In a chilling exploration, we delve into the stories of serial killers who were flagged by concerned individuals, yet somehow slipped through the cracks of law enforcement. From Edmund Kemper to Jeffrey Dahmer, these are the terrifying tales of warnings that went unheeded.
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00:00Coggle police may have passed over crucial clues in the mass murder investigation.
00:05Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we're looking at various stories in which people tried to warn the authorities about budding or active serial killers.
00:14You have to understand that detective work was organized in a very different way in the 70s.
00:22Edmund Kemper.
00:23Ed Kemper has been serving a life sentence in this California prison since 1973,
00:28when, at the age of 24, he murdered his mother, then called police and confessed to having dismembered college co-eds for two years.
00:36Unlike many killers on this list, Edmund Kemper's tendency for violence was already known by the time he started actively serial killing.
00:44On August 27, 1964, 15-year-old Kemper shot and murdered his grandparents, Maude and Edmund.
00:51He called the police on himself and was taken to a psychiatric facility.
00:55It started coming to a head again, so I went back down, I ran away back down there.
00:59And then a month later, I'm up living with my grandparents in the mountains, and 10 months later, I murdered them.
01:03Inside, Kemper was a model prisoner and was eventually deemed both highly intelligent and rehabilitated.
01:10However, Kemper's psychiatrists were not convinced, arguing that he was not well and warning that further violence could occur should he be released.
01:19Their warnings were not heeded, and Kemper was paroled on his 21st birthday.
01:23This was December 1969.
01:26Less than three years later, between May 1972 and April 1973, Kemper would murder eight more people, including his mother, Clarnell.
01:36You see, Bill, I knew a week before she died I was going to kill her.
01:42D'Angelo Martin.
01:44We begin tonight with a sense of justice for four Detroit families whose loved ones were murdered.
01:50Between 2018 and 2019, D'Angelo Martin murdered four people in the greater Detroit area.
01:56However, an extensive study performed by the Associated Press found that Detroit had been warned about Martin for nearly two decades.
02:03They claimed that for 15 years, the city's police bungled evidence linking him to various crimes,
02:09like losing a kit in 2004 that could have tied Martin to a sexual assault.
02:14They also ignored personal warnings and failed to properly handle DNA.
02:19One supervisor called it, quote, total systemic breakdown, and two officers were suspended for neglecting their duties.
02:27It's believed that should the proper precautions had been taken, Martin would have been caught before he killed anyone.
02:33It's been a rough three and a half years.
02:36Every day. Every day we think about Nancy.
02:43Bruce MacArthur. MacArthur averaged about two murders a year.
02:47Evidence shows that MacArthur's victims all had ties to Toronto's LGBTQ community.
02:53Between 2010 and 2017, Bruce MacArthur terrorized the Church and Wellesley neighborhood of Toronto, killing eight people.
03:01This neighborhood is well known for its LGBTQ activity, hosting Pride Toronto and offering many bars and stores catered to the community.
03:10A Ph.D. candidate named Sasha Reed warned police that a serial killer was likely active in the area.
03:17Nothing happened. So we talked about the anxiety that is causing people in terms of going into social situations or dating.
03:23We talk about the the mental, the mental health issues that people are facing as a result of it, like with depression and anxiety.
03:31Locals pleaded with police to investigate as a large number of gay men were disappearing.
03:36Again, not much happened. Many people blamed discrimination as the victims were part of a marginalized community.
03:43A report written by Ontario Justice Gloria Epstein claimed that, quote,
03:48Toronto police lost important opportunities to identify him as the killer, often owing to their misconceptions or stereotypical ideas about the gay community.
03:58I'm less curious about why he did what he did.
04:00And I'm more curious about how it happened for so long and how, you know,
04:05the community knew this was happening before the police alerted us.
04:10Peter Sutcliffe. The serial killer, Peter Sutcliffe, known as the Yorkshire Ripper, has died in hospital at the age of 74.
04:17He had coronavirus. Dubbed the Yorkshire Ripper, Peter Sutcliffe murdered at least 13 women between 1975 and 1980.
04:26Like MacArthur, he preyed on a marginalized community he knew would go unnoticed.
04:31In this case, sex workers. It was quite obvious, even from the beginning, that Sutcliffe was a serial killer.
04:38Dozens of people warned the Yorkshire police about Sutcliffe, including survivors,
04:42crime analysts, Sutcliffe's friend, Trevor Birdsall, and even the FBI.
04:47One of the top table officers said, is he a Geordie?
04:53No, no. What's his name? He said, Peter Sutcliffe.
04:58Now, listen, boys. Peter Sutcliffe. Peter Sutcliffe is not the Yorkshire Ripper.
05:05In fact, Sutcliffe was interviewed nine different times, but he was let go each and every time,
05:11thanks to horrible police work and a casual indifference towards sex workers.
05:15A report written by Inspector Lawrence Byford heavily criticized the Yorkshire police,
05:20leading to systemic changes in the country's investigative procedures.
05:24They kind of thought that the women who were involved in the sex trade were asking for it,
05:29in inverted commas, and they were much more interested in the innocent women.
05:34Robert Picton was convicted in the deaths of six women and believed to have killed dozens of other women.
05:40Now, Canada's worst serial killer is dead, the result of injuries from an assault by another inmate
05:47at Port Cartier Institution in Quebec.
05:50Perhaps Canada's most notorious serial killer, Robert Picton killed at least 26 women,
05:56but he confessed to murdering 49, and the clues were there.
06:00A profiler named Kim Rosmo tried setting up an investigative unit to study disappearances in the Vancouver area
06:07and even attempted to warn the police that a serial killer was on the loose.
06:11He admitted killing 49 women. We think that he killed probably closer to 100.
06:16He had absolutely no remorse. He brutalized the women.
06:21However, these attempts were stopped by Inspector Fred Bittlecombe,
06:25supposedly to prevent the panic and political pressure that would result.
06:29Police were even receiving grotesque tips.
06:32An employee of Picton's claimed that he was hoarding women's purses,
06:36and an anonymous tip declared that he had a freezer full of human remains at his farmhouse.
06:41Bizarrely, this nightmarish piece of information was completely ignored.
06:45This story of Picton is really a story of egregious police errors and public indifference.
06:53Gary Ridgway
06:55You cannot forget, I can't forget, I don't think any of us will ever forget the years we spent picking these bodies up.
07:04Despite having an enormous body count, Gary Ridgway isn't as famous as some of the bigger names.
07:10Known as the Green River Killer, Ridgway was convicted of 49 murders,
07:15although it's possible that he committed more than 90.
07:18While he wasn't caught until 2001, he was a major suspect in the case for nearly 20 years.
07:24Ridgway's name came up in a couple of different spots, and so a tip sheet was generated and it was assigned to Matt Haney.
07:31His name was mentioned all the way back in 1983,
07:34when the boyfriend of Marie Malvar found the truck she had disappeared in parked in front of Ridgway's house.
07:40Police were also receiving other tips mentioning Ridgway, leading them to arraign and interview him.
07:46However, he passed a polygraph and investigators were unable to link him to the killings,
07:51so he was freed and allowed to continue his spree.
07:54I never had a thought that we weren't going to catch him.
07:58I just wondered how, when, and where, and I knew I wanted to be a part of it.
08:03Dennis Rader
08:05You will find a homicide in 14th Street, South Virginians, Nancy Park.
08:12Famously known as BTK, Dennis Rader killed 10 people in the greater Wichita area between 1974 and 1991,
08:20often taunting the police with sordid letters.
08:23At the time, Rader was quite unassuming, known as a quiet and reserved security specialist working for ADT.
08:30Here's the estimate.
08:32House looks good.
08:34Can't think you need much beyond door and window sensors.
08:36I included in the cost three keypads.
08:38But as he aged, Rader became more outspoken and belligerent.
08:42Throughout the early 1990s, locals began having major problems with Rader,
08:47especially in his capacity as a strict compliance officer.
08:51He also became known for harassing women, and numerous victims filed restraining orders against him.
08:57One neighbor even alleged that Rader murdered her dog.
09:00The signs were there, but police did not dig deeper.
09:04If they did, they may have uncovered one of the country's most infamous serial killers.
09:09Say, say, say who you are.
09:12You're BTK.
09:13John Wayne Gacy.
09:14And he should know right away something wrong.
09:18If Gacy don't want to talk to him, something wrong right there.
09:22Area 6 youth officers considered Butkovich a runaway.
09:25By all accounts, John Wayne Gacy was a friendly and popular man who was active in his Chicago community.
09:32But some people tried speaking out against him.
09:34Specifically, Marko Butkovich.
09:37Marko's son John was working for Gacy's construction company, PDM Contractors, when he disappeared in 1975.
09:45Hey, look at me.
09:50I'm gonna show you a trick.
09:53Butkovich was reportedly having problems with his boss, having confronted him over unpaid wages.
10:02So when his car showed up with his jacket and wallet still inside, Marko suspected Gacy of murdering his son.
10:09He and his wife Terizia called the police over 100 times over the next three years, urging them to investigate and question Gacy.
10:17They did not.
10:19Butkovich was Gacy's third victim, third of 33.
10:31Ted Bundy.
10:38Despite his infamy, Ted Bundy was quite a sloppy serial killer.
10:42Many people survived his attacks.
10:44He was jailed on numerous occasions, and friends and acquaintances had long suspected him of being a killer.
10:50A rash of murders occurred on the West Coast throughout 1974.
10:54A composite sketch and a criminal profile describing the perp were made public, and numerous people immediately recognized it as Bundy.
11:02There was something about it that just grabbed my attention.
11:05There was just something about the jawline or something like that that made me think, wow.
11:10And you called Seattle police?
11:12Yeah, I called anonymously.
11:14That includes two of Bundy's co-workers, a professor at the University of Washington, and even his girlfriend, Elizabeth Klopfer.
11:22All went to the police and told them that Bundy was their man.
11:26However, investigators were not convinced and ignored their statements, as Bundy was a respectable law student with no criminal record.
11:34A wolf in sheep's clothing.
11:36There were something like 3,000 potential Teds who may or may not drive a Volkswagen, and he was one of them.
11:42But he had this terrific, spotless, clean record.
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12:03Jeffrey Dahmer.
12:04Oh, hey.
12:05I gotta say, that smell is worse than ever.
12:09Is it?
12:14Well, you know, I had that meat and it went bad.
12:17People who watched Monster may have thought that the character of Glenda Cleveland was made up,
12:22a sort of composite character made to represent all the people that tried alerting the police about Dahmer.
12:28But no, she was very real.
12:30Cleveland, her daughter, and her niece all contacted police to warn them about Dahmer,
12:35even alerting them to the scary incident involving Konarik Synthesamphone.
12:39Okay, okay. But the boy is bleeding. Y'all gonna do something?
12:44I told you, he fell over.
12:46The young man was famously returned into Dahmer's care and murdered.
12:51After learning that Synthesamphone had disappeared, Cleveland made repeated calls to the police and even contacted the FBI.
12:58All of these calls were ignored.
13:00Dahmer murdered four men after Synthesamphone, Cleveland's alarm bells having been totally unheard.
13:07Okay.
13:08Okay. I mean, I'm just, you know, it appears to have been a child. That's my concern.
13:14I understand. No, he's not.
13:17Oh, okay. Thank you.
13:21Do you know of any other examples? Let us know in the comments below.
13:24I'm an American, and I went off the deep end.