The People Who Caught Some Of The World's Most Dangerous Serial Killers

The public has had a morbid fascination with serial killers since before that term was even coined. We human beings tend to look for explanations in the unexplainable, and for most of us, there is nothing harder to comprehend than the mindset of those who would stalk and kill other human beings, often just for the thrills. The literal book on the subject was written by FBI agent Robert Ressler, who — with his partner John Douglas — became the first profilers, conducting the kind of research and interviewing the kinds of individuals that would drive most law enforcement types to an early retirement. Thanks to those two (who were the inspiration for the lead characters in the acclaimed Netflix series "Mindhunter"), the investigators who followed in their footsteps have been able to put some of the most dangerous people on the planet behind bars.

This profession is, as one might imagine, not an easy one in any sense of the word. The investigators we'll be looking at today have sacrificed time with their families, peaceful sleep, and their mental health in the interest of keeping the streets safer, and we owe them all a debt of gratitude. Fair warning: we'll be getting into some pretty dark territory here, so proceed with caution.

Dennis Rader, the BTK Killer — an acronym for "Bind, Torture, Kill" — was the epitome of the cold, calculating, intelligent serial murderer. Between 1974 and 1991, he killed at least 10 victims in WIchita, Kansas, communicating with the police through taunting letters and even phone calls. He then fell dormant, but in 2004 — seemingly simply out of boredom — he began taunting the cops again, sending correspondence which contained clues to his identity and basically sticking his tongue out at law enforcement. Fortunately, there was one detective on the case who knew just how to appeal to Rader's vanity and inflated sense of self. Ken Landwehr, who had been part of a task force aimed at apprehending Rader since 1984 and had commanded the Wichita homicide unit since 1992, would earn his own nickname from the press and his peers: the "Dick Tracy of Wichita."

When Rader resumed his correspondence with the cops, Landwehr used press conferences and newspaper ads to open up his own line of communication. Through these means, Rader asked Landwehr if it would be safe for him to send information via computer floppy disk, and Landwehr assured him it was. Of course, it was not — metadata on the disk revealed the first name of the user (Dennis) and where the data had been created (Christ Lutheran Church, whose council Rader was president of). The cops arrested Rader shortly thereafter, and when he asked Landwehr why he had lied, the commander's answer was elegant in its simplicity: "Because I was trying to catch you" (via The Washington Examiner). Rader received 10 consecutive life sentences; Landwehr, unfortunately, passed away in 2014.

Investigators don't come much more respected than Robert Keppel, whose career as a green homicide detective in King County, Washington in the mid-'70s began with an assignment to a series of crimes that would eventually be tied to perhaps the most infamous serial killer in American history. Digging into the disappearances of two young women from a State Park in 1974, Keppel — working with a serious dearth of clues — was able to use motor vehicle records to whittle down his list of suspects to a short one that included a man by the name of Ted Bundy (pictured above), who, of course, would years later be executed for the murders of dozens of women.

As chief investigator of the Criminal Division of the Washington Attorney General's Office — a division which today is named after him — Keppel created the computer database known as HITS, the Homicide Investigation Tracking System, which has helped to bring untold numbers of violent offenders to justice. He consulted on the Atlanta Child Murders case, and assisted the task force assigned to snare the Green River Killer, Gary Ridgway — and such is the level of respect he commanded that Bundy himself, impressed with his doggedness, reached out to Keppel to discuss his crimes for Keppel's book "Signature Killers." Keppel passed away in 2021 at the age of 76, but his legacy in the annals of criminal justice is nothing short of immortal.

The late '70s in New York City were by all accounts rather tense, with high crime rates and sweltering summers adding to a sense of general unease in the Big Apple. Exploiting this unease in explosive fashion in 1976 and '77 was a man who made his presence felt with a .44 revolver: David Berkowitz, the "Son of Sam," who killed seven people, mostly young women, and injured seven more before being apprehended. Berkowitz was a predator who fancied himself too smart for the cops to catch, taunting them with a series of letters and employing disguises such as wigs to throw them off of his scent — but he didn't count on one detective, Edward Zigo, whose gut was more than a match for Berkowitz's wiliness.

Berkowitz was arrested essentially on a hunch from Zigo, who noted the small detail that the man's car had been ticketed for being illegally parked in Brooklyn on the night of a shooting in that borough. Upon searching his car (with no warrant), detectives found a rifle, maps that marked the Son of Sam's previous crimes, and most damningly of all, an unsent letter in the same blocky script the killer used in his previous correspondence. While investigators waitied for the warrant to show up, Berkowitz exited his apartment with his .44 revolver in a paper bag — and promptly announced, "Well, you got me. How come it took you such a long time?" 

Thought to be the most prolific serial murderer in the history of Connecticut, drifter William Devlin Howell was imprisoned in 2007 on a 15-year sentence for manslaughter in the death of a 33-year old woman, Nilsa Arizmendi. Despite pleading guilty as part of a deal, Howell later tried to change his plea, insisting he was innocent — but New Britain Police Chief James Wardwell knew better. Howell had a nagging feeling about the swampy area behind a shopping center where Arizmendi's remains had been found. "I kept on going back, bringing back our investigators to search again and again," Wardwell would later tell Vice. "We were never satisfied that all the remains were found." When a hunter found what appeared to be a human skull in the area, recovery efforts began in earnest — and they turned up the remains of three additional missing people. 

That discovery led the cops to dig deeper, and before it was all said and done, the remains of seven total people had been recovered from the area. Having already been convicted on the single count of manslaughter, Howell pleaded guilty to six additional counts of murder, resulting in six consecutive life sentences — all thanks to Wardwell and his team, whose efforts ensured that he will never walk free again.

For five months in 1979, Lawrence Bittaker (pictured above) and Roy Norris terrorized the Los Angeles area with a series of extraoridinarily cruel crimes. The two, acquaintances from their respective stints in prison, prowled the coast in a van looking for teenage girls to victimize — and after plucking their young targets off the streets, they subjected them to degradation, sexual assault, and torture with implements such as wire hangers and sledgehammers before killing them and dumping their bodies. The "Tool Box Killers" were apprehended thanks in part to the efforts of lead investigator Paul Bynum of the Hermosa Beach Police Department — but the effort took a terrible toll.

At trial in 1981, Bittaker was sentenced to death, and Norris to life in prison — but in 1987, Bynum died by suicide. When Norris was denied parole in 2009, the prosecutor on his case, Stephen Kay, told the Daily Breeze that Bynum's suicide note expressed fear that the two would one day get out of prison, and seek revenge on him and his family. Kay called Bittaker and Norris the two vilest criminals he has ever come across — and this is a man who was involved with the trials of Charles Manson and his murderous "family."

In 1990, Fort Worth, Texas native Paul Dennis Reid was paroled after serving seven years of a 20-year sentence for armed robbery. After relocating to Nashville, Tennessee — reportedly to pursue a career as a country musician — he laid low for awhile before graduating to much, much more serious crimes. In the spring of 1997, Reid was responsible for a rampage in which at least seven people, all employees of fast food restaurants, were gruesomely murdered in the waning hours of the evening — a reign of terror that had restaurants locking their doors and sending their workers home early, for fear that the "Fast Food Killer" could strike again.

The case was cracked by legendary homicide detective Pat Postiglione, who has served as lead detective on well over 100 homicide cases, and who called Reid's case the most memorable of his career in an interview with WKRN.com. "The whole city was on edge for months," he said. "We went literally nonstop ... It was very stressful and a tough time." Reid was connected to the crimes in June 1997 after attempting to kidnap the manager of a Shoney's restaurant where he had previously worked; he was sentenced to death, but died of an undisclosed illness in 2013 at the age of 55.