SERIAL KILLERS ‘FESS UP
Last year saw a number of convicted serial killers confessing to hundreds more murders
Last year saw a cluster of serial killer confessions in various parts of the world. They included Niels Högel, a former nurse who, at his trial in October, admitted to having murdered 100 of his patients between 2000 and 2005. The 41-year-old German, already serving a life sentence for six previous murders, dispatched his victims with lethal doses of medication. He told the court how he deliberately induced heart failure in patients, because he enjoyed “being able to resuscitate them” – a skill with which he was not entirely successful.
• In Japan, another nurse, 31-year-old Ayumi Kuboki, was reported in July to having confessed to murdering at least 20 elderly patients. She told police how she would add disinfectant to a patient’s drips towards the end of her shift, so that they would die when she was no longer on duty. It was “a nuisance” having to explain to relatives the circumstances of someone dying during her shift, Kuboki said.
• Going one better than killer nurses, in December, an Irkutsk court found Russian policeman Mikhail Popkov guilty of having murdered 56 people, nearly all women, over a 15-year period. Like Högel, Popkov was already serving a life sentence, for the murders of 22 women. His modus operandi was to offer lone women a lift in his car late at night. Known to newspapers as “the werewolf” or the “Angarsk Maniac” (Angarsk being his Siberian home town), the 53-year-old Popkov claimed he only targeted “women who lead loose lifestyles”. Like Peter Sutcliffe, the Yorkshire Ripper, whose self-proclaimed motive was “to clean up the streets,” Popkov described himself as a “cleaner”. However, the state’s lead investigator regarded Popkov’s motivation as simply a hatred of women; his killing spree apparently having begun
Little says he has vivid memories of each victim’s appearance
after learning that his wife was having an affair.
• In September, an Indian tailor, Adesh Khamra, was arrested in Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, for murdering 33 lorry drivers during the past decade. Khamra admitted befriending truck drivers at roadside cafes, drugging their food, and then strangling them in secluded locations. Although he and his accomplices then sold his victims’ lorries, Khamra claimed to be motivated by a desire to free them from a life of hardship. “They lead hard lives,” he is reported as saying, “I am giving them mukti [release], freeing them from pain.” Seven other men have also been arrested on suspicion of aiding and abetting Khamra’s crimes.
• A Mexican man, Juan Carlos Hernández, confessed to a court in 2018 to necrophilia and the murder of 20 women. Offering to sell them clothes, perfume or mobile phones, his wife Patricia lured the women to their home. After killing each victim, Hernández had sex with the body and used the flesh as pet food and plant fertiliser. The remaining bones were strewn around Hernández’s neighbourhood of Ecatepec. Hernández said he began his murder spree in 2012, telling police that he hated his mother for having dressed him in girl’s clothing as a boy, and making him watch whilst she had sex with men.
• Finally, in a Texas prison last year, another convicted killer, 78-year-old Samuel Little, admitted murdering 90 vulnerable women, mainly sex workers and drug addicts, in numerous US states from 1970 to 2012. As a former boxer, Little was able to stun his victims into unconsciousness with a powerful punch before strangling them. Many of his victims were believed to have died of drug overdoses or natural causes. Little, who was already serving life for three murders, says he has vivid memories of each victim’s appearance. Following FBI officials’ request, he drew portraits of many of the women, using chalk, pastels and watercolours. D.Telegraph, 11 July, 31 Oct, 30 Nov, 11 Dec; Metro, 13 Sept, 9+13+31 Oct, 11 Dec; Times, 13 Sept; independent. co.uk, 17 Sept; BBC News, 10 Dec 2018; D.Telegraph, 14 Feb 2019.