The World's Most Evil Psychopaths: Horrifying True-Life Cases (19 page)

The first of these prostitutes, Brunhilde Masser, had last been seen alive on 26 October 1990 on the streets of Graz. Less than six weeks later, another prostitute, Heidemarie Hannerer, disappeared from Bregenz, near the border with Germany and Switzerland. Her body was discovered on New Year’s Eve by two hikers. Upon inspection, it was apparent that she had been strangled with a pair of tights. Though she was fully clothed, it was after her death that she had been dressed. On 5 January 1991, Masser’s body was found outside Ganz. Though badly decomposed, the corpse revealed that she too had been strangled with tights.

On 7 March, another Austrian prostitute, Elfriede Schrempf, disappeared.

By this point the authorities were becoming extremely concerned. Since it is a legal occupation in Austria, prostitution has fewer dangers than in many other western nations. In an average year, the country would suffer no more than one murdered prostitute. And yet, in little more than four months two prostitutes had been murdered and another had gone missing. Worries increased when Schrempf’s family received two phone calls in which they were threatened by an anonymous man. Though unlisted, their number was one that Schrempf carried on her person.

On 5 October, hikers discovered Schrempf’s remains in the woods outside Graz. Within a month, another four prostitutes would disappear from the streets of Vienna. Looking at all the evidence, a team of investigators from Ganz, Bregenze and Vienna concluded that the murders and disappearances were not the work of a serial killer, a finding with which Unterweger took issue.

Another person who disagreed with the team’s findings was August Schenner. A 70-year-old former investigator, Schenner had been involved in solving the 1974 murder of Margaret Schäfer, for which Unterweger had served his prison time. He noted that Schäfer had been strangled, as had another prostitute whom he had always suspected Unterweger of killing. And, of course, all the recent murders of prostitutes had been committed by means of strangulation. When the bodies of two of the missing prostitutes surfaced, both strangled, the authorities became convinced that they did indeed have a serial killer on their hands – and that he was most likely Jack Unterweger.

The celebrity author was placed under surveillance for three days. On the fourth day, Unterweger flew off to Los Angeles, where he was to write an article on crime in the city for an Austrian magazine. In his absence, the Austrian federal police tracked their suspect’s movements since his release from prison. They discovered that he had been in Graz on the dates when Brunhilde Masser and Elfriede Schrempf had disappeared; in Bregenze when Heidemarie Hannerer had been murdered, and in Vienna when all four prostitutes had gone missing. They also learned that Unterweger had visited Prague in September 1990. A call to Czech authorities revealed that they had an unsolved murder of a young woman, Blanka Bockova, dating from that time. When found by the bank of the Vitava River, her body had a pair of grey stockings knotted around the neck.

After he returned from Los Angeles, Unterweger was questioned by officers of the criminal investigation bureau. One of the officers already knew the suspect as he’d been interviewed by the celebrity author for one of the articles he’d written on the murders. Unterweger denied knowing any of the prostitutes, saying that his knowledge of their respective fates was limited to what he’d found through his work as a journalist. He was let go due to lack of evidence. Soon thereafter, he resumed his attacks in print for what he described as the mishandling of the case.

In their hunt for evidence, the police discovered that Unterweger had sold the car he’d first bought after his release from prison. With the permission of the new owner, they went through the vehicle and discovered a hair fragment which, through DNA testing, was shown to be that of Blanka Bockova. With the hair sample, investigators now had enough to obtain a search warrant for Unterweger’s apartment.

A call to the Los Angeles Police Department brought news that three prostitutes had been strangled during Unterweger’s time in the city.

When Austrian police moved in to arrest Unterweger, they discovered that he had left the city, ostensibly to holiday with Bianca Mrak, his 18-year-old girlfriend. In reality, he was fleeing to avoid arrest. Unterweger managed to enter the United States by lying about his previous murder conviction. He settled with Mrak in Miami, from where he launched a campaign against the Austrian authorities. At the centre of his fight was the accusation that the police were fabricating evidence in an attempt to frame him. Connections in the media were called upon in an effort to have his version of events published.

On 27 February 1992, Unterweger was arrested by United States marshals after he picked up money that had been wired to him. They arrested him on the grounds that, in lying about his 1974 murder conviction, he had entered the country illegally. He fought deportation until he learned that California, the state in which he was suspected of murdering three prostitutes, had the death penalty.

On 28 May, he was returned to Austria. There Unterweger was subject to a law which permitted him to be charged for the murders he was accused of committing both inside and outside of the country’s borders – 11 in total. Awaiting trial, Unterweger gave interviews and wrote letters to the media in which he professed his innocence. He was convinced that the public was on his side. However, the tide had long since begun to turn; even his former friends in the media doubted his innocence. Unterweger went on trial in June 1994 with the conviction that his popularity and charm would win over the jury.

On 29 June 1994, Unterweger was found guilty of all but two charges of murder. He was sentenced to life in prison without parole. That evening Unterweger used the string of his prison jumpsuit to hang himself. The knot he tied was the very same one he’d used on his victims.

JEFFREY DAHMER

In the very early morning of 27 May 1991, a naked boy was spotted staggering on a city street in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. His body bore signs of trauma and he appeared to be in a confused state. Paramedics arrived on the scene, followed closely by three members of the Milwaukee Police Department. They were met by a tall blond man who identified himself as Jeffrey Dahmer. The naked boy, Dahmer claimed, was his 19-year-old lover. He explained the boy’s incoherence by saying that they had been drinking, adding that his ‘lover’ had wandered off while he was out buying more beer.

The officers accompanied Dahmer and the boy back to the apartment. There they found photographs of the boy in his underwear. The teenager was made to sit on the couch, next to his folded clothing. Against the boy’s objections, he was left in the care of Dahmer. The police then left the apartment – a flat later described as well-kept and neat, though it did have an unpleasant odour.

The boy they left behind wasn’t 19, as Dahmer had claimed, but a 14-year-old named Konerak Sinthasomphone. He was anything but Dahmer’s lover. In the hours following Sinthasomphone’s return, courtesy of the Milwaukee police, Dahmer strangled and dismembered the boy, but not before having sex with his corpse. His skull was kept as a souvenir. Dahmer would later provide an explanation for the boy’s confused state by revealing that he had drilled a hole in the teenager’s skull.

Four more young men would share similar fates, all at the hands of the tall blond man who, within two months, would become one of the most infamous serial killers in American history.

Dahmer was born in Milwaukee on 21 May 1960. Very much a wanted child, he began life as a happy, if slightly sickly, boy. His personality dampened somewhat at the age of 6 after he underwent an operation for a double hernia. That same year, the family relocated to Ohio, a move which troubled Dahmer. He developed a dislike of the new and unfamiliar, while at the same time becoming increasingly withdrawn and uncommunicative.

He was incapable of maintaining friendships, and preferred to be alone. Much of his time, it was later discovered, was spent on a secret animal cemetery he had created from roadkill found when cycling around the community. The centrepiece was a dog’s head he had mounted on a stake. The dedication and hard work Dahmer put into his cemetery was absent from other areas of his life. An intelligent teenager, lacking in motivation, he achieved nothing more than average grades, and began to drink.

When he was 18 years old, his parents divorced. Following years of tension and acrimony, the decision could not have come as a surprise. There followed a bitter custody battle over his only sibling, a younger brother named David.

Dahmer committed his first murder in June 1978, the same month in which he’d graduated from high school. The victim was a 19-year-old named Steven Hicks, a hitch-hiker whom Dahmer had spotted while driving. The two returned to the Dahmer home, where they drank beer and had sex.

When Hicks expressed his wish to leave, Dahmer, unable to bear the thought of being left alone, killed the hitch-hiker by striking him with a barbell. He then cut up the body, placed it in rubbish bags, and buried it in the woods behind his house, adjacent to his pet cemetery. Years later he would dig up Hicks’ corpse, pound it with a sledgehammer and scatter the remains.

His father soon remarried and, with his new wife, encouraged Dahmer to enrol in Ohio State University. He spent his only term there drinking. His father then laid down the law, telling his eldest son that he could either get a job or join the army. Continuing to drink, making no attempt to seek employment, in January 1979 Dahmer was driven to a recruiting office. He was enlisted to serve a six-year stint in the United States Army. Interestingly, he appeared to take to life in the military – at least initially. But after two years he was discharged, owing to his excessive drinking.

After a few months in Florida, he returned to his family in Ohio. Arrested for drunkenness and disorderly conduct, in 1982 he was sent off to live with his grandmother in Wisconsin. His troubles with the law only escalated. In August, Dahmer was charged with public exposure after drunkenly dropping his pants at the Wisconsin State Fair. Four years later, in September 1986, he was arrested for masturbating before two boys and was put on probation for one year.

The following September he committed his second known murder, killing 26-year-old Steven Toumi, with whom he had been drinking in a gay bar. Using a large suitcase, Dahmer managed to move Toumi’s body from the scene of the crime, a hotel room, to his grandmother’s basement. There he used the corpse for a variety of sex acts, before dismembering and disposing of it in the trash.

The next month he killed Jamie Doxtator, a 14-year-old boy who was seen frequently outside various gay nightclubs. In March 1988, he struck again, murdering Richard Guerrero, a 25-year-old who Dahmer claimed he met in a gay bar.

On 25 September 1988, Dahmer moved out of his grandmother’s house and into an apartment in Milwaukee. The very next day, he offered a 13-year-old boy $50 to pose for some photographs. The boy went to Dahmer’s new home, where he was drugged and fondled. The crime was discovered after the teenager’s parents, concerned as to his state, took him to the hospital where it was confirmed that their son had been drugged. Dahmer was arrested while at his job, working as a mixer for the Ambrosia Chocolate Company.

Grisly souvenir

Dahmer returned to his grandmother’s house to await trial. In February, he met a 24-year-old aspiring model, Anthony Sears, and brought him back to the house to pose for photographs. Instead, Dahmer drugged and strangled Sears. He then had sex with the corpse, dismembered it, and placed the head in boiling water. Once he had managed to remove the skull, he painted it so that those who might see his souvenir would think it was plastic.

For Dahmer’s assault on the 13-year-old boy, he was sentenced to one year of ‘work release’, under which he was permitted to work during the day so long as he returned to prison each evening. Though he pleaded guilty, Dahmer claimed in his defence that he had thought the boy was much older than 13.

In an awful coincidence, Dahmer’s victim was the brother of Konerak Sinthasomphone, whom he would murder less than two years later.

Dahmer served ten months of his sentence before being let out early for good behaviour. A letter from Dahmer’s father, urging that his son not be released until he had received treatment, was ignored. He was registered as a sex offender and began what was intended to be a five-year term of probation.

After a couple of months in his grandmother’s house, on 14 May 1990, Dahmer moved into his own flat in a complex called the Oxford Apartments. The following month he committed his sixth murder. He killed again in July and twice in September. There was then a five-month gap. His first murder of 1991 wasn’t committed until February. A 19-year-old named Errol Lindsey was killed in April, before Dahmer began the spree that would lead to his capture. May saw two more victims, the second being Konerak Sinthasomphone.

Then, on 30 June 1991, beginning with the killing of a man named Matt Turner, Dahmer began a string of murders averaging one every five days: Jeremiah Weinberger on 5 July, Oliver Lacy on 12 July, and Joseph Bradeholt on 19 July.

He experimented with various methods in disposing of the bodies, using a variety of acids and chemicals. The resulting sludge Dahmer poured down the drain or flushed down the toilet. He ate the flesh of selected victims and would often keep one or two body parts, usually the skull and genitals. Neighbours began to complain about the vile smells coming from Dahmer’s apartment. When confronted, he offered a variety of explanations, including spoiled meat and a dirty aquarium. The sounds of sawing were also heard. It was observed that stray cats swarmed whenever he threw anything into the dustbin. Yet, it wasn’t the complaints of his fellow residents that brought the killing to an end; it was Dahmer’s next intended victim.

On 22 July 1991, police spotted a short, athletic man named Tracy Edwards running with handcuffs dangling from one wrist. Assuming he’d somehow escaped police custody, they confronted him and were told that he had escaped a man who had threatened his life. He led the police back to Dahmer’s apartment. The horror of Dahmer’s secret life was finally exposed.