What Makes a Killer

In this last episode of season five, we'll examine Floridian serial killer Bobby Joe Long... 1984. Tampa, Florida. A 17-year-old girl named Lisa was on her way home from work, when she was abducted from the side of the road. For the next 26 hours, she was subjected to a terrifying imprisonment by a sadistic sexual predator, who had already killed several young girls. But, unlike the other victims,...

September 22nd, 1991. Guilford, Connecticut. Early that evening, a mysterious man visited the home of Christine Brendel and delivered some shocking news – her brother Ernest and his family had been kidnapped, and were being held for ransom by the Mafia. It turned out the man at the door, 42-year-old Christopher Hightower, was a pathological liar and a killer. He claimed he needed $75,000 to releas...

Christmas day, 2010. A couple was walking their dog along a remote road in Clifton, an English port city of Bristol, when they happened upon the body of a 25-year-old Joanna Yeates. 32-year-old Dutch engineer Vincent Tabak, who was obsessed with violent pornography and rough sex, would soon be identified as Joanna's killer. Tabak strangled the young woman to death in her own apartment, and then du...

On February 24th, 1986, police in Talladega, Alabama forced their way inside the home of 24-year-old mother and student Sherri Weathers. When she had not shown up for classes in over a week, police were sent to do a wellness check. And soon the reason for her absence became very clear.  Sherri and her two young children had been strangled to death, and their killer had piled them on top of each ot...

November 13th, 1977. Los Angeles, California. Young students, Dolores and Sonja were on their way home from a day out shopping, when two police officers stopped them for questioning. However, it was just a clever disguise, and the supposed police officers were actually sadistic killers. The girls were held captive for five days, abused, and then eventually strangled. Their killers were two cousins...

The residence of 39-year-old Claudia Benton was broken into by a savage intruder. The mother of two, had been brutally beaten, sexually assaulted, and fatally stabbed. The killer was a man named Ángel Reséndiz who had been illegally boarding trains across the US border from Mexico for over 20 years. He would go on to kill at least nine people, but capturing Reséndiz would prove to be one of the FB...

On April 1st, 1990, an Arizona State Trooper was out on patrol when he spotted a truck pulled over on the side of interstate 10 in Casa Grande. The officer pulled off the interstate and parked behind the truck. After approaching the suspicious vehicle, he peered into the cab and was met with a shocking image. He came face to face with a terrified woman, chained up like an animal. He immediately ha...

June 2010, Cumbria, a predominantly rural county in Northwest England. The peaceful community of Whitehaven, in the county of Cumbria, was about to be shattered by the murderous rampage of one man. Over the course of one day, Derrick Bird would kill twelve people and injure eleven more. This callous killer only stopped when he had run out of ammunition, and as the police were closing in, he finall...

July 5th, 1998. Irene Silverman, an 82-year-old New York socialite, was viciously assaulted in her home before being tasered and finally strangled. Her killers were 23-year-old Kenny Kimes and his 63-year old mother Santé. The Kimes were linked to crimes in 5 separate states following a trail of fraud and suspected murder. By pure chance, a sting operation to apprehend the mother/son duo was alrea...

In November of 2016, police were investigating the disappearance of a young couple, named Kala and Charlie. The pair had seemingly vanished without a trace two months earlier, but through a stroke of luck, investigators finally had a lead. They made their way to a property in Woodruff, South Carolina, and upon arrival, they made an unbelievable discovery. 30-year-old Kala had been chained up in a...

In March 1995, the body of 41-year-old Julie Winningham was found just off Highway 14 in Washington State, strangled to death. Julie had become the eighth victim of an active serial killer named Keith Jesperson. The 39-year-old truck driver had been slaughtering women across America for the past five years. He would go on to capture national intrigue when he confessed to five murders in an anonymo...

February 13th, 1966, a group of young children spent the afternoon sledding down the snow-covered hills in Krakow, Poland but one 19-year-old was looking for a very different kind of thrill. As the day drew to a close, 11-year-old Leszek Calek began walking home… alone! A strange man emerged from the shadows and approached the young boy with a bayonet. Leszek was violently stabbed eleven times by...

In July of 1976, two teenage girls were sitting in a car in front of their New York City apartment, when a man approached and fired 5 shots into the vehicle. One of the girls died instantly, while the other was seriously injured. Within a year, the same man would claim 5 more young lives, terrifying the citizens of NYC. And in a taunting letter to police, gave himself a nickname that would go down...

Join us on a chilling journey into the depths of the human psyche. Welcome to 'What Makes a Killer,' the podcast that explores the twisted minds behind the most notorious crimes.  Each episode, host Jennifer Nittoso explores a different case, examining the motives, the methods, and the aftermath. We'll search for the truth and confront the unthinkable - examining such cases as the Vampire of Krako...

From Audioboom Studios, Nikki Druce and Cheryl Hole (RuPaul's Drag Race UK) will be traveling to the strangest corners of the world, stopping to learn about the craziest true crime cases in history, spooky paranormal activities, truly bonkers internet mythology, very convincing cults, and much, much more... It’s going to be a wild ride! Killers, Cults and Queens is out NOW with new episodes every...

Florida State University, Tallahassee. January 15th, 1978. Around 2:45 am, a man broke into the Chi Omega Sorority House and attacked four women. He was a known serial killer, and was on the run after breaking out of prison for the second time. Within four years, one of America’s most prolific killers– Ted Bundy– kidnapped, raped, and sadistically murdered at least thirty young women during the mi...

1990s Central Florida–a woman posing as a sex worker has made a name for herself by targeting middle-aged, wealthy men with expensive cars, killing them, and pawning off their belongings. In what would turn out to be a year long murder spree with no clear killer, Aileen Wuornos would shoot, rob, and murder seven men... just because she felt like it. Original music by Ben Krejci , Lee Rosevere , Ka...

In October, 1977 in Edinburgh, Scotland, the body of a 17-year-old girl was found on a deserted beach. Then, just a few hours later, the body of a second teenage girl was found in a field, just a few miles away. Later, the girls were identified as friends, and had last been seen alive the previous evening at the World’s End Pub in Edinburgh. Their murders prompted one of the biggest manhunts in Sc...

March 10th, 1993 in London, England. A man called a national newspaper to declare that he had just killed somebody. The victim had been suffocated to death with a plastic bag during a sadomasochistic sex session. His was the first death of many. The killer was 38-year-old Colin Ireland; a man with a singular obsession–becoming a serial killer of gay men. Original music by Ben Krejci , Lee Rosevere...

In late August 1990, freshman roommates Christina Powell and Sonja Larson were excitedly preparing for their first semester at the University of Florida in Gainesville. But they would never make it to the start of the school year. Hidden in the shadows, outside of their apartment, was a man fixated on feeding his sexual desires and twisted need to succeed at something in his life. Their murders wo...

1980s Washington. One of the most prolific serial killers of all time, Gary Ridgway, preyed on vulnerable young women, runaways and sex workers. With his un-assuming persona and habit of dumping bodies in the nearby Green River, Ridgway was able to commit mass murder for nearly twenty years, and get way with it. The fear that swept across the Pacific Northwest was palpable. This episode is sponsor...

On July 25th, 1994, a suspected murderer entered a small gas station in North Yorkshire, England. As he browsed the store, the owner of the station recognized him. This man was wanted for the murder of four people, and had been on the run for a week. Two weeks prior, this self-proclaimed murderer had brutally killed his girlfriend  and, a week later, her twin sister. He was fueled by drugs, alcoho...

May 1984, at the Lane County Courthouse in Eugene, Oregon. A mother of three stands accused of murdering her seven year old daughter, and of the attempted murder of her other two children. When her daughter testifies against her mother, it becomes all too clear. This woman wanted her children gone, just so she would be free of the responsibilities of motherhood, and so she could pursue a man she'd...

On July 14th, 1990, in Stow, Scotland, a 6-year-old girl was walking to her friend’s house when she was suddenly pulled into a car off the side of the road. A local man who had been working in his garden saw the girl disappear into the van and quickly called the police.  By chance, they were able to locate the vehicle, forcing the driver to pull over. When they opened the back of the van, they fou...

It's 1988 in Kansas City, Missouri. Young, vulnerable men are going missing without a trace, and no one can seem to figure out why. A local man named Robert Berdella–known as an upstanding member of the community–has been secretly holding these men in his house, torturing them to their limits, and taking extensive notes. No one has a clue, not even police. After murdering them, he dissects his vic...