Author of “Kids Who Murder”
This is supposedly the last photo of Anne Frank before her family was discovered and arrested. She stands with her sister Margot in early-to-mid 1942.
As silly as the nickname ‘’The Taco Bell Strangler’’ sounds, Henry Wallace was one of the most ruthless and feared serial killers in Charlotte, North Carolina, in the early 90s. After murdering his first victim and dumping her body in the woods, he was questioned by police, but they had no evidence to charge him so he was let go. He struck again two years later after picking up a sex worker, only to beat her to death with his own fists once she demanded payment for her services. One year later, he raped and murdered a friend his sister’s and set her body on fire to cover up the crime. His M.O. appeared to be breaking into his victims’ homes, and after sexually assaulting and strangling them, ransacking the house for any valuables he could steal. Often he knew his victims personally and would attend their funerals afterward. Some of his victims were his own coworkers at Taco Bell, hence the moniker. Perhaps one of the most devastating murders was when Henry broke into someone’s apartment and viciously raped the woman living inside as she held onto her baby protectively. He then strangled her to death, and attempted to strangle the child as well, who ultimately survived. The killer was finally arrested on March 13, 1994, and over the course of 12 hours, confessed to the senseless slayings of all ten women in grisly detail. Henry Wallace is currently waiting to be executed.
This photo depicting a terrified and tied-up boy is believed to be one of many victims of serial killer Dean Corll, otherwise known as the Candy Man. Dean had his teenage accomplice lure boys into his house where they would be tortured and killed. The identity of this victim remains unknown to this day.
Between 1964 and 1985, Soviet serial killer Anatoly Slivko molested and murdered several boys he worked closely with. Just a few years prior to his string of murders and sexual assaults, Anatoly witnessed a gruesome accident on the road that killed a boy in his teens who was garbed in a Young Pioneers uniform. The sight of the teen’s death sexually aroused him, in which he would later vividly recount of that day: ‘’The boy had experienced convulsions in his death throes as the smell of gasoline and fire permeated the air.’’ The memory never left his mind and he was determined to recreate his sexual fantasies of the accident. Anatoly became a scout leader at a children’s club where he would gain the trust of teenage boys who were short for their age and wearing the same Young Pioneers uniform as the teen who was killed in the traffic accident. He would persuade them to participate in an ‘’experiment’’ that involved a control hanging into unconsciousness which would stretch their spine. The boys were assured that they would be revived. He would take them into the woods and once they were unconscious, he would strip them naked and both photograph and film himself molesting the boys and masturbating. While most of the victims would survive the ‘’experiment’’ with no knowledge or memory of the event, seven boys would meet a more tragic fate. Once they were unconscious, he would dismember their bodies and set them on fire to serve as a reminder of the traffic accident that birthed his sexual fantasies. Many of these murders were videotaped, and he would keep his victims’ shoes as a souvenir. Anatoly Slivko was executed by firing squad on September 16, 1989.
One afternoon, 21-year-old Jake Patterson was sitting in his car behind a school bus when 13-year-old Jayme Closs, who was boarding the bus, caught his eye. Immediately, he was drawn to her. He had to have her. Once this seed planted in his mind, there was no going back for him; he knew that was the girl he was going to take.
On October 5, 2018, he drove to the home of the Closs family in Barron, Wisconsin, with the plan to abduct the 13-year-old, but feared there would be witnesses, so he left. He showed up again a couple days later, but again, backed out last second. Then, one week later, on October 15, he stopped by the Closs home again at around midnight and parked on their driveway. Garbed in a black coat and ski mask, he approached the home with a shotgun and began pounding on the door, yelling for them to ‘’open the fucking door’’. James Closs, the father of 13-year-old Jayme, shone a flashlight through a small decorative glass window by the door but refused to let him in. He had mistaken the man for a police officer and requested he reveal his badge. Without further ado, Jake fired his gun once through the window, killing him, before barging inside and checking every room to ensure there would be no witnesses for what more he was about to do. When he noticed that the bathroom door was suspiciously locked, he shot it down and tore down the bath curtain, only to find Jayme Closs, his targeted victim, crying loudly while being embraced by her mother, Denise, in the bathtub. Denise had already dialed 911 but did not speak; soon, the line would be disconnected.
First, the perpetrator ordered Denise to duct tape her daughter’s mouth shut; she complied, but struggled, so he completed the task himself. He then tied Jayme’s wrists and ankles and duct tape before fatally shooting her mother in the head. He subsequently dragged her outside to where his car was parked, placed her in the trunk, and drove away, bypassing the several police cars that were speeding toward the Closs home 20 seconds too late. He whisked Jayme away to his remote cabin in Gordon, Wisconsin, where she would be held hostage for 88 days.
During her captivity, Jake would oftentimes force Jayme to hide under his bed and barricaded it with laundry baskets, weights, and tote bags whenever he would leave the house or had family over. There, she would sometimes stay for up to 12 hours with no access to food or water. He had warned her that he would know if she attempted to escape, and once threatened to kill her if she dared move. On one occasion, having noticed she disobeyed his orders tried to get out from that space, he struck her on the back hard. To keep her under control, he would often yell at her and hit the walls.
The end of the brave girl’s captivity would occur three months later on one cold afternoon on January 10, 2019, after her captor left home for a while. She managed to push her way through all of the objects barricading her under the bed and ran outside, flagging down down the nearest person she could find for help: a woman walking her dog. Immediately, the woman had recognized her and took her to the closest house to call 911. Once the police arrived, they waited for Jake’s arrival and arrested him. He confessed immediately.
Jake was sentenced to life in prison without parole. Jayme has since been reunited with her family. The $25,000 reward money that was previously posted for Jayme’s rescue was all given to Jayme for rescuing herself. One year after the traumatizing event in her life, Jayme says, she is getting stronger every day.
Ellie Gould was an intelligent 17-year-old girl with a bubbly temperament living in Calne, Wiltshire, located in southwestern England. She had a love for riding horses and dreamed of joining the mounted police one way. At the time, she was dating another boy her age by the name of Thomas Griffiths, a swimmer and rugby player. The couple went way back, having been in each other’s lives since Year 7 and both attended high school together where they were straight-A students.
On May 2, 2019, Ellie had confided in friends that she had broken off their three-month relationship and that Thomas wasn’t taking it very well. But, truly, the teenage girl hadn’t the slightest clue just how badly her former lover was handling the rejection until the following morning. On May 3, Thomas walked out of school, entered his car, and made the drive to Ellie’s residence on Springfield Drive. Upon entering her house, he pleaded for her to take him back, but Ellie’s mind was already made up. Consumed with rage, he then unleashed a vicious attack that will come to haunt her parents forever.
Initially, he attempted to strangle her. Then he grabbed a knife from the kitchen and stabbed her in the neck a total of 13 times. After she was dead, he attempted to clean the bloody murder scene using cloths. He wiped the blade of the knife on an apron before sticking it back in her neck, strategically wrapping her hand around the knife’s handle so as to make it appear as though it was a suicide. When he went home, he changed into new, clean clothes and disposed of the blood-stained cloths as well as other incriminating items in the woods behind his house.
To explain the series of scratch marks on his neck inflicted by Ellie’s dire attempt to fight for her life, he told a friend that it was a result of self-harm due to his distress over the breakup. He then went back to school and began shooting texts to the now-deceased girl’s phone asking where she was. Ellie’s body wasn’t discovered until 3pm, when her father returned home, walked into the kitchen, and found her laying in a pool of her own blood–a sight that no parent should ever have to see.
‘’The image of Ellie lying there on the floor has haunted me ever since that afternoon,’‘ said Matthew Gould. ‘’It fills my thoughts when trying to sleep and hijacks my mind when trying to go about my day.’‘
Thomas pleaded guilty for the murder in court and expressed remorse. “I feel confused and angry at myself that I was able to hurt someone so special to me.” He was sentenced to life in prison with a minimum of 12 years and six months served.
19-year-old Heather Mack was described as having a ‘’privileged upbringing’’, having been raised in her big Chicago home by her parents, Sheila Mack and James L. Mack. Her father, James, was a notable jazz musician and composer. After her father’s sudden death in 2006 during a family trip in Greece, the police would come to be very familiar with the mother and daughter’s strained relationship. Police were constantly summoned to resolve domestic incidents, usually involving Heather stealing money from her mother or even physically assaulting her. In her senior year of high school, Heather began dating an older boy named Tommy Schaefer. Sheila did not approve of this relationship and even forced her daughter to get an abortion twice.
In August 2014, Sheila and Heather flew first class to Bali. The purpose of the trip with to have spend some quality time together and mend their broken relationship. Tensions had been brewing lately; Heather was pregnant for a third time, and Sheila was seeking a power of attorney to enforce another abortion on her 19-year-old daughter. But during the vacation, Heather stole her mother’s credit card and bought Tommy a $12,000 plane ticket to Bali. When Sheila discovered what happened, she was understandably livid. Heather and Tommy texted back and forth, plotting Sheila’s murder. Tommy showed up to Sheila and Heather’s suite carrying a glass fruit bowl with a metal handle. He then battered Sheila over the head with it. The couple stuffed her body in a suitcase and placed it in the trunk of a taxi and walked away. The driver checked the suitcase and noted traces of blood on the exterior. He then notified police immediately.
The couple confessed to the crime, and Tommy was sentenced to 18 years in prison, while Heather was only sentenced to 10 years because she had given birth by that point. On October 29th, 2021, Heather was released early from prison and immediately deported back to Chicago. As soon as she landed in Chicago, she was arrested on conspiracy and obstruction charges.
Jennifer Pan was born to Vietnamese refugee parents, Bich Ha and Huei Hann Pan, in Markham, Ontario. As immigrant parents, they set very high expectations for Jennifer. They enrolled her in piano lessons and figure skating from an early age. When that wasn’t occupying her time, she was studying. Her parents were very strict, never letting her date or attend social events. The intense pressure Jennifer was put under drove her to self-harm. The aspiring Olympic figure skating champion ended up tearing a ligament when she was 14 and had to give up her dream.
Throughout high school, Jennifer received average grades, which she knew would not satisfy her parents’ expectations. She began forging her report cards to pass off as being a straight-A student to her parents. She ended up failing high school, but forged her high school diploma and faked a letter of acceptance into university for pharmacology. Jennifer went the whole nine yards to maintain her charade, such as purchasing second-hand textbooks and doing research in her fake-major. In reality, she worked part-time as a piano instructor and waitress and lived with her weed dealer boyfriend, Daniel Chi-Kwong Wong.
Her parents became suspicious and eventually discovered the truth. They gave her an ultimatum: either she will move back home and complete her education, and would also be forbidden from contacting her boyfriend, or they would kick her out and cut off their financial support. Jennifer chose the former option and moved back home with her parents. She became severely depressed from not being able to see Wong.
Jennifer and Wong plotted to hire some hitmen to kill her parents so that she could inherit $500,000 and they could be together at last. On November 8th, 2010, the men entered the home fully armed. After ransacking the home for cash, they then shot both Bich and Hann to death. During the police interview, Jennifer claimed she did not know the assailants and she had been tied up the whole time, managing to free her hands to call 911. After changing her story multiple times, the investigator told her that her father survived his injuries and informed the officer that during the break-in, Jennifer was roaming freely and even conversing with the intruders.
Jennifer was sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole after 25 years. She is forbidden from contacting her surviving father ever again.
In the afternoon of March 22nd, 2018, a 19-year-old woman knocked frantically on the door of dairy farmer Don Sipple who lived in Spring Brook, Wisconsin. The young woman was completely disheveled from head to toe and covered in bruises, cuts, and blood. The word BOY was also freshly carved into her arm. The barefoot woman claimed she had just been attacked and walked all the way to his house on foot. Concerned, he called the police immediately. She claimed to have no memory of what had happened to her and could not even recall her own name. She was take to the hospital for her treatments, to which she revealed her name to the police–Monica Jay. She mentioned another name: Jason Mengel. At this point, investigators began feeling skeptical of her supposed amnesia. Soon, this mystery woman before them was identified as Ezra McCandless (pictured above). But who was she, and how did she end up in Spring Brook with all her injuries?
Like many teenagers, Ezra was confused about her identity and experimented with different names and pronouns all throughout high school. For a while, she identified as a transman before switching back to female. Her name at birth was Monica Jay, but when she became an adult, she changed it to a more gender neutral name: Ezra McCandless. She moved to Eau Claire, Wisconsin, where she met 33-year-old Jason Mengel (bottom left) in the summer of 2017. The two quickly became serious and within a month she moved in with him. Around this time she also met 23-year-old Alex Woodworth (bottom right), a philosophy major, at Racy’s Cafe Lounge. In the fall of 2017, Ezra fell pregnant and underwent an abortion. Her relationship with Jason allegedly turned sour after this event. She began having a sexual affair with Alex around this time. Ezra would later claim that he would often make her dress and act as a boy during sex.
In February 2018, Ezra filed a police report against one of Jason’s friends for sexual assault, claiming he had taken advantage of her while she was intoxicated. The case was dropped when Alex told investigators that Ezra confided to him that the sex was consensual but she was just worried about Jason finding out. Jason would soon find out about her affairs by going through her phone and promptly broke things off with Ezra. Ezra also broke up with Alex and tried hard to rekindle her relationship with Jason.
On March 22, 2018, an agitated Ezra popped into Racy’s Cafe Lounge to talk to Jason, then left to go to Alex’s house. Jason, feeling like Ezra was acting off, drove to Alex’s house to see what was going on. A concerned neighbor called the police when they spotted Jason pacing outside. Police spoke with Ezra, Jason, and Alex, before determining there were no problems and leaving, including Jason. Ezra then invited Alex for a car ride to talk about things.
They stopped on a dirt road, and Ezra suddenly pulled out a knife and began stabbing Alex in the head, torso, groin, and neck. In total, he sustained 18 stab wounds and succumbed to his injuries. She then used the knife to carve the word “BOY” into her arm and began walking away from the crime scene, finding herself at Don Sipple’s house. After police discovered Alex’s body hanging out of Ezra’s car, Ezra claimed that Alex attempted to rape her and she killed him entirely in self-defense. She claimed he carved the word “boy” into her arm after an argument ensued about her gender identity. The evidence found at the scene was not consistent with Ezra’s story of self-defense, but it was consistent with cold-blooded murder.
On April 6th, 2018, Ezra McCandless was charged with first-degree intentional homicide. During her trial, she maintained her position that she killed him in self-defense. However, the prosecution argued that Ezra killed Alex because she felt he was responsible for her breakup with Jason. Ezra was found guilty and sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole after 50 years.
Herb Baumeister was a serial killer who operated in Indiana and possibly in Ohio, although his true motives will forever remain a mystery. Herb was said to have had a perfectly normal upbringing, but on the onset of adolescence began exhibiting antisocial behaviors such as playing with dead animals and urinating on his teacher’s desk. He was soon diagnosed with schizophrenia, although never received any treatment for it. In the 70s he got married and had three children of his own. Also in that decade he was committed to a psychiatric facility by his father. In the late 80s he founded a successful thrift store chain in Indianapolis called ‘’Sav-A-Lot’’. In the early 90s, police began investigating the mysterious disappearances of gay men who were all eerily close in age, height, and weight. Every lead resulted in a dead end, that is until a man contacted investigators to report that a man who goes by ‘’Brian Smart’’ and frequents gay bars had killed his friend and attempted to kill him as well. Police were able to track down the identity of ‘’Brian Smart’’ who turned out to be Herb Baumeister. When they informed him that he was a suspect in the men’s disappearances and asked to search his property, he refused to let them. In 1996, Herb’s wife filed for divorce and gave police permission to search their 18-acre farm while Herb was on vacation. It was then that police unearthed the bodies of eleven men. Herb is also suspected to be responsible for the murders of nine other men whose bodies were found along the corridor of Interstate 70 between Indianapolis and Columbus, Ohio.
Police never had a chance to arrest the killer, as he had fled to Ontario, Canada, and shot himself in the head. He left a suicide note behind describing his failing marriage and business as reasons for why he killed himself, but nowhere did he mention the eleven men that were buried on his property. It seems that the answers his family, police, and the victims’ loved ones had been seeking were taken to the grave with him.