Dto the television talks on current cases, especially the Garlasco crime, to the success of the Netflix series. From podcasts to docuseries. It is clear that the passion for true crime is a phenomenon with more followers with each passing day, between scrupulous interest in crime news and entertainment (the same reason why we like horror films?). Killers, preferably serial killers, capture our interest because «they allow us to explore, from a safe distance, what threatens our sense of stability: violence, death, transgression” (explained here by Danila De Stefano, psychologist, founder and CEO of Unobravo). The murderers, and especially the most brutal and ingenious, are «those “different from us” which generates an ambiguous tension between attraction and repulsion.” The fact is that we can never have enough of it.
Serial Killer Museum, who are the most famous killers in history on display
In this scenario, the Serial Killer Museumwhich after the success of Florence opens its second Italian branch in Turin, in via Arcivescovado 9.
Like a podcast that comes to life in the rooms, the museum takes the visitor on a journey in the minds of the most famous serial killers in historyincluding wax reproductions, multimedia installations and audio narration with the voice of Giancarlo De Angeli (Lucignolo). The result is an experience that combines entertainment and knowledge, inviting us to reflect on the border between curiosity, fear and fascination with evil. An itinerary that combines news, psychology and pop culture, showing how serial killers are not only a subject of study for criminology, but have also influenced cinema, television and the collective imagination.
The Turin museum hosts ten emblematic cases, among which US criminals stand out. On the other hand, the United States holds an almost incontestable record in the sad ranking of serial killers, with over 60% of documented cases (followed by Great Britain and Italy).
Ed Gein, the Plainfield Butcher
Among the famous murder sprees in contemporary American history is Ed Gein, otherwise known as the Plainfield Butcher, who inspired Norman Bates’ characters in Psycho (Ed Gein’s obsession with his mother Augusta, authoritarian and inclined towards religious fundamentalism) and Buffalo Bill’s The Silence of the Lambs. His story, atrocious and traumatic, is at the center of the series created by Ryan Murphy Monsters: The Ed Gein Story.
On paper, Edward Gein committed only two murders between 1954 and 1957. But nine women’s bodies were found in his house, exhumed, mutilated and used to make furnishing products.. The diagnosis of schizophrenia allowed him to escape the electric chair, condemning him to live in a state mental hospital for the rest of his life.
John Wayne Gacy, the Killer Clown
Made the news as the “Killer Clown” kidnapped, tortured, sodomized and killed 33 victims, all teenagers and males29 of which were buried under his house or piled up in the cellar (one in the foundation of the barbecue in the garden). His “career” lasted from 1972 to 1978, the year of his capture following the investigation into the disappearance of Robert Piest, his last victim. He was sentenced to death and executed, after 14 years of detention on “death row”, in 1994.
The name by which it became known comes from the fact of having entertained children during some parties with clown costume and makeup calling himself Pogo the Clown.
John Wayne Gacy, the Killer Clown at the Serial Killer Museum in Turin (photo Daniele Solavaggione).
Luis Alfredo Garavito, the Beast
Colombian, Luis Alfredo Garavito Cubillos was strongly suspected of more than 300 murders, of which at least 193 were confirmed. His modus operandi was always the same: assumed false identities (a street vendor, a beggar looking for alms, a disabled person looking for help or a humanitarian assistant) bringing the intended victims closer and, after taking them to a secluded and deserted place, he attacked them with a machete and decapitated them. All his victims were children aged between 8 and 13 years, except three 16-year-olds.
Jeffrey Lionel Dahmer, the Milwaukee Cannibal
He was responsible for 17 murders – between 1978 and 1991 -. His methods were particularly bloody, including acts of sexual violence, necrophilia, cannibalism and quartering. He was sentenced to life imprisonment in 1992 only to be killed two years later during his cleaning shift by Christopher Scarver, an inmate suffering from schizophrenia.
Richard Ramirez, the Night Stalker
He was nicknamed the Night Hunter for his habit of killing only after sunset. In the 1980s in the Los Angeles and San Francisco areas he kidnapped, tortured, raped and killed most of his victims, many of them in their homes. He used various weapons and in the most disparate ways (strangulation, beatings, firearms or various types of knives). He was sentenced to the gas chamber for 41 crimes. He died before the execution, and lived his last years painting pictures.
Albert Fish, the Brooklyn vampire
Terror spread throughout the early 20th century United States of America, mutilating, torturing and eating his victims. Pedophile, cannibal and highly unstable of mind, he was convinced that his actions were well wanted by the Lord. Otherwise he would have sent an angel to stop him as he had done with Abraham.
Charles Manson, the Sixties guru
He is believed to be the instigator of one of the most infamous bloody events in the history of the United States of America. That of the Cielo Drive massacre, in which the actress Sharon Tate, pregnant with her husband Roman Polansky, and four of her friends were murdered on August 9, 1969. The next day, the same Manson Family strikes at another villa, that of Leno and Rosemary LaBianca.
Three months passed before the investigations into the two cases intersected, revealing a common matrix and thus leading to the sect of Charles Mansonthe father, the leader. The one who would lead his boys to a point in the center of the Earth where they would live together, free.
Before that brutal killer, However, Manson was a symbolic figure of the counterculture on the west coast of the States: an advocate of free love and opposition to authorities. An ambiguous and charismatic man who managed to create a large group of followers, literally enchanted by his words.
Aileen Wuornos, Monster, the first female serial killer
According to the judges, she had a terrible past, abused in her family and abandoned, and a borderline and antisocial personality, but this was not enough to avoid a lethal injection. She only killed men between 1989 and 1990. The first was a client of hers who had attempted to rape her. He confessed to seven murders and received six death sentences. She was executed on October 9, 2002.
Aileen Wuornos at the Serial Killer Museum in Turin (photo Daniele Solavaggione)
His story inspired the movie Monster (2003), with Charlize Theron: to reconstruct Aileen’s true story, director Patty Jenkins used the letters sent by the serial killer during the 12 years she spent in prison
Leonarda Cianciulli, the soap maker from Correggio
Middle-aged housewife with a husband and four children, brutally killed three women. According to him, he would make scented soaps and cakes to offer to neighbors and family. The victims disappeared between 18 December 1939 and 30 November 1940, they were declared the sole culprit and died in a judicial mental hospital. The book about its history Correggio’s soap makerby Francesca Mogavero.
Erzsébet Báthory, Countess Dracula
Heiress of an important Hungarian family, the Transylvanian countess was arrested in 1610 on charges of having tortured more than 600 girls to death: it is said that she bathed in the blood of virgins or drank it to stay younger.
The accusations against him are supported by hundreds of testimonies collected at the time, describing mutilated bodies and girls found imprisoned in his castle. Even if today for some historians the story has been handed down at least in an exaggerated version.
Ted Bundy, the charm of evil
He was the author of at least thirty-six murders of young women between 1974 and 1978. He attracted victims faking disabilities, motor difficulties or impersonating authority figures and then attack and rape them in secluded places. Sometimes he returned to the crime scene to have sexual intercourse with the decomposing corpses, at least until they were in a condition that made such acts impracticable.
Taking advantage of his innate nature manipulatorhe managed to perfectly plagiarize the brothers of the Mormon church, to which he had joined, to the point that they constantly defended him against all evidence during all phases of the trial. Imprisoned in Colorado, he managed to escape twice and then carried out other attacks. He died in the electric chair on January 24, 1989.
Ann Rule, who knew him and wrote a book about him (A stranger by my sideSalani) described it as «a sadistic sociopath who took pleasure in the pain of others and the sense of power he felt towards his victims, both when they were about to die and after.”
His story inspired Ted Bundy – Criminal Charmstarring Zac Efron and Lily Collins.