Even if you think you already know the full story, watching a documentary can help you better understand and sympathize with victims' families and survivors. The Butcher Virginia Serial KillerHe would later confide to police that it gave him sexual excitement to hear his victims screams from within the chamber.
Whether you want to learn more about serial killers to understand the dark side of human nature, or curiosity is just too hard to resist, these 15 serial killer documentaries offer diverse and intriguing perspectives on some of history's most infamous crimes. They are heavy and disturbing, so you might want to take it slow. With that said, watching these docs isn’t like bingeing Mindhunter, or even like listening to a true crime podcast. These aren’t fictional villains they are real people who terrorized others.
Preying amid the slums of East End London in 1888, he is heralded by Texas State University as the 'first modern serial killer.' Despite being 134 years gone, the case still fascinates. That's why it's essential to remember how many lives were changed forever by the actions of these individuals. No list of serial killers is complete without the infamous, and anonymous, Jack the Ripper (via BBC ). It’s important to understand the circumstances of these tragic occurrences, but it is also important to recognize that every documentary is filmed and edited from one perspective.
(Case in point: The time period from 1970 to 1999 was deemed "The Golden Age of Serial Murder.") A serial killer is an individual who murders a series of victims over a period of time, typically with gaps between each killing. Hearing their stories satisfies the most intense curiosity, but focusing exclusively on these notorious serial killers fails to honor the lives of their victims and potentially glamorizes the murderers themselves. According to The Washington Post, they were all between 17 and 30-years-old, they were all associated in some way with area's drug and sex work trade, and they were all from Jennings, Louisiana. Most of them typically kill one victim at a time. The Jeff Davis 8 is the name given to eight women who were killed in regular intervals from 2005 to 2009. While the average serial killer’s IQ is 94.7, which falls in the average range, there are some who do possess higher intelligence. Speck killed eight people in one evening, the record for any serial killer ever. The most common definition of a serial killer is someone who kills at least three people over a period of time, though over the years the definition has changed to be at least two killings. So many are intrigued by the minds of those who commit horrendous crimes, trying to figure out the motives behind their turn to violence. The American serial killer Richard Speck earns a place on this list due to the sheer number of victims in his last murder rampage. For the true crime-obsessed, serial killer documentaries probably make up most of their recently-watched list across streaming platforms.