Parents might tell their kids monsters don't exist, but serial killers sure do.
And while no one's managed to catch the Boogie Man in the middle of boogying, plenty of serial
killers have been caught through the years.
Here's how several notorious murderers were finally stopped.
Richard Ramirez had a lot of creepy names, but the name that really stuck was "The Night
Stalker."
From 1984 to 1985, the Night Stalker broke into homes across Los Angeles and murdered
everyone in the house.
He terrified an entire city, and his reign of terror came to a halt thanks to an unlikely
hero: 13-year-old James Romero.
It was a hot, dark, August evening when the boy saw the Night Stalker in his backyard.
Realizing he'd been spotted, Ramirez drove off in an orange Toyota, which the boy described
to police.
A few days later, police found the abandoned car and lifted a fingerprint.
Ramirez's file was already in the system thanks to an earlier theft, and his photo was plastered
all over the state.
Ramirez didn't immediately realize his identity had been discovered, and when he finally saw
his face on the front of a newspaper he tried stealing a car to get out of town.
He was in East LA, though, and the people of East L.A. don't take kindly to carjackers.
Angry neighbors chased Ramirez down the street and beat him up.
Ramirez died in 2013 from lymphoma after sitting on death row for almost two decades.
Most famous serial killers end up behind bars, but there are a few who have escaped.
For a while, it looked like the Golden State Killer had done exactly that.
California was gripped by terror in the 1970s and '80s, fueled by the unpredictable violence
of a serial killer haunting the state.
This notorious serial killer would ultimately be linked to 13 murders and at least 50 sexual
assaults across California, but continued to evade capture.
One reason was because, at that time, DNA evidence was still decades in the future.
Flash forward to the 21st century, when California authorities decided to run some of the killer's
DNA against profiles on a genealogy website called GEDmatch.
And that's when they found a partial match, which meant they'd stumbled across someone
related to the Golden State Killer.
From there, it was only a matter of time before the police ended up on the doorstep of Joseph
James DeAngelo, a 72-year-old ex-cop whose DNA was an exact match for the man who'd terrorized
California for so long.
Jeffrey Dahmer is one of the country's most notorious serial killers, who was ultimately
connected to 17 murders.
He was able to avoid capture for a long time, until, that is, he picked up Tracy Edwards.
Once Dahmer had Edwards back at his apartment under the guise of posing for photos, the
killer slapped handcuffs on his victim and pulled out a knife.
Then, he started watching The Exorcist III, of all things.
While Dahmer was distracted watching the movie, Edwards bashed him over the head and escaped.
He quickly found some cops, showed them the cuffs, and asked for help.
Together, the two officers and Edwards went back to Dahmer's apartment, and that's where
they caught a glimpse of some grisly photos.
The officers grabbed Dahmer, cuffed him, and searched the rest of the apartment.
They found much, much more than just photos, including severed heads, barrels of decomposing
remains, evidence of cannibalism, and traces of 11 victims.
In a bizarre footnote, Edwards's role in bringing Dahmer to justice put him in the national
spotlight, and he was recognized as a wanted sex offender in Mississippi.
In 2011, he was charged for another crime: throwing a man off a bridge and killing him.
From 1976 to 1977, New Yorkers lived in a state of panic fueled by the serial killer
stalking the street.
He mocked the police while calling himself the "Son of Sam," and as law enforcement tried
and failed to catch the killer, the terror continued.
It all ended one night in 1977, when Cacilia Davis took her dog for a walk.
Davis was strolling through Brooklyn when a strange looking man stormed by.
He was walking awkwardly, as if hiding something in his sleeve.
Minutes later, gunshots rang out.
Shooting victim Stacy Moskowitz died hours later, but Robert Violante survived the shooting.
They would be the Son of Sam's final victims, because when Davis learned about the murder,
she remembered the oddball barreling down the street and went to authorities.
Davis also recalled seeing an officer in the area ticketing an illegally parked sedan.
After looking into the ticket, the cops discovered the vehicle belonged to one David Berkowitz,
who lived over 20 miles away from the murder scene.
Thanks to Davis' tip, the authorities focused their investigation on Berkowitz, and he eventually
confessed to the crimes.
Between 1974 and 1991, the self-named serial killer known as BTK, which stood for "bind,
torture, kill," took credit for killing 10 people.
He disappeared for a while but in 2004 he started up communications again, sending documents
to local news stations and letting everyone know BTK was alive and well.
BTK wanted to send all his letters to the police on floppy discs, but was unsure if
the tech was traceable.
He literally asked the police if it was possible, telling them to be honest.
Obviously, the cops had no intention of telling the truth, and when the killer mailed his
floppy disc, it was the evidence they needed.
After opening a document, authorities examined the file, and saw it had been saved by a "Dennis"
and recently used at a nearby church.
So when they learned that a Dennis Rader was a respected member of this particular church's
congregation, they ran a DNA test.
It came back positive, and BTK's reign of terror was finally at an end, all because
he couldn't help but taunt the police years after he'd gotten away.