Serial Killer - Dark Stories True Crime Tours

1964: Eric Edgar Cooke Hanged in Fremantle: the Serial Killer Whose Confessions Freed Two Innocent Men

Eric Edgar Cooke terrorised Perth through the late 1950s and early 1960s, eventually confessing to eight murders and fourteen attempted murders, including five people shot during a single Australia Day rampage. He also admitted to more than 250 burglaries, recalling with uncanny precision the number and denomination of coins stolen in each one.

His confessions carried a far darker twist: they cleared two men already tried, convicted and imprisoned for murders Cooke now claimed as his own. He was ultimately convicted of killing John Lindsay Sturkey, one of his victims, after pleading not guilty on grounds of insanity.

Cooke was hanged in Fremantle on this day in 1964.

He never denied his crimes, confessing fully and in exacting detail to police before his execution.

Fremantle Prison Western Australia: the gallows where 44 people were hanged including the last: Serial killer Eric Edgar Cooke in 1964.

⬅ See all events from 26 October

Australia Execution Exoneration Fremantle Murder Perth Serial Killer Trial WA

Spread the word on your favourite platform!

2006: The Gainesville Ripper, Danny Rolling, Executed in Florida for a Weekend of Campus Murders

Danny Rolling earned the name the Gainesville Ripper after a four day rampage through student housing near the University of Florida in August 1990 left five young people dead. He mutilated and deliberately posed his victims, severing one woman's head and placing it to face anyone who walked into the room. Police initially chased the wrong man, a troubled student named Edward Humphrey, whose grandmother collapsed and died on her own doorstep while fending off a reporter during the hunt.

Rolling later claimed an alter personality called Gemini had driven him to kill, a story investigators quickly dismissed after learning he had watched a film featuring a killer of that exact name days earlier. He pleaded guilty before trial and was sentenced to death. On this day in 2006 he was executed by lethal injection at Florida State Prison, having eaten a last meal of lobster tail and sung a gospel hymn.

Shortly before his execution Rolling handed authorities a written confession admitting to an earlier unsolved triple murder in Shreveport, Louisiana, but made no final statement on the gurney itself.

Gainesville, FL, USA - May 11, 2016: An entrance to the University of Florida. The University of Florida is a public research university located in Gainesville, Florida. | ID 76208519 © Wellesenterprises | Dreamstime.com — ID 76208519 © Wellesenterprises | Dreamstime.com

⬅ See all events from 25 October

Execution Florida Murder Serial Killer Trial USA

Spread the word on your favourite platform!

1983: Fifty Notebooks of Confession: the Trial of Dennis Nilsen Begins

Dennis Nilsen's trial opened on this day in 1983, more than a year after police finally traced human remains blocking the drains outside his London home. He had preyed on homeless and vulnerable men he met in pubs, luring them back to his flat before killing them, and once arrested he confessed with chilling thoroughness, filling fifty notebooks with the details of his crimes.

Charged with killing 15 men, Nilsen entered a plea of not guilty by reason of diminished responsibility as proceedings began, arguing that a disturbed mental state, not deliberate will, lay behind the killings.

Dennis Nilsen Wax Figure at Madame Tussauds London. LONDON, UK - JANUARY 28, 2025: A chilling wax figure of Dennis Nilsen, the infamous British serial killer, displayed at Madame Tussauds London in a prison themed setting with eerie lighting | ID 397256916 © Sergii Figurnyi | Dreamstime.com — ID 397256916 © Sergii Figurnyi | Dreamstime.com

⬅ See all events from 24 October

London Murder Serial Killer Trial UK

Spread the word on your favourite platform!

1976: Before He Was Son of Sam: the 44 Calibre Killer Strikes a Parked Car in Queens

Carl Denaro and Rosemary Keenan were sitting in a parked car near Bowne Park in Flushing, Queens, on this day in 1976 when the windows suddenly exploded around them. Denaro was bleeding from a bullet wound to the head, Keenan was only cut by flying glass, and in her panic she sped off for help without either of them realising anyone had actually fired at them.

Police dug .44 calibre bullets out of the wrecked car, the same calibre already blamed for a string of near-identical attacks on young couples across New York, but the slugs were so deformed detectives doubted they could ever be traced to one weapon. The press had already given the unknown gunman a name before anyone had heard of "Son of Sam": the .44 Calibre Killer. Because Denaro wore his hair shoulder length, investigators later decided he had simply been mistaken for a woman.

Jurisdiction kept the dots unjoined for months: this shooting sat with one Queens precinct, a near-identical attack on another couple three months earlier in the Bronx sat with another, and the bullets went unmatched until more victims fell. David Berkowitz was arrested the following year and later confessed to shooting Denaro and Keenan himself.

⬅ See all events from 23 October

Attempted Murder Murder New York Queens Serial Killer Shooting USA

Spread the word on your favourite platform!

Spread the word on your favourite platform!

Spread the word on your favourite platform!

Spread the word on your favourite platform!

Subscribe to Dark Stories