"Dear Pastor Rehwinkel: I am very sorry to add this additional burden to your work."

That's how John List started his confession in a letter to his pastor in 1971. List went through numerous reasons - or excuses - as to why he had murdered his own mother, wife and three children.

John List was an accountant and a devout Lutheran who had severe financial problems such as a mortgage he couldn't pay and he was also quite concerned about… Continue

Right now I am reading Ann Rule's book "Last dance, Last chance" which is one of her many collections of crime stories. The main story in this book is about a man called Anthony Pignataro who was a cosmetic surgeon living a flamboyant lifestyle in New York State with his wife Debbie and his two children. The most important person in Anthony Pignataro's life was himself and he had little time for his wife or his children. He had numerous affairs,… Continue

Carlton Gary was born in Columbus in 1952. His father abandoned him early on and he grew up with his mother who moved from place to place and sometimes with his aunt.



He was only 16 when he started his criminal career, stealing cars and breaking and entering. He was convicted of firebombing a store because he… Continue

O.J. Simpson, Image via Wikipedia

Right now I am reading John Douglas' book… Continue

The wild, wacky, wonderful list of Gitte's true crime books is here!

Ann Rule:



Empty Promises, a collection of true crime files

Kiss me, Kill me, another collection

Bitter Harvest, the case of doctor Debora Green who murdered her two kids

Every breath you take, the story about Allan Blackthorne who had his ex wife murdered by a hit man

The Want-Ad Killer, about serial killer Harvey Louis… Continue

This is somewhat of a daunting task but I'm going to attempt it anyway because the subject intrigues me.

I am going to write about Andrei Chikatilo, the serial killer accused of murdering 52 women and children in the Russian SFSR (Sovetskaya Federativnaya Sotsialisticheskaya Respublika).



I have recently finished reading Robert Cullen's "The Killer Department" and it is a fascinating story. Chikatilo is probably one of the most evil… Continue

It is absolutely freezing outside and I am sitting here with a thick sweater on and a cup of hot chocolate with cream by my side. Somewhat of a contrast to the case I'm going to write about which is that of David Parker Ray and his girlfriend Cindy Lee Hendy. Scary stuff.

Parker Ray is also known as the toy box killer due to the fact that he would keep his victims in a torture chamber that he would call his toy box. This chamber was fully… Continue

Robert Colvert, working the night shift at the Burlington Northern train yards, was to be the first victim of Charlie Starkweather, the American spree killer who murdered 11 people in Nebraska and Wyoming together with his under-age girlfriend Caril Ann Fugate in the 1950's. Apparently Charlie had tried to buy a stuffed toy on credit for Caril and Colvert had refused. Starkweather returned to the Lincoln gas station a couple of times with a loaded… Continue

For years now I have loved reading true crime stories. Behavioral science really interests me and I'm drawn to people's dark side. Why do we do what we do? Most of the people I read about are defined as psychopaths and I'm going to explain a little about what that means.



A psychopath is a person who shows antisocial behavior and I'm going to explain more about what antisocial means in a bit. Psychopathy is a personality disorder, not to be confused with a psychotic disorder.The… Continue

An Australian scientist has been in London to take swabs from the envelope of "Openshaw letter", the one thought to be sent by Jack the Ripper to investigators.



Back in Brisbane he extracted the DNA and unfortunately the results were inconclusive but he managed to make a profile which concluded that Jack the Ripper might have been a woman!! This was also the suspicion of Frederick Abberline, the detective who led the investigation. You can read more about it here.



I find… Continue

I can't help thinking if I should just stick to watching documentaries instead of movies. Whenever I get my little greedy hands on a serial killer movie based on facts, I get so excited. And then so disappointed.



Yesterday I watched The Boston Strangler with Tony Curtis as Albert De Salvo (the strangler suspect). Curtis plays brilliantly but I thought the movie was very, very loosely based on the facts of the crimes.



A little about this figure known as The Boston… Continue