- Rest in peace, victims. But here we go.
- (React and Sharon laugh)
♪ (soft jazz piano music) ♪
- Hard pressed to think of a more foolish thing to do
at the scene of a crime that you just committed...
- I love his accent already. - (Simon) ...leave your ID behind.
- Oh, no. - (Simon) Aside from just staying
there and waiting for the police to show up...
- Oh, see? - (Simon) This is about
the worst thing you could conceivably do if you actually
wanted to get away with your crime. Bafflingly, this is exactly
what Peter Goebbels did. - Pete!
- (man) Goebbels was a serial killer and rapist in Germany
in the mid-1980s. - Ooft.
- (man) Police were building... - Salt of the earth.
- Oh, fun. - (man) ...when Goebbels
left the scene of his most recent crime,
dropping his ID card behind him. Despite claiming that he was
sick in the head, he ended up... - (chuckles) Yeah.
- Mmm. - You know, that's what they do.
They're not smart. Your adrenaline's pumping,
and it clouds your judgment. You're not thinking.
You have tunnel vision. And so, they leave things behind
or they forget that they're wearing their high school football jersey
with their name on the back of the shirt.
- Honestly, sometimes, I feel like in those situations,
it's like karma. It's meant to be.
- Like, he's off to rape and murder and he's like,
"Ooh, I better grab my wallet. I don't forget my ID.
What if I get pulled over?" (laughs)
"I don't want that on my record."
- (narrator) When the body of Russell Hammond was discovered,
aged 49, the two main suspects... - Oh.
- (narrator) ...blamed each other for his death.
Gareth Giles and Christopher Coulter both claimed they'd walked in
on each other strangling Hammond. However, Giles's lies
quickly fell apart... - Uh-oh.
- (narrator) ...when police found a meticulous 18-point
step-by-step plan for murder, which he hadn't even deleted
from his computer. - Okay. Step one, um...
kill him. Okay, step two.
Blame Bob. Okay! (laughs) - (narrator) It also emerged
that Giles had discussed with a friend of his
what it would be like to kill a totally innocent person.
The list, titled, "The Advocate Document,"
included steps such as... - I haven't said anything.
- (narrator) ..."and duct tape" and "burn or drown vic's car."
- Oh my god. - (narrator) With Coulter
actually working as his accomplice... - Oh my god!
- (narrator) Giles had implemented 13 of the steps.
In 2014, the pair were jailed for 25 years each.
- How about-- you know what? The last step on that
should have been, "Delete this file." (laughs)
- [Censored]. Just the common sense to not even delete it?
I think it's just, like really, they had a lot of confidence
in themselves. Like, he was probably-- "Oh, I don't need to delete this.
Nobody's gonna find it. I'll get away with it."
- (narrator) From 1976 to 1977, one man's killing spree
would bring the city of New York to a complete standstill.
- Really? Everybody just stood still? - (narrator) ...eight times,
wounding seven people and killing six.
This is how a $25 parking ticket brought down the Son of Sam.
- (gasps and exclaims)
- (narrator) The killer had used a 44-caliber Charter Arms Bulldog...
- Oh. Son of Sam. - (narrator) ....his previous
five attacks, attacks that had many other similarities.
Several of his victims... - Oh!
- (narrator) ...had shoulder-length dark hair...
- Oh! - (narrator) ...and were shot
while sitting in their cars late at night, many of them couples.
- Okay. - (narrator) But then,
in the late night hours of July 31st...
- [Censored]. - (narrator) ...1977,
Stacy Moskowitz and Robert Violante,
both 20 years old... - Great names.
- (narrator) ...were sitting in Violante's car.
But that very night, Cacilia Davis was walking
her dog Snowball... - Snowball.
- (narrator) ...around that same Brooklyn neighborhood.
A man had creeped past her holding what she thought
might be a gun. Moments later... - Oh, terrifying.
- (narrator) ...gunshots rang out. (gun fires)
- Terrifying. - (narrator) Davis noticed that
two officers had been... - So, it was a gun.
- (narrator) ...on the night of the murder.
And one of those parking tickets had been given by officers
Jeffrey Logan and Michael Cataneo to a 1970 Ford Galaxie for parking
too close to a fire hydrant. Detective James Justis
investigated the ticket and found that the car
was registered to a house in Yonkers, 30 miles away from Brooklyn.
The car belonged to a 24-year-old postal worker
named David Berkowitz. - That's what you get for that!
(laughs)
- But that's literally how parking tickets are.
They're evil. They'll get you. You know, if you have crimes,
your parking tickets will know. And if you don't pay
your parking tickets, it's a crime.
- That happens all the time. My sergeant I currently work for,
he did a traffic stop and pulled over Richard Ramirez,
the Night Stalker, for a DUI and actually booked him
the night before. And then, he got released
and then killed again and things like that.
But because that booking, they were able to link him.
- (narrator) When on the run from a murder charge,
you would probably think twice before appearing as a contestant...
- Stop! - (narrator) ...on a popular TV show.
- (laughs) - (narrator) Chinese murderer Wu Gang
didn't quite follow this thought process.
- Ha! - (narrator) In 2011,
he starred as an eligible bachelor on dating Happy League...
- No. - (narrator) ...Under the name
Liu Hao. - Somebody else--
somebody else-- some other serial killer in the '60s
was on the Dating Game. - (host) Number one.
Contestant number one, all right.
- (narrator) ...viewer recognized Gang as the prime suspect
from a well-publicized 1990s murder investigation...
- That's terrifying. - (narrator) ...who had disappeared
without a trace. - (chuckles)
- (narrator) The viewer contacted the police,
who subsequently reopened the case. Detectives determined that Gang
and Hao were indeed the same person. And he was charged...
- Jesus criminy. - That is the funniest thing.
- They don't think of the world outside of their own purview,
you know what I mean? So, they're just like,
"Oh, I'll just go on a dating show.
No one's gonna recognize me." - So, your face is already
on TV, and then you're like, "It's all right. Changed the name.
Doesn't matter. We're good." - I'm not gonna be caught, you know?
- (narrator) He terrorized a Kansas community
for decades. - Oh! BTK?
[Censored] that guy! - (narrator) ...BTK.
- BTK. - I love a good BLT.
(gasps) Bind? Torture? Kill?
- (React chuckles)
George! - Am I? Am I?
Yes, just a little bit. (sing-song) Just a little bit.
- (Simon) In 2004, the Wichita Eagle newspaper
wrote an article about how the killer
was likely dead or in prison since he hadn't
been heard from for so long. - Pfft!
- (Simon) Rader read this and became annoyed.
He wrote a letter to the paper taking credit for a 1986 murder
and then continued to send a number of letters
as well as puzzles... - Mm-hmm. "Well, I'll show you."
- Oh my god. - (narrator) Rader got caught up
in his own smug desire to take credit. In 2005, he sent a message
to the local TV channel referencing a package that he had left
at a nearby Home Depot. Inside the package were plans
for murders and a question. Rader wanted to know
if a floppy disk that he sent to the police could be traced.
He then asked them to answer him by placing an ad
in the Classified section of the local newspaper,
an honest answer. So, the police placed an ad
saying that using a floppy disk would be fine
because they are untraceable. And Rader saved a file
to a floppy disk and put it where the police
couldn't find it, confident they wouldn't be able
to trace it. - Okay, well, that's dumb.
- (narrator) They then, of course, used it to trace him,
discovering that Rader had actually used his own name to create
the files and had printed them out from his church's computer.
He's currently serving 10 consecutive life sentences.
- Oh my gosh! You expect more from the big ones, right?
You expect a little more. - Oh my god! That is literally
the dumbest thing. You're asking the police,
"Hey, can you trace this?" And they're like, "Ye--
...no?" And he's like, "Good!"
(laughs) What?! Why would they tell you?!
- You know, they all secretly kind of wanna get caught.
That's just how they are.
You know, they're just so in their own head.
- (narrator) He met his first young victim
in a pub on December 29th, 1978
and invited him home. - I don't like that. No!
- (narrator) ...as he had on previous occasions.
- No! - (narrator) The next morning,
overcome by a desire to prevent the young man from leaving,
he strangled him. - Oh!
- (narrator) Nilsen continued his killing spree, storing the bodies
of over 12 men all around his apartment.
He would carry the decomposed bodies to his garden and bury their limbs.
- Oof. - (narrator) In 1982,
in a desperate attempt to stifle his homicidal behavior,
Nilsen moved into a top floor apartment,
which had no garden and no convenient floorboards.
Still unable to quell his impulses, a further three victims were killed
in this apartment and presented Nilsen
with much greater disposal challenges, given the apartment's lack
of direct access to outdoor space.
- Oh my god. - (narrator) He overcame
these obstacles by dissecting the bodies into small pieces
that could be flushed down the toilet.
This quickly became a problem, clogging the drains
for the entire building. Once it was discovered
that human remains caused the blockage,
investigators quickly flushed Nilsen out.
- That was a funny little pun that they did at the bottom.
- I mean, that just shows you like how twisted their brain is
to be like, "I really wanna stop killing.
I gotta move." - Like, he really thought
he could flush down bones? What are you doing?
And also, imagine literally staring at somebody's body part,
leg, arm, whatever. (whistles happily)
- (React laughs)
- (Simon) When 22-year-old Jamie Fraley went missing,
police were interested in speaking to a man
named Ricky Simonds, Sr. about her disappearance.
Jamie's mother believed... - This was definitely in the '90s.
- (Simon) ...what happened to her daughter
as the 49-year-old man was the last person to see her alive
as far as anyone knew. He was a person of interest
and very likely would have been questioned by the police
regarding Fraley's disappearance. However, Simonds threw a wrench
into the works. Before Simonds could be questioned
regarding the disappearance, he was found dead
in the trunk of a car.
Worded like that... - What?!
- (narrator) ...it sounds like perhaps somebody
had killed him to cover up a bigger crime,
but that's not actually what seems to have happened.
The trunk Simonds was found in belonged to his ex-girlfriend.
She was the one who discovered him there
and was as surprised as anyone. As far as the police
were able to figure out, Simonds had actually
hidden in the trunk with the intention
of killing his ex-girlfriend. However, he got locked inside
and died from the heat. - Oh, he killed himself.
- So, he's the reason why there's that safety latch
in the trunk. - Instant kar-ma.
Mm-hmm. - (React applauds)
This episode is over. Thanks for watching.
- Yeah. - (React and George laugh)
- Like, I hate-- the other part that I hate
is I'm like, I'm mad as hell that you got killed
by somebody that dumb. Like, what the hell, man?
- I don't know. They're all really dumb.
I mean, maybe the last one in the car was kind of the dumbest.
- What were the other seven steps? Oh, blame Chuck.