Hey, everybody was a cute kid once, right? Heck, even Hitler:
Same goes for all our favorite figures from the annals of true crime. Let’s see what we can turn up here.
In the list below, I’m including:
- A brief description of their truly horrific crimes
- Some things from their childhood that might have pointed them in that direction (or not – some have truly horrible childhoods, while others seem no different than you and me)
- An adorable (or weird, or simply existing – some childhoods are more documented than others) picture
I’m listing them in order from more pedestrian (the pix, that is) to – shall we say? – less so.
Gary Ridgway (The Green River Killer) *
Crimes: Strangled 49 teens & young women; necrophiliac
Childhood:
- Domineering mother
- Violent arguments between parents
- Bed wetter until age 13
- Stabbed a 6-year-old at age 16, just to watch him die (the kid survived)
Dennis Rader (BTK) *
Crimes: Bound, tortured & killed 10 males and females, from ages 9 to 62, over a period of almost 20 years; taunted the press
Childhood:
- Largely ignored by his constantly working parents
- Tortured & killed animals
- Engaged in voyeurism, cross-dressing & auto-erotic asphyxiation
Rodney Alcala (The Dating Game Killer)
Crimes: Strangled at least 8 girls and young women; known for continuously reviving his victims so he could strangle them again, playing with them like a cat
Childhood: Raised by single mom after father abandoned family
Dean Corll (The Candyman)
Crimes: Abducted, raped, tortured, and murdered at least 28 teenage boys
Childhood:
- Strict father, indulgent mother
- Violent arguments between both parents
- “Broken” family
- Loner
Aileen Wuornos
Crimes: Shot 6 of her johns (she was a prostitute) at point blank range
Childhood:
- Child of a 14- and a 16-year-old
- Never met her father, a schizophrenic and pedophile, who committed suicide while in prison
- Abandoned by mother
- Raised by alcoholic grandparents
- Beaten and sexually abused by grandfather
- Incest with brother
- Started exchanging sex for cigarettes, drugs & food at age 11
- Gave up a child for adoption at age 14
- Dropped out of school at age 15
- Thrown out of her grandparents’ house & became homeless
Stephen Paddock
Crimes: Opened fire at a music concert from a high-rise hotel room, killing 60 people and injuring over 400 in a matter of minutes
Childhood:
- Father was a bank robber and probable psychopath, spending time on the FBI’s most-wanted list and in prison
- Basically raised by a single mother
- Father beat him when he was around
Timothy McVeigh
Crimes: Bombed a Federal building, killing 168 people, including 19 children, and injuring 680 others
Childhood:
- “Broken” home
- Shy and withdrawn
- Gun nut
Richard Ramirez (The Nightstalker) *
Crimes: Satanist who raped and killed 15+ girls and women, from ages 8 to 79
Childhood:
- Abused by alcoholic father
- Heavily influenced by:
- 1) Psychopathic cousin who had killed in Vietnam (and took photos, which he showed to Richard) and who would murder his own wife in front of him
- 2) Brother-in-law who took him along on peeping tom forays
- Started drinking and taking drugs at age 10
- Dropped out of school in 9th grade
- Had already started engaging in theft, child molestation & attempted rape by then
Andrew Cunanan *
Crimes: Spree killer who shot, stabbed & beat to death 5 gay men, including fashion designer Gianni Versace
Childhood:
- Habitual liar
- Threw his mother against a wall in an argument over his sexuality (he was gay)
Elliot Rodger
Crimes: Spree killer who murdered 6 and injured 14 through stabbing, shooting, and running them over with a car
Childhood:
- “Broken” home
- Strained relationship with stepmother
- Saw multiple therapists starting at age 8, being diagnosed as autistic
- Bullied & increasingly isolated
Adam Lanza
Crimes: Spree killer at a local elementary school, where he killed 6 adults & 20 6- and 7-year-olds
Childhood:
- Diagnosed with Asperger syndrome, sensory integration disorder, depression, anxiety, obsessive-compulsive disorder and possibly anorexia & schizophrenia
- Mother (who he also shot) was a gun nut, with at least a dozen firearms in the home
- Fascinated by mass shootings
- Never left his room, taping the windows over with garbage bags, and communicating with his mother only by email
Not the last skeleton costume you will see here
Ted Bundy *
Crimes: Raped and killed 36+ girls and young women (two only 12 years old) in 7 different states; engaged in necrophilia
Childhood:
- Born in a home for unwed mothers, of unknown paternity (though speculation has focused on an incestual relationship between his mother and her own father)
- Grew up thinking his mother was his sister
- Grandmother had depression and agoraphobia, grandfather fits of violent rage & hallucinations
- Conflicts with his stepfather, who hit him
- Loner with a speech impediment, victim of bullying
- Pornography & compulsive masturbation
- Stripped younger children & ran off with their clothes
- Burned a cat alive
- Created “tiger traps” (camouflaged pits with sharpened sticks at the bottom) that at least one girl fell into, injuring herself
- Crimes included petty thievery & attempted car theft
- Probable first victim at age 14 (victim was 8)
David Berkowitz (Son of Sam) *
Crimes: Shot lovers necking in cars, amounting to 6 deaths & 7 injuries; wrote taunting letters to the newspapers & kept New York City on edge for a whole summer
Childhood:
- Adopted
- Pyromania & petty theft
- Psychiatric consultations
- Conflict with stepmother
Dylan Klebold
Crimes: With Eric Harris (see below), rampaged through their high school, killing 12 students & 1 teacher & wounding 24 others
Childhood: Shy & withdrawn
Eric Harris
Childhood:
- Multiple moves, as his father was in the military
- Faked suicide as a joke to get at former girlfriend
- Anger management issues, including making threats involving bombs
Ted Kaczynski (Unabomber) *
Crimes: Killed 3 and injured 23 in a mail bombing campaign that lasted over 20 years
Childhood:
- Shy loner
- Victim of bullying
- Bursts of anger
- Spells of detachment from reality
Dylann Roof
Crimes: Neo-Nazi and white supremacist who killed 9 & wounded 3 others who were attending a bible study session in a historic Black church; hoped to set off a race war
Childhood:
- Product of 2 “broken” marriages
- Verbally and physically assaulted by 1 stepfather
- Obsessive-compulsive disorder
- Early drug use
- Over 9 years, attended 7 different schools
- Social withdrawal
Gary Gilmore
Crimes: A 2-bit hood, he killed 2 employees in 2 separate robberies, shooting them in the back of the head as they lay on the floor
Childhood:
- Father was an alcoholic con man & bigamist, who beat his children & wife
- Violent arguments between parents
- Constant moves
- Believed he was illegitimate
He’s the super-serious, adult-like kid in the middle
Charles Whitman *
Crimes: Killed his wife and mother, then ascended the Univ. of Texas Tower, where he shot and killed 17 and injured 31
Childhood:
- Father was a strict authoritarian, verbally and physically abusing his wife and children
- Father was also a gun nut
NOTE: He was also an altar boy & an Eagle Scout
Yup, those are two rifles
Leonard Lake *
Crimes: Along with Charles Ng, raped, tortured & murdered up to 25 young women in a murder shack up in the mountains, capturing everything on video tape
Childhood:
- “Broken home,” raised by grandparents
- Photographed sisters in the nude, forced them into incestuous acts
- Obsessed with pornography
- Tortured and killed small animals
Henry Lee Lucas
Crimes: Killed at least 11 over 20+ years, starting with his own mother
Childhood:
- Born in a 1-room log cabin in the mountains of Virginia
- Mother was a prostitute who forced Henry to watch her have sex with her clients
- Dressed him up as a girl and then pimped him out
- Father was an alcoholic who froze to death in a snow drift
- Dropped out of school in grade 6 and left home
- First prison sentence – for over a dozen counts of burglary – at age 15
He lost the eye at age 10 in a fight with his brother
John Wayne Gacy (The Killer Clown) *
Crimes: Lured 29 teenaged boys to his home for gay sex, then tortured, murdered & buried them in the crawl space
Childhood:
- Alcoholic father who beat his wife and children
- Caught sexually abusing a young girl at age 7
- Victim of sexual abuse himself from a family friend
Jeffrey Dahmer *
Crimes: Responsible for the rape, death, and dismemberment of 17 young gay men, over a period of 12 years; necrophilia, cannibalism
Childhood:
- Mother was a hypochondriac, demanded constant attention, suffered from depression, kept to her bed, abused prescription drugs & attempted suicide
- Absent father
- Fights between parents, eventually resulting in divorce
- Loner & outcast
- Collected and dismembered animal carcasses
- Alcoholic by age 14
Notice the hands
Charles Manson *
Crimes: Manipulated a cult of drug-crazed hippies to slaughter 7 people in an attempt to start a race war
Childhood:
- Illegitimate child of a 16-year-old
- Never knew his biological father, a con artist
- Mother & 2 stepfathers were alcoholics
- Mother was imprisoned for assault & robbery when Charlie was 5
- Set his school on fire at age 9
- Sent to 4 different reform schools for truancy & petty theft at first, then armed robbery & auto theft later
- Raped & beaten there
- Ran away or escaped over 20 times in total
Leave it to ol’ Charlie to look that deranged even as a mere infant
* - author read the book / watched the doc
