The following serial killers committed crimes that are too heinous and disgusting to comprehend. Though being gravely abused as children certainly doesn’t forgive these acts, it might help explain them just a bit…
Donald Gaskins
Both neglected by his mother and then raped multiple times as a 13-year-old in prison, Gaskins had just the kind of upbringing you might expect of someone who went on to rape an unknown number of victims and kill, according to his own admission, over 100.
Charles Manson
Manson, born to a teen mother who was also an alcoholic, got moved from one home to another as a child. His mother neglected him, and there’s one particularly jarring story in which she sold Manson to a waitress in exchange for “a pitcher of beer.”
Aileen Wuornos
The famous female serial killer (now better known because Charlize Theron played her in the film, “Monster”) had a very rough childhood, abandoned by her mother early on and raped and beaten by her grandfather and one of his friends, according to various reports on her story. She got pregnant at age 14. As a killer, her victims were largely men seeking her services as a prostitute.
Albert Fish
Put in an orphanage at a young age, Fish was subjected to numerous sadistic beatings there prior to turning nine. As a serial killer/torturer/cannibal, he had several tools he used to murder and torture young children with–a meat clever, a hand saw, and a butcher knife.
Jerome Brudos
Known as Jerry, or “The Lust Killer,” Brudos was known for his women’s shoe and underwear fetish. Allegedly, this originated with his mom abusing him as a child and dressing up him up in women’s clothes (because she’d wanted a baby girl).
Carroll Cole
Another serial killer with an abusive mother, Cole was also forced to wear girls’ clothes as a young boy by his mother, who would also tease him about it. As the story goes, she also used to beat him after taking him on trips in which she’d have affairs while her husband was fighting in the Second World War. Cole went on to multiple women across states like California, Texas, and Nevada.
John Wayne Gacy
Gacy’s father was an alcoholic who abused his whole family. He physically abused Gacy, abusing him emotionally through constant ridicule. Other accounts say Gacy was molested by a family friend multiple times when he was just nine years old. Gacy was ultimately said to have 33 bodies of his murder victims (largely teenage boys) buried around his house.