The 1970s weren't just a time of endless partying at the local disco. There was also a much darker
side to the era, as multiple notorious killers collectively targeted hundreds of victims.
Here are the most dangerous serial killers of the 1970s.
Joachim Kroll was convicted of a comparatively modest eight murders, though he confessed to
a total of 14. He blamed his behavior on an incident that happened when he was a teenager.
He saw pigs being butchered, which he claimed awakened his sex drive.
He transferred these unusual physical desires to both women and dolls, which according to him,
could not judge him. His human victims were also subjected to his cannibalistic desires.
Six other men were arrested over the years for Kroll's crimes. Police were eventually summoned
when the remains of one victim were found at different locations in his house. Kroll was happy
to cooperate with the police, assuming that they would give him the cure for his desire to kill.
Instead, he received a life sentence in 1982 and died of a heart attack in 1991.
José Paz Bezerra, also known as the Morumbi Monster, committed his killings from 1960 to 1971.
When he was growing up, his father contracted leprosy,
leaving him unable to work, so his mother turned to sex work to support the family.
Bezerra was in and out of juvenile detention for petty crimes until he turned 18,
when he joined the Brazilian Army. But he was accused of theft and lost his position,
and then he returned to São Paulo. He carried his overwhelming hatred for his mother into
killing women who reminded him of her. His good looks and easy charm helped to
lower his victims' defenses. He would leave their corpses in vacant lots bound, gagged, and abused.
Berrera was ultimately turned in by his girlfriend. She immediately
confessed what he'd done when she was questioned about a theft.
Because Brazil has a maximum sentence of 30 years, Berrera has been free since 2001. He's
said that his years in prison led him to reflect on what he had done and change how he thought.
Pedro Rodrigues Filho was an active serial killer for decades, from 1967 to 2003.
That's not to say that he was never arrested during that time. In fact,
prison was precisely where he wanted to be, as he killed fellow criminals.
He would also lash out at those who'd wronged him, such as his town's vice-mayor,
who had fired Rodrigues Filho's father when he was accused of stealing food from the school. He
then killed the presumptive real thief. He later also killed his father for killing his mother.
Filho's confirmed death toll stands at 71, but the actual full count may be more than 100.
Of those, 47 met their deaths while incarcerated alongside him. To this day,
he reportedly doesn't regret his murders. On the days when he didn't kill, he couldn't sleep.
Filho's total prison sentence reached a total of 400 years. But because of Brazil's maximum limit,
he served his 30 years and was released in 2007. He then returned to prison in 2011 for taking
part in six riots and having a 38-caliber revolver. He's since been released again,
and he now has a YouTube channel with tens of thousands of subscribers. His videos are mainly
about current crimes along with commentary about how children should behave properly.
Pedro López was known by the nickname the "Monster of the Andes." He's confirmed to
have killed 110 girls across the countries of Colombia, Peru, and Ecuador. In 1980,
he led the police to over 50 graves. It's possible that he killed 350 girls in total.
In 1978, López was captured by the indigenous Ayacucho community. They buried him up to his
neck and covered his head with syrup, intending to let ants eat him alive. But an American missionary
stopped this, promising that she would bring him to the police. Either she or the Peruvian police
drove to the border of Columbia and released Lopez, where he immediately resumed killing.
Lopez served only 14 years for his crimes, as he received time off for good behavior.
In 1994, he was deported to Colombia, where he was institutionalized. In February 1998,
he was declared sane and released on $50 bail. Nobody knows where he is today,
although he may be connected to a killing that happened in 2002.
In an interview with Edit International, he forebodingly said,
"Someday, when I am released. I will feel that moment again.
I will be happy to kill again. It is my mission."
Born in 1940, Samuel Little's criminal career started in 1956. When he was a child,
he fantasized about strangling women. By 1975, he'd been arrested 26 times,
serving minor sentences. This encouraged him to escalate from assault to murder.
Little was a former boxer who could knock out unsuspecting victims with a single
blow before strangling them for his own pleasure.
The police decided that without stab or bullet wounds, these must've been accidents,
overdoses, or natural causes. Little was brought in repeatedly as a prime suspect in sex crimes
and killings, but the police released him to get him out of their jurisdictions.
Little was finally convicted in 2012 for killing three women between 1970 and 2005. In 2018,
one more was added to his tally. But he may actually have been the most prolific serial killer
the United States has ever known. He confessed to killing 93 people and was credibly linked to 60,
many of them sex workers. He reportedly understood that these women would not be immediately missed.
"So I just pulled her out the car, laid her on that trash that was left there."
In December of 2020, Little passed away at the age of 80.
In 1989, Randy Steven Kraft, nicknamed the Scorecard Killer, was convicted of killing
16 men between 1972 and 1983. Investigators suspect that he killed 65 others, all males
between the ages of 13 and 35. When he was arrested, the police found a coded
list of all his kills, referring to them by nicknames of places he picked them up,
initials, or outstanding features like tattoos. He had a predilection for Marines,
having himself been discharged from the Air Force after coming out of the closet.
Kraft maintained that the names on his scorecard were just a list of friends,
but photos of them being tortured were found under the floor mats of his car. His modus operandi
involved getting his victims drunk on beer that had been laced with sedatives. Then he tortured
them before strangling or bludgeoning them. He would burn some with cigarette lighters, and
if that wasn't enough, he would even remove their genitals. The judge in his trial reportedly said,
"I sat there for a year and looked at Mr. Kraft. I didn't see any remorse,
feelings, or regret. It was like he was in another world."
John Wayne Gacy is known as the "Killer Clown," and he did indeed have a gig playing Pogo the
Clown. But he didn't use his clowning to lure his victims, nor did he kill while dressed as a clown.
"The clowning was relaxation for me. I enjoyed entertaining kids."
From 1972 to 1978, Gacy killed 33 young men. He buried 26 victims in a crawlspace in his home,
which was so many that he eventually ran out of room. One of his methods involved
asking these young men if they wanted to learn how to escape handcuffs. Once he cuffed them,
he told them that the trick was that he had the key. Then he would take his time strangling them.
Before all of the murders were known, Gacy was suspected in the abduction of a 9-year-old boy,
and he was found guilty of drugging and sexually assaulting a man. He kidnapped another boy at
gunpoint and sexually assaulted him, but the assistant attorney general didn't prosecute.
Officials ignored it because Gacy was otherwise an upstanding member
of the community. He threw parties for the neighborhood, ran a remodeling business,
and as mentioned, performed as a clown. He also volunteered with
the local Democratic Party and even took a photo with First Lady Rosalynn Carter.
So many people wondered how he could possibly be a serial killer, but his record speaks for itself.
Witnesses called Ted Bundy good-looking and charming, thus allowing him to make a name
for himself both in Republican politics and to hide in plain sight as he killed at least
30 women from 1974 to 1978. His actual total number of victims may have been closer to 100.
Bundy claimed that his killing spree resulted from being rejected by a woman. Upon his breakup
with her, he began stalking college-aged women who resembled her. His method was to
wear a fake cast to get help moving something. He would also pretend to be a police officer.
He would isolate his victims before killing them and desecrating their bodies.
In 1989, Bundy was executed by electric chair. His last words reportedly were,
"Give my love to my family and friends."
"So it ended for Ted Bundy, 10 years,
28 confessions, millions in Florida's legal battle to end his life."
Carl Eugene Watts, also known by his nickname Coral, had an IQ of about 72,
which was exacerbated by an under-treated case of meningitis in childhood.
Ever since Watts was a young teenager, he had a predilection for killing girls. He may have killed
up to 80 people, though the police didn't connect them because he would attack in different areas.
He reportedly told investigators that he killed because the women had, quote,
"evil in their eyes." Once he selected a victim, he would kill her without ceremony.
As Detective Tom Ladd, who took Watts' confession, told CBS News,
"[He] probably didn't spend 15 seconds there even at the scene,
and then an hour and a half later, he killed another one."
Owing to a plea in Texas, Watts was adjudicated only for his last two surviving victims.
In exchange for a sentence of 60 years for burglary with intent to murder, he was given
immunity for 12 other deaths. Mandatory release laws and an appeals court lowered that by more
than 35 years owing to good behavior. There was a chance he would be freed, but he ultimately
died in prison of prostate cancer in 2007, which was perhaps for the best, as he reportedly said,
"I'm gonna kill again if they ever release me."
Dubbed the "Yorkshire Ripper," Peter Sutcliffe was convicted of killing 13 women. He also attempted
to kill seven more. He focused on sex workers, understanding them to be uniquely vulnerable and
unlikely to be missed. A voice that he claimed to have heard while working as a gravedigger
gave him a mission to rid the earth of them. And it wasn't as if Sutcliffe was the only one
who had such a low opinion of his victims. As Prosecutor Michael Havers told jurors,
"Some [victims] were [sex workers], but perhaps the saddest part is that some were not.
The last six attacks were on totally respectable women."
The police reportedly searched for Sutcliffe for five years,
during which time they spoke to a quarter of a million people and logged nearly 30,000
statements. Sutcliffe remained on the streets because this added to a backlog of 36,000
documents in need of filing. He was questioned and released 11 times by detectives and the police.
Psychiatrists initially diagnosed Sutcliffe with paranoid schizophrenia,
which meant that he had a diminished mental capacity, so he was sent to Broadmoor Hospital.
He was later judged sane enough to return to prison. In 2020, he passed away from COVID-19.
“Peter Sutcliffe changed the way people live."
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