a criminal's mind

a collection of known serial killers, what they did, who their victims were, and their stories.

warning: may contain nudity and gorey images

The Butcher of Kansas City

The Butcher of Kansas City

Jerry Howell, Victim #1 of The Kansas City Butcher

Jerry Howell, Victim #1 of The Kansas City Butcher

Robert Berdella–The Confession

While the possibility hung over their heads that Berdella might be sitting on a substantial number of unspeakable crimes, prosecutors mulled it over. They wanted to know how many deaths were involved, and the defense attorneys offered only the information that the final toll was no more than a half dozen.

Prosecutors decided to accept the deal and preparations were made to record everything that Berdella revealed. In a small conference room in the basement of the Kansas City jail, under oath, he described what he had done, and the final report, says Wecht (who read it), came to 717 pages.

It was December 13. Two prosecutors, two detectives, two defense attorneys, a court stenographer, and Berdella were seated around a table on folding chairs. It took three long, weary days, but Berdella finally told all.

The crime spree began four years earlier in 1984. All of the victims had been abused and all had died inside theCharlotte Streethouse.

The first one was Jerry Howell (Wecht spells it as Holwell), with whom Berdella had a prior acquaintance. They had engaged in a sexual relationship for a couple of months. Berdella said that he had assisted Howell in paying for a lawyer and Howell had refused to pay him back. Berdella picked him up on the evening of July 4 and took him home, where he fed the young man a variety of tranquilizers. When Howell passed out, Berdella had sodomized him repeatedly. He used a carrot or cucumber to continue to assault him, and then bound him to keep him at the house. Berdella went to work and returned that evening to repeat the assault. He injected Howell with several substances to keep him subdued, and beat him with a metal rod. At about 10 p.m., Howell died. Berdella claimed that it had surprised him. He had not expected this turn of events and he figured that Howell must have accidentally aspirated his own vomit, triggered by the drugs.

To drain out the blood in preparation for dismemberment, Berdella hung the body upside down by the feet. Because this excited him, he took a lot of photographs. Then he took the body down and used kitchen knives to cut it into manageable pieces. For some parts, he used his chainsaw.

To dispose of Howell, Berdella placed the pieces into bags. He then set them out on the curb, wrapped in several layers of paper and plastic, to be picked up on Monday with the trash. He also bagged and set out Howell’s clothing and the instruments he had used, to get rid of evidence. A week or two passed before he actually sat down and made notes about the incident.

The next victim, Robert Sheldon, had stayed at Berdella’s house several times, and showed up for the last time on April 10, 1985. On that day, he became a captive. Berdella did the same things to Sheldon as he had done to Howell, but this time he added something: an injection of Drano into the left eye. The idea was to permanently blind him to make him a better long-term captive. He also did more damage to Sheldon’s hands with various implements. When it seemed that Sheldon might be discovered by another visitor, Berdella put a bag over his head and suffocated him. That was on April 14, so he had been captive and subjected to these vile treatments for four long days. While Berdella cut him up in the bathtub and put the pieces out with the trash, he kept the head in a freezer for a few days and then buried it in his backyard.

Only a couple of months went by before the next victim, Mark Wallace, stumbled into the viper’s nest. Berdella killed Wallace quickly, after some experimentation with electric shock.

Under questioning about this crime, Berdella considered the influences that might have been a factor. He said that he had seen a film as a teenager called The Collector that had planted a dark fantasy in his mind (he was 16 and it was 1965). The man in the film, based on a novel by John Fowles, is driven by the need to capture a woman and keep her imprisoned while he develops a relationship with her. Eventually she dies and he decides that it was her fault. He ponders what he needs to do with the next captive to make it a better experience for him and then goes in pursuit of her. Berdella said that this movie gave him a framework for feelings he was already having.

That September, when Walter Ferris asked if he could stay at Berdella’s house for a while, he found more than he was looking for. While Berdella was injecting and torturing him, Ferris died from either an overdose or from the wrong combination of drugs. He, too, was cut up and placed on the curb.

Todd Stoops had stayed with Berdella prior to his eventual captivity, but in June 1986, he came into Berdella’s lair for the last time. Berdella injected him and subjected him to sexual assault, including shoving his entire fist into Stoops’ rectum. Eventually, Stoops began to bleed heavily, which was indicative of a rupture. Stoops developed a fever, so Berdella administered several different types of animal antibiotics. He also injected Drano into Stoop’s eyes and voice box, and continued to assault him. Stoops never got better, and on July 1, he died. Berdella cut him up and placed the wrapped body parts in the basement for nearly a week.

The last one to die, Larry Pearson, had been a male prostitute, whom Berdella said he had met in the spring of 1987. He made Pearson a captive near the end of June. Pearson was more cooperative than the other men, so Berdella did not have to use as much “discipline” on him. He said that he kept Pearson around as a sex slave for about six weeks. He even thought of putting the dog collar on him first, before he had used it on Bryson. But finally Pearson had apparently decided that enough was enough and had tried fighting back. Berdella knocked him out to subdue him and he died. This head he also kept and put into the freezer.

Inexplicably, according to Wecht’s report, he had dug up Sheldon’s head and replaced it in the ground with Pearson’s. Taking the skull inside, he had removed the teeth and placed the skull in the closet.

(Source: trutv.com)

When a parking meter attendant told police he saw a naked man wearing a dog collar jump from a second story window, it was clear that something strange was going on at 4315 Charlotte Street. Chris Bryson’s eyes were swollen and his face and arms were...

When a parking meter attendant told police he saw a naked man wearing a dog collar jump from a second story window, it was clear that something strange was going on at 4315 Charlotte Street. Chris Bryson’s eyes were swollen and his face and arms were scarred. It was Easter weekend, 1988, in Kansas City, Mo., when Bryson told police his strange tale.

He had met Robert Berdella on March 29 and went home with him. Once there, Berdella hit Bryson over the head, and injected him with something. When Bryson came to, he found himself tied up. Berdella not only sexually assaulted the drugged and bound young man, he committed torturous experiments on him, rubbing a painful liquid in his eyes, jolting his genitals with electric currents, and injecting his throat with drain cleaner. Berdella photographed the whole ordeal—and showed Bryson the photos of other young men he’d tortured, warning him that those who did not obey died.

The police’s initial search of the house supported Bryson’s story—and unearthed surprising and gruesome discoveries. In Berdella’s bedroom they found two human skulls, envelopes containing human teeth and a bag of human vertebrae, along with extensive notes on the crimes and a collection of videotapes and photographs showing other abused young men, including one who appeared to be dead. They found several articles about local missing persons, too, as well as the driver’s license of a missing man. There were also some unusual masks, and many books on occult practices. Outside, the searchers unearthed a body.

A second search warrant permitted investigators to search Berdella’s place of business, a novelty shop in a flea market across town, Bob’s Bazaar Bizarre. Records showed that Berdella had a short list of drug-related arrests and that he had actually been the subject of another investigation in 1985, due to his connections to two missing men, Jerry Howell, 19, and James Ferris, 25.

That there were 20 different men in Berdella’s perverse Polaroids but only a single body found initially perplexed police. Still, they identified the remains they had found, and Berdella quickly pleaded guilty to the murder of Larry Pearson. Then, he agreed to make a full confession if he were spared the death penalty and if his house not seized.

The death of Jerry Howell, his first victim, was accidental, Berdella told investigators. He dismembered the body, and left it on the curb for trash pick-up. Next, he subdued Robert Sheldon; when he was afraid another visitor might discover him, Berdella killed Sheldon. Walter Ferris, Todd Stoops, and Larry Pearson followed in grisly succession.

Berdella spent the rest of his life in prison and died there of a heart attack in 1992.

Berdella claimed that the film version of John Fowles’ The Collector, in which the protagonist kidnaps and imprisons a young woman, had been his inspiration when he was a teenager.
This book also appears in the Criminal Minds episode “The Fisher...

Berdella claimed that the film version of John Fowles’ The Collector, in which the protagonist kidnaps and imprisons a young woman, had been his inspiration when he was a teenager.

This book also appears in the Criminal Minds episode “The Fisher King”

Robert Berdella

Robert Andrew Berdella was also known as Kansas City Butcher was a serial killer who moved to your neighborhood in Kansas City where he tortured, mutilated and killed at least six men. A house where his acts took place still stands on 4315 Charlotte Ave, but I have no information on whether anyone lives there today.

Originally from Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio, Robert Andrew Berdella moved to Kansas City when he was 18. He enrolment in the Kansas City Art Institute was accompanied with illefal substance abuse which got him into a scuffle with the law after he tried to sell amphetamines to an undercover cop.

By the time he was 20, he dropped out of art school and started working as a chef for well established restaurants in Kansas City. He bought that house on 4315 Charlotte Ave and got involved with the community, like every upstanding citizen would.

Towards his late 20’s, Robert Andrew Berdella got to be very open about his homosexuality and opened a “Bob’s Bazaar Bizarre” shop at the Westport Fleas Market. The shop specialized in selling any items generally regarded as “bizarre”, including human skulls, witchcraft and occult books, knives and swords, jewellery, and whatever else was bizarre enough to fit in.

By the time he was 33, Robert Andrew Berdella got involved with an unstable Vietnam veteran but the relationship didn’t work out very well so he started picking up male prostitutes. Many of them were allowed to live in his house in exchange for little help with housework and cuddles when the lights went out.

When he was 35, Robert Andrew Berdella found himself a favorite gay prostitute – 19 year old Jerry Howell. His previous sexual encounters contained heavy sodomy, but it was with Jerry Howell when he took it to a whole new level. He used animal tranquilizers to keep the victim drugged up, gagged and bound him against the bed so he could sodomize him repeatedly and take polaroid pictures of the progress.

Jerry Howell died from asphyxiation on July 6, 1984. Robert Andrew Berdella took him to the basement, hung him upside down and slit him open to drain all blood out of his dead body. Once bloodless, his body was dismembered and pieces stuffed in a garbage bag which he deposited outside his house just before the garbage truck showed up. Unaware, garbagemen picked up the bags and took them to the incineration site disposing of the evidence for good.

On April 10, 1985 Robert Andrew Berdella met Robert Sheldon whom he invited home and allowed to stay for a couple of days. Burning with desire to keep his new acquaintance, Bob drugged him up the same way he did with Jerry Howell before and repeatedly sodomized his live, but bound and gagged body.

Few days later, the roofman came to fix his roof so to avoid the roofman hearing the moaning of Robert Sheldon, Robert Andrew Berdella suffocated him with a plastic bag. Unlike he did with Howell, Sheldon’s body was sliced up in a bathtub to allow for blood drainage and the disposal ritual was a bit different too. The body was dismembered and stuffed in a garbage bag, but this time the butcher kept the head which he buried in the backyard.

Mark Wallace was hired to do some yard work for Berdella. When the storm came, young man went to hide in a shelter so Berdella invited him inside where he had him drugged, bound and gagged for ongoing sodomy. The death from asphyxiation came a few hours later so Barbella sliced him up and disposed of him the same way as with his previous victim.

Todd Stoops was a male prostitute Robert Andrew Berdella used to use prior to his KC Butcher days. When the two met again, Todd was invited in the house of horror but this time never to leave. He was tortured and sodomized for weeks before he died of blood loss and injuries sustained during mistreatment. The disposal was the same – the garbagemen just picked up his bags and threw them in.

When his friend Larry Pearson ended up in jail, Robert Andrew Berdella bailed him out and invited him to stay in his house. Needless to say, young fella was drugged and tortured for 6 weeks but managed to bite his tormentor’s penis on Aug 5, 1987. He was suffocated to death with a plastic bag and Robert Andrew Berdella had to go to the hospital for penile treatment. Because sodomy was nothing new, doctors did not suspect anything funny and just treated the patient. When Pearson’s body was disposed of, Berdella dug out the skull of Robert Sheldon to keep it in his closet.

Chris Bryson was to be his next victim. This male prostitute was taken to Berdella’s home, was drugged, handcuffed, gagged and sodomized for 5 days until one day, when Robert Andrew Berdella went to work (dude continued going to work while keeping his boyfriends tied up at home) he managed to set himself free by burning through the ropes that kept him tied up and ran out of the house wearing nothing but a dog collar.

The police initially didn’t make a big deal out of seeing a naked guy with a dog collar, given that the community was known for people practicing sodomy but when they got the details out of Chris Bryson, shit started hitting the fan.

Upon arrest, the police charged Robert Andrew Berdella with seven counts of sodomy, one count of felonious restraint and one count of first degree assault. His bail was set at $500,000, but upon careful evaluation of torture logs and pictures taken by the torturer himself, one police officer suspected murder and dug deeper into the situation.

Large scale investigation was launched which involved digging through the backyard which revealed buried skull of Larry Pearson. Dubbed the Butcher of Kansas City, Robert Andrew Berdella pled guilty to 1st degree murder in the death of Robert Sheldon and to 4 counts of 2nd degree murder involving his other male victims. He was sent to Jefferson City, Missouri with two life sentences with no parole and four life sentences with parole. After three and a half years in jail, Robert Andrew Berdella died of a heart attack.

After his arrest, Robert Andrew Berdella claimed to have been raped by a co-worker when he was 16.

(Source: bestgore.com)

Robert Berdella–Victims

Jerry Howell, 20, July 5, 1984

Robert Sheldon, 18, April 19, 1985

Mark Wallace, 20, June 22, 1985

James Ferris, 20, September 26, 1985

Todd Stoops, 21, June 17, 1986

Larry Pearson, 20, July 9, 1987