Serial Killer - Dark Stories True Crime Tours

1981: Harold Shipman Kills Elderly Patient With a Fatal Injection After She Fell Ill in Her Garden

In August 1981, 81-year-old Elizabeth Ashworth felt unwell while gardening at her home on Peel Street in Hyde, England, and asked her neighbours to call a doctor. Harold Shipman arrived, administered an injection, then told the neighbours she would not live much longer. When he returned later and asked if she was still alive, she had already died.

Investigators later identified her death as an unlawful killing, part of Shipman's early pattern of murdering elderly patients with fatal opiate injections. Harold Shipman would go on to become one of history's most prolific serial killers, convicted of 15 murders but suspected in the deaths of over 200 patients.

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England Hyde Murder Poisoning Serial Killer UK

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2016: The Chinese Jack The Ripper Serial Killer Caught After 28 Years Through a Relative's DNA

Gao Chengyong was arrested at his grocery store in Baiyin, Gansu, in August 2016 after a DNA test on his uncle flagged a close familial match to an unidentified serial killer. The breakthrough closed a case that had haunted investigators for nearly three decades. Gao confessed to all eleven murders, committed between 1988 and 2002 across Inner Mongolia.

Known in Chinese media as the 'Chinese Jack the Ripper', Gao had followed victims to their homes, typically striking in daylight hours. He mutilated their bodies in a pattern that drew comparisons to the 1888 Whitechapel killings. Sentenced to death and stripped of all assets, he was executed on 3 January 2019.

Chinese death character with skull texture 3D illustration

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Asia Baiyin Baotou China Cold Case Execution Gansu Inner Mongolia Murder Serial Killer

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1909: Long Bay Gaol Opens on the Shores of Botany Bay

Sydney's Long Bay Gaol opened in 1909 on the shores of Botany Bay, and over the following century it would become one of the most storied prisons in the country. Its walls held razor gang queens Tilly Devine and Kate Leigh, escape artist Darcy Dugan, and gangsters Chow Hayes and Neddy Smith.

Long Bay also housed some of the darkest figures in modern Australian criminal history, including corrupt former detective Roger Rogerson and serial killer Ivan Milat, who died there in 2019. Russell 'Mad Dog' Cox staged a daring breakout from the prison's maximum-security unit, cementing the gaol's reputation as a place where Australia's most dangerous and notorious converged.

Historic prison buildings at Long Bay Gaol in Australia

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Australia Corruption Escape Gang Murder NSW Organised Crime Prison Serial Killer Sydney

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1985: The Night Stalker's begins His FInal Strike in Mission Viejo, California

In the late hours of August 24, 1985, Richard Ramirez drove to Mission Viejo in Southern California, intending to break into the Romero family home. Thirteen-year-old James Romero III spotted him and recorded the car details, alerting police. Ramirez moved on to the nearby home of Bill Carns and Inez Erickson, shooting Carns three times in the head before assaulting Erickson. Remarkably, both victims survived.

The car details noted by James Romero III proved critical. Police traced the vehicle, leading directly to the identification and arrest of Ramirez, bringing the reign of one of California's most feared serial killers to an end.

Hooded hooligan with obscured face walking city streets at night

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Attempted Murder Murder Serial Killer USA

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