Wilken’s first confirmed victim was murdered in February 1990 – 15-year-old Monte Fiko. He was a homeless street child, of which there were many in South Africa. Wilken buggered the boy and then strangled him. On 3 October 1990, after an argument with his first wife, Wilken picked up a prostitute, Virginia Gysman, at Russell Road. She was 25. He paid her and took her to Dagbreek Primary School, where they had sex. He then buggered her. When she complained, he strangled her with her clothing and ejaculated as she died. He left her body in the schoolyard.
On 10 January 1991, Wilken picked up another prostitute, Mercia Papenfus, 37, at the Red Lion Hotel and they went to St George’s Park. When Mercia demanded her payment before intercourse, Wilken flew into a rage and strangled her. Then he buggered her and left her body in the park.
On 21 October 1991, Wilken met a 14-year-old street boy, who apparently agreed to have sex with him for money. Wilken took the boy to St George’s Park. The boy wanted his money, which angered Wilken. The boy tried to flee, but Wilken over-powered him and buggered him, ejaculating as he strangled his victim. In 1993, sometime between June and September, Wilken met another young street child and solicited him. They went to the river valley of Target Kloof, where Wilken buggered and strangled the boy. He hid the body in the ravine.
On 27 July 1995, Wilken again killed a prostitute. Her name was Georgina Boniswa Zweni, aged 42. He buggered and strangled her but was still filled with lust and proceeded to mutilate her vagina and anus with a knife. The forensic pathologist testified at Wilken’s trial that the wound was star-shaped and it appeared as if the assailant had ‘stuck in the knife, pulled it out, stuck it in and pulled it out’. In all, he counted at least 20 stab wounds, which included a cluster of five next to her navel. He characterised it as ‘a wild knife stabbing’. Wilken also cut off her nipples and ate them at the scene. Her clothing was thrown into a fishpond.
On 25 May 1996, he again murdered a prostitute, 22-year-old Katriena Claassen, at the Albany Road interchange. They went down to the beach. Wilken forced a plastic bag down her throat to keep her from screaming. He buggered and strangled her. Somewhere between May and August 1996, he met another street child, whom he took to Fort Frederick. After the boy masturbated him, Wilken told the boy to undress and buggered him. The boy threatened to tell the police and Wilken strangled him, hiding the body afterwards.
Wilken told police that he would return to the bodies of the boys he had killed. He rubbed vinegar and butter on the boys’ feet to hide their scent from the police dogs. He rolled up pieces of newspaper and inserted these into their anuses to keep the maggots out, so that he could commit necrophilia. He said he liked to face his victims while buggering them so that he could watch their faces as he strangled them. He referred to their last moments when their eyes would bulge, their lips swell and their tongues protrude from their mouths. It was at this moment that he would ejaculate.
On 20 February 1998, Wilken was found guilty on seven counts of murder and two of buggery, including the murder of his daughter. On 23 February 1998, Stewart Wilken was sentenced to seven terms of life imprisonment. Mr Justice Jansen said that Wilken had to be removed from the community. If the death penalty had still been available in South Africa, he would have imposed it. He made mention that throughout the trial Wilken had shown neither emotion nor remorse.
CHAPTER 7
SOUTH KOREA
YOO YOUNG CHEOL
Yoo Young Cheol (b. 1970) committed his first crime in 1987 and from then on led the life of a petty criminal, in and out of prison. By 2002, he had fourteen criminal convictions, one of which was for rape, and he had spent a total of 11 years in prison.
On the morning of 24 September 2003, Cheol rode the subway to Apgujeong-Dong Station, the most affluent district in Seoul. He had devised a plan for robbery and murder and was armed with a 6in bladed knife and a homemade hammer, which he had used to kill dogs and cats. He was looking for a church. Once he spotted one, he searched nearby for an expensive-looking house, something that would indicate that its owners were wealthy. It didn’t take him long to find one. However, the occupants were at home; a 72-year-old man and his 68-year-old wife. Cheol attacked them both, stabbing the man in the throat and then hitting his wife over the head with the hammer. He decided not to take any items in an effort to confuse the police.
On 9 October, Cheol took the subway to Bulgwang Station and then a taxi to Gugi Tunnel. He walked until he found a church and then an expensive-looking house in the adjacent affluent neighbourhood. He noticed that there was no security system and that it had an inner garden surrounded by a wall. Cheol watched the movement of people inside through the window and then climbed the wall wearing gloves. He landed in some fine gravel and walked over it, careful of noise, with his homemade hammer in his hand. As he entered the house, he was confronted by the first of his victims, an 85-year-old woman. He smashed her over the head with the hammer. Cheol then came across a 60-year-old female. He asked her if there were more people in the house. She said that her husband and son were upstairs. Cheol hit her over the head several times with his hammer before moving upstairs. He confronted the 35-year-old son and forced him to kneel down. Cheol then hit him over the head several times and left him for dead. He looked around for the other man but couldn’t find him. While searching the house, Cheol found a safe and scattered various contents around to disguise the crime scene as a robbery. He cleaned his footprints with a towel. Then he walked back to the Gugi Tunnel and took a taxi back to Bulgwang Station and the subway back home.
On 16 October, Cheol travelled by subway to the Samsung neighbourhood of the Gangnam district, known as one of Seoul’s wealthier areas. He walked around until he found a church, and then saw a house with a big garden and a surrounding wall that bordered a narrow alley. It was around 1pm. As before, he went over the wall wearing gloves and approached the front door. At that same moment, a 69-year-old woman, the owner of the house, came out to fetch the post. As she went back inside, Cheol followed her into the house. He threatened her with his knife and asked if she was alone. No one else was there. He dragged her into the bathroom and hit her over the head, crushing her skull with his homemade hammer. Before leaving, he again scattered items in the master bedroom to confuse the police, and he wiped the bloodstains off his shoes and cleaned the smeared footprints from the floor. He left the house and walked to Gangnam Ward Office Station.
On 18 November, in the morning, Cheol took the subway to Hanseong University Station. While looking for a house near a church, he noticed a small police station in an alley and decided it would be a prime place to commit his crimes because the residents would perceive the area as safe. He theorised that their guard would be down because of the nearby police station. Again, it was a house in a nice neighbourhood in Hyehwa-Dong, and it had a surrounding wall and a small garden within. As with his previous crimes, he looked for quick ways to escape in case of trouble and watched the house for movement. He cleared the back wall wearing gloves and used a gas pipe to climb down. A baby cried from inside the house, so he knew at least two people were home. He entered through the front door and then went up to the second floor, but didn’t find anyone. As he was coming down the stairs, the 53-year-old female housekeeper saw him and asked who he was. Brandishing his knife, he ordered her into the master bedroom. There he found the owner of the house, an 87-year-old man, lying on his bed. Cheol immediately smashed his skull. Terrified, the housekeeper held the baby tight but Cheol prised the infant from her arms. He put the baby on the sofa and covered it with a blanket, then bludgeoned the housekeeper’s head with his hammer.
Cheol rummaged through the house and found a safe on the second floor. He used a golf club and pruning shears to break it open. In the process, he cut himself. Worried that the police could track him with a DNA test, he set fire to the room. Covered in blood, he snatched a black jacket, put it on and left the house. He watched the house from a distance for 30 minutes, unable to see any flames. A woman wh
o looked like a family member entered the house and that was enough. Cheol left the scene, not remembering whether he took a bus or taxi, and not realising that he had left behind a set of footprints and his image captured from behind on a CCTV camera.
In January 2004, Cheol got lucky. He was arrested for a theft at a sauna and held briefly at the Sodaemun police station. The police did not check his details, which would have connected him to the murders, but instead dealt with him as a petty criminal and released him.
On 6 February, he took a taxi to the Imoon-Dong neighbourhood, intent on killing again. He approached a 25-year-old female, in front of a restaurant 20yd from a busy four-lane road, thinking that she looked like a prostitute. He asked her where she was going, showed her a forged police ID card and asked her to go to a bar with him, but she refused and called him a crazy bastard. She tried to run away and, almost reaching the restaurant door, she fell down screaming for help. Cheol stabbed her five times in the chest. No longer was he interested in lethal rages against the rich, he now had a hatred of young, attractive prostitutes – and this forced him to change his MO.
In March, he called a phone-sex parlour and had a woman sent over to his apartment. When she arrived, he hit her head with his hammer and then cut her body up into 18 pieces. He didn’t even have to leave his house except to dispose of the body. He hauled the dismembered woman to a small mountain trail behind Seogang University and buried her there. He was now on a high, having realised that his new killing method was even easier than before. He was sold some Viagra tablets and when he found out they were fake, he abducted the seller, murdered him, cut up his body and placed the pieces in the van, subsequently setting it alight.
Between early April and mid-July 2004, Cheol murdered 10 women and dismembered their bodies, later disposing of the body parts. He knew of a bushy hillside and headed there each time with a loaded backpack. Each body required two trips. He buried the human remains in shallow graves and, later on, he marked them to avoid burying bodies in the same spot. All were women from the sex trade whom he had called on chat lines to arrange for them to come to his apartment. He never had sex with any of them for fear of leaving his DNA – he was very forensically aware. He saved the victims’ mobile phones so he could avoid using his own number for later calls. Cheol also shaved off the skin of the victims’ fingertips. In South Korea, all citizens have a national identification number and are fingerprinted by the government.
On Thursday, 15 July, Cheol was arrested for assaulting a prostitute in southern Seoul. The police had no idea that they had captured the killer. He feigned epileptic twitches and they removed his handcuffs during interrogation. When they weren’t paying attention, Cheol escaped. However, he was eventually rearrested after he arranged to meet a prostitute and her pimp became suspicious and contacted the police. He very quickly confessed to all his crimes, leading police to where he had buried the body parts of his victims.
Although he had confessed, the police struggled to corroborate his story. The only evidence they had was what he told them and the dead bodies pointed out by him. From particles of human flesh taken from the hammer, DNA tests matched some of the recovered victims. By measuring his feet, police were able to determine that the footprints left at the Hyehwa-Dong scene were his. Cheol informed the police that he had kept a written record of each killing but it was not found in the search of his apartment and nothing on his computer hard drive revealed anything useful. Cheol also kept changing his story. He told police that he had murdered 26 people, six more than the original 20 he had confessed to. He went to court charged with 21 counts of murder, along with burglary, impersonating a police officer, arson and improperly disposing of bodies.
Cheol first appeared in court on 6 September and admitted his guilt. He described how he had dismembered the corpses and said that he had killed two more people in addition to the 21 counts he was charged with. The trial dragged on and on, mainly because Cheol kept refusing to appear in court. On 13 December, the trial finally came to an end and the court found him guilty and sentenced him to death by hanging.
He lodged an appeal against the death sentence but his appeal was turned down, and at the time of writing was on death row, awaiting execution.
CHAPTER 8
THE USA
ALBERT DESALVO, AKA THE BOSTON STRANGLER
Between 14 June 1962 and 4 January 1964, 13 single and respectable women in the Boston area were victims of either a single serial killer or possibly several killers. At least 11 of these murders were attributed to the killer who came to be known as the Boston Strangler. Of these 11, six of the victims were between the ages of 55 and 75. Two possible additional victims were 85 and 69 years of age. The remaining five victims were considerably younger, ranging in age from 19 to 23. All of these women were murdered in their apartments; they all had been sexually assaulted and were strangled with articles of their own clothing. There were no signs of forced entry and either the women knew their assailant or had been confident enough to let him in.
The dates of the murders are as follows:
14 June 1962: Anna E. Slesers, 55, was found dead in her apartment by her son. She was lying naked in the bathroom with the cord from her robe around her neck. She had been sexually assaulted.
30 June 1962: 68-year-old Nina Nichols was found murdered in her apartment at 1940 Commonwealth Avenue in the Brighton area of Boston. She was found with her legs spread wide open, and her housecoat and slip pulled up to her waist. Two of her own nylon stockings were tied tightly around her neck in a bow. She too had been sexually assaulted; blood had been found in her vagina. The time of death was estimated to be around 5pm. The apartment looked as if it had been burgled; every drawer had been pulled open, and possessions lay scattered on the floor. The killer had gone through her address book and her post for some unknown reason, although later it was determined that nothing had been taken. Later that same day, Helen Blake met a similar death sometime between 8pm and 10pm. The 65-year-old divorcée had been strangled with one of her nylons. Her brassiere had been looped around her neck, over the stockings, and tied in a bow. Both her vagina and anus had been lacerated, but there was no trace of semen. She was found lying face down and naked on her bed, with her legs spread wide apart. Her apartment had also been thoroughly ransacked. It appeared as though two rings that she was wearing had been pulled from her fingers and taken. The killer had also tried unsuccessfully to open a metal strongbox and a footlocker.
19 August: 75-year-old Ida Irga, a very shy and retiring widow, fell victim to the Strangler. She was found two days later in her apartment at 7 Grove Avenue in Boston’s West End. As with the other deaths, there was no sign of forced entry. She was found lying on her back on the living-room floor wearing a light brown nightdress, which was torn, completely exposing her body. There was a white pillowcase knotted tightly around her neck. Her legs were spread approximately 5ft from heel to heel, her feet were propped up on individual chairs and a standard bed pillow was placed under her buttocks, in what was described as an obstetrical position, and she had died of manual strangulation. Dried blood covered her head, mouth and ears. She, too, had been sexually assaulted but again there was no trace of semen.
20 August 1962: a 67-year-old nurse named Jane Sullivan was found murdered in her apartment at 435 Columbia Road in Dorchester, across town from where Ida lived. She had apparently been dead for some 10 days before she was found. Police found her on her knees in her bath with her feet up over the back of the bath and her head underneath the taps. She too had been strangled with her own nylons. It was difficult to tell whether she had been sexually assaulted, due to the decomposition of the body. However, there were bloodstains on the handle of a broom, leading officers to believe this may have been inserted into her vagina. There was no sign of forced entry to the property, nor was the apartment ransacked.
5 December 1962: Sophie Clark, a 21-year-old student at the Carnegie Institute of Medical Technology, was found by her two room-ma
tes in the apartment they shared at 315 Huntington Avenue in the Back Bay area, a short distance from Anna Slesers’s apartment (the first victim). Sophie was found naked; her legs were also spread wide apart. She had been strangled with three of her nylon stockings, which had been knotted and tied very tightly around her neck. Her half-slip had also been tied around her neck. There was evidence of sexual assault and this time the police found traces of semen on the rug near her body. There was no sign of a forcible entry, but Sophie had been very security-conscious and had insisted on having a second lock on the apartment door. She was so cautious that she even questioned friends who came to the door before she let them in. Despite this, her killer had somehow convinced her to let him in. There were signs that she had put up a fight with the killer. Her time of death was calculated as 2.30pm. This crime left the police puzzled – there were marked differences between Sophie’s murder and the others. Sophie was young; all the previous victims had been elderly. Semen had been found this time but none had been found at any of the previous murders. Was this the same killer? Or was there a copycat killer at work? Police questioned another female resident living in the same building who mentioned that at around 2.20pm a man had knocked on her door and said that the building superintendent had sent him to see about painting her apartment. He then told her that he’d have to fix her bathroom ceiling and complimented her on her figure. He asked her if she had ever thought of modelling. When she put her finger to her lips, the man became angry. His character seemed to change completely. She told him her husband was sleeping in the next room. The man then stated that he had got the wrong apartment and left. She described him as between 25 and 30 years old, of average height and with honey-coloured hair, wearing a dark jacket and dark green trousers. Was this Sophie’s killer? It was quite probable, as the building superintendent had not sent a workman to any part of the building and this coincided with the time that Sophie Clark was murdered.
The Evil Within - A Top Murder Squad Detective Reveals The Chilling True Stories of The World's Most Notorious Killers Page 12