Extreme Evil - Taking Crime to the Next Level (True Crime)

by Ray Black

  LOVERS QUARREL

  Despite this new development, one of his puppets managed to escape. On 27 May 1991, fourteen-year-old Konerak Sinthasomphone was found wandering the streets naked, bleeding from the rectum. Jeffrey was able to convince the police that he was his nineteen-year-old boyfriend who had ran off after an argument. Believing the calm and coherent Dahmer, the police escorted the boy back to the apartment. That night Konerak went the same way as the others, murdered and dismembered, his skull joining Dahmer’s macabre collection.

  Over the summer his hunt for suitable victims intensified, averaging one prize a week. Matt Turner, Jeremiah Weinberger, Oliver Lacy and Joseph Bradehoft all succumbed to Dahmer’s evil. Neglecting his job at the factory he was promptly sacked for absenteeism.

  Two days later he chose what would become his final victim.

  PRIVATE SLAUGHTERHOUSE

  On the evening of 22 July 1991 police officers Robert Rauth and Rolf Mueller were patrolling the hot and humid streets of down-town Milwaukee. Half an hour from completing their shift, they spotted a short black male, handcuffs dangling from one wrist. Believing he was an escaped convict they pulled him over only to hear a stranger tale: Tracy Edwards had escaped from a man trying to kill him.

  Knocking on the door of Apartment 213, police met Jeffrey Dahmer, his cool, calm persona conflicting with the reports of a knife-wielding maniac. However, when he offered to retrieve the key to the handcuffs, the officers soon discovered a house of horrors. Polaroid images of mutilated bodies, two severed heads in the freezer and one in the fridge, a 57-gallon vat of acid eating away at three torsos and a collection of chemicals to rival any laboratory.

  THOROUGHLY EVIL

  In custody Dahmer freely confessed to a long list of evil deeds and in January 1992 stood trial for fifteen murders in the first degree. The jury took five hours to find him culpable on all counts and he was sentenced to 957 years in jail. After the verdict Dahmer read out a four-page statement expressing remorse for his actions, believing himself to be ‘thoroughly evil.’

  Incarcerated in Columbia Correctional Institute, Wisconsin, Dahmer became a born-again Christian and was soon allowed to mix with the prison population. On 28 November 1994 during work detail in the gym fellow convict Christopher Scarver, a dangerous schizophrenic, struck him with an iron bar from a weight machine. Ironically, Dahmer died from severe head trauma. It was the same way he had despatched his first victim, Steven Hicks sixteen years earlier.

  Karl Denke

  This peaceful citizen of Muensterberg feared God, abstained from alcohol and resisted carnal pleasures yet his cannibal acts over a four year period would see him become probably the worst serial killer in Poland’s history.

  PROBLEM CHILD

  Before the border changes following the end of World War II, the modern-day Silesian town of Ziebice in south-west Poland belonged to Germany and was known as Muensterberg. It was in this small town where Karl Denke would perpetrate such crimes, the likes of which had never been seen before in this part of the world.

  Born in nearby Ober Kunzendorf on 12 August 1870, this son of a wealthy farmer was a problem child from the very beginning. Far from being an academic, he left school with a basic education and ran away from home at the age of twelve, finding work as a gardener’s apprentice. Little is known of his life until the death of his father, when Karl was a young man of twenty-five.

  While the running of the Denke farm passed to his older brother, Karl used his inheritance to buy himself a plot of land on which to plant his own crops, but farming was not in his blood and his business failed. He sold the land and bought himself a two-storey house on Stawowa Street in Muensterberg.

  PAPA DENKE

  Settling in this small town, Karl would reside in the same building for the rest of his days. Even when he lost his savings to the extortionate inflation of the post-war period and had to sell the house, he remained in a little apartment on the ground floor.

  Karl soon became a pleasant fixture of Muensterberg life, well-respected among the eight thousand residents. With a smile Karl would sell his leather suspenders, belts and shoelaces from a shop opposite his home, and would wave to the townspeople as he made the trek north to peddle his pickled boneless pork at the Wroclaw market.

  His benevolence knew no bounds. He found time to play the organ at the local church, carried the cross at funerals and was known to help beggars and people in need, allowing them to stay the night in his one-bedroom apartment. For these reasons Karl quickly became known as Vatter Denke – Papa Denke – by the locals. A caring soul of the community with not a bad bone in his body – or so it seemed.

  AXE ATTACK

  At the wintry end of 1924 the people of Muenster-berg would be forced to change their view of Karl Denke. On Sunday 21 December, a coachman passing down Stawowa Street heard screams coming from the home of the much-loved figure. Rushing in to help, he found a vagrant called Vincenz Olivier staggering along the corridor, blood streaming from a nasty head wound. Moments from collapse, the injured man muttered that Denke had attacked him with an axe.

  When the police were informed of the attack they were in disbelief that Papa Denke could have done such a thing. Yet when questioned back at the station, the fifty-four-year-old friend to all admitted he had struck Olivier with an axe for attempting to rob him. This admittance of guilt saw him placed behind bars in the police jail.

  That evening, shortly before midnight, Sergeant Palke was on his rounds checking on the inmates. When he looked in on Karl Denke he found him swinging from the ceiling of his cell. Somehow he had managed to fashion a noose from his handkerchief and hanged himself. Curious as to why the benign peddler had reacted so excessively to a charge of assault, the police chose to pay his apartment a visit.

  LEDGER OF DEATH

  On Christmas Eve policemen began the search of the ground floor flat on Stawowa Street. Inside the cramped living space they discovered an array of suspicious items. The identification papers for many of the poor unfortunates whom Denke had sheltered lay on the windowsill, and inside a closet a number of blood-stained clothes.

  In the kitchen area, they uncovered two large tubs packed with meat pickled in brine and an assortment of bones and pots of fat. When lab tests found these to be of human origin, the true horror of Papa Denke’s crimes became clear. The good Samaritan of Muensterberg had been murdering his visitors and pickling their remains, carting them off to the Wroclaw market to be sold as pork.

  A ledger, dating back to 1921, found in the flat shed yet more light on the dark evil deeds of Karl Denke. In the ledger he had listed the names of some thirty victims along with the dates of their demise and respective weights. Police ascertained the man had been devouring human flesh and peddling it to others for around four years.

  The police were unable to identify the names of all of his victims, but it is believed he pickled the remains of at least forty beggars, tramps and travellers who it seemed would not be missed.

  This cannibal has a small exhibit in a museum in his home town, but who knows it could grow into an even bigger one – not all towns can boast their own cannibal!

  Stanley Dean Baker

  Hitch-hiking through seventies America, a nomadic hippie on a hell trip succumbs to the voices in his head to murder, mutilate and make a meal of his companion.

  CATCH OF THE DAY

  Saturday 11 July 1970 was a balmy summer’s day in the Treasure State of Montana. On the banks of the Yellowstone River a fisherman enjoying the weekend weather sat hoping to land some trout abundant in these waters. What he managed to catch that afternoon was rather larger and quite rare in these parts – caught in the river’s reeds was a dead body.

  One 911 call later and the authorities descended upon the tranquil spot. The body was quickly brought ashore where Sheriff Guitoni and his men examined the deceased. One look told them this was no case of drowning. The corpse looked barely human, its arms and legs having been crudely hacked off along w
ith the head. Stranger still, the mutilated torso had a huge gaping hole where the heart should have been.

  Back at the morgue at nearby Livingston, the coroner performed an autopsy. Studying the limbless stiff on the slab, he discovered the male victim had been dead for approximately twenty-four hours and had been subjected to twenty-seven separate stab wounds. The cause of death was clear but without the usual means of identification, the Montana authorities required some help in determining who this poor man was.

  HIT AND RUN

  A positive lead came early on the Monday morning. A twenty-two-year-old social worker had failed to turn up for work and had been reported missing two hundred miles to the north-east in the town of Roundup. His name was James Michael Schlosser and his description matched that of the corpse in the Livingston morgue. Also missing was the man’s gold yellow 1969 Opel Kadett. An APB was put out for its whereabouts. They did not have to wait long.

  Earlier that morning the same car with its distinctive black racing stripes was travelling along a dirt road over a thousand miles away in Monterey County, California. Speeding on the wrong side of the road it collided head on with a pick-up truck. While the truck suffered only superficial damage, the Opel was a write-off. Unhurt, the owner of the pick-up, a businessman from Detroit, approached the wreck to find two Californian hippies inside.

  Wearing the customary uniform of fatigue jackets and bell-bottom trousers, the pair of bearded beatniks seemed friendly enough, although neither was able to present a driver’s licence. The man from Michigan State noted the car’s registration details and offered to take them to the nearest telephone to inform the police and organise a tow.

  The dented truck pulled into a service station in the town of Lucia, but while the driver made the call the free-spirited duo swiftly bolted for the nearby woods. The businessman relayed the incident to police including the car’s licence plate details. The missing car had been found. California Highway Patrol were immediately told to keep a look out for the absconding hippies.

  I’M A CANNIBAL

  At the time the call came over the police radio, Officer Randy Newton was cruising the Pacific Coastal Highway. He soon spotted the offenders walking along the side of the road just two miles out of Lucia, attempting to hitch a lift. Sirens on, the patrolman detained the suspects, who freely admitted their wrongdoing. They also gave their names: Stanley Dean Baker and Harry Allen Stroup.

  When they were searched, Baker was found to be carrying a Satanic Bible and a typed recipe for LSD. Also in his pockets police discovered a handful of small bones. It was then things got surreal. When asked what they were, he replied, ‘They ain’t chicken bones. They’re human fingers.’ Then matter-of-factly he declared, ‘I have a problem. I’m a cannibal.’

  The twosome were taken to the nearby police station in Monterey. Here Detective Dempsey Biley was tasked with interrogating the pair, to ascertain their involvement with the mutilated corpse in Montana. In Stanley Dean Baker he found a willing interviewee, eager to tell all.

  MIDNIGHT FEAST

  Inside the interview room, the effusive Baker opened up. Asked to elaborate on his odd comment, the beatnik confessed he had developed a compulsion for human flesh ever since receiving electric shock therapy for a nervous disorder when he was seventeen. He then began to divulge details of his actions leading up to the weekend, actions that would shed light on the dead body in Montana.

  Baker and Stroup were both from Sheridan, Wyoming and had been travelling since 5 June 1970, hitching lifts and working odd jobs as they journeyed south. According to the loose-lipped hippie, the two separated on Friday 10 June after reaching the town of Big Timber, Montana, as Baker had managed to get a ride.

  His ride was none other than James Schlosser in his Opel Kadett. He was on his way to Yellowstone National Park for the weekend, and offered Stanley the chance to tag along. On reaching the reservation they found it too crowded so chose to set up camp for the night a few miles north on the banks of the Yellowstone River.

  Admitting he had taken sixty-five tabs of LSD earlier that day, Baker explained how, in the dead of night, he was overcome with an undeniable urge to kill. He crawled over to the sleeping social worker, took out his .22 pistol and shot Schlosser twice in the head. Next he proceeded to stab the body over two dozen times, before cutting up the corpse into six pieces.

  After hacking off the head and limbs of his companion, Baker ended this wanton demonstration of cruelty by gouging out the man’s heart, eating the organ raw. To fend off future hunger pangs, he cut off the fingers to have something to snack on, then dumped the remains in the river along with the firearm. Stanley then drove away in the dead man’s car, rejoining his friend, Stroup.

  SATANIC STANLEY

  This unbelievable tale seemed like fiction, but when Baker escorted the police to the murder site, they found clear evidence of a homicide. Blood-spattered earth, a hunting knife along with human bone fragments and even a severed ear was sufficient proof to corroborate Stanley Dean Baker’s confession.

  But what of Harry Allen Stroup? The way Baker told it, he had nothing to do with Schlosser’s motiveless murder. The twenty-year-old hippie had remained silent throughout his interrogation, not wishing to deviate from his friend’s statement. The police had two problems with the story; they doubted the dismemberment could have been achieved by one person; the park attendant had also witnessed seeing three people in the car, not two.

  The drifting duo were flown back to Montana on 20 July and arraigned before a district judge seven days later. During the trial Baker insisted he possessed magical powers and had been involved in other satanic ritual killings. On 4 August Judge Shamstrom authorised a request to send Baker to Warm Springs State Hospital for psychiatric evaluation. He was eventually sentenced to life in prison, while Stroup received a ten-year term for manslaughter.

  Even in jail the one time boy scout and altar boy continued to wreak havoc. Baker persistently pressed his fellow inmates to join his own satanic cult within the prison walls. He would be known to howl like a wolf when the moon was full and often threatened the guards with a series of makeshift weapons fashioned in his cell. This beatnik cannibal was paroled to his native Wyoming in 1985, his present whereabouts are unknown.

  Ted Bundy

  Looks can be deceiving and between 1974 and 1978 this dashing fiend certainly proved the rule. Prowling campuses for coeds from the Pacific Northwest to the Sunshine State, the handsome prince among serial killers relied on social compliance to lure at least twenty women to their doom.

  BECOMING BUNDY

  Throughout his life, Ted Bundy went by many names. Born on 24 November 1946 in Burlington, Vermont to an unwed mother, this serial-killing Sagittarius began life as Theodore Robert Cowell. His surname would then change twice before his sixth birthday. Young Theodore never knew his father and grew up believing his mother was actually his older sister – a charade to avoid social disgrace – and the pair lived under the roof of his grandparents in Philadelphia.

  At four years old, the boy and his mother moved to Tacoma, Washington in the Pacific Northwest and soon ‘sister’ Eleanor met Johnny Culpepper Bundy whom she married in May 1951. The new man in their lives played father figure to young Ted who then took his name. As Ted Bundy he now had the title that, in later life, would be synonymous with extreme evil.

  Despite all his stepfather’s efforts, he grew up a distant child, deeply introverted and unable to fully interact with other schoolchildren. Instead the social misfit would prefer to hunt for violent and sexually explicit literature in the local libraries. At high school he started to thieve to fund his love of skiing; petty crimes that would prove the teen was on a slippery slope to more acute malevolence.

  After switching institutions in his first year of higher education, Ted proved a likeable psychology student at the University of Washington. Then in the spring of 1967 he fell head over heels in love with his dream girl. Stephanie Brooks was an attractive, sophisticated
student from a wealthy family and shared his passion for the pistes. The pair dated but once she graduated, Stephanie chose to end their relationship, citing immaturity and a lack of direction. This broke Bundy’s heart and he fell into a depressed state, dropping out of college.

  Throwing in the towel on his education, he then uncovered the truth about his parentage. This double shock to the system forced a change within Ted Bundy. The reticent, reclusive greenhorn mutated into a more confident, socially-adept young man with a new-found bravado. Yet under the surface a more sinister transformation was taking shape.

  FIRST LOVE, FIRST KILL

  Over the next few years, this bombastic new demeanour seemed to be a positive addition to Bundy’s character. He entered the world of politics, working hard on a Republican presidential campaign and became the assistant to the state party chairman. Even when he was appointed to the Seattle Crime Prevention Advisory Committee, he still found time to complete his psychology degree. Bundy was also dating again, a divorcee named Elizabeth Kloepfer. However, despite being back on the track and showing such promise, his mind was elsewhere.

  Stephanie Brooks, his first love, still plagued his thoughts and in the summer of 1973, whilst on a business trip to California, he got back in touch. She reacted well to his new attitude and political standing and agreed to give Bundy a second chance. However, following her acceptance of his marriage proposal, he broke off all contact. She then discovered this renaissance romance was Bundy’s wicked plan to avenge the pain she had caused him. He had wanted revenge.

  A few weeks later young women started to vanish from the Pacific Northwest area. It appeared Ted Bundy’s wicked plan did not end with revenge on his former lover. On 4 January 1974 he broke into the basement bedroom of Joni Lenz, an eighteen-year-old Washington student. Her room-mates found her the next morning brutally beaten and sexually abused with a metal rod from her bed.