Serial Killing Around the World
SHADNAGAR (MAHBUBNAGAR): The serial killer continues to be on the prowl in Shadnagar area as yet another woman’s mutilated body was found on Monday. Police suspect the killer raped the woman before murdering her and dumped the body on the outskirts of the town.
While the spate of rape-murder incidents continues to scare the residents, police are still clueless about the killer. Sources said the cops have no idea whether it was the handiwork of a serial killer or other culprits. DSP Madhava Reddy told TOI that the woman’s body was in a mutilated condition. “But the assailant did not take away her bangles after committing the crime,” he said. In the last few months alone, 16 rape-murder cases have been reported in and around Shadnagar. Most of the bodies were found in the bushes on the outskirts of the town. While the residents are spending sleepless nights, police continue to grope in the dark.
Residents of the Chinese city of Nanjing are locking their doors and looking over their shoulders as 13,000 police officers hunt a serial killer on the loose since 2004. He allegedly robbed and murdered a man last Friday (01/06/12) , stealing the equivalent of $32,000.
Reports in the Chinese media tell of a massive search underway for the suspect, believed to be a man named Zeng Kaigui, 42, a former Army police officer who is using skills he learned in the military to kill and outsmart law enforcement.
Over the past eight years, police say, Zeng has killed six other people and stolen a total of $44,000 in a reign of terror across China. Just how he remains loose in the world’s largest police state remains a mystery, given the Chinese authorities’ massive surveillance system and public-safety budget, reported to be more than $77 billion in 2010. Police sent a photo of the suspect with a warning to Nanjing residents’ cellphones as well as to bus drivers and train conductors, while authorities are now demanding that male long-distance bus passengers show identification.
The widespread media coverage of the search for a serial killer on the loose marks a change in the way the Chinese authorities respond to such crimes. In a nation where the officials wield complete control over information and the police have little incentive to publicize crimes they can’t solve, the massive manhunt and wanted posters seem more fit for a thriller film than real life. More often, the Chinese government censors any coverage of serial killers and other murderers unless they have already been caught. For the Communist Party, which has hinged its monopoly on power on providing a safe and secure nation, bloodthirsty crimes only serve to undermine its legitimacy.
In 2003, police caught a 35-year-old migrant worker from Henan province who confessed to murdering 65 people (found guilty of 67) in rural villages in the three years prior and to raping 23 of his female victims. The man, Yang Xinhai, snuck into villagers’ homes at night wearing a pair of white gloves and killed everyone inside—sometimes entire families—with shovels, hammers, or axes.
He was executed by firing squad in 2004. At the time of his arrest, many Chinese were furious that the authorities had put lives at risk by covering up the murders until the police had detained suspects.
That practice continues to this day. Last year, leaked instructions from China’s censors demanded of the media: “Do not report, comment on, or hype up the series of vicious murder cases” in Henan province. Just what did the government not want people to know? That the police had not found the killer, who “ate four of his female victims.”
For years it seemed as if Russia and China were immune to serial killers. It is not that they were, it was that either the crimes were not linked (still common) or the press was not allowed to report if they found out.
In Japan a female serial killer is caught and tried.
Woman pleads not guilty to serial murder
Kanae Kijima and a dog are seen in this undated photograph.
SAITAMA, Japan (Kyodo) — A woman pleaded not guilty Tuesday to charges of killing three men in 2009 — a serial murder case that drew attention in Japan at the time.
Kanae Kijima, 37, entered the not-guilty plea during the first hearing of her trial at the Saitama District Court, telling a panel of three professional and six citizen judges, “I did not kill them.”
But she pleaded guilty to fraud charges for allegedly swindling money from two men.
Presiding Judge Kazuyuki Okuma plans to give a decision on the defendant on April 13 after the court hears from 63 witnesses over a period of some 100 days — the longest period for citizen judges to sit since Japan launched lay judge trials in 2009.
The citizen judges are required to come to court four times per week until the final hearing scheduled for March 13.
Police first arrested Kijima in September 2009 on suspicion of swindling money from a man in his 50s in Nagano Prefecture. Investigators served fresh arrest warrants on Kijima eight times later.
Kijima has been charged with killing her boyfriend and businessman Yoshiyuki Oide, then 41, in a car park in the city of Fujimi, Saitama Prefecture, north of Tokyo, in August 2009.
She is also charged with killing Takao Terada, then 53, her boyfriend and Tokyo businessman, in January that year and Kenzo Ando, then 80, in May that year. Kijima allegedly visited Ando’s home in the city of Noda, Chiba Prefecture, as a self-styled caretaker.
Kijima is also charged with fraud, attempted fraud and theft in a total of seven criminal cases.
In the first hearing of the trial, prosecutors said the defendant used “rentan” briquette coal to gas and kill the three men.
Prior to the hearing, the district court selected the six lay judges — three men and three women — plus six supplementary lay judges to act as back-ups.
In the morning, as many as 663 people lined up at the district court in the hope of attending the first hearing.
Judicial sources said there is only circumstantial evidence to link the crimes with the defendant.
Kijima allegedly swindled money from men through spouse-hunting websites, promising marriage with them.
All the three victims — Oide, Terada and Ando — had links with the defendant and died of carbon monoxide poisoning through the burning of rentan briquette coal. Traces of sleep-inducing drugs were detected in two of the three bodies.
Poison has been a common tool for female serial killers but this is the first I have heard of basically “gassing” victims. She must have put a lot of thought into the method of death.
In Peru Jordan Van Sloot admitting to killing Stephany Flores.
Joran van der Sloot, the prime suspect in the disappearance of American teen Natalee Holloway, pleaded guilty today to the 2010 murder of Stephany Flores in Peru after his lawyer claimed he killed Flores because he suffered mental trauma from being accused in Holloway case.
“Yes, I want to plead guilty. I wanted from the first moment to confess sincerely,” he said today in court, according to The Associated Press. “I truly am sorry for this act. I feel very bad.”
Van der Sloot faced seven to 30 years in jail if convicted at a trial. It’s not clear how much time he will get as a result of his confession. His hearing was suspended until Friday when he will be sentenced.
Van der Sloot’s lawyer said today that he had killed Flores as a result of the “extreme psychological trauma” he’d experienced in the Holloway investigation.
“He was faced against the entire world for the past five years prior to the events …” Jiminez said. “It was five years after the disappearance of this American citizen and all media pointed at my client without having any evidence that he was in fact a monster.” The lawyer said there was no proof his client killed the American teen.
Flores, the 21-year-old daughter of a wealthy and influential Peruvian businessman, was found strangled in van der Sloot’s hotel room on May 31, 2010. The two had reportedly met at a Lima casino.
Maybe it is just me but I don’t think that most people who are not already serial killers do not kill as a way to relieve stress. Having a ciggertte, drinking too much booze, hell getting into a fight at a bar after doing both of the above I can see. Killing, raping and murdering a young girl I can not see as a way to relieve stress.
Real Life Monsters 