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15 Deranged Serial Killers that Operated in the 80s

The 1970s and the 1980s saw an increase in the number of serial killers that were active in different parts of the world. This period is often referred to as the peak season of serial killers because as we entered the 1990s, the number of serial killers declined. Therefore, this article will focus on the deranged killers that operated in the 1980s to give the reader on how things were really bad. This article will also be a good source of knowledge for true crime enthusiasts who are keen on knowing about crimes that happened before and what motivated them to commit the crimes.

1 Jeffrey Dahmer

Dahmer is one of the most notorious serial killers that operated in the United States. He operated in the late 1970s and the 1980s. the serial killer caused a lot of havoc in that he killed, raped and mutilated 17 boys and proceeded to keep some of the victim’s body parts in his apartment. He mostly targeted the gay community and it is believed that the reason that his crimes went un detected for so long is because the police were not keen on investigating disappearances and deaths that occurred in the gay community and minority groups. His kills also included acts of cannibalism and necrophilia which make his crimes more gruesome. After being apprehended, he went to trial and was sentenced to life in prison where he was beaten to death while serving his sentence by an inmate.

2 Larry Eyler

Eyler was popularly known as the Interstate Killer. He is believed to have murdered close to 24 people in a span of two years from 1982 to 1984. Eyler got his his nickname as the Interstate Killer because most of his victims were found close to the Interstate Highway system. After he was apprehended, he was sentenced to death by lethal injection for the murder of a 16-year-old known as Daniel Bridges.
While in prison, he confessed to twenty other murders that had been cold for a long time in the state of Illinois. Eyler made the confessions to his attorney Kathleen Zellner who gave out the information with the consent of the client after his death. In his confession, Eyler refutes murdering Daniel Bridges and he claims that the murder was done by his accomplice Robert Little. Eyler died while on death row from AIDS related diseases.

3 Richard Ramirez

Richard Ramirez was active between June 1984 and August 1985. During this time, he murdered 13 victims both male and female and earned himself the nickname the Night Stalker. This is because he would creep into the victim’s house at night and murder them. While on his killing spree, he used a variety of tools to torture and murder the victims like knives, handguns, claw hammers, machete, electrocution and he even strangled others. The serial killer was first caught by an angry mob who beat him up before the authorities apprehended him. He was given the death penalty after facing trial but he did not finish his sentence as he died from issues related to B-cell lymphoma.

4 Joseph Christopher

A picture of a .22 caliber. the serial killer used that type of gun to murder his victims. , Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

He was popularly known as the.22 Caliber Killer as he used a .22 semi-automatic rifle to murder his victims in the early 1980s. All of Joseph Christopher’s victims were African American which shows that he targeted a particular group of people as his victims. While he was starting out on his murder spree in September 1980, he killed four people, three men and a 14-year-old boy in a span of 36 hours which is quite chilling.
The next month, he killed to more people and these murders were even more gruesome as he proceeded to cut out their hearts. In November, he killed four more people by stabbing them to death. He was arrested after the local authorities searched his mother’s house and found shell casings that matched the ones in the crime scene. He was convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison.

5 Joseph DeAngelo Jr.

DeAngelo was a former police officer and was believed to be the Golden State Killer. It is believed that DeAngelo went on three crime sprees during the 1970s and the mid 1980s.
DeAngelo was a former police officer and was believed to be the Golden State Killer. It is believed that DeAngelo went on three crime sprees during the 1970s and the mid-1980s. When brought to court, to avoid the death penalty, DeAngelo agreed to confess and pleaded guilty to 13 counts of murder and kidnapping. He received several life sentences without the possibility of a parole.

6 Carl Eugene Watts

Also known as the Sunday Morning Slasher, Carl Eugene Watts was among one of the most notorious serial killers in the United States. It is believed that his victim count was more than 100 and all these crimes happened in a span of eight years. He targeted thin and attractive women although his kills were not sexually motivated. This made catching him hard as local authorities could not get a DNA sample that would link him to the crimes.
He was later arrested but was not immediately charged with murder as there was not enough evidence to convict him until an eye witness, Joseph Foy came forward in 2004 saying that he saw a person matching Watts description the night that a 36-year-old Helen Butcher was murdered. He was sentenced to life in prison after the eye witness testimony in Michigan and incarcerated at a maximum prison in Ionia. He later died from prostate cancer.

7 Charles Albanese

Albanese was a serial killer who was active between 1980 and 1981. He killed three of his relatives so that he could get the inheritance. His first murder was his mother-in-law who Albanese slowly poisoned with Arsenic when he visited her at a retirement community she was living in Fox Lake.

He further killed his father and brother so that he could inherit his business. An autopsy conducted on his father revealed traces of arsenic which prompted the local authorities to exhume the bodies of Charles relatives which also tested positive for arsenic. An investigation was done and it revealed Charles as the main suspect. He was charged with three murders and found guilty on all counts and thus sentenced to death. He was executed by way of lethal injection on September 20 1995 in Stateville Correctional Centre.

8 Donald Harvey

Popularly known as the Angel of Death, Donald Harvey was an active serial killer during the 1970s and the 1980s. He worked as a nurse aid in a hospital where he would target patients as his victims. His victim caused is estimated to have been between 46 and 87. There was no set procedure that he used to identify his victims as he just came across patients who were in the hospitals and decided to murder them.
While committing the crimes, he used different ways to kill his victims like smothering them with pillows, giving the wrong medication and using poison like arsenic and cyanide. After being arrested, Harvey decided to enter a plea bargain by confessing his crimes to avoid a death sentence. When he went to trial, he was sentenced to eight life sentences.

9 Ronald and James Allridge

Usually we normally hear of a serial killer working on their own and choosing their victims individually but that was not the case with the Allridges as they worked together. The brothers went on a crime spree in 1985 where they robbed convenience stores and shot employees who worked in them until they were arrested when they had just robbed a restaurant in Fort Worth. They were both charged with capital murder and they were both sentenced to death. Ronald Allridge was executed by way of lethal injection in 1995 while his brother James was executed by lethal injection in 2004.

Click here to read on the 15 deranged serial killers who operated in Florida

10 Richard Angelo

Angelo was a serial killer who was active in 1987 from April to October and he wrecked a lot of havoc during that little time. He worked in a hospital and thus targeted patients as his victims. His crimes came into light after he injected a patient named Gerolamo Cucich and he alerted the nurse that he did not feel well. He gave a description that matched Angelo and when he was arrested, he confessed to have poisoned other patients who had come for treatment at the facility. He went to trial and was found guilty on two counts of murder and sentenced to 50 years to life in prison.

11 James Antonio Barnes

A police car in a crime scene. , , via Wikimedia Commons

Barnes was a serial killer from Detroit, Michigan who killed 3 prostitutes and harmed 2 more of them badly. After being apprehended, he was charged with second degree murder and armed robbery but when he was taken to trial, he claimed that he committed the crimes because his other personalities told him to do so. His span of crimes has not been that long, august to October 1988, in the fact that he is still alive.

12 Robert Berdella

Berdella was compared to Barnes a worse serial killer because his span of crimes held on for at least 3 years when he did crimes like kidnapping, raping and murdering. He was quite gruesome in the way he murdered people in that he would keep them captive for up to six weeks and thus forcing his victims to endure suffering for a long time. He would further dissect the victim’s bodies and dispose the them using garbage bags. His modus operandi earned him the nickname the Kansas City Butcher. After being arrested, he was charged with 1st and 2nd degree murder, assault, sodomy and sexual assault. He was found guilty and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of a parole in 1988.

13 Samuel Little

A picture of serial killer Samuel Little. , Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

American serial killer Samuel Little operated between 1970 and 2005. As one of the most prolific serial killers in American history, he admitted to committing 93 killings. Little often strangled marginalized and defenseless women and dumped their bodies in far-off places. He provided in-depth sketches of his victims due to his photographic recall. Little was taken into custody in 2014, and he was eventually given a life sentence. At the age of 80, he passed away on December 30, 2020.

14 Sunset Strip Killers

The sunset strip killers were two serial killers called Doug Clark and Carol Bundy who were active in 1980 and killed people throughout Los Angeles. The two were a couple would pick up young women and would sexually abuse them before killing them. When arraigned in court, Clark was charged with six counts of murder and sentenced to death in the gas chamber which he had requested. Carol on the other hand was sentenced to 52 years in orison and she died in 2003.

15 Henry Lucas and Otis Toole

The couple were among the most notorious serial killers in the United States. Their crime spree started in 1960 with Lucas killing his mother. He then met Toole in 1976 and they became a couple and together they went on a killing spree across the country. The most controversial kill was when Toole confessed to them murdering Adam Walsh who was the son to the infamous host John Walsh.

Check out this article on the 10 infamous serial killers from the 70s here