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15 Deranged Serial Killers Who Operated in Florida

When someone hears of Florida, they immediately think of the vacation spots as it boasts of beaches that are nestled along the Atlantic coasts and the Gulf. However, there is a darker side to Florida apart from the sunshine where serial killers terrorise the residents and take a lot of lives while they are on it. Therefore, this article will explore the fifteen serial killers that terrorised the state to give the reader an insight into the profound impact they leave on the residents when they commit the crimes.

1 Danny Rolling

The serial killer was popularly known as the Gainesville Ripper and one of the most notorious serial killers that terrorised Florida. Rollin killed four students who were studying at the University of Florida and another one from the Santa Fe Community College. The students faced gruesome deaths in that he removed the skin and some body parts from the victims and then proceeded to pose with them. When they were discovered, it was revealed that the victims had been raped and one had even been raped after she had died. Rolling was not arrested immediately but after three years when he was arrested for trying to rob and the DNA matched with the killer who had slain five students. The killer pleaded guilty to all five counts of murder and he was sentenced to death in 1994 by a jury.

2 Ted Bundy

A mugshot of Ted Bundy. , Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

He was a serial killer that was active during the 1970s. Bundy’s modus operandi was to act like he had a disability by wearing a sling or walking with crutches and then ask help from unsuspecting young women to help him carry pieces of luggage and books to his car. When the pair would reach his car, he would then turn and strike them with a pipe and uncuff them and then force them into the vehicle.

The serial killer would then rape his victims and then strangle them to death. Even after they were dead, Bundy would proceed to mutilate the bodies of these victims. He even had the heads of his victims lying around in his apartment. When many young women started going missing, people reported that the perpetrator matched Bundy but local authorities did not believe it as he always came across as a charismatic person. When he was finally arrested, he confessed to killing thirty women but it is believed that the victim count is higher than that. When he went to trial, he was sentenced to death and he was executed in an electric chair in January 1989.

3 Gerard John Schaefer

Gerard was among the notorious serial killers that operated in Florida. He was known by many different names that include Killer Cop, The Hangman, Jerry Shepherd and the Butcher of Blind Creek. Gerard kidnapped two teenage girls after he had lied to them that he was called Jerry Sheperd and was heading back home to Colorado from a trip to Mexico. The girls were never seen again. When he was arrested, he was convicted of the two murders but it is suspected that he killed and raped 21 other victims.

4 Aileen Wournos

A mugshot of Aileen Wuornos. , Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

She is one of the few women serial killers that terrorised the residents of Florida. She is believed to have murdered at least seven men between 1989 and 1990. She was raised in a troubled family in that her parents had separated and her father spent some time in a mental hospital when she was young and thus was raised by her grandparents. Throughout her adult life, she had been arrested several times for driving while intoxicated, armed robbery, firing a gun and Check forgery. During that one year, she killed seven men on Florida highways. When she was arrested, she claimed that it was self-defence but she was convicted for one of the killings and was sentenced to death.

5 Bobby Joe Long

In and around Tampa, Florida, Bobby Joe Long abducted, raped, and killed at least 10 women between March and November 1984. He used intricate rope collars to cause his victims excruciating suffering. Long had sexually assaulted at least 50 victims throughout Florida before the 1984 murders.

He gained the moniker “Classified Ad Rapist” after preying on women who advertised goods for sale in their local newspapers. He was accused of these assaults, but because he was never found guilty, he was free to kill several more women. He was caught years later when a woman whom he had kidnapped escaped and went to the police. He confessed to eight murders and was sentenced to death.

6 David Alan Gore

A mugshot of David Alan Gore. , Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

At least six young ladies and teenage girls were kidnapped and killed in Indian River County, Florida, in the early 1980s by David Alan Gore with the assistance of his cousin Fred Waterfield. The cousins’ horrible crimes were finally discovered after a witness witnessed Gore murdering Lynn Elliott, a 17-year-old girl who had been abducted together with her friend, Regan Martin.

The police were able to rescue Martin from the attic of Gore’s parents’ house while she was chained and naked because the neighbourhood kid had called them to report the shooting. While arresting him, local authorities uncovered three bodies of his other victims. He was sentenced to death and given a lethal injection in 2012.

7 Oscar Ray Bolin

The serial killer worked as a truck driver and killed three women by stabbing them to death. He killed all his victims around the Tampa Bay Area in Florida. His killings went unnoticed until 1990 when his ex-wife tipped the law enforcement authorities anonymously about his killings. His brother who had witnessed him beating up one of his victims also testified. Oscar was arrested in 1990 and charged with murder. He was found guilty and convicted to death and later executed by lethal injection in 2016 when he was 53 years old.

8 Eddie Lee Mosley

A mugshot of Eddie Lee Mosley. , Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

He was responsible for the murder of eight women in the state of Florida. This was thanks to DNA tests done that linked Eddie to the killings that happened in Florida. This discovery led to the exoneration of two people who had been convicted of the murders done by Eddie Lee Mosley. One of the men was Jerry Townsend who had mental disabilities and had been in prison for more than twenty years for a crime that Mosley had committed. However, despite being known that he was the one who killed the woman, he was never convicted has he had a lot of mental disabilities and was not fit to stand trial. He was admitted to a psychiatric hospital in 1988.

9 Christine Falling

She is one of the youngest serial killers in Florida. The teenager killed children between 1980 and 1982. She was dubbed as the Killer Baby sitter and Baby Sitter from hell. The youngest child that she killed was an 8-month-old baby whom she choked. In 1982, Falling was sentenced to life in prison for killing three children. When asked why she committed the murders, she said that it was to keep them quiet and to also fulfil the urge to choke them which is quite scary.

10 The Flat Tire Murderer

In South Florida, five young women were murdered between February and July 1975, which led investigators to believe that a single assailant was responsible for all of the killings. The crimes were known as the “flat-tire murders” as the killer is said to have, punctured the tyres of his victims’ cars so that he could offer assistance when they realised they were stranded in a business parking lot. In just five months, the serial killer used this ploy to murder five women. Sadly, the killer of these victims has never been located or caught.

11 Gary Ray Bowles

A mugshot of Gary Ray Bowles by the Florida Correctional Facility- 

In a string of vicious assaults that left six people dead in Maryland, Georgia, and Florida, the serial murderer, Gary Bowles targeted gay men. He was the target of a multi-state manhunt in 1995 when he was captured. Bowles admitted confessed to the Jacksonville murder of a 47-year-old man, and his execution by lethal injection is set for today.

12 Ottis Toole

The serial killer was born into a troubled home as his mother was a Christian extremist and his sister molested him as well as his father’s friends. By the time he was 14 years old, a salesman asked him to perform sexual acts for him. Toole refused and ran him over with his car. After the incident, he started moving around. While drifting around, he met Henry Lucas whom he went on a killing spree. Toole was arrested after being caught burning a house of a man he claimed that he was in a relationship with. Later, his partner Lucas was also arrested and they started bragging about how they killed people. These utterances were backed up by DNA evidence which led to his being sentenced to life in prison. He died while serving his term in 1996. At the time of his death, he had confessed to killing more than 100 people.

13 Michael Townson

The Florida man confessed to killing a 43-year-old woman known as Linda Little in 1991. Townson confessed that he backhanded her and fatally choked her. Linda had met Michael Townson at a hotel bar before proceeding with her to the hotel room. Michael claimed that he told Linda to take a shower and then backhanded and choked her when she freaked out. After realizing that he had killed her, he drove away.

14 Samuel Little

A picture of Samuel Little. , Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

The serial killer is one of the most notable serial killers who operated in Florida. After his arrest, Gerald confessed to 43 murders but it is believed that he had killed almost 80 victims. The serial killer targeted women who were in vulnerable circumstances and between the age of 16 to 25 years old. Some of the victims that he confessed to killing were not identified even though one of the victims’ remains was retrieved at Daytona Beach. Stano was imprisoned at the Florida State Prison where Bundy was awaiting execution.

15 Edwin Kaprat

The killer was popularly known as the Granny Killer. Kaprat was active in Tampa and Hernando counties where he targeted elderly women who were vulnerable and could not defend themselves. Even though he killed six women, he was convicted of two killings and he was sentenced to death.  While he was in prison, he and other inmates got into a fight and he was stabbed to death.

Check out this article on the 15 infamous serial killers from Ohio here