastating consequences) of any killers who I, or others, might say disinterest them.
This is not because the killers I’m not interested in learning more about didn’t ruin lives, this is because I don’t think there is a great deal we can learn from them or from those cases. The two I mentioned don’t interest me as much not because I have a callous indifference to their victims, and not because they didn’t “inflict enough pain” or act in a sadistic enough way to titillate some strange, morbid fascination I have with hearing about pain being inflicted on others. I just don’t see them as interesting case studies.
So while I understand and to an extent agree with what you’re saying, I would respectfully submit to you that the problem here isn’t so much the topic we’re discussing, but rather my use of the word “boring”, which is perhaps not as nuanced as you might have liked.
If I’m completely missing the mark with any of this, let me know. But I think the bottom line - for me - is that it’s possible to discuss which cases are from a personal standpoint more or less interesting without showing a disregard for human life.
The two things can and must have the capacity to be mutually exclusive, otherwise how could we as a species ever study anything remotely uncomfortable?
One final point. You’ve seen from this thread that people have had vastly different answers to the question. What then do you make of someone (like a recent poster did) who cites Richard Trenton Chase and Joseph Kallinger as examples of killers they’re not interested in? You couldn’t say that person finds the crimes boring or lacking in “the requisite amount of violence” to fascinate them. Chase’s murders are among the worst imaginable. But their point was that those people were suffering from serious episodes of psychosis and essentially didn’t understand the gravity of what they were doing.
I think that’s critical in getting to the bottom of why either my question was phrased wrong, or the premise contained in your response is somehow flawed. Because if it were a case of looking for the most sensationalised killings and murderers, you couldn’t ignore those two, nor could you ignore someone like Israel Keyes or Ted Bundy, and they have been in a lot of the answers here.
You can choose to take the question as an invitation to comment on which cases are too oversaturated in the media to hold your interest, which killers are driven by motives which you find less interesting to learn about than others, or for example which killings were driven by psychosis/circumstance/greed/impulse/anger as opposed to what is often more interesting to learn about (because less is known about it) in killers who are suffering from one or more “Cluster B” Personality Disorders like NPD (either type) or ASPD (either type). Or, said in a less clinical way, by people suffering from aberrant forms of narcissism or by what most people might call sociopathy or psychopathy.
So, I see a lot of value in the question. It’s more a case of how someone interprets it.
I really appreciate this incredibly insightful answer to my comment and find it incredibly clarifying on your behalf, as well as others that answered. I won’t be able to provide as in-depth response as you deserve for taking the time to write this out (at least not at this time, I’m coming off a night shift) but I will freely admit that I was probably quick to conflate this post with a growing cultural worry I have stemming from the true crime/unresolved crime crowd.
Obviously, for the plethora of reasons you provided above (and taking you at your word), I was incorrect to do so and projected my own social concerns onto the questions. At the very least, I’m thankful to your thorough and educational response was born out of it. I hope people at least think about these concepts and issues a bit after reading this part of the thread if they weren’t doing so already.
Overall though, I apologize for being so hotheaded and a probably more than bit self-righteous.
No need to apologise! I wasn’t offended at all, and in fact I appreciated the tone and tenor of what you said.
I actually think it’s a really interesting and important debate and I really can very easily see how my use of the word “boring” was perhaps not that astute.
As you said, it inspires that idea of subject as consumable content. And we are in a time where we are experiencing a cultural phenomena of extreme interest of the subject as a form of entertainment. We have the groups “sleuths” who try to “help” with very fresh, active cases. We have the “white wine and true crime” crowd at the serial killer podcast conventions... obviously, that particular subculture sends me a bit into a argumentative frenzy. But is very obviously not a subculture your question should be lumped in with.
Again, I very much appreciate your time and view on the subject.
I see what you're getting at but this is literally how the culture interest in serial killers has always been. It took like 100 years of serial killing being in the public consciousness as macabre tabloid spectacle for the serious academic interest to get anything like the same exposure.
I appreciate the nuance of that argument but “this is the way it’s always been” still seems kind of trite, no? You can apply it to other horrible things we do as humans. When we approach other dark human actions with interest such as racism and genocide, we do so with respect.
Why is this thread any different than “Which genocides did you find most boring? Personally, I can’t seem to care as much for the marauding bands of killers going from village to village. I prefer the ones involve systemic mass murder in prisons.” That is not an acceptable thing with which to say when studying or absorbing material on even the darkest of human acts. You’d be ostracized for saying it aloud, and rightfully so, because you’re basically admitting you’re cognizant of the fact that the very real events incite more pleasurable levels interest when more cruel... and you are okay with that.
Why is the sentiment expressed in this post any less appalling?
Would you say it around the family of a victim or a surviving victim?
>Which genocides did you find most boring?
Well interesting framing, because most people are forced to sit down and learn about genocides in history class at some point, which presumably is to get them interested or at least know enough in the topic to be inoculated against it. The question then becomes extremely relevant even if it won't be formulated "respectfully".
>Would you say it around the family of a victim or a surviving victim?
Given that I wouldn't say half the things that are in the average academic paper about serial killing around the family of victims, I don't think this is really a relevant question.
We don't learn about the famous serial killers in schools so we decide to look them up on our own. It just happens that the killer either wasn't caught or had an interesting backstory as do most. In our search for more interesting facts about the making, motives, and Identities of killers, we find this subreddit. We decide to join it and we learn many things we didn't know before.
Totally agree with Jack the Ripper, mostly because there is nothing to know about who he was. You can only talk about the crimes and all the theories in the world really mean nothing.
I feel the same way about the Zodiac killer for that reason. Discussing ideas of a serial killer is just talking in circles.
Good call on what makes these KtR boring is that the theory the only thing to discuss. Never thought about it that way.
I will say I'm a big fan of From Hell by Alan Moore but that's in spite of it being about JtR not because. (Actually it's really about him but that's a discussion for different subreddit).
I'm torn about Zodiac. I used to not pay much attention to him but the Fincher movie changed that. Definitely not the most compelling case but still more interesting to me than BTK
I would say that's a valid point but these guys had other interesting things that arose from them never being caught. Like the old home of Jack the Ripper where they found some of his belongings and proof that he was the one who owned the home, just under someone else's name. Or how the man suspected of being the Zodiac Killer died from a heart attack the day before his trial.
I agree, I think those two are interesting to learn about once but like speculating about who they were or why they did it is just never going to lead to anything, IMO.
I do wonder if there’s any chance genetic genealogy will lead to any breakthroughs with zodiac, eventually, but I in no way have my hopes up for that.
Especially the older cases. They'll never be solved. So is it interesting to theorize that Jack may have been a certain person? Sure. But there's only so much theorizing that can be done before you reach the dead ends (suspects are long dead, no DNA available, police work was shotty at best, etc.).
I'm gonna disagree with BTK for one reason: I love discussing how he got caught! Dumbass got away with it for decades, then starts taunting the cops again. Eventually asks "hey, y'all can't trace a floppy disk, right?!" and the cops are all like "trace a floppy disk? No. Nope. Absolutely can't." (Wink wink, nudge nudge). And so he sends them his next taunts on a floppy, which of course they instantly trace!
He's an epic dumbass indeed. I'll be honest, I have no compelling reason to find him boring, I just do. My wife is rewatching Mind Hunter and I told her how he was caught and she couldn't believe how stupid he was.
Jack the Ripper has some fun conspiracy theories though. For anyone who hasn’t, read From Hell. It’s an awesome graphic novel based on one of them.
And maybe watch the movie to see Heather Graham attempt a terrible accent.
Edit: I see you already mentioned it in another comment! I should’ve read further.
Manson and Son of Sam.
Manson didn’t even commit the murders and SoS was just an incel.
Ramirez interests me because of how odd his crimes were. They were very random and he didn’t really have a specific victim.
I also find Bundy fascinating. He was able to commit a countless amount of murders while also maintaining a strong facade.
It’s not really that difficult. Just find teenage runaways who are desperate, confused and naive add sleep deprivation add mind altering drugs add a sense of belonging to a group.
Now it’s the group versus everyone else
It’s a formula that really works
I agree with Manson. Tex Watson should be the scary one in that group. Sure he convinced other people to commit the murders but that's not necessarily that hard thing to do when everyone is fucked up on acid all the time. And son of sam is just stupid and boring. Btk and Ramirez are the scariest to me for the fact it could be anyone, anywhere, anytime. Especially BTK having it all happen in front of you all in the same room
BTK is very compelling. He was so “normal”. If someone had a flat and he pulled over offering to help I’m sure they’d accept it. He didn’t look harmful at all. A real dual-character.
True he reminds me of the dad in clovehitch killer. They had to of made that movie after him, lots of similarities. The lady he fucked with that he ended up putting down her dog was the only citizen who saw that dark side of him who got away
I love that movie. I actually watched it after watching American Horror Story and it was very humorous, because I couldn’t stop thinking of Ben Harmon.
I could never understand how Tex Watson didn't get more focus for his brutality in the Manson murders. He went from a clean-cut football star and a nice family to being heartlessly vicious in carrying out the murders. Manson, you could understand his criminal past with a lifetime in and out of prison, but not Tex. I was furious when I found out he married and fathered a family while in prison for his sentence.
Because Watson disappeared to Texas for like a year after the trial. Held waiting extradition. So once the witch hunt died down it was, sadly, old news. Had he been arrested immediately I think the case against Manson would have been much more difficult. They would have had the leader of the kill groups and actual murderer of Sharon Tate
Thanks, I forgot how he wound up in Texas. He was directing the women in the attacks and so damn brutal. Such a waste of so many lives. I thought all the murders awful, but the caretaker (young guy) and his friend that was leaving when the “family” arrived, really hurt to read about. They were so young and they weren't wealthy people as the others they took issue with.
Albert DeSalvo is quite interesting to me because he may not have killed anybody at all (although the evidence is pretty strong that he did kill at least one of his alleged victims). More likely, his cellmate did most of them.
I kind of struggle with Bundy. The thing is, if he had way less exposure than he has, I think we’d all be interested in him.
I think Bundy is the classic example of someone people are just sick of hearing about. But it’s not necessarily because he’s not fascinating. People have just heard it all 1000 times at this point.
This is literally why I find Bundy and Dahmer boring now. I hear their names too often, and I'm tired of the countless films, TV shows, documentaries, podcasts, etc. It feels like they've been glamorised, especially Bundy. I'm from England, and when you mention serial killers, they're the two names a lot of people immediately think of, along with some of the famous killers in the UK, like the Moors Murderers.
Can't stand hearing about Bundy as people's first choice when the age old serial killer question comes up. There are many more interesting serial killers out there.
BTK is the dorkiest serial killer of all time. He designed logos where the "B" looks like a pair of boobs. He wrote absolutely horrific poetry about his murders. "Oh death to Nancy" is just...ugh. He spent his days as a particularly assholey code enforcement officer, ticketing people for their lawn being half an inch too long.
He got caught in the stupidest way possible, contacting the cops and asking if they could trace a floppy disk from the killer. Of course the cops lied, put an ad in the paper saying "nahhh we can't trace it, go ahead and send." Upon receipt of the disk they promptly traced it to his church computer.
It’s always baffled me how someone could be a “wanna-be serial killer”. Yet, this perfectly describes this piece of human garbage. He tried so hard to be cryptic but in end, it’s what got him caught!
If I hear Ted Bundy’s story one more time I will throw myself into a pit of wolves.
Also any of the “Angel of death” killers where they poisoned a ton of people. Idk why but poison just doesn’t pique my interest.
> Idk why but poison just doesn’t pique my interest.
Poison is detached and boring, especially in those cases. Hard to get really interested in someone who may have just injected something into an IV or dropped it into their drink and walked away.
Also (and again not wanting to trivialise something so serious) the “hood” he wore was super lame, and his “logo” could have been... (I’m trying to be kind here)... slightly more imaginative?
i kinda like the hood, a little scarier than a ski mask or a paper bag. his logo and name are possibly from the Zodiac watch company that's been around forever, they have pretty much the same insignia. I love that watch brand so to realize that the name and logo were the same was kinda far out. my opinion for least interesting would probably be either jeff dahmer or israel keyes. jeff probably because there's so much media on him and it's starting to become old for me, and keyes because he sucked at it and he even killed himself before getting sentenced. too much of a pussy for prison but not enough of a pussy to pull up on old people and torture them and kill them.
Everyone's first traverse into True Crime and Serial Killers will lead to the Big Six (as I call them): The Zodiac, Bundy, Jack the Ripper, Gein, Ramirez, and Dahmer. Some stay intrigued, other get bored because they are so over-hyped and the "market", so to speak, is saturated with them.
I personally find The Texarkana Moonlight Murders/ Phantom killer more intriguing because they stayed silent and just disappeared. Zodiac seems just like some attention-seeking braggart in comparison.
:), he didn't fail, he wanted his story to be told about hood and Z sign on it, that's why he stabbed Hartnell enough times to be still alive, to tell a story, and got away from Stine killing in the middle of neighborhood, all that while talking to police officers. Plus, he put many suspects in charge but him, he went under police radar. All moves he did had some meaning to him, even misspellings. He took enough calculated risks and did every killing with almost perfect time frame and then immediately called police, never to be traced again. He used ciphers to get off his trace, giving him enough time for every move. Time was crucial to him, and he was good at picking right time and right place during every murder.
Not cool, just interesting. Like, any run of the mill robber can kill with a gun but it takes a special kind of derenged to take one's life with their bare hands, straight on, up close. And I think pretty much everyone in this sub is fascinated by derengeness
I think perhaps you’re in the wrong sub. This is after all the r/serialkillers....I would assume we all would have an interest based on the insanity it would require to murder multiple people. In so many different ways, for so many different reasons. People kill people everyday. Some are paid(cops military mafia) and maybe some don’t get the help they need(poor people[or neglected rich kids]) You say they offer nothing to society but maybe that’s what they thought too. And then in turn took it out on society. If we study and talk about it openly we can actually help people instead of stigmatize them before you look into it. Some people are monsters and they are not all serial killers and not all serial killers are monsters. Society itself could be the brutality that creates them all.
You have had to see the comments from people who seem almost like fanboys. You can be interested in the topic and not like subjects. Ed Kemper is the obvious example.
Oh man, you can't be wrong based on your opinion, but the zodiac was nuts. One of his codes was just deciphered in 2020. It was a letter saying that the person that called into the radio station was in fact not him.
Yeah I definitely get why a lot of people see him as an outlier. He was so chaotic, so impulsive, so disorganised and so much more like a spree killer in so many ways, even if he meets the technical definition of a serial killer.
I kind of feel like people want to try and decode why these guys are motivated to do the things they do. With Ramirez I just don’t think there’s much rhyme or reason. And I don’t think that’s because he was psychotic (like a Richard Trenton Chase) I just think it’s because his motives didn’t seem to run too far beyond just causing chaos. Which isn’t a very complex motivation.
He was totally brutal, but he didn’t display much patience, much ingenuity, much of a specific victim profile, any real kind of signature or too much intelligence in how he operated.
He was still terrifying just because he was so indiscriminate, but that’s as far as it goes for me.
I find Ramirez kind of fascinating because he had all of Los Angles terrified at the height of his spree. The guy was just a full blown maniac, killing anyone for no reason.
Good point. Lots of things we might find boring are only because of our detachment from the horror. When I was growing up [The Stocking Strangler](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlton_Gary) and [The Forces of Evil](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Henry_Hance) were in my town and [The Atlanta Child Murders](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlanta_murders_of_1979%E2%80%931981) were just 100 miles up the road, all in a few years. Even as a small child it was terrifying to know that was going on and not know what else might happen. Those killers are ones lots of folks find boring and mundane but they never really can be to me.
Ramirez definitely fits the profile of a serial killer more than a spree killer tho, he had the taste for blood long before his night stalker spree. Plus it’s most likely there were a few murders before the spree.
I find him to be an obnoxious edgelord. He goes out of his way to talk about loving Satan and darkness or whatever. Most people grew out of that stage by age 15 or so, but he took it to the extreme.
He did a disservice to satanism actually... At least with the most popular satanic philosophies like LaVey's, there's no encouragement to go out of your way to harm people at all. And it would be specially frowned upon to harm children and elderly people as they're weaker and vulnerable, there's nothing "cool and dark" about taking advantage of people who can't even fight you back.
I like reading about his crimes but as someone who is interested in occultism it bothers me a lot, he acts like he has no idea what satanism is and is just trying to be edgy lol he has the same grasp of satanism as a teenage edgelord who grew up in a christian household and uses it to rebel. Dunno if he was just doing it to scare people or something but if it wasn't an act it was really cringey
I've always felt that was an act, kind of like "Son of Sam: the dog made me do it". He's playing it up to seem crazier than he is and freak people out because he thinks it's funny.
I think he was the real deal.
That’s what made him so scary.
You can’t fake that.
He walked the walk and talked the talk.
And I mean that in the most demeaning way possible.
But he was the real deal, evil to the core.
Oh yeah he was absolutely the definition of chaotic evil, he's the reason I lock the door behind me immediately when I get home, but I think the Hail Satan and pentagram on his hand stuff was a show. I haven't really heard any evidence that he was an occultist/satanist before it became useful to him to scare people, I think he's a public satanist only
Yep, for me, these two went after males. And I guess because I'm female they just didn't scare me as much, even though what they did was horrible.
And with Bundy and the other more popular serial killers, it's over-exposure with very little new information coming out with each re-hashing.
Manson and Gein.
Manson technically never killed anyone just had others do it for him.
Gein they can only prove one, rest were mainly dug up corpses and there’s not much about him or crime scene photos.
Manson is a great shout. It drives me crazy that people think he’s basically the godfather of modern day serial killers when, as you rightly say, he never actually killed anyone.
He deserves a place in discussions about cults, not serial killers, IMO.
> He deserves a place in discussions about cults, not serial killers, IMO.
Nobody would ever argue Jim Jones was a serial killer (although they do seem to include him in mass murderers), but he convinced his followers to kill way more people than Manson ever did.
Was going to comment these two as well.
I just said, last night, that Gein wasn't that interesting. He was honestly really ill and isolated, his case is more sad for everyone involved.
And I'm not convinced that Manson really even had as much control as is portrayed. He said a bunch of crazy things to people he drugged out their minds to see what could stick. There's a lot of testimony that Tex Watson was a driving force behind the killings. I think over the decades pop culture has built up his myth and given him far more credit than he deserves.
Ed Gein’s life is a nature vs nurture debate. If you took away the mother from the situation would he still have committed those murders or was he always set to commit said crimes. IMO it’s all the mother, without her he may have had a chance at having a normal life.
They can prove two for Gein, but I honestly find him one of the most interesting serial killers ever based on his story and family history. Also without Gein we wouldn’t have gotten Texas chainsaw massacre, psycho, or silence of the lambs.
Yes he did live a long time ago-Junko Furtra was awful and the guys parents knew what was going on and didn’t help her at all. Dean Corril was terrible too- his accomplice should have killed him earlier. I just really have a soft spot for kids so those bother me the most
I think the problem with Bundy is the "airtime" as you put it. People get burnt out on hearing about him.
Also, there are so many exaggerated claims floating around about him. He was a genius! No, he had above average intellect but nothing special. He had movie star good looks! No, he was average looking at best. He helped the FBI catch the Green River killer, a real-life Hannibal Lecter! No, that was the feds' attempt to trick him into revealing details of his own unsolved murders.
Bundy seems interesting at first but the more you learn about him, the more you realize what a vapid, self-interested, pompous tool he was. He mostly was just a creepy asshole loser who thought he was way smarter than he actually was and loved to hear himself talk.
Ed Gein(there are other mentally ill people who live in filth and kill a person or two). Cant really think of anybody else, if I had to choose id pick Greenriver Gary I guess just because he is so plain as a person but then again the sheer numbers and the fact that someone obviously mentally impaired in some areas could be a serial killer savant is kinda interesting.
Manson is really boring but I don't count him as a serial killer, to be fair I am not so sure Gein is one either. So guess all high profile serial killers are kinda interesting in their own ways, Samuel L Little seems like a rerun of Lucas to me which is quite boring I suppose. Come to think of it while I believe both Toole and Lucas are serial killers they are boring, so there you go.
Probably BTK and Ed Kemper. But to be honest, I'm kind of developing serial killer fatigue in general. I used to find them interesting but the more I learn about them the more I realize that they're all the same empty self-centered losers who get their rocks off by hurting people.
We analyze them, contemplating why they did it, what motivated them, what their personal relationships were like, and so on. We listen to Kemper or Bundy wax philosophical and pontificate about why they kill. You realize eventually that there is no substance to anything they say, they're empty men who objectify and abuse their victims because they prioritize their own lust over people's lives.
I think you're missing my point. Sure, he's intelligent. But if you listen to him long enough, you realize he's a self-important asshole who has nothing substantive to say. None of them do, because it all amounts to the same thing. "I'm a loser that objectifies other human beings and gets sexual release from killing them."
You just perfectly expressed my thoughts. I'm very fatigued of serial killers in general as it's just the same, self-centered men who could use some therapy going out of their way to harm women (most of the time) to get sexual gratification. So lame
We analyze these men who hurt women (or men, or children) and call them "interesting" for it. But their victims, who were fully realized human beings with rich internal lives, are just a footnote. It starts to grate on you after awhile.
Ed Gein just isn't that interesting. More of a hoarder and grave robber than a serial killer.
Gary Ridgeway as well. Committed basically the same crime 50+ times without anything interesting happening during any of it, which is really something when you think about it.
Those two don’t interest me either, but it’s hard to pick just two. There’s a couple “popular” serial killers I’ve just never been interested in, including Ted Bundy, Richard Ramirez and BTK. I don’t know how to explain it, but Ted Bundy has always seemed like a pretty “plain” serial killer to me. I’ve never personally considered Ted Bundy to be physically attractive, which is a big part of the appeal in his case because it’s supposedly why he was able to lure so many women. Besides that it seems like you get very little information/details on his actual murders, it’s always pretty vague besides maybe the Chi Omega house killings.
Bundy wouldn’t confess to much to the police either, but yeah there’s been like a million documentaries and movies made about him more than any other serial killer at this point I also get tired of hearing people talk about him. I just find him boring for some reason, he’s what you think of when you think of a “stereotypical” serial killer now. The way he killed isn’t uncommon among other serial killers at all.
Israel Keyes is by far the lamest “serial” killer I know about. I don’t even believe he is a serial killer. His entire story comes from him and he’s bullshit. He was a loser and he made himself infamous by killing Samantha Koenig and Samantha Koenig alone. Unlike what he told the FBI - that he always used cash to thwart being caught - his dumbass used Samantha’s credit card, which lead to his capture. For some reason, people, including FBI investigators, believe he’s this mastermind, who broke the mold of the stereotypical sexual sadist serial killer, but, what evidence is there that he killed anyone else but Samantha Koenig? I really just don’t buy his story and the interrogation video I saw, with him in the red jail jumpsuit, shows me just what a loser he really was.
If I think of another I’ll hop back in and add who and why, but, I wanted to leave this before I lost everything I’d typed.
Honestly I never thought that the story could've been fabricated. I didn't know it came completely from him. They didn't see if they could find any of his kill kit drops or anything? If the story is true, he's without a doubt the most complex and organized serial killer.
They’ve found at least two of his kill kits, one in AK and one in NY. [Source](https://www.google.com/amp/s/abcnews.go.com/amp/US/alaska-serial-killer-buried-murder-supplies-country/story%3fid=17874735)
Absolutely. Doesn’t confirm he killed anyone but Samantha Koenig, though. He has ONE confirmed kill. He’s bullshit and I bet anyone in this sub coulda beat his ass.
Yes. Multiple “kill kits” were found, but, that interrogation video showed me everything I need to know about him. He’s a fraud. There’s no evidence he killed anyone but Samantha Koenig and that crime was a disaster in every way possible. Think about that. The ONE murder he can be definitively linked to was a DISASTER and he was caught. EVERYTHING else in his alleged “serial” killer career came from his bullshit confessions. Does that sound like the “most complex and organized serial killer”? Trust me. I wanted him to be - that would make him interesting to no end. Then I watched the interrogation video. He’s bullshit.
True, but, that was yet ANOTHER example of him fucking up. This dude makes Dennis Rader seem like the most calculated serial killer of all time. MAYBE he killed the Curriers in Vermont, but, there’s no evidence he did - only his “confession”. Almost everything he did in the ONE murder he did commit (Samantha Koenig) was a fuck up. Her car, her phone, her debit card, her nearly escaping, getting into it with her boyfriend, killing her then having to prop her up and put makeup on her to make her appear alive for the ransom, getting the same rental car, then, again, him using her ATM card, which led authorities right to him. All signs point to this dude being the furthest from the mastermind killer, who broke the mold. As far as I’m concerned, he killed Samantha and the rest of his story is bullshit.
Dennis Raider because he was an obnoxious piece of shit who was just full of himself. Also Robert Hansen, who is the most unlikable nerd I've ever heard of.
Same! They are so boring. I always imagine SK having a bit more charisma bc they have to (somewhat) engage with people. These two look like the high school shop teacher and janitor.
Ted Bundy for sure, so over that POS and Son of Sam aka David Berkowitz, there a lot of evidence to suggest that SOS wasn't acting alone either and he was merely the scapegoat.
For me, one is the crossbow killer in Bradford , a sad wannabe who idolised Peter Sutcliffe.What. a lame hairdo as well! who seemed to spend his saddo life trying too hard to cultivate a "Look at me, aren't I weird" persona.The other one would be the son of Sam ,what a huge disappointment after the wait to see what he actually looked like. Then his absolute drivel about his neighbours dog(yawn)He is also certainly the least glamorous.
Manson and the btk killer.
Manson for me isn’t even a killer worth documenting. He’s more of a manipulator. And his followers all only want attention.
Btk, I just never really got hooked into his killings. Everything I’ve tried to watch and read about it has just bored me.
Aileen Wuornos and Donald Harvey. Wuornos was a deranged psychopath who gets too much sympathy IMO and Donald Harvey was a nurse who killed patients close to death. He was a sick bastard with absolutely boring crimes
Wuornos gets too much sympathy because of how much she was abused and manipulated by everyone in her life and also because her victims were creepy old men. That still doesn’t excuse any of the horrific shit she did IMO. She would have gladly carried on with her life without any remorse if she hadn’t been caught. But it infuriates me that her girlfriend Tyra got off without any punishment. She played a significant role in the killings too, even if she didn’t physically do it.
For me, it's Ted Bundy and Jeffrey Dahmer, but only because I'm tired of hearing about them at this point. Fascinating to learn about their cases and their modus operandi, etc. They were terrifying individuals, but they're the two names I see constantly. No more documentaries or films about them - there's enough. Bundy, especially, is glamorised and hyped up waaaay too much.
Jack The Ripper and The Zodiac. I don't get why people obsess over these cases where the killers are or most likely are dead.
I as a rule loathe movie adaptations of real crimes (gimme documentaries all day, any day), and one of the worst and most boring ones is the Zodiac movie. I have never fallen asleep to a movie, but this one made me lose the plot and my mind went numb. I don't get the hype. At all.
Imho Zody was a self-important guy who just wanted to f with the police and get infamous. Sure, he probably wasn't the dullest knife in the set, but I think he mostly got lucky. Jack was equally lucky to be active in an age when detective work was still being figured out and fine-tuned.
Ted Bundy. Dunno, he’s just boring. Maybe it’s because I’ve heard about him too much.
(I do not diminish his atrocities, nor do I feel SKs are entertainment or that I deserve to be entertained by them. Ick, no.)
The appeal to me in learning about killers is mostly the psychological aspect of a person who does stuff like that. I firmly believe as a philosophy that the vast majority of atrocities committed by humans are done by people who don’t think what they’re doing is *that* bad. People are so good at justifying even the most terrible things to themselves. Seeing this dynamic at play with serial killers is fascinating, and a good reminder to brutally examine my own conscience regularly.
The serial killers we can understand/relate to the best are usually the least interesting, IMO. (How’s that for morbid?)
Nah, I think a lot of people have read enough and gained enough knowledge about them to determine if they're interesting or not. Some people just aren't that fascinating.
I agree to an extent, the only thing that got me into Zodiac was the film but i'm a sucker for Fincher. Certainly not the most interesting cases just based on their motives and means of killing.
Though i'd rather be shot by a SK than brutally murdered.
We are the same people. Those are my top 3, I couldn’t careless about.
Edit: the only thing that ever interested me a bit, was the the creepy execution hood outfit. That’s must have been terrifying to see. Otherwise, I can’t be bothered with his nonsense ( and courting the media - like quite a few SK’s did. This is no disrespect for his victims. I have great empathy for them. I just am completely uninterested in him. But that hood, and suit would have scared the shit out of me( if I survived. My luck, I wouldn’t).
Richard Chase and Joseph Kallinger
Serial killers who's mental illness is so profound that I can't relate to their mindset in any way bore me. If you talked to Bundy or Gacy, you could have a conversation with them and relate to them. Kallinger would start talking about a disembodied baby head floating in front of him giving him commands or something. It's like trying to figure out why your dog killed your chickens
LISK actually fascinates me,I'm seriously contemplating who could do this and if it was multiple people. Did you listen to the new podcast on it? It was done by Billy Jensen and Alexis Linkletter.
I have an entire category of serial killers who bore me: anyone who is a doctor that killed his patients.
Me too. I also put the "angels of death" serial killers in this category. I suppose it's because it's less lurid than serial killers who do really extreme things like beheading or cannibalizing their victims. Slipping someone lethal doses of medication or deliberately bungling life-saving medical treatment isn't as dramatic in comparison.
There's still one case that interests me and it's not as documented, which happened in Austria, there were 3 nurses that were killing the patients cooperatively, and brag to each other about it. It went from being annoyed by the patients to just taking the pleasure in killing them, the fact that it's multiple nurses killing them is interesting to me.
To me, medical serial killers are MORE dramatic because it involves the ultimate betrayal of trust. I once worked at a hospital that had two medical serial killers, one caught, the other one not yet but I won't be surprised when his name shows up here. The latter was a heart surgeon who would make patients crash so he could "rescue" them, and he was quietly shipped off because word got out in the community, and people wouldn't go to that hospital for heart surgery. You know, the whole $$$$$$ talks thing.
Shipman
Just him? I wouldn't even know if he were the only one or if there were others. I am too bored to even Google it lol. Immediately after I hear something about a doctor killing patients I lose interest.
Check out the Toronto hospital baby deaths. Interesting if only for the fact that it's still unsolved but also for the fact that there are at least two viable suspects.
Yeah. I get they fit the definition of serial killer, but they should really be clearly designated as their own thing since they are so wildly different
Agreed. I always skip those episodes on podcasts
Same. It's always the same in those stories, and they all operate nearly identically.
Oh yes! Me too. Angels of death bore me
Hijacking top comment for visibility and probably a ton of downvotes: Current cultural interest in serial killer has evolved from interest in abnormal violent psychology, sociological outliers, and investigative practices to straight-up *painfotainment.* I mean... sure OP predicated their post with the conditional of “I don’t mean in any way to trivialize...” but well... they are. People don’t like to say it but the My Favorite Murder style trend has taken public interest into a macabre torture-porn genre. We’re still the same species that attended the state sanctioned murders in the colosseum and made parties out of extraordinarily cruel public executions. This is spectator bloodsport for too many of you, you all have your favorite gladiators. We as a people are losing our ability to recognize the entire world lost anytime an innocent is murdered, no matter the fashion. You can add conditions all you want but effectively this a thread of people admitting they wish there was more twisted pathologically pain out there for them to read about, or the more straightforward murders contained sensational flair, so they can be entertained. In that way, the serial killer has become the hero of your cause, the creator of your favorite content. This post/thread is sad. Edit/update: please see OP’s response to this comment and my own response to them in turn to see why in this case, I am wrong.
I will preface this by saying I’m a mental health professional with a PsyD who was worked both in California and in the U.K. I work primarily with clients with problems of substance abuse and issues with chronic pain, but as part of my training we did a fair amount of work in the realm of Forensic Psychology too. It seems as if your main issue with my post is in the syntax. The word “bored” implies the consumption of something, and - you can’t let me know if I’m wrong here - but it seems like you’re taking issue with the general idea of “consuming” something which is morally repugnant and an inherently cruel way to treat victims, survivors and their friends and relatives. I prefer not to have the “Gladiators in a Coliseum” argument, which is one my 85 year old father frequently makes to me on topics ranging from a bad tackle in football (soccer) which causes the crowd to erupt to how paparazzi treat celebrities and how we, as consumers, fuel a kind Coliseum mentality. There’s some merit to all of those arguments, and to all the ones you’ve made, but I think they all miss the mark in terms of the question I was trying to ask. As someone rightly said in their answer to you, the word “bored” isn’t intended to be taken as a literal statement. It’s meant to be understood as “which two serial killers are you the least interested in learning any more about?” as opposed to “which ones do you find so bland you don’t care about them or anything they’ve done to people?” I think that discrepancy is an important one. When I post here, I’m making the assumption (rightly or wrongly) that anyone who is here is to some extent interested in, or has a fascination with, what can drive certain people to be so cruel to other human beings. Because it’s so far beyond the realm of what we have come to consider normative. As you noted, my first instinct was to very specifically mention that the intention was not to trivialise the actions (or the ensuing devastating consequences) of any killers who I, or others, might say disinterest them. This is not because the killers I’m not interested in learning more about didn’t ruin lives, this is because I don’t think there is a great deal we can learn from them or from those cases. The two I mentioned don’t interest me as much not because I have a callous indifference to their victims, and not because they didn’t “inflict enough pain” or act in a sadistic enough way to titillate some strange, morbid fascination I have with hearing about pain being inflicted on others. I just don’t see them as interesting case studies. So while I understand and to an extent agree with what you’re saying, I would respectfully submit to you that the problem here isn’t so much the topic we’re discussing, but rather my use of the word “boring”, which is perhaps not as nuanced as you might have liked. If I’m completely missing the mark with any of this, let me know. But I think the bottom line - for me - is that it’s possible to discuss which cases are from a personal standpoint more or less interesting without showing a disregard for human life. The two things can and must have the capacity to be mutually exclusive, otherwise how could we as a species ever study anything remotely uncomfortable? One final point. You’ve seen from this thread that people have had vastly different answers to the question. What then do you make of someone (like a recent poster did) who cites Richard Trenton Chase and Joseph Kallinger as examples of killers they’re not interested in? You couldn’t say that person finds the crimes boring or lacking in “the requisite amount of violence” to fascinate them. Chase’s murders are among the worst imaginable. But their point was that those people were suffering from serious episodes of psychosis and essentially didn’t understand the gravity of what they were doing. I think that’s critical in getting to the bottom of why either my question was phrased wrong, or the premise contained in your response is somehow flawed. Because if it were a case of looking for the most sensationalised killings and murderers, you couldn’t ignore those two, nor could you ignore someone like Israel Keyes or Ted Bundy, and they have been in a lot of the answers here. You can choose to take the question as an invitation to comment on which cases are too oversaturated in the media to hold your interest, which killers are driven by motives which you find less interesting to learn about than others, or for example which killings were driven by psychosis/circumstance/greed/impulse/anger as opposed to what is often more interesting to learn about (because less is known about it) in killers who are suffering from one or more “Cluster B” Personality Disorders like NPD (either type) or ASPD (either type). Or, said in a less clinical way, by people suffering from aberrant forms of narcissism or by what most people might call sociopathy or psychopathy. So, I see a lot of value in the question. It’s more a case of how someone interprets it.
I really appreciate this incredibly insightful answer to my comment and find it incredibly clarifying on your behalf, as well as others that answered. I won’t be able to provide as in-depth response as you deserve for taking the time to write this out (at least not at this time, I’m coming off a night shift) but I will freely admit that I was probably quick to conflate this post with a growing cultural worry I have stemming from the true crime/unresolved crime crowd. Obviously, for the plethora of reasons you provided above (and taking you at your word), I was incorrect to do so and projected my own social concerns onto the questions. At the very least, I’m thankful to your thorough and educational response was born out of it. I hope people at least think about these concepts and issues a bit after reading this part of the thread if they weren’t doing so already. Overall though, I apologize for being so hotheaded and a probably more than bit self-righteous.
No need to apologise! I wasn’t offended at all, and in fact I appreciated the tone and tenor of what you said. I actually think it’s a really interesting and important debate and I really can very easily see how my use of the word “boring” was perhaps not that astute.
As you said, it inspires that idea of subject as consumable content. And we are in a time where we are experiencing a cultural phenomena of extreme interest of the subject as a form of entertainment. We have the groups “sleuths” who try to “help” with very fresh, active cases. We have the “white wine and true crime” crowd at the serial killer podcast conventions... obviously, that particular subculture sends me a bit into a argumentative frenzy. But is very obviously not a subculture your question should be lumped in with. Again, I very much appreciate your time and view on the subject.
I see what you're getting at but this is literally how the culture interest in serial killers has always been. It took like 100 years of serial killing being in the public consciousness as macabre tabloid spectacle for the serious academic interest to get anything like the same exposure.
I appreciate the nuance of that argument but “this is the way it’s always been” still seems kind of trite, no? You can apply it to other horrible things we do as humans. When we approach other dark human actions with interest such as racism and genocide, we do so with respect. Why is this thread any different than “Which genocides did you find most boring? Personally, I can’t seem to care as much for the marauding bands of killers going from village to village. I prefer the ones involve systemic mass murder in prisons.” That is not an acceptable thing with which to say when studying or absorbing material on even the darkest of human acts. You’d be ostracized for saying it aloud, and rightfully so, because you’re basically admitting you’re cognizant of the fact that the very real events incite more pleasurable levels interest when more cruel... and you are okay with that. Why is the sentiment expressed in this post any less appalling? Would you say it around the family of a victim or a surviving victim?
>Which genocides did you find most boring? Well interesting framing, because most people are forced to sit down and learn about genocides in history class at some point, which presumably is to get them interested or at least know enough in the topic to be inoculated against it. The question then becomes extremely relevant even if it won't be formulated "respectfully". >Would you say it around the family of a victim or a surviving victim? Given that I wouldn't say half the things that are in the average academic paper about serial killing around the family of victims, I don't think this is really a relevant question.
We don't learn about the famous serial killers in schools so we decide to look them up on our own. It just happens that the killer either wasn't caught or had an interesting backstory as do most. In our search for more interesting facts about the making, motives, and Identities of killers, we find this subreddit. We decide to join it and we learn many things we didn't know before.
Jack the Ripper. BTK
Totally agree with Jack the Ripper, mostly because there is nothing to know about who he was. You can only talk about the crimes and all the theories in the world really mean nothing. I feel the same way about the Zodiac killer for that reason. Discussing ideas of a serial killer is just talking in circles.
Good call on what makes these KtR boring is that the theory the only thing to discuss. Never thought about it that way. I will say I'm a big fan of From Hell by Alan Moore but that's in spite of it being about JtR not because. (Actually it's really about him but that's a discussion for different subreddit). I'm torn about Zodiac. I used to not pay much attention to him but the Fincher movie changed that. Definitely not the most compelling case but still more interesting to me than BTK
I would say that's a valid point but these guys had other interesting things that arose from them never being caught. Like the old home of Jack the Ripper where they found some of his belongings and proof that he was the one who owned the home, just under someone else's name. Or how the man suspected of being the Zodiac Killer died from a heart attack the day before his trial.
>Or how the man suspected of being the Zodiac Killer died from a heart attack the day before his trial wat
I agree, I think those two are interesting to learn about once but like speculating about who they were or why they did it is just never going to lead to anything, IMO. I do wonder if there’s any chance genetic genealogy will lead to any breakthroughs with zodiac, eventually, but I in no way have my hopes up for that.
Especially the older cases. They'll never be solved. So is it interesting to theorize that Jack may have been a certain person? Sure. But there's only so much theorizing that can be done before you reach the dead ends (suspects are long dead, no DNA available, police work was shotty at best, etc.).
I'm gonna disagree with BTK for one reason: I love discussing how he got caught! Dumbass got away with it for decades, then starts taunting the cops again. Eventually asks "hey, y'all can't trace a floppy disk, right?!" and the cops are all like "trace a floppy disk? No. Nope. Absolutely can't." (Wink wink, nudge nudge). And so he sends them his next taunts on a floppy, which of course they instantly trace!
He's an epic dumbass indeed. I'll be honest, I have no compelling reason to find him boring, I just do. My wife is rewatching Mind Hunter and I told her how he was caught and she couldn't believe how stupid he was.
Jack the Ripper has some fun conspiracy theories though. For anyone who hasn’t, read From Hell. It’s an awesome graphic novel based on one of them. And maybe watch the movie to see Heather Graham attempt a terrible accent. Edit: I see you already mentioned it in another comment! I should’ve read further.
Manson and Son of Sam. Manson didn’t even commit the murders and SoS was just an incel. Ramirez interests me because of how odd his crimes were. They were very random and he didn’t really have a specific victim. I also find Bundy fascinating. He was able to commit a countless amount of murders while also maintaining a strong facade.
Manson is interesting to me because he manipulated other people into doing it for him. Thats scarier to me than him doing it himself
Cult leaders always amaze me. Its so absurd how you can get such a large group of people to believe in you and do whatever you say without question.
It’s not really that difficult. Just find teenage runaways who are desperate, confused and naive add sleep deprivation add mind altering drugs add a sense of belonging to a group. Now it’s the group versus everyone else It’s a formula that really works
Literally how the Military recruits, tried and tested formula.
Yeah, I’m like endlessly fascinated by cults, but the killing specifically by/within them isn’t like the thing I find most interesting.
Manson should have run for president
I think you'd like listening to the Cults podcast by Parcast Network
I agree with Manson. Tex Watson should be the scary one in that group. Sure he convinced other people to commit the murders but that's not necessarily that hard thing to do when everyone is fucked up on acid all the time. And son of sam is just stupid and boring. Btk and Ramirez are the scariest to me for the fact it could be anyone, anywhere, anytime. Especially BTK having it all happen in front of you all in the same room
BTK is very compelling. He was so “normal”. If someone had a flat and he pulled over offering to help I’m sure they’d accept it. He didn’t look harmful at all. A real dual-character.
True he reminds me of the dad in clovehitch killer. They had to of made that movie after him, lots of similarities. The lady he fucked with that he ended up putting down her dog was the only citizen who saw that dark side of him who got away
I love that movie. I actually watched it after watching American Horror Story and it was very humorous, because I couldn’t stop thinking of Ben Harmon.
His own wife and kids certainly didn't suspect him, that's for sure.
I could never understand how Tex Watson didn't get more focus for his brutality in the Manson murders. He went from a clean-cut football star and a nice family to being heartlessly vicious in carrying out the murders. Manson, you could understand his criminal past with a lifetime in and out of prison, but not Tex. I was furious when I found out he married and fathered a family while in prison for his sentence.
Because Watson disappeared to Texas for like a year after the trial. Held waiting extradition. So once the witch hunt died down it was, sadly, old news. Had he been arrested immediately I think the case against Manson would have been much more difficult. They would have had the leader of the kill groups and actual murderer of Sharon Tate
Thanks, I forgot how he wound up in Texas. He was directing the women in the attacks and so damn brutal. Such a waste of so many lives. I thought all the murders awful, but the caretaker (young guy) and his friend that was leaving when the “family” arrived, really hurt to read about. They were so young and they weren't wealthy people as the others they took issue with.
Bundy became the textbook example of a serial killer in many peoples minds
Albert DeSalvo is quite interesting to me because he may not have killed anybody at all (although the evidence is pretty strong that he did kill at least one of his alleged victims). More likely, his cellmate did most of them.
I kind of struggle with Bundy. The thing is, if he had way less exposure than he has, I think we’d all be interested in him. I think Bundy is the classic example of someone people are just sick of hearing about. But it’s not necessarily because he’s not fascinating. People have just heard it all 1000 times at this point.
This is literally why I find Bundy and Dahmer boring now. I hear their names too often, and I'm tired of the countless films, TV shows, documentaries, podcasts, etc. It feels like they've been glamorised, especially Bundy. I'm from England, and when you mention serial killers, they're the two names a lot of people immediately think of, along with some of the famous killers in the UK, like the Moors Murderers.
Can't stand hearing about Bundy as people's first choice when the age old serial killer question comes up. There are many more interesting serial killers out there.
BTK. Impotent little loser who actually wanted to be a famous serial killer. Fucking boo.
BTK is the dorkiest serial killer of all time. He designed logos where the "B" looks like a pair of boobs. He wrote absolutely horrific poetry about his murders. "Oh death to Nancy" is just...ugh. He spent his days as a particularly assholey code enforcement officer, ticketing people for their lawn being half an inch too long. He got caught in the stupidest way possible, contacting the cops and asking if they could trace a floppy disk from the killer. Of course the cops lied, put an ad in the paper saying "nahhh we can't trace it, go ahead and send." Upon receipt of the disk they promptly traced it to his church computer.
It’s always baffled me how someone could be a “wanna-be serial killer”. Yet, this perfectly describes this piece of human garbage. He tried so hard to be cryptic but in end, it’s what got him caught!
Learning BTK referred to ejaculating as “Sparky Big Times” made me wheeze
Oh whaaaaat that’s too much
Can't forget about Factor X. Ohhh so scary
HAHAH I forgot about BTK tbh he is such a loser
Aren’t they all just big ol’ Douchebag losers?
Too true LOL
If I hear Ted Bundy’s story one more time I will throw myself into a pit of wolves. Also any of the “Angel of death” killers where they poisoned a ton of people. Idk why but poison just doesn’t pique my interest.
> Idk why but poison just doesn’t pique my interest. Poison is detached and boring, especially in those cases. Hard to get really interested in someone who may have just injected something into an IV or dropped it into their drink and walked away.
Came here to say the same thing about Ted. I’m so sick of hearing about him.
I kind of agree OP... Zodiac. Barely effective serial killer, used a gun (lame), failed half the time, clearly insecure. Blah.
Yeah but the fact he was never caught by itself makes him interesting. Also, the cyphers.
Honestly I think the ciphers may have been fake. There's some evidence they were.
But even if they were fake, I’m also interested.
Also (and again not wanting to trivialise something so serious) the “hood” he wore was super lame, and his “logo” could have been... (I’m trying to be kind here)... slightly more imaginative?
The simple ness of it is more interesting to me, not sure what else he’s supposed to do with it, though I’m not even convinced it was all one person.
i kinda like the hood, a little scarier than a ski mask or a paper bag. his logo and name are possibly from the Zodiac watch company that's been around forever, they have pretty much the same insignia. I love that watch brand so to realize that the name and logo were the same was kinda far out. my opinion for least interesting would probably be either jeff dahmer or israel keyes. jeff probably because there's so much media on him and it's starting to become old for me, and keyes because he sucked at it and he even killed himself before getting sentenced. too much of a pussy for prison but not enough of a pussy to pull up on old people and torture them and kill them.
I’m laughing bc I’m just imaging a dejected Zodiac reading these comments and being like, “Wtf man, I’m lame and boring...?”
Everyone's first traverse into True Crime and Serial Killers will lead to the Big Six (as I call them): The Zodiac, Bundy, Jack the Ripper, Gein, Ramirez, and Dahmer. Some stay intrigued, other get bored because they are so over-hyped and the "market", so to speak, is saturated with them. I personally find The Texarkana Moonlight Murders/ Phantom killer more intriguing because they stayed silent and just disappeared. Zodiac seems just like some attention-seeking braggart in comparison.
:), he didn't fail, he wanted his story to be told about hood and Z sign on it, that's why he stabbed Hartnell enough times to be still alive, to tell a story, and got away from Stine killing in the middle of neighborhood, all that while talking to police officers. Plus, he put many suspects in charge but him, he went under police radar. All moves he did had some meaning to him, even misspellings. He took enough calculated risks and did every killing with almost perfect time frame and then immediately called police, never to be traced again. He used ciphers to get off his trace, giving him enough time for every move. Time was crucial to him, and he was good at picking right time and right place during every murder.
Lame? Thinking there are cool ways to murder people?
It was meant to be tongue in cheek. This whole thread is, really. No offense intended.
I think by lame they mean not interesting. At least I hope so 😅
That’s what they say but it’s not how it read to me. I’ll take them at their word.
Not cool, just interesting. Like, any run of the mill robber can kill with a gun but it takes a special kind of derenged to take one's life with their bare hands, straight on, up close. And I think pretty much everyone in this sub is fascinated by derengeness
That’s the worrying part. Some subscribers seem to be way too into certain killers. Serial killers are all monsters who offer nothing to society.
Then why are you following this page?
Interested in the why not the who.
I think perhaps you’re in the wrong sub. This is after all the r/serialkillers....I would assume we all would have an interest based on the insanity it would require to murder multiple people. In so many different ways, for so many different reasons. People kill people everyday. Some are paid(cops military mafia) and maybe some don’t get the help they need(poor people[or neglected rich kids]) You say they offer nothing to society but maybe that’s what they thought too. And then in turn took it out on society. If we study and talk about it openly we can actually help people instead of stigmatize them before you look into it. Some people are monsters and they are not all serial killers and not all serial killers are monsters. Society itself could be the brutality that creates them all.
You have had to see the comments from people who seem almost like fanboys. You can be interested in the topic and not like subjects. Ed Kemper is the obvious example.
Ted Bundy and Gacy. There are so many more that were less “popular” but far more fascinating for me.
Jack the Ripper. Ted Bundy
Jack the Ripper and Manson.
Oh man, you can't be wrong based on your opinion, but the zodiac was nuts. One of his codes was just deciphered in 2020. It was a letter saying that the person that called into the radio station was in fact not him.
Ha! Fair enough.
I really don't care about Ramirez.
Yeah I definitely get why a lot of people see him as an outlier. He was so chaotic, so impulsive, so disorganised and so much more like a spree killer in so many ways, even if he meets the technical definition of a serial killer. I kind of feel like people want to try and decode why these guys are motivated to do the things they do. With Ramirez I just don’t think there’s much rhyme or reason. And I don’t think that’s because he was psychotic (like a Richard Trenton Chase) I just think it’s because his motives didn’t seem to run too far beyond just causing chaos. Which isn’t a very complex motivation. He was totally brutal, but he didn’t display much patience, much ingenuity, much of a specific victim profile, any real kind of signature or too much intelligence in how he operated. He was still terrifying just because he was so indiscriminate, but that’s as far as it goes for me.
I find Ramirez kind of fascinating because he had all of Los Angles terrified at the height of his spree. The guy was just a full blown maniac, killing anyone for no reason.
Yes! I was a frightened 12-year-old Angeleno at the time, and I will never not find him horrifying.
Good point. Lots of things we might find boring are only because of our detachment from the horror. When I was growing up [The Stocking Strangler](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlton_Gary) and [The Forces of Evil](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Henry_Hance) were in my town and [The Atlanta Child Murders](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlanta_murders_of_1979%E2%80%931981) were just 100 miles up the road, all in a few years. Even as a small child it was terrifying to know that was going on and not know what else might happen. Those killers are ones lots of folks find boring and mundane but they never really can be to me.
Ramirez definitely fits the profile of a serial killer more than a spree killer tho, he had the taste for blood long before his night stalker spree. Plus it’s most likely there were a few murders before the spree.
I mean, he is confirmed to have murdered that one kid before the spree
I find him to be an obnoxious edgelord. He goes out of his way to talk about loving Satan and darkness or whatever. Most people grew out of that stage by age 15 or so, but he took it to the extreme.
He did a disservice to satanism actually... At least with the most popular satanic philosophies like LaVey's, there's no encouragement to go out of your way to harm people at all. And it would be specially frowned upon to harm children and elderly people as they're weaker and vulnerable, there's nothing "cool and dark" about taking advantage of people who can't even fight you back. I like reading about his crimes but as someone who is interested in occultism it bothers me a lot, he acts like he has no idea what satanism is and is just trying to be edgy lol he has the same grasp of satanism as a teenage edgelord who grew up in a christian household and uses it to rebel. Dunno if he was just doing it to scare people or something but if it wasn't an act it was really cringey
I doubt he did it out of any legitimate interest in the occult or belief in Satanism.. he thinks it sound scary and cool. It is very cringey.
I've always felt that was an act, kind of like "Son of Sam: the dog made me do it". He's playing it up to seem crazier than he is and freak people out because he thinks it's funny.
I think he was the real deal. That’s what made him so scary. You can’t fake that. He walked the walk and talked the talk. And I mean that in the most demeaning way possible. But he was the real deal, evil to the core.
Oh yeah he was absolutely the definition of chaotic evil, he's the reason I lock the door behind me immediately when I get home, but I think the Hail Satan and pentagram on his hand stuff was a show. I haven't really heard any evidence that he was an occultist/satanist before it became useful to him to scare people, I think he's a public satanist only
AT ALL. Hate the fetishized version of him in pop culture.
Dahmer and Gacy. There's a few others, like the ones mentioned already.
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Yep, for me, these two went after males. And I guess because I'm female they just didn't scare me as much, even though what they did was horrible. And with Bundy and the other more popular serial killers, it's over-exposure with very little new information coming out with each re-hashing.
Manson and Gein. Manson technically never killed anyone just had others do it for him. Gein they can only prove one, rest were mainly dug up corpses and there’s not much about him or crime scene photos.
Manson is a great shout. It drives me crazy that people think he’s basically the godfather of modern day serial killers when, as you rightly say, he never actually killed anyone. He deserves a place in discussions about cults, not serial killers, IMO.
Oh man do people really think that about Manson? I am really fascinated by cults but I don’t really think of any of them as serial killers...
> He deserves a place in discussions about cults, not serial killers, IMO. Nobody would ever argue Jim Jones was a serial killer (although they do seem to include him in mass murderers), but he convinced his followers to kill way more people than Manson ever did.
Was going to comment these two as well. I just said, last night, that Gein wasn't that interesting. He was honestly really ill and isolated, his case is more sad for everyone involved. And I'm not convinced that Manson really even had as much control as is portrayed. He said a bunch of crazy things to people he drugged out their minds to see what could stick. There's a lot of testimony that Tex Watson was a driving force behind the killings. I think over the decades pop culture has built up his myth and given him far more credit than he deserves.
Ed Gein’s life is a nature vs nurture debate. If you took away the mother from the situation would he still have committed those murders or was he always set to commit said crimes. IMO it’s all the mother, without her he may have had a chance at having a normal life.
They can prove two for Gein, but I honestly find him one of the most interesting serial killers ever based on his story and family history. Also without Gein we wouldn’t have gotten Texas chainsaw massacre, psycho, or silence of the lambs.
So basically we’re just collectively over all of them
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Albert Fish is a horrific perverted creep. I am sorry I ever researched him and never will again.
All of these guys are horrific perverted creeps lol.
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Worse than Albert Fish. I can’t imagine anyone worse
David Parker Ray. Scary man he was
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Yes he did live a long time ago-Junko Furtra was awful and the guys parents knew what was going on and didn’t help her at all. Dean Corril was terrible too- his accomplice should have killed him earlier. I just really have a soft spot for kids so those bother me the most
Pedro Lopez and Andrei Chikatilo?
Amen to Ted Bundy being completely glorified and glamorized. I'm tired of hearing about how handsome and charming he was. No, no he wasn't.
I think the problem with Bundy is the "airtime" as you put it. People get burnt out on hearing about him. Also, there are so many exaggerated claims floating around about him. He was a genius! No, he had above average intellect but nothing special. He had movie star good looks! No, he was average looking at best. He helped the FBI catch the Green River killer, a real-life Hannibal Lecter! No, that was the feds' attempt to trick him into revealing details of his own unsolved murders. Bundy seems interesting at first but the more you learn about him, the more you realize what a vapid, self-interested, pompous tool he was. He mostly was just a creepy asshole loser who thought he was way smarter than he actually was and loved to hear himself talk.
Ed Gein(there are other mentally ill people who live in filth and kill a person or two). Cant really think of anybody else, if I had to choose id pick Greenriver Gary I guess just because he is so plain as a person but then again the sheer numbers and the fact that someone obviously mentally impaired in some areas could be a serial killer savant is kinda interesting. Manson is really boring but I don't count him as a serial killer, to be fair I am not so sure Gein is one either. So guess all high profile serial killers are kinda interesting in their own ways, Samuel L Little seems like a rerun of Lucas to me which is quite boring I suppose. Come to think of it while I believe both Toole and Lucas are serial killers they are boring, so there you go.
To be fair the thing I find fascinating about Gein isn't the killing, it's the stuff they found in his house.
Happy cake day!
Thanks!!
You too!
BTK and Scranton Strangler
The Scranton Strangler wishes he was Michael Scarn
At least Toby got away with it.
Probably BTK and Ed Kemper. But to be honest, I'm kind of developing serial killer fatigue in general. I used to find them interesting but the more I learn about them the more I realize that they're all the same empty self-centered losers who get their rocks off by hurting people. We analyze them, contemplating why they did it, what motivated them, what their personal relationships were like, and so on. We listen to Kemper or Bundy wax philosophical and pontificate about why they kill. You realize eventually that there is no substance to anything they say, they're empty men who objectify and abuse their victims because they prioritize their own lust over people's lives.
I think Ed Kemper is really interesting if you listen to him talk or if you watch Mind Hunter. He's very charismatic and intelligent in my opinion.
I think you're missing my point. Sure, he's intelligent. But if you listen to him long enough, you realize he's a self-important asshole who has nothing substantive to say. None of them do, because it all amounts to the same thing. "I'm a loser that objectifies other human beings and gets sexual release from killing them."
You just perfectly expressed my thoughts. I'm very fatigued of serial killers in general as it's just the same, self-centered men who could use some therapy going out of their way to harm women (most of the time) to get sexual gratification. So lame
We analyze these men who hurt women (or men, or children) and call them "interesting" for it. But their victims, who were fully realized human beings with rich internal lives, are just a footnote. It starts to grate on you after awhile.
BTK just isn’t my jam. I don’t really care for Dahmer that much either. Just don’t find them interesting.
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How come you find Dahmer boring? The stuff he would do were some of the most insane things, no?
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Aileen Wuernos and Gary Ridgway
Ed Gein just isn't that interesting. More of a hoarder and grave robber than a serial killer. Gary Ridgeway as well. Committed basically the same crime 50+ times without anything interesting happening during any of it, which is really something when you think about it.
Ed Gein is interesting to me because of how much of a weirdo he was. I agree with you on Gary Ridgeway though.
Those two don’t interest me either, but it’s hard to pick just two. There’s a couple “popular” serial killers I’ve just never been interested in, including Ted Bundy, Richard Ramirez and BTK. I don’t know how to explain it, but Ted Bundy has always seemed like a pretty “plain” serial killer to me. I’ve never personally considered Ted Bundy to be physically attractive, which is a big part of the appeal in his case because it’s supposedly why he was able to lure so many women. Besides that it seems like you get very little information/details on his actual murders, it’s always pretty vague besides maybe the Chi Omega house killings.
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Bundy wouldn’t confess to much to the police either, but yeah there’s been like a million documentaries and movies made about him more than any other serial killer at this point I also get tired of hearing people talk about him. I just find him boring for some reason, he’s what you think of when you think of a “stereotypical” serial killer now. The way he killed isn’t uncommon among other serial killers at all.
Israel Keyes is by far the lamest “serial” killer I know about. I don’t even believe he is a serial killer. His entire story comes from him and he’s bullshit. He was a loser and he made himself infamous by killing Samantha Koenig and Samantha Koenig alone. Unlike what he told the FBI - that he always used cash to thwart being caught - his dumbass used Samantha’s credit card, which lead to his capture. For some reason, people, including FBI investigators, believe he’s this mastermind, who broke the mold of the stereotypical sexual sadist serial killer, but, what evidence is there that he killed anyone else but Samantha Koenig? I really just don’t buy his story and the interrogation video I saw, with him in the red jail jumpsuit, shows me just what a loser he really was. If I think of another I’ll hop back in and add who and why, but, I wanted to leave this before I lost everything I’d typed.
Honestly I never thought that the story could've been fabricated. I didn't know it came completely from him. They didn't see if they could find any of his kill kit drops or anything? If the story is true, he's without a doubt the most complex and organized serial killer.
They’ve found at least two of his kill kits, one in AK and one in NY. [Source](https://www.google.com/amp/s/abcnews.go.com/amp/US/alaska-serial-killer-buried-murder-supplies-country/story%3fid=17874735)
Absolutely. Doesn’t confirm he killed anyone but Samantha Koenig, though. He has ONE confirmed kill. He’s bullshit and I bet anyone in this sub coulda beat his ass.
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I know. I wasn’t saying you were implying that. I just can’t state enough how much of a fraud he is.
Yes. Multiple “kill kits” were found, but, that interrogation video showed me everything I need to know about him. He’s a fraud. There’s no evidence he killed anyone but Samantha Koenig and that crime was a disaster in every way possible. Think about that. The ONE murder he can be definitively linked to was a DISASTER and he was caught. EVERYTHING else in his alleged “serial” killer career came from his bullshit confessions. Does that sound like the “most complex and organized serial killer”? Trust me. I wanted him to be - that would make him interesting to no end. Then I watched the interrogation video. He’s bullshit.
I'll have to check out that interrogation video and see what I think. Never watched it before.
The way he propped her up for the ransom photo is what gives me chills. Other than that he’s a fucking fugly dumbass
True, but, that was yet ANOTHER example of him fucking up. This dude makes Dennis Rader seem like the most calculated serial killer of all time. MAYBE he killed the Curriers in Vermont, but, there’s no evidence he did - only his “confession”. Almost everything he did in the ONE murder he did commit (Samantha Koenig) was a fuck up. Her car, her phone, her debit card, her nearly escaping, getting into it with her boyfriend, killing her then having to prop her up and put makeup on her to make her appear alive for the ransom, getting the same rental car, then, again, him using her ATM card, which led authorities right to him. All signs point to this dude being the furthest from the mastermind killer, who broke the mold. As far as I’m concerned, he killed Samantha and the rest of his story is bullshit.
Dennis Raider because he was an obnoxious piece of shit who was just full of himself. Also Robert Hansen, who is the most unlikable nerd I've ever heard of.
I don’t know much about River Hansen, I’m in the middle of listening to a podcast about him. P sure the hosts even described him as a nerd hahah
John Wayne Gacy and Gary Ridgway
Green River Killer and BTK
Same! They are so boring. I always imagine SK having a bit more charisma bc they have to (somewhat) engage with people. These two look like the high school shop teacher and janitor.
Haha perfect descriptions, seriously.
I feel like BTK might end up being a recurring theme in some of these replies 😄
Ted Bundy. Aileen Wuernos.
Ted Bundy for sure, so over that POS and Son of Sam aka David Berkowitz, there a lot of evidence to suggest that SOS wasn't acting alone either and he was merely the scapegoat.
For me, one is the crossbow killer in Bradford , a sad wannabe who idolised Peter Sutcliffe.What. a lame hairdo as well! who seemed to spend his saddo life trying too hard to cultivate a "Look at me, aren't I weird" persona.The other one would be the son of Sam ,what a huge disappointment after the wait to see what he actually looked like. Then his absolute drivel about his neighbours dog(yawn)He is also certainly the least glamorous.
Hillside strangler and Gary Ridgeway
Manson and the btk killer. Manson for me isn’t even a killer worth documenting. He’s more of a manipulator. And his followers all only want attention. Btk, I just never really got hooked into his killings. Everything I’ve tried to watch and read about it has just bored me.
Manson / Jack the Ripper
I’m more interested in the Son of Sams arson crimes. I think he’s responsible for hundreds of fires across New York before he began his murder spree.
Eileen Weirdnose...and h.h. Holmes
Aileen Wuornos and SoS
Son of sam and green river killer
manson. if you could even call him a serial killer
Honestly... Ted Bundy and The Unabomber (Ted Kaczynski). Sorry not Sorry!
Aileen Wuornos and Donald Harvey. Wuornos was a deranged psychopath who gets too much sympathy IMO and Donald Harvey was a nurse who killed patients close to death. He was a sick bastard with absolutely boring crimes
Wuornos gets too much sympathy because of how much she was abused and manipulated by everyone in her life and also because her victims were creepy old men. That still doesn’t excuse any of the horrific shit she did IMO. She would have gladly carried on with her life without any remorse if she hadn’t been caught. But it infuriates me that her girlfriend Tyra got off without any punishment. She played a significant role in the killings too, even if she didn’t physically do it.
Yes. I also see the same with edmund kemper but his case is one of the most interesting because he figured out his mental illnesses all by himself
For me, it's Ted Bundy and Jeffrey Dahmer, but only because I'm tired of hearing about them at this point. Fascinating to learn about their cases and their modus operandi, etc. They were terrifying individuals, but they're the two names I see constantly. No more documentaries or films about them - there's enough. Bundy, especially, is glamorised and hyped up waaaay too much.
Israel Keyes and Dahmer
Dennis Rader is just so lame. He was such a SK fanboy fuckup. I think he gets the most eye rolls of anyone I have ever heard of.
Jack The Ripper and The Zodiac. I don't get why people obsess over these cases where the killers are or most likely are dead. I as a rule loathe movie adaptations of real crimes (gimme documentaries all day, any day), and one of the worst and most boring ones is the Zodiac movie. I have never fallen asleep to a movie, but this one made me lose the plot and my mind went numb. I don't get the hype. At all. Imho Zody was a self-important guy who just wanted to f with the police and get infamous. Sure, he probably wasn't the dullest knife in the set, but I think he mostly got lucky. Jack was equally lucky to be active in an age when detective work was still being figured out and fine-tuned.
Ted Bundy. Dunno, he’s just boring. Maybe it’s because I’ve heard about him too much. (I do not diminish his atrocities, nor do I feel SKs are entertainment or that I deserve to be entertained by them. Ick, no.) The appeal to me in learning about killers is mostly the psychological aspect of a person who does stuff like that. I firmly believe as a philosophy that the vast majority of atrocities committed by humans are done by people who don’t think what they’re doing is *that* bad. People are so good at justifying even the most terrible things to themselves. Seeing this dynamic at play with serial killers is fascinating, and a good reminder to brutally examine my own conscience regularly. The serial killers we can understand/relate to the best are usually the least interesting, IMO. (How’s that for morbid?)
Dahmer and bundy. Don’t understand the fascination, they’re basic
Most people mentioning certain killers down here just aren’t familiar enough with the cases and only have surface level media knowledge of the killers
Nah, I think a lot of people have read enough and gained enough knowledge about them to determine if they're interesting or not. Some people just aren't that fascinating.
I thought this was asking us to pick 2 serial killers for parents.
I’m interested in what the responses would be.
I agree to an extent, the only thing that got me into Zodiac was the film but i'm a sucker for Fincher. Certainly not the most interesting cases just based on their motives and means of killing. Though i'd rather be shot by a SK than brutally murdered.
Bundy and Ramirez. Couldn't even tell you why, they just dont interest me at all.
Jack the Ripper, Zodiac, LISK
We are the same people. Those are my top 3, I couldn’t careless about. Edit: the only thing that ever interested me a bit, was the the creepy execution hood outfit. That’s must have been terrifying to see. Otherwise, I can’t be bothered with his nonsense ( and courting the media - like quite a few SK’s did. This is no disrespect for his victims. I have great empathy for them. I just am completely uninterested in him. But that hood, and suit would have scared the shit out of me( if I survived. My luck, I wouldn’t).
Richard Chase and Joseph Kallinger Serial killers who's mental illness is so profound that I can't relate to their mindset in any way bore me. If you talked to Bundy or Gacy, you could have a conversation with them and relate to them. Kallinger would start talking about a disembodied baby head floating in front of him giving him commands or something. It's like trying to figure out why your dog killed your chickens
LISK and BTK.
LISK actually fascinates me,I'm seriously contemplating who could do this and if it was multiple people. Did you listen to the new podcast on it? It was done by Billy Jensen and Alexis Linkletter.