The Chicago Strangler is the nickname given to an American serial killer (or killers) who is (or are) suspected of raping and murdering at least 55 women and girls in Southwestern Chicago between 2001 and 2018.[1] The killings were combined only in 2018, and until then they were considered to have been committed by different perpetrators.[2] Nevertheless, representatives of the Chicago Police Department told the media in 2019 that there might actually be several serial killers operating in the city.[3]
Victims
As victims, the criminal(s) chose girls and women, predominantly African-American, between the ages of 18 and 58.[4] Most of the victims were prostitutes or members of a marginalized group who had previous scrapes with the justice system. Nearly all were strangled and left in abandoned buildings, alleys, garbage bins, parks and snowdrifts. In November 2007, one man killed two women in two days, placed their bodies in garbage cans and then set them on fire. The majority of the murders were committed near Washington Park in Chicago’s Southside, a high-crime area, and near Garfield Park in Western Chicago, as well as the surrounding areas.
The woman who became known as the “Lady Bluebeard” immigrated to America from Norway in 1881, settling in Chicago where she married a fellow Norwegian immigrant. The couple had four children (two of whom died young) and ran a candy store. By 1900 the store had mysteriously burned down, and Gunness’ husband was dead. Although both happened under suspicious circumstances, Gunness was able to collect multiple insurance policy payouts allowing her to purchase a farm in La Porte, Indiana.
She quickly remarried, and just eight months later her second husband died. Gunness claimed that he’d received a fatal burn from scalding water and had been hit on the head by a heavy meat grinder. While an inquest was held, no proof of foul play could be produced, leading to another hefty insurance payout. She then began placing newspaper advertisements in search of a third husband, with the requirement that potential suitors had to visit her Indiana farm. Several prospective suitors made the trek, only to disappear forever–just one made it out alive, after reportedly waking up to see a sinister-looking Gunness standing over him.
Nobody knows for certain just how many people Belle Gunness murdered, but it seems she herself met a grisly end. In February 1908, a fire devastated the farm. Amongst the wreckage were the bodies of Gunness’ remaining children and the decapitated corpse of a woman. Although officials identified the remains as Gunness’, doubt quickly spread, as the body was much smaller than the tall, heavyset Belle. The search for her missing head (which never turned up) led to the gruesome discovery of almost a dozen bodies, including the missing suitors and several children. Ray Lamphere, a forer farmhand that she had fired a few years earlier and later claimed was threatening her life, was arrested and tried for the crimes, but was only convicted of arson. Belle’s true fate remains unknown, although unverified “sightings” continued for decades after her death.
To most of his suburban Chicago neighbors, John Wayne Gacy was a friendly man who threw popular block parties, volunteered in local Democratic politics and often performed as a clown at local children’s parties. But Gacy, who had already served a stint in prison for sexually assaulting a teenaged boy, was hiding a horrific secret right beneath his neighbors’ unseeing eyes.
In 1978, when a 15-year-old boy who had last been seen with Gacy (whose construction business the teenager was hoping to work for) went missing, police obtained a search warrant for Gacy’s house. There they found a class ring and clothing belonging to several young men previously reported missing. In a 4-foot crawl space beneath the house, where a penetrating odor was present, they were shocked to find the decomposing bodies of 29 boys and teenagers that Gacy had raped and murdered. Gacy’s ex-wife had complained about the odor for years, but Gacy had chalked it up to moisture-causing mildew. Law enforcement also came under criticism, as the family members of several of the victims had previously pointed to Gacy as a possible suspect. In addition to the bodies found at his house, Gacy admitted to killing several additional men, disposing of their bodies in a nearby lake. His attempts at presenting an insanity defense failed, and he was convicted on 33 counts of murder and executed by lethal injection in 1994.
H.H. Holmes spent his early career as an insurance scammer before moving to Illinois in advance of the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair to work as a pharmacist. It was there that Holmes built what he referred to as his murder “castle”—a three-story inn that he secretly turned into a macabre torture chamber. Some rooms were equipped with hidden peepholes, gas lines, trap doors and soundproofed padding, while others featured secret passages, ladders and hallways that led to dead ends. There was also a greased chute that led to the basement, where Holmes had installed a surgical table, a furnace and even a medieval rack.
Both before and during the World’s Fair, Holmes led many victims—mostly young women—to his lair only to asphyxiate them with poisoned gas and take them to his basement for horrific experiments. He then either disposed of the bodies in his furnace or skinned them and sold the skeletons to medical schools.
At the same time, Holmes worked insurance scams—collecting money from life insurance companies. Holmes was finally caught when one of his co-conspirators tipped off the police after Holmes failed to deliver his pay-out. Holmes was eventually convicted of the murders of four people, but he confessed to at least 27 more killings before being hanged in 1896.
On the night of July 14, 1966, eight student nurses are brutally murdered by Richard Speck at their group residence in Chicago, Illinois. Speck threatened the women with both a gun and a knife, tying each of them up while robbing their townhouse. Over the next several hours, Speck stabbed and strangled each of the young women throughout various rooms of the place. One young woman, Corazon Amurao, managed to escape with her life by hiding under a bed; Speck had lost count of his victims.
Richard Speck was an alcoholic and a petty criminal with over 20 arrests on his record by the age of 25. He had “Born to Raise Hell” tattooed on his forearm and periodically worked on cargo boats traveling the Great Lakes. On the night of July 13, after drinking heavily at several Chicago bars, Speck broke into the townhouse for student nurses of the South Chicago Community Hospital.
Speck then used his gun to force three nurses into a bedroom, where he found three more women. Using nautical knots, he then tied the women’s hands and feet with strips torn from bedsheets. By midnight, three more nurses had come home only to be tied up as well. Speck assured the women that he was only going to rob them.
After stealing from the women, he took them into separate rooms, killing them one by one. The remaining women heard only muffled screams from their roommates. Amurao, who was hiding under her bed, waited until 6 a.m. the following day before leaving her hiding place. She then crawled out onto a second-story ledge and screamed for help. Police responding to the cries obtained a detailed description of Speck from Amurao; the sketch was placed on the front page of every local newspaper the next morning. Speck, who was hiding out at a dollar-a-night hotel, slashed his right wrist and left elbow in a suicide attempt on July 16.
Discreet Detective Agency 