10 Exact Moments Serial Killers KNEW They Were Caught

10 Exact Moments Serial Killers KNEW They Were Caught

Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we’re looking at ten dramatic times that serial killers knew the game was up.

Ted Bundy

On February 9, 1978, Ted Bundy murdered his final victim, Kimberly Leach. Following her murder, Bundy grew paranoid and began thinking that the police were closing in on him. He was right. At 1:00 AM on the morning of February 15, Bundy was pulled over by Pensacola police officer David Lee. Lee informed Bundy that his Volkswagen Beetle was reported stolen, and it was then that Bundy knew he was done for. The killer kicked Lee and knocked him to the ground before fleeing, but Lee was faster and successfully ran him down. Following a brief skirmish over Lee’s gun, the police officer handcuffed Bundy and took him to jail, prompting Bundy to calmly proclaim, “I wish you had killed me.”

John Getreu

Genetic genealogy is responsible for catching numerous serial killers, including John Getreu. Getreu was convicted of killing three people - one in West Germany in 1963, and two more in the United States in the early ‘70s. The two American murders remained unsolved for decades, until genetic genealogy sourced them to Getreu. On November 20, 2018, an undercover police officer knocked on Getreu’s door, telling him that she had hit his car and that he should come take a look. He was handcuffed immediately after stepping outside. While Getreu played dumb, he almost certainly knew that his past had finally caught up to him. He was then taken to the police station and informed that he was under arrest for the murder of 21-year-old Leslie Perlov.

Ed Kemper

It was easy for Ed Kemper to know when he was caught, as he was the one who facilitated it! After committing the famous Co-ed murders of the 1970s, Kemper killed his mother, Clarnell Strandberg, and Strandberg’s best friend, Sara Hallett. He then drove to Colorado and called the police from a phone booth, confessing to the two murders. Funnily enough, the police thought it was a prank call and didn’t take him seriously. He called back a few hours later and confessed again. This time they sent out some officers, and when they arrived, Kemper also confessed to the Co-ed murders. When asked why he turned himself in, Kemper called murder “a pure waste of time” and that he “couldn’t handle it much longer.”

John Christie

One of England’s most notorious murderers, John Christie killed at least eight people and stashed their bodies in various locations around his Notting Hill flat. When Christie moved out, he left the bodies behind, and they were quickly found by a new tenant. On the morning of March 31, 1953, Christie was walking near Putney Bridge in London when police Constable Thomas Ledger approached. Ledger recognized Christie from the many wanted posters around the city and asked for his name. Christie, seemingly knowing that he was finally caught, responded simply, “I’m Christie.” It was a surprisingly quiet, almost anticlimactic end to a massive manhunt - the most wanted man in Britain, caught by a single constable on a riverside bench and walked to the local precinct.

Israel Keyes

Killer of at least three people, Israel Keyes came to the police’s attention after murdering 18-year-old Samantha Koenig in Alaska. Shortly after murdering Koenig, Keys had requested ransom money for her safe return, and this money was deposited in Koenig’s personal bank account. Keyes then used her card to withdraw cash at various ATMs, allowing police to track him. After ID’ing Keyes’s vehicle through ATM security footage, police searched his car and found both Koenig’s bank card and cell phone inside. Keyes knew that he was caught but attempted a lie, claiming that someone must have tossed them through the car’s open window. However, Keyes later made a full confession, knowing full well that the police weren’t buying it.

BTK

On the afternoon of February 25, 2005, Kansas man Dennis Rader was arrested near his home. When the arresting police officer asked Rader if he knew why he was being arrested, Rader simply replied, “Oh, I have suspicions why.” The “why” goes back decades, when Rader was known as BTK, a serial killer who murdered at least ten people between 1974 and 1991. Rader was taken to the police station and interrogated, where officers informed him that his DNA had been linked to a BTK crime scene. If that wasn’t all, Rader had also sent an anonymous floppy disk to Wichita’s local Fox affiliate boasting of his crimes, and police perused the disk’s metadata to see that it had been written by Rader. Game over.

David Berkowitz

Known primarily as The Son of Sam, David Berkowitz terrorized New York City in the mid 1970s, killing six people and wounding many more. But despite causing one of the biggest manhunts in the city’s history, Berkowitz’s arrest was a quiet affair with little drama. Around 10 PM on the night of August 10, 1977, Berkowitz had just left his Yonkers apartment and entered his car when he was approached by detectives John Falotico and William Gardella, both of whom pointed guns at Berkowitz. Like many killers on this list, Berkowitz did not panic during his moment of comeuppance. According to reports, he simply smiled as the men pointed their guns at him and coolly said, “Well, you got me.”

Richard Ramirez

Known as The Night Stalker, Richard Ramirez murdered at least fifteen people throughout California between 1984 and ‘85. When police identified Ramirez as the main suspect, they released a mug shot that dated back to an unrelated arrest for car theft. On August 31, 1985, Ramirez saw his mug shot on the front page of a newspaper and quickly fled the scene in a panic, knowing that the police were now onto him. He then attempted to steal various vehicles, prompting a small group of people to chase, restrain, and even beat him. Police then approached the violent scene, and when they arrived, they found a severely battered Ramirez laying on the ground and took him into custody.

John Wayne Gacy

By late 1978, Gacy had already murdered dozens of people in Chicago, but police locked onto him after the disappearance of 15-year-old Robert Piest. Detectives put Gacy under constant surveillance and officers followed him everywhere, often in plain sight. With that, Gacy knew that his downfall was imminent. This pressure caused him to completely unravel - he slept little, drank heavily, and even invited the officers out in the hopes of charming them off his scent. On the evening of December 20, finally at his wits end, Gacy gave a rambling and drunken confession to his lawyer, claiming to have murdered over thirty people. He then said goodbye to various friends and acquaintances before formally confessing to the authorities. He was ultimately executed in 1994.

Jeffrey Dahmer

On July 22, 1991, Jeffrey Dahmer intended to murder his eighteenth victim, 32-year-old Tracy Edwards. But Edwards fought off Dahmer and escaped his Milwaukee apartment, attracting the attention of police officers Robert Rauth and Rolf Mueller. Edwards took them back to Dahmer’s apartment, and the killer tried to play it cool. However, Mueller found a series of Polaroid pictures depicting Dahmer’s dead victims. Seeing that Mueller had his photos, Dahmer’s heart dropped. He knew that he had finally been caught. He attempted to fight the officers but was quickly overpowered and handcuffed, after which he uttered the words, “For what I did I should be dead.” He did indeed die just three years later, when he was murdered in prison by fellow inmate Christopher Scarver.

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