Killer Stories with Harvey Guillén

Born in 1935, Florencio Fernández grew up in a region of Argentina nicknamed the “fortress of folklore.” As a teenager, destitute and alone, he watched a film at a local theater that would change his life — and inspire his crimes. That film’s name? Dracula. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Salvator Perrone’s early life in the 1950s is a murky mystery, but by the time he was in his 60s, the failed fashion entrepreneur had a grudge against the world — and he was ready to exact his revenge. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

By the 1980s, Ted Kaczynski had set off several bombs, causing only minor injuries — but for him, it wasn’t enough. What had started as a plot for revenge grew into an unrelenting need to change the world. To do that, he needed to kill. The reign of the Unabomber had begun. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Spotting his genius at a young age, Ted Kaczynski’s parents pushed their son to academic excellence — but Ted never found a true home in the hallowed halls of academia. Instead, by 1969, he was a former math professor with a festering hatred for the modern world. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

By Thanksgiving 1986, Gary Heidnik had captured a woman and locked her in his basement, where he intended on making her carry his children. But Gary wanted an entire “birthing harem.” Over the next four months, he lured five more women to his Philadelphia home… Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Estranged from his family, Gary Heidnik’s behavior grew more and more troubling as he grew older. By 1976, no one was around to notice when he started digging a pit in his basement — one big enough to hold a person... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

When a six-year-old girl was brutally murdered in Chicago in 1945, the public and the press demanded answers. Luckily, police found the killer by chance when they arrested a teenage burglar named William Heirens. Or did they? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Growing up in a family that didn’t have a lot of money, William Heirens turned to burglary to ease his economic anxiety. It became a compulsion he couldn’t control, and got him into trouble with the law in the early 1940s. Then, one day, it changed his life forever. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Herbert Mullin believed he was saving the world. After all, God had told him that murdering people would prevent catastrophic earthquakes. So, with his heaven-sent mission, he set out to kill and kill again. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Throughout his childhood in the 1950s and ‘60s, Herbert Mullin's life seemed decidedly idyllic. But tragedy struck when he was 18. In the aftermath, Mullin began hearing voices — and they told him to kill. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Having killed and dismembered his first victim, Robert Bordella was anxious to take another person captive. He kidnapped and tortured multiple men in succession, drugging them with tranquilizers and documenting his actions in a diary — until someone eventually escaped. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Inspired by a 1965 horror film called The Collector, Robert Berdella harbored dark fantasies about abuse and control. As a college student, he acted out his sadism on animals, and later, in the early ‘80s, on a teenager named Jerry Howell. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In November 1997, John Bunting claimed his sixth victim, and successfully passed it off as a suicide. From there, he and his accomplices moved at alarming speed, torturing and killing another six people until police finally caught up. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Arriving in South Australia in the 1980s, John Bunting surrounded himself with people he could easily manipulate: a small group of men who hated pedophiles and gay men, and were determined to rid their community of both. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

After his first murder, Steven Zelich couldn't bear to let go of his victim, and kept her body close by. But eventually he began to crave the same powerful feeling he'd had the first time, and the hunt for his next target began... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Once a police officer who loved the authority and respect his position brought him, Steven Zelich's life took a turn in the late ‘90s when the power went to his head. His quest for the thrill of control led him to the world of BDSM… and eventually, murder. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Once a promising intelligence officer, Ray Fernandez transformed into a career conman, swindling lonely women out of their savings. When he met Martha Beck in 1947, his Lonely Hearts con became a deadly scheme of spiralling jealousies and stolen fortunes. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

If love makes you do something evil, does that make you evil, too? In the late 1970s, Gerald Gallego twisted himself around Charlene’s heart and didn’t let go. The couple, later known as “The Sex Slave Killers,” worked in tandem to kidnap and murder ten women. Was Charlene a victim, too? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Following a whirlwind romance, Alton Coleman and Debra Brown embarked on a violent rampage that turned the summer of 1984 bloody. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

They say that “love is a many-splendored thing.” But for Ray and Faye Copeland, it was a thing of violence. The couple’s murderous crimes made them two of the oldest people ever sentenced to death in the United States. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

By 1985, the Monster of Florence had claimed 16 lives. Unfortunately, authorities were no closer to catching the killer than when they'd started their investigation, and the trail was getting colder every day... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

One of Italy’s most notorious serial killers has never (definitively) been identified. The mysterious Monster of Florence murdered couples in their cars, beginning in 1974. The crimes were so horrific that all of Florence was on edge, and the hunt for the killer was vast. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

By 1984, Nance had revamped his reputation and settled into a comfortable routine in his hometown. But as he grew fixated on his boss, his nice-guy exterior evaporated, revealing a cold and calculating killer. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

As a teenager, Wayne Nance developed an interest in Satanism that may have led to his first murder. He became obsessed with the idea of making a human sacrifice — and in the spring of 1974, he boasted to a friend: “It’s been done.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

His victims’ deaths were often ruled “unnatural and accidental,” leaving Gilbert Paul Jordan free to perfect his M.O. — forcing Indigenous women in Vancouver to drink themselves to death. Unable to keep him behind bars, police surveilled the barber until they could catch him in the act. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

An alcoholic from his teenage years onward, Gilbert Paul Jordan spent his young adulthood in 1950s Vancouver tallying up arrests for theft, assault, and drug possession. Then he discovered a crime he wouldn’t be punished for: plying a victim with alcohol until she was poisoned to death. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

By the 1990s, Ángel Maturino Reséndiz was a seasoned murderer using America’s extensive railroad system to strike new victims, then flee. But eventually, authorities caught onto the pattern in his murders. In 1999, their investigation came to a surprising stop. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

After years of incarceration, rejection, and failure, Ángel Maturino Reséndiz's most violent impulses began to surface. Between 1986 and 1999, he traveled the U.S. by freight train, murdering “sinners” in a so-called mission from God. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In 1984, Wilder went on a weeks-long killing spree across the U.S., abducting, raping and murdering as many young women as he could find. As he targeted malls across the country, the FBI launched a manhunt for the Australian fugitive. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Posing as a modeling agent in the 1980s, Wilder lured young girls and women to secluded places where he would photograph them in explicit poses before sexually assaulting them. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

By day, Robert Hansen was a devoted husband, devout Christian, and respected member of the Anchorage community. By night, he abducted young women from clubs and drove them deep into the Alaskan wilderness, where he hunted them like prey. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Bullied from a young age, Robert Hansen’s resentment toward the people in his hometown manifested in different ways — most alarmingly, arson. In 1967, the troubled baker and avid hunter moved to Alaska, and developed a deadly pastime: abducting and assaulting women. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

After his first murder, Keith Jesperson felt unstoppable, and went on something of a killing spree. But eventually, he got annoyed that he wasn't getting credit for his hard work, and started sending authorities chilling notes signed with a happy face. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Always shy and a little curious, Keith Jesperson lived a troubled childhood. Beaten by his father, and always struggling to make friends, Keith grew up vowing he'd never hurt children. But he made no such promise when it came to women. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

By the end of 1993, seven decomposed bodies had been pulled from Australia's Belanglo State Forest. The nation was terrified, and the police force was put on notice: There was a serial killer on the loose. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The bodies of two missing backpackers were recovered from Australia’s Belanglo State Forest in 1992. They weren’t the last. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

After killing dozens of people and getting away with it, Alexander Pichushkin got bored with his routine. So, he mixed things up — in brutal fashion. His unchecked maneuvers amounted to at least 48 murders in Moscow. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

One of Russia’s most prolific serial killers was an avid chess player. First introduced to the pastime by his grandfather, the young Alexander Pichushkin finally found something he could excel at. But in 1992, his competitive urges were drawn to a different kind of game… Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In the final few months of 2006, Ipswich was shaken by the strangling deaths of several sex workers. It didn't take long for Steve Wright to relax into his new role as cold-blooded killer. But the bolder — and more bizarre — he became, the closer he got to sealing his own fate. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

He was an unassuming man whose Jekyll and Hyde personality obscured increasingly violent tendencies. And in 2006, in the small English town of Ipswich, Steve Wright began targeting sex workers — abducting, strangling, and dumping the bodies of five women. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

It was called the crime of the century: In 1966, Richard Speck drifted into Chicago, and unleashed a whirlwind of violence and rage onto a group of student nurses. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In the early 1980s, emergency services in St. Paul, Minnesota began receiving odd calls from a distraught-sounding man. At first reporting brutal attacks on women, he quickly began taking credit for the murders, and begged police to stop him. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Throughout his shocking rampage that left dozens of people injured or dead, the newly dubbed “Vampire of Düsseldorf” Peter Kürten grew more and more confident — even writing into a local paper with the location of a victim’s body. But his confidence would be his undoing. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Unfulfilled by bestiality, a young Peter Kürten turned to murder — and discovered his body’s reaction to the sight of blood. As his dark desires festered, he embraced sadism in all its forms. And in 1929, a gruesome killing spree earned him a chilling moniker. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

When British heiresses Dora and Claire Williamson reached out to Linda Hazzard, she might have thought draining their bank accounts would be easy enough. But she didn't count on the sisters’ resilience, or the might of one formidable governess... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In the early 1900s, Linda Hazzard marketed herself as a doctor, and claimed that she could cure any ailment with her special starvation regimens. Except, instead of curing her patients, she was killing them. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

After spending years in and out of prison, Charles “The Serpent” Sobhraj was determined to make something of himself. To do that, he needed money — only now, he knew better than to leave behind any witnesses. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Growing up in Vietnam, India and France in the 1940s and ‘50s, Charles Sobhraj never truly fit in anywhere — not even with his family. When they turned their backs on him for good, he became a con man smuggling cars, escaping debts, stealing from tourists… and breaking out of prisons around the world. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In the years since the Satanic Panic, it's become obvious that the crimes people were accused of never really happened. But while none of the nightmarish stories of ritual abuse in Satan’s name were true, it doesn’t mean there weren’t real victims… Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Emboldened by power- and money-hungry conmen, Evangelical doomsdayers set the stage for an epic showdown of biblical proportions. The fight for the souls of every last American was beginning, they claimed, and Satan was coming to drag us all to hell. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices