hollywood loves a psychopath however the ones we see on the silver screen rarely have anything in
common with real killers they're often portrayed as highly intelligent calculating characters
barring a few exceptions that's just not the case in real life the simple truth is that
many of them are able to kill for years without being caught because it's really
hard to find a murderer who has no close connections to his victims especially in
the days before dna and genealogy tests as you're about to see most of them are
hardly criminal masterminds and they all got caught eventually due to minor stupid mistakes
10. henri lanru skimps on train fare even though the killing spree of ori desiree landrieu occurred
100 years ago he is still remembered as one of france's most notorious serial killers known as
the blue beard of gambay landry's modus operandi was to seduce young wealthy widows and kill them
for their money luckily for him the first world war provided him with plenty of targets in 1921
he was found guilty of 11 murders 10 women and the son of one of his earlier victims but some suspect
that the total number might be a lot higher landry's downfall was caused by his own greed
he made several mistakes such as keeping detailed records of all the possessions and financial
assets that he obtained from all his victims and refusing to get rid of incriminating goods
even when he was being investigated instead he preferred to hide them hoping that he could sell
them later andrew's biggest blunder however was refusing to buy full price tickets for his victims
since he knew they wouldn't need them his standard procedure involved wooing the women for a few
months in paris until he gained access to their finances at that point he booked a journey for
the two of them to his country home in the village of gambay where he killed his victims and burned
their bodies but because he only purchased round trip tickets for himself it made it clear that he
knew ahead of time that the women would not be returning to paris 9. maury travis goes online
one simple rule for criminals should be that if you're not good with technology maybe don't try
to use it to torment the authorities take for example the case of maury travis a killer actor
in st louis missouri during the early 2000s after he saw an article about his spree in the st louis
post-dispatch the then unknown killer wrote to the newspaper clarifying that he had murdered 17
women not 12 as they had stated he wanted them to get it right so he included a map that led police
to the remains of another victim here's the catch though the map he used was computer-generated and
he downloaded it from the online travel agency expedia clearly he thought this was all done
anonymously but he was wrong once the police realized where the map came from they obtained
a list of ip addresses from expedia showing all the people who had recently visited their website
only one of them was in the st louis area maury travis number eight btk's floppy disk failure
while we're at here we actually have to mention the dumbest way that a criminal got caught due
to technology for over three decades the man known only as btk was one of the world's most
notorious unidentified serial killers right alongside jack the ripper or the zodiac
it looked like he would forever evade justice for his crimes until 2004 when he decided to
start communicating again at that point btk had been silent for over 10 years during the 70s and
80s he wrote letters and postcards but he thought that it was time for him to get with the time he
wanted to send something on a floppy disk but was unsure if they could be traced or not so
what did he do he asked the police yep the same people who'd been trying to catch him for decades
can i communicate with floppy and not be traced to a computer be honest shockingly the police
were less than honest with their reply and said that it would be fine and the truly dumbfounding
part was that btk actually believed them his next package contained a floppy disk which still
had metadata on it from a deleted word document last used by someone named dennis from the christ
lutheran church just like that dennis raider aka btk had been identified and arrested number 7. an
ill-advised tv appearance here's a useful hint if you are currently wanted for murder maybe try to
limit your television appearances to an absolute minimum this is one life lesson that wu gang
chose to ignore back in 2011 when he appeared as a contestant on a chinese dating show called happy
league under the name liu hau a music teacher who won over the audience with his song and dance
routine the good news was that the woman on the show picked liu hao over seven other candidates
the bad news was that a viewer at home recognized the music teacher as wu gang who was wanted by the
police for killing a man outside a restaurant in jian city 13 years earlier one anonymous call to
the police later and the dating show contestant had been arrested number six an untimely trip
to arizona over a one-year period during the mid-80s richard ramirez terrorized the city of
los angeles under the guise of the night stalker a killer who broke into the homes of his victims
at night he murdered at least 15 people before being identified thanks to a witness description
and a fingerprint found on one of the cars he stole therefore on august 31 1995 all newspapers
and tv stations in the city published the name and face of richard ramirez turning him into the most
notorious person in los angeles ramirez himself was blissfully unaware of this he had taken the
bus to arizona the previous day to visit his brother in tucson when he didn't find him there
ramirez boarded another bus and returned to la on the morning of august 31st just hours after his
face had been plastered all over the city he got out of the bus and casually walked past members of
the task force assigned to catch him they didn't spot him because they were busy monitoring all
outgoing buses nobody thought the night stalker would actually come back to los angeles when
he was the most wanted man in the city ramirez finally realized he had been discovered when he
stopped at a liquor store and saw his face on the cover of a magazine just moments later a patron
recognized him and screamed ramirez ran away in a panic and tried to steal a car but the locals soon
descended upon him when police arrived to arrest the night stalker they probably saved his life
from the angry mob 5. murder weapon in a mcdonald's bag the murder weapon can often
serve as a key piece of evidence that can secure an arrest and a conviction which is why criminals
usually try to dispose of it carefully of course that's not always the case as we found out back
in late 2017 there have been four murders in the seminole heights neighborhood of tampa florida the
victims seemed to be selected at random but they were all shot with the same gun therefore find the
gun and you find the killer we move on to a tampa police officer who is having lunch at a mcdonald's
when they were approached by one of the employees with a strange story to tell they said that one of
their colleagues hal donaldson iii had handed them a paper bag and asked them to bury it somewhere
where nobody would find it because they had to leave the state he also made them promise not
to look inside the bag but of course they did and inside they found a gun a 40-caliber glock loaded
with sig brand smith and wesson ammunition this was very much the murder weapon from that point
on the case was fairly straightforward the gun was matched to casings found at the crime scenes and
howard donaldson was arrested and is currently awaiting trial number four the urge to confess
here's another helpful hint if you're the kind of person with skeletons in their closet maybe
don't appear in a documentary about them and if you do definitely don't admit your crimes
while you're being recorded new york real estate mogul robert durst did the exact opposite when
he starred in a 2015 mini-series titled the jinx about some unsolved deaths in his life first his
wife who disappeared in 1982 then his close friend susan berman who was shot execution style in 2000
and finally his neighbor who was killed and dismembered in 2001. as far as the third one
was concerned erst actually admitted to it back in 2003 but claimed self-defense and was only found
guilty of evidence tampering the other two however remained unsolved and because durst had always
been suspected he thought he would take part in the documentary and finally clear the air which
he did just not in the way he expected during a bathroom break durst forgot that he had a live mic
on and while rambling in front of the bathroom mirror he admitted to killing them all this
became the gotcha moment of the documentary and unsurprisingly official charges came after a dead
durst tried to claim that he was high on meth as a defense but it didn't work and he was found guilty
of first degree murder number three name and address please most criminals try to leave as few
things as possible behind at a crime scene that could be traced back to them normally we would be
referring to things like fingerprints or dna but in the case of peter goebbels we have to be a bit
more basic because he made the mistake of leaving his id behind active during the mid-1980s goebbels
raped and strangled four women in berlin while the homicide unit was investigating
the murders another division was dealing with an attempted rape where the criminal was scared
off by bystanders and took off running dropping his identification on the ground he was 23 year
old factory worker peter goebbels who admitted to the rape but denied any involvement in the murders
however a witness identified him and he got life in prison number two a barbershop blunder earl
nelson is one of the most ruthless killers that you've probably never heard of convicted and
executed in 1928 of 22 murders he was suspected in several other slayings and may have been north
america's most prolific killer of the early 20th century he was often referred to in newspapers
as the guerrilla man or the gorilla killer due to his giant freakishly strong hands which he used to
strangle his victims towards the end of his crime spree nelson fled to canada to evade the police
where he continued killing he was identified with the help of a barber from winnipeg manitoba canada
the location of nelson's final murders the barber remembered him because he came into his shop for
a shave and a haircut with dried blood in his hair even back then this was highly suspicious so when
the barber heard the police were looking for a killer in the city he gave them the description
of the man and earl nelson was apprehended a week later 1. careful where you park it it seems
that the number one stupid mistake that foils crime sprees is bad driving there are quite a
few examples john rifkin drove without a license plate with a body in the trunk dude dead bundy
was caught driving a stolen car randy craft was swerving all over the road with his latest victim
in the passenger seat but probably the most notorious example is that of the son of sam
who was ultimately identified and arrested due to a parking ticket over the span of one year between
1976 and 1977 the son of sam unleashed terror on new york city by attacking random couples at night
but he screwed up at the scene of his final shooting by parking his car next to a fire hydrant
and getting a ticket he also left a terrifying impression on a passerby named cecilia davis who
was out walking her dog after she heard of the shooting she contacted the police and told them
of the suspicious man that she saw crucially she also remembered seeing a cop ticketing cars that
same night so police checked their records hoping they might get lucky and they did they found one
car registered to david berkowitz who lived 25 miles away from where the car had been parked
the search of the vehicle yielded the murder weapon bakwis was arrested and soon confessed
to being the son of sam so i really hope you found this video interesting if you did please
do hit that thumbs up button below don't forget to subscribe and as always thank you for watching