Celebrities Connected To Infamous Serial Killers

It's no secret that humankind is infatuated with true crime, and serial killers are the juiciest criminals of them all ... often literally. And let's say right up front that obsession is nothing new. In the Victorian era, entire families famously gathered to watch some good, old-fashioned executions, and it wasn't long before people were cashing in: Printers were selling broadsheets commemorating crimes and executions, and even at the beginning of Victoria's reign, crowds could buy souvenirs like pottery figurines of popular killers.

Think some of the recent movies have been gratuitous? Victorians would think nothing of it ... particularly those who bought pieces of the actual barn where the notorious Red Barn Murder took place. Profiting from some of the most horrible crimes in human history came to something of an end in 1987, with the Son of Sam Laws. As the name suggests, it was enacted after David Berkowitz started getting offers from companies who wanted to buy his life story. New York State? They weren't cool with that. 

It's always been a controversial thing — First Amendment rights, and all — but courts doubled down in 2023. That's when the wife of Long Island Serial Killer suspect Rex Heuermann cut a million-dollar deal for her story, and lawmakers started looking at expanding that to criminals' families. It's easy to see why victims' families might protest their loved ones' killers becoming celebrities, but here's a question: Have some of our favorite mainstream celebrities crossed paths with serial killers in a big way? Absolutely.

The following article includes allegations and descriptions of addiction, sexual assault, and suicide.

Big celebrities producing, funding, or otherwise spearheading various projects that are personally near and dear to them is nothing new, but the story of Patton Oswalt's work on the book and film, both called "I'll Be Gone in the Dark," isn't just personal, it's heartbreakingly tragic. The book was started by his wife, Michelle McNamara, and it was based on the research she'd done and documented on her "True Crime Diary" blog. The string of rapes and killings she was looking into was variously associated with a killer given names like the East Area Rapist, but it was McNamara who helped consolidate a shocking number of unsolved cases from the 1970s and 1980s, and link them to a single perpetrator she called "The Golden State Killer." 

McNamara died suddenly in 2016, the victim of an undiagnosed heart condition and an accidental overdose. Oswalt picked up her book and her work, finishing it with the help of some of her colleagues. It was published in 2018, which happened to be the same year that renewed interest in the case — credited mostly to McNamara's work — led to the arrest of Joseph DeAngelo. In 2020, he confessed and was sentenced to life without parole. 

Oswalt spoke with NPR after the sentencing, saying that finishing her book was as difficult as it was important. In the end, though, it was honoring her wishes and her life, with many crediting her work as making the once-cold cases impossible to ignore. 

Wilbur and Orville Wright may have started out in the perfectly ordinary printing business, but they became international celebrities when their research into aviation led to the development of controlled and sustainable flight. And weirdly, that might not have happened if it wasn't for a local bully-turned-serial-killer.

The Wright family was living in Ohio, and Wilbur was playing hockey during the winter of 1885/86, when he was hit in the face by another player named Oliver Crook Haugh. His injuries were catastrophic, and led to massive complications and depression that derailed his plans to go to Yale. Instead, he stayed home, opened the printing business with his brother, and the rest is history. But what about Haugh? 

Haugh, too, suffered from dental problems, and became addicted to the era's medicines ... which included opium and cocaine for pain relief. He ultimately went to medical school, but his actual medical practices tended to open and close quickly amid suspicious patient deaths. It's unclear just how many there were, but Haugh was connected to the killing of multiple women while performing abortions, killing several while treating them with mineral baths, and having several girlfriends die under suspicious circumstances. He was sentenced to death for the murders of his parents and brothers, who were killed in 1905. In a story about his execution, the Los Angeles Herald reported that he maintained innocence, but that "Haugh manifested an apparent indifference to his fate until the last."

Want to stay away from serial killers? Maybe don't hang out with Bryan Cranston. He was on The Dan Patrick Show when he talked about meeting Charles Manson as a pre-teen, while out horseback riding with his cousin. They frequently headed out into the wilds north of LA, near Manson's Spahn Ranch. Cranston said that they were getting their horses when someone ran in screaming about Charlie, sending everyone there into a frenzy. He said that he went on with his ride, and within minutes passed the group, now returning with one terrifying individual in the center.

Cranston described Manson's "dark, dead eyes," saying that he was on a horse but being led by someone else. "He was just out of his mind," Cranston recalled, adding that after he saw the guy, "We didn't think another thing of it." Until, of course, the news. He added: "I'll never forget that face."

Creepy? Definitely, and Cranston also has a connection to Clifton Bloomfield. Bloomfield was convicted of the 2008 murder of Scott Pierce, the 2005 murders of Tak and Pung Yi, and two other murders in 2005 — the killings of Carlos Esquibel and Josephine Selvage. Bloomfield also made some appearances as a movie and television extra — and yes, he was absolutely in "Breaking Bad."  (Even more bizarrely, Cranston was on "The Tonight Show" when he shared a story about how he and his brother were flagged as murder suspects after the murder of their former boss, which happened just before they left town.)

Dave Rubinstein was one of the founders of hardcore punk band and CBGB's mainstay Reagan Youth. Famous — or perhaps more accurately, infamous — for their KKK- and Nazi-inspired look alongside definitively anti-fascist messages, they were once one of the biggest hardcore punk bands on the East Coast ... until things went terribly wrong. The band's initial run ended when Rubinstein died by suicide, and when fellow Reagan Youth member Paul Bakija decided to get things back together in 2013, he explained his motivations (via the Chicago Tribune): "I hated the way the band ended. I wanted to change that ending, ... and maybe it'll give Dave a different ending."

Bakija is talking about the death of Tiffany Bresciani, who was involved with Rubinstein when she was brutally murdered by notorious New York serial killer Joel Rifkin. Bresciani would be the last of his victims: After wrapping her in a tarp and storing her in his mother's garage for several days, Rifkin attempted to dispose of her body. When law enforcement spotted his missing license plate, he tried to flee, crashed instead, and was arrested when her body was discovered. He would ultimately confess to killing 17 people. 

Rifkin's confession came on June 28, 1993, and in a completely horrible footnote to this story, it was only a few days later that Rubinstein's father killed his mother in what was considered a freak automobile accident. Rubinstein's death — ruled an intentional overdose — happened just days later, on July 3.

The problem with making Danny Trejo's life into a Netflix series is simply that no one would believe that it's been such a wild ride — and that includes the time Charles Manson hypnotized him while they were in jail together. He wrote about the encounter in his memoir, "Trejo," and taken alongside the fact that Manson convinced his whole Manson Family to do some seriously terrible things at his request, it's an eerie tale.

Trejo wrote (via Far Out) that when he was 17 years old, he found himself in jail alongside a "dirty greasy scrawny white boy [who] was so poor, he didn't have a belt, and instead used a piece of string to keep his pants up. I felt sorry for him. It was clear the only shower the man was ever going to have was the one he was going to get in jail." He went on to say that Manson had claimed he could take them on a guided meditation trip, that would mimic what it felt like to shoot up with heroin, and not only did he talk them through it, Trejo said that he was terrifyingly good at it.

"If that white boy wasn't a career criminal, he could have been a professional hypnotist," Trejo wrote. By the time Manson guided Trejo through the meditation, he had been using heroin for three years, and he wrote that he had a physical response to Manson's words. Eerie? Absolutely.

David Carpenter was arrested as the Trailside Killer, convicted of murdering multiple victims in the late 1970s and early 1980s. His preferred hunting ground was along the hiking trails in several California counties, giving him his moniker. In 2010, it was announced that DNA evidence had connected him to yet another victim, a 23-year-old woman who had been stabbed around 25 times. His serial killing spree wasn't the first time he'd wreaked havoc on those around him.

Carpenter was arrested, tried, convicted, and sentenced to seven and a half years in jail in 1960, after he attacked a woman named Lois Rinna. Rinna's story was relayed on an episode of "The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills," which features her daughter, Lisa, among the cast members. She explained that the Rinna family had been friendly with Carpenter's family, so when he offered her a ride, she didn't think anything of it. She said (via People): "That was a really bad thing. I knew him. I thought that was it. He's straddling me. He had a hammer in one hand and a knife in the other."

After being stabbed and hit with the hammer, a military police officer intervened. He'd seen them heading down a deserted road and suspiciously followed, reaching them in time to save Lois's life. Lisa added her own thoughts (via Elle), saying: "I had such great sadness and empathy for my mom ... She never dealt with it. She never even talked about it."

When Ashton Kutcher took the stand in a Los Angeles courtroom in 2019, he told a horrifying story. He'd arranged to meet Ashley Ellerin for a date, and when he showed up late to her place, there was no sign of her. The only thing out of the ordinary that he said he saw was (via The Guardian) "what I thought was a red wine spilled on the carpet." It absolutely wasn't wine, and the following day, Ellerin's roommate discovered her body. A later examination revealed that she had been stabbed 47 times.

Ellerin was killed in 2001, and it wasn't until 2021 that Michael Thomas Gargiulo was sentenced to death for not only her killing, but the 2005 murder of Maria Bruno, and the 2008 attempted murder of Michelle Murphy. Not technically a serial killer? Hold that thought, because he was also facing a trial in Illinois for killing a woman named Tricia Pacaccio.

Gargiulo maintained his innocence throughout, condemning his own attorneys for not letting him take the stand even though he wanted to defend himself. He claimed (via The Guardian), "I'm going to death row wrongfully and unjustfully," while those who spoke at the sentencing hearing were honest, open, and forthright about the devastation they still felt decades later. Ellerin's father, Michael, had seen his daughter just hours before she was killed, saying, "It marked the beginning of an altered, diminished, heartbreaking life."

Gianni Versace was killed in 1997, and decades later, exactly why Andrew Cunanan felt the fashion designer had to die is still unknown. Given that Cunanan himself died by suicide after the high-profile murder, it's probably safe to say that no one will ever come up with a definitive motive.

What is known is that Versace — a favorite designer for celebrities from Princess Diana to Courtney Love — wasn't Cunanan's first victim. He wasn't even the second, third, or fourth, as he had already been linked to the bludgeoning death of 28-year-old Jeffrey Trail and the shooting death of 33-year-old David Madson, both in Minnesota. Then, he moved on to Chicago, where he stabbed and killed 75-year-old Lee Miglin. From there? His next victim was William Reese, a 45-year-old cemetery caretaker in New Jersey.

Countless attempts have been made to make some sort of sense of exactly who Cunanan really was, and why he executed Versace on the steps of his Florida home. But as Vanity Fair found when they tried tracing his steps and interviewing those who knew him best, even those closest to him didn't really know him: He was a serial liar fond of telling tales — the taller, the better. What they did find is a slew of acquaintances who admitted that, in hindsight, they probably should have reached out to someone sooner: Tom Eads summed up their thoughts with, "It breaks my heart. None of us could see it, or wanted to see it, or wanted to help. I feel a lot of guilt."

The so-called I-5 Killer had a full spread dedicated to him in Sports Illustrated. Why? Randall Woodfield was drafted by the Green Bay Packers out of Portland State University, and if it had been a later decade, a background check might have caught things like an indecent exposure arrest that happened while he was in college.

It wasn't caught, and Green Bay offered him a deal. All seemed well, until he was cut from the team for unspecified reasons. He drifted for a while, was eventually caught attacking women, was arrested, and ended up in jail. Fast forward to 1980, and the first victim that would ultimately be attributed to him was raped then killed by both blunt force trauma and stabbing. By the time he was arrested and tried, he was connected to more than a dozen victims, including a 14-year-old girl.

In 2021, "Real Housewives of Dallas" star Stephanie Hollman dropped a shout-out to the I-5 Killer in her Valentine's Day Instagram post to her husband, Travis. In it, she said, "You are the only person I have ever met who was babysat by a serial killer and made it out alive (true story he was babysat by the 1-5 (sic) killer." Yikes? A little bit. And as for the Dick Van Dyke connection? When Woodfield went to trial for some of the most brutal crimes of the decade, he was prosecuted in Oregon's Marion County. The prosecutor? Chris Van Dyke — Dick Van Dyke's son.