10 unbelievable serial killer manhunts

number 10

the nurse killer on a july night in 1966 eight female nursing students were killed in a chicago townhouse 24 year old richard speck who had already been involved in theft fraud and a murder case managed to enter the property shared by nine trainee nurses he bound their hands and feet with strips of the bed sheet and then murdered eight of them i'll spare you the more horrifying details the ninth woman corazon mourao survived by hiding under her bed all night when she realized what was happening in the house but she was truly lucky because speck had lost count of his victims the next morning when she was sure that spec had left she crawled out of a window and called for help the police immediately set up an exhaustive hunt across the city giving the press any useful details that could help identify the killer providing sketches to newspapers but he was finally recognized down to the strangest of details his born to raise hell tattoo on his arm you see after he left the townhouse he hid out and tried to commit suicide at the hospital an emergency room physician noticed a tattoo and called the police bringing the 120 hour manhunt of this vicious killer to a close

number 9

the golden state killer moving forward just a few years in the state of california joseph james d'angelo also known as the golden state killer committed at least 13 murders between the 70s and 80s however it took over 40 years to put all the pieces together and ultimately incriminate d'angelo why did it take so long mostly because the technology of the time made investigators unable to use dna remains to track the killer so for decades d'angelo terrorized the suburbs of sacramento and stalked neighborhoods in southern california by breaking into homes killing couples and young women in their beds the first breakthrough came in 2008 when it was discovered that the dna sample from the bodies of two of the victims matched each other over time the dna profile also matched other murder cases then in 2018 investigator paul holes used that dna to track the killer's great-great-great grandparents by using a website called ged match according to the sacramento bee the site had a database of eight hundred thousand dna profiles they used it to search the branches of the killer's family tree and ended up finding d'angelo

number 8

the clutter family case on the 14th of november 1959 two former prisoners arrived at the clutter family residence tipped off by another inmate who used to work there richard hickock and perry smith entered the house and woke up herb clutter the head of the household demanding to know where the apparent riches were hidden clutter and his family did not actually have much cash at all so the pair took what they could and brutally executed the four inside two of whom were just teenagers family friend and officer of the kansas bureau of investigation alvin dewey led the case leading a team of 18 who interviewed everybody the clutters knew aside from finding a common boot print at the crime scene the case had very little to go on weeks later a prisoner offered information on who he suspected to kill the family in return for a shorter sentence this led the kbi to look at hickok and smith as their potential killers by this time though they had escaped to nevada where they had been arrested for car theft dewey and his team flew over a thousand miles to nevada and eventually got a confession from the pair who were then sentenced to death

number 7

the college student's killer danny harold rolling is one of florida's most notorious serial killers in 1990 he terrorized thousands of students in the county following the police's discovery of the bodies of five college students brutally murdered at the university of florida the fall semester was beginning and so as the news of the killing spread throughout the country many students fled back home on the contrary other residents armed themselves for its part the police set up a huge manhunt to catch the murderer they initially focused their attention on a uf student who briefly lived in the same complex as two of the victims and had previously manifested erratic behavior however it became clear this boy was not the killer when it was revealed he was suffering from acute manic depression there was also zero evidence connecting him to the murders they were finally able to determine the man they were looking for was already behind bars and was charged nearly two years after the murders happened rowling had been arrested 10 days after the student slayings for having robbed a grocery store 30 miles south of gainesville

number 6

busted by a floppy disk the fact that a floppy disk was involved should tell you how long ago this story was it took three decades to catch dennis raid the serial killer who murdered 10 people between 1974 and 1991. his nickname was btk a moniker he gave himself based on his technique he bound tortured and then killed his victims thus btk as a matter of fact he claimed ownership over most of his killings by sending taunting letters to the police the media and the victims families these letters stopped in 1979. still if he claimed the killings and willingly sent souvenirs he'd taken from crime scenes to the police how could they have only arrested him in 2005. once again the absence of dna analysis techniques was crucial he was finally arrested when he shared new information about the murders with the police via floppy disk the authorities then ran dna analysis on the sloppy disk matched it with that of the killer and tracked him down in no time

number 5

the ticket another serial killer fond of creepy letters was david berkowitz aka son of sam he killed six people in new york city from 1976 to 1977. as we said berkowitz loved leaving cryptic letters all over the place his job as a postal employee must have come in handy he always signed those letters with the nickname son of sam he later explained the name came from a black labrador retriever owned by a neighbor called sam he claimed the dog together with demons ordered him to kill people with a 44 caliber revolver but how did the police ultimately arrest him well after months of hunting it was all thanks to a fine and a woman named cecilia davis she reported to the police the presence of a weird guy who walked past her strangely to quote like a cat just before she heard the shots of berkowitz's last crime davis also reported a car parked illegally in front of a fire hydrant it turned out the cops had already given a ticket to the car but the fine details brought them to berkowitz the owner and so months of hunting and terror were brought to a close when the killer was brought to justice by a mere parking ticket

number 4

killer court by cctv in the early 2000s the london police found themselves dealing with a serial killer now we do know the man behind the murders of emily de la grange martian mcdonald and millie dowler was levi bellfield however in the beginning the police had no idea he was behind all three killings pieces started coming together only in 2004 when detective chief inspector colin sutton took up the investigation for the murder of de la grange he noticed similarities with martian mcdonald's case the woman was killed the same year just six months before emily both women were attacked at night while they were walking home from a bus stop based on this information sutton used cctv to find the missing pieces of both events sutton's detective team viewed a whopping 2 000 hours total of footage but their efforts were well repaid footage showed a white van at the time and place of emily's murder extra help came from belfield's ex-girlfriend who reported him to the police thanks to her tip detectives discovered bellfield was a wheel clamper who owned a white van that same white van after two hard years the killer was finally apprehended

number 3

the last resort the case of aileen wuornos was an intriguing one to the american public after all female serial killers were indeed very rare over the course of a year starting in 1989 warnos killed seven men while posing as a hitchhiker in florida she alleged that these were all in self-defense but their bullet-riddled corpses had been stripped and dumped in various areas around the states due to fingerprints found on items in pawnshops and the fact war losses were already on record from previous crimes police slowly began to suspect her catching her would be a dangerous task indeed at a bar named the last resort two undercover police officers spent days with the suspected murderer eventually persuading her to rent a rumor to motel warnos told one of them to come along alone and to bring money he was wearing a wire and avoided this potentially lethal situation she was arrested for outstanding warrant on possessing a concealed weapon when they took a key away from her that she was seemingly very protective of the key matched the storage bin which contained suitcases and well over 45 items belonging to the dead men warnos was later executed in 2002.

number 2

china's jack the ripper between 1988 and 2002 11 women and girls were killed in the regions of gansu and inner mongolia the first murder was especially vicious as the victim was stabbed 22 times and dismembered the perpetrator was a married father of two named gao chen yang but he wasn't caught by the authorities for 28 years after this first murder it was only in 2004 when these murders were all linked to one another which was when chinese authorities offered a 30 000 reward for any information however nothing substantial came of this and the case remained stagnant for a further 12 years until an unexpected breakthrough you see in 2016 chiang yong's uncle was arrested for a minor cry meaning his dna was collected they found that his dna was startingly similar to that of the man they were looking for meaning he must be a relative with that the near 30-year manhunt for this vicious murder was over and he was executed in 2019

number 1

ted bundy ted bundy is one of the most infamous serial killers of all time he's confessed to killing over 30 women some estimate the true number could be even higher than that closer to 100. he began his rampage in 1974 but what makes the chase for him so unbelievable and interesting though is the fact that authorities had to hunt for him more than once in 1975 he was arrested after being chased by a police officer who found items like ski masks and rope in his car he was then identified in a lineup by one of the only people who had escaped him later in 1977 he managed to get away during his trial by climbing out of a courthouse library window it took five days for him to be caught in december of 1977 though bundy then escaped again this time from his prison cell for a light fixture this time though he wasn't caught again for nearly two months despite being on the fbi's most wanted list hiding out in florida he started killing again and was only stopped on february 15th of 1978 when a police officer noticed him driving strangely in a stolen car bundy was then put to death in 1989.