From careless evidence handling to bizarre communication attempts, history's most notorious killers were often caught due to simple errors. Join us as we examine the crucial missteps that led to the capture of some of history's most dangerous criminals. These blunders range from the bizarrely simple to the incredibly reckless.
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00:00Clearly not that familiar with computer technology.
00:03He handed the police a golden opportunity.
00:05Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we're looking at 20 major blunders
00:08that famous serial killers made that ended up getting them caught.
00:11Once again, it was a traffic violation that brought him down.
00:16Subletting his apartment, John Christie.
00:19Okay, just dump it here.
00:22Really smells bad in here.
00:23Soon get it cleaned up.
00:25This British serial killer has to be one of the dumbest murderers ever.
00:28Christie killed at least eight people inside his Notting Hill flat,
00:32then hid their bodies in various spots around the house.
00:35And then this guy, knowing full well that there were human corpses inside the walls,
00:39illegally subletted his flat to an unsuspecting couple.
00:42The landlord found the couple living there instead of Christie and kicked them out,
00:45then allowed another tenant to use Christie's vacant kitchen while he found another permanent renter.
00:50This tenant, Beresford Brown, was installing a radio when he found a hidden alcove in the kitchen.
00:55Inside the alcove were three corpses, and the rest is history.
00:59You're Christie.
01:00John Reginald Christie.
01:05I shall have to take you into custody.
01:08Come along.
01:09Involving the brother-in-law, Ian Brady and Myra Hindley.
01:12Described by the trial judge as, quote,
01:14Two sadistic killers of the utmost depravity, Ian Brady and Myra Hindley murdered five people in the early 1960s.
01:21These are known as the Moore's Murders, as the couple would dump their bodies on Saddleworth Moore.
01:26And then they decided to involve Hindley's brother-in-law, David Smith.
01:30Brady had become close to Smith and saw him as a potential accomplice.
01:34So he invited Smith to witness the murder of Edward Evans.
01:37Horrified but pretending to go along,
01:39Smith helped move Evans' body to a spare bedroom and promised to return in the morning so they could take it to the Moore.
01:45Instead, he contacted the police, who quickly found Evans' body.
01:48Keeping a burial plot map.
01:50Robert Hansen.
01:51Bob, we found this at your house. Can you tell me what it is?
01:56I haven't seen this. What is this?
01:58It's a flight chart.
02:00I'm sure you've seen hundreds of them.
02:01Right. And what are all these little markings on it, these X's?
02:04Those are places where I hunt.
02:05Bob, why is this one and this one where these two girls' bodies were found and these two?
02:11This butcher was known for abducting victims and then releasing them into the Alaskan bush, where he would hunt them for sport.
02:17It's believed that he killed up to 37 people in this manner.
02:21In June of 1983, potential victim Cindy Paulson escaped from Hansen and contacted the police.
02:27While they didn't believe her story at first, owing to Hansen's upstanding reputation and meek personality,
02:32they eventually obtained a search warrant.
02:34Inside his house was a trove of evidence, including jewelry and, most importantly, a map with 37 little X marks.
02:42These marks corresponded perfectly with where bodies had previously been found.
02:46Confronted with the evidence, Hansen quickly folded and spent the rest of his life in prison.
02:51You're saying, no way, those are just places where I hunted.
02:54Oh, I believe they were, Bob. Places where you've hunted.
02:57Yep.
02:58Fleeing an Accident.
02:59Eileen Wuornos.
03:00I'm gonna call an ambulance.
03:02No, see, that's okay.
03:02She goes, we don't have any insurance.
03:05Oh, we'd just rather, you know, deal with this ourselves.
03:08The rare female serial killer, Eileen Wuornos murdered a total of seven men.
03:12But her spree did not last long owing to some very sloppy mistakes.
03:16The worst of all occurred on July 4th, 1990, when Wuornos and her girlfriend, Tyra Moore,
03:21got into an accident while driving her victim's car.
03:24They quickly fled the scene, prompting an eyewitness to describe their physical details to the police.
03:28They also combed the car for fingerprints.
03:31As Wuornos had a criminal record in Florida, her prints were already in the system.
03:35And police quickly got a match with it.
03:38Wuornos was placed inside the vehicle belonging to a missing man.
03:41It proved to be her downfall.
03:43And she was arrested six months later.
03:45Let's go, Selby, now.
03:46No, no, I want to drive.
03:49Selby.
03:50The car will lose to a dead man, right?
03:52Robbing a supermarket.
03:53Danny Rowling.
03:54The wheels of justice may turn slow, but they do turn.
03:58You don't ask of justice, it asks of you.
04:01Known as the Gainesville Ripper, Danny Rowling murdered a total of eight people,
04:05although he's known primarily for the Gainesville killings of August 1990.
04:09And he was ultimately arrested not for the murders, but for robbing a local supermarket.
04:14In fact, Rowling had a long history of committing robberies,
04:17with the habit going back to his teenage years.
04:19And when he was arrested, investigators found various guns and tools in his possession.
04:24While Rowling was in jail for the robbery,
04:26investigators successfully matched tools and items found at the Gainesville crime scenes
04:31to the tools in his possession.
04:32And the collected DNA matched his own.
04:35And with that, a bungled robbery took down one of Florida's most notorious killers.
04:39His appetite couldn't be sated until such time as he began to commit the murders.
04:47Withdrawing a victim's money with her own card, Israel Keyes.
04:51Back when I was smart, I would let them come to me.
04:56On February 2nd, 2012, Israel Keyes killed his final victim, 18-year-old Samantha Koenig.
05:02Keyes staged Koenig's body to make it look like she was alive,
05:05and made a ransom photo, demanding $30,000 from her family.
05:09The money was paid, and Keyes, not needing it anymore, disposed of Koenig's body in a lake.
05:14But the money had been deposited into Koenig's account,
05:16and Keyes used her card to withdraw the money at numerous ATMs throughout the southwestern U.S.
05:22This was obviously suspicious, as Koenig had been the victim of a kidnapping and was now missing.
05:27Police used ATM security footage to identify Keyes' vehicle,
05:30and it was eventually found and pulled over.
05:33Inside the vehicle was Koenig's card, and Keyes was arrested.
05:36He talked about the rush that he got out of it, the adrenaline, and kind of the high from doing it,
05:41and I think, unfortunately, I think he enjoyed what he was doing.
05:46Abandoning a stolen car, Richard Ramirez.
05:49Fortunately for us, there was a young man that lived in the neighborhood that was working on a bike.
05:56He saw the car drive up, driving kind of slow looking around, and he thought it was funny,
06:01and then he saw it leave again.
06:02Most serial killers get caught eventually, and a surprising amount go down thanks to abandoned vehicles.
06:08In the mid-1980s, the Night Stalker was using a stolen orange Toyota to drive around Los Angeles,
06:13and on the night of August 24, 1985, he sped away from a prospective house after being caught prowling.
06:19The house's occupant, James Romero, took note of the car and reported it to the police.
06:24This car was later found abandoned in Koreatown, and police were able to lift a fingerprint from the mirror.
06:29It was matched to one Richard Ramirez, who had a long rap sheet stemming from other crimes.
06:34He was later found and arrested, bringing down the infamous Night Stalker of L.A.
06:38He says, San Francisco came up with the name Richard Ramirez.
06:44If we had a name, we could match that to that single print off the rearview mirror of that car used down in Orange County.
06:54Offering someone a job, John Wayne Gacy.
06:57Who are they?
06:58Hey, cops.
07:01Cops, why?
07:03I'm a very important man.
07:04Despite being one of the most famous and prolific serial killers in American history,
07:09John Wayne Gacy went down thanks to a bizarrely ordinary, almost anticlimactic mistake.
07:14On the night of December 11, 1978, Gacy was in Neeson Pharmacy talking to the owner about remodeling the store.
07:20There, he met his final victim, Robert Piest, and offered him a job at his construction business.
07:25Later that night, Piest told his mother that he was going to meet, quote, some contractor.
07:30When he failed to return, Piest's mother filed a missing persons report.
07:34During the investigation, the store's owner claimed that this contractor was John Wayne Gacy.
07:39Police then received a search warrant for Gacy's house, where they ultimately found his victims buried in the crawlspace.
07:44John, I'm sorry to disturb you, but that hideous stench coming from under your house is getting worse.
07:50It's moisture buildup in my crawlspace. I'm taking care of it, I promise.
07:53Writing a letter to his victim's mother, Albert Fish.
07:56My dear Mrs. Bud.
08:00What's it saying, Edward?
08:01As it dates back to the 1920s, no one really knows how many people Albert Fish killed,
08:06his body count ranging from as low as 3 to as high as 100.
08:10Either way, his spree ended when he wrote a sick and taunting letter to the mother of his victim, Grace Bud.
08:16Bud gave this letter to the police, and they saw that the envelope was stamped with an emblem
08:20representing the New York Private Chauffeurs Benevolent Association.
08:23There, they found a janitor who took some stationery back to his boarding house,
08:27but had left it there after moving out.
08:29They went to the boarding house, found Fish,
08:32and apprehended him after he attacked them with a razor.
08:34Is it about those silly letters?
08:38Yes, that's part of it.
08:40Let's take a drive and we'll have a little chat.
08:43Keeping Polaroids and body parts in the apartment.
08:45Jeffrey Dahmer.
08:46I gotta say, that smell is worse than ever.
08:50Is it?
08:55Well, you know, I had that meat that went bad.
08:58That little freezer I got.
09:00There's probably nothing a serial killer fears more than letting a prospective victim escape their grasp.
09:06After 17 kills, that's exactly what brought down Jeffrey Dahmer.
09:10On July 22, 1991, Dahmer took Tracy Edwards back to his apartment, intending to kill him.
09:16However, Edwards overpowered Dahmer and escaped before flagging down two police officers.
09:21They escorted Edwards back to the apartment and looked around, entering Dahmer's bedroom.
09:25There, one of the officers opened a drawer and found numerous Polaroids depicting Dahmer's victims.
09:31They quickly cuffed Dahmer and soon discovered some grisly remains in the fridge.
09:35Dahmer was quick to give up and later waived his right to a lawyer, readily and openly admitting his heinous crimes.
09:41For what I did, I should be dead.
09:43Parking ticket, David Berkowitz.
09:46One of the scariest modus operandi of serial killers is when they select victims randomly, as did David Berkowitz, a.k.a. the Son of Sam.
09:53Beginning his deadly spree in 1975, Berkowitz took the lives of six people and injured 11.
09:59Spreading panic across the city that never sleeps.
10:03In 1977, Cecilia Davis was walking near one of Berkowitz's crime scenes when she spotted a man next to a car.
10:10Something told her to run, so she did, hearing shots as she sprinted away.
10:15Davis eventually told the police about the incident and that the vehicle the man was using had a parking ticket.
10:20After checking the details, the cops found Berkowitz, discovered weapons in his car and arrested him.
10:25And sure enough, there were four summonsers given out.
10:28One of them to a David Berkowitz.
10:30In 1978, he was sentenced to 25 years to life for each murder.
10:35Missing License Plate.
10:37Joel Rifkin.
10:38In 1994, Joel Rifkin was found guilty of nine counts of murder and sentenced to 203 years in jail.
10:45Yet it's believed he may have slain up to 17 victims during his four-year reign of terror in New York.
10:50If it wasn't for one error in 1993, Rifkin may never have been caught.
10:55When the police attempted to pull him over for a missing rear license plate,
10:58Rifkin panicked and sped off with the cops in hot pursuit.
11:01He just kept driving, and that's when I initiated the pursuit.
11:06However, after over 20 minutes of reckless driving, the serial killer crashed his truck into a pole,
11:11allowing the officers to arrest him.
11:14Yet, as they approached the truck, there was a strong odor.
11:17That's when I noticed stench.
11:19When the cops looked under a sheet, they discovered one of Rifkin's victims.
11:23False License Plate.
11:25Peter Sutcliffe.
11:26Between 1975 and 1980, the north of England was in a state of fear.
11:31A criminal known as the Yorkshire Ripper had taken the lives of 13 people,
11:35a figure that was suspected to be much higher later, and badly injured several others.
11:40Yet the police had no leads.
11:43In 1981, Peter Sutcliffe was arrested after the police noticed him in a car with an escort.
11:48And while he indeed had a license plate, it was a false one.
11:51And discovered that the number plates did not tally with the vehicle.
11:57That rang alarm bells.
11:58The cops quickly realized Sutcliffe matched the Yorkshire Ripper's description.
12:03One officer discovered weapons dumped where Sutcliffe was arrested,
12:06and a knife hidden in the toilet at the police station.
12:09After intense interviewing, Sutcliffe confessed.
12:12Sutcliffe knew he was caught, and it was then he said,
12:16I know what you're leading up to.
12:17It's me, I'm the Ripper.
12:19He was sentenced to a minimum of 30 years.
12:21Which was later changed to a whole life tariff.
12:24Sutcliffe passed away in jail in 2020.
12:27The serial killer, Peter Sutcliffe, known as the Yorkshire Ripper,
12:30has died in hospital at the age of 74.
12:33Scratch marks.
12:34Earl Nelson.
12:35After sustaining a head injury as a child,
12:38Earl Nelson, aka the Dark Strangler or the Gorilla Man,
12:41began showcasing more and more erratic behavior.
12:44Eventually, it led to him becoming one of the U.S.'s most prolific serial killers.
12:48In just over a year, Nelson took the lives of up to 29 people throughout many states,
12:54including Washington, California, Oregon, and Missouri,
12:57and eventually ended up in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada.
13:00After more slayings, a search was underway for someone matching Nelson's description.
13:04With all this going on, he visited a barber.
13:07However, the worker noticed blood and scratch marks on Nelson, and they told the cops.
13:12Eventually, Nelson was discovered and arrested.
13:15In 1928, Nelson was executed for his crimes.
13:20Public Indecency.
13:21Arthur Shawcross.
13:22In 1987, Arthur Shawcross, later known as the Genesee River Killer,
13:27was released from jail for taking the lives of two children.
13:30By the following year, he began terrorizing citizens in Rochester, New York.
13:34Shawcross took the lives of around 12 people until 1990.
13:39At that time, the police had discovered one of his victims,
13:42and a helicopter was checking out the area in the belief the killer would return to the scene.
13:46They spotted Shawcross on a nearby bridge,
13:49seemingly relieving himself in one form or another.
13:52As the helicopter flew by, he closed the passenger door.
13:56After running his vehicle license plate and discovering his morbid history,
13:59the cops arrested Shawcross, who admitted his guilt.
14:02He was sentenced to 250 years in jail before passing away in 2008.
14:07I know something inside me is weird.
14:11Forged Will.
14:12Harold Shipman.
14:13After the Shipman inquiry concluded in 2005,
14:17it was discovered that Harold Shipman might be one of the most prolific killers in history,
14:21with upwards of 250 victims.
14:24Later known as Dr. Death,
14:26Shipman was a general practitioner around Manchester, England.
14:28He befriended older patients, getting them to leave money to him in their wills,
14:33then giving them fatal amounts of morphine.
14:36But when solicitor Angela Woodruff was told that her mother's will had left everything to Shipman,
14:41she got suspicious.
14:42She was absolutely astonished, because if you look at the actual will, it's so amateur.
14:46An investigation led to the police realizing the doctor's typewriter was used to write the will,
14:51as well as his fingerprint being on the letter.
14:53And that in an interview, he suggested that Mrs. Grundy used to borrow the typewriter.
14:59In 2000, Shipman received life imprisonment before taking his own life in 2004.
15:05It would have been Harold Shipman's 58th birthday tomorrow.
15:08The former GP thought responsible for more than 200 murders.
15:12Plumbing issues.
15:13Dennis Nielsen.
15:14Between 1978 and 1983,
15:17Dennis Nielsen lured up to 15 victims to his residences in London, England,
15:21taking their lives and then living with the remains for a while.
15:25But by 1983,
15:27a plumber was examining a drainpipe that various residents had complained about.
15:31The worker found a strange substance coating them.
15:34He discovered that what was blocking the toilets was actually human flesh.
15:38After an investigation,
15:40it was discovered to be human remains,
15:42and it led to Nielsen.
15:43On the 9th of February,
15:45blocked drains would lead to his discovery and arrest.
15:49When the police got there and searched the property,
15:51they found more remains scattered about.
15:53Nielsen had disposed of evidence either by a bonfire or flushing it in the toilet,
15:57leading to his downfall.
15:59He was sentenced to life imprisonment for six murders and one attempt.
16:03In 2018, Nielsen passed away in jail.
16:06Nielsen was totally matter-of-fact.
16:10Quite cold.
16:11There was no remorse.
16:12There was no indication of any remorse.
16:15Erratic Driving.
16:16Randy Kraft.
16:17In 1983, California Highway Patrol officers noticed a car driving erratically on the freeway.
16:23Understandably suspecting this was a DUI,
16:26they pulled the car over.
16:27California Highway Patrol pulled over Randy Kraft for driving erratically.
16:32As one cop spoke to the driver outside the vehicle to give him a sobriety test,
16:37the other checked the passenger, who remained sitting.
16:39However, they discovered he was tied up and wasn't alive.
16:43By pure happenstance, these officers uncovered the identity of the notorious scorecard killer,
16:49Randy Kraft.
16:50By 1989, Kraft was found guilty of taking the lives of 16 men,
16:55receiving an execution sentence.
16:57However, it's speculated he might have slain up to 67 people.
17:01At the time of writing, Kraft was still on death row.
17:04And that's where he is still, 73 years old,
17:09at the infamous San Quentin Prison in San Francisco.
17:12Stolen car.
17:13Ted Bundy.
17:14In early 1978, Florida was experiencing a series of brutal attacks and slayings
17:19within a short amount of time.
17:21And it all ended when Officer David Lee realized a car that had been reported stolen was in front of him.
17:26A man was spotted in his VW bug, acting suspiciously.
17:29While the thief attempted to escape by running away, Lee tackled and arrested him.
17:35It was soon discovered Lee had brought Ted Bundy to justice,
17:38who had escaped custody multiple times and committed horrific crimes.
17:42Ted Bundy was in custody again.
17:45But his capture would spell just the beginning of an extraordinary 11-year circus.
17:50After a series of trials for his crimes, Bundy was sentenced to capital punishment.
17:54While he confessed to killing 30 people and was confirmed to have taken 20 lives,
17:58there's speculation the true number could be much, much higher.
18:02In 1989, Bundy's sentence was carried out.
18:05While he confessed to many crimes, investigators say he recanted many statements
18:10and couldn't be trusted to tell the truth.
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18:28Floppy disk, Dennis Rader
18:30Between 1974 and 1991, several people perished around Kansas at the hands of BTK,
18:37a self-given nickname by the monster who taunted the media and police in his messages.
18:42But then, he vanished.
18:44Yet, by 2004, BTK began sending detailed letters to the newspaper The Wichita Eagle.
18:50Looking to receive more of his writings,
18:52the police convinced BTK that he couldn't be traced if he sent a floppy disk containing the documents.
18:57However, he could, and he fell for the bait.
19:00Specialists discovered evidence on the disk,
19:02linking it to a church and its council president, Dennis Rader.
19:06In 2005, Rader pled guilty to 10 counts of murder and was sentenced to 175 years in jail.
19:13Which mistake do you think was the dumbest?
19:15Let us know in the comments below.
19:17Cliff, go and get the police.
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