Serial killers and true crime

I just posted about Gary Ridgway being charged with an additional murder. He is expected to enter a guilty plea for the murder of Rebecca Marrero, a 20-year-old mother of a 3-year-old daughter. This murder happened 28 years ago.

But Ridgway is not the only serial killer whose past is running up behind him and biting him on the butt.

Rodney Alcala is going to be going back to New York to be tried for the murders of Cornelia Crilley, a 23-year-old flight attendant who was raped and strangled in her Manhattan apartment in 1971 and Ellen Hover, 23, the daughter of a Hollywood nightclub owner who was found slain in 1977 not far from her family’s estate in Westchester County. (Source)

Gary Hilton is charged with first-degree murder, kidnapping and theft charges.  Jury selection is under way for Hilton’s murder trial in the 2007 death of 46-year-old Cheryl Dunlap, who was a nurse at Florida State University. Cheryl disappeared Dec. 1, 2007. Hunters found her decapitated body two weeks later in the Apalachicola National Forest, southwest of Tallahassee. (Source)

Chester Turner has also been charged with 4 more murders. The newest charges are for the murders of: Cynthia Annette Johnson, 30; Elandra Bunn, 33; Mary Edwards, 41; and Debra Williams, 32. ( Source)

Peter Tobin (imo: aka Bible John) is facing more charges. Several women have come forward to say that he raped them. Law Enforcement is also still investigating and connecting him to more murders. These crimes go back to the late 1960’s. (Source)

The murders tied to Lonnie David Franklin Jr aka The Grim Sleeper, continue to grow as police investigate at least two more possible victims. (Source) There maybe more still to come if the photos are any indication of what he did.

I am glad that these killers are having to answer for their crimes. Even f they are already in prison, they should not be allowed to hold these ‘secrets’. The people who they killed should not be the killer’s personal fantasy, some sick secret they can take to their graves. The people that loved and cared about these people should be allowed to have some type of closure.

I know that if someone I loved went missing I would want to know what happened to them. I can not imagine the pain and fear that come with a missing loved one, it would be made all the worse by the hope that not knowing could bring.

I also would want a face to hate. It has to be better to know what (kind of) happened then to be left in the dark. I would want a face to throw things at if something happened to my loved ones.

These ‘people’ (for lack of a better word for the killers) need to be held accountable and the loved ones have a right to know.

Law enforcement needs to stay on top of so-called cold cases. DNA has done much for this field of investigation. I can only hope that there are more leaps and bounds to come.

It looks as if there will be. Cold cases are being re-examined all the time and there seems to be a moderate amount of success.