30 Mistakes That Got Serial Killers Caught

30 Mistakes That Got Serial Killers Caught

Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we’re looking at thirty of the most egregious mistakes that finally put an end to famous serial killers.

Sending a Map

Maury Travis

In the early 2000s, St. Louis police were desperate for leads on a series of murders until Maury Travis made a fatal digital error. Seeking to taunt authorities, he sent an anonymous letter to the Post-Dispatch containing a map to a victim’s location. However, Travis didn’t realize that the map was unique, as he had downloaded it directly from Expedia.com. The FBI contacted the company, and they traced the IP address of the user who had accessed that specific map. This digital breadcrumb led police right to the doorstep of Maury Travis, where they uncovered a house of horrors. Travis thought he was being clever by taunting the police, but a simple computer printout provided the exact electronic trail needed to end his spree.

Dumping a Body

Wayne Williams

Atlanta was paralyzed by fear between 1979 and 1981 as nearly thirty children and young adults were murdered. They became known as the Atlanta Child Murders, and they were nationwide news. Investigators theorized that the killer was dumping bodies into rivers, so they staked out local bridges. On May 22, 1981, an officer heard a loud splash beneath the James Jackson Parkway Bridge. Moments later, Wayne Williams’ station wagon was spotted driving away. Police pulled him over, and though he wasn’t immediately arrested, the body of Nathaniel Cater surfaced downstream just days later. The timing was impossible to ignore. Fibers from Williams’ car and home were later matched to at least two victims, including Cater, securing his conviction and sending him to prison.

Shoplifting Salmon

Charles Ng

Leonard Lake and Charles Ng committed horrific crimes in a California bunker, but it wasn’t the police who brought him down. It was a fish. After fleeing to Canada in 1985, Ng entered a Calgary department store and attempted to shoplift a simple tin of salmon. When a security guard confronted him, a scuffle ensued, and Ng shot the guard in the hand. This escalated the charge significantly, leading to his immediate arrest. While in custody for the shoplifting and assault, authorities checked his fingerprints and were shocked to discover that he was on the FBI’s most wanted list. Ng had successfully escaped across international borders after murdering at least eleven people, only to be undone because he refused to pay for a cheap lunch. It’s almost poetic in its stupidity.

Killing a Co-Worker

Alexander Pichushkin

Chessboard Killer Alexander Pichushkin had a unique MO - he aimed to fill every square on a 64-square board with a victim. He was incredibly careful, targeting isolated individuals around Moscow’s Bitsa Park. However, his final victim, Marina Moskalyova, took a precaution he didn’t anticipate. Having personally known the killer through work, she left a note for her son stating that she was meeting Alexander and even included his phone number. When her body was found just a few days later, police read the note and went straight to Pichushkin. Confronted with this evidence and metro surveillance footage showing them together, his defense crumbled. He had relied on his victims disappearing without a trace. But if you’re going to do that, maybe don’t target the very people you work with.

Killing on CCTV

Stephen Griffiths

Some killers are careful, while others are shockingly arrogant. Stephen Griffiths, the self-styled Crossbow Cannibal, murdered three women in England throughout 2009 and 2010. His downfall came when he brought victim Suzanne Blamires back to his apartment complex. Griffiths seemingly forgot, or simply didn’t care, that the building was equipped with a monitored CCTV system. The security cameras clearly recorded Griffiths attacking Blamires in the hallway and dragging her body into his flat. Later, the footage even captured him raising a drink to the lens in a mocking toast. The building’s caretaker reviewed the tapes the next morning after getting reports of a disturbance and called the police. Needless to say, Griffiths was arrested, his final murder serving as a climactic broadcast.

Reporting on His Own Crimes

Vlado Taneski

Journalists often fight for exclusive scoops, but Vlado Taneski took it entirely too far. Taneski was a Macedonian crime reporter who wrote incredibly detailed articles about the murders of elderly women in Kičevo. His stories were so vivid that police became suspicious. For example, he included specific details that had never been released to the public, such as the exact type of telephone wire used to bind the victims. When police questioned how he knew these unreleased facts, he didn’t really have an answer. Even worse, investigators also noticed that all of the victims were cleaning ladies - the exact same profession as Taneski’s own mother, with whom he had a notoriously strained relationship. DNA tests eventually matched him to the victims and he was taken in, undone by his own reporting.

Betraying an Accomplice

H.H. Holmes

This American killer is infamous for his Chicago “Murder Castle,” a story which is either wildly exaggerated or outright false. But he was a killer, and it was a financial scam that actually ruined him. After fleeing Chicago, Holmes hatched a plan to fake his associate Benjamin Pitezel’s death for an insurance payout. Instead, Holmes actually murdered Pitezel. The mistake came when Holmes tried to cheat another career criminal, Marion Hedgepeth, who had helped arrange the plan. Holmes promised Hedgepeth five hundred dollars for a legal referral but never paid him. Angry at being stiffed, Hedgepeth wrote a letter to the police from prison, exposing the whole scam and Holmes’s involvement in Pitezel’s death. This tip-off led Pinkerton agents straight to Holmes, and his web of murder was quickly unraveled.

Putting the Hazards On

Robert Ben Rhoades

Truck Stop Killer Robert Ben Rhoades used his eighteen-wheeler as a mobile killing chamber to murder people across the country. He was a terrifyingly efficient predator, suspected of killing more than fifty people. Yet he was caught because of a minor traffic decision. In 1990, an Arizona state trooper noticed a semi-truck parked on the highway shoulder with its hazard lights flashing. Thinking that the driver was in distress, the trooper pulled over to help. But when he opened the cab, he found a handcuffed woman screaming for help. Rhoades had essentially invited the police to his active crime scene by leaving his flashers on, mistakenly thinking it would act as a “do not disturb” sign. You just can’t script that kind of irony.

Leaving Probation Papers

Gary Ray Bowles

The I-95 Killer targeted men along the interstate highway in 1994, murdering at least six. After killing his first victim in Daytona Beach, Gary Ray Bowles made a clumsy error that immediately destroyed his anonymity. In his haste to leave the scene, Bowles left behind his own probation documents. The papers were found at the site of the murder, with his name and information clearly printed on them. So, almost immediately, police knew exactly who they were looking for. While Bowles managed to evade capture for a few more months and kill several more people, his identity was known from the very start - and it eventually caught up with him. He was finally caught in November 1994 and executed nearly 25 years later on August 22, 2019.

Releasing a Victim

Bobby Joe Long

Perhaps the most catastrophic mistake a serial killer can make is letting a witness go. In November 1984, Bobby Joe Long abducted 17-year-old Lisa McVey in Florida. He held her captive for 26 hours, but McVey thought quickly. She feigned empathy for Long and convinced him that she wouldn’t tell anyone if he let her go. Amazingly, he actually believed this and dropped her off at a local intersection. Naturally, McVey had no intention of keeping this a secret. In fact, she actively worked to build a case against Long, leaving fingerprints in his bathroom and memorizing nearby landmarks. After being released, she took the police straight to Long, solving the murders of at least ten women. He was taken down by the one victim he thought he could trust.

Subletting His Apartment

John Christie

This British serial killer has to be one of the dumbest murderers ever. Christie killed at least eight people inside his Notting Hill flat, then hid their bodies in various spots around the house. And then this guy, knowing full well that there were human corpses inside the walls, illegally subletted his flat to an unsuspecting couple. The landlord found the couple living there instead of Christie and kicked them out, then allowed another tenant to use Christie’s vacant kitchen while he found another permanent renter. This tenant, Beresford Brown, was installing a radio when he found a hidden alcove in the kitchen. Inside the alcove were three corpses, and the rest is history.

Involving the Brother-In-Law

Ian Brady & Myra Hindley

Described by the trial judge as “two sadistic killers of the utmost depravity,” Ian Brady and Myra Hindley murdered five people in the early 1960s. These are known as The Moors Murders, as the couple would dump their bodies on Saddleworth Moor. And then they decided to involve Hindley’s brother-in-law, David Smith. Brady had become close to Smith and saw him as a potential accomplice, so he invited Smith to witness the murder of Edward Evans. Horrified but pretending to go along, Smith helped move Evans’s body to a spare bedroom and promised to return in the morning so they could take it to the moor. Instead, he contacted the police, who quickly found Evans’s body.

Keeping a Burial Plot Map

Robert Hansen

This butcher was known for abducting victims and then releasing them into the Alaskan bush, where he would hunt them for sport. It’s believed that he killed up to 37 people in this manner. In June of 1983, potential victim Cindy Paulson escaped from Hansen and contacted the police. While they didn’t believe her story at first owing to Hansen’s upstanding reputation and meek personality, they eventually obtained a search warrant. Inside his house was a trove of evidence, including jewelry and, most importantly, a map with 37 little x marks. These marks corresponded perfectly with where bodies had previously been found. Confronted with the evidence, Hansen quickly folded and spent the rest of his life in prison.

Fleeing an Accident

Aileen Wuornos

The rare female serial killer, Aileen Wuornos murdered a total of seven men, but her spree did not last long owing to some very sloppy mistakes. The worst of all occurred on July 4, 1990, when Wuornos and her girlfriend, Tyria Moore, got into an accident while driving her victim’s car. They quickly fled the scene, prompting an eyewitness to describe their physical details to the police. They also combed the car for fingerprints. As Wuornos had a criminal record in Florida, her prints were already in the system, and police quickly got a match. With it, Wuornos was placed inside the vehicle belonging to a missing man. It proved to be her downfall, and she was arrested six months later.

Robbing a Supermarket

Danny Rolling

Known as The Gainesville Ripper, Danny Rolling murdered a total of eight people, although he’s known primarily for the Gainesville killings of August 1990. And he was ultimately arrested not for the murders, but for robbing a local supermarket. In fact, Rolling had a long history of committing robberies, with the habit going back to his teenage years. And when he was arrested, investigators found various guns and tools in his possession. While Rolling was in jail for the robbery, investigators successfully matched tools and items found at the Gainesville crime scenes to the tools in his possession, and the collected DNA matched his own. And with that, a bungled robbery took down one of Florida’s most notorious killers.

Withdrawing a Victim’s Money (With Her Own Card)

Israel Keyes

On February 2, 2012, Israel Keyes killed his final victim, 18-year-old Samantha Koenig. Keyes staged Koenig’s body to make it look like she was alive and made a ransom photo, demanding $30,000 from her family. The money was paid, and Keyes, not needing it anymore, disposed of Koenig’s body in a lake. But the money had been deposited into Koenig’s account, and Keyes used her card to withdraw the money at numerous ATMs throughout the southwestern U.S. This was obviously suspicious, as Koenig had been the victim of a kidnapping and was now missing. Police used ATM security footage to identify Keyes’s vehicle, and it was eventually found and pulled over. Inside the vehicle was Koenig’s card, and Keyes was arrested.

Abandoning a Stolen Car

Richard Ramirez

Most serial killers get caught eventually, and a surprising amount go down thanks to abandoned vehicles. In the mid 1980s, The Night Stalker was using a stolen orange Toyota to drive around Los Angeles, and on the night of August 24, 1985, he sped away from a prospective house after being caught prowling. The house’s occupant, James Romero, took note of the car and reported it to the police. This car was later found abandoned in Koreatown, and police were able to lift a fingerprint from the mirror. It was matched to one Richard Ramirez, who had a long rap sheet stemming from other crimes. He was later found and arrested, bringing down the infamous Night Stalker of L.A.

Offering Someone a Job

John Wayne Gacy

Despite being one of the most famous and prolific serial killers in American history, John Wayne Gacy went down thanks to a bizarrely ordinary, almost anticlimactic, mistake. On the night of December 11, 1978, Gacy was in Nisson Pharmacy, talking to the owner about remodeling the store. There he met his final victim, Robert Piest, and offered him a job at his construction business. Later that night, Piest told his mother that he was going to meet “some contractor.” When he failed to return, Piest’s mother filed a missing persons report. During the investigation, the store’s owner claimed that this contractor was John Wayne Gacy. Police then received a search warrant for Gacy’s house, where they ultimately found his victims buried in the crawl space.

Writing a Letter to His Victim’s Mother

Albert Fish

As it dates back to the 1920s, no one really knows how many people Albert Fish killed, his body count ranging from as low as three to as high as 100. Either way, his spree ended when he wrote a sick and taunting letter to the mother of his victim, Grace Budd. Budd gave this letter to the police, and they saw that the envelope was stamped with an emblem representing the New York Private Chauffeur’s Benevolent Association. There, they found a janitor who took some stationary back to his boarding house but had left it there after moving out. They went to the boarding house, found Fish, and apprehended him after he attacked them with a razor.

Keeping Polaroids & Body Parts In the Apartment

Jeffrey Dahmer

There’s probably nothing a serial killer fears more than letting a prospective victim escape their grasp. After seventeen kills, that’s exactly what brought down Jeffrey Dahmer. On July 22, 1991, Dahmer took Tracy Edwards back to his apartment, intending to kill him. However, Edwards overpowered Dahmer and escaped before flagging down two police officers. They escorted Edwards back to the apartment and looked around, entering Dahmer’s bedroom. There, one of the officers opened a drawer and found numerous Polaroids depicting Dahmer’s victims. They quickly cuffed Dahmer and soon discovered some grisly remains in the fridge. Dahmer was quick to give up and later waived his right to a lawyer, readily and openly admitting his heinous crimes.

Parking Ticket

David Berkowitz

One of the scariest modus operandi of serial killers is when they select victims randomly, as did David Berkowitz, AKA the Son of Sam. Beginning his deadly spree in 1975, Berkowitz took the lives of six people and injured 11. In 1977, Cacilia Davis was walking near one of Berkowitz’s crime scenes when she spotted a man next to a car. Something told her to run, so she did, hearing shots as she sprinted away. Davis eventually told the police about the incident and that the vehicle the man was using had a parking ticket. After checking the details, the cops found Berkowitz, discovered weapons in his car, and arrested him. In 1978, he was sentenced to 25 years to life for each murder.

Missing License Plate

Joel Rifkin

In 1994, Joel Rifkin was found guilty of nine counts of murder and sentenced to 203 years in jail. Yet it’s believed he may have slain up to 17 victims during his four-year reign of terror in New York. If it wasn’t for one error in 1993, Rifkin may never have been caught. When the police attempted to pull him over for missing a rear license plate, Rifkin panicked and sped off with the cops in hot pursuit. However, after over 20 minutes of reckless driving, the serial killer crashed his truck into a pole, allowing the officers to arrest him. Yet, as they approached the truck, there was a strong odor. When the cops looked under a sheet, they discovered one of Rifkin’s victims.

False License Plate

Peter Sutcliffe

Between 1975 and 1980, the North of England was in a state of fear. A criminal known as the Yorkshire Ripper had taken the lives of 13 people, a figure that was suspected to be much higher later, and badly injured several others. Yet the police had no leads. In 1981, Peter Sutcliffe was arrested after the police noticed him in a car with an escort, and while he indeed had a license plate, it was a false one.The cops quickly realized Sutcliffe matched the Yorkshire Ripper’s description. One officer discovered weapons dumped where Sutcliffe was arrested and a knife hidden in the toilet at the police station. After intense interviewing, Sutcliffe confessed. He was sentenced to a minimum of 30 years, which was later changed to a whole-life tariff. Sutcliffe passed away in jail in 2020.

Scratch Marks

Earle Nelson

After sustaining a head injury as a child, Earle Nelson, AKA The Dark Strangler or The Gorilla Man, began showcasing more and more erratic behavior. Eventually, it led to him becoming one of the US’s most prolific serial killers. In just over a year, Nelson took the lives of up to 29 people throughout many states, including Washington, California, Oregon, and Missouri, and eventually ended up in Winnipeg, Canada. After more slayings, a search was underway for someone matching Nelson’s description. With all this going on, he visited a barber. However, the worker noticed blood and scratch marks on Nelson, and they told the cops. Eventually, Nelson was discovered and arrested. In 1928, Nelson was executed for his crimes.

Public Indecency

Arthur Shawcross

In 1987, Arthur Shawcross, later known as the Genesee River Killer, was released from jail for taking the lives of two children. By the following year, he began terrorizing citizens in Rochester, New York. Shawcross took the lives of around 12 people until 1990. At that time, the police had discovered one of his victims, and a helicopter was checking out the area in the belief the killer would return to the scene. They spotted Shawcross on a nearby bridge, seemingly relieving himself in one form or another. After running his vehicle license plate and discovering his morbid history, the cops arrested Shawcross, who admitted his guilt. He was sentenced to 250 years in jail before passing away in 2008.

Forged Will

Harold Shipman

After the Shipman Inquiry concluded in 2005, it was discovered that Harold Shipman might be one of the most prolific killers in history, with upwards of 250 victims. Later known as Dr. Death, Shipman was a general practitioner around Manchester, England. He befriended older patients, getting them to leave money to him in their wills, then giving them fatal amounts of morphine. But when solicitor Angela Woodruff was told that her mother’s will had left everything to Shipman, she got suspicious. An investigation led to the police realizing the doctor’s typewriter was used to write the will, as well as his fingerprint being on the letter. In 2000, Shipman received life imprisonment before taking his own life in 2004.

Plumbing Issues

Dennis Nilsen

Between 1978 and 1983, Dennis Nilsen lured up to 15 victims to his residences in London, England, taking their lives and then living with the remains for a while. But by 1983, a plumber was examining a drain pipe that various residents had complained about. The worker found a strange substance coating them. After an investigation, it was discovered to be human remains, and it led to Nilsen. When the police got there and searched the property, they found more remains scattered about. Nilsen had disposed of evidence either by a bonfire or flushing it in the toilet, leading to his downfall. He was sentenced to life imprisonment for 6 murders and 1 attempt. In 2018, Nilsen passed away in jail.

Erratic Driving

Randy Kraft

In 1983, California Highway Patrol officers noticed a car driving erratically on the freeway. Understandably suspecting this was a DUI, they pulled the car over. As one cop spoke to the driver outside the vehicle to give him a sobriety test, the other checked the passenger, who remained sitting. However, they discovered he was tied up and wasn’t alive. By pure happenstance, these officers uncovered the identity of the notorious Scorecard Killer, Randy Kraft. By 1989, Kraft was found guilty of taking the lives of 16 men, receiving an execution sentence. However, it’s speculated he might have slain up to 67 people. At the time of writing, Kraft was still on death row.

Stolen Car

Ted Bundy

In early 1978, Florida was experiencing a series of brutal attacks and slayings within a short amount of time. And it all ended when Officer David Lee realized a car that had been reported stolen was in front of him. While the thief attempted to escape by running away, Lee tackled and arrested him. It was soon discovered Lee had brought Ted Bundy to justice, who had escaped custody multiple times and committed horrific crimes. After a series of trials for his crimes, Bundy was sentenced to capital punishment. While he confessed to killing 30 people and was confirmed to have taken 20 lives, there’s speculation the true number could be much, much higher. In 1989, Bundy’s sentence was carried out.

Floppy Disk

Dennis Rader

Between 1974 and 1991, several people perished around Kansas at the hands of BTK, a self-given nickname by the monster who taunted the media and police in his messages. But then, he vanished. Yet by 2004, BTK began sending detailed letters to the newspaper, The Wichita Eagle. Looking to receive more of his writings, the police convinced BTK that he couldn’t be traced if he sent a floppy disk containing the documents. However, he could, and he fell for the bait. Specialists discovered evidence on the disk linking it to a church and its council president, Dennis Rader. In 2005, Rader pled guilty to 10 counts of murder and was sentenced to 175 years in jail.

What do you make of these mistakes? Let us know in the comments below!