Cute Killer Kids – Famous Murderers as Children

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