37 Chilling Quotes From Serial Killers

Jeffrey Dahmer is not the only serial killer who's captured the public's attention while also being downright terrifying. And sometimes, the things that murderers have said or written are just as creepy as their despicable actions. These convicted killers have all gone on record to either explain their motives, express their lack of remorse, or attempt to deliberately confuse the authorities. Their weird words will send shivers down your spine.

1. Jeffrey Dahmer

“My consuming lust was to experience their bodies. I viewed them as objects, as strangers… It’s hard for me to believe that a human being could have done what I’ve done.” This was how Jeffrey Dahmer — who killed 17 boys and men, mainly during the 1980s — explained his motives to the police. In November 1994, Dahmer — the so-called Milwaukee Cannibal — was murdered by fellow inmate Christopher Scarver at Wisconsin’s Columbia Correctional Institution, where both men were serving life sentences.

2. Carl Panzram

“In my lifetime I have murdered 21 human beings, I have committed thousands of burglaries, robberies, larcenies, arsons, and, last but not least, I have committed sodomy on more than 1,000 male human beings. For all these things I am not in the least bit sorry.” Serial killer Carl Panzram, who claimed to have killed 21 people during the 1920s, wrote these chillingly remorseless words from death row at Leavenworth Federal Penitentiary.

3. Albert Fish

“I always had a desire to inflict pain on others and to have others inflict pain on me. I always seemed to enjoy everything that hurt.” So said the “Gray Man” child killer Albert Fish — whose murder and mutilation spree took place in the 1920s and 1930s — during a confession to a psychiatric examiner in court. Fish, who was jailed in March 1935, was subsequently executed at New York’s Sing Sing Correctional Facility in January 1936.

4. Zodiac Killer

“I LIKE KILLING PEOPLE BECAUSE IT IS SO MUCH FUN IT IS MORE FUN THAN KILLING WILD GAME IN THE FORREST BECAUSE MAN IS THE MOST DANGEROUE ANAMAL [sic] OF ALL.” This creepy capitalized excerpt came from the so-called Zodiac Killer, a still-unidentified murderer who terrified northern California during the 1960s and 1970s, claiming the lives of at least five victims. His words were deciphered from a cryptogram he sent to a local newspaper.

5. Edmund Kemper

After shooting dead his grandmother at her kitchen table in August 1964, the teenage Edmund Kemper phoned the police to tell them what he’d done. When he was later questioned about his motives, he replied that he simply “wanted to see what it felt like to kill Grandma.” He had also murdered his grandfather, apparently to spare his grief.

6. Jane Toppan

Serial killer Jane Toppan, who in 1901 confessed to murdering 31 people by poisoning them, once said that it was her ambition “to have killed more people — helpless people — than any other man or woman who ever lived.” After being found not guilty by reason of insanity, former nurse Toppan spent the rest of her life at the Taunton Insane Hospital in Massachusetts.

7. Charles Manson

“Maybe I should have killed four, five hundred people. Then I would have felt better. Then I would have felt like I really offered society something.” These are the words of the notorious Charles Manson — spoken to NBC in 1987 — whose Manson Family cult was responsible for the murders of nine people during the summer of 1969. He died in 2017 while serving a life sentence at California’s Corcoran State Prison.

8. Jeffrey Dahmer

“The killing was a means to an end… That’s why I tried to create living zombies with uric acid in the drill [to the head], but it never worked… I just wanted to have the person under my complete control, not having to consider their wishes, being able to keep them there as long as I wanted.” That's another super-creepy quote from Jeffrey Dahmer, taken from a 1994 interview with NBC Dateline’s Stone Phillips.

9. Peter Kürten

“Tell me — after my head is chopped off, will I still be able to hear, at least for a moment, the sound of my own blood gushing from the stump of my neck? That would be the pleasure to end all pleasures.” Murderer Peter Kürten took at least nine lives in Düsseldorf, Germany, between 1913 and 1929. These are the words he uttered to Dr. Karl Berg — who later wrote a book about the killer — shortly before Kürten’s guillotine execution in 1931.

10. Carl Panzram

The second quote from Carl Panzram, again taken from one of his letters, is arguably more disturbing than the first. He wrote, “Those I have harmed were all either weaklings either mentaly [sic] or phisicaly [sic]. Those who were strong in either mind or body I first lied to and led into a trap where they were either asleep or drunk or helpless in some way. I allways [sic] had all the best of it.”

11. John Wayne Gacy

“You know… clowns can get away with murder.” These are the words of “Killer Clown” John Wayne Gacy, who uttered them to suspicious detectives during a meal in December 1978. The surveillance team eventually got to Gacy, who later confessed to killing between 25 and 30 men during the 1970s. In May 1994, he was finally executed by lethal injection.

12. Herbert Mullin

“I saw the light over the confessional and the voice said, 'That’s the person to kill.'” Herbert Mullin spoke these words while recounting the events of November 2, 1972, when he stabbed Father Henri Tomei to death during a confessional at St. Mary’s Church in Los Gatos, California. Mullin, who murdered a total of 13 people and was later sentenced to life, believed his crimes prevented earthquakes.

13. David Berkowitz

“I was literally singing to myself on my way home, after the killing. The tension, the desire to kill a woman had built up in such explosive proportions that when I finally pulled the trigger, all the pressures, all the tensions, all the hatred, had just vanished, dissipated, but only for a short time.” This was how David Berkowitz explained that his satisfaction with murder was only temporary. That is perhaps what makes this quote from the man who shot dead six people in New York in the 1970s so unsettling.

14. John Wayne Gacy

“The only thing they can get me for is running a funeral parlor without a license.” This quote from “Killer Clown” John Wayne Gacy tells you all you need to know about the whereabouts of his tens of victims. Plus, the fact that he could joke about the murders makes his words all the more disturbing.

15. H. H. Holmes

“I was born with the devil in me. I could not help the fact that I was a murderer, no more than the poet can help the inspiration to sing — I was born with the ‘Evil One’ standing as my sponsor beside the bed where I was ushered into the world, and he has been with me since.” It seems that H. H. Holmes — a man who may have killed up to 200 people at a purpose-built hotel dubbed “Murder Castle” in Chicago, Illinois, during the 1890s — didn’t mince words. He was hanged in May 1896.

16. Dennis Rader

“When this monster entered my brain, I will never know, but it is here to stay. How does one cure himself? I can’t stop it, the monster goes on, and hurts me as well as society. Maybe you can stop him. I can’t.” Dennis Rader — known as the BTK Killer, which stands for “bind, torture, kill” — murdered ten people from the 1970s to the 1990s in Sedgwick County, Kansas. He’s currently at the state’s El Dorado Correctional Facility, where he’s serving ten life sentences.

17. Edmund Kemper

“When I see a pretty girl walking down the street, I think two things: one part of me wants to take her home, be real nice and treat her right; the other part wonders what her head would look like on a stick.” This quote from grandma-killer Edmund Kemper, who ended up murdering nine women during the 1960s and 1970s, is as creepy as they come. Kemper has been in prison ever since being convicted of eight murders in November 1973.

18. Edmund Kemper

Sadly, Edmund Kemper made more than one creepy statement. In fact, he once said that killing was “more or less making a doll out of a human being… and carrying out my fantasies with a doll, a living human doll… Whipping their heads off, their body sitting there. That’d get me off.” It’s little surprise, then, that he was refused parole in 2007 and 2017 and that he’s resigned to spending the rest of his life behind bars.

19. Albert DeSalvo

“It wasn’t as dark and scary as it sounds. I had a lot of fun… killing somebody’s a funny experience.” Albert DeSalvo, also known as the “Boston Strangler,” killed 13 women in the Massachusetts city during the early 1960s. The murderer was himself murdered in prison in 1973, and to this day no one knows who did it.

20. Aileen Wuornos

“Yes, I would just like to say, I’m sailing with the rock and I’ll be back, like Independence Day, with Jesus, June 6, like the movie, big mother ship and all. I’ll be back, I’ll be back.” Aileen Wuornos, who shot dead seven men between 1989 and 1990, seemed pretty intent on coming back before being executed via lethal injection in October 2002.

21. Tom Ketchum

“I’ll be in hell before you start breakfast, boys! Let her rip!” Tom Ketchum, a convicted train robber and murderer, didn’t seem particularly daunted by his impending hanging in 1901. His was a quick death, as the rope used to hang him was longer than was needed, and he was neatly decapitated when he and the rope reached the end.

22. Carl Panzram

“Yes, hurry it up, you Hoosier! I could kill a dozen men while you’re screwing around!” Carl Panzram showed absolutely no remorse before his hanging in September 1930. Still, that’s not all that surprising for a man who once threatened to pour arsenic into a city’s water supply.

23. Marcel Petiot

“Gentlemen, I have one last piece of advice: look away. This will not be pretty to see.” When French serial killer Marcel Petiot spoke his last words in May 1946, right before being guillotined, he knew his death would be a spectacle. It’s believed Petiot, a doctor, killed as many as 60 people; 23 were found dead in his Paris home.

24. Israel Keyes

“Okay, talk is over, words are placid and weak. Back it with action or it all comes off cheap. Watch close while I work now, feel the electric shock of my touch, open your trembling flower, or your petals I’ll crush.” So read part of Israel Keyes’ prison suicide note in December 2012.

25. Christina Marie Riggs

“I love you, my babies. There is no way words can express how sorry I am for taking the lives of my babies. Now I can be with my babies, as I always intended.” The last words uttered by Christina Marie Riggs were directed to her two-year-old daughter and five-year-old son, both of whom she murdered. In May 2000 the former nurse was executed in Arkansas via lethal injection.

26. James French

“How’s this for your headline [tomorrow]? ‘French Fries.’” James French — who killed his cellmate in an effort to try and speed up his own execution — welcomed journalists with a joke when he finally sat down in the electric chair in 1966. French had previously served eight years in jail for murdering a driver who made the mistake of giving the evil hitchhiker a ride in 1958.

27. Robert Otis Pierce

“I’m innocent! I’m innocent! I’m innocent!” There’s something especially chilling about Robert Otis Pierce’s desperate protestations, which were screamed right before he was executed in a gas chamber in April 1956. Along with an accomplice, he had been convicted of murdering a taxi driver from Oakland, California, for just $7.

28. James Jackson

“I’m ready to roll. Time to get this party started.” These were the last words spoken by James Jackson, who murdered his spouse and two stepdaughters, before he was executed by means of lethal injection in Texas in February 2007. The words were preceded by a simple plea to the presiding warden, “Murder me.”

29. Thomas J. Grasso

“I did not get my SpaghettiOs, I got spaghetti. I want the press to know this.” The only thing going through Thomas J. Grasso’s mind before his execution in 1995 was his final meal — which, owing to it being ridiculously complicated, wasn’t prepared according to his exact instructions. That the double murderer was about to be killed via lethal injection didn’t seem nearly as relevant to him.

30. Reginald Blanton

“They are fixing to pump my veins with a lethal drug the American Veterinary Association won’t even allow to be used on dogs. I say I am worse off than a dog. They want to kill me for this; I am not the man that did this.” The last words spoken by convicted murderer Reginald Blanton before his execution by lethal injection in 2009 are, chillingly, full of anger and fear.

31. Jamie McCoskey

“The best time in my life is during this period. If I had to do again, I would not change a thing.” Jamie McCoskey — who stabbed to death Michael Keith Dwyer in Harris County, Texas, in 1991 — sounded strangely upbeat and remarkably remorseless before he was executed via lethal injection in November 2013.

32. Douglas Feldman

“I hereby declare, Robert Steven Everett and Nicholas Velasquez, guilty of crimes against me, Douglas Alan Feldman. Either by fact or by proxy, I find them both guilty. I hereby sentence both of them to death, which I carried out in August 1998.” Douglas Feldman, who killed two truckers in 1998, played judge and jury before he was executed via lethal injection in Texas in 2013.

33. Jonathan Green

“I’m an innocent man. I did not kill anyone. Y’all are killing an innocent man. My left arm is killing me. It hurts bad.” Jonathan Green’s protestations are certainly chilling. However, the fact that he revealed that his arm was in pain moments before his death — via lethal injection in Texas in 2012 — is worthy of more reflection, perhaps.

34. George Harris

“Somebody needs to kill my trial attorney.” Not even the world’s best lawyer could have prevented George Harris’ first-degree murder conviction. He did, after all, shoot his friend Stanly “Hank” Willoughby in the face in March 1989. Why? Because Willoughby had lost his friend’s two machine guns. Harris was executed in Missouri in September 2000.

35. Westley Allan Dodd

“I was once asked by somebody, I don’t remember who, if there was any way sex offenders could be stopped. I said no. I was wrong.” Westley Allan Dodd’s last statement gives a chilling insight into how the child murderer thought his actions could only be stopped by his own death. In January 1993 he was hanged — an option he chose over lethal injection — in Washington.

36. Robert Atworth

“Kiss my proud white Irish [butt]. I’m ready, warden, send me home.” Robert Atworth was defiant to the last. The murderer, whose last statement was pretty rambling, was executed by means of lethal injection in December 1999. In 1995 he had robbed and then shot dead Thomas Carlson by the side of a Texas road.

37. Ted Bundy

“You feel the last bit of breath leaving their body. You’re looking into their eyes. A person in that situation is God!” Necrophile Ted Bundy, who admitted killing 30 women across the United States during the 1970s, was a particularly nasty piece of work. He may have actually murdered at least six more women, with one of his defense attorneys later referring to him as “the very definition of heartless evil.” He was executed in Florida in January 1989.

Bundy never held back

There were prolific serial killers like Jeffrey Dahmer, for instance, that seemed more skilled in, or at least cared about, concealing their homicidal nature. Ted Bundy had no interest in concealing his true nature. As a young man, Bundy showed hints of the monster he’d later become, then as an adult, managed to charm and fool almost everyone who knew him.

Darkness brewing

By the time he left college in 1972, Bundy’s early years of stealing and problematic behavior towards women may have seemed like they were a thing of the past. From the outside, at least, it looked like a life in law or even politics awaited him — a job where he could make use of his immense charisma. Beneath the surface, though, a darkness was brewing.

Twisted

Underneath the facade, Bundy was a twisted killer — but he just kept getting away with it. He claimed his first victim no later than 1974 and countless more would soon follow. Yet even after police were asked to consider him as a suspect, for years they presumed his innocence. From the outside, after all, he appeared to be a perfectly normal, pleasant man.

Beginning of the end

But by the middle of 1975, Bundy’s ability to escape justice had started to waver. He was placed under arrest in August of that year, with a subsequent search of his car revealing a whole bunch of incriminating objects. Still, there was no evidence to conclusively link him to all his vile acts — yet.

Eyes on him

Bundy was released on this occasion but now the authorities were keeping an eye on him. So, with the added surveillance, he could no longer act with the impunity he’d previously enjoyed. And within a matter of months of his first arrest, he was taken into custody again after attacking yet another person.

The absurd

Bundy’s story took a turn for the absurd after he was incarcerated. A year into his jail-time, he actually managed to break out. He was found after a week or so but then he got out again. And during that second stint on the run, he claimed several more victims. But by February 15, 1978, he was back in custody.

Unknown

Bundy would never taste freedom again, thankfully. He was condemned to death, though that didn’t actually happen until January 1989. By that point, he’d confessed to a great number of crimes — but it’s thought there are many more cases that were never tied back to him. So the true number of lives he took remains unknown.

Father figure

The public obsession with Ted Bundy has naturally extended to the people in his life. What better way to try to understand someone than by learning about those they were close to? Was someone like him capable of creating real relationships? Of empathy? Of love? Bundy's one-time partner Elizabeth Kloepfer has received a lot of public attention. Especially because the serial killer was a sort of father figure to her daughter, Molly, who was three when they began dating. But Bundy later went on to have a biological daughter of his own.

The mother of his child

This particular part of Bundy’s story takes us back to 1974, which was right at the peak of his murderous activities. During this time, he was involved with the Washington State Department of Emergency Service, an agency which ironically helped search for missing women. And it was here that he came to meet Carole Ann Boone, who would later become the mother of his child.

Hitting it off

In biography The Only Living Witness, authors Stephen G. Michaud and Hugh Aynesworth describe Boone as a "lusty-tempered free spirit." She was divorced when she met Bundy, and she, like him, was involved with somebody else. But that didn't stop the sparks from flying. “I liked Ted immediately," said Boone. "We hit it off well. He struck me as being a rather shy person with a lot more going on under the surface than what was on the surface.” Little did she know that the guy she'd just met was already killing women.

Strong union

Bundy was still going out with Kloepfer around the time he met Boone, but they began a relationship regardless. And this would endure even after Bundy was arrested, with Boone’s support for him seemingly being unbreakable. She used to go see him a lot while he was incarcerated, and she even brought him money.

Of no concern

In Netflix documentary Conversations With a Killer: The Ted Bundy Tapes, footage of Boone speaking about Bundy paints a chilling picture of the hold he had over her. Professing her belief in his innocence, she states, “Let me put it this way, I don’t think that Ted belongs in jail. The things in Florida don’t concern me any more than the things out west do.”

Courtroom drama

As Bundy was standing trial in Florida in 1979, Boone actually relocated to be near proceedings. She even appeared in court on his behalf, where she swore on his good character. It was at this point that things descended into borderline farce, as Bundy figured out a way to make her his wife right then and there.

A loophole

As a man who was once seemingly on a path toward a successful law career, Bundy knew his stuff. He’d found a loophole in Florida’s legal system which meant he could just declare his marriage to Boone and make it stick. If he did it with a judge in attendance, the union would be legally binding.

Messing up

In a passage of the work The Stranger Beside Me, author Ann Rule details how this bizarre episode played out. Apparently, when Bundy tried to set his marriage plan into motion, he actually messed it up. So it didn’t work on this occasion, though it wasn’t long before he was trying again.

The happy day

This second attempt was a success. Bundy employed the correct phrasing this time, plus Boone herself had done some prep work. That meant that when he proposed to her in court and she accepted, he only needed to do one more thing. He said aloud, “I do hereby marry you” — and that was that.

Bizarre sideshow

The couple — in these strangest of circumstances — were now married in the eyes of the law. And all of this was taking place at a murder trial, remember, which made the situation even more bizarre. Those proceedings nonetheless carried on, with Boone attempting to cast her new husband in a good light.

Glowing terms

Boone spoke of Bundy in the most glowing terms, using words such as “kind, warm, and patient” to describe him. She also, at one point, remarked, “I’ve never seen anything in Ted that indicates any destructiveness towards any other people. He’s a large part of my life. He is vital to me.”

A long wait

Bundy had already been declared a killer by this point in time, with this particular trial merely adding another sentence onto the other ones he’d already amassed. He was going to be executed for his crimes, though such a process takes a long time. So, for nine years, he’d await his fate.

Expecting

For those first few years on death row, Bundy maintained good relations with his wife. In fact, things were so good that Boone somehow fell pregnant with his one and only child. How was this even possible, though, with the man locked up and awaiting execution? Surely the couple couldn’t get that close to one another?

Wild theories

Some wild theories emerged to account for Boone’s pregnancy — people just couldn’t wrap their heads around it. The terms of Bundy’s incarceration, one presumed, would’ve prevented the pair from being able to engage in a sexual relationship, right? Well, it turns out there are ways around such terms.

Bribery

Simply put, bribery can be a powerful force in a situation like this. According to Ann Rule’s book, this was a normal practice — and Bundy and Boone took advantage of it. By paying off the prison guards, they were able to spend some time together. And it was during one of these meet-ups that the baby was conceived.

Getting away with it

In Conversations With a Killer, Boone herself can be heard reflecting on how the guards would let her and Bundy get away with it. Commenting on how “nice” one such official was, she claimed, “After the first day they just, they didn’t care. They walked in on us a couple times.”

Drumming up interest

Eventually, word got out that Boone was carrying Bundy’s baby — and predictably this drummed up a lot of interest. The press started to prod Boone, trying to get her to speak about it. She, in turn, apparently responded by saying, “I don’t have to explain anything about anyone to anybody.”

Secrecy

And this air of secrecy has endured to this very day, as we know very little of Bundy’s only kid. It’s been recorded that the child arrived on October 24, 1982, and that it was a girl named Rose. This wasn’t that long before Bundy’s own life would finally come to an unceremonious end.

Crazy world

Rose was born into the craziest of worlds. Her dad, thanks to his trial being broadcast on TV, was a massive celebrity, albeit for the grimmest of reasons. Many people were following his life story with tremendous interest and it seems not all of them thought badly of the killer.

Appeal

Stephen G. Michaud, who co-wrote The Only Living Witness, once told E! True Hollywood Story about the female “fans” of Bundy who used to dress in the same way as his victims apparently had. “So, women would come to court with their hair parted in the middle, wearing hoop earrings,” he explained. “A couple of them even dyed their hair the right kind of brown… They wanted to appeal to Ted.”

Playing happy families

This was the madness into which baby Rose was born. During the child’s earliest years, she was very much a part of Bundy’s life. Boone used to take her to the prison to see her dad, not to mention also bringing along her son from a previous relationship. They were playing happy families, despite all the craziness.

Breaking down

But the illusion of marital bliss eventually broke down. A few years before Bundy’s execution, Boone finally left her criminal husband. Her decision came after he actually admitted to his crimes. It seems she genuinely may have believed in his innocence up until this point, so now she had to leave.

The end

The divorce went through and Boone took her kids and moved away from Florida. According to reports, Bundy would never speak with his wife or child ever again. And before long, the day of his execution finally arrived. After nine years awaiting his fate, it was now time. Bundy was killed on January 24, 1989.

Into obscurity

With that, Boone and her kids slipped away from the glare of the public and into obscurity. Naturally, she wanted to start afresh. We don’t know much about what happened to her after Bundy was executed, though that hasn’t stopped some people from feverishly speculating on the matter.

Speculation

Online communities out there still concern themselves with trying to uncover details of Boone’s life after Bundy. Plenty of theories are in circulation but the truth remains unclear. Some people think she simply started to go by another name in an attempt to live a regular life.

Nobody knows

In truth, nobody really knows what happened to Boone — and there’s every chance it’ll remain that way forever. People will still likely want to find out but perhaps that’s just part of the intrigue? It’s just a little mystery to work out in an already strange and bleak tale.

Rose’s fate

The fate of baby Rose is similarly unclear. By now she’d be in her late 30s, plus we can probably assume she goes by another name besides Rose Bundy. Most people wouldn’t exactly want an association like that following them around as they attempt to live a normal life.

Enough pain

For what it’s worth, writer Ann Rule’s given her two cents on the matter. “I have heard that Ted’s daughter is a kind and intelligent young woman but I have no idea where she and her mother may live,” she told Cosmopolitan. “They have been through enough pain.”

Deserve privacy

Rule’s also written about Rose on her website. “I have deliberately avoided knowing anything about Ted’s ex-wife and daughter’s whereabouts because they deserve privacy,” she explained. “I don’t want to know where they are; I never want to be caught off guard by some reporter’s question about them. All I know is that Ted’s daughter has grown up to be a fine young woman.”

More rumors

Not everyone’s so respectful of Rose’s privacy, of course. As with her mother, there are plenty of people out there who’d love to know where she is. Rumors say this and that but nothing’s ever been confirmed. Rose, or whatever her name is nowadays, clearly doesn’t want to be found.

Enduring legacy

The interest in Rose and her mother is a testament to the sensation that Ted Bundy caused. His crimes really captured the imaginations of so many people — and his story still has a macabre appeal today. Decades have passed but people continue to obsess over this most infamous of killers.