In this generation we watch horror films and programmes on TV such as Criminal Minds or CSI, and we assume that it's all fictional and that the kinds of people shown in such entertainment do not actually exist, yet they actually do, and we hear a lot more about it in the news than we realise. When I was given this part of the brief, I noticed that I was hearing it a lot more in the news than I had ever noticed before. Over time, there have been some incredibly twisted people in the world that have committed horrible crimes that the majority of us think are incapable of ever happening to people we know. Some examples are described below.
Dr Harold Shipman - The World's Most Prolific Serial Killer
Harold Shipman was a doctor based in Manchester who preyed on his elderly female patients, who were alone and vulnerable. He killed at least 215 of his patients, before being arrested in 1998. His method of murder was injecting them with an overdose of painkillers. He was sentenced to life in 1998, and in 2004 he was found dead in his cell where he had hung himself.
The Zodiac Killer
This series of murders remains a great unsolved case. A series of murders kicked off after a girl was viciously murdered in 1966 by a man who offered to help restart her car, him being the man who had hijacked it in the first place, unbeknown to her of course. This killer frightened the people of San Francisco for years, and he often taunted the police with weird phone calls and messages. The police investigated thousands of possible suspects, however the case was never solved.
Eddie Gein
A man known as 'The Body Snatcher', whose emotional development had been stunted by his mother. Police were shocked when they found a vest of human skin and a cache of human body parts in his possession. He is now the model for characters such as Buffalo Bill (The Silence of the Lambs) and Norman Bates (Psycho).
The Birnies
Catherine Birnie was caused by her husband David Birnie's sexual appetite to abduct, rape and murder four women in their house in Perth, Australia. David's cruelty finally got to Catherine and so a victim escaped, resulting in their arrest.
Jack the Ripper
Undoubtedly a very famous serial killer. Known for murdering prostitutes in London's Whitechapel district, causing panic in 1888.
References:
- Unknown. (n.d.). Harold Shipman. Available: http://www.biography.com/people/harold-shipman-17169712#awesm=~oDuWtns68CLFUk. Last accessed 28th March 2014.
- Crime Library. (n.d.). Serial Killers. Available: http://www.crimelibrary.com/serial_killers/index.html?PHPSESSID=926d850a17629c211e062beec450749e. Last accessed 28th March 2014.
- Unknown. (2014). Ed Gein. Available: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ed_Gein. Last accessed 28th March 2014.
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