Ivan Milat

+Backpacker Murderer+

Born: December 27, 1944
Guildford, New South Wales
Number of victims: seven confirmed
Span of killings: 1989 through 1994
Country: Australia

Australian serial killer, convicted of the murder of seven local and international hitchhikers during the 1980s and 1990s.

+Sept. of 1992, while running in the Belanglo State Forest, a pair of trail runners discovered the decomposing corpses of Caroline Clark and Joanne Walters buried under sticks and leaves. It was only the beginning of what would eventually result in the capture of Australia's most famed serial killer. Searchers would then discover five more bodies stowed away in the woods of the park, ending the mystery of the disappearances of foot travelers in the area.The bodies discovered by the runners were identified as Clark and Walters, both of whom were British and traveling together on foot. They had last been seen over five months before.

+Oct. 1993, the remains of hitchhikers James Gibson and Deborah Everlist, both 19, were found in the same vicinity. They had disappeared in 1989 while hitchhiking.

+Almost a month later, Nov.1, 20-yr-old Simone Schmidl's body, also a hitchhiker, was discovered under the now-familiar pile of brush. When a pair of jeans found near Schmidl's body were found to be the property of yet another missing person, the searching continued. Predictably, the jeans' owner,Anja Habschied, a German national and her boyfriend Gabor Neugebauer were found nearby dead. The young couple had been missing since December of 1991.

+On Nov. 4, more than 300 police officers conducted a search of the area and found two more skeletons, identified as the remains of 21-year-old Gabor Kurt Neugebauer and his 20-year-old girlfriend, Anja Susanne Habschied, also German tourists who have recently vanished. Neugebauer had been shot repeatedly. Habschied had been decapitated.

+A possible eighth victim was added to the list in November. An examination of unsolved murders turned up the name of Diane Pennacchio, a 29-year-old mother whose body had been found in bushland in 1991. She had been stabbed to death and the body had been placed face down with hands placed behind her back near a fallen tree, as had those of the previous victims. A triangular canopy of sticks had been built over the bodies and covered with ferns.

+February 1994, there was a breakthrough in the investigation. A 20-year-old woman told police that while hitchiking in January 1990 in New South Wales she was offered a lift, which she had accepted. While in the vehicle the driver had behaved strangely, and she got out of the vehicle and ran into the Belangalo State Forest. As she ran, the driver allegedly fired shots at her, but missed.

+Then another information from a second witness, British tourist Paul Onions, who told police that on Jan 25,1990 he accepted a lift from a driver in the same area. The driver told him that he needed to stop the vehicle to get music cassette tapes out the rear of the car. When the driver produced a gun from the glove compartment, Paul Onions ran away, and the driver fired shots at him. A passing driver rescued Paul Onions from the scene. Onions was able to identify the driver from police photographs and identify the vehicle.

+May 1994 police carried out dawn raids on seven properties, taking three men into custody. One of these men was 49-year-old Ivan Milat, who was charged with armed robbery and discharging a firearm, who was then later to be charged with the murders. During the raids police found parts of a .22 calibre rifle that matched the type used in the backpacker murders, along with personal items from several of the victims.

+On May 30, following continued police investigations, Milat was charged with the murders of seven backpackers.

+Milat has stated plans to escape at every opporunity but thus far has not made good on the threat. He has, however, attempted to kill himself at least twice after swallowing such materials as razor blades and staples.

+In March 1996 the trial finally opened and, in July, he received seven life sentences, one for each of his victims.

+There were obvious similarities between the way all the victims had disappeared and been disposed of, also their causes of death were a bit dissimilar.Clark had been stabbed in the chest area, Clark had been stabbed and shot in the head several times, Gibson had been repeatedly stabbed, Everist had been slashed in the face in additon to her stab wounds, Schmidl had also been stabbed, Habschied was decapitated, and Neugebauer had been shot in the head five times with the same weapon that killed Walters. The stabbing victims all had a unique injury, though, a stab wound to the upper back that severed the victim's spinal cord and rendered them helpless. Also, many of the victims were partially undressed with their pants buttoned but not zipped. Evidence of crude bondage and strangulation was present in most of the cases.

Luis Alfredo Garavito Cubillos, aka. 'La Bestia'

+"The Beast"+

+Born on Jan. 25, 1957, Luis Alfredo Garavito Cubillos is said to be a Colombian serial killer and rapist with one of the highest proven numbers of victims.

+Between 1992 and 1999, Garavito killed more than 200 young boys at core ages between 8 and 13 years, with the exception of one handicapped 16-year-old boy. The number of his victims - based on skeletons on maps Garavito drew in prison - could eventually exceed 300. He has been described by local media as "the world's worst serial killer" because of the high number of victims.

+During daytime, he lured children of a lower social status out of crowded parts of the city into hidden areas that were over- grown with high plants. Garavito promised either payment for easy work, or drugs, or made other offers. The children were tied up, tortured, raped and killed by at least one cut in the lateral part of the neck, or by decapitation. During the killings, Garavito was drunk.

+Garavito adjusted not only his outfits (street vendor, bum, priest, etc.) but also the task that he asked for according to the local situation (carrying a crate of oranges, help him with cattle, harvesting sugarcane, etc.). He also promised drugs to addicted children, and payed stakes for children interested in games. Initially Garavito had simply offered money but since most children found this suspicious, he switched to a mixture of promises and an appropriate, yet slighty raised amount of money (usually an amount worth a little more than one day of children's work. In all cases, he tried to lure the children away immediately so they would not return home beforehand.

+On the early afternoon of june 8, 1996, a boy went missing in the town of Boyaca. He followed Garavito on his (the boy's) own bike so no violence had taken place. The corpse was found 5 days later decapitated with the severed penis stuck inside of the mouth. The mother of the boy had immediately started a search, and found that the boy had last been seen in a local shop with some other boys and a stranger who bought them sweets. The stranger was identified as Garavito who stayed in town. He was questioned by the police but stated that he sure bought the children sweets but then left alone. Approximately 4 days later, Garavito killed a 13-year old boy in the close by town Pereira.

Discovery of a serial killer's spree

+A series of killings against children aged 8 to 10 in the region Valle in 1995 raised suspicion. Two of the 4 dead children were cousins, and again, all children came from a weak social background, were described as not very intelligent, and again, they disappeared shortly before noon. Again, the children were found on the slope of a hill with high-growing plants, not far outside of the town. The pattern of children being killed more or less at one spot but on different days is a signature of Garavito. He did not bury the bodies but leave them on the spot. Once he had found a suitable location for the killings, he would use it all over again. The children may have suspected that something was wrong once they arrived but were immediately tied up.

+In February 1998, 2 naked corpses of children were discovered lying next to each other outside of the town of Genua, Colombia. The location was set on the slope of a hill as most of the other crime scenes. On the next day, only metres away, a third corpse was found, this time in a state of advanced decomposition. All bodies had been tied at the hands. Numerous blood stains could be detected in the area, as well as a knife. The necks of the bodies and the external genitals were deeply cut or severed. A closer investigation of the bodies revealed bite marks and signs of anal penetration; a bottle of lubricant was found, too.

Arrest

+On April 22, 1999, in bushes close to a street leading out of the town Villavicencio in Colombia, a homeless man observed an adult male who tried to abuse a boy. On the same day, taxi drivers observed a man who matched the description given by the boy. The man had no personal I.D. but gave the name and I.D. number of a man who was a politician in a small town. It seemed that the man had lost his orientation, and because of the matching personal description given by the body, he was put in prison.

+It was found that the dead boys had been living in a town nearby, were aged 11 and 13,and had been close friends. They came from a socio-economically weak background, and had to work in the streets selling fruit, chewing gum, etc., to add to their family's poor incomes.

+The investigators noted that: a) one victim's mother commented that her son briefly returned home on the day he disappeared and told her that he would help a man with a cattle transport, and that b) it was odd that all children disappeared around 10 a.m. on different days. The explanation found much later was that Garavito usually either offered the boys juice or cake in a local shop, checked out their character, structure of skin (soft, not too dark), etc., and then asked them either to walk with him, or to help him with carrying something. He grew different hairdos and used wrong names. During his still ongoing confessions, he now directs the investigators correctly to all crime scenes all over Colombia.

Killer's signature

+Apart from the already mentioned behavior, decapitations, or at least their attempt seemed to be typical for Garavito. In many cases, because of the decomposition, the only way to prove this, were notches in the fourth vertebra of the neck. Dismembering of the corpses only took place in cases where body parts had to be transported out of houses in wich very few killings had taken place. In very few cases, he also put the bodies in bags and sank them together with stones in water.

+It became clear that Garavito subdivided suitable killing places into sectors, and killed one child per sector. In many cases, he very slowly tortured the children who were sometimes tied in way so that they could still walk around over quite a distance but not escape. Anal penetration seems to be a common feature of the cases but it remains unclear if this was a post mortem or peri mortem act. Until today, Garavito draws precise maps out of his memory which show the exact locations of the corpses.

+Most of the crimes were performed on or around weekends when most children hung around the market places. Garavito tried to lure them away during day time because this raised less suspicion concerning the odd jobs lie offered as well as a possible non-presence at dinner.

+On many crime scenes, empty bottles of the cheapest brand of local schnapps were found. In fact, Garavito had a habit of abusing alcohol, and left the empty bottles just like the corpses openly at the scene of crime.

+Once captured, Garavito was subject to the maximum penalty available in Colombia, which was 30 years. However, as he confessed the crimes and helped authorities locate bodies, Colombian law allowed him to apply for special benefits, including a reduction of his sentence to 22 years and possibly an even earlier release for further cooperation and good behavior.

+Local TV host Pirry made an interview to Luis Garavito which was aired on June 11 2006. In this special Pirry mentions that during the interview the killer tried to minimize his actions and expressed his intentions to start a political career in order to help abused children. Pirry also describes Garavito's conditions in prison and comments on the fact that he'd probably be freed in 3 years.

+Some people have started petitions for changes in the law to extend the number of years Garavito has to stay in prison.

serial killer and cannibal

Jeffrey Dahmer

+serial killer and cannibal+

early signs+

+As a teen, Dahmer had fantasies of killing and mutilating men

+He committed his first murder of a young hitchhiker, Stephen Hicks, he invited to his house, where he killed him with a barbell, then smashed his bones with a hammer because he "didn't want him to leave."

killing spree+

+Dahmer killed another 15 young men; by July 1991 he was claiming one victim a week. His fantasy was for a compliant sexual partner, and necrophilia.

+In gay bars, he offered young homosexual and bisexual males money to pose for photos or to watch videos and drink beer at his place. He drugged victims into a deep sleep with spiked drinks before strangling or stabbing them to death, having anal sex with the cadaver, and then dismembering them with a hacksaw.

+Their heads and genitalia were kept as trophies, biceps and other muscles were frozen for future consumption. Dahmer said human flesh "tasted like beef." The remainder was boiled with chemicals and acids before being washed down the drains.

+He conducted lobotomies some victims. Most died instantly, he poured acid into a hole drilled in his victim's skull; the victim lived and functioned in zombie state for several days, according to Dahmer.

discovery+

+Two Milwaukee police officers were driving around in the very high-crime area around Marquette University. Around midnight, as the two officers sat in their car, they saw a short, wiry black man with a handcuff dangling from his wrist. The man was Tracy Edwards. The the two policemen thought they ought to check out this man that had cuffed Edwards who lived at the Oxford Apartments at 924 North 25th Street. The door to Apartment 213 was opened by a nice looking thirty-one-year-old blond man.

+Once of the officers decided to go into the bedroom himself and take a look. He noticed photographs lying around that shocked him: dismembered human bodies, skulls in the refrigerator. When he collected his wits, he yelled to his partner to cuff Dahmer and place him under arrest. The placid, rational blond man suddenly turned on them and fought as the other cop tried to cuff him. While the one officer subdued Dahmer, the other one went to the refrigerator and opened it. He shrieked loudly at the face that stared out at him and slammed the door. "There's a f—king head in the refrigerator!"

+The box of baking soda in the refrigerator hardly absorbed the odors of a decomposing severed head. The freezer had three more heads, stored neatly in plastic bags and tied with plastic twisties.

+Also in the closet were containers of ethyl alcohol, chloroform, and formaldehyde, along with some glass jars holding male genitalia preserved in formaldehyde...Polaroid photos taken by Dahmer at various stages of his victims' deaths. One showed a man's head, with the flesh still intact, lying in a sink. Another displayed a victim cut open from the neck to the groin, like a deer gutted after the kill, the cuts so clean I could see the pelvic bone clearly."

arrest+

+Dahmer was arrested and was held for trial on a $1 million bond. Dahmer admitted to his crimes. He made no excuses and blamed nobody but himself. Wisconsin does not have capital punishment. After being charged with fifteen counts of murder, he entered a plea of not guilty by reason of insanity.

+On November 28, 1994, Dahmer was murdered in a Portage, Wisconsin by another inmate at the Columbia Correctional Institute. Inmate Christopher Scarver, a double murderer, beat Dahmer and inmate Jesse Anderson to death with a broom while all three were cleaning a bathroom. Scarver said he was the "son of God” acting on his "father's" command to kill.