Serial Killers

Timothy Joseph McGhee joined the Toonerville Rifa Gang as a boy, and quickly rose through the ranks. By the year 2000, he had turned the low-level Los Angeles gang into a very real threat. But McGhee’s violent nature went beyond the role he played in the gang. For him, murder was an obsession. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Carl Großmann’s entire life was marked with an obsession with sexual dominance. As a young man, he violated children and animals as a way to emphasize his own power. But when World War I left Berlin in a state of desperation, Großmann found a new, horrific way to satisfy his murderous cravings. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

After spending much of his early life as a devoted career criminal, Ed Edwards emerged from prison willing to turn things around. But after playing the role of devoted husband and father for a few years, his darker impulses emerged, and he started killing — first for revenge, then for fun, and then for profit. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Beginning with a traumatic childhood is a common origin story among serial killers. But not every child with a troubled upbringing sets out to become a lifelong criminal. That's what makes Edward Wayne Edwards so unusual — he wanted to be a crook. And there weren’t many lines he wouldn’t cross.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

By the summer of 1984, Leonard Lake finished construction on his fallout shelter. There, Lake and his partner-in-crime, Charles Ng, tortured, raped, and murdered countless female victims. But women weren’t their only targets. Over the course of the next year, the murderous duo even killed off entire families. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Fearing a nuclear apocalypse was imminent, survivalists Leonard Lake and Charles Ng dreamed of building a bunker in the middle of nowhere. Only, it wasn’t just meant to withstand the nuclear fallout — they wanted to use it to imprison female sex slaves. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

After he killed his friend Cherie in 1980, Randy Woodfield was a clear suspect in the murder — but he still managed to walk free. The failed football star went on to commit a horrifying string of assaults and murders along the West Coast. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

He was a star football player in the early 1970s. A talented athlete with every chance for boundless success. But he developed a nasty temper, and a ferocious sense of entitlement. Whatever Randy Woodfield wanted, he was going to take. By any means necessary.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

After his first three murders, Kenneth McDuff was quickly apprehended and brought to trial. But while it seems like that should be the end of the story, the tale of Kenneth McDuff still had a long way to go… Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Kenneth Allen McDuff led a charmed life. He was an angelic child. At least, that's what his doting mother thought. But in reality, Kenneth concealed a sadistic desire to hurt people, and his first murders left his hometown shaken. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices