More than three decades after the skeletal remains of 33 men were found beneath John Wayne Gacy’s house in a Chicago suburb, detectives have exhumed bones of eight unknown victims in hopes of establishing identification.

Gacy is known as one of the worst serial killers of all time. He murdered at least 33 teenage boys between 1972 and 1978 and buried 29 of them in a crawl space under his house located in the Chicago-area. Four others were found in Illinois rivers. He was able to lure the boys to his home with the pretense of sexual relations by sometimes impersonating a police officer. Gacy was convicted in 1980 and executed in 1994 at the age of 52.

The Cook County Police Department secretly began the process of exhuming the bones with the belief that DNA testing could solve the last mysteries of these horrific murders. Detectives are asking the public to come forward if they had a relative who disappeared between 1970 and 1978. Salvia tests could prove if the remains are a match.

“These are eight people that deserve more,” Cook County Sheriff Thomas Dart said Wednesday. “These are eight individuals who right now are nothing more than just forgotten people that were murdered by one of the most evil persons to ever walk the earth.”

After so many years, the relatives could be anywhere, so the sheriff’s department is setting up a website and a phone bank to field calls from across the country. Dart doubts that all eight victims will be identified. But he is confident that the office will finally be able to give some of them back their names. “I’d be shocked if we don’t get a handful,” he said. “The technology is so precise.”

Those interested in giving a DNA sample can contact the Cook County Sheriff’s Office at 1-800-942-1950 or www.cookcountysheriff.com.

-articles by Cavan Sieczkowski and Cheryl Corley rewritten and adapted by admin-

Serial killer Edward Harold Bell (72), who is currently serving a 70-year sentence for 1978 murder of a U.S. Marine, has given multiple chilling confessions from his locked prison cell of abducting and slaying eleven teenage and adolescent girls in the 1970s, describing crimes even now unsolved.

Bell is serving 70 years for the 1978 murder of Larry Dickens, a Marine who confronted Bell after he exited his red and white GMC pickup naked from the waist down and began masturbating in front of a group of girls in Pasadena. Dickens’ mother watched from her house as Bell shot her son four times, emptying his pistol, then retrieved a rifle to administer a coup de grace. The “program” killings, as Bell calls them, began well before then. The victims were young girls from Houston, Galveston, Webster and Dickinson.

In disturbing letters sent to Harris and Galveston county prosecutors in 1998 — but kept secret for 13 years — Bell claimed to have killed seven girls, including two Galveston 15-year-olds shot as they stood tied up and half naked in the chilly waters of Turner Bayou. But in the latest interview given in September, he changed the number to 11, calling his victims “11 that went to heaven.”

He named three victims from 1971: Debbie Ackerman and Maria Johnson, 15-year-old Galveston surfer girls and experienced water skiers who disappeared after hitchhiking, and Colette Anise Wilson, 13, who never arrived home near Alvin after attending a summer band camp. In 1998, Bell described murdering Ackerman and Johnson in letters written from a maximum security cell in Huntsville 17 years after the crime. They were last seen accepting a ride near an island ice cream shop from a man driving a white van. Their abductor tied them up, stripped them from the waist down and left their bodies in the bayou, records show. Bell maintained his serial killings were an outcome of a brainwashing program that compelled him to act like a “flasher” and then rape and kill the teenagers, six of whom were murdered in pairs.

Galveston prosecutors refused to present Bell’s written confessions to a grand jury. Harris County prosecutors never investigated the claims and subsequently lost the letters. And Bell refused to cooperate with police. Several investigators said not enough effort was made in 1998 to re-investigate the cases.“If you could get me immunity from prosecution of any kind, I could lay a lot stuff on you and I will,” Bell told the newspaper.

“The investigation certainly remains open,” said Sistrunk, who now works for the Brazoria County prosecutors’ office, “and what we can count on is that because of the work of (Paige), those before him, and other area law enforcement agencies that may become even more involved, we will reach a point in time where sufficient evidence will be made available to law enforcement that will let the case proceed to a grand jury for justice to be served.”

-article from Houston Chronicle rewritten and adapted by admin-

Police are getting an increased number of tips since they released sketches of two, out of five unidentified victims dumped on a Long Island beach by at least one serial killer, including a man dressed as a woman and a woman who may have worked as a prostitute.

Police have discovered the body parts of at least 10 people along Ocean Parkway since last December, at least four of whom are believed to be victims of a serial killer.

Click here to read previous post on Long Island serial killer case

This week police released composite sketches of two yet unidentified people, also believed to be victims of the serial murderer. The composite sketches depict a woman with long hair and an Asian man. Although only their bones were found, a forensic artist used the victims’ bone structure to recreate their faces.

The woman, dubbed Jane Doe No. 6, was approximately 5-foot-2 and was from 18- to 35-years-old when she died. The male was between the ages of 17 and 23 and stood about 5-foot-6. He was missing one of his top front teeth and two molars, and authorities reveal he was dressed as a woman when he died. Police believe both individuals met their demise about a decade ago.

A police spokeswoman said 22 tips have been received as of Thursday since investigators released sketches of two of five victims who remain unidentified. They also released photos of jewelry found on a female toddler found near Cedar Beach and the partial remains of a woman now believed to be her relative discovered seven miles away near Jones Beach State Park.

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Anyone with information is urged to call Homicide Squad detectives at 631-852-6396, call Crime Stoppers anonymously at 1-800-220-8477, text tips anonymously by texting “SCPD” to “CRIMES” (274637) or email information to www.tipsubmit.com. Suffolk County Crime Stoppers is offering a reward of up to $25,000.

-articles from longislandpress.com and Crime Examiner, rewritten and adapted by admin-

“Son of Sam” serial killer David Berkowitz (58), who murdered six people in the 1970s, will once again not seek to be released from prison, repeating what he has previously said five times since 2002, saying he has “no interest” in parole because Jesus has already made him a “free man.”

Since pleading guilty at his 1978 trial, for killing six women and shooting seven others, the convicted gunman has been serving six consecutive 25-years-to-life sentences at the maximum-security Sullivan Correctional Facility in upstate New York. He was first imprisoned at the Attica Correctional Facility and has served a total of 34 years. He has been up for parole every two years since 2002.

In a two-page letter sent to Fox News he wrote: “I have no interest in parole and no plans to seek release. If you could understand this, I am already a ‘free man.’ I am not saying this jokingly. I really am. Jesus Christ has already pardoned me, and I believe this.”

Berkowitz writes in his letter to the reporter that he is active in prison ministry, including helping with Sunday services and Bible studies. Although Berkowitz does not have access to a computer, in a website reportedly hosted by a church group at AriseandShine.org, his personal testimony page states that in 1987 he fell to his knees and cried out to Jesus. “I told Him that I was sick and tired of doing evil. I asked Jesus to forgive me for all my sins. I spent a good while on my knees praying to Him. When I got up it felt as if a very heavy but invisible chain that had been around me for so many years was broken. A peace flooded over me. I did not understand what was happening. But in my heart I just knew that my life, somehow, was going to be different.”

“Son of Sam” remains one of the most famous born-again convicted murderers in the country, but when he was caught, he says it was the Devil, not God, that informed his actions.“Sam told me to kill. Sam is the Devil.”

-article by Alex Murashko and Kai Ma from TIME, rewritten and adapted by admin-

Authorities on Monday requested permission to allow police detectives to take a voice sample of the man accused of being the Grim Sleeper serial killer for comparison with voice recordings from an anonymous male caller who had reported at least two of the killings to 911 operators.

Lonnie David Franklin Jr., 58, a retired sanitation worker and mechanic accused of being a serial killer dubbed the “Grim Sleeper”, was indicted in March on 10 counts of murder and one count of attempted murder. Franklin, 57, was arrested in July 2010 at his South L.A. home and charged with murder in the slayings of Ware as well as of Debra Jackson, 29; Henrietta Wright, 35; Bernita Sparks, age unknown; Mary Lowe, 26; Lachrica Jefferson, 22; Alicia Alexander, 18; Princess Berthomieux, 15; Valerie McCorvey, 35; and Janecia Peters, 25. Franklin, who has pleaded not guilty, is also charged with one count of attempted murder, apparently stemming from the assault, the only Grim Sleeper victim that police said is known to have survived. Franklin was initially suspected after police took a DNA sample from his son in an unrelated case and found that it closely resembled DNA evidence recovered in the “Grim Sleeper” murders.

Police believe he may have reported one of his own murders to police. “Obviously, we want to compare his voice, so we think he is the caller,” said Det. Dennis Kilcoyne. One of the calls that was preserved was a man reporting criminal activity in an alley where victim Barbara Ware, 23, was found shot to death Jan. 10, 1987. Authorities say they have at least one other voice recording but declined to discuss the case, saying it involved a crime that Franklin had not been charged with. Police say serial killers sometimes report their own crimes so they can hide near the murder scene and watch the commotion.

Los Angeles police said in April that Franklin may have killed eight additional women, including three whose photos and identification cards were found in a refrigerator in his garage.

-articles by Andrew Blankstein and Dan Whitcomb rewritten and adapted by admin-

Ted Bundy, one of the most infamous serial killers in history, noted for his intelligence and evil nature, has emerged again as a suspect in a murder. In 1961, 8 year old Ann Marie Burr was abducted and killed, and now the cold case detectives hope that DNA from Bundy will solve this case.

“Ted Bundy was one of the biggest serial murderers in this state’s history,” Keith Kameg, a spokesperson for the Florida Department of Law Enforcement said Friday in a telephone interview. “He often boasted that he had killed 30 people but there always a belief that was low.” He enjoyed the spotlight, and actually defended himself at trial. He was charismatic and that helped his cause, as he played victim, sporting crutches or a sling to lure a young female to his vehicle under the pretense to help him out. He took advantage and murdered many women, escaped from prison, and did it again, while professing his innocence the whole time.

Executed in January 1989, Bundy was linked to brutal murders in at least six states before he was captured in Florida after daring escapes elsewhere. He received three death sentences in two separate trials for three known Florida murders, perhaps the most famous of which was that of 12-year-old Kimberly Leach.

Bundy’s DNA profile was obtained recently from a blood sample he had given at one time in Florida. On Friday, his DNA was uploaded into a national database in the hope that the new material will help solve murder cases that have gone cold over the years. It was uploaded to the national Combined DNA Index System, or CODIS, database, where it will be stored with 10 million profiles from other felons.

“As technology gets better, there is a larger possibility that some cold cases could be solved,” Kameg said. “People want closure and law enforcement can provide that.”

-articles by Geno McGahee and Michael Muskal rewritten and adapted by admin-

A nightclub bouncer became Britain’s newest convicted serial killer overnight after he was found guilty of abducting and murdering a schoolgirl Milly Dowler in southeastern England in 2002. Police believe Levi Bellfield is responsible for at least 20 other violent assaults.

Levi Bellfield, 43, lured 13-year-old Milly Dowler into his apartment as she walked home from school in Walton-on-Thames, Surrey. He killed her and later dumped her naked body in a remote wood where he used to walk his dog. For more than two years after Milly Dowler’s body was discovered in woodland in 2002, Surrey police laboured in vain over one of the country’s most notorious unsolved murders. Despite identifying 256 possible suspects and speaking to 5,600 potential witnesses, they were no closer to finding the 13 year-old’s killer and the inquiry was going nowhere. There were no eyewitnesses, no CCTV footage and no forensic evidence to link Bellfield directly to the murder.

He did not become a suspect until two and a half years later, by which time he had bludgeoned to death a French student, Amelie Delagrange, aged 22, and Marsha McDonnell, aged 19, in southwest London. One of the officers investigating the murders of Amelie Delagrange and Marsha McDonnell in London had noticed that the prime suspect, a wheel-clamper called Levi Bellfield, had once lived near Station Avenue, Walton-on-Thames, the road where Milly was last seen alive. Over the months that followed, detectives became convinced that Bellfield was Milly’s killer. They also discovered, to their horror, that he had been under their noses all along, but had never been interviewed because he managed to avoid them on the 11 occasions they knocked on his door during house-to-house inquiries.

As detectives began to look into Bellfield’s background they discovered he drove a red Daewoo Nexia car at the time of the murder. A trawl through CCTV footage showed a red Daewoo driving on Station Avenue at 4.32pm on the day Milly was abducted. Detectives originally tried to charge Bellfield with Milly’s murder in 2006, but were told there was not enough evidence. It was only in March last year, when a CCTV expert was able to prove that Milly must have gone missing almost directly outside Bellfield’s flat, that he was charged with her murder.

Bellfield was jailed for life in 2008 for the murders of Amelie Delagrange, aged 22, and Marsha McDonnell, aged 19, and the attempted murder of Kate Sheedy, aged 18. His only motive appeared to be a hatred of women, particularly blondes. Another life term will be added to Bellfield’s prison sentence following the latest conviction. He is one of 44 prisoners in England and Wales who will never be released because of the seriousness of their crimes and the danger they would pose to the general public.

-articles from The Telegraph and Herald Sun, rewritten and adapted by admin-

Since December, ten sets of human remains have been found near Gilgo Beach on Long Island, and it has been concluded that this is the work of as serial killer preying on prostitutes on Craigslist.

Authorities in New York have resumed the search for additional bodies and clues in the Long Island serial killer investigation. According to Suffolk County police, the latest search has been prompted by aerial imaging that was previously conducted by the FBI, but their sweep of 11 hot spots in aerial photographs came up dry.

Police suspect the bodies they have found are the work of more than one killer. The first four bodies, found in December 2010 and wrapped in burlap, were identified by police as Craigslist escorts. The victims were later identified as Megan Waterman, 22, of Long Island, N.Y.; Maureen Brainard-Barnes, 25, of Norwich, Conn.; Melissa Barthelemy, 24, of Buffalo, N.Y.; and Amber Lynn Costello, 27, of Wilmington, N.Y.

Police subsequently recovered the remains of six others. A female toddler, an Asian male and two unidentified victims were found, as well as the partially dismembered remains of two other women, one of whom has been identified as 20-year-old Jessica Taylor, of Washington, D.C., whom police identified as a prostitute. Her torso was found in 2003 but her head, hands and forearm were found by police almost 30 miles away earlier this year. The sexes and identities of the unidentified victims are not yet known.

Investigators believe the first four victims are connected to the same serial killer. The others, they suspect, are the victims of more than one killer who coincidentally used the same dumping grounds. Some believe the killings are work of a cop, or two cops. The NYPD however denies the police is involved, and there are no suspects in this case.

-articles from http://www.huffingtonpost.com and http://www.reuters.com rewritten and adapted by admin-

Four people are dead and two others injured, after a woman opened fire in an apartment building, and then in a hospital in south-western Germany last night, before police shot her dead in a hail of bullets.

There was a ‘loud explosion’ around 6pm local time at a nearby apartment block in which the bodies of a man and a child were found. “We were playing with the children in the garden when there was a huge explosion that shook the house,’ said Ayed Centinier, who lives in the apartment block next door. “Firefighters were called out to an explosion at an apartment in a street near the hospital. Soon afterward, firefighters found two bodies in the apartment.” It was unclear what the relationship was between the gunwoman and the man and child who were killed in the apartment. They are believed to have been shot but investigators are awaiting confirmation from a post-mortem examination. A woman, allegedly armed with a weapon, was seen running from the scene of the blast into the neighboring St Elisabeth hospital.

The female killer then moved through wards at the hospital, shooting at staff and patients with a sub-machine gun. Police said two people were killed inside the hospital and that a police officer was seriously wounded. Investigators said they were relieved that no one else was hurt during the shoot-out in the hospital. “There was a very heavy exchange of gunfire in the hospital that had the potential to be very dangerous, but based on what we know right now … no one else was injured,” said a state prosecutor, Dieter Inhofer. The woman was killed in the exchange of gunfire shortly after she started shooting.

The police said the woman opened fire in the gynecology unit of the hospital and according to local reports managed to fire off several rounds during the incident. A motive for the shooting has not yet been established but at a news conference, German prosecutors said a domestic dispute may have triggered the shooting.

-articles by Tony Paterson and Jo Adetunji rewritten and adapted by admin-

Police are investigating a possible serial killer operating in Middle Tennessee. They are considering it, because of eerie similarities between at least three homicides in North Nashville over the past year.

Metro police have suspected two of the murders were connected, because they happened across the street from each other on 15th Avenue North. Also, the crime scenes are a lot alike says Detective Dean Haney, but he can’t talk about why as he doesn’t want to give too much information to the killer: “Just the similarities. The way they were found, the manner in which they died. We believe there are similarities there between both of these.”

In February 2009, a man working on the home on 15th Avenue North found the body of Angela Stovall. She had been beaten to death. On July 5, 2010, police found the body of 51-year-old Rosalyn Elaine Williams in a house across the street. She was also beaten to death – “There are indications that there may have been some criminal activities involved with both of these victims and maybe the suspect was somebody they actually knew,” says detective Dean Haney.

There may be other victims as well. In September 2009, police found the body of 33-year-old Virginia Faye Ivory. A neighbor discovered her body near another abandoned house on 23rd Avenue North. Ivory was seven months pregnant. Police said the women were transients who had criminal backgrounds, and it’s hard getting information about them - “Now that they’re gone no one wants to talk about them or remember them or have any information to share with us about that,” said Detective Haney. “We’d like to find someone who would say this person may be involved.”

Anyone with information is asked to called Crime Stoppers at 74-CRIME. You can also submit tips through their website at www.nashvillecrimestoppers.com

-article from newschannel5 rewritten and adapted by admin-