Almost all serial killers began their “careers” by killing pets.
In fact, there is strong evidence of a clear relationship between those who are cruel to animals and those who are cruel to people : people who abuse animals (kill dogs or cats, or put squirrels in a bag and then hit them over the head) are the ones who are most likely to eventually abuse (or try to murder) people.
1. A study conducted in New Jersey found animal abuse in nine out of ten homes where violence against children was present.
3. Robert Thompson, perpetrator of the murder of baby James Bulger, previously had a long history animal cruelty and boasted of tying fireworks to dogs’ tails.
4. Railroad rapist and multiple murderer David Mulcahy had bludgeoned a hedgehog to death in the schoolyard he attended at the age of 13.
5. Ian Kay, infamously known as the “Woolworths Killer” (and who later stabbed the “Yorkshire Ripper” Peter Sutcliffe in Broadmoor), once had a stray kitten mauled by his dog.
6. The “Boston Strangler” Albert de Salvo was previously known as a multiple murderer of dogs and cats.
7. Cannibal Jeffrey Dahmer, who killed 17 people (and an undetermined number of pets), was known to impale the heads of freshly slaughtered dogs on sticks.
8. Peter Kurten, known as the Düsseldorf Monster, who killed more than 50 people, also practiced unspeakable bestiality on dogs, torturing and killing them.
9. Luke Woodham, who stabbed his mother to death and killed two teenage girls, had previously set his dog on fire.
10. David Berkowitz, who shot his neighbor’s dog and poisoned his mother’s parrot before slaughtering six people.
11. Patrick Sherrill, who killed 14 people, used to steal pets from neighbors and give them to his dog to maul.
12. Jack Bassenti, murderer and rapist, buried dog and cat puppies alive.
13. Randy Roth, murderer of his two wives, previously used an industrial sander on a frog and tied a cat to a car engine.
14. Edward Kemperer, who massacred his mother, grandparents, and seven other women, was known to literally dismember all the cats he could find.
15. Henry Lee Lucas, perpetrator of the murder of his mother and wife and suffering from a severe form of necrophilia, was also known to be a pluti-murderer of small animals.
16. Michael Cartier, a murderer, threw a kitten against a closed window and tore the feet of a rabbit from their natural places.
All of these horrific crime stories clearly demonstrate the existence of a very sad link between cruelty to animals and cruelty to humans.
