Mapping the Trail of a Serial Killer

A fully illustrated, innovative look at the killing sprees of twenty-five notorious killers

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The idea of the wandering murderer, leaving a trail of mutilated bodies in his wake, has long fascinated followers of true crime. By charting the geography of the killer’s actions, Mapping the Trail of a Serial Killer takes an innovative geographical approach to exploring the killing sprees of twenty-five notorious murderers from the early-twentieth century right up to the present day. With specially commissioned maps pinpointing each killer’s actions, and archival photographs, this book reveals patterns of behavior and provides fascinating insight into the minds behind some of the world’s most shocking crimes. Most of the cases examined are from recent decades, and include the Beltway sniper attacks in Washington, D.C., as well as those of:

Ted Bundy—Murdered and sexually assaulted at least thirty-five young women across America beginning in 1973. Executed in 1989.

David Berkowitz “Son of Sam”—Confessed to killing six people and wounding seven in the course of eight shootings that held New York City in terror between 1976 and 1977.

Peter Sutcliffe—Dubbed the Yorkshire Ripper, this English killer was convicted in 1981 for murdering thirteen women.

Andrei Chikatilo—Convicted of the murders of fifty-two women and children, mostly in  southern Russia, between 1978 and 1990.

Partial Table of Contents


 

Introduction


Ted Bundy – Bundy murdered and sexually assaulted at least 35 young women, first in 1973 in the state of Washington, where he was a student, then moving to Utah, then Colorado. He was finally arrested and jailed there but escaped, managing to fly to Chicago and then on to Florida, where after two and a half years inactive, he began murdering young women again, on his first night killing four within one hour. He’d often try to lure people to his Volkswagen Beetle by asking them to help him carry some books and he would wear a false arm cast or pretend to need crutches. Well-educated, good-looking, even described by one of the judges who convicted him as a potentially good lawyer, Bundy was eventually stopped by a traffic cop who found his documents and car were stolen and began probing further. Bundy was executed in 1989.

David Berkowitz ‘Son of Sam’ – Berkowitz’s killings happened in New York but in different districts: killings moved from Yonkers to Queens to the Bronx to Brooklyn, but were linked in that most were at weekends and late at night of people returning home. Arrested in August 1977, Berkowitz confessed to killing six people and wounding seven others in the course of eight shootings in New York City between 1976 and 1977.

Peter Sutcliffe – ‘The Yorkshire Ripper’ – attacked women out at night, some of them prostitutes, but many just making their way home. He stabbed them repeatedly and mutilated their bodies. Based in Bradford, he murdered across Yorkshire in Leeds, Sheffield, Halifax and Huddersfield and also as far afield as Manchester.

Green River Killer – Gary Ridgway pleaded guilty to 48 counts of aggravated murder, although he says he actually killed 90 women or more, almost all prostitutes. Almost all of the murders occurred in 1983 and 1984 in Washington and Oregon, USA.

Joachim Kroll (April 17, 1933 - July 1, 1991) was a German serial killer and cannibal. Known as the Ruhr Cannibal and the Duisburg Man-Eater. He was convicted of eight murders but confessed to a total of 13.

Randy Steven Kraft – picked up male hitchhikers on California freeways and neighbouring state Oregon and murdered and sexually assaulted them. When he was arrested there was the corpse of a strangled man sitting in the passenger seat of his car. He was convicted of 16 murders in 1989 and is strongly suspected of committing at least 51 others. He’s currently on death row.


Andrei Chikatilo – was convicted of the murders of 52 women and children, mostly around Rostov on Don in the southern Russian part of the Soviet Union, but also up in Leningrad (St. Petersburg) and in Ukraine and Uzbekistan, between 1978 and 1990. He would try to lure children (often from near the railway station) and mentally handicapped adults or homeless adults or prostitutes to the woods where he would attack them, only overcoming his impotence in the moment of their violent death.

Donato Bilancia — an Italian serial killer who shot at least 17 people in Liguria around Genoa, Italy from October 1997 to May 1998. While his murders began through robbery and burglary, he then moved around by car and began murdering prostitutes and then took the unusual step of murdering women on trains along the same coast.

Michel Fourniret — confessed, in June 2004 to kidnapping, raping and murdering nine girls in a span of 14 years during the 1980s and the 1990s. He was also accused of 10 additional murders, nine in France and one in Belgium. Many of his victims were snatched or lured from the street. He also murdered a couple of people simply to get hold of their money.

Beltway Sniper Attacks — These took place during three weeks in October 2002 in Maryland and Virginia. Ten people were killed and three others critically injured in various locations throughout the Washington Metropolitan Area and along Interstate 95 in Virginia.

Volker Eckert (b. 1959 - July 2, 2007) — a German truck driver and serial killer who confessed to the murders of six women, five of whom were prostitutes, in France, Spain and Germany between 1974 and 2006.

Index