Confessions of a Serial Killer

Robert Black is the worst child killer in modern British history. Convicted of the abduction and murder of four school girls, he is widely expected of having murdered up to ten more in a ten year campaign of terror. In 1993 he agreed to be interviewed by the renowned sex offender process Ray Wyre. What emerged was a chilling insight into Black's deadly modus operandi.

In 1996, Colin Ireland murdered 5 gay men in a 2-week killing spree. Dubbed the gay slayer, his acts of cruelty towards his victims perhaps masked his own sense of self loathing and confusion over his sexuality. When he finally spoke to police his described each of his murders in cold and calculating detail unlike anything ever heard by detectives before - or since.

For many criminal psychologists, Ted Bundy stands out as the epitome of a serial murderer: charming and urbane he was the ultimate lady killer. In 1989 as he awaited execution on death row, he granted a series of extraordinary interviews to detectives. He claimed to be offering them information about women he had murdered but had never been found. But was he really just buying more time?

Nilsen murdered 15 young men, whose bodies he sort to preserve as companions before dismembering their remains for disposal down the toilet. Despite the horrific nature of his crimes, few killers have ever confessed to murder as willingly or eagerly as Denis Nilsen. The ultimate Narcissist, he delighted in sharing every graphic detail of his killings with his interviewers.

Few serial killers have divided opinion quite like Aileen Wuornos. And few executions of a murderer have elicited such sympathy. Despite having gunned down 6 clients when working as a prostitute she eventually confessed to her crimes. But when she did so it was through a case of pure entrapment: talking down a bugged telephone line to save her lover Tyria Moore from being implicated in the crimes.

In 2016 a double murder shocked the sleepy village of Spalding, England. Two star crossed 14-year-old young lovers (Edwards and Markham), conspired to murder Edwards' mother and sister. This case of folie a deux is the youngest recorded incident of Matricide in UK criminal history. The police confessions are startling for the clinical justification made for the crimes.

In 2017 Nurse Elizabeth Wettlaufer was sentenced to life imprisonment for murdering 8 of her elderly charges with overdoses of insulin. She voluntarily handed herself into the police. Using the police precinct as a confessional, this angel of death shared with detectives how God had instructed her to end life.

Two British serial murders who killed a generation apart, but with the same common goals - they killed to achieve an infamy that had eluded them. Manuel was brutal psychopath who on Glasgow in the 1950's murdered entire families in their beds. Griffiths a Criminology PHD student, who in 2013, slaughtered 3 sex workers with a crossbow. When each of them confessed they spoke in riddles.

Pickton was a pig farmer who lived on a sprawling squalid estate. The ramshackle collection of barns and slaughterhouses were the perfect cover for a madman who killed 49 women before feeding them to his hogs. Refusing to confess to police he was caught out when an undercover police officer was placed with him as a cellmate. Unable to hide his delight at killing he boasted about the murders.

Ridgway remains one of the most prolific murderers in US history who evaded capture for decades and integrated murder into his every day life, killing prostitutes with his young son in the the car. He confessed as part of a plea bargain, but his questioning by King county sheriff Dave Reichart was a masterclass in how to question a serial killer about his dark craft.