Serial killers represent a small segment of the human population, though it's hard to think of a
time when they didn't exist. Just about every century has had its share. With that in mind,
here are some notable serial killers who were caught in the 2000s.
Robert Lee Yates Jr. became known as "The Spokane Killer" after he left a trail
of dead bodies in his wake in Spokane County, Washington. Beginning in 1990,
he killed at least 15 women, but it's possible that he has even more unknown victims. He shot
and killed people who weren't likely to be missed, like sex workers, homeless women,
and drug addicts, then dumped them in places far enough off the grid to avoid immediate detection.
He would reportedly tell his wife that he was going on "hunting trips."
In 2000, Yates was arrested, and he then pleaded guilty to killing 13 women.
He was sentenced to a hefty 408 years in prison, but the charges didn't stop there. Two years
after his initial sentencing, he was charged with two more killings in another county. This time,
he was sentenced to death. He was awarded an appeal, but the original sentence was upheld.
However, in 2018, the state of Washington abolished the death penalty entirely,
giving Yates the opportunity to live out his remaining years in prison instead.
The nickname "The Chameleon Killer" has nothing to do with Terry Rasmussen's ability to change form
in any literal sense. Instead, it refers to his uncanny ability to adopt various
identities at will, like the alias "Bob Evans." He started exercising this power in the late 70s,
and in a way, he remained in disguise for several years after his death in 2010.
His true identity was ultimately revealed by a genetic genealogist in 2017. He'd spent time in
jail and prison under false identities before pleading guilty in 2003 to killing the woman
he married while going by the name "Larry Vanner." Rasmussen is definitively linked to
killing four people, though the actual number of his victims is believed to be much higher.
Rasmussen had a type when it came to his victims. He preyed on single
mothers and killed or kidnapped their children. After his death,
he was connected to a case in New Hampshire's Bear Brook State Park,
in which the bodies of a woman in her twenties and three young children were found inside barrels.
In 2016, genetic evidence proved that one of the children was Rasmussen's biological daughter.
"Angel of Death"-type killers can be found in the history books as far back as the start of
institutional medicine. They tend to work in the medical field, frequently as nurses, as they prey
on vulnerable patients in hospitals. Most opt for poison as the tool of their trade since it's less
conspicuous than pushing victims down stairs or dispatching them with a barrage of bullets.
Poison makes the killing of an already ill victim look like a natural, tragic death as
long as nobody looks too closely, and they often don't. Not until the bodies have piled up anyway.
In the 2000s, the United States had its own "Angel of Death," a woman named Vickie Dawn Jackson.
She would kill her victims, which numbered at least ten, with mivacurium chloride,
a paralytic drug that temporarily halts breathing. That was enough to kill off the
80-something-year-old patients that Jackson took out between December of 2000 and February the
following year. She pleaded guilty in 2006 and was given a life sentence for the ten killings,
though it's believed that she actually killed as many as 20 patients altogether.
Keeping mementos of victims is a common trope in serial killer movies,
and it's a practice of some real-life killers as well. This tends to lead to
an easier conviction once their homes are raided rather than if they'd simply
left well enough alone after committing their crimes. In the case of Maury Travis,
he didn't collect physical pieces of his victims, though he did keep a series of horrifying videos.
In 2002, Travis' home was raided after police received a letter about a series of killings
that contained a map to one of the bodies. In the killer's home, they found a torture chamber,
bondage gear, and the infamous tapes. The videos contained footage of Travis
torturing and strangling victims whom he'd kept as prisoners before killing them. Travis killed
himself within days of being taken in, so he was never convicted of his crimes, but the tapes that
he left behind offered plenty of evidence of his wrongdoing. He also even left behind a
note in which he bragged about killing 17 women. The police have identified 12 of them thus far.
"There's some families out here that have a lost loved one,
and they'll always be uncertain of what happened to 'em."
Lee Boyd Malvo and John Allen Muhammad were dubbed "The Beltway Snipers" as they
terrorized the Washington, D.C. Metropolitan Area for a three-week period in 2002. Using a
Bushmaster semi-automatic rifle, they gunned down ten victims and injured several others,
including an FBI analyst. The victims seem to have been chosen at random and killed out in the open,
which understandably caused a wave of mass fear to sweep over the area. One victim was shot outside
of a department store, another while pumping gas, and still others were killed while shopping or
going about other daily tasks with no reason to suspect that they were in any impending danger.
Malvo and Muhammad were caught by a task force comprised of just about every law
enforcement agency you can think of and taken into custody without a fight. Though the pair
were charged and convicted of killings that happened only on the East Coast,
they're suspected of shootings that span across the entire United States. Muhammad
was sentenced to death in 2003, with his execution carried out in 2009. Meanwhile,
Malvo, who was a minor at the time of the killings, received several life sentences,
though thanks to a change in Virginia law, he will become eligible for parole in that state in 2022.
"Juveniles who are serving life sentences in Virginia are now eligible for parole."
Starting in 1994, Sean Vincent Gillis killed at least eight women in the Baton
Rouge area before he was arrested in April 2004. Before his arrest,
he'd been a suspect in the case of a woman named Donna Bennett Johnston,
thanks to a matching pair of Goodyear tire tracks found at the crime scene. But it was ultimately a
DNA match that put the nail in the coffin of his serial killing career. When the police raided
Gillis' home, they found 45 digital pictures of his mutilated victims. With all the overwhelming
evidence that was available, he was found guilty and sentenced to life in prison in 2008.
Gillis' total number of victims is difficult to pin down, as there was another killer operating
at the same time and in the same area, thus why he was known as "The Other Baton Rouge Killer."
Derrick Todd Lee was the one called "The Baton Rouge Killer," and thanks to him and Gillis,
southern Louisiana was a terrifying place in the 90s and early 2000s.
Lee was found guilty of killing two women, while DNA evidence tied him to the deaths
of seven altogether. As with Gillis, it was the DNA that ultimately led to Lee's capture in 2003.
He was sentenced to death, but before he could be executed, he died of heart disease in 2016.
"There are dragons to slay, and Mr. Gillis is an example of that."
Ronald Dominique wasn't particularly memorable before he became known as "The Bayou Strangler."
At first glance, he looks like your regular nobody criminal. But his crimes were much deadlier than
simple misdemeanors, though he committed those as well. He was an overweight man with a heart
condition who frequented gay clubs and preyed primarily on homeless men. Before he ever started
killing, he'd been arrested for harassment, a DUI, assault, and forcible assault. It wasn't
long after he spent time behind bars on a 1996 assault charge that his serial killing began.
Dominique was arrested in 2006 for killing two young men, and then he blurted out a confession
that surely would've shocked anyone who knew him as a mild-mannered man who lived with his sister
and walked with a cane: he'd actually killed 23 men. Like most serial killers, Dominique had
his own particular M.O., but it's not what you would expect based on his physical appearance.
He wasn't particularly good-looking by conventional standards, but he
still managed to seduce his victims into coming home with him, often with the promise of cash.
Then he would kill them and dump their bodies in sugarcane fields or Louisiana bayous,
which is how he got his nickname. And the entire reason he killed these men was to
keep them silent so that he would avoid going back to jail for assaulting them.
"My opinion, Dominique is a chameleon. He comes across
as one thing to these victims, and the next thing you know, he's killing them."
Scott Wilson Williams, known as "The Union County Serial Killer," selected his victims
from what authorities described as a "high-risk lifestyle," a lifestyle that Williams also partook
in. One of his victims had been charged with prostitution and drug convictions,
while another one also had drug convictions. Williams operated in Union County, North Carolina,
and he's been convicted of three killings that took place in 1997, 2004, and 2006.
The bodies of his victims were each found shot, mutilated, and dumped near rural roads.
When investigators searched Williams' home after his arrest in March 2006,
they discovered a collection of handguns and a series of implements that included whips,
chains, handcuffs, and knives. He was found guilty in 2008 of killing each of his three victims,
and he earned one life sentence for each, but not until after revealing some other
gruesome facts about his deeds. He confessed to cooking the flesh of one of his victims with
cannibalistic intentions, only to discover that the smell of the meal put him off.
Michael Gargiulo , known as the "Hollywood Ripper," was arrested in 2008 for three
stabbings in Los Angeles, two of which resulted in death.
"Your name?"
"Mike Gargiulo."
He was also suspected of at least one more killing in Illinois. His trial received a fair amount of
media attention, unsurprising considering that it took place in one of the media capitals of
the world. The attention also had something to do with the fact that one of his victims was killed
shortly before she was supposed to go on a date with actor Ashton Kutcher, who testified during
the trial. Gargiulo was ultimately convicted of his California-based crimes in 2019.
His relatively small number of killings might make it seem that Gargiulo shouldn't really
be classified as a serial killer, but serial killing is all about the process. For years,
he stalked his victims and plotted the perfect time to attack the women who lived within a few
hundred feet of him. His one surviving victim detailed Gargiulo's attack during the trial,
as she testified that she awoke to him straddling her in her bed and stabbing her repeatedly with
a serrated knife. In October 2019, a jury recommended the death penalty for Gargiulo,
but as of March 2020, his sentencing has been continually delayed by motions from the defense.
Meanwhile, if convicted in Illinois, he would be facing a sentence of 25 years to life.
Terry Blair was known as "The Prospect Killer," which refers to
the Prospect Avenue area of Kansas City, Missouri, where his killings occurred.
His final run of terror occurred in 2004 when he killed six women.
At the time, he was on parole for killing the then-pregnant mother of his two children in 1982.
Over the years, he'd also been charged with two other killings, three sexual assaults,
and several other assaults, although all of those charges were dropped. Ultimately, Blair pleaded
guilty in a deal with prosecutors in return for them dropping their pursuit of the death penalty.
As it turns out, Blair is part of a family of killers,
as his mother had previously been charged with two killings. The first charge was dropped,
but in 1989 she was found guilty of killing her boyfriend. Meanwhile,
Blair's nephew Diamond was convicted of second-degree murder in 2013 after shooting
a victim during a robbery, while Diamond's brother was also charged with murder in 2002.