ALL PHOTOS

The judge gave the serial killer a term without the right to release for at least 175 years. Prison authorities must decide whether Rader will spend his imprisonment in a separate cell or have other criminals with him.

Prosecutor Nola Foulston told CNN that she would suggest putting Rader in a common cell, knowing how pedophiles are treated in prison.

Maniac during the investigation pleaded guilty to 10 murders. The maniac committed all his crimes in the same way. Each time he tied up his victims and tortured them, and then slowly killed them. To take his place in the long list of American serial killers, he coined the nickname "BTK Serial Killer" for himself, indicating the specifics of his method - to tie ("bind"), torture ("torture") and kill ("kill").

BTK Serial Killer committed his first crimes between 1974 and 1979, and then "went to the bottom." Only last year, the maniac again made itself felt by sending a letter to the local newspaper Wichita Eagle. In it, he confessed to the murder of a young woman in 1986.

Dennis Rader, 60, a married father of two, was a fairly well-known man in Park City. For a long time he ran a Boy Scout club and was an active parishioner of the Lutheran church.

In court, Rader admitted that he killed to satisfy his sexual fantasies. In a completely emotionless speech, Rader described how he used a "kill kit" consisting of a gun, rope, handcuffs and duct tape. He called the killings "projects" and defined his victims as "targets."

Rader spoke of the first four victims almost as if they were animals. He also said that he offered one of the victims a glass of water to calm her down before she died.

Rader corrected the judge on some details of the case and carried on what seemed to be an academic conversation about the habits and behavior of serial killers. Maniac could not be sentenced to death because the murders were committed by him before Kansas accepted the death penalty as capital punishment.

The raider, who has killed at least 10 people since 1974, was arrested in a Kansas parking lot in February 2005.

The BTK Serial Killer made its first appearance in January 1974. In the suburbs of Wichita, police found a murdered family. Before entering the house, the criminal prudently cut the telephone wires. First, he strangled his father and mother with curtain rope. Then he hanged their 11-year-old daughter, and strangled their 9-year-old son by putting a plastic bag over his head. For weeks the police could not find any evidence. But after 9 months, a certain young man said that he had committed these murders along with two accomplices.

With each new murder, he sent letters to the press. “How many people do I have to kill so that my name gets on the front pages of newspapers or attracts the attention of the whole nation?” asked in one of the messages. “A monster lives in my brain, I never know in advance when it will come. Maybe you can stop him, but I can't."

Since April 2004, the maniac has sent three or four parcels to the police. In each of them were the documents of the dead, scraps of their clothes. In these things, the authorities managed to find traces of DNA, which led them to Dennis Rader.

Dennis Rader

The man was considered an exemplary family man and a respectable Christian. He earned respect from his acquaintances with his actions, but in fact everything was not as smooth as it seemed. Dennis Rader wrote poetry and raised his own children. At the same time, he led a secret life where he tortured and killed people.

He most strongly wanted to gain fame and entertainment by his actions. Surprisingly, he succeeded in both.

Dennis Lynn Rader was born in March 1945.

He grew up in the largest population center in Kansas, the city of Wichita. He was not the only child in the family. His father died at the front during World War II, and in the late 1940s his mother remarried. The future serial killer graduated from high school and a two-year college, served four years in the US Air Force. Returning home, he got a job as a butcher. May 22, 1971 married. Later, he went to another college and earned an associate's degree in electronics there.

After that, he continued his studies: he entered the University of Wichita and graduated in 1979 with a bachelor's degree in administration of justice. Changed jobs several times. Became president of the congregational council in the Lutheran Church. In marriage, Dennis had two children.

Ordinary life, as it turned out, was not for him.

In January 1974, in a small house in the suburbs of Wichita, the police found a murdered family. Before entering the house, the criminal prudently cut the telephone wires. He strangled the father and mother of the family with curtain rope. Then he hanged their 11-year-old daughter, and strangled their 9-year-old son by putting a plastic bag over his head.

First kills

The man carefully planned his first crime. Found the victims, chose the instrument of murder and the method of torture. Later, he will come up with the nickname "BTK" for himself, indicating his method of killing - tie ("bind"), torture ("torture") and kill ("kill").

The murder was discovered thanks to the only surviving family member.

The first thing that surprised 15-year-old Charlie Otero when he returned from school on a cold January day in 1974 was the silence. Absolute. In the parent's bedroom, Charlie saw his father. Joseph Otero, 38, lay by the bed with his hands and feet tied. Lying on the bed was her mother, 34-year-old Julia. She, too, was bound, her mouth sealed. The boy rushed out of the bedroom, but the nightmare was just beginning. Charlie could not immediately call the police - the telephone wire was cut.

When the police arrived, they found nine-year-old Joseph Jr. in the nursery with a cap on his head. He was dead too. Another terrible find was waiting for the police in the basement. The naked corpse of 11-year-old Josephine, bound hand and foot, hung from the ceiling.

The police couldn't find any evidence. After 9 months, a certain young man stated that he had committed these murders along with two accomplices. The real killer Dennis Rader found out about this and decided to declare himself. He sent a letter to the newspaper detailing the crimes to prove he was the real killer. He did it in verse form.

Mystery for the police

With each new murder, Dennis sent letters. Here is one of: “How many more people do I have to kill to get my name on the front pages of newspapers or attract the attention of the whole nation?”.

The police, receiving letters, compiled several lists of suspects. None of them had the name of Dennis Rader, a Wichita City Surveyor born in 1939, serving in Vietnam, a former office equipment repairer, and finally a student of Professor Wyatt (a lecturer at the university Dennis attended).

Since the first murder in January 1974, several teams of investigators have changed in the city police, dealing with the case of the so-called BTK. The group of police officers and FBI agents tasked with finding the serial killer was called the "Cold Trail Group". It seemed that the arrest of the insane maniac was not destined.

Method of killing

The way Dennis's victims were killed was appalling. He hung one victim on a sewer pipe, stabbed another in the back and once in the lower abdomen, strangled all the others. The strangulation instrument was plastic bags, ropes, shoelaces, stockings and pantyhose. The motive for the killings was sexual in nature. He also wanted to be famous.

In 1979, the man stopped the killings and wrote in one of his letters to the police that he would commit suicide.

Promotion in business

How it was possible to catch the nimble criminal is an interesting question. The fact is that what the investigators did not see was seen by Kerry Rader, the daughter of Dennis.

One day she came across an article about BTK and was amazed: the number of matches between the unknown criminal and her father was too much. She gave a DNA sample, went to the police and asked to compare the sample with the genetic material that was found at crime scenes.

The DNA analysis lasted two weeks. All this time, Dennis was under round-the-clock surveillance. On the afternoon of February 25, the results of the analysis showed: Kerry Rader and BTK were closely related. Dennis was arrested a couple of hours later while driving home.

He offered no resistance and confessed to committing 13 murders between 1974 and 1991.

Police and district attorney officials, however, said they would not base the indictment solely on Rader's words. They doubted that he had made a sincere confession. Maniac was released.

In the spring of 2004, the killer wrote to a local newspaper. In his letter, he spoke about some of the facts of his biography and took responsibility for another murder committed in 1986. In February 2005, the sixty-year-old serial killer was arrested. According to Independent Online, Rader confessed to all the murders. The death penalty did not befall him, since it was abolished in Kansas. Instead, the killer was sentenced to ten life terms.

After his arrest, Dennis was called a traitor, and many refused to believe that a wonderful family man, a man who was always ready to help his friends mow the lawn, looked after the elderly mother of a friend who left for another state, was a man who reveled in the role of a homicidal maniac.

Rader's story inspired Stephen King's The Happy Marriage.

Used materials:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raider,_Dennis;
kommersant.ru/doc/552729;
lenta.ru/news/2005/07/12/killer.

#TD_Articles #TD_Criminology

This article was automatically added from the community

Dennis Rader is a maniac and... an exemplary family man...


Alina MAKSIMOVA, especially for "Crime"


Dennis Rader was considered an exemplary family man and a respectable Christian. He was even elected president of the congregation council of the local Lutheran church. And no one suspected that, by his own admission, he "has a monster living in his brain ... which he cannot stop." It is possible that his crimes would have remained unsolved if Rader himself had not desired fame. He wrote several letters to the newspapers and sent three parcels with the things of the people he had killed. On these things, the experts found the killer's DNA. Which completely coincided with the DNA of the "exemplary family man" Rader.

AVIATION CAPITAL OF THE WORLD

The city of Wichita, Kansas, at the beginning of the 20th century was called the "Aviation Capital of the World". It was in this city that the famous aircraft manufacturers Carl Cessna and Walter Beach developed their first aircraft. Cessna and Hawker Beechcraft are still headquartered in Wichita. But in the second half of the last century, this city, which is sometimes called the "buckle on the Bible belt" because of the God-fearing majority of the population, acquired a different glory. Wichita became the city where one of America's most wanted serial killers of the second half of the 20th century appeared.

It all started in January 1974. When a whole family was found murdered in one of the suburban houses of the city. Air Force veteran Joseph Otero recently moved into this house with his family. wife Julia and five children. But despite not very long residence, they still managed to attract the attention of a maniac, who called himself SPU - Bind-Torture-Kill (BTK in English transcription). Much later, the police will draw a conclusion, which after the arrest will be confirmed by the killer himself, that the maniac carefully selected his victims and no less carefully prepared for the murders themselves.

The killer came to the Otero family at about 11 o'clock in the afternoon. Having cut the telephone cable in advance, he entered the house. Threatening with a pistol, he tied the head of the family and his wife. Then he went up to the nursery. Fortunately, the three younger children were in kindergarten. But 9-year-old John and 11-year-old Josephine were at home. As the forensics would later establish, Joseph and Julia were the first to be killed. They were found in the bedroom bound and strangled. The next was a boy, he was found near the bedroom of his parents. The killer strangled him with a plastic bag. But for the longest time, the maniac mocked the girl.

The killer dragged her into the basement, threw a rope around her neck, which he fastened in such a way that the girl's legs barely touched the floor. And while Josephine was slowly suffocating, the maniac sat nearby and masturbated.

"STOP IF YOU CAN..."

In the 70s, DNA analysis was something of a fantasy. Despite the fact that the killer left his own sperm at the crime scene, forensics could only determine that the maniac had I blood type. Which about 40% of Americans have. The killer left no other traces. The investigation was looking for motives, studied the life of the Otero family under a microscope. But all was in vain. Nine months after the murder of the family, a certain young man confessed to this crime. Who claimed to have murdered the Otero family along with two friends.

This statement immediately hit the media. And greatly outraged the true killer. He could not come to terms with the fact that some punks appropriated his "feat". And wrote a letter to the police. In which he described in detail not only the entire process of the murder, but also other little things that only the killer could know. For example, he said that Otero seniors were strangled with curtain cord. The killer also told where Josephine's glasses were left and how her hands were tied (with a clothesline from the courtyard of the house).

“A monster lives in my brain, I never know in advance when it will come,” the killer wrote in a letter. “Maybe you can stop him, but I can’t. I've already chosen another victim. You will understand that it was me when you see the letters SPU on the body. This is how I do murder: BOND, TORTURE, KILL!”

Additional police forces were brought into Wichita. The streets of the city were simply teeming with an abundance of patrol cars and policemen. It is possible that this is why the maniac did not dare to commit another murder. The SPU struck its next blow only three years later.

This time the victim was a 24-year-old mother of three. The killer came to her at 11:45. At gunpoint, he locked the children in the bathroom and took care of their mother. He choked her for quite some time, enjoying every moment. But when the woman was already dead and the killer was preparing to move on to the children, the phone rang. Unlike the first murder, this time the maniac did not cut the telephone cable. And it saved the children. The killer was frightened off by a call, and he left the house, leaving the children alive.

This murder was not immediately linked to the SPU. But it turned out that the son of the murdered woman saw the killer the day before the tragedy. The description matched what the police were able to obtain by interviewing the neighbors of the Otero family. And although the identikit, which was compiled after the first crime, was rather vague, but the general features coincided. Again, the killer left no trace.

The Wichita police hoped that the maniac would calm down again. But it was not there. A few weeks later, on December 8, 1977, the SPU struck again. This time the victim was a single 25-year-old woman. Late in the evening, she returned from the store where she worked, not realizing that the killer was already waiting for her in the house.

As the maniac later admitted, he tortured this woman for quite a long time. Having bound her at gunpoint, he began to choke the victim. And when she was already losing consciousness, he loosened the pressure, allowing the woman to take a few breaths of air. Then he began to choke again. He liked to feel like something like God. Who could give life, and could take away.

The next day, the SPU called the police from a pay phone and told them where law enforcement agencies could find the body of his latest victim. As already mentioned, the woman lived alone, and her corpse could lie undetected for quite a long time. But the maniac needed attention to his person, and he called. The police recorded the message of the maniac, but this did not lead to his capture.

CAT AND MOUSE

Two months after this murder, the SPU sent a letter again. There was a poem dedicated to the last murder, and lengthy discussions about why it is not yet talked about in the mainstream press. “Including the last murder, I already have 7 people on my account,” the maniac wrote. “How many more do I have to kill for my name to appear on the front pages of newspapers and attract the attention of the entire nation?”

In addition to poetry and the letter itself, the killer drew a female body and the glasses of the last victim lying on the floor. It was this drawing that served as a pretext for some psychologists to conduct a dubious experiment. In the late 70s, many people talked about the notorious 25th frame, which allegedly affects the subconscious of the viewer. Specialists advised the Wichita police chief to contact the maniac through local television. A fragment of a maniac's drawing was embedded in the recording with the caption: "Call the police chief." But it did not work, the maniac did not even think to call. He sank back to the bottom, only to reappear a few years later.

In 1985, the body of a 53-year-old woman was discovered near Wichita. She was strangled, like all SPU victims. But this time the corpse was found on the side of the road, and earlier the maniac did not take out his victims from their homes. Moreover, criminologists found that the woman was strangled in an abandoned church, located nearby, and only then carried to the road. Then the murder was not attributed to the SPU, he himself will tell about it after his arrest.

The turning point in the search for SPU came in 2004. Forensic scientists managed to obtain the DNA of a maniac from samples of his sperm, kept in the police archive since the first murder in 1974. The results were run through the database, but revealed only that the serial killer was not prosecuted. But it was known before. Back in the early 80s, the police ransacked all ex-convicts living in Wichita or nearby. None of them aroused suspicion. So even though the cops had the killer's DNA, there was nothing to compare it to. And law enforcement went to the trick.

At that time, a book dedicated to a serial killer from Wichita was being prepared for publication. Indeed, in 2004 it was 30 years since the first murder of the elusive maniac. Some statements were specially included in this book, which were written about by all local newspapers. Like, the legendary SPU died a long time ago and this fact, as it were, does not require proof. The maniac, who wanted fame, could not help but respond to such a challenge. And so it happened.

On March 19, 2004, a letter arrived at the Wichita Police Department. which detailed the murder of a woman in 1986. The maniac did not fail to declare that he was alive and could strike at any moment. A tricky game began between the police and the killer.

Later, the police admitted that it was very dangerous, because the maniac, in order to prove that he was alive, could kill someone else. But law enforcement agencies were sure that they had no other choice. And again, information appeared in the press that the police did not believe that the maniac was alive. The killer sent a piece of jewelry from one of the victims, on which experts were able to detect particles of the killer's skin. Needless to say, the DNA from this package matched the DNA of the killer of the Otero family perfectly. It became clear to the police that their respondent and the mysterious SPU were one and the same person. But who he was, the police had no idea. The killer has resurfaced. He left a letter and a package with a tied and hung doll (a reminder of Josephine Otero) in the parking lot.

Surveillance cameras were installed in that parking lot. The police carefully reviewed several hours of video footage. And they found a car that drove up to the place where the killer left the letter. The man who came out could not be identified. The number of the car was not visible either. But the cops still got a lead. They found out that the maniac is moving in a Cherokee jeep.

And then the maniac made a fatal mistake, which was what the police were counting on, starting a game of cat and mouse with him. He sent the next letter on a floppy disk. In this letter, the killer wrote that he had already looked after another victim. “I think she lives alone,” he wrote. - But you need to check everything well and prepare. I think I'll kill her this year."

The maniac did not take into account the fact that a computer floppy disk contains information about the computer on which the file was saved. Police computer scientists quickly figured out that the letter was written on a computer installed in a Lutheran church. Moreover, the file was saved by a user named Dennis. But that was the name of the president of the congregation of the church, an exemplary family man and a good Christian, Mr. Rader.

NOT A SHADE OF REPENTANCE

After the police found out that Rader had a black Jeep Cherokee, all doubts disappeared. The police could not get DNA samples from Rader himself, they were afraid to frighten him away. But on the other hand, they were able to get a medical card and blood samples from Rader's daughter. DNA analysis showed that the girl is the daughter of the murderer of the Otero family. On February 25, 2005, after 30 years of searching, SPU was arrested.

For the first few hours, he was still locked up, but when they took blood from him for DNA analysis, he realized that there was no point in being silent. And he began to talk in detail about his murders. The police had evidence of the involvement of the SPU in seven murders, Rader told about ten. It is possible that this is not a complete list of a maniac, but whether it is true or not, the killer himself is silent.

After the arrest of Rader, the police and journalists literally studied his life under a microscope. Trying to understand what made a serial killer out of a completely respectable citizen. But this remains a mystery.

Dennis Lynn Rader was born March 9, 1945 in Wichita. He graduated from high school and college, served in the US Air Force. After returning from the army, he entered another college, where he studied electronics. In 1971 he married, had two children from the marriage, later entered the university and received a bachelor's degree in the administration of justice. And although he did not work in his specialty, he enjoyed universal respect. In the church, he worked with scouts, was elected president of the congregation.

Rader earned his living by installing alarms and sophisticated locks in private Wichita homes. This work helped to find victims. To which he freely penetrated, using duplicate keys to locks, installed by him.

At the trial, Rader calmly told how he prepared for his murders. Which the maniac called "projects", and his victims "goals". He constantly corrected the judge, talked at length about the habits and behavior of serial killers. Showing no hint of remorse.

Rader was lucky in a way, because at the time he was committing his murders, there was a moratorium on the death penalty in Kansas. Canceled June 26, 2004. Maniac was sentenced to 10 life terms without the right to pardon.

No evidence (other than a confession) that the Calamandrei is the Florentine monster has been presented. That is why the Italian police still claims that Pietro Pacciani, who they caught, is the same maniac. But doubts still remain.

It is one of the most interesting and important American serial killers. For the enormity of his murders, he has few equals. Crazy sadistic doctors from horror films, putting unthinkable experiments on living people, have such real prototypes as Burdell.

Robert Burdella Born in the city of Chuyahoga Falls (Cuyahoga Falls) in Ohio on January 31, 1949 in a Catholic family of a factory worker and a housewife. Bobby studied well, especially gravitated towards painting. Upon reaching puberty, he discovered his homosexuality. When he was 16 years old, his father died, which pretty much devastated the soul of his son. In 1965, 16-year-old Robert saw the film The Collector about a kidnapper and torturer, which influenced him and largely shaped his criminal behavior. This is called "imprinting" (other vivid examples of imprinting are in the biographies of Eduard Shemyakov and Anatoly Slivko).

In 1967, Robert went to Kansas to enter the art institute, hoping to become a professor, but he became a chef. In addition, he began to sell drugs, because of which he was arrested twice, but did not go to jail. He then bought a house on Charlotte Street and began to collect various curiosities and bizarre items for people with extraordinary tastes, which he traded. So, having finished being a cook, Berdella became an entrepreneur - the owner of his store, which was called Bob's Bazaar.

In the county, "Bob" was considered odd. But he was socially active - he participated in the organization of local programs on criminal topics. Thus, Berdella's craving for crime was not accidental, but conscious. This is one of the signs of an organized non-social "serial", and Burdell clearly belongs to this type. And according to the definition of the authors of the "Encyclopedia of Serial Killers" Schechter and Ivritt, Burdell is a "homework maniac" - killing lured or kidnapped victims in a pre-prepared closed place - in his house, apartment, garage, basement, etc. This category includes such serial killers like Gein, Dahmer, Nielsen, Gacy, Slivko, Golovkin, Spesivtsev, Khamarov.

Berdella's first victim was his lover Jerry Howell, whom the maniac knew and invited to his place for sex for several months. Burdell was hurt by the fact that he paid the lawyer's lover a debt, but Jerry did not return the debt. On the evening of July 4, 1984, Burdell again invited him to his place and fed him with tranquilizers until he lost consciousness. He then raped the unconscious victim several times with his penis, as well as carrots and cucumbers. The next morning, he went to work in his store, and returning in the evening, he continued to “stuff” the victim with drugs for her weakness and passivity and began to beat with a metal rod.

As a result, at about 10 p.m., Jerry Howell died. Burdell was surprised by this - he thought that the former lover simply choked on vomit from medications. Then Burdella hung the corpse upside down to dismember, but he was so excited that he took a Polaroid camera and took a series of photographs. Then he dismembered the body with kitchen knives and a chainsaw. He wrapped the body parts in several layers of paper and plastic, packed them in bags and threw them away with the trash the next day.

next victim maniac became Robert Sheldon, who was also familiar with the maniac earlier, was at his house several times. From April 10, 1985, for 4 days he was subjected to the same tortures as Jerry Howell, but also to a different one - Burdell gave him an injection in his left eye. He wanted to gradually blind the victim in order to make it passive and "for long-term use", for the same purpose he severely injured Sheldon's hands - so that he could not resist. When other visitors could come and the prisoner in the house became a hindrance, on April 14, Burdell put a bag over his head and strangled him. He dismembered Sheldon's corpse in the bathroom for several days, the head was kept in the refrigerator all this time, then he buried the remains in the backyard.

After this episode Burdell"calmed down" for several months, after which he killed the third victim - Mark Wallace, but this victim was lucky, Wallace did not have time to feel the long torture, and soon died after "experiments" on his body with electric current.

The next victim was Walter Ferris, who himself invited himself to visit maniac, which tormented him for some time, after which Ferris died from the drugs administered. His corpse was also dismembered and hidden.

In June 1986, Todd Stoops, also his constant lover, became a victim of Berdella. Burdella raped him by thrusting his fist into his rectum, causing the colon to rupture and Stoops to bleed profusely. Burdella injected the victim with animal antibiotics that gave Stoops a fever, injected him into his eyes and vocal cords, and continued to rape him. Stoops died on July 1, hiding parts of Burdell's corpse in the foundation of the house.

It is striking that the murder as such was of little interest to Burdell - out of 6 victims, he strangled the first 2 to cover up crimes, and the 4 others died themselves from the drugs they took (intended for animals, Burdell bought them at a local veterinary pharmacy) and unable to endure torture. But Burdell, as follows from his entire biography, was a sane and conscious person and could not help but foresee the possible outcome of his experiments.

Burdell subsequently said that he wanted to create obedient zombies from victims who could absolutely obey. There are, of course, similarities in this with Jeffrey Dahmer, who, however, "experimented" in this way with only a few of his 17 victims, and less persistently, he was interested in murders and post-mortal (post-death) manipulations with corpses, so Dahmer Burdell was greatly outclassed. To zombify their test subjects Burdell he blinded, probed their eyes with his fingers, plugged their ears, stunned them with blows of a rubber mallet on the head, inserted a medical tube into their throats, crushed their arms and legs with sticks, boards and pipes, stuck needles into the flesh ... And he did all this with people who were still alive!

The maniac Burdell captured all his "experiments" with a Polaroid. Often, male survivors also took part in his sado-masochistic orgies with victims - in the 357 Polaroid photographs seized from Berdella, the police distinguished 23 people, 6 of them were killed - this is the number of Berdella's victims. Although not a single body was found, because maniac dismembered them and threw them away, but 2 severed heads were preserved in his house.

Still in your house Burdell established an order for various violations of which were punished - electric shocks.

Also, the reaction of the victims to his experiments, Burdell entered in a special diary, similar to medical reports, but, of course, much more impressive. These records also subsequently became evidence.


How did the arrest of the maniac happen? At the end of March 1988, he invited another experimental 22-year-old Christopher Bryson to his place and tortured him for 4 days. But when on April 2, Berdella once again left the room, leaving the victim tied up, Christopher managed to free himself and jump out of the 2nd floor window. He was wearing nothing but a collar, one leg was injured, and there were red scars around his eyes and on his wrists. He ran across the street to the house of Berdella's neighbor, who called the police. On the same day, law enforcement officers visited and maniac…

Starting on December 13, for 3 days, Burdell described his crimes, which, in the form recorded by the stenographer, included 717 pages! The thick book is obviously worse than the writings of the Marquis de Sade. On December 19, the maniac took the blame for 6 premeditated murders. Satanic rituals and human feeding of dogs, he denied ...

In custody Robert Burdella spent as much time as his series of murders lasted - 4 years, after which he died in prison on October 8, 1992. Later, a version of his poisoning slipped, which was refuted and the true cause was established: a heart attack.

Robert Burdella was born on January 1, 1949 in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio.
His father died of a heart attack at the age of 39, when Robert was 16 years old, and it affected him very much, he was devastated. In the same year, he watched the film "The Collector", about a maniac who mocks people, later this will affect his future behavior.
Robert planned to enter the art institute, and went to Kansas for this. But fate decreed otherwise and he had to become a cook. In addition, he was twice detained by the police for drug trafficking, but then Berdell managed to avoid prison.
His next hobby was collecting all sorts of rare and unusual items that could attract collectors. Then he even organized a shop and traded them there.
Who knows, maybe the crimes of Robert Berdella would never have been revealed if not for the latest victim, Christopher Bryson. He managed to escape from captivity by outwitting his tormentor. All this time, while he was in captivity, he pretended to be a submissive slave and satisfied all the sexual fantasies of Berdella, but as soon as the rapist lost his vigilance, Christopher managed to jump out the window from the second floor and escape completely naked, except for the dog collar around his neck.
On Saturday morning 1988, the police station received a phone call in which a man complained that a naked man was running in front of his house and scaring passers-by with his genitals. He asked to deal with the bully.
The police did not keep themselves waiting long and quickly tied up the "naked runner". The detainee turned out to be a local gay prostitute, who had already visited the police station more than once, on various petty cases. The police turned a blind eye to the fact that Chris was running around the street naked, seeing a cut on his body. They were on the arms, legs, the whole body, even on the eyelids. It became clear that the victim was a gay prostitute himself.
He said that he was a victim of Bob Burdella, who lives not far from here, that he escaped from him by jumping out of a window from the second floor. Berdella rented a guy for the night, and then slipped him some kind of drug, from which the prostitute lost consciousness. This is what Robert Berdell took advantage of and tortured the unfortunate man for three days. According to Christopher, the tormentor thrust his arm up to the elbow into the anus, pricked him with a needle from a syringe. The sadist also filmed it all with his camera.
It would seem that nothing prevents Berdella from being arrested, but the police, after checking him on a file cabinet, found that we are talking about a shop owner, a law-abiding person, a good taxpayer. The police thought that the prostitute decided to simply set up his client by slandering him, for example, because of a quarrel between lovers.
Despite their disgust at the gay prostitute, the police went to Berdella's house and ransacked it. They found nothing suspicious and even apologized for the disturbance. The police, without much zeal, superficially examined the sadist's house, but when they left they found a human skull, but as the examination later found out, it was just a souvenir from Bob's store. There were a lot of them in his shop.
The second time the police also came with an apology, and were about to leave, when the unexpected happened. Berdell's beloved dogs, in a rage, dropped a rack of books, from which a photo album filled with photographs of scenes of violence fell out literally under the feet of law enforcement officers. In the photographs, in addition to the victims, Burdell himself was present doing his terrible deeds.
I had to search the apartment more carefully. During the search, they found a bag with human bones and another real skull. A total of 357 photos with victims were counted. On them, Burdell captured the different stages of torture of men. They also found a diary in which Robert Burdella recorded all contacts with the victim, carefully describing the time, the actions that he performed and the reaction to them.
Robert Berdella dreamed of completely suppressing the will of an adult man and making him a sexual slave for himself, who would satisfy all his needs.
Most often, Berdella acted according to the following scheme: he euthanized the victim with the help of anesthetic drugs purchased at a veterinary clinic, then he tied them up, put a dog collar around his neck, and then conducted his pseudoscientific experiments on them. He gradually deprived them of one feeling: he burned or pierced their eyes, plugged their ears, inserted a medical drainage tube into their throats, and did not feed or water them. He passed a current through their bodies, stuck needles under their skin, beat them on the head with a rubber club, smashed their limbs with pipes and boards. And then he raped them with his own hands or vegetables.
Burdell performed "experiments" on his victims. He tried to understand how the sense organs affect a person's arousal, his sexual activity. He blinded the victim and began his terrible "game" with him. Burdella was sure that blind victims were more disposed to sexual games. When the victim became uninteresting to him, he killed her.
He did not kill for pleasure, but because he needed to get rid of them. He choked them with plastic bags, then cut the body along the line of the joints, packed all parts of the body in bags and threw them into the trash. Between 1984 and 1986, Robert Burdell killed and dumped six young men. Subsequently, the police did not manage to find parts of their bodies, only two heads were found, which were kept in the maniac's house.
Berdella liked to feel his power over the tortured, to dispose of him as he wanted. He tried to completely control the behavior of his victims.
At the same time, the police found out who was depicted in the photographs of the killer. It turned out that all of Robert Burdella's victims were gay prostitutes who went missing some time ago. Burdella made a bet that the police would not look for any missing prostitutes and turned out to be right.
It was not difficult for the prosecution to admit Burdella's guilt and, realizing this, Robert began to cooperate with the investigation. He tried to bargain, exchanging a new confession for a reprieve until his execution.
His confessions were valuable not only because they revealed the technology of murder, but also because the terrible psychology of the monster became clear.
Her phenomenality turned out to be that he tried to be like his father and also perform feats, but since there was no war, he could not find a use for himself. The role model for Robert Burdella was the maniac from John Fowles' book The Collector. Only he differed from his idol in that he experimented on men, being gay.
Already in prison, Robert Burdella repented to the families of his victims, he created a fund for them and transferred there all the money that was received from the sale of all his property. The total was 50 thousand dollars. Relatives of the victims accepted the money, but still filed a lawsuit for compensation in the amount of a billion dollars. In 1992, the court ordered Berdelle to pay five billion dollars to the relatives of the victims.
Of course, Berdella understood that it was unrealistic for him to earn so much while in prison, but nevertheless he announced that he intended to write his memoirs, where he would compare his life and the life of his father, and give the entire fee from sales to the relatives of the victims.
He even managed to conclude an agreement with one publishing house to print the book and write the first 17 pages, but he suddenly died.
According to the official version, the maniac had a heart attack, according to the unofficial version, Burdell was poisoned.