Serial Murder is Multi-cultural

By Katherine Ramsland

I often see media reports about how the U.S. produces at least 75% of the world’s serial killers, and while no one’s data actually confirms this number on a consistent basis (mine doesn’t, and I have an extensive database), few people question it. Even a few criminologists repeat it as established fact.

When you consider that many countries have lacked the resources to even investigate serial crimes let alone keep sophisticated databases, and that some have even veiled their stats, how can we really make a reliable comparison?

In the spirit of this (and Joran van der Sloot aside for now), I’ve collected some unique cases that popped up abroad over just the past few weeks.

-Stephen Griffiths (pictured) was a forty-year-old Ph.D. candidate in criminology at the University of Bradford in northern England, basing his thesis on Victorian murderers like Jack the Ripper. Similar to Ted Bundy, he’d once been a psychology major. He kept flesh-eating lizards and bred rats, and a friend claimed to have seen him actually consume a live rat. Griffiths reportedly wandered around Wakefield Prison asking about the killers inside. He said he had a vision a month ago that one day he’d be among them, a vision he realized after a building manager reviewing security footage spotted a bolt fired at a young woman from a crossbow and informed the police. They arrested Griffiths and identified the victim, a missing prostitute. Two others were missing from the area and the police soon had enough evidence to charge Griffiths with three murders. In court, when asked his name Griffiths referred to himself as the “Crossbow Cannibal.” After killing his victims, he allegedly dismembered them in his apartment, placed their parts in bags, and tossed them into the River Aire. The remains of two have been identified.

Griffiths now awaits his November trial among some of England’s worst criminals, where he can study them up close and personal, although on June 10 he tried to strangle himself with a sock. He remains a suspect in the deaths of three other missing prostitutes. (The Scotsman; The Sun)

- Around Yekaterinburg in Russia, a thirty-nine-year-old mother of two was arrested early in June for the suspected murders of twenty elderly females over the past seven years. Apparently, she would persuade them to hire her for housework, but before she had to lift a dust cloth she’d club her new employers to death to rob them. She may have killed even more. (In this same area last year, I might just mention “Dmitry K,” who’d invented an electric chair and lured test subjects to his home with ads for computer equipment. He would invite them to sit in the chair, then wrap them in copper wire and electrocute them. Afterward, he’d burn the corpse in the woods. The police arrested him after finding the charred remains of a law student. Dmitry admitted to this murder and said he’d confess to more if police first located the bodies. To this point, he’s suspected in six such incidents. In his home was an electrified welcome mat, not yet tested, and a camera that he claimed would erase memories.)

- An Italian nurse, Angelo Stazzi, was arrested in May on the suspicion of poisoning seven residents of an eldercare home in Tivoli, outside Rome. Allegedly, he had a kickback scheme with several funeral homes, profiting after he let them in on the news of someone’s passing. He has been accused of injecting his victims, mostly in their 70s and 80s, with insulin. In addition, Stazzi is also a suspect in the murder of a nurse with whom he’d had a relationship. She disappeared in 2001 and her remains were unearthed last year from his garden. (Daily Telegraph)

- In Kenya, Philip Onyancha, 32, confessed to the murder of 19 people, including children, and admitted that he’d targeted 100. A former security guard, Onyancha claimed he’d been recruited into a cult that practiced devil worship and drank blood to ensure personal wealth. He soon developed a “passion to kill,” which he attributed to evil spirits. He expected to achieve his goal of 100 murders within five years, and he usually picked out the weakest or most vulnerable people – women, children, and prostitutes. He showed police officers where he’d dumped the bodies and they have recovered human remains and other items related to missing people. In one case, a body had been stashed in the ceiling of a sewage plant for two years. It was still there. The police are also seeking the supposed cult leader. (Capital News)



- Last week, a Canadian jury sentenced Charles Kembo to life in prison for the murders of four people, including his wife, mistress, step-daughter, and a friend. He admitted to insurance fraud but said he was innocent of murder. (The Province)

Dr. Katherine Ramsland

has a MA in forensic psychology from the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, a master's degree in clinical psychology, and a Ph.D. in philosophy. She has published thirty-five books, including True Stories of CSI, Inside the Minds of Serial Killers, Inside the Minds of Healthcare Serial Killers, Inside the Minds of Mass Murderers, The Human Predator: A Historical Chronology of Serial Murder and Forensic Investigation, The Criminal Mind: A Writers' Guide to Forensic Psychology, and The Forensic Science of CSI. With former FBI profiler Gregg McCrary, she co-authored The Unknown Darkness: Profiling the Predators among Us, with Professor James E. Starrs, A Voice for the Dead, a collection of his cases of historical exhumations, and with Henry C. Lee, The Real World of the Forensic Scientist. She has been translated into ten languages and has published over 900 articles on serial killers, criminology, forensic science, and criminal investigation. She writes a regular feature on historical forensics for The Forensic Examiner (based on her history of Forensic science, Beating the Devil’s Game) and teaches forensic psychology and criminal justice at DeSales University in Pennsylvania. Her most recent book is The Devil’s Dozen: How Cutting Edge Forensics Took Down Twelve Notorious Serial Killers. In addition, she has published biographies of Anne Rice and Dean Koontz and penned three books about penetrating the world of “vampires” (Piercing the Darkness), ghost hunters (Ghost), and the funeral industry (Cemetery Stories).