From Victorian London to modern America, these disturbing cases highlight a dark pattern of violence against vulnerable individuals in the sex trade. Join us as we examine some of history's most notorious predators who targeted sex workers, revealing how societal attitudes and police procedures often enabled their crimes.
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00:00Some of these victims, he dated multiple times before he killed them.
00:05Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we're discussing some of the horrific true crime cases
00:09where the victims were singled out due to their working in the sex trade.
00:13These people were not conscious, they weren't mobile, they weren't able to protect themselves,
00:17and they were engaging in sexual acts against their will.
00:21The New Bedford Highway Killer.
00:24Boyle says some detectives wondered if the killer intentionally dumped the bodies
00:28outside New Bedford city limits so New Bedford police wouldn't have jurisdiction over the crimes.
00:34Criminologists and other experts have come up with varying hypotheses
00:37regarding exactly why those in the sex trade are often targeted by serial killers.
00:42Some claim the demonization of this oldest profession is one reason,
00:45while others point to either laissez-faire police procedure or the victim's ease of access and anonymity.
00:50No one at the time of this writing has been brought to justice for the highway killings
00:54that shocked areas near New Bedford, Massachusetts back in the late 80s.
00:57You had the remains of a woman after a woman after a woman found along the two highways,
01:02similar situations, similar backgrounds.
01:06Ten official victims have been attributed to the New Bedford Highway Killer,
01:09women who all either worked in the sex industry or battled substance use disorder.
01:14There have been other suspects, but no arrests.
01:17I'm very, very surprised that this case has not been solved.
01:20The Butcher Baker.
01:22The interrogation room was ready for him.
01:24The goal was to keep him off balance, hoping to elicit a confession and avoid a lengthy legal case.
01:31It's unclear as to why so many news outlets and members of the media choose to attach monikers
01:36such as the Butcher Baker to killers like Robert Hansen.
01:38The man's otherwise unassuming name doesn't exactly bring to mind the shocking brutality of his crimes.
01:43Yet Hansen was allegedly responsible for attacking at least 17 women in the area of Anchorage, Alaska
01:49during a 10-plus-year rampage.
01:52I was watching national news, and there was Bob Hansen.
01:56I thought, what the hell is Bob Hansen doing on national news?
02:00And I turned it up, and it said, this is the greatest mass murder in the history of Alaska.
02:05Many of his victims were involved in sex work.
02:08His nickname of the Butcher Baker was connected to a family confectionery business,
02:12but Hansen's methods of execution were anything but sweet.
02:15He would often drag out the process, taking his victims to remote locations
02:19before releasing them into the wild, where they would be hunted by Hansen.
02:23I know what you did to those girls, and I'm going to prove it.
02:29It's going to be hard, Sergeant. I heard you were leaving.
02:31Dr. No.
02:32There should be no confusing the very real-life case of this notorious Ohio serial killer
02:37to the fictional James Bond villain of the same name.
02:39I only gratify your curiosity because you're the one man I've met capable of appreciating what I've done.
02:46And keeping it to himself.
02:48There's also some additional confusion with regards to whether or not Samuel Legge's 2019 arrest
02:53on unrelated murder charges might just connect the latter to Ohio's unsolved Dr. No murders from the 1980s.
03:00These killings focused upon runaways, hitchhikers, and truck stop sex workers,
03:04professionals that would then be abducted and strangled off-site.
03:07Legge was deemed mentally unfit to stand trial in 2023,
03:11and it remains to be seen whether or not any closure will be brought to these cold cases.
03:15The Sunset Strip Killers
03:17Detectives later found out that Bundy would go from trying to blow the whistle on Clark
03:21to the other extreme, as she began to involve herself in Clark's twisted pastime.
03:28The grisly details that can be taken away from the Sunset Strip murder
03:31read like something out of a horror or exploitation movie.
03:34Doug Clark and his lover, Carol Mary Bundy,
03:37let their own sexual fantasies evolve into real-world thrill killings.
03:40These were usually at the expense of sex workers,
03:43whose remains would often be defiled and debased by both Clark and Bundy.
03:48He sees all women as sex workers.
03:51These were just two teenage girls, and both of them ended up dying.
03:55Moreover, some of the victims had their heads removed and stored by the couple in their home.
04:00They even applied makeup to the head of one victim,
04:02Exie Wilson, before bringing it home as a part of the pair's sick and twisted crimes.
04:07You know anything about rigor mortis? Anybody in the room? Show of hands. Anybody heard of rigor mortis?
04:13A jaw locked like this? Frozen, supposedly?
04:17David Smith
04:17It was the Criminal Justice Act of 2003 that allowed British killer David Smith to be retried in 2023
04:24for the 1993 murder of a sex worker named Sarah Crump.
04:27This second time proved to be the charm with regards to achieving a guilty verdict,
04:31but it tragically was not the only time Smith would be convicted of killing other workers in this industry.
04:36Smith was found guilty in 1999 for a similarly brutal and brazen murder,
04:40specifically that of Amanda Walker.
04:43He's currently incarcerated and serving a life sentence,
04:45although the possibility of parole does come up after 27 years have been served.
04:50The Yorkshire Ripper
04:51The similarities were there.
04:54There was no doubt this time that we had a serial killer on the patch.
04:58He was born Peter Sutcliffe, but is perhaps better known by his moniker of the Yorkshire Ripper.
05:03This was a prolific British serial killer who targeted women and young girls.
05:07Some, but not all of his victims worked in the sex trade,
05:10and Sutcliffe was allegedly said to have, quote,
05:13heard voices that led him to commit these crimes.
05:15We always went, two, three of you together.
05:18We knew we could be the next victim as easily as anyone else.
05:22The Yorkshire Ripper prowled both Manchester and West Yorkshire during the mid and late 1970s,
05:27terrorizing the surrounding area for over five years.
05:30Sutcliffe was violent, unpredictable, and extremely dangerous, but he wasn't unstoppable.
05:36The Yorkshire Ripper was caught in 1981 and sentenced to life imprisonment with 20 concurrent sentences,
05:42eventually dying in custody on November 13th, 2020.
05:46What was really sad about Yvonne Pearson,
05:49and I think in a way underlines the sad lives that these women were living,
05:56was that her body wasn't found for several months after he killed her.
05:59The Grim Sleeper
06:00And they said, can you describe him?
06:04He was a little short guy, black.
06:07He looked like a guy who just came out of Circuit City.
06:10He had a polo shirt and some khakis on.
06:12It's unusual for the activities of a serial killer such as Lonnie Franklin to be so sparse and spread out over time.
06:18Yet the 14-year gap during which he was inactive led the press to dub Franklin the Grim Sleeper.
06:23Including that gap, his spree stretched from 1981 to 2007.
06:28A Los Angeles police investigation into early 80s sex worker slayings would eventually arrive at Franklin as a suspect.
06:34Franklin was arrested last summer after DNA evidence allegedly tied him to 10 murders dating back 25 years,
06:41most of them black women from South Central L.A.
06:44He was accused of being responsible for some, but not all, of the murders.
06:48Franklin was convicted on all counts, and the Grim Sleeper was officially sentenced to death.
06:53However, his lifeless body would be found in a cell before this sentence could be carried out.
06:57The cause of death remains unreleased.
06:59All of these people have been suffering and will continue to suffer, but hopefully, as many of them said,
07:07they feel they're going to receive some peace, and I hope that you are able to leave here with some peace today.
07:14The Green River Killer.
07:16You find bodies dumped in this context, in this environment, of a lot of extraneous material.
07:23What's evidence and what's not?
07:24He was one of the most prolific serial murderers in United States history.
07:28The Green River Killer, Gary Ridgway, was also perhaps one of the most unrepentant of his kind,
07:33an opportunist that preyed upon those in states of desperation and destitution.
07:38Ridgway possessed an obsession with sex workers that vacillated between disgust for their profession and a lust for their services.
07:45Yet the Green River Killer also allegedly held fast to his religious beliefs,
07:49resulting in an internal battle that seemed to rage constantly within him.
07:52Green River investigators say Gary Leon Ridgway has long been at the top of their suspect list.
08:00We ended our interview, allowed the attorneys to go in and interview him.
08:05Ridgway's methodology was anything but swift,
08:08killing runaways and hitchhikers in a manner that helped draft the Green River Killer into the annals of six serial killer infamy.
08:14The prostitutes were the easiest.
08:17I went from having sex with them to just by killing them.
08:22The side of them for me was like candy in a dish.
08:28Jeffrey Dahmer.
08:29Dahmer placed the blame for the murders on his atheistic beliefs and the theory of evolution.
08:36He said, if it all happens naturalistically, what's the need for a god?
08:41Can't I set my own rule?
08:42The victims of Jeffrey Dahmer all retained a certain body type that seemed to attract the Milwaukee-based serial killer.
08:49Some of Dahmer's victims also worked in the sex industry,
08:51although this wasn't specifically what drew the killer to stalk his prey.
08:55The backstories of Dahmer's victims did allegedly influence the police investigation, however.
08:59A combination of ethnicity, sexuality, and occupation that resulted in a lot of clues slipping through the cracks.
09:06After this all came out, several people in the bar said,
09:10I remember him. I remember him. Well, of course we all did. Milwaukee's only this big.
09:15Jeffrey Dahmer was given no less than 16 life sentences for his actions,
09:19but the killer barely served three years before he was murdered by a fellow inmate, Christopher Scarver, on November 28th, 1994.
09:26Sir, we're under arrest for the attempted murder.
09:29The man out there, you have the right to remain silent.
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09:48Jack the Ripper
09:51It was here, in the early hours of the 30th of September, that the body of a woman would be found.
09:57Her name was Elizabeth Stride.
09:59The complete lack of solid answers continues to haunt historians who have studied the case of Jack the Ripper.
10:04This killer's true identity might not ever be known,
10:07but what is known is that he seemed to actively seek out victims from the sex trade.
10:11Jack the Ripper's methodology was clinically precise, but callous and deranged.
10:16He also sent taunting letters to investigators,
10:19missives with a perverse sense of pride about the Ripper's brutality.
10:23Communicating with the public is not an unknown phenomenon with serial killers,
10:28because it makes them feel superior.
10:32This ghost of eternal evil unfortunately lives on within the minds of many true crime enthusiasts.
10:37But perhaps we should focus more on those who were victimized by Jack the Ripper,
10:42rather than mythologizing a ruthless killer.
10:44Six men died to bring it here.
10:48From Egypt.
10:51What are your thoughts about our collective true crime obsession?
10:57How does it affect us?
10:58And what does it say about us as consumers of media?
11:01Let us know in the comments.
11:02She was cut up like a pig in the market.
11:05I've been in the force in a long time.
11:08I never saw such a sight.
11:09I never saw such a sight.
11:11I hooked up like a pig.
11:16Let us know.
11:22I locked up like an episode.
11:27Bye bye bye.
11:32Thanks for this.