True Crime With Caledonian Kitty

(A recent mugshot of Dennis Rader. Picture credit: reddit)

In this final instalment in my '10 Facts You May Not Know About Serial Killers' series, the focus is on the infamous Dennis Rader otherwise known as BTK. If you haven't had a chance over the past weeks to check out the individuals that I have covered in this series, please see the posts below:

- Ted Bundy

- John Wayne Gacy

- Richard Ramirez

- Jeffrey Dahmer

- Aileen Wuornos

- Dennis Nilsen

Also, check out the post I had written about BTK some time ago here.

So, let's get into this final instalment....

1) BTK stands for Bind, Torture, Kill. Dennis Rader gave himself this nickname.

2) Like a lot of serial killers before and since BTK, Dennis would have a horrific hobby of torturing animals as a child. He fixated on cats as his main target.

3) Dennis was accidentally dropped on his head as a child and it is believed that this event may have caused long lasting brain damage which would later affect his ability to feel remorse as well as his bizarre and sickening activities. 

4) Dennis saw the infamous serial killer Ted Bundy as an inspiration.

5) Dennis would stalk his victims for weeks, sometimes months and would view them as projects. Some victims were later murdered and some luckily never met an unfortunate end as they'd been able to somehow avoid him by chance of not being home on a particular day. 

6) He has never shown any remorse for his crimes and when questioned about the horrendous things that he has done, he is so cavalier about it. 

7) During the attack and murder of one of his victims he locked her children in the bathroom. 

8) Dennis Rader was very open about his crimes and confessed in chilling details about what took place. 

9) Dennis's daughter Kerri often speaks publicly not only about her relationship with her father (which she also documented in the book: A Serial Killer's Daughter) but is supportive to victims of crime. 

10) Dennis Rader is still alive and well in prison. He was given 10 life sentences but was not placed on Death Row due to it not being reinstated at the time. 

My heart goes out to the victims and survivors of Dennis Rader. The story of BTK will forever be a horrifying and disturbing case which none of us will ever come to understand. 

Further Reading & Sources:

Thank you so much for joining me these past 7 weeks in this series, I hope that you found each of these posts informative. I will be taking a break for this coming week but I will be back with a new series in July of which I hope you'll continue to join me. 

Stay safe.....until next time x 

(Dennis Nilsen. Picture credit: imdb)

When some people talk about Dennis Nilsen, they often refer to him as the UK's version of Jeffrey Dahmer. There are similarities between the two but unlike Jeffrey, Dennis is often not spoken about as much or as over-glamourized. I've mentioned the crimes of Dennis Nilsen briefly on this blog in the past but I will be doing a more in-depth post on him soon. In the meantime, here is the sixth instalment in my '10 Facts You May Not Know About Serial Killer...' series and the focus is on UK serial killer, Dennis Andrew Nilsen.

1) Dennis was born on the 23rd of November 1945 in Fraserburgh, Scotland. 

2) He was said to have been responsible for the gruesome murders of 15 men and boys, possibly more. As with a lot of serial killers, nobody can ever be 100% sure of the exact number of victims.

3) When it came to nicknames often given to serial killers by the media, Dennis was often referred to as 'The Muswell Hill Murderer' but is mostly just known by his real name, Dennis Nilsen.

4) Due to the fact that Nilsen committed his crimes in the UK and was a UK native, his sentence was not death but life imprisonment no matter how disturbing his crimes had been. The death penalty was suspended by the UK in 1964 and officially made illegal in 1998. 

5) Nilsen died at the age of 72 due to complications following surgery on his abdominal area. 

6) Nilsen's crimes were discovered when a local plumber was sent out to the property he was living in. The drains had been blocked due to the gruesome practice of Dennis flushing human remains down the toilet. 

7) He had spent some time in the Army and trained as a chef. 

8) He once worked in a Jobcentre as an employment advisor helping skilled labourers with employment opportunities. 

9) Brian Masters wrote a very detailed book about his correspondence with Dennis Nilsen whilst he was in prison. You can find the book here. A TV series based on the book was also later released to critical acclaim with the brilliant David Tennant in the role as Nilsen. 

10) Dennis had a dog that he doted on. After his arrest the police thought it would be best for the dog to be 'put to sleep' because they believed that nobody would want to adopt a dog that had previously been owned by a serial killer. 

As mentioned before, I will be covering the disturbing case of Dennis Nilsen in more detail so stay tuned for that. I hope that you found this post to be an interesting read even though parts were disturbing. 

RIP to the known victims of Dennis Nilsen. I know quite a bit about the case and I'm surprised myself that I haven't covered it yet. I know that there was also survivors of Nilsen, one unfortunately could never get over the horrific trauma that Dennis had put him through and the man sadly took his own life. I will talk all about that and more in my future post. 

Further Reading & Sources:

- Killing For Company | Book by Brian Masters

- Dennis Nilsen | Wikipedia

- Dennis Nilsen | Murderpedia

- The Encyclopedia of Serial Killers | Book by Michael Newton

I hope you will join me next time for the final instalment in this series.

Stay safe, until next time x 

(Aileen Wuornos. Picture credit: scalar.usc.edu)

In the fifth instalment of this series, I am focusing on the female serial killer (arguably known as America's First Female Serial Killer) the infamous Aileen Wournos. Even those who may not be avid true crime readers or watchers of serial killer documentaries know who Aileen is. Mostly thanks in part to the incredible (if not 'patchy') movie 'Monster' which brought to us the amazing transformation of Charlize Theron into her character, Aileen. You may wonder why I say that Monster is 'patchy', well some of the details in the movie were inaccurate and there was a lot of things that were kept out the story. For example, the courtroom scene where Aileen is found guilty, in the movie the dialogue is tame but in reality, Aileen shouted horrendous abuse at people, screaming ''I hope your wife and kids get ***** up the ***''. The director of Monster kept certain facts out of the movie because it would have taken away the 'sympathy' that Aileen was a tragic figure who had been done wrong and was lashing out. The truth was that Aileen had been through hell but she also took advantage, abused and murdered people for her own gain. There were people who tried to help Aileen and she either robbed or murdered them and I'm not just talking about the men that she met. 

And don't get me started on Tyria Moore who used Aileen, knew fine well what she was doing but was happy to just sit back and take the money. Everyone has a different opinion on Aileen Wuornos, what's yours? I always find it interesting to hear other people's thoughts on such individuals. So, without further ado, let's get into this post....

(Don't forget to check out my previous posts in this series which focused on infamous serial killers: Jeffrey Dahmer, Richard Ramirez, John Wayne Gacy and Ted Bundy) 

Also take a look at a previous post in which I included Aileen's story: 5 of the World's Most Deadliest Female Killers 

 1) Aileen Wuornos who was born on the 29th of February 1956 in Rochester, Michigan (USA) was reportedly abandoned as a baby by her mother. Aileen never met her biological father who went on to take his own life in prison. 

2) Aileen was executed by lethal injection on the 9th of October 2002. She was 46 years old. 

3) Aileen became pregnant in her early teen years but the baby was given up for adoption, she never met her son.

4) Aileen was once married to an elderly wealthy man in his 70s. Depending on who you believe, the story goes that Aileen abused this man despite the security and financial stability he gave her. According to Aileen, it was the elderly man who abused her. Regular stories often pop up of friends and acquaintances who had previously tried to help Aileen in some way only for her to take advantage of them. Some believe that Aileen's attitude towards people was her way of surviving due to her tough childhood. She was always looking for who she could use next and how to get more more money. 

5) A documentary and interview that I highly recommend to give you a real glimpse into the real Aileen Wuornos, is the fascinating (and chilling) Aileen: Life and death of a Serial Killer directed and created by the legendary Nick Broomfield. 

6) Monster: My True Story, the book that inspired the movie and was written by Christopher Berry Dee in collaboration with Aileen herself is available on Amazon. 

7) Aileen's last words before her execution were: ''I'd just like to say I'm sailing with the rock I'll be back like Independence Day with Jesus, June 6, like the movie, big mother ship and all. I'll be back.'' (quite the odd statement and even more spooky is that I'm writing this post on June the 6th) 

8) Aileen's brother Keith (who had also been abandoned as a child by their mother) passed away at the young age of 21 from throat cancer. 

9) Tyria Moore was said to have been the love of Aileen's life so much so that many believe that Tyria (who was unemployed and living off of the money that Aileen was making from sex work as well as the robberies during the murders) had known all along what Aileen was doing. I'd written in my previous post about the pair moving from place to place and one of the cars that they used still had the victim's blood inside, Tyria had been in this car and was supposed to have been oblivious?, Tyria, who many believe was just as responsible for the murders (in terms of encouragement, pressure and manipulation) told the cops everything they wanted to know (her version anyway) in exchange for getting herself off the hook. She agreed to set Aileen up through secretly taped phone calls. 

10) Many believe that Aileen should have been spared the death penalty due to her past trauma and the fact that she seemed to demonstrate schizophrenic behaviours. One minute she would be remorseful for her crimes and the next she would act cold claiming that she would do it all again if she could. Some people have said that Aileen should have been in a psychiatric hospital but is all this discussion and sympathy there because she's a woman? or is it because of her childhood? Would we say the same if Aileen had been born male? One wonders what the outcome of the trial would have been today. 

Well, I hope that you found this post to be of some interest and new knowledge on Aileen Wuornos. I really highly recommend that you check out Nick Broomfield's documentary though, would love to hear your thoughts on that too. 

RIP to the innocent victims of Aileen Wuornos.

You can watch the Nick Broomfield documentary here on Amazon Prime. 

Further Reading & Sources:

- 5 of The World's Most Deadliest Female Serial Killers | True Crime With Caledonian Kitty

- Aileen Wuornos: Life & Death of A Serial Killer | Documentary by Nick Broomfield

- Monster | Book by Aileen Wuornos & Christopher Berry Dee

- Aileen Wuornos | Article: Yahoo

- Aileen Wuornos | Wikipedia

- Aileen Wuornos | Article: The Independent

I hope you will join me in the next instalment of this series. 

Take care x 

In this fourth instalment of this series, the focus is going to be on notorious serial killer, Jeffrey Dahmer. As you may know, I have written about the shocking case of Jeffrey Dahmer in recent times, you can find the posts here (part one) and here (part two). In this post however, you will find some facts about Dahmer that you may not have come across before. So, before we get into it, please don't forget the other serial killers that have been covered so far in this series:

- Ted Bundy

- John Wayne Gacy

- Richard Ramirez

Now let's get into 10 facts about Jeffrey Dahmer....

1) Whilst Jeffrey Dahmer was in prison he was sent endless letters as well as $12,000 from his obsessed fans.

2) Jeffrey faced his karma in prison when he was murdered by a fellow inmate named Christopher Scarver. The majority of Dahmer's victims were African-American and Christopher himself was an African-American man so it seemed like some form of justice came around for Jeffrey. According to Christopher, Jeffrey didn't even put up a fight. 

3) Jeffrey Dahmer was 34 years old when he died. His brain was removed for medical science and the rest of his remains were cremated. 

4) In regards to Jeffrey's brain which was supposed to be studied and analyzed, there was a lot of back and forth between authorities and Jeffrey's parents. The brain had been kept in a jar for some time but it was eventually decided that the brain would be destroyed without any proper investigations taking place. 

5) Jeffrey Dahmer's last words were reported to have been ''I don't care if I live or die. Go ahead and kill me.''

6) Jeffrey Dahmer's father Lionel wrote a memoir about his son which was released in 1994. You can find the book here

7) When the series on Netflix about Jeffrey's crimes was released and went viral, his victim's relatives were disgusted and spoke publicly about the trauma they had to relive through, for what they viewed as entertainment purposes and making money off of suffering. 

8) Jeffrey Dahmer's father, Lionel died in a hospice at the age of 87 in December of 2023. His mother Joyce had passed away in 2000. 

9) A gruesome fact: Jeffrey Dahmer would say that his victims tasted like 'filet mignon'. 

10) Jeffrey once tried to steal a human corpse after seeing a young man's obituary in a local newspaper. He apparently went to the young man's grave after the funeral service and attempted to dig up his remains but soon gave up and went home. 

So, a disturbing individual all round and even though he has been deceased for such a long time, people are still left wondering how all of these horrific things could have happened. Why was Jeffrey Dahmer the way that he was, why did he do those things? The answer to these questions we may never know and it's a chilling thought. 

Further reading & sources:

Thank you for taking the time to check out this fourth instalment, I hope you will join me again next time when we will be looking over more disturbing facts of notorious serial killers. 

Stay safe x