Violent pornography incites sexually motivated murders. (Part 4)

40) Stephen McDaniel

Lauren Giddings had just received her degree from Mercer Law School at the time of her murder. Friends and relatives became concerned when they were not able to make contact with her, prompting them to contact local police and file a missing persons report. Once they arrived at the Barristers Hall apartment complex located on Georgia Avenue in Macon, they smelled a foul odor. The odor led them to a garbage bin, where they found the dismembered body of the victim inside. The body was dressed in pink shorts, and the arms and legs of the victim were missing. Frantic detectives canvassed the area and came up with the name of a suspect identified as Stephen McDaniel.

Law enforcement officials were informed of McDaniel’s bizarre interest in Lauren. It also came to light that Stephen McDaniel had actually boasted about giving a woman alcohol and killing her on an internet forum. According to the Atlanta Journal Constitution, these are his words.

 “Party hard by drinking alone in front of my computer. See my sexy neighbor/classmate come home late… Invite her up for a nightcap, make her a special drink called a Mickey Finn a drink designed to knock someone unconscious. She’s out cold. I finally lose my V-card [virginity]. Oh, no, she OD’d and died. I barbecue her legs and arms to celebrate losing my V-card. Not into organ meat, but throw her torso out, lose it on TV while the cops are discovering her remains, you mad virgins.”

The family of a murdered 27-year-old Georgia student listened to her killer’s confession in which he revealed the moment she ripped off the mask he was wearing and recoiled in horror as she recognized her friend before he strangled her to death.

Mercer University School of Law graduate Stephen McDaniel, 28, pleaded guilty to the June 2011 murder of fellow student Lauren Giddings, 27, in court on Monday and provided a full confession as part of his deal.

McDaniel's coolly detailed confession of how he startled Lauren awake at 4.30am on Sunday June 26 after he broke into her apartment dressed all in black.
'She saw me and said, very calmly, 'Get the f*** out,' said McDaniel in his confession which outlined how he killed and dismembered Lauren before disposing her remains in a trash dumpster outside the apartment complex they both lived in.

According to this confession he then returned to his apartment next door to Lauren's and spent the entire day on his computer according to the Macon Telegraph.

Then, in the evening, he returned with a hacksaw and cut up her body.

'I removed her limbs and head, wrapped them in several black trash bags, separately, and discarded them in the Mercer law school dumpster,' he wrote.

The cool killer then said that he put Lauren's torso into the apartment trash can on June 28 - two days before it was found. Before McDaniels changed his plea, the court had heard how he had spied on Lauren for months, using a camera attached to a 6-foot-long wooden stick - standing beneath her second-floor apartment and videoing her.

He had become obsessed with Lauren, his next-door neighbor at Barristers Hall apartments, across the street from Mercer University's law school - where they had been classmates.

"The case took a turn for the worse for McDaniel when the computer evidence started coming out, and it just kept coming," said McDaniel's attorney, Frank Hogue. "They were continuing to find more and more evidence related to his computer and camera, and finally he agreed that was enough to get a conviction."

Youtube video where McDaniel had been searching pornography, including rape.

41) Sean Gillis


Is an American serial killer who stalked, kidnapped, raped, murdered, and mutilated eight Louisiana women between 1994 and 2003 in the Baton Rouge Metro and surrounding areas. He was arrested without incident at his residence on Burgin Road at 1:30 a.m. on April 29, 2004. In his initial arrest, he was charged with three counts of first degree murder and three counts of ritualistic acts in the murders of 29-year-old Katherine Hall, 45-year-old Johnnie Mae Williams and 43-year-old Donna Bennett Johnston. Gillis confessed to the murders with little coercion and then informed investigators about four other women whom he had murdered.

Sean Gillis

On March 21, 1994, Gillis murdered his first victim, 81-year-old Ann Bryan, whose residence (an exclusive retirement home) he entered when she left the door unlocked for her nurse. He tried to rape her, but when she started screaming after he touched her, he quickly slashed her throat and then stabbed her repeatedly, nearly decapitating and disemboweling her in the process. The following year, he and Terri moved in together, and she eventually realized his addiction to pornography, but decided to ignore the issue, although she didn't realize what kinds of pornography Gillis specifically took a liking to. She continued to ignore the issue when he showed her pictures of dead women, which she was disgusted at, but otherwise, the two maintained a good relationship. On January 4, 1999, almost five years after the murder of his first victim, Gillis, allegedly bored from the inactivity, struck again, killing Katherine Hall, a prostitute he lured into the car with the promise of oral sex; he tried to kill her by strangling her with a zip-tie, but when she tried to escape, he instead stabbed her to death before undressing her and mutilating her body. Four months later, he began stalking Hardee Schmidt, whom he spotted jogging in the southern area of Baton Rouge; after three weeks, he found her jogging again and hit her with his car, knocking her into a ditch. Gillis then tied a zip-tie tightly around her neck and took her to an isolated area, where he raped and killed her before placing her body in a truck, where it remained for two days until he dumped it in a bayou located off of Highway 61 at St. James Parish, where it was discovered soon afterwards. On November 12, he killed Joyce Williams and took her body to his home, where he mutilated it and engaged in cannibalism. He then dumped her body, where it wouldn't be discovered until January 2000. 

After killing three more victims from 2000 to 2003 (during which another serial killer, Derrick Todd Lee, who Gillis admired, was active), Gillis murdered his eighth and final victim, 43-year-old Donna Johnston, on February 26, 2004. After taking 45 pictures of her body, he took it to another location and dumped it, but took the time to pose it first.

On April 28, investigators interviewed and got DNA swabs from a number of people who owned vehicles that had that specific tire model, including Gillis. When Gillis's DNA sample matched the DNA found on the hairs of two of his victims, police arrested him the next day in front of Terri, to whom he apologized during the arrest.

 Later that day, he confessed to his murders and his house was subsequently searched. Among the items recovered were newspaper clippings of Carrie Yoder, the final victim of Derrick Todd Lee, and a computer file titled "DTL" (Lee's initials), which stored news and information about Lee's crimes; Gillis would go on to allege that he feared being "outdone" by Lee. After evaluating his confessions and giving him various charges that changed multiple times, investigators finally charged him for the murders of Katherine Hall, Johnnie Williams, and Donna Johnston, which he stood trial for on July 21, 2008. On July 31, he was eventually found guilty of all charges and sentenced to life in prison without parole after the jury made a deadlock during the penalty phase. On August of the previous year, he pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and was subsequently convicted in the murder of Joyce Williams. On February 17, 2009, Gillis pleaded guilty to the murder of Marilyn Nevils, which he received another life sentence for.

 

42) PAUL BERNARDO AND KARLA HOMOLKA

 Their wedding photographs are picture perfect but handsome accountant Paul Bernardo and Karla Homolka had a distorted view of life and death. They formed a beautiful but deadly team and had already killed before their fairytale white wedding near Niagara Falls in Canada.

Their three victims included Homolka's younger sister Tammy, 15, who was drugged and raped in a sadistic session that ended in her death in 1990. The couple initially escaped detection because they cleaned up so well, claimed Tammy had suffered an accident and police could not believe it was possible for a sister to inflict such cruelty.

The couple met in 1987 and Homolka was the first girlfriend to encourage Bernardo's sadistic sexual behaviour. It was a fatal combination. Bernardo was a multiple rapist on his own but with his wife went on to kidnap two more schoolgirls, videotaping their rape and sexual assault.

The victims were dismembered and the body parts weighed down with concrete blocks before being thrown into a lake.

They became known as the Ken and Barbie killers because of their good looks in a case that rocked Canada.Tammy's death was re-examined and police found that she had been killed by a combination of alcohol and drugs from the veterinary surgery where Homolka worked.

 

43)  DAVID AND CATHERINE BIRNIE

The house at number 3 Moorhouse Street was Australia’s very own House of Horrors. It was the love-nest, torture chamber and killing field of Catherine and David Birnie, who, like the Wests, were a husband and wife serial killer team, the rarest form of serial killers in the world. It was here that they committed atrocities to their young female victims. 

  The Birnies weren’t particularly fussy about who they murdered. As long as they were female. Their victim’s ages ranged from 15 to 31. Whenever the Birnies felt like killing someone they would drive along the highways of Perth and pick up hitchhikers or other young women in need of a lift.Their victims never suspected the friendly couple until it was too late. At knifepoint they were taken back to Moorhouse street and tied up and abused as the Birnies carried out their sexual fantasies. Then they were murdered. The lucky ones were put to sleep with an overdose of sleeping pills and then strangled. The less fortunate victims were either stabbed or bludgeoned to death with a knife or an axe as they sat in their shallow graves in a secluded pine forest a short drive out of Perth. 

Mr Justice Wallace sentenced David Birnie to the maximum sentence of life imprisonment with strict security. He added: “The law is not strong enough to express the community’s horror at this sadistic killer who tortured, raped and murdered four women. In my opinion, David John Birnie is such a danger to society that he should never be released from prison.”

David Birnie stood trembling in the dock as the sentence was passed. His bravado returned as he was led to the prison van under tight security. With the angry mob calling for his blood, David Birnie put his hand to his lips and blew them a kiss.

Found sane enough to plead, Catherine Margaret Birnie admitted her part in the murders and was sentenced on 3 March 1987 in the Perth Supreme Court. She stood in the dock, holding hands with David Birnie, the man who had led her down the path of torture, rape and murder. Through the day’s hearing they chatted quietly and smiled at each other as the court was told of their 35 day reign of horror.

On occasions she would stroke and pat his arm. A psychiatrist to the court said that Catherine was totally dependent on Birnie and almost totally vulnerable to his evil influence. He said: “It is the worst case of personality dependence I have seen in my career”.

44) David Snow

 A former hostage testified yesterday that accused double murderer David Snow pointed a handgun to her face, asking, "Do you want me to show you what I can do to you?"

The 26-year-old woman said Snow posed as a customer seeking a family portrait at her East Hastings Ave. photo shop in Vancouver.

Snow abducted her at gunpoint as she was closing her store at 6 p.m. and marched her 8 km into a densely wooded area in North Vancouver on the night of July 3, 1992. He kept her as his sexual toy for eight days only half a block from a Safeway store at the Westview Shopping Centre at the busy TransCanada Highway.

David Snow

She said in her first weekend of captivity, Snow would lift her as his hog-tied hostage "about an inch perhaps off the ground" and drop her. Snow also molested her, she told the jury.

Snow forced to her perform sexual acts three or four times a day and "spanked" her one day, she testified. But he never punched her after the first night, she added.

She is the first of five witnesses from incidents involving Snow in Vancouver in the summer of 1992.

Snow, 42, an Orangeville antique dealer, has pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder in the April 7, 1992 deaths of Toronto realtor Ian Blackburn, 55, and his wife, Nancy, 49, a public health nurse.

Prosecutor Hank Goody said in his opening statement that evidence will show that Snow strangled, gagged and hog-tied Nancy Blackburn and that Ian was also bound. The bodies of Ian and Nancy - who was nude - were found in the trunk of her car parked in the driveway of their St. Leonards Ave. home on April 13, 1992.

The photo store clerk said yesterday she made no effort to fight or flee after resisting on the first night of captivity. She said Snow punched her " so hard in the face I literally saw stars."

Later, Snow brandished three handguns - a silver one, a black 9 mm handgun and a smaller black firearm - before his hostage, whom he called his "outstanding catch," court heard."I want to show you," she quoted Snow as saying as he displayed his three stolen guns before aiming the smallest weapon at her head. "Do you want me to show you what I can do to you?"

At about the time Ian and Nancy Blackburn were meeting their deaths, the older brother of their alleged killer was examining a briefcase with links to both his brother and the Blackburns.

Called as a Crown witness at the murder trial of his brother, David, Victor Snow, 49, testified yesterday that in March or April of 1992, he came across the briefcase while cleaning out a closet in an Orangeville, Ont., house once occupied by David and their mother.

Victor Snow said the black briefcase contained, among other things, "pornographic pictures," sheets of paper with "what seemed to be listings of ships or submarines" in his brother's handwriting, and photographs of an octagonal barn on the Blackburns' Caledon farm.

The Ontario Court jury has heard that Mr. Blackburn, 54, and Mrs. Blackburn, 49, were last seen alive on April 7, 1992. Their bodies were found six days later in Mrs. Blackburn's Chevrolet, parked in the driveway of their North Toronto home.

In his opening address to the jury, Crown attorney Hank Goody said evidence would show that after the killings, the accused took a train to Vancouver, where he kidnapped, stripped and sexually assaulted four young female victims.

Masses of hard core pornography was also found in David Snows house and storage unit as told in this video about his crimes. 

 

45) Lonnie Franklin Jr.

Lonnie David Franklin Jr killed nine women and a 15-year-old girl between 1985 and 2007, before dumping their bodies, often in alleyways.
The sentence against the 63-year-old was decided by a jury. Franklin was convicted last month.
He will be formally sentenced at a later hearing.
Prosecutors said Franklin stalked vulnerable young black women before shooting or strangling them.
He began by targeting drug addicts during LA's crack cocaine epidemic.
He was also convicted of the attempted murder of an 11th victim who survived being shot, raped and pushed out of a car in 1988.

Lonnie Franklin Jr.

'Grim Sleeper' serial killer is feared to have murdered hundreds of women over three decades

He has been dubbed the Grim Sleeper for the apparent gap in his killings between 1988 and 2002, but evidence brought up during the trial and other information which has surfaced over the years suggests he might have killed many more.
  When police entered his rundown house where he had lived since childhood they found pictures of hundreds of women including those of his victims. Many of the girls are still missing and presumed dead.
Among the litter in his garage were dozens of pornographic videos and explicit pictures of women he had brought home.
 A non-profit Black Coalition Fighting Back Serial Murders says it raised its voice against the rising number of killings as far back as 1987 but the police wasn't interested in investigating the cases.
Ballistic tests had also shown that at least two of the women killed in the 1980s were murdered using the same weapon. But this information, which indicated that a serial killer was on the loose, was never released to the public.
 Former prostitutes interviewed by HBO for a documentary on Franklin said they were willing to carry out some of his wild demands because of their addiction to cocaine. Some said that he would put a dog-leash on them, whilst anally raping them or even use a screwdriver to penetrate them.

 In 1974, when Franklin was a private in the U.S. Army stationed in Stuttgart, Germany, he was arrested and sentenced to three years and four months in prison for the rape and kidnapping of Ingrid W. as well as the attempted kidnapping of an unidentified 18-year-old woman that same night. The screams of the 18-year-old alerted neighbors, who called police.
However, Franklin served less than one year in prison. 

 A part of the huge stash of pornography found at Lonnie Franklin Jr's home, garage and glove
compartment in his vehicle. These images were taken from the HBO documentary-Serial Killer Lonnie Franklin Jr: (HBO) Tales Of The Grim Sleeper
 *see below 

 

46) Gary Ridgway

 

Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, Ridgway is believed to have murdered at least 71 women (according to Ridgway, in an interview with Sheriff Reichert 2001) near Seattle and Tacoma, Washington. His court statements later reported that he had killed so many, he lost count. A majority of the murders occurred between 1982 to 1984. The victims were believed to be either prostitutes or runaways picked up along Pacific Highway South (International Blvd. 99) whom he strangled. Most of their bodies were dumped in wooded areas around the Green River except for two confirmed and another two suspected victims found in the Portland, Oregon area. The bodies were often left in clusters, sometimes posed, usually nude. He also sometimes later would return to the victims' bodies and have intercourse with them (an act of necrophilia). Because most of the bodies were not discovered until only the skeletons remained, four victims are still unidentified. Ridgway occasionally contaminated the dump sites with gum, cigarettes, and written materials belonging to others, and he even transported a few victims' remains across state lines into Oregon to confuse the police.

Gary Ridgway

Ridgway began each murder by picking up a woman, usually a prostitute. He sometimes showed the woman a picture of his son, to help her trust him. After having sex with her, Ridgway strangled her from behind. He initially strangled them manually. However, many victims inflicted wounds and bruises on his arm while trying to defend themselves. Concerned these wounds and bruises would draw attention, Ridgway began using ligatures to strangle his victims. Most victims were killed in his home, his truck, or a secluded area.

The victims

Gary was a bed-wetter and was assumed to be of very low intelligence, with an approximate 82 I.Q. during the school time, he had trouble with poor academic standing and attempted his first homicide in around 1966 at the age of 16 years old by luring a six year old boy into the woods and stabbing him. The planned victim survived and Ridgway started to twist stranger heights by growing an obsession with pornography, which is an ordinary denominator in almost all serial killers historical reports. He has been married many times, and he has one son.

Gary started a campaign of destruction to remove the world of as many prostitutes as he perhaps could after attempting his first murder. Then he continued to kill the working girls and then he dumped their bodies into “The Green River” in Washington State. So he has been called as “The Green River Killer”. Then he began to dump the victims in unusual sites he referred to as “clusters.” Gary enjoyed visiting these dump sites and it was exposed later that he connected in the morbid practice of necrophilia so he could relive the murder and revel in his aggression and sexual perversion. He also posed the bodies and left strange articles on the bodies like fish, and stones, the meaning of which were never understood.
 Most of his victims were teenage prostitutes, and the prosecutor’s summary of the case says that Ridgway first started using prostitutes when he was stationed by the military in the Philippines. He had a bad first marriage, claiming that his first wife had affairs with other men. He considered her a prostitute for that reason. His second wife reported that he was interested in sexual bondage.
The prosecutor’s summary of the evidence doesn’t mention this, and we have seen nothing about it in the dozens of stories about Ridgway’s confession, but reporters for the King County Journal alluded to another factor in a story they filed two years ago. This is a paper that covers Seattle, the area where Ridgway committed his murders. Their story noted that sheriff’s detectives had searched Ridgway’s home and found pornography. Specifically, three pornographic magazines were found. The link between pornography and violence against women has been a subject of much controversy. In this case, there may be a link.

[link to part five]